News Briefs

Note to self: When planning to take a nap, and when you really, really need a nap because of having had no sleep the night before, don't drink four cups of tea before the planned naptime if you're really sensitive to caffeine. Because then naptime will become lying awake time, which does no good and only leads to crankiness and grogginess later that requires even more caffeine to resolve, thus creating a vicious circle.

But yesterday morning was such perfect tea weather, it would have been a shame to miss it.

A few news briefs:
Did I mention that Damsel Under Stress would be published in Germany? I can't remember. But I'm sure it's new news that it will be published in Japan. I love the Japanese editions. They're so cute. I have the German cover of Once Upon Stilettos, and it's almost the same as the US cover. Next time I do a web site update, I'll add it.

I'm supposed to be getting copy edits on Don't Hex With Texas in the middle of this month. Once I have all those changes put into my manuscript file, I may start posting a few tantalizing little excerpts to my web site to tide you over. Also, this schedule means I may have the review copies in December or January, and depending on how many of them I can manage to get, I'll then be able to name winners of the Great Blog Campaign (it's hard to name winners when I don't know how many prizes I'll have).

Now I need to come up with some other clever viral marketing stunt for the next book, or between now and the next book, to suck in even more readers and make my publisher really regret certain decisions. Maybe after I'm done with this book proposal, copy edits and an article I need to write, I can jump back on the marketing train and develop new plans for world domination.

My goal is to send a proposal for this new book to my agent tomorrow. That is, if I can come up with a title. Of course, I came up with new ideas for the story last night just before I fell asleep -- after I'd already revised that section. I don't remember all of them, but I figure the good ones will come back to me as I review the relevant parts of the book. Today I get to write a synopsis, which is much easier when the book is written. There should be less "and then some stuff happens to bring about this turning point" handwaving.

In other news, Bookseller Chick is looking for feedback from authors and readers about author blogs -- do author blogs help you discover authors or otherwise influence your book buying? If you feel so inclined, drop by the relevant post and leave a comment.