Upcoming Developments

I may be moving a bit slowly today because I not only took the intermediate/advanced ballet class last night (and was back to feeling awkward and clumsy), but I stayed to take the jazz class. My body is a little angry with me this morning, and I can imagine how I'll feel starting this afternoon. I was stretching some this morning while watching figure skating, so maybe that will help avoid some soreness, though I may need to take a hot bath before I can deal with the kids this evening.

After a pretty harsh winter (for Texas), we're getting a bit of an early spring, so yesterday I took advantage of that and put my new patio chairs to use by working on the patio. I was doing some pen-and-paper work, so it was good timing.

I guess instead of being coy about what's up, I may as well discuss some of the upcoming developments.

For one thing, the first four books in the series (the Random House books) haven't been released in English as e-books outside North America. Since I hold those rights, I'm getting ready to self-publish those for English speakers in the rest of the world. Some of the hang-up has involved the covers. While I own the content, the covers were done by the publisher. It took some tracking down, but it turns out that the actual artwork is still owned by the artist and was just licensed by the publisher, and there aren't any restrictions on what she can do with it, so I've managed to license the original cover art. The design of the cover -- the lettering, etc. -- will have to be a little different, though. And the cover blurbs have to be different (although I contributed a lot there). So, yesterday's work was writing new cover blurbs, which required getting back into that mindset without looking at what was on the Random House books. I don't have a firm date for when these will be released, since we still have to do some formatting and get the covers designed, and all that.

The other thing I hinted at is something I don't really control, so I guess I've been hesitant to say much until I'm sure of it. But what the heck. The original publisher saw some great results from lowering the e-book prices on the books they control, so now in the first week of March, they're going to do a special promotion and make the e-book of the first book in the series 99 cents and do some promo stuff around that to see if it will draw new readers to the series.

What has me kind of excited and motivated to be slightly obnoxious with promo for a little while is that I've seen a couple of people who've had books as old as this one reduced in price like that end up making the USA Today bestseller list. And that would be seriously cool. Not only would it be making a point to the publisher and bring me new readers, but it would mean that for the rest of my career, I could have "USA Today bestselling author" on my book covers. The trick will be finding ways to promote to people who haven't read my books, though I suppose existing fans who had the first book in hard copy might find this a good way to get the e-book copy. Most of the people I can reach are following me because they've already read my books. But I would appreciate any help my fans can give by tweeting, blogging, Facebooking, posting to Goodreads, holding friends and family at gunpoint, etc., when the time comes. Don't worry, I'll be reminding you when (if) it actually happens.

Now, one more morning of figure skating to go. I've managed to get a lot done in the living room between skaters, but it still throws off my day a bit.