Author: Maya

A special holiday message for all my readers!

I just want to take a moment before the holidays descend to give you guys some serious love <3 <3 <3 I have company coming in this evening and then again tomorrow and we'll be traveling for actual Christmas so I won't be on the internet much until after the New Year. BUT I wanted to take the time to let you guys know how very much you mean to me. 2012 has been an utterly FANTASTIC year for me and I owe every single part of that to YOU. I don't say these words lightly. I'm not telling you this and don't mean it. My career is where it is because of READERS. No other reason. No matter how good of a book or bad of a book I write. No matter what my agent sells or my publisher buys, at the end of the day without READERS going out and buying those books, loving them, talking them up, recommending them and supporting me so wonderfully as you all have done, without YOU my career wouldn't be possible. I say this from the bottom of my heart and I hope you all know that I'm utterly sincere in my appreciation and deep love for you all. You've made so much possible for me and I want to continue giving back to you, writing really great stories that I hope you'll continue to love and support as much as you already have. It is ALWAYS my goal to give readers the best possible book I can every single time I sit down and write one. I know that sometimes it doesn't work out the way I intend. It's not possible to give every single reader a book they will love every single time. That's a fact of the business. BUT my heart is ALWAYS in TRYING to give readers a book that is the best I can make it every single time no matter what. I hate it when I fail and I feel like I let you guys down and it makes me work even harder on the next book because I don't EVER set out to intentionally disappoint readers. 2013 is shaping up to be a really fantastic year as well. I have a LOT of books releasing and I'm crossing fingers and toes that you guys love them as much as you've loved my books in the past. We start 2013 off with a bang with Shades of Gray in just under two weeks! Yay! Then immediately following, in February, the Breathless trilogy kicks off with RUSH. In March, Highlander Most Wanted releases. In April, the second Breathless book, FEVER, releases and then in May if you haven't read the anthology MEN OUT OF UNIFORM with my novella, SOUL POSSESSION, you'll be able to get it as a digital stand alone. In July FORGED IN STEELE will release! And then in August the last Breathless book, BURN will release and in September the next Scottish historical which is tentatively titled HIGHLAND EVER AFTER will be coming your way. Whew! It's going to be a busy year! And I have many more plans that I'm working on *evil grin* and I hope to be posting more news about more books after the first of the year. I'm going to try VERY hard to get the Tangled Hearts trilogy launched by next fall so cross your fingers that I'm able to make that happen as well :) I'm SUPER excited about the release of Shades of Gray. You guys put Echoes at Dawn at #7 on the NYT (my best showing to date) and #16!!! on the USA Today which is also my best showing to date on that list BUT I have absolute confidence that together we can rock it out with Shades of Gray and that we have a chance of doing even better with THIS release :))) <3 <3 <3 And if it happens, I'll have YOU guys to thank for it because you are absolutely the ones responsible for my success. I want to wish everyone a very happy and SAFE holiday season. I hope you make wonderful memories this season. I know you guys have given me many, MANY wonderful memories of 2012 and I'm looking forward to a terrific 2013 together with you guys. Much love always, xoxo Maya

I’m off for St. Croix

and lots of sun and sand and relaxing beach….ahhh I can’t wait! I’m actually out the door at the ass crack of dawn tomorrow morning, but I’ll be at the ballpark all night tonight which precipitated shopping early this morning and now I have to go pack for five people. Kill me now!

I won’t have internet on the island, and I’m not all together sad about that. I’m looking forward to turning everything off and enjoying 10 days with my kiddos and basically forgetting the world exists around my little cocoon.

We’re renting a house right on the beach and it’s supposed to be a PRIVATE beach and I cannot tell you how much I am hoping that is true. I don’t even want to look at another person while I’m on vacation lol. Hermit? Me? Nahhhhh.

Hope you all have a wonderful rest of June. I’ll see you in July!

Sweet Addiction it is!

Have spoken to my editor and we weighed the responses. Sweet Addiction gets the nod :) We’re both thrilled with the outpouring of opinions. Thanks so much!

Book news!

Blurbs for Hidden Away, book 3 in the KGI series, and Sweet Possession, book 5 in the Sweet series, have been posted to my coming soon page!

Hope everyone has a terrific weekend! I’m on vacation countdown. One week and counting!

Colters’ Lady print release date

Colters’ Lady will release in paperback in June 2011. I’m going to leave this blog post up for awhile so that hopefully everyone sees it. I’ve been inundated with emails asking about the print release, and I apologize, but with my current deadline, I just don’t have the time to answer each one individually.

I do not have a release date for Colters’ Daughter, either in ebook or print. I haven’t written the book yet. As soon as I know, I promise, I’ll post the details far and wide :)

Love,

Maya

Reader Poll!

There have been some issues for some readers regarding formatting errors in Colters’ Lady. I’ve been digging into the matter, but I could really use your feedback if you’ve had or read a copy from Samhain Publishing and found formatting errors!

I’ve had several comments and emails from readers with regard to errors in the Kindle version of Colters’ Lady. I went and bought the ebook from Amazon for my Kindle and then I also uploaded my author copy in PRC format to my Kindle so I could look through it. Mine was completely clean. None of the 3/4 in lieu of an em dash and no other errors that I could discern.

This is baffling to me but then I wondered if it mattered what version of the Kindle or if for instance it was an iphone ap etc. So my question to you is this and I’d love blunt answers :)

If you regularly purchase Samhain titles, do you find formatting errors in all titles? Just some titles? Or none at all? Also, do you use the older version of Kindle? The newer one? Or do you use an iphone ap or some other method of reading the Kindle version such as Kindle for PC?

I’m looking for something that tells me this isn’t random and specific to one certain device or method of reading so that we can fix the problem. I’d love your feedback!

Writing through adversity

Today marks a special day. It’s a release day, but it’s a little more than that. Colters’ Lady, which is the follow up to Colters’ Woman, is now available in electronic format. I’m smiling but it’s one of those smiles that comes with a sigh and a little slump of the shoulders.

My editor and I work closely on my books. We’re both nitpicky and anal and it’s not unusual to pass the book back and forth a dozen times BEFORE it ever goes to line edits. Then there are the multiple passes after the line editor and then the pass after we get the ARC ;)

Anyway, the past few months have been stressful and sad and anxious all rolled into one. Jennifer and I tease each other that one of us can’t meltdown. It always has to be both of us at the same time. I was having a really, REALLY tough time on my third KGI book, so much so that it made me late on a deadline, and I’m never late. Late to me is like the end of the world because I’m one of the anal “early” people who always show up everywhere at least 15 minutes early.

Nothing was working for me. I still had to get Colters’ Lady done and believe me when I saw, that old saying about when it rains, it pours? Totally true. I was on vacation with two friends in Catalina melting down because there was just crap coming from all directions.

None of that really seems to matter, though, in light of a phone call I received from Jennifer (my editor) who told me she’d been diagnosed with an invasive form of breast cancer. We both really didn’t think much of the lump she’d found. We were texting from her mammogram appointment. I knew she was going in for a biopsy. But when she called me and told me the biopsy came back clean but that she’d INSISTED that the lump be removed anyway…THAT’S when it was discovered. Thank God, thank god she insisted.

We both cried on the phone and I told her not to worry about anything other than taking care of herself and her children. The book would wait. It wasn’t important. She was what was important and everything else could go to hell in my opinion.

She was getting ready to start chemo and we talked again. I told her I’d do whatever she wanted with Colters’ Lady, that Jennifer was most important. We could push it back, or just hang on to it. I didn’t want another editor to work on it, but if that’s what Jennifer preferred, I was good with that too.

But she told me she wanted the book. She wanted to work on it. It was a book that we’d talked about together, because before recently I NEVER planned to write sequels to Colters’ Woman. But this series was for her. It’s unlikely I would have written it without her encouragement. And I wanted her to have ultimate say in the matter.

So I sent her half the book and struggled on with my third KGI book. When I finally turned it in, I knew I didn’t have time to even breathe a sigh of relief because release day was bearing down on us like a freight train. With Jennifer going into her second round of chemo and feeling unbelievably tired, we began work in earnest on getting Colters’ Lady to the point we wanted it.

I don’t think either of us slept for a week. We were passing the book back and forth at midnight. We questioned. We discussed parts. We worked right up to the wire to get this book as near perfect as we could. All the while us both feeing like we wanted to go to bed for about a year and hide there.

We could have pushed it back. But neither of us wanted to do that when readers were expecting the book on June 1. I’m just amazed at how much effort Jennifer put into this when she was dealing with her own set of worries. Really big worries that made all my whining insignificant.

So Colters’ Lady is special. It may not be the most perfect book I’ve ever written. But it will always be special because Jennifer loved this book enough to hang onto it, even when her world was going to pieces around her. She believed in it, and she wanted readers to have it on the day we’d told them they’d have it. I have nothing to say to that except thank you. From the depth of my heart, thank you and I love you.

I hope readers will love and appreciate the book as much as you did, Jennifer. You’re a kickass editor, but more than that…you’re one of my dearest friends.

Lots of love on release day. We made it!!

Colters’ Lady excerpt!

Ok guys, release is one week away! I posted a teaser last week, but I’ve replaced with something a little more hearty hehe. So I went from snack to lunch!

If you missed the link on my home page, you can go here to read the just posted excerpt.

Happy Monday! (and omg, my kids only have three more days of school *sob*)

Colters’ Lady teaser!

It’s already Tuesday. I swear it was just Sunday! Anyway, a sneak peek of Colters’ Lady has been posted on the Colters’ Lady book page so be sure and check it out. It won’t be up for long :) Since the book hasn’t yet been finalized I won’t have a full edited excerpt for a bit longer, so in the meantime, enjoy a little glimpse of the book.