Blog

Going on here. I’ve sorta been on internet hiatus because I’m crazy busy with writing and family stuff. End of the school year is always a little nuts with school stuff, two kids playing baseball/softball and getting ready for vacation. I cannot WAIT for vacation. This summer is going to be an absolute blast and everyone in the family is on countdown mode. We’re all SO ready for the school year to be over with so we can get on with having fun.

I’m trying to get Micah’s book finished up early so I can get to some other stuff on my to do list and get it wittled down.

So I’m thinking I’ll be pretty scarce for awhile.

Hubby’s been nagging me to buy a Mac laptop. Why I don’t know. I mean it’s not as if he ever uses my laptop. Honestly he just loves buying new tech toys for me because he knows I’m clueless and he gets to take the new shiny toy out of the box and fiddle with it and configure it and get everything set up for me.

I bought him a Mac desktop thinking that would satisfy his urge for all things Mac but it got worse. He’d call me during the day to ask if I’d fiddled around with his Mac yet. “Do you like it? Huh? Do you?” :help:

Sooo I finally got on it. It wasn’t as scary as I was making it out to be. I’ll admit, Word is…different. Not bad different but different. I hate change. I cursed a blue streak when they completely changed Word for the newest version. It took me FOREVER to figure everything out and I still don’t like it as well as the old version.

And then the words that sealed my fate. “So uhm you still think I should go buy a Mac laptop?”

So uhm yeah. We went to Best Buy last night and I came home with the very last 17 inch Mac Book Pro. Hubby was up until midnight puttering around on it. Still not even close to being done moving all my shit from my Sony to the Mac. That’s probably going to take us a week. I have emails I’ve saved from years ago. (I don’t like to throw anything away)

So now the computer count in the house is Mac 2 PC 6

I realize I’ve bared my soul and spouted my love for you all over the internet, and that this grants you an advantage, but I am a discerning lover. Not to mention I hold a grudge forever. I cannot be wooed with a few pretty words, an oops with a flimsy excuse and you expect me to climb back into bed with you. I may be cheap, but I’m not that cheap.

Your shabby treatment of me will not so easily be forgiven. Those dollars will have to be pried from my stiff, unyielding fingers. I do not think your talk of glitches reeks of sincerity.

I think it’s time we break up, and no we cannot still be friends. I gave my all to you and you’ve trampled my poor heart. I deserve better and will now go flirt with the likes of BN, Borders and BAM.

XXOO

The crazy ex girlfriend

I rarely write about “writerly issues” in my blog because since I’m primarily a reader, I want stuff that pertains to reading. But I’m utterly sad that Amazon has performed a WTFery to end all WTFerys.

They’ve deranked books containing erotic content as well as many books that do NOT contain erotic elements but are devoted to topics such as gay romance, lifestyles etc etc. I won’t go down the extensive list because I’d be here all day. Suffice to say, there is no rhyme or reason other than apparently Amazon is seeking to protect the sensibilities of some of their customers as well as play parent to kids who might GASP actually come across said books on their site.

Oy! This could take awhile so bear with me.

1. I do not need Amazon to parent my children. Nor do I need them to protect my sensibilities. Nor does the rest of the population. As popular as it is to remove the responsibility from the parent of monitoring their children’s online activity, that is not anyone’s responsibility other than the parent. Period. End of story. Expecting a business do do so is utterly ridiculous.

2. I’ve already heard it said, rankings? what’s the big deal? Rankings don’t mean anything. Well, yes and no. If you’re looking at it as a popularity contest then no, rankings aren’t terribly important in the scheme of things. However, rankings determine placement on certain bestseller lists.

Being on one of the bestseller lists means VISIBILITY for that book. It means that a whole lot of readers who look at these lists to see what’s hot, new, popular or what other people are buying are going to SEE this book. Marketing 101. Visibility? HUGE. If a book is stripped of its ranking then obviously it will never be listed on any of the bestseller lists (and there are many by category at Amazon)

3. Aside from rankings, books are disappearing from search results. When typing in an author name, not all the books are coming up. The books that have been “deranked” are conspicuously absent. This leads back to the whole VISIBILITY issue.

If a reader is looking for books from an author’s backlist or looking for a new release and they do a search by the author name and the books don’t show up? Missed sale. End of story.

4. I’ve heard the outcry of discrimination etc etc but let’s put all that aside for a moment and lessen the emotional impact of what’s going on. I’d like to know how it makes good BUSINESS SENSE for Amazon to bury these books and cut the visibility of these books. Why would you want to cut off a source of revenue?

This reeks of an emotional decision to pacify a segment of the customer base. I don’t really know because Amazon hasn’t made a statement. But as a business decision? This has to be one of the most moronic I’ve seen in a long long time. And I’ve been a total Amazon fan so I say this with no prior bitterness whatsoever.

5. Lastly, I have been a long, LONG time shopper at Amazon. My end of the year receipts? Number in the hundreds as far as total orders, thousands of dollars in cost. I routinely give away not only my books but many many other authors books and I order them from Amazon. I have given away hundreds and hundreds of dollars in Amazon Gift certificates.

I have a Kindle (recent) and have already dumped hundreds of dollars into buying Kindle ebooks. In fact, I gave up my monthly shopping spree at Eharlequin to buy ALL titles from Amazon. If I add up all my receipts from Amazon over the last few years, I’m willing to bet I pay an Amazon execs salary, so I’d say my business counts for something. Right? RIGHT? Or are you so willing to piss that away?

With everyone crying over the economy and the fact that it’s in the shitter, I’d think businesses would be going that extra mile to make every sale count, to highlight every possible source of revenue, NOT shut down an entire freight train of income and piss off not only a huge customer base but the authors of all those books as well.

Me? I’ll wait for an official response. Provided there IS one. I want to see what, if anything, Amazon does or how they respond to this. However, if they don’t respond in a satisfactory manner, I’ll be more than happy to pay an exec’s salary at BN or Borders (because Im pretty sure Borders wouldn’t turn down ANY revenue right now)

Your very unhappy, long time, very loyal customer

Micah: so let me get this straight. You’re sick so I don’t get sex.

Me: uh huh

Micah: How is that fair? Do you realize where you stopped writing?

Me: uh huh

Micah: So DO something. Suck it up. This is painful. Not even porn stars have to keep a hard on for this long.

Me: Are you whining?

Micah: :cursesign:

This weekend was super busy and I’m still sick as a dog but I was determined not to be a pooper for middle child’s birthday. Since we had so much going on, we spread festivities over a three day period and let birthday boy pick where to eat out on Friday. We also took him shopping for his birthday pressie Friday night.

Saturday morning we had to be at the ballpark early for my daughter’s opening ceremonies and her first game. She seriously rocked. She’s one of the smallest girls on the team but man does she make up for her size with kick ass skills. She’s playing catcher and man she’s ferocious when it comes to people trying to steal home. She’s got a better arm on her than I do, and she can smack the crap out of the ball at bat.

Afterwards we bought the stuff for birthday boy’s cake and he helped me make it. The kids are so cute, all three of them. Every birthday I ask them if they want to pick out a storebought cake or if they want mama to make one. They always choose homemade and they totally get into helping with the preparations. Daughter’s birthday was in January and we made a five layer, cream cheese/strawberry cake with strawberry jam filling. Birthday boy wanted chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting.

Sunday morning we get up early to go bowling because that’s what birthday boy wanted to do for his birthday. Afterward we grabbed lunch at his choice and then headed out to his father/son baseball game and barbeque. It was a gorgeous, sunny day and much fun was had. Good food, good people and…sunburn!

Yes, *sigh* I’m fried crispy, so now in addition to being sick as a dog, I’m burned to a crisp as well. But the weekend was a blast and my baby is now 11 years old :crying:

And now sometime this week I’ve got to buy Easter stuff because I totally flaked until now.

My only daughter, I love you dearly. I love all the hugs and snuggles you’ve given me in the last week.

While you were sick.

The smoochy, lovey kisses.

While you were sick.

I love you to pieces. What I do not love is the fact that you contaminated me with your germies :kap:

signed,

Your grumpy, tired, sick, hacking-up-a-lung mother

:passedout:

Getting things marked off the to do list. :writersblock: Piers has been put to bed *eep* and just in time for Theron’s release over at Eharlequin :weee: I’m so excited about Theron’s book, The Tycoon’s Rebel Bride. I had so much fun writing that story. Piers was more of a challenge just because he’d been so cold and distant in the first two books of the trilogy, however, I think he’s been sufficiently redeemed, but that’ll be up to the readers to decide. :hug:

Piers’s story was originally called (by me) The Tycoon’s Elusive Lover and was scheduled for a September release, however, the new title is The Tycoon’s Secret Affair, and it will release this August, one month earlier.

I also finally finished my last read through of Sweet Seduction last night. I’m always paranoid in the copy edit stage because this is the last chance to make any major changes so I’m always convinced that I’ll get the galleys and find some huge honking mistake. So I tend to read and reread the book a LOT while doing copy edits.

With all this stuff out of the way, now I’ll get back to writing Sweet Temptation (Micah’s book) My goal is to be done by the end of this month. Very doable as long as I don’t get sidetracked by any unexpected crap.