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SOME days I want to be my cat (not today)

Misha

Kitty is recovering from her trip to the vet in which she lost her ability to reproduce.

Also going on in these parts, ground breaking on the new pool. This is just after it was dug. Today they’re laying rebar and plumbing. Saturday is gunnite!
Pool 1

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!!

This and that

First of all, for all you Kindle owners who were so disappointed that Sweet Temptation wasn’t released for Kindle back in April, it was announced yesterday that Penguin (my publisher) and Amazon had finally come to terms on a new agreement and that Amazon would once again be selling Penguin titles. Of which Sweet Temptation is one. So it looks as though, FINALLY, Sweet Temptation will be available for the Kindle. However, I have no idea when they’ll get it up. I have no control over this. I promise! Believe me, if authors had any say, our books would ALWAYS be available to our readers on release day each and every time. It benefits neither author or reader when there is a delay in the release of a title.

For those of you who’ve expressed concerns that Colters’ Lady wouldn’t be available for Kindle, let me assure you, it WILL BE. Promise! No, there isn’t a pre-order link yet, but Amazon can’t put up a pre-order link until we get the formatted copy to them. And we can’t do that until the book is finished and fully edited :) I’m happy to report, the book is in formatting as I type. So I’m crossing fingers toes and everything else that the Kindle release goes smoothly for all of you who want it on release day.

In the meantime, if you haven’t checked out the excerpt, be sure to click over from my website to the Colters’ Lady book page.

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.

Lazy Sunday

Or I suppose I should say that in theory, it’s a lazy Sunday afternoon. The weather is warm and the skies are clear. No clouds. Sun’s out. Beautiful day. It’s the kind that makes me want to take a nap or be in a hammock somewhere slowly drifting between two trees. It’s quiet in the house right now, with only the hum of the air conditioner, but I tell you, it’s lulling me to sleep and I have a book to finish!

The kids are all in town with daddy. He’s taking my oldest to get new jeans. Have you ever tried to keep up with clothing for three kids? It’s a never ending process. The only thing worse is the laundry. But when they get back, they all want to go swimming. See, at the first of this year, we moved to a different house. After building a pool at our OLD house this past year. Yeah, I hear you. My husband wasn’t happy about it either. But the move was absolutely the right decision for us and everyone is so much happier. It’s bigger and more private (I hate living on top of neighbors in an “organized” neighborhood) I’m simply too private a person to every exist happily in those kind of circumstances.

We close on our old house this next Friday, so the kids are getting in their last days of the swimming pool. BUT and they will be so excited to know, that my husband and I just completed the design of a new pool and the MINUTE we close on the old house, we’re going to start construction here at the new house. So shhhhh! It’s a secret ;)

We learned a lot in building that first pool. I’m actually glad to have a second chance to smooth out design flaws that the first one had and to add the things that at the time we didn’t THINK we wanted but later regretted not getting. So the new pool is going to be more my dream pool than the first one, which was much more rudimentary in its design an function. And the great thing, is that it should be completed in June so we’ll have the entire summer to enjoy it :)

Welcome to my new home on the web!

Take your shoes off and get comfy. I’m so excited to launch my new website and I hope you’ll love it as much as I do! Feel free to poke around to see what’s new at mayabanks.com :)

I hope to have everything updated now that I’m in my new digs so be sure to keep an eye out on the coming soon pages for excerpts and covers as I get them.

A  big welcome back, and I promise to be “around” more on my blog now that we’ve got all the construction done.

Love,

Maya