“Siren Lake” is now LIVE! (…and priced correctly!)

My newest release, Siren Lake, is now live on Amazon’s Kindle store for a paltry 99 cents (as opposed to the 99 dollars I erroneously tagged it with before)!

Once again, here’s the blurb and link:

 

Tam is a curious soul. When she overhears some small town teens talk about a monster in a nearby lake, it’s more than she can resist. Then she finds out the lake has been closed for years. The town’s drying up because of it, and plenty of people have gone missing on or near that lake. What’s happening, and why? Is the monster legend real?

When Tam tries to unearth the truth, the lake ranger steps in to put a stop to her digging. But Tam’s never been one to just give up and go home. She’ll find out what’s happening at Siren Lake, or die trying.

As a reminder, the story will be FREE tomorrow (hrk! another mistake!), but feel free to pick up beforehand if you’d like. I won’t object. 😉

-jdt-

Advertisement

Quick Answer to the Quick Question

Thank you all!

First: Thank you to everyone who sounded off and offered their brilliant and loving insight to my dilemma about whether to accept another paying gig. I really appreciate your thoughts, and that you took time to share them with me.

Some of you thought, “Hey, pay is pay. Take it.” And you’re right — paying gigs are sweet. Money’s never a bad thing, far as I can tell. Your points about how they may not come along all that often are well taken too. With all the shifts and changes in the publishing industry right now, who knows what the future holds? Not I, for sure. (Though I hope the gatekeeper system goes away forever. Kris Rusch disagrees with me that it will, but Joe Konrath is on my side. Eh, time will show.)

Others among you know how poorly I deal with stress (especially my love), and how when I get too stressed, I get paralyzed. I don’t do anything. Not a good thing to have happen to one while a full-time job leans on one, and not a good thing for getting a book written on deadline. So you said, “Nah, pass, unless you need the money (Sherri‘s point, which hit me hardest). There will be other opportunities. Just watch.”

Quick Question

I’ll throw this out for all of you to give me your opinion.

My AWESOME agent got in touch with me a couple days ago and asked if I would be interested in doing another book. I told him I’d think about it, because I’ve done two books on this HTML5/CSS3 stuff. This book is more about web design; I’m not really familiar with modern (or even archaic) web design at all. But it’s a refresh of a book written in 2009, and I’m torn on whether to take it or not.

If I take it, it has the upside of being a paid gig. It could also put me back on the publisher’s radar screen for more work next year. On the downside, I really don’t have a lot of spare time as it is, especially weeknights, and trying to write a book’s not that simple. Plus, there’s the unreasonable deadline and the fact that they pay sllllloooooooowwww.

What do you all think? Should I take it and give up on my WIP? Should I pass on it and ask for other chances next year? I really have no idea what to do. And my wife is pretty ambivalent about it.

Sound off as soon as you can, y’all.

-JDT-

Rant Warning

I’m about to rant about publishing. Don’t like it? Get off my lawn. Now.

Still here? Great, let’s go.

Elisa Michelle posted a link to an interesting article about indie publishing versus gatekeeper publishing. But the article writer wasn’t taking a stand for or against a side. He was crying about how tired everyone is of hearing this one’s better, that one’s the only way, the other one’s the shiny. You’ve heard the arguments, haven’t you? Heck, I’ve made some of them here.

The article writer, essentially, isn’t taking a stand. He states he’s tired of the “debate” – and then posits the idea there isn’t a debate. He lumps the whole “plotters versus pantsers” arguments in there – making it a whole thing about “writing”, don’tcha know – but in fact, he’s really tired of indie publishing apologists.

See, there aren’t any real apologists out there for the gatekeepers anymore. For the longest time – seven decades, more or less – they were the only game in town. They didn’t need apologists. You want to be published? You go through them. Full stop.

Now? Now there’s choice. And not the crappy, poorly formatted, lousy product choice which used to be “self-publishing”, either. Now you have real choice.

 

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Oh, the irony!

The new meme being trotted out by gatekeepers in the publishing industry, and their desperate, disgusting sycophantic supporters, is the “Why do self-publishing supporters have to be so mean? Why all the attitude? Can’t we all just join hands, sing ‘Kumbaya’, and get along?” meme.

Meanwhile, the traditional publishing industry continues to try and frighten writers into believing the gatekeepers are still relevant, important, necessary, and that the jury’s still out — and will be for some time — on whether self-publishing and ebook sales numbers are realistic and actual, something we can count on. (Yes, I have examples — one in particular — I could link to. But I’m not going to give them the traffic.) In short, gatekeepers are giving crappy advice to writers, still.