From Twitter 05-23-2010

• 09:24:07: @yolandasfetsos Thanks! I'm very much looking forward to being fully moved in...
  
• 09:47:40: I'm hungry but I suspect there's nothing breakfasty in the house. Curses.
  
• 11:51:28: Writing commences. Ethan's eyeing up pills and alcohol. Oh dear...
  
• 11:55:10: I'm going to buy so many freaking books when I get paid
  
• 13:09:37: Just submitted a story to this anthology - http://www.pillhillpress.com/fem-fangs.html
  
• 13:10:02: It may be a bit masochistic, but part of me really likes having stuff out on submission. Makes me feel like I've been productive!
  
• 17:42:56: @Scarimonious Same as how, in The Harlequin, there's a very noticeable lack of Harlequin?
  
• 17:46:08: @Scarimonious I see a pattern forming here... I recall a lack of dancing in Danse Macabre now I think about it
  
• 17:52:43: @Scarimonious I'm reading The Harlequin at the moment. I'm shocked at how vacuous it is, and then I remember Danse Macabre...
  
• 17:57:39: @Scarimonious I can pretty much guarantee you that whatever your idea is, it's nothing remotely like what happens in the Harlequin
  
• 18:01:28: @Scarimonious Nah, no worries. I've been reading it all day and I can barely recall anything about it now I've stopped.
  
• 18:03:35: @Scarimonious She has to test her understanding regularly, or it goes away
  
• 18:10:54: @Scarimonious And while Anita's distracted by smoke and mirrors, JC and Asher sneak off to a motel somewhere!
  
• 18:19:14: @Scarimonious Yes! Because she's too busy testing her understanding like so much meat spilling like candy pulsing on her tongue like food
  
• 18:39:00: @Scarimonious And she screams around them and something metaphysical happens and she's queen of the werefrogs!
  
• 18:47:01: @Scarimonious But her inner gold tiger races down her metaphysical corridor and the beasts move inside her like velvet inside her skin, woe!
  
• 21:00:52: The Harlequin is possibly the silliest book I've read since Key to Redemption. I do not say that lightly
  
• 21:17:11: @leatherzebra sadly Twitter doesn't offer enough characters for me to snark like the book deserves!
  
• 21:18:14: @leatherzebra let's summarise as: what a dreary, lifeless, unerotic waste of a fairly decent concept
  
• 21:44:34: @leatherzebra and that is where the snark will go!
  
• 21:45:30: @yolandasfetsos Laurell K Hamilton. Used to be a real favourite of mine, but the books have gone way downhill!
  
• 21:50:53: @yolandasfetsos You made the right choice! They've gotten shockingly bad. I can hardly believe it's the same series
  
• 22:09:17: @leatherzebra oh cool, that would be great! I'll put something together for you :)
  
• 22:10:00: @yolandasfetsos same here! Thank god there are so many other brilliant authors in the genre
  

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"Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness"

So! Only two days to go until we move. Not that I'm obsessing over it because there's still so much to do, or anything, but I ... have no other ending for that sentence.

It's cool, it's cool. I've moved house roughly fifteen times in the past twenty-seven years, so it's cool. I can pack a mean box of books. And unpack it just as meanly. It's the cleaning-up process at the old house that I dread. Throw in the mega-stress created by organising the Conference From Hell at work, and it's all just a bit much. The CFH wouldn't be such a big deal (and it's all running very smoothly now it's started, no thanks to the actual organising committee), except we were supposed to have it all wrapped up in December. Instead, it all got organised in the last two weeks, so... yeah. I haven't enjoyed it.

Anyway. That doesn't matter. The important thing is there were plenty of leftovers from the buffet lunch, and they were very tasty. And the worst part of the conference (the registration/arrival stuff) is now over with, so I can spend the rest of the week catching up on the work I couldn't do last week because I was organising the damn conference.

This may require another plate of leftovers...

Where do we go from here? - More reading

A couple of interesting bits and pieces to read following on from my blog last week about the whole JA Konrath/Amazon Encore thing.

First, Dear Author offers some thoughts.

And then Publishers Weekly offers some more.

Interesting to note that some see Konrath's move as "a midway point between corporate publishing and self-publishing" whilst others say the deal is most definitely not a game-changer for publishing. Scott Waxman of Waxman Literary Agency (which has just announced Diversion Books, a controversial move at best, and once again the marvellous Stacia Kane tells us why here), is one of the "middle ground" viewers. Guess that makes sense, given what Diversion Books is all about. Ted Weinstein of Weinstein Literary Management says he's now talking to all of his clients about "the smartest way to publish their books—and going with a big house isn't a foregone conclusion."

It's interesting to note that Konrath's sales for the Jack Daniels series have been slipping with each release. I have to admit, my first thought on reading about this last week was "so nobody else wanted the book, huh? How come?" Of course, I then slapped myself on the wrist for being bitchy, but the question remains. Konrath has success, a recognisable name, and an apparently fiercely dedicated fan base. So why didn't his usual publisher want Shaken? The fall in print sales probably answers that question; there are lots of authors finding themselves in the same boat.

Anyway. The overall point of view appears to be that, yeah, Konrath is doing something different but no, it's not the end of days yet.