So, I got another scam email, this time offering me a wonderful opportunity to speak to a large and interested book club about one of my titles, and so reach a large pool of interested readers. How the group name appeared in my inbox seemed odd, as did the return email address, so I was a little suspicious even before I opened the email.

What I noted:1) The name of the sender (individual) didn’t make sense, 2) the website was very generic, 3) and didn’t match the social media of a real group with the same name, 4) the same email with a different sender name had gone to someone who investigated it and found out that authors are asked to pay to help cover costs, et cetera. What also tipped me off was that the book mentioned is the last in a series that I’m pretty much finished with, and the questions to be discussed are answered in the bibliography of the book. All the gushing praise came from Amazon reviews. Nice try, but go away.

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I got the first edits back on a novel. The good news is that the readers saw the same problem I thought I saw. Why didn’t I fix it, then send it out? Because I wasn’t certain that my hunch was correct. My gut has played tricks with me before when it comes to things like this. The pacing in the story had accelerated in that part of the book, and I was not certain if that was why something seemed “off,” or if it really did need to be reworked. I have one vote for reworked, so we’ll see what other readers flag. The lesson, if there is one, is that sometimes your gut is correct, and sometimes it is not.

Some of the Mad Genii talk about a rule of three. When one reader or reviewer flags something that’s not just a tyoop or word error, you can ignore it (maybe.) When two people call attention to it, it might be something to check. When three of more readers or reviewers say, “There’s a problem here,” it needs to be addressed, or explained more clearly, or foreshadowed better, or otherwise tended to. This depends on who the readers are, and out of how many. If one reviewer out of 60 grumbles about the lack of foreshadowing, then it is not a real problem. If three of five say, “When X didn’t happen, but Y did, and out of the blue, I felt cheated,” then something needs to get fixed.

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Me: I need a story idea.

Muse: Here! [tosses a bucket of random blocks at my head]

Me: Thaanks. NOT.

So now I’ve got a fight in a cafeteria, a book blogger mage with a dragon-ish that likes cheap cat food, a hydrothaumatologist with a pig problem, when a lousy book becomes inspiration, a not-a-hex sign that works too well, and maybe something else. A raccoon Familiar? Oh gads, no, please, no, go away, la la la. Oh, and readers who want the lousy novel turned into a quasi-parody real novel. Aiiiieeeeeee!

*******

I will be at LibertyCon if all goes well. [leans over, touches real wood]

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The Celtic novel might go into wide release. I’m still debating because (in part) the cost of a ISBN numbers for it (print and ebook). I need to do more research into how well non-romance historic fantasy sells. Too, it is not all that long, and the cost of print may exceed people’s willingness to buy hard copy. If it had a romance, or were romance, then going wide would be a no brainer given the demand for fantasy romances of all kinds right now. Per a contact at a local book store, romantasy is THE hot genre, especially dark fantasy romance.

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Along those lines, does anyone else get a little uncomfortable reading some of the plots and stories in the romantasy and dark fantasy romances that are big right now? The relationships seem less than healthy at best. It is probably a carry over from what happened with paranormal romance, which dove into areas that give me the willies (and developed some eye-rollingly silly tropes along the way). Part of it may be the combination of the covers and the back matter, which emphasize the dark part of the romance. I did have to giggle at the—ready for this?—reverse harem foreign dragon shifter very spicy* romance series though. How many tropes can the author fit into one story? Challenge accepted!

*5,000,000 Scoville units spicy, Ghost Pepper on habanero with a side of jalapeño juice spicy.