Release News! How Do You Deal with “Hurry Up and Wait”?
Many times in our writing career—just as with life in general—we have to hurry up… And then wait.
Maybe we had to hurry to finish a contest entry in time, and then we had to wait for the results. Or maybe we had to hurry to send our revisions to our editor, and then we had to wait for their feedback. Or if we’re in traditional publishing, maybe we had to hurry up to submit our book and then wait for over a year for it to be published.
I’m in hurry-up-and-wait mode today. I’ve been getting about 5 hours of sleep a night for the past couple of weeks as I rush to get the next link in my daisy chain publishing schedule ready to go.
But now, everything should be done. *fingers crossed* The retailers should send out the (hopefully correct version) of Treasured Claim tomorrow to those who pre-ordered. The print version is already up for sale. The next book, Pure Sacrifice, is already available for pre-order and linked in the back of Treasured Claim.
Now, I just have to wait…
I hate waiting…
Especially for something as big as this…
Tomorrow, I’ll officially be a published author of not just my free Unintended Guardian short story, but also of a novel.
(Does that sound more official? It feels that way to me, so this release of Treasured Claim makes me feel more like a “real” debut author. *smile*)
Treasured Claim has been my “flagship” book for years:
- It was the book I entered in contests (and received three wins and six other finals!).
- It was the book that helped me learn my voice and connect with my characters on a deep level.
- It was the book that challenged me to not play it safe with my writing, even though it risked the reader hating the hero.
- It was the book that taught me I could write more than one story (and kicked off my series idea).
- It was the book that convinced me I could write by the seat of my pants (and do better that way).
So I think I’m allowed to be a little bit excited and nervous and freaked out and impatient about its release tomorrow. *smile*
Treasured Claim Releases Tomorrow!
(in Print and eBook)
Getting Treasured Claim ready for print was a whole separate chaotic project last week that was much more stressful than it should have been. But everything worked out, and I love everything about the final result. I want to pet and hug my book. *grin*
Desperate for treasure,
a dragon resorts to thievery,
but a knight steals her heart…
A shapeshifting dragon on the verge of starvation…
For Elaina Drake, sparkling jewels aren’t a frivolous matter. Without more treasure for her hoard, she’ll starve. On the run from her murderous father, she’s desperate enough to steal—er, acquire.
A modern-day knight seeking redemption…
Disgusted by his father’s immorality, Alexander Wyatt, Chicago’s biggest corporate titan, is determined to be a man of honor. Yet the theft of a necklace, stolen by an exotic beauty at his latest fundraiser, threatens to destroy all his charitable work.
A predator made prey…
Passion ignites between thief and philanthropist, sparking a game of temptation where jewelry is the prize. But when Elaina’s exposure jeopardizes Alex’s life, she must choose: run again to evade her father—or risk both their lives for love.
*****
Available at:
Amazon | Kindle | Apple iBooks | Barnes & Noble | Kobo
(GooglePlay and ARe links coming soon!
You can also add it on Goodreads. Click here for the latest links.)
Treasured Claim is currently priced at $0.99 for the pre-order sale. On Wednesday, the ebook price is going up to $2.99, so order your copy today!
Pure Sacrifice Available for Pre-Order!
I’m also excited about having Pure Sacrifice for sale because its buy links are the next step in my daisy chain plan. If people enjoy Treasured Claim, they’ll be able to order the next book right away. Cool, right?
Plus, Pure Sacrifice makes me a true multi-published author. In mid-February, I had zero books for sale, and now I have three! This year has been crazy insane, and it’s not nearly as smooth behind the scenes as it looks, but… Yay! My plan is working! *grin*
To save his race, he must keep
the chosen virgin pure.
But she has other plans…
A shapeshifting unicorn desperate to save his race…
The last guardian of his kind, Markos Ambrostead must keep the chosen Virgin hidden and untainted. But when an attacker breaches his protective magic, he’s forced to reveal himself to defend her life.
A tenacious woman who refuses to be ignored…
Celia Hawkins wishes the world would get a clue and stop treating her like she’s invisible. Only one man notices her, or is that her imagination? After narrowly escaping an attempted rape, she demands answers from her mysterious rescuer—starting with why he’s been following her.
Rules were made to be broken…
Markos can’t risk being tempted by the Virgin, yet emboldened by his attention, Celia’s determined to become his friend. Maybe more. Maybe much more. Now he must hold onto his crumbling willpower to maintain her purity—or his tribe will become extinct.
*****
Available at:
Amazon | Apple iTunes | Barnes & Noble | Kobo
(Google Play and a print version coming soon!
You can also add it on Goodreads. Click here for the latest links.)
Pure Sacrifice is currently priced at $0.99 for the pre-order sale. When it releases, its price will be going up to $3.99, so order your copy soon!
*whew* That’s it for all the promo stuff, and obviously, I’ve been busy. But now I have to keep myself busy while I wait for tomorrow. *drums fingers*
P.S. If you’ve read Unintended Guardian, have you left a review on Amazon or Goodreads? *smile*
Have you noticed the “hurry up and wait” issue in publishing? What about in other areas of your life? When have you encountered it? How did you handle waiting? Do you have any questions about my books or my publishing plan?
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Congrats on the releases, and lovely covers! 😀
Thank you, Carradee! 😀
Congrats 🙂
*sends bestselling vibes*
Hi Lara,
My expectations are super low, so I don’t expect bestseller status. LOL! But I’ll take all the positive vibes I can get! 😀 Thanks for the congrats!
Yay! So exciting!
I try to distract myself from whatever I’m waiting on – whether it’s to get notes back from the editor or to hear back on a submission. I’ll work on a different project, or give myself a break and catch up on all the TV I’ve missed. It’s a rare evening when I don’t turn on the laptop! Simple, but it works for me. I may also whine to my CP every so often about how long I’ve been waiting on something (but it’s mutual whining; she does the same thing).
I decided to try something different for this newest patch of “hurry up and wait” – between releases I’m posting a short novel chapter by chapter to Wattpad. Keeps readers interested (hopefully; first chapter went up today!) and keeps me busy 🙂
Hi Amanda,
LOL! Glad to know I’m not alone. 🙂
Yeah, I might watch a movie tonight. Today, I’m doing mundane things like going to the grocery store to keep me busy. 😉 Oh! And thanks for the reminder about WattPad–I meant to get that started. LOL! Thanks for the comment!
Congrats! I admire you for waiting to release all three in succession, and I know that makes the waiting more difficult. But I am considering the same trajectory for my debut, so I will be watching to see how it all plays out for you. May I ask where you had your covers done? The guy on the last one is HOT! Wishing you much success.
Hi Renee,
Yep, I’ll be providing updates to let everyone know how it works, and if anyone has specific questions, I’m happy to try to answer. 🙂
Laird Sapir of Memphis McKay did my ebook covers so far (but she’s leaving on sabbatical and might not do book covers in the future). The print cover (back and spine) for Treasured Claim was completed by Kim Killion of Hot Damn Designs. We’ve gotten all the images just off regular stock photo sites (paid, obviously). Griff (from Unintended Guardian) came from HotDamnStock, and Elaina (Treasured Claim) and Markos (Pure Sacrifice) came from DepositPhotos. 🙂 Thanks for the congrats and the kind words!
Thanks for the info Jami!
You’re welcome, Renee! 🙂
Jami, this is SO exciting! Congratulations. You are on FIRE!
Hi Julie,
LOL! Well, Treasured Claim is about dragons, so fire is appropriate. 😉 Thanks for the congrats!
Awesome news! I may have only popped up recently, but to hear an author finally get some work out and for sale is really good! Congrats!
Thank you, Sophie! It took a while, but it can happen! 😀
Yay I’m so happy for you, Jami! 😀 It sure feels awesome when you’ve published a NOVEL and later even become a MULTI-published author with a backlist. 😀 Backlists are very exciting! So I already preordered Pure Sacrifice, but am looking forward to the print version of Treasured Claim released on Amazon.ca (it will be released there too, right? 🙂 ) since I live in Canada and shipping would be cheaper or I could qualify for free shipping if I buy over this certain amount. 😀 Ugh I understand this hurry up and wait feeling too. I’ve talked more than once about my anxiety over how long my story is getting–2,274 pages so far and still not nearly finished, sigh. Yes, I’ve accepted at last that my story will inevitably be very long because I have too many main characters, too many subplots, too much dialogue on non-plot-related stuff but that develops characters and character relationships (these also happen to be some of my favorite parts in the story), and also there are TWO stories within my story, where at least the first one’s done (it was the hero’s favorite book) but Yang Mingshan still needs to finish writing his story. (He needs to hurry up too, lol! Good, at least I’m not alone.) So anyway I keep feeling the hurry up pressure especially as it’s so long. Hurry up and finish writing! I still need to edit, get beta reads, edit again, publish it in both print and ebook… — Read More »
Hi Serena,
Aww, thanks for all the kind words. 🙂
Hmm, I don’t think Amazon/CreateSpace has a print-on-demand partner in Canada, so as far as I know, Amazon Canada won’t have the print version. However, I’m looking into what I can do for print distribution beyond Amazon, so I’ll let you know if I figure something out. 🙂
Oh! And that’s a good question about voice. Each story is a combination of our voice and our characters’ voices, so I think it’s normal for it to change a bit from book to book (or even from POV to POV).
As far as publishing, KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) will automatically publish in their stores around the world if you tell them you have worldwide distribution rights. So the Kindle version of an ebook in Canada is nearly automatic. The print version, as I mentioned, is much trickier.
It’s not just Canada either. Amazon has 13 stores for international Kindle products and only 6 for international CreateSpace products (if I’m doing the math right–LOL!). Many people use LightningSource/IngramSpark for non-U.S or non-Amazon print books, and that’s what I’ll be looking into. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
Yes, very true that our voice is composed of our characters’ voices as well as our narrator’s. And even with the narrator it’s fun to switch, e.g. from a funny and naive voice, to an embittered, cynical, and sarcastic one, to a melodramatic and overly poetic one from story to story, haha. And yeah if our story is all in first person POV, it’s all our character’s voice and not ours, unless our voice happens to be very similar to our character’s (which often happens.) Oh! That’s great, I’ll like to look into Lightning Source and IngramSpark so that it can be cheaper at least for me and my Canadian buddies. Plus, the Canadian dollar is dropping whilst the USD is rising, if I remember correctly, meaning U.S. books are even more expensive for us now, haha, though maybe it’s not THAT big of a difference. I don’t think I’ll be able to put the print version onto Amazon.cn, though as I got the impression that Amazon.cn is very strict on these things and I’m not sure if they sell self-published works there either. 🙁 Which is a shame, since all of my family and relatives reside in HK and are the vast majority of my possible audience who can actually read Chinese! Shipping fees would be much cheaper to Hong Kong if it’s Amazon.cn rather than Amazon.com or .ca. D: And I believe most of them don’t have e-readers either. Oh another question: do you know what people think… — Read More »
Hi Serena,
I know LS/IS isn’t as user-friendly for setting up books, but I’ll have a guest post here next month by a friend who’s been through the system. 🙂
I don’t know anything about the Amazon.cn store. Even ebooks on KDP don’t go there, so I doubt there’s any way to get print there–at least not easily. I suspect China forces Amazon to keep everything separate, and they don’t want a flood of non-Chinese books in their borders.
I’ve heard of Lulu, but don’t know anything about it. The reason I’m looking at LS/IngramSpark is because of their distribution in addition to their printing services. I’m not sure if Lulu has distribution or is just printing/publication. I hope that answers most of your questions. 😉
Yes, you answered them, haha. I look forward to reading that guest post on Lightning Source and Ingram Spark!
Aw no distribution of even ebooks to Amazon.cn, sigh. I don’t think there’s an Amazon.hk either, unfortunately; maybe a .hk version would allow Kindle and even print book self-publishing, haha
Hi Serena,
Nope, no amazon.hk either. It’s a shame, I agree!
I didn’t put the book down all day and have just finished it, and came over here to say:
Congratulations! The book is definitely worth being proud of, and from my point of view, manages (first time ever?) to avoid my #1 complaint about romance novels: being too shallow and obvious with the plot and too one-dimensional with the characters. Selfishly, I’m sitting here hoping writing slowly works out for me as well as it has for you!
I left a positive review for you on Amazon but wanted to come over and offer my congratulations in person so you don’t have to wait any longer for feedback on the actual, published product. 🙂
Hi Ashley,
Wow! Thank you! 😀 *whew*
And I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for you too! Thanks for stopping by and letting me know! 😀