A moment of serendipity.

Sometimes a scene just comes together. 
Lynne Cantwell | 2021

Earlier this week, Big Al's Books and Pals re-ran a review of Spider's Lifeline, the third book in my Pipe Woman's Legacy series, which came out in 2016. It was a moment of serendipity for me, as I'd been thinking about the book just a few days before. And that reminded me of a moment of serendipity that occurred while I was writing the fourth and final book, Turtle's Weir. 

You may have heard the term "Easter egg" in relation to movies. An Easter egg is a scene in which the filmmakers have included an inside joke, or a moment that makes a reference that only diehard fans would understand. Here's an example of one that occurred in Raiders of the Lost Ark: Hieroglyphs cover the walls of the room where Indiana Jones finds the Ark of the Covenant -- and among those hieroglyphs are drawings of R2D2 and C3PO, two of the most beloved droids in the Star Wars movies. It makes sense when you realize George Lucas both invented the Star Wars saga and co-wrote the story on which the Indiana Jones movies were based, and Harrison Ford starred in both movie franchises.

Writers include Easter eggs, too. Often, it's intentional, but sometimes the moments write themselves. The latter was the case in Webb's half of the Pipe Woman's Legacy. 

There's a scene in Spider's Lifeline in which Webb and his mother, Naomi Witherspoon Curtis, attend a reception hosted by former President Brock Holt and his wife, Antonia Greco, in honor of an Icelandic princess named Ingrid. Brock and Antonia's sons, Rex and Roman, are also there. Roman is a free spirit -- a musician who is as much of a Trickster as is Webb himself. There's a moment where Webb goes to the bar to get himself and his mother something to drink. Roman joins him there, and while they're chatting, Naomi shakes hands with the princess and then drops to the floor.

Antonia and I reached her at the same time. I helped her to a sitting position as Antonia clucked over her and called for her husband to get their physician. Cameras clicked again; I expected we’d be the top story on tonight’s news.

“No doctors,” Mom said crossly. “I’m fine. I just took a tumble, that’s all – it happens when you’re old. Thank you, Roman.” She took her drink from his hand and sipped.

“Yeah, thanks, buddy,” I said, accepting my own from him.

“I’m here to help,” he said, in a more serious tone than I’d ever heard him use before. “Remember that.”

What caused Roman to turn serious right then? I had no idea at the time.

But then in Turtle's Weir, Webb made a return trip to the moment via time travel get a better view of what had happened, and Roman's reaction became a little clearer.

As Webb-in-the-timeline broke from the bar to scramble toward Mom, I glanced around the room. Ingrid watched what she had wrought with satisfaction in her eye. But then she glanced up from the tableau on the rug at me – not Webb-in-the-timeline, but me, Webb-the-observer. Her eyebrows shot up and her mouth dropped open. Then her forehead creased in anger.

I covered my own shock with a jaunty little wave. Then, as I got ready to spring up out of the timeline, I noticed someone else in the room was watching me: Roman Holt. He was crouched next to me on the floor, holding my drink and Mom’s. And of the three of us – Roman, Ingrid, and me – he was the only one who didn’t look surprised that I was there.

In real life, right after he’d handed us our drinks, he’d told me, I’m here to help. Remember that. The comment had seemed to come from out of the blue at the time. Now, at least, I had a little context.

I gave him a shrug and a grin, and got out of there.

Thanks, Webb, for clearing that up for all of us. And thanks to Big Al and the pals for the reprise review.

***

I'd like to say I've made progress on the second Atherton Vampire story this week, but I'd be lying. Real-life events have sucked up much of my focus for the past few days. But serendipity strikes again! The next session of Camp NaNo starts Thursday. So all I have to do is draft an outline for the story by then. Piece of cake.

***

These moments of bloggy serendipity have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Get vaxxed!

#RespectArtists

My author buddy J.r. Barker has come up with a terrific idea for a new movement, and I'm happy to take part. She's calling it Respect Artists, and the hashtag is #RespectArtists.

She explained the impetus for her campaign in a post on her blog earlier this month. What got her going was an incident that happened to an artist friend whose work was plagiarized and harassed. The friend ended up removing her work from the internet over the incident.

This is just the latest in a long string of sad stories I've heard about people who have spoken up online about something, or posted creative work somebody didn't like, or -- horror of horrors! -- attempted to game online while female, and who have been called out, insulted, doxxed, and/or lost their livelihood. In some cases, the victims have needed mental health treatment. In other cases, they have taken out restraining orders against their stalkers.

Come on, people -- this is immature behavior. Bullying is bad enough in any context, but the internet makes it easy for people to bully others anonymously. However, that doesn't mean the bullies can't be found. My favorite story along these lines is the one about the Australian game reviewer who got back at the kids -- and they were, by and large, teen boys -- who sent her rape threats by contacting their mothers. Kudos to you, Alanah Pearce, for not letting these kids get away with it.

Any time you create something and put it out there for people to enjoy, you're going to find someone who doesn't like it. And that's okay. That's what makes the world go 'round. If everybody liked the same things, we'd only need one flavor of ice cream -- and how boring would that be, right? But just because you like butter pecan ice cream, it doesn't mean you have the right to make fun of, harass, stalk, or otherwise make life miserable for someone who hates it. And don't think the rules change just because you're hiding behind an avatar.

Okay? Okay. And just for the record, I can't believe we need to have this conversation.

***
Speaking of bullies: Just a note that #PublishingFoul month is still going on at Indies Unlimited. We had some trouble with our server earlier this week, but our tech wizards have moved the blog to an amazingly fast server, and now, in the words of K.S. Brooks, "IU be all like BAM!" And she's right -- it is really fast. Stop by and see -- if for no other reason than to read Brenda Perlin's PublishAmerica tale of woe. Talk about a bunch of bullies.

***
One other very important thing: In all the excitement in Tucson last week, I forgot to mention here on the blog that Scorched Earth has been nominated for a 2015 BigAl's Books and Pals Readers' Choice Award. Feel free, if you would, to click on the link and give my book a vote. You'll find it in the Fantasy category. While you're there, you should also consider giving a nod to several other authors whose books have been Rursday Reads: Laurie Boris, DV Berkom, and Shawn Inmon come immediately to mind, and I hope I haven't left anyone out.

Two years ago, Seized got skunked for this award by Wool. Last year, Tapped was nominated but didn't win. I'm hoping three's the charm.

Anyway, whatever you can do to help, I'd appreciate it. Voting goes through March 28th until midnight Mountain Time (thanks for the correction, Linda!), but please don't wait 'til the last minute to vote. And thanks!

***
These moments of bloggy respect have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

Punctuating dialogue.

Two bits of business before we start:

1. I'm honored once again to have one of my books nominated for a Big Al's Books and Pals Readers' Choice Award. Tapped: Book Three of the Pipe Woman Chronicles is up for the award in the category of Fantasy this year. As the name of the award implies, there's a popular-vote component. Coincidentally, voting opened today -- and there are prizes in it for you!  If you're reading these words, would you please click here and vote for my book? (Rafflecopter gets testy with Internet Explorer, so if you have another browser available, it's best to use that one.) A number of other nominated books -- many of them Rursday Reads -- are also worthy of your vote. I'd like to draw your attention in particular to Laurie Boris's Sliding Past Vertical, K.S. Brooks's Night Undone, Carol Wyer's Just Add Spice, D.V. Berkom's Yucatan Dead, and the Brooks/Hise/Mader humor pastiche called Bad Book. Consider giving them a little love while you're at it. Then come on back. I'll wait. And thanks!

2.  Keep an eye on your inbox (or spam filter -- I have no illusions) for a newsletter from me. There's info about the Undertow launch and a special feature or two. I'll be putting most of it on the blog eventually, but newsletter recipients will get it first. Not on my mailing list yet? That's easy enough to remedy -- just head on over to the left and sign up.

Now then. In advance of National Grammar Day, which is coming up on Tuesday, I offer you this post that I wrote for Indies Unlimited. I'm re-running it because the topic keeps coming up -- mainly, I suspect, because schools don't bother to teach this stuff any more. (Don't get me started.)

***

“There was something I was going to write about for my Indies Unlimited post this week,” I said to my daughter Kat. “Do you remember what it was?”

“Hmm. Maybe it was punctuation in dialogue,” she said.

“You’re right!” I said. “You were saying that your teachers never went over it in school.”

“Yeah,” she said. “We concentrated on learning the rules for writing essays, because that’s what kids need to know to pass the state-mandated tests.”

I interjected, “Which the kids need to do so the teachers can keep their jobs.”

“Exactly. And there’s no dialogue in an essay.”

“Gotcha,” I said. “So here’s how I think of it. Dialogue is a sentence inside a sentence.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she said. “I think you’ll need to give some examples.”

“I was just about to,” I replied. “Let’s use the phrase, ‘do you remember when.’”

She shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.”

“If you’re asking a question, the question mark goes inside the quotes: Do you remember when?” I said. “Same for an exclamation mark: I do remember when!”

“But what if the sentence inside the quotes ends with a period?” she asked.

“That’s a little trickier,” I said.

“I knew this was going to get complicated,” she muttered.

“Nah, it’s not that hard,” I said. “You just have to watch where your attribution is.”

“Your what?”

“Your ‘she said’ or ‘he said.’ If the attribution comes after the end of the sentence, like I’m doing right now, then you replace the period at the end of the sentence with a comma,” I explained. “And the comma stays inside the quotation marks.”

Then I said, “But if the attribution comes first, like in this paragraph, then the sentence inside the quotes gets a period at the end. And just like with the comma, the period goes inside the quotes.”

“And if there’s no attribution?”

“The stuff inside the quotes gets a period – like this.”

“Hmm.”

“And if,” I said, “your attribution comes in the middle of a sentence, you need to put a comma before the first close-quote mark.”

“I think I get all that,” she said. “But it’s punctuating the attribution that seems to trip up a lot of people.”

“That’s because they’re not thinking of dialogue as a sentence within a sentence,” I said. “The attribution frames the quote – it’s all one sentence. I’ve seen what you’re talking about, too; they hang the ‘he said’ or ‘she said’ out there as a separate sentence.”

“Yes, like this.” She said.

I said. “Or like this. But it’s wrong. You need to use a comma to tie the quote and the attribution together.”

“Okay. But there are times when you can end a quote without tying it into the next sentence.” She smirked at me.

“Wipe that smirk off your face, missy,” I said. “That second sentence of yours isn’t attribution – it’s a stage direction!”

“Yes!” she cried. “And now let’s talk about a pet peeve of mine, and it’s something I’ve caught you doing.”

“Oh,” I groaned, “I know where this is going.”

“See? See? You just did it again!” she crowed. “There is no way you could have groaned through that whole sentence!”

I hung my head in shame. “You’re absolutely right,” I said. “I should have put a period after ‘groaned’. That’s another reason why ‘said’ is the safest verb to use for attribution. It sure is a good thing you’re one of my beta readers, huh?”

"It's a good thing for you, yeah," she said, smirking.

(This post originally appeared at Indies Unlimited on September 13, 2013. Happy National Grammar Day!)

***
These moments of bloggy dialogue are brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell

Knitting sprints.

I'm beginning to realize that I attack every big task the same way I cope with National Novel Writing Month.

As alert readers of this blog know, NaNoWriMo participants aim to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. The recommended way to do it -- both to get yourself in the habit of writing regularly and to keep from falling hopelessly behind (or perceiving that you've fallen hopelessly behind) -- is to write 1,667 words a day, give or take. However, that hardly ever works out for me. Either I write way more per day than I need and finish well before the month-end deadline, or I take several days off during the week and then write like the wind on the weekends. So for me, NaNoWriMo is less like a marathon and more like a sprint, or series of sprints.

Now, however, NaNo is over and Yule is looming. That gives me thirteen days, as of today, to finish all the holiday knitting. Aieee.

I don't want to give anything away, in case the various recipients are reading this post. But I spent a lot of this weekend sprinting through those knitting projects, and I can report that I've made good progress. The projects for the book club members are done, and I've put a significant dent in the shawl I'm making for my daughter Kat. I can talk about it here because it's not a surprise -- she told me which pattern she wanted me to use and has been watching me knit it for her. It's the Dragonwheel, which I posted about here earlier this year. The one I made for myself turned out really well. I guess I never shared a picture of it, so I'll rectify that right now. I've been calling it my "Dragonblood."

Kat picked out a green-and-brown variegated yarn for her Dragonwheel. The color is called "Mushroom Hunting." Isn't that a great name?

In addition to all that, I'm working on two projects for myself. I mentioned the blue blazer several weeks back; I've finished the back for it. I'm also making a Spectra, which is a shawl or scarf designed by Stephen West. Here's a picture of Mr. West with his version (I'm sure the picture is copyrighted and I hope he doesn't sue me for using it here...). Mine will have a slightly lighter gray for the edging, but instead of being an intelligent person and buying a single skein of self-striping yarn for the inset colors, I had to buy four different little skeins of yarn. There are 87 inset panels in the original; to make it even (because the gods know it must be even...), I'm going to do 88 panels, or 22 of each color. I started working on the final color this weekend. With any luck, I'll finish the whole thing by New Year's. And then I can pick up the blazer project again.

And edit Undertow.

And maybe I'll start another shawl. My daughter Amy is leading a knit-along for the Celestarium shawl at the local yarn shop where she works. It's a circular shawl that features a map of the night sky, with the positions of the constellations marked with beads. Cool idea, huh? I might just have to make one of my own.

***
In case you missed it, Crosswind is making the rounds of the blogosphere. The book has already received great reviews from Big Al's Books and Pals and at Now is Gone, and I'm thrilled beyond words about that. 

In addition, it's featured this weekend at Terri Giuliano Long's blog as a stop on her USA Literary Road Trip. And I got to break the fourth wall (it's a theater term) and have coffee with Sue, Tess and Darrell in a post at Kriss Morton's Cabin Goddess blog.

This week, Crosswind is featured at Indies Unlimited on Monday -- hey, that's tomorrow! -- and at Girl Who Reads on Wednesday. I'll post the links at the usual places.

I guess I'll do some more knitting. Have a great week, everyone.

hearth/myth is two!

~Magickal Graphics~

 

 Happy bloggiversary to me,

Happy bloggiversary to me!

Is it "bloggiversary" or "bloggoversary"? Hmm...pretty sure the Oxford Dictionary hasn't picked this one up yet.

Regardless, hearth/myth turned two on Friday.  The photo seems appropriate for a two-year-old, don't you think?

It is customary (as in: this is what I did last year) to take stock of where we are today, compared to where we were a year ago.  So: this week last year, I was about to unleash Fissured upon an unsuspecting public, and I hadn't even begun writing Tapped yet.

Today, of course, all five books of the Pipe Women Chronicles have been released, and I'm starting work on the next series in Naomi's universe -- Land, Sea, Sky. Here's a fun fact about the Pipe Woman Chronicles: During the free promotions I ran for the books this summer, Tapped blew all the others out of the water with 4,249 downloads worldwide. Next was Seized with 1,936 downloads; then Annealed (1,685), Fissured (1,453)  and Gravid (1,372).  If you assume the download numbers are based in large part on cover appeal, you can extrapolate that glowy wolves beat out flaming birds, and white buffalo are the least appealing.

 

I'm still on the staff at Indies Unlimited, and my work has been featured in a couple of their publications this year -- including the terrific First Chapters, which, if you haven't picked up a copy yet, you should.  I've also started doing LynneQuisitions, my interviews of big and biggish names in indie publishing, which is a lot of fun and lets me pretend to be a reporter again.

Alas, the Indie Exchange has morphed yet again, and I have lost track of it.  But I've been kicking up my involvement with BookGoodies. Look for more on that over the next few months.

In the awards department, Seized got a little attention from both Big Al's Books and Pals Reader's Choice Awards and the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.  And I picked up a couple of wins in the weekly flash fiction contests at Indies Unlimited.  I'm planning to devote a page at the new website to my flash fiction entries, so that they don't get lost in the shuffle.

 

And -- how could I forget? -- I started Rursday Reads in January.  I've had at least one author get excited to be a Rursday -- go figure!

For the coming year: Look for a Pipe Woman Chronicles omnibus e-book by Yule, as well as (fingers crossed!) the first book in the Land, Sea, Sky series. Past that, who knows? I guess we'll all find out together, won't we?

***

This bloggiversary moment is brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

It is time, once again, to honor book bloggers.

It's April, and that means my fellow indie author Terri Giuliano Long is sponsoring a little celebration of book bloggers.  The celebration only lasts through today, which is why this week's post is a day earlier than usual.

Long-time readers of this blog may recall my post on this subject sometime last year.  That is, you may recall it, and I certainly seem to recall writing it, but now I can't find it.  Maybe I posted it at the Indie Exchange.  Hmm.

Anyway, no harm, no foul.  Let's talk about book bloggers, and why they are crucial to the indie author ecosystem.

Traditional publishing wisdom asserts that one of the benefits authors get from signing with a publisher is help with promotion and marketing.  (It's not true, by the way, or it's not true of every trad-pubbed author; these days, only the mega-star authors get a marketing budget, and the rest have to bump along, doing their own promotional efforts, just like we indies do. Tell me again about the benefits of being trad-pubbed....  Sorry.  Off-topic.  Refocusing.)

Indie authors, however, don't even get that much (minimal) help.  No, we are stuck with making our own noise.  And besides personal appearances and chatting up all and sundry on social media, one of the best ways for us to get noticed is to be featured on someone's blog.  The blogger's audience becomes our captive audience, and if we can manage to be charming or entertaining or both, we might sell some books.  Those new readers, if we're very lucky, will become fans, and recommend our books to their friends, who may also become fans, and so on.  Indie authors are on a slow but steady career trajectory, and a lot of our growth wouldn't happen if it weren't for bloggers featuring us or our books.  My thanks must go here to the Cabin Goddess, who twice this year has let me visit with my characters in the Pipe Woman Chronicles in her Fourth-Wall Friday feature; and to Allison Bruning, whose virtual cruise stopped at both Naomi's condo and Swan Island last fall.

Many bloggers also review books, and their reviews can boost an author's visibility.  I am particularly grateful this year to my friends at Big Al's Books and Pals, Leanne Herrera, and Love of the Goddess for giving the Pipe Woman Chronicles such glowing reviews.

I'm sure I'm leaving some folks out, and for that, I apologize.  Dear blogger buddies, even if I didn't mention you by name, know that I am grateful for your help and support this year.  Thanks to all of you -- you rock!

***
This week's news is mostly Camp NaNoWriMo-related.  The first draft of Annealed is proceeding apace; as of this writing, I am at 20,170 words of my 40,000-word camp goal, and 30,251 words for the whole book.  The first drafts for each preceding Pipe Woman Chronicles book have clocked in at somewhere around 52,000 words, so I'm comfortably past the halfway point.

No, I'm not going to tell you what's happening in the book right now.  Nice try, though.

***
This moment of bloggy gratitude is brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

The story behind my IU blog post.

When I'd been in radio for a few years, I had a job that I was increasingly desperate to get out of.  I'd loved it at first, but we had had some staff turnover and I had begun to see things in a different light.  Then, too, a promising romance had turned sour.  And I was tired of the town I was living in, too.  In short, it was getting to the point where I wanted to go back home.  So I applied for a job at a radio station in a bigger city much closer to where I grew up.  The news director called and asked me to come for an interview, which I did.  I liked her, and the station seemed okay.  And so I was thrilled when she called me, not long after the interview, and said I was her first choice.  In a flash, I wrote up my resignation letter and turned it in.  I was also asked to fill out a separation form that asked, among other things, why I was leaving. Not only did I tell them, but I was kind of blunt about it.

A few days went by.  Maybe a week.  And I didn't hear anything from my new employer.  So I called and asked the news director when she wanted me to start.  And she said, "They said no."

"What do you mean, they said no?" I cried, confused about who "they" were.  "I've already quit my job!"

It turned out that the news director who loved me didn't have final say on staffing.  That was up to station management, and they'd told her to keep looking.  So I had to go back to my current employer and tell them that the job had fallen through and I hoped I could stay on -- at which point I was informed that they had already advertised my position, and while I was welcome to re-apply....

As luck would have it, our crosstown rival had an opening, and they hired me shortly thereafter (and I learned very quickly just how good I'd had it at my original gig, which is another story).  But the whole thing was certainly A Learning Experience.

I was reminded of this episode a few days ago, when one of my Indies Unlimited compadres mentioned in the minions' lounge that she'd received an e-mail from a woman in Europe, asking IU for publicity for her book.  We do author interviews and book features and the like, so the request made sense.  But it devolved that English was not the author's first language, or her second, and it showed, in both her blurb and in the book itself.  She was contacted and informed, and that's when the story turned interesting.  It turned out that the author had found an editorial service on the Internet and paid them several hundred dollars to edit her book.  Clearly, they hadn't done a damn thing.

The IU troops rallied and gave her tons of advice on what to do next.  But the capper was when she admitted that she didn't have the money to hire a new editor because in order to promote her book, she had quit her job.

You can see how that resonated with me.  So the story of the Dude and Annie Abby became my post for IU this week.  Miz Abby's question -- "Why are you helping me? You don't even know me!" -- is more or less a direct quote from the European author after we gave her all of our advice.  But you know, that's just what indie authors do.  We do it because we've been there.

But I meant the post to be not just a celebration of indie authors; I meant it as a cautionary tale, too.  This Brave New World of e-publishing is a great place, but it's anything but serene.  Those waters that look so warm and inviting are infested with sharks -- sharks who are eager to bite you in the wallet.

I hate those sharks.  I really do.  I hate how they take advantage of innocent, unsuspecting people who dream of being published.  I hate how it's legal for them to do that.  And I hate how the sharks' parents never taught them that being kind is better than being wealthy.

Anyway, this is why I tell you guys to be careful when you pursue your publishing dreams.  Don't pay somebody money you don't have for something you can do yourself.  And please, please, please don't quit your job until your next step is a sure thing.
***
Thanks to everybody who voted for Seized in Big Al's Books and Pals Readers' Choice Awards!  I lost to Hugh Howey's Wool, but I appreciate your support all the same, I'm still grateful to have been nominated, and I don't see any shame in losing to the 800-lb. gorilla.

Congrats to my fellow nominees, including IU staffers K.S. Brooks and Laurie Boris and alumnus David Antrobus.  And a big round of applause for Laurie and David, who won in their respective categories.  You guys rock!

Speaking of the 800-lb. gorilla, he had a great post in Salon this week about our Brave New World.  In the article, Howey says he can't envision a scenario in which self-publishing wouldn't be the best choice today.  That prompted Chuck Wendig to post the opposing view on his blog.  Both are entertaining reading; Wendig's is shorter, if you're pressed for time, but my money is obviously on Howey.

Oh, one more thing:  You'll see, at the top of the column to the left, a place to enter your e-mail address so that I can send you a little newsletter thingum when I have really big news to share.  Like, for instance, Annealed's release date.  I'm not going to spam you and I'm not going to sell your address to anybody else, I promise.  Thanks!

***
This moment of cautionary-tale blogginess is brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

This has been an odd week.

So usually, as alert readers of this blog know, I have a little news-about-me section, and then a longer post about something that I figure people actually want to read about.  And this week I've got tons of topics that deserve a whole blog post, to wit:

1. John Scalzi's withering take-down of Random House's contract for its new Hydra imprint, which was at least partly responsible for the publisher's revision of the contract terms (the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, of which Scalzi is president, also threatened to de-list Hydra from its qualified professional markets on the basis of the original contract). Scalzi has put together a list of his posts on the subject here; I recommend reading "New Writers, Ebook Publishers, and the Power to Negotiate" in particular.
2. Unfortunately, the PublishAmerica class-action suit I wrote about last year has been dismissed -- but another is in the works.  The same law firm that's looking into Author Solutions' deceptive practices (and if you've been a victim of any of their imprints, please go here and let them know) has filed an amended complaint against PublishAmerica.  Fingers crossed that this suit doesn't meet the same fate as the previous one.  Both Author Solutions and PublishAmerica have been raking in money for decades by preying on naive newbie authors.  It's time they were stopped.
3. Or I could talk about all the other people out there who would like to part indie authors from their money.  One example is eBookPlus, which Rich Meyer wrote about this week on Indies Unlimited.  They want to bring down the cost of e-books (isn't that nice of them?) by inserting ads into each book.  Specifically, they want to put an ad at the beginning of every chapter.  Yeah, no.

But I'm just not going to have time to cover any of those things the way I'd like to, because this week I need to talk about me.  Damn the luck anyhow.

***
On Tuesday, Seized was named a quarter-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards.  To recap what that means: Amazon cut off entries at 10,000 books.  Of those 10,000 entries, we're now down to 500 -- and Seized is one of them.  It's heartening and humbling at the same time.  You can read the excerpt here; feel free to add your comments.  Semifinalists (just 25, aieee!) will be announced April 16th.

Speaking of heartening/humbling, I received word this weekend that Seized is up for another award: the Big Al's Books and Pals Reader's Choice award.  This one, I need your help with.  Voting opens tomorrow and runs for two weeks.  I'll post the link to the ballot on my Facebook page and G+ profile as soon as I have it, and I'd be very pleased if y'all would then click through and vote for Seized.

I'm also gearing up for my presentation on indie publishing to the Indianapolis chapter of Sisters in Crime next weekend.  If you happen to be riding the Amtrak Cardinal from DC to Indy on Friday, look for me.  I'll be in coach, trying to sleep....

If all that's not enough, this is launch week for Gravid.  On Wednesday, I'm trying something different -- I'm trading posts with another author.  Cheryl Kaye Tardif has a new book out called Submerged.  It's a thriller, but it has some paranormal elements, and you guys are an eclectic bunch anyway.  So I'm going to post a Q&A with her here while she hands her blog over to me for a guest post.  I know that Wednesday is an odd day for a post at hearth/myth, but I hope y'all will stop by and say hi.  Oh, she's running a contest, too.

And so am I!  Three, count 'em, three contests:

1. At Goodreads, I'm handing out an autographed set of the first three Pipe Woman Chronicles books.  There's a link over to the left.  Contest ends Wednesday.
2. Same-same at LibraryThing. Their giveaway list is harder to navigate (I couldn't figure out how to link to my specific contest), but I tell you what, if you're looking for the best odds, as of this writing I've got 24 entries at LibraryThing and more than 100 at Goodreads.  Just sayin'.
3. Right here.  I've got two very cool holographic bookmarks up for grabs -- one with a black panther and one with a leopard (which is the closest I could get to a jaguar -- apologies to you purists). What the picture doesn't show is the way the leopard stands out from the background, and the way the panther jumps closer to you when you move the bookmark back and forth.  Oh, and I'm throwing in a $10 gift card to the e-bookseller of your choice -- Amazon, B&N, Kobo or Smashwords.

Good luck!

The Rules (sorry, gotta have 'em):

1. Friends and family may definitely enter.
2. Winners from my previous contests may win again. 
3. Someone will win.  I am getting this stuff out of my house, one way or the other.
4. As always, the judge's decisions are arbitrary, capricious, and final.

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These moments of shameless bloggy self-promotion are brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

News roundup, a PSA, and a quandary.

First, some news.

News item #1:  Seized got a terrific 5-star review this week at Big Al's Books and Pals.  The reviewer even said I might be her new favorite fantasy author -- which is gratifying, humbling, and squee-inducing, all at once.

News item #2: Also in the gratifying, humbling, etc., department, my buddies over at kevinswatch.com picked Seized as the inaugural book for our new book club.  Maybe I should write a book club study guide....

News item #3:  I sat down yesterday and drafted a rough outline for the final Pipe Woman Chronicles book.  The majority of the research is also done.  So I should be starting to write the first draft, oh, maybe next weekend.  Although I also need to finish that sweater; all that's left to do is the neckline edging (picking up stitches, oh goody) and sewing the side seams.  And I still haven't made myself a scrapbook of the Danube cruise.  So many projects, so little time....

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We pause now for the following public service announcement. 

My daughter Amy, who works for a Barnes & Noble store, would like to remind everyone that Barnes & Noble is, in fact, NOT GOING OUT OF BUSINESS.  Yes, B&N is closing some stores, BUT NOT ALL OF THEM.  And she would really like to stop having to explain this to people who call her store to find out the latest discount on DVD boxed sets and whether they've started selling their bookcases yet.  Got it?  Good.  Let's move on.

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Now, the quandary.

Publishers Weekly put a curious item on its website this week.  Amazon Technologies -- a division of Amazon.com -- has been granted a patent by the U.S. government for a system to re-sell used e-books and used audio books.

Indie authors have been scratching their heads since the article was released on Thursday, and the brevity of the piece makes me think PW couldn't make heads or tails of the announcement, either.  After all, you don't really own the books on your Kindle -- or the songs on your iPod, for that matter.  What you have purchased is a long-term lease of copies of these digital files.  Amazon made that abundantly clear in 2009, when it yanked copies of George Orwell's 1984 from users' Kindle libraries because the third party who uploaded the book to Kindle Direct Publishing didn't own the rights.  (Amazon settled a lawsuit over the incident later that year.)  And last year, Bruce Willis reportedly was thinking of suing Apple to find out whether he could leave his iTunes music collection to his kids in his will -- a report that later turned out to be false. 

When the latest news came out, I did a quick Google check of tech industry websites, and learned from Wired.com that the Amazon patent covers resale of the lease on the content, not a resale of the content itself -- so the Zon isn't changing its business model to let us buy e-books outright.  Basically, the patented system would cut off the seller's access to the content as soon as the buyer paid for it.  Also, there would be a limit on the number of times a file could be resold.  

Speculation is that Amazon might allow re-selling in order to get the content out from under publishers' control.  It occurred to me today that this could be particularly lucrative in the digital textbook market.  Students who buy dead-tree texts pay through the nose for them, but at least they can sell them back at the end of the semester -- an avenue denied to those who buy digital editions of the same texts.  An Amazon-controlled used textbook marketplace could give e-textbook buyers this option -- and as a plus, it could erode Barnes & Noble's lock on textbook sales through its campus bookstore operations.

The Zon could also use used e-book sales as a carrot to attract authors to its own publishing division; authors who sign with an Amazon imprint could conceivably be granted a cut of any resale proceeds of their Kindle books -- a perk trad publishers can't offer.

Other industry wags think Amazon locked up the patent to lock out resales of digital content altogether.  Just because someone holds a patent, these experts say, doesn't mean it will ever be implemented.

It's still unclear what effect, if any, this system will have on indie authors.  As many of us have observed, it's pretty much impossible to tell the difference between a new or used digital file.  It's not like you can dogear an e-book, or break its spine.  And many indie books are already so cheap that the cost savings on a used file would probably be minimal.  Maybe Amazon would grant a cut of any resales to indies who publish on KDP?  Who knows?  Maybe it won't affect us at all.  Time, I guess, will tell.

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This moment of bloggy celebration and speculation is brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.