Last week my editors got busy. I can’t say I’m sorry, because it’s one step nearer publication, but still, editing isn’t my most favorite job of all.
I got:
The Chemistry of Evil from Loose-Id, second edit
Yorkshire from Samhain, second edit
Devonshire from Samhain, first edit
Seductive Secrets from Samhain, print galley
Red Alert from Ellora’s Cave, first edit
Thunderfire from Ellora’s Cave, second edit.
Devonshire from Samhain, blurb to edit
And the biggest problem, for me at least, is the blurb. I readily admit I suck at blurbs, but I know the blurb is vitally important to selling a book. One book I loved was released with a blurb I wrote and it really sucked, though I didn’t notice at the time. It sold much lower than I expected, and with the gloomy cover art, it didn’t do well at all, until later, when word must have got around that yes, it was a romance, and it did have a happy ending. But the blurb was so depressing I can’t blame the readers for staying away.
However, the publisher concerned was on the ball, and they really helped me to pep the thing up. I still suck at blurb. I want to tell the reader what the story is about, and that really isn’t what a blurb is for. It’s to give the setting, the conflict and the hero and heroine. I either go way over the top, with things like “a dramatic story of love and revenge” which tells you absolutely zilch, or pedantic, as in “when the previous two earls died, it seemed she would never find the third…” (yawn). But I still want to be involved, because sometimes spoilers can creep in. Blurb writers tend to do the blurb on a summary or synopsis provided by the author, because they just can’t read every book they do a blurb for, so the author, IMO, should always have input. Unfortunately, they don’t always get it. So I should count myself lucky that I do get the input. Shouldn’t I?
And the other edits – the first edit is my big one. I re-read the whole manuscript. With re-releases coming up, I’m finding just how much my writing style has changed since I first wrote them, and I’ve had the dilemma – do I do the bare minimum, or do I do a drastic rewrite, taking my current style in?
Well, in conjunction with my editor, we’ve decided on the rewrites. If the reader wants the old versions, they can still be had, so I’d rather provide a newer version. For all those fans of Yorkshire and The Chemistry of Evil out there, and I know you’re there (don’t stop writing to me!) the re-releases are coming soon, and they are new and improved. Hotter, with added sexy goodness, but also with a less reflective style, and a tad snappier. I’ve altered the ending of Chemistry just a little bit, too, something I wanted to do for a while, and Yorkshire has lost its “hello.”
“Hello”? Well, Yorkshire is a historical, set in 1751. “Hello,” in the sense of a greeting wasn’t invented until the telephone, when it was deliberately adopted, a kind of early branding. Before that, it was “Halloo” or “Hullo,” and mainly heard bellowed across the hunting field when someone saw the poor widdle fox. So in Yorkshire, first book ever published, first page, first historical error (sigh). My hero says “hello” to the heroine. It’s gone now in the revisions, but I did wonder before I rewrote it. Did I set a record?
