The emerging New Adult market

There's a great article by my favourite author Barbara O'Neal over at WRITER UNBOXED today, on the emerging new adult market.

I'm so excited that Barbara is writing NA (she's the only author I pre-order books for 6 months in advance!) and I have her NA, RANDOM, lined up to read next on my kindle. (She's writing NA under a pen name, Lark O'Neal.)

Go check out the article here 

Another indie success story

The publishing world is buzzing with news of another indie success story.

Jennifer Armentrout (YA author with Spencer Hill Press, Entangled Publishing, Disney Hyperion and Harlequin Teen-who has blurbed my paranormal YA SCION OF THE SUN ) also writes contemporary romances for Entangled as J. Lynn.

She recently indie published her first New Adult title, WAIT FOR YOU...that hit the NYT and USA Today bestsellers lists within days and stayed at #1 in the kindle store for a while.

Fast forward a few weeks...and Harper Collins Avon has snapped up print rights to this book and the 2 sequels for a high 6 figure sum.
Very exciting!

Read the full story here.

Congrats Jennifer!

(I stayed up very late last night to finish Wait for You! Review to come in Weekend Book Club here next weekend.)

Mega news from Entangled Publishing

In case you haven't heard, ENTANGLED PUBLISHING is taking the literary world by storm.

They've announced several partnerships.

The first, with David Entertainment in Hollywood, enabling first look at all EP books (linked to 20th Century Fox!) Read about it in Variety Magazine.

(I could really see myself on the red carpet for the movie premiere of BUSTED IN BOLLYWOOD or NOT THE MARRYING KIND...)

The next? They've teamed up with MacMillan for global distribution of their books and St. Martin's Press for print distribution of some digital titles.
Read about it in World EIN News.

I'm so glad to be writing for this innovative publisher!

Pinterest: Pros and Cons

Everywhere I turn these days, people are discussing Pinterest.
More to the point, there are divided opinions whether to be on it or not.
Author loops are rife with Pinterest discussions and I've been chatting about it on Twitter too.

My viewpoint?

I jumped on Pinterest with gusto. Within the first week I had beautiful storyboards for my books and WIPs. My BUSTED IN BOLLYWOOD and HOT HEROES boards had over 500 followers within days. I was loving it. Having an absolute ball. And it really helped my creativity to see the stories I was writing unfolding before my eyes in pictures.

Then a lawyer wrote an article about the dangers of Pinterest and of being sued by photographers.
Then 2 authors I know had to pay huge sums of money for incorrectly using pictures, despite taking them down as soon as they were notified.

And I pulled my boards.
All of them, except my covers, and I haven't logged onto Pinterest since.

It soured my entire experience, the thought that pictures we pin, despite linking back to the original source, can cause so many problems.

And then I started thinking...as an author, it's the bane of my existence when people illegally pirate my books, posting them for free on the Internet.
How do the photographers feel, having the same done to their work?

So in all good conscience, unless Pinterest cleans up the legalities, it's something I won't be doing.

Where do you stand on the Pinterest debate?

Publishing news: Harlequin's new series KISS

The cat's out of the bag...so now I can blab the news about Harlequin's news series KISS.

Launching in the USA in Feb 2013, all the books I write for Harlequin (previously released as Harlequin Romance & Presents Extra) will be released under this new series.

So the same fun, flirty reads from some of your favourite authors including Liz Fielding, Jessica Hart, Heidi Rice, Natalie Anderson, Aimee Carson, Amy Andrews, Ally Blake et al. will be part of KISS.

These books will continue to be sold in the UK under the revamped RIVA series, cover reveals soon!

I've seen the covers and...they're not what you expect!
Can't wait to share with you all.

I've sold to a 4th publisher!

In late March, I had a surreal week.
Within 5 days, I had offers from 3 different publishers for 3 different books.

After negotiations, I'm thrilled to announce I've sold a category length contemporary romance to CRIMSON ROMANCE (the new romance division of Adams Media, a long-standing publisher of non-fiction titles including Writers Digest books.)

The tentative title is FALLING FOR FLYNN and it's a returned soldier/reunion romance set in my fabulous home city Melbourne.

Release date to be confirmed (but will be within the next 6 months.)

Stay tuned to hear loads more about this story!

And if you're a writer, Crimson Romance are actively acquiring manuscripts (I'm thrilled I encouraged a friend of mine to submit and she has been contracted too!)

They're after talented authors with fresh voices and engaging stories: smart, heartwarming romances for the sophisticated reader.

So what are you waiting for?
Check out the submission guidelines here

Digital Book World Conference

The Digital Book World conference is happening right now in NYC and the information coming from it is fantastic!

If you're on Twitter, follow #dbw and #dbw12

And BOB MAYER is providing great wrap-ups and excellent insights as always on his blog.

Changing landscape in publishing

As an interesting follow on from the Joe Konrath blog post yesterday, here's one from my favourite publishing guru, Bob Mayer.

I love his clarity and bluntness.

Well worth reading about the changing landscape of publishing.

Power in publishing

I love hearing the daily developments in publishing at the moment and here's another one.

Joe Konrath and Blake Crouch discussing who has the power in publishing.

Fascinating reading.

The new midlist

Check out this great article on Publishing Perspectives.

The New Midlist: Self-published e-book Authors Who Earn a Living.

Fascinating reading.