Welcome to Elizabeth's Blog

Never lacking for something to say, Elizabeth shares everything from All My Children to Writing and all the life that's in-between . . .

Books, Far and Wide

February 26, 2010 – 9:56 am

Periodically I get these non-descript packages from my editor and I always know what they are: Foreign Language editions. Oh, goody! What language is this going to be in and what will they do to the cover? I find the covers almost as interesting as the title translations.

Look at these wonderful renditions of This Rake of Mine:

japanrake

This Rake of Mine, Japanese Edition

This Rake of Mine, Dutch edition

This Rake of Mine, Dutch edition

I have to admit that when I opened the package yesterday with this Dutch version, I thought for a moment they’d inserted a vampire into the book. Just kidding!

This Rake of Mine, Czech edition

This Rake of Mine, Czech edition

Actually I love how each edition reflects a different aspect of the plot. In the Japanese edition, it gets that Jane Eyre treatment, with the lonely house on the hill, which is very much the shadowy sort of look I had in mind as I conjured up Jack’s house, Thistledown Park. Then in the Dutch version, they capture the lonely sea cliffs and the pirate/smuggler aspect of the plot–love this clinch on the cliffs, vampire notions aside. And then the Czechs go for that wonderful detailed gown, that I love so much, as well as the flowers–a nice touch from the end when the girls gather them for Malcolm. Very interesting how with one book, three translations, each can go in such diverse directions.

Yes, when these packages arrive, I just shake my head in wonder. Copies of my books all over the world, and wonderful readers as well! I know this because I look at my website statistics to see where my visitors are coming from–and in the last month, readers, the curious, the diehard fans have dropped by from 95 different countries and territories. 95?! In just the last 30 days?! It blows me away. I never imagined, ever, when I started writing that my books would have such a reach. I just hoped my local Barnes & Noble would carry them.

Actually, I’m still hoping for that one. They have a shelf for local authors, but I don’t rise to being local enough–despite living only five minutes from the store. Terry Brooks, yes. Susan Anderson, yes. (Apparently, according to the snooty manager, Susan Anderson doesn’t write romance–and don’t forget to hold your nose up a bit when you say that horrid word. Romance.) That used to bug the pants off me, but now I don’t care. I’ve got readers in Benin, Belarus, and the Maldives. Take that, you lowly local shelf.

By Elizabeth | Posted in Life, Reading, Romance Novels, This Rake of Mine, Travel, Writing | Comments (4)

Three Popular Questions

February 16, 2010 – 9:55 am

I think all writers have their own same three questions that come in daily. And I thought I would save everyone a lot of trouble and just answer them today in the blog. So in no particular order, here are the three questions that I get asked frequently:

Question No. 1: Will you write John, Ginger and Nate’s stories?

This has to be the most popular question that I get. And the answer is “Absolutely.” There seems to be a moment as a character comes to life on a page that as an author, you just know that they will need their own stroy. I knew that immediately with Dash and Clifton as I was writing This Rake of Mine. Especially with Dash! His character kept arriving in my stories, more insistent and more demanding with each book he appeared in. As for Clifton, his story shifted and changed and eluded me for years until I came up with the character Lucy and the idea for How I Met My Countess. And then I knew I had hit on the perfect, ahem, lady, to bring the light back to his broken heart and battered life.

As for John–I think it is obvious he needs to discover his heart (and his Dashwell tendencies) with that scamp Molly. She’ll lead him on a merry chase. As for Nate–he needs to fall and fall hard–just like his father did. As for Ginger, while she is currently married to a fuddy-duddy lord in Memoirs of a Scandalous Red Dress, things can change. Thankfully, I have no morals when it comes to killing off inconvenient husbands.

Question No. 2: Are you going to finish the Marlowe series?

Oh, I hate this question. Not because I don’t love the Marlowe series–His Mistress by Morning and Tempted by the Night–which I do, more than you can know– but because the answer is so difficult to write. The further I get from that series, the nearly impossible it will be to get it approved and finished. Every time I broach it with Avon, I get this sort of dead air sound over the phone–like “did she just mention that again?” The problem being that some readers just love Paranormal and others just love their Historicals, but put the two together and it is about appealing as strawberry jam and licorice mixed together.

And there is a very small but vocal number of readers who just HATE combining the two. Hate it with big capital letters and long loud emails to New York complaining about it, while with their other hand they are typing rabid posts on Amazon. The squeaky wheel syndrome. I have tried to wage my own counter campaign–because I do get a lot of supportive emails about the series (much more than the negative) and I pass them alone to my editor and agent as proof that the series (which BTW, sold well, thank you very much) would be beloved if it was allowed to continue. I won’t give up fighting for you lovers of magic and true love, and I have yet to give up.

Question No. 3: What happened to your Footnotes that you used to have with each book?

I got this question for the first time about three months ago and since have gotten it about three more times. Surprising, because I discontinued doing the Footnotes several books back. (See this example from Love Letters from a Duke.) Honestly? I quit doing them because no one was reading them. If you don’t know what they are and you didn’t miss them, you aren’t alone.

After studying my web stats over a period of time, I realized they were getting hardly any visits. And since they took a lot of time, money and effort to put together and have the pages built, I just couldn’t justify all that if no one was reading them. They are fun and interesting, but I would rather put my time into writing pages people will actually want to read–like the ones in my next book. What two pages are the most popular on my website? The Bookshelf and Coming Soon. Which is another question I get frequently: What’s next?

Any other questions?

By Elizabeth | Posted in Reading, Romance Novels, Writing, blogging | Comments (17)

Creative Promiscuity

February 4, 2010 – 10:37 am

Yes, when I heard that phrase last night on NPR, I grinned. I was listening to an interview with Colin Firth on Fresh Air, and he is so wonderfully intriguing. So when he described what he loves about acting, that it is a form of creative promiscuity, I knew exactly what he meant.

What Colin Firth was describing was the excitement and passion that an actor (or in my case, a writer) can put into projects, because the work we do is so finite. You start a film, you finish a film, you go to the next project. You sell a book idea, you write the book, the book is published. But while you are on that project, it takes all your attention and passion. And you love it, embrace it and revel in it, because it won’t last forever and there is a shiny new project always glimmering on the horizon. And the best part is that sometimes you have no idea what that next project will be, but you know that it will fill you with a brand new excitement and a new joy.

Someone asked me recently how it felt to have written 17 books. Wasn’t I afraid of running out of ideas? Wasn’t I worried about doing the same old, same old. Well, yes sometimes, and definitely no.

Every book is like meeting a brand new lover, my own secret creative promiscuity. It really is why I love the work I do–every book has its own challenges, ones I create and ones that are unanticipated. I love getting to know the characters in the stories and I adore the secondary characters who can be as quirky and devilish as they want. I love the surprises that writing brings, the “aha” moments, the days when the words sing in my ears as if they are being whispered from on high. When Colin Firth talked how he loves acting because it is a distraction from life, I knew exactly what he meant and I grinned. My writing, like his acting, is a place to escape. For me and hopefully, for those who read my stories.

I suppose this got me grinning because right now I am between projects. I am in that small, rare (hopefully rare, because I do like working) black hole in a writer’s life where you have turned in a book, the proposal for the next one and am in a holding pattern until all the answers get shaken down from on high, ie, my beloved editor. And while it is a mini-vacation, I find it disconcerting not to be knee deep in a book.

Of course, the first two days I totally played around. Got a pedicure and went to the movies. But I am too practical to live like that for long, and my “vacation” since has been organizing my taxes, cleaning out files and basically getting the decks cleared for the work to come. Honestly? I am lonely. I want to get on with getting to know Minerva and Lord Langley. I want their love story to fill my heart with smiles, and I look forward to the secrets that I have yet to unearth about these two characters. In other words, I am ready for a new affair.

What is your passion?

By Elizabeth | Posted in Life, Romance Novels, Writing | Comments (4)

I Shall Not Steal

January 26, 2010 – 9:44 am

This is a resolution I wish many readers would take in 2010. Let me explain why. It was with some excitement that on December 29th I saw my book go on sale, but not a few hours after its official release, I got this from Google Alerts:

Astatalk – How I Met My Countess — Boyle, Elizabeth download request
Romantic Fiction → How I Met My Countess — Boyle, Elizabeth. 29 Dec 2009, 15: 36. Download. Sponsored 50 MBit/sec direct download. Does anyone have this? …

Yes, here was a reader asking for an illegal copy of How I Met My Countess. Damn, girl, Barnes & Noble wasn’t open yet, so you have to steal a copy? Come on!

I really wanted to meet the reader who posted this on one of the myriad of download boards and ask her this: Would you go into Walmart, put a copy of the book in your purse and walk out with it? And when she said (and probably emphatically and in an insulted tone) “No!” and I would have to follow that up with a “Why not?” and the answer is obvious: Because that’s stealing.

When I worked in software piracy, I heard all the excuses about why we should all look the other way on electronic theft–it doesn’t hurt anyone, it’s just one copy. First of all, electronic theft hurts everyone. And it is never just one copy. It may seem like thin air to the myriad of thieves out there, but they are no better than the Mob–you are robbing companies and authors of their legitimate revenue and worse, you are robbing yourself. Because legitimate revenue is taxed: B&O taxes, personal taxes, corporate taxes. Counterfeiting and electronic piracy account for one third of lost revenues in North America–everything from software, watches, purses, toothpaste and baby formula. One third. Think if that revenue was legitimately and fairly taxed? Think of the jobs that could be gained with that revenue. In the long run, we would all be richer with better roads, schools, and yes, health care.

And it isn’t just the authors and publishers who are robbed, it is everyone up and downstream in the life of a book: from the warehouse workers, to the artist, to the shippers who move books, bookstores and their employees, printers, box-makers, gads, even the tape that goes into closing the boxes, the list goes on and on. Because when the electronic book is stolen with impunity online, it cuts into legal and legitimate sales of the hard copy book, which is the lifeblood of this industry. And eventually those losses turn into layoffs, less offerings from booksellers, less bookstores, less books, less authors. Sound familiar? The people who think they are getting a free book are robbing themselves of what they love.

Here is the other argument that makes me shake my head with wonder at the ethics and upside down values that these online shoplifters and thieves use to convince themselves that they are in the right: I read too many books to afford them. Whaaaah? Does anyone else look at this and just shake your head. Do they feel the same about shoes and handbags and lattes that they need to consume gives them the right to steal their goodies from Nordstrom, Macys and Starbucks? I doubt it.

Here’s the simple solution: If you can’t afford the books, go to the library and check out your books for free. At least the library pays for their copy(ies). And if they don’t have the copy you want, I have yet to meet a librarian who wouldn’t track that book down for you and get it for you via inter-library loan. Again, for free. And here’s another question for the “i-can’t-afford-my-habit-so-I’ve-turned-to-crime” crowd: If you can’t afford your groceries do you steal them from the grocery store? Do you break into your neighbor’s house ’cause you’re out of beer or they have a dvd you’ve always wanted? No, of course not, so why are you stealing books?

DSCN1348_2Now I know that there are no arguments that will stop some people, but I want to add one last image that I ask you to hold in your heart: Tiny Tim. Every author out there has their own Tiny Tim–a mortgage to pay, kids to feed, an electric bill, medical bills and electronic piracy robs their ability to take care of their Tiny Tim, chipping away at his little broken crutch as sure as if Ebenezer Scrooge was standing there trying to make kindling out of it. My Tiny Tim is an eight year old boy with autism. His medical bills run 25k a year–and that’s the part our insurance won’t cover. So when you steal my books, upload them or download them, I want you to envision this child and the speech therapy ($100 per hour) and physical therapy ($85 per hour) that you are depriving him of. That’s my Tiny Tim and when you steal my books, that is who you are robbing of a legitimate chance at a good life.

So I would ask everyone who loves all these “free” books, to realize nothing in life is free, and eventually you are only stealing from yourself . . . and perhaps even this small child. Resolve in 2010 not to steal. Every author, composer, designer and creator on the planet will thank you by continuing to be creative.

By Elizabeth | Posted in Freebies, Reading, Romance Novels | Comments (19)

Never Eat Sugar Cookies While Writing

January 11, 2010 – 4:24 am

So I’ve been writing away on the next book trying to get it finished, and working like crazy over the holidays. And unfortunately eating right along with the pages. As a result my book seems to have grown rather, ahem, fat on that diet. Apparently a steady influx of fudge, cookies and candy canes has a way of sneaking pages into your manuscript, while also adding to the writer’s bottom line.

(That in itself is a subject for another day).

But as for my current dilemma, I glanced up at my page count the other day as I’ve been doing my clean up work on Mad About the Duke and was thrilled because it was coming out perfect–until I got to the middle of the book and realized this huge section was missing.

Gone. Poof. As in not there. Now aside from the need for air and medical intervention via Writer 911, I finally did find the pages and tucked them into their rightful place, and to my horror saw my page count go up, and up, and up and then over what I can turn in. 420 pages? And I still have a love scene and half of another chapter to fit in.

I can see my dear and beloved editor falling out of her chair if my book hit her desk like the NYC Yellow Pages, and so to avoid having to call Editor 911 on her behalf, I know I have to do something.

Rather, something has to go.

I hate getting out my red Uniball and drawing big red X’s across a scene, but I do it nearly every book. You might not know it, but there is a huge chunk of How I Met My Countess that got axed in much the same fashion. Sorry, but the fun ballroom scene where Clifton and Malcolm take the sisters out to prove that society will welcome them (which it doesn’t) got the Uniball bloodbath.

But this time, I don’t think I can just chainsaw out a chapter and call it good. I am going to have to do some really precision cutting and thoughtfully remove some, ahem, fat. But what to cut?

I think I’ll bake a batch of sugar cookies and mull it over. But then again, I suspect the cookies are the real problem here . . .

So how are you getting rid of your holiday excess?

By Elizabeth | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (5)