Hello,

I'm putting together a NetGalley co-op, The Literary Quilt, for authors across genres seeking reviews. Ideally, I'm aiming to have 25 slots per month. There is a one-time set up fee and then a monthly listing fee that all authors enrolled would share. So far there are eight authors who have claimed 12 slots between them. If you are interested in access to NetGalley through this co-op please message me here or email me at lyarde1175 at gmail dot com.

I hope for some advice on how to handle when the narrator gets the voice wrong during production.

I decided to go with an ACX narrator after she delivered a killer sample. Everything was perfect; names, setting, voice, including style and tone. Then issues occurred, least of all being the deadline keeps being pushed back. She's 12 chapters into a 30 chapter book. I'm fine, not happy, with the progress. Better right than rushed. Except, it's not right. The intonation she adopts for my childhood heroine is horrible! It seriously sounds like a cat being strangled. I don't know what that sounds like, but it could be the worst sound on this earth. I've tried to bear it, but as she submits new chapters, the voice is just grating. I keep asking myself why is she making the heroine sound like this?

Do I ask her to rerecord my heroine in these earlier instances? Honestly, I wish I could just cancel and get another narrator. I'm spoiled by a stellar experience with a person who got everything pitch perfect for another title.  

I hope to publish my next this summer, but could use some held picking the right blurb:

Version 1: Willful. Passionate. Scandalous. Isabel de Vermandois, the spirited descendant of French kings and Russian grand princes, becomes the wife of Comte Robert de Beaumont in the eleventh century. He is a hero of the Norman victory at Hastings and a loyal counselor to successive English kings. As his young bride, Isabel enters the decadent court of  King Henry I. Long-buried secrets in Robert's past threaten to shatter her world, as does the passionate interest of William de Warenne, Earl of Surrey. 

Based on the life of a remarkable woman, the ancestress of medieval Scottish royalty and English nobility, with a legion of living descendants, The Burning Candle is a story of duty and honor, love and betrayal.
   
Version 2: Wife. Mother. Lover. In eleventh-century France on the eve of the First Crusade, Isabel de Vermandois becomes a bride. Her marriage to Robert de Beaumont, Comte de Meulan offers a desperate escape from her cruel parents. But is the match the key to her salvation or damnation?

When Isabel discovers Robert is hiding terrible secrets that could destroy their marriage, she must learn painful truths and gain the strength to survive. Can she also find the courage to love again?
Based on the life of a remarkable medieval woman, The Burning Candle is a story of duty and honor, love and betrayal.

Version 3: Love is for women who have choices. She has none. In eleventh-century France on the eve of the First Crusade, Isabel de Vermandois becomes the wife of a man old enough to be her father. He is Robert de Beaumont, Comte de Meulan. A hero of the Norman victory at Hastings and loyal counselor to successive English kings, Robert is not all Isabel had expected. Cruel and kind by contrast, he draws her into the decadent court of King Henry I. As Robert's secrets are unraveled, Isabel finds her heart torn in two. Her duties as a wife and mother compel her, but an undeniable attraction to the young William de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, tempts her. In a kingdom where love holds no sway over marital alliances, Isabel must choose where her loyalties and her heart lie.

Based on the life of a remarkable medieval woman forgotten by time, The Burning Candle is a story of duty and honor, love and betrayal.

Here's the preliminary cover, which I've already requested changes on (my name smaller, the title font larger or centered on an opaque line rather than the yellow scroll work, and "A Medieval Novel" instead of a medieval. If anyone else has any suggestions for improvement, let me know.

Since upgrading to Calibre 0.8.26, every conversion of my ePub documents has failed to pass validation or the fonts in the document no longer show correctly. I've tried the last two versions, .27 and .28, hoping they would provide a fix, but nothing has worked. Is anyone seeing anything similar? Is there a Calibre guru who can help? I'll even take another method for generating an epub. Thanks.

Interestingly, he seems to be keeping control of the ebook editions, while S&S does the paperbacks and hardcovers. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2011/08/another-self-publishing-phenomenon-goes-traditional-john-locke.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

This past Friday, Amazon price matched my first book on, making it one of the Kindle freebies. Now I'm confused by that looks like a royalty being paid. KDP shows 10K freebies downloaded for the week ending 6/4; 9 units earning at the 35% royalty and the rest at 70%. Last I checked, 70 or 35% of zero is still zero. Not  sure how Amazon has arrived at their royalties calculation, especially since last month, other authors doing similar promotions said they hadn't earned anything. Has the policy changed?

Hi all,

The community of authors has been very good to me and I'm looking to give back. Each month, I host a spot on my blog, http://thebrooklynscribbler.blogspot.com/ featuring guest posts from new authors looking to promote their work. If anyone is interested in doing a guest post of less that 500 words, related to your writing, please PM me.

After answering the earlier post about March sales, I'm thinking of how many sales I've had compared to the reviews. I'm guessing that 8-10% of the people who've bought my books have reviewed them. I find it frustrating because I know firsthand how potential readers make judgments about books based on reviews. A blogger who reviewed my latest last month told me she'd seen the book on SW but because it didn't have any reviews, she didn't buy it at first. Then another blogger's review convinced she should. Begs the question of how writers get further sales and reviews, if few who buy the book bother to review it. I'd like to know how others feel about reviews; is it worse to have a bunch of bad reviews, none at all or very few? Do you ignore a book that seems interesting because it has few reviews?

I'm outing myself as someone who hasn't bought a Kindle yet. I read Kindle books, downloaded to my Blackberry or PC with the Kindle app. The latest Kindles have finally made me consider buying one for the first time, because the price is reasonable. Is there anyone who has recently moved from using the applications for a handheld or PC to owning the device? I'd like some feedback as I try to decide whether to make the purchase. Thanks.