Category Archives: Last Girl Dancing

The New Paranormal Suspense Covers
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I finished the following covers for my upcoming novels today:

Midnight Rain

Midnight Rain: "He'll NEVER forget you..."

Midnight Rain: "He'll NEVER forget you..."

I See You

I See You: "Someone's watching..."

I See You: "Someone's watching..."

Last Girl Dancing

Last Girl Dancing: "Don't talk to strangers..."

Last Girl Dancing: "Don't talk to strangers..."

Night Echoes

Night Echoes: "Your past is waiting..."

Night Echoes: "Your past is waiting..."

Because of a bit of a financial bump, I’m pushing hard to get all the backlist up in the next couple of months. To my amazement (because I thought exactly the opposite), I think the suspense novels are going to take the longest. I’m having to go through them and edit to bring the late-draft manuscript versions I have up to the published versions.

The scans don’t have to be rewritten. They just have to be edited, and my guys (and in two cases, my co-authors) are working on that.

So my release schedule is going to change completely, and will probably start with either the Arhel trilogy or the Devil’s Point trilogy.

But there will be books soon. :D

If I Brought Lambs
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The novel LAST GIRL DANCING was born as IF I BROUGHT LAMBS, on 9/1/96, with the following poem that I wrote. I’ve included the whole page, because initially each chapter was supposed to be preceded by a poem from the killer, and, finding it this morning, I thought the header was kind of funny. Along with this poem, I just discovered the synopsis for that previous version of the story.

The core idea so horrified my then-agent that he told me the book could never sell, and the core idea is what finally sold, though through a different agent. Which goes to show that different agents have different opinions of the same things.

Here’s the page:

A Collection of Psycho Poetry for
IF I BROUGHT LAMBS

TITLE POEM

if i brought lambs, lambs
to slaughter, my fairest Carida,
would you feed me
would you make me
sweet stews from the livers,
rich pies from the kidneys

or would you chastise me
Carida, Carida
for killing the tender young lambs?

The poetry didn’t make it to LAST GIRL DANCING. The killer did. So I thought I’d share the poetry, too, as an odd aside.

I’ll note that this is the only Psycho Poem I wrote for the book–the problem with including psycho poetry is that to get it, you have to be your own psycho. Ugh.

Autographed Books Hit the Mail
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I spent a couple of hours last night autographing the nine copies of Talyn for Sheila’s contest winners.

“A couple of hours?” you say.

Well, for some of them, I came up with all-new Old Tonk Proverbs. On some, I drew the winner’s Tonk monogram. (This would appropriately be worn tattooed between the shoulder blades, directly above the monogram of one’s saint. One’s clan mark, of course is tattooed on one’s left palm.) I struggled to think of meaningful things to say.

Yah, I can whip out a signature with the best of them, but there are only about nine autographed copies of the hardcover version of Talyn in the world right at the moment, and I wanted them to be special.

My congratulations again to all the winners.

(I do special things for the books I sign in person, too, so long as the lines are reasonable. Mine usually are. [insert sigh here])

Pausing to Think
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Novel outline is going well, but I needed a break, so I surfed. Douglas Hoffman gave a nice review of Last Girl Dancing; Jcop wants to know where the fourth book in the WORLD GATES series is (Hint: When I’m howlingly successful, the publisher will probably want the last four planned books. Meantime, I did the best I could to give the series closure); Danjel Bout offers a clear look at his location, a place as alien as the surface of Mars; Stuart McBride rants well on an example of breathtaking responsibility avoidance; Zette Gifford (who’s now just shy of 8000 writers in the FM Writers’ Community), offers some insight into working with writers; Carter offers an essay on Us vs. Not-Us (my take on the same issue is Common Ground: Holding Communities Together, plus the entire novel Talyn. This is a subject that compels and fascinates me.

First time I’ve had a chances to look at other folks’ weblogs in a couple of weeks, and it was shorter than I would have wished. Deadlines compel, and one of the migraines that have been hovering and diving for the last couple of weeks is hovering now.

“Reports of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated”
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Quote from Twain. Some numbers from Midnight Rain. ‘Cause you know I was to the point of reinventing myself because of my fear of the numbers on Midnight Rain, and the fact that I’d heard it hadn’t done as well as everyone hoped.

How well did it do?

In its first reporting period, it earned out its own $25,000 advance plus all but about $2000 of Last Girl Dancing‘s advance.

In its first reporting period, it sold over 50,000 more copies than any title of mine has ever sold before in a first period, and about that many more than most of my titles have sold lifetime.

It had an acceptable sell-through. Not earth-shattering. I was hoping for the 80%-97% sell-through that most of my other books have averaged, but the fact that this was essentially a first novel, that it was shelved where most of the people who have been my readership for the last fourteen years will never have found it, and that a LOT of copies were printed make that kind of sell-through nearly impossible. It’s almost certain to have sold almost entirely to readers for whom this was the first introduction to my work.

So Midnight Rain didn’t do as well as everyone hoped? No, it didn’t. When you’re hoping for break-out bestsellerdom, it didn’t do that.

It did, however, do well for a first novel. If I can find any sort of repeat readership from the folks who liked it, and who I hope went out and bought Last Girl Dancing because they liked it, I might have something solid to build on.

No gimmes here. I’m not out of the woods — you’re only as good as your last book, and Last Girl Dancing is, in suspense, my book of the moment.

Still, the Twain quote in the title seemed apt. I’m still alive as a suspense writer. Still kicking. And almost ready to send the outline for the third book off.

Amazon/ WalMart
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Fascinating discussion here about the difference between Amazon numbers and WalMart numbers.

Link via Alison Kent

As someone who, for the first time in my career, has (with my debut into suspense) landed a couple of titles on WalMart shelves, I’m more than a bit interested in what effect this will really have on my sales. Won’t see even first inklings until around this December, but if I can get any meaninful numbers, I’ll share.

Finished with 93,230
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After all that mud, I hit a sweet spot. Gave me a great place to finish today and a great place to start tomorrow. Jean covered a huge amount of ground in her revisions.

My total for the day was 4081 words. That’ll do.

Now I’m printing off LGD, and getting ready to flag it to send out. Wiped out yesterday, and we went out for Chinese, so I’ll start the TALYN proof read-through tomorrow.