It’s been a while…

December 9, 2010 11:35 a.m.

…since I last let you know what was going on with A Novel Choice, so here’s the news.

After getting quotes for developing the website, I decided it would be best to test drive the concept before contracting for the real site. My attempt to build a prototype myself, however, proved to be so frustrating that I am returning to “Plan A.” I’ll have the site built professionally (using Drupal if you happen to care). Meanwhile, I’ve almost recovered from the programming-induced lobotomy.

In November I took part in National Novel Writing Month — NaNoWriMo — a worldwide writing orgy. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel from Once Upon a Time to The End in 30 days. That’s about 200 pages. My 50,072 words contributed to the 2,872,682,109 total words NaNovelists wrote during this year’s event. My story started as a rewrite of a book I wrote a few years ago, setting the story seven years earlier in the characters’ lives. About half way through I changed the hero’s backstory significantly.

While I didn’t quite make it to The End, I’m within a chapter or so. Since I met the word count, I say I won.

What do I get as a “winner” of NaNo? A well-earned and self-provided pat on the back, a few attagirls, and a selection of digital badges, such as this.

When A Novel Choice gets started it will be an ebook publisher. I do about 25% of my reading electronically. How about you? The New York Times has an article today that says sales of romance ebooks is catching up with sales of print books in the genre. It’s an interesting, balanced look at a trend that is specific to romance.

That’s all for now. I hope you enjoy a safe and happy holiday season.

What inspired A Novel Choice?

August 24, 2010 11:25 a.m.

Are any of you fans of Susan Andersen? She writes great contemporary light suspense. I love her characters who are strong, yet vulnerable. They always grow, and their relationships sing. Pacing, dialogue, settings – Susan always nails them.

She wrote the first two books of a trilogy, Cutting Loose and Bending the Rules. They were wonderful. Not only are they great stories, but in them Susan set up the third story with some very intriguing hints.

Then her editor decided the series had run its course and cancelled the third book.

WHAT??

Susan sent an email to her mailing list asking us to write her editor. I’m glad to say her editor relented. The book is now scheduled for release next year.

While all this was going on, I read What Would Google Do by Jeff Jarvis. That started me thinking about crowdsourcing and bringing romance readers together to discuss and choose the stories they love.

It was all a natural progression from one editor making a bad decision through to romance readers doing the job of the editor and choosing the books they want to read.

Stay tuned.

Travel Plans

August 4, 2010 11:32 a.m.

Whenever I’m on the road I’ll announce it here so I can meet people interested in the business. So…

I’ll be in Boston next week, August 9th-12th, and Northampton the 14th-15th. Leave me a note in the comments if you’d like to get together to discuss books, publishing, or A Novel Choice.

Looking for a Business Partner

July 30, 2010 10:15 a.m.

To ensure that the books we publish at A Novel Choice are of the highest quality, I’m looking for a business partner with publishing experience. That person would have the title of Publisher and would be responsible for all aspects of publishing the stories chosen by the readers for publishing, including editing, cover art, formatting, and distributing them for sale at our own store and book etailers.

If you or anyone you know is interested, please contact me at debra.hemminger@anovelchoice.com.

The People Behind A Novel Choice

July 30, 2010, 10:00 a.m.

A Novel Choice has two teams helping shape the process we will use to choose the books we publish.

The Readers R&D Team is made up of eleven readers of romance fiction. Some have been reading romance most of their lives, others just read their first romance novel last year. Their age range is 20s to 60s. All of them want to help shape A Novel Choice. So far, they’ve answered the question, “Should every manuscript submitted to A Novel Choice be posted for reader voting, or should we somehow choose the most promising submissions to post?”. Their answer was unanimous — A Novel Choice won’t be truly reader driven unless every manuscript submitted is read and voted on by our readers.  The next question on their agenda is, “When a writer’s book is posted for voting, should the writer be allowed to participate in the commenting or should they have read-only privileges?”.

The Writers and Authors Team is made up of three unpublished writers and two multi-published authors. They’ll be addressing questions of importance to people submitting stories in hopes of being chosen and published by A Novel Choice. One of their first questions is the one concerning the level of writer participation when their manuscript is up for voting. They”ll also address contractual issues and what information they’d like to learn as a result of having their story commented and voted on.

If you’d be interested in joining one of these teams leave a message in the comments.