First Word

Chapter 1 I placed her body in the trunk of a gold Toyota Camry. I gazed down at her with my hand still holding the trunk lid. Her dark eyes were glassy now and stared up at me, lifeless, and somehow accusing. Her form was bent out of shape and her thick, dark hair was mussed with just a hint of dark blood smeared in it from a single wound. “Dead,” I thought and closed the trunk. *** One year earlier … It was a sunny fall afternoon. The sun shone through the sliding-glass door and woke me up. My blue eyes fluttered opened, and I looked out the slider toward the pool area where our white standard poodle Maisy slept curled up in her fleece bed. Brown, crisp fall leaves had blown up on the porch and piled around her dog bed. I was alone as my husband Paul had taken the kids to school already. We switched mornings, and this morning I got to sleep in, which I enjoyed. He was always a prick about it, though. Said it wasn’t his job and had once told me he was just...

Great article on book marketing and social media ( click here ). I don't know how many conversations I've had with clients about consumer behavior, but this article amplifies what I've said. We live in an unpredictable, crazy culture that loved unimportant things like pet rocks, Chia pets, clappers, and a host of funny as-seen-on-TV gadgets that sometimes but most of the time don't work. If I had a nickel for every time an author asks me, "Is this best-seller material?" I would be richer than Bill Gates. I know what I like to read. I know what my friends like to read. I know what people are generally reading. But asking me if you've got the next Harry Potter or fan fiction like 50 Shades of Grey is basically asking me to call the next pet rock. I mean who knew that "mommy porn" and S&M would set American women into a dither or excitement. I was pretty surprised when some of my women friends gushed their love for this book. So in the abo...

Always able to make jokes even during stress or giggle certainly at inappropriate times -- yes, that's typically me. If there is one thing you learn in business if you can't deliver, what is the point? I've said that phrase a few times this week. Thus, my sense of humor seems to have fled the office. A project in particular in which the client has an urgent deadline seems to be fraught with delays. It's Murphy's Law in action. I've never liked vendors who screw up and make excuses. So I like it even less when I have to make excuses about vendors who have not provided excellent service. Vendor selection and who I work with reflects back on me. So a vendor's excuse is not going to fly with me nor do I expect it to fly with my clients. I do like though something that my husband said, "You're only as good as your last book," which applies to the movie business, too. I don't consider myself a control freak by any stretch of the imagination. I ...

California Girl Chronicles is now available in eBook, including Kindle, Nook and iBook. If you enjoy this excerpt and would like a copy, go to Amazon and download the eBook or you can buy the printed copy. Below is an excerpt from Brea and the City of Plastic. Our heroine is demoralized and forced to work in a bikini shop ... I had pounded the pavement for a professional job at a magazine or newspaper, but with the recession I knew I would have to take a temporary job. I had to make ends meet and get out of the apartment with Lance. This led to an interview with a bikini boutique in Santa Monica, called Teenie’s Bikinis. I used GPS and found myself walking into the door of a store no wider than a hallway with multi- and bright-colored bikinis loaded up and down all the walls clear up to the ceiling. The register was in the very back of the store. I spotted a girl with orange hair, red-framed glasses that clashed with her orange hair, and a mouthful of blue bubblegum. She smiled s...

The eBook market is starting to explode. We're ready now to move forward with our eBook division. With the marketing flipping toward 51 percent of buyers now interested in eBook versions, we recognize the value of the marketplace to transition. We do anticipate that in the near future, the market will go more toward the e-version and paper will become secondary. We're still a few years off a complete flip, and it will not be complete. Print versions will not completely go away for any number of reasons, and it will also have an impact on what is or is not printed. The one thing that will not lose street credibility is being published by a publisher. Many self publishers will continue to leverage this model, but most people still recognize the value of a professional publishing company having vetted the book's quality and professionally producing it. Reviewers will still continue to not take self-published books as seriously as those published by true professionals. You will...

I am asked all of the time what I think will happen with eBooks and paper products. If you think this is a new question -- that would be no, it's not. I got asked this same question back in the '90s when the Internet revolution hit to the peril of the magazine industry -- and I was publisher during this time too. No doubt eBooks are impacting the marketplace. One would have to have "rectal cranium" disease not to notice the eBook readers for sale and the capabilities on iPad. The question, though, is will paper-based books go away? The answer is, "Not anytime soon." eBooks augment the market and give people more options. Some people will exclusively read their favorites books on their digital readers. Others will read them exclusively in paper. Others will do both. Remember, an eBook reader breaks when dropped into the water. So, those beach readers won't want to take their Nook out into the Caribbean. Then you have the issue of third-world countries whe...