Meljean Brook

So, I just found a typo in the last set of bookmarks I printed. I always check them carefully, but in this case it didn’t occur to me that it might be wrong: it was an apostrophe that looked okey-dokey to me, until I had the stray thought at half-past midnight tonight, Uh-oh. Is that apostrophe supposed to be before or after the “s”?

Turns out, there’s no apostrophe at all (although there used to be, long long ago (and it was after the “s”, because it was a plural — it’s before the “s” on my bookmarks, because I thought it was a singular possessive)).

But I don’t think I’ll feel too badly about it — when I went to their website, the same typo was on their front page.

Arrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

W000000000000000000000000000000000T!

*soooooooooooooooooooooooooobbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb*

D’oh!

Yayayayayayayay!

Gah!!

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! LMAO! LMFAO! ROTFLMAO!

WTF?

*cries*

*headdesk*

*crazy happy dance*

…okay, I’m almost ready for the release. Reviews are coming in (like this one). I’m putting my head down and going to pretend not to see (until, of course, I do a round up next week while massively pimping my book. I’m buying a pimp hat just for the occasion.)

So we meet again, Automated Postal Center. I see you were intimidated by my mad MacGyver skills that time you tried to eat my debit card, and so you have dreamed up new and horrid trials for me to overcome, new ways to thwart me.

And you have almost succeeded.

At midnight last night, I felt supremely confident entering your domain. My debit-card dropping daughter was safe at home. There were no lines out the door, which was why I had waited until such an ungodly hour to go to the post office. I had only two packages to send, and both were domestic. Two ARCs, no larger than a trade-sized book.

I used you, APC, oh yes. I used you like the bitch you are. I got my postage, slapped it on.

And that is when you bitch-slapped me.

Because, apparently, I can no longer send any package after regular postal hours. The blue bin next to you–I usually take such pleasure opening its steel maw–was locked. A new sign was up that said everything over 13 oz had to be brought to the counter. No sending trade-sized books. No sending anything except envelopes–even those official ExpressMail boxes that the postal employees have so nicely put out for our use have nowhere to go.

So, you’ve got me, APC. I’ll have to brave the lines at the post office, after all.

…but it does beg the question: what use are you, then? You’re like an ATM without money. If I need a stamp for an envelope, I’ll just use the stamp vending machine. So, pfft on you.

Thanks to HelenKay and Sybil, I found out that Demon Moon is being reviewed in the upcoming issue of Entertainment Weekly. And it got an A-

Yeah, it rocks, really freaking hard.

But here’s the thing that gets me right in the gut — I haven’t seen too many romance reviews come out of EW (chick lit, but not romance, and a search for reviews in the romance genre pulls up a lot of reviews, but not many I’d consider part of the Romance romance genre (ya know, the HEA-part). Maybe I’m wrong about that, because I’m not a regular reader (I’m a cover-buyer, and now that Mulder and Scully are gone, pretty much only Batman and Superman get me to pick it up.) But still, not much romance, because I read HelenKay’s blog and she does often list the reviews, and they’re almost always chick lit. So, on top of it being really fantastic that the reviews might include romance now, somehow my book, which was released two months ago and written by a little nobody author, got reviewed in this issue alongside Johanna Lindsey and Sherrilyn Kenyon.

Which says to me that someone, somewhere down the line, said, “I really freaking believe in this book, you’ve got to read it,” and somehow it was included in EW’s review list. Maybe it was the reviewer who just happened to pick it up, maybe it was buzz online, or a bookseller, or the publicity department at Berkley, or my editor … I don’t know. It’s just completely freaking awesome. So, thank you to anyone and everyone who has ever said, “read this.”

Quite honestly, I don’t say it enough; it’s probably too bad that it takes something like this to remind me, but … yeah.

Does this call for a w00000000000000000000000000t?

Yes. Yes, it does.

Demon Moon is thisclose to being too thick to fit in the padded mailing envelopes I’ve been using for all my mass market books for the last year.

*headdesk*

ETA: Hee. It’s just like a lurve scene. “It’s too big! It’ll never fit!”

I first noticed it when I was looking at China Mieville’s UN LUN DUN a week or so ago. (Aside: I lurve Mieville.)

Also, Keri Arthur’s TEMPTING EVIL, and Linnea Sinclair’s GAMES OF COMMAND, Dawn Thompson’s BLOOD MOON (whose cover fascinates me for some reason — I think it’s the font) and Melanie Jackson’s WRIT ON WATER (whose cover I really like), and Vicki Pettersen’s first Zodiac novel.

Then Jodi Picoult’s new release (although I’ll admit that this was more because her story arc on WONDER WOMAN is going to start this month rather than love for her books, which I like well enough, but am more than happy to wait for mass market release) and Kayla Perrin’s GETTING SOME.

And this weekend, Margaret and Lizz Weis’s WARRIOR ANGEL (whose stepback I am in love love love with, but whose book I am afraid to read because it goes into my “maybe the worldbuilding will be too close” pile for right now) and THE KOMMANDANT’S GIRL (because of a mention on … Alison’s blog? I think.)

Anyway, just about every new release that I’ve looked at in the last couple of weeks that has also been reviewed by Klausner has been struck by the Anti-Klausner (who I think are a group of people, because the same names keep popping up.)

I’m not sure yet what to think of this. I’m one of those people who doesn’t put much faith in Klausner’s reviews, ‘cuz she gets a lot of stuff wrong and they’re all positive — but I’m also not sure what the Anti-Klausners are trying to accomplish. To stop her from writing reviews? To tell people that she writes a ton of reviews? Anyone who visits Amazon.com regularly surely already knows this.

What I do find is that I’m paying a bit more attention to the flames than the books. Is that ever a good thing? A Klausner review is easily skimmed over, much like the word “said”. The comments, not so much.

And I also wonder if, as a result of this, Amazon will stop the Anti-Klausner, or the Klausner.

It’s December 1st?

When the hell did that happen?!

I don’t know how long they’ve been in there. But they’ve been growing.

This is what I get for being an idiot.

Stop posting before Noon and/or before you have some caffeine.

You are kinda nonsensical before then.

2nd note to self: Your legs do not shave themselves.

…but are probably more like: “D’oh!”

So, a little while ago, I was mentioning that I didn’t know if/when I’d get ARCs for Demon Angel. I haven’t yet, but Nalini Singh clued me in to many online reviewers’ willingness to accept .pdf ARCs, then last night I noticed that May has .pdf ARCs in her TBR pile, and then today, while surfing to mis_nomer’s site after a comment on Neil Gaiman’s latest, there it was:

THE POST THAT PROBABLY SAVED MY ASS (or at least kept me from making a shitty .pdf).

See, I was thinking, “Oh, I can probably just stick my manuscript into that free Adobe file converter on the Adobe site” (because you get, like, five free conversions, and I did it a couple of years ago and it worked out okay.) And, for some reason, it never even occurred to me that conversion software might be out there…for free. I mean, usually, download.com is my best friend when stuff like this comes up.

But there is PrimoPDF. And it works beautifully. So, woot! Thanks, mis_nomer.

But I do wonder: what kind of formatting options work best? What about security options? Should I embed the fonts? Encryption options? Allow copy/pasting? Hmmm. Will keep playing, and any feedback on what works/doesn’t when reading the .pdfs is welcome.

Shieet. And you know this means I’m going to be .pdfing like crazy now.