Cover Watch: Jeaniene Frost and Julia Quinn

Two new covers were unveiled today in widely different genres.

First, Jeaniene Frost has posted both the cover AND stepback for her February 2011 (*whine*) Cat and Bones story, This Side of the Grave. It's gorgeous! I love them both, although I'm undecided about Cat's dress.



Then Julia Quinn posted about her upcoming novel (written in 3 parts, along with Eloisa James and Connie Brockway) The Lady Most Likely... which releases December 28. I'm curious about how much I'll be able to tell who wrote what and how the authors' voices will mesh to make one novel instead of an anthology in the traditional sense.



Both are available for preorder through various online sites.

So what do you think? Are you excited about either of these two covers? Do you like them, hate them, or do they earn a big, fat meh? Any thoughts about the Julia Quinn/Brockway/James collaboration?

Edited to correct a typo

Dorchester to be an ePublisher?

Rumors about the financial health of Dorchester have been swirling for over a year now. The RWA (Romance Writers of America) pulled the publisher's status at their convention right before it started amid rumors of late or missing royalty payments to authors. Today, Publisher's Weekly confirmed that Dorchester is no longer going to be a mass market publisher. They are going to be an ebook publisher with Print on Demand (POD) trade paperbacks being available months after a digital release.

You can read that article here.

There are some (including myself) who think this is a last ditch effort to save the company and is unlikely to work. It smacks more than just a little bit of desperation. And there are already several established ebook only publishers with a foothold in the growing market.

Authors who expected to have print copies of their books on bookstore shelves are scrambling to find out what this means for their future. And authors with backlist through Dorchester are scouring their contracts to discover just how meager their ebook royalty rates will be.

Something that hasn't received a lot of attention is this line, buried mid-way through the article:

"Dorchester will continue to do print copies for its book club business."

Dorchester has a direct mail business similar to Harlequin and Kensington. Once a month, readers have a selection of new titles mailed directly to them. Now whether those books will remain mass markets at mass market prices remains to be seen. I'm hoping that they will, because otherwise Dorchester will be unable to keep up with the mass book club cancellations.

Lynsay Sands: Book Watch

Born to Bite, another in Lynsay Sands's fabulous Argeneau series, is scheduled to be released August 31, 2010!

The Blurb:

Legend has it that Armand Argeneau is a killer in the bedroom . . .

But with all three of his late wives meeting unfortunate and untimely ends, is this sexy immortal a lover or a murderer? That's what Eshe d'Aureus intends to find out. As an enforcer, it's her job to bring rogue vampires to justice, even if the rogue in question makes her blood race red hot.
Armand knew she was trouble the moment Eshe roared into town on her motorcycle, clad in tight black leather. She claims she's hiding from dangerous fiends, though he suspects something more. But after three wives who've all had trouble remaining, well, undead, Armand is reluctant to open his heart again. Then strange accidents start to happen, each deadlier than the last, and Armand realizes he may not have much time to prove he's a lover, not a slayer. 

The book is available for pre-order at BN.com, Amazon.com, Book Depository, Books-a-million, Borders and through your local independent bookstore.


According to Ms. Sands, another Argeneau will be released in November! That one is called Hungry for You.


Also, Avon's purchase of the pub rights to Lynsay Sands's backlist means that quite a lot of older titles originally published with Dorchester are now available in ebook format! So if you're strictly an ereader, make sure to check out some of the oldies but goodies she wrote: both historical and paranormal.  The bad news is that Avon is a division of Harper Collins--one of the agency five.

Harlequin creates Vanity Publishing division

The romance world was abuzz with the news that Harlequin has created a new vanity publishing wing, Harlequin Horizons. So far, the reaction in the romance world has been overwhelmingly negative--with good reason.

Vanity publishing has long been a scourge among the writing and publishing community. Its business model is to charge for a book's publication rather than paying for it to be published--something directly opposite of the traditional publishing model. And vanity publishers have also been considered on the shady side of ethical because they tend to promise rose-colored visions of a successful publishing career when the reality is that most authors who choose the vanity published route never make a profit.

Essentially, an author pays the vanity publisher (in this case Harlequin Horizons ) a fee for them to produce a book. Depending on which options the buyer chooses, this can result in thousands of dollars in expenses prior to publication. And the author is still wholly responsible for marketing their book without any of the support a traditionally published author has: bookstore placement being an important one.

There are legitimate reasons for an author to choose the vanity or self publishing route. Often, a good writer has written a book that doesn't fit in with any current publisher. Or it has a tiny niche that can't justify a larger publisher's investment. Cookbooks or local histories are good examples. But a romance novel?