Wild at Heart
Editor: Delilah Devlin
Publisher: Diamond State Romance Authors
Deadline: April 1, 2012

Wild at Heart is open to all authors.

Editor Delilah Devlin is looking for stories for a special project to benefit the Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge.

Last October, six Diamond State Romance Author chapter members spent a weekend falling in love with the Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge and its exotic inhabitants. The refuge is home to large cats and a variety of exotic animals that would otherwise have to be put down because they aren’t suitable for placement in zoos or to be returned to the wild. The need for financial support was apparent. Our chapter decided to pool its resources and find a way to help.

What we propose is to produce a volume of short stories, all centred around animals in need of refuge. All proceeds from the sales of the book will go directly to the Turpentine Creek Refuge. We will edit the submissions, seek professional cover art and formatting, and assist the refuge by uploading the anthology to online bookstores like Amazon’s Kindle store and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.  Additionally, we will help upload the book to CreateSpace so that printed volumes can be available for sale in brick-and-mortar bookstores throughout Arkansas and inside the refuge’s shop.

This is a national call for submissions of short stories to be donated for the cause. Only the best stories will be accepted. All genres of fiction (contemporary and paranormal, sweet adult romance and Young Adult) will be considered. Please keep in mind that stories must be PG-rated as the book will be two-sided—one side geared toward adult readers and the other toward teenaged readers.

Examples of the kinds of stories we seek:

• A maimed Iraqi war veteran learns to accept his disability by working with equally damaged animals
• A teenaged girl helps a were-cougar hide his true nature while both hunt for an escaped cat
• A teenaged couple encounters a tiger escaped from its private owner’s cage and work together to find help to capture and care for it
• A pushy animal psychic must gain the trust of the refuge’s veterinarian to help a depressed bear
• A troubled teenager discovers a tiger living in a national forest, then seeks a way to prevent locals staging a hunt from killing it

How to submit: Prepare your 1,500 to 4,000 words story in a double-spaced, Arial, 12 point, black font Word document with pages numbered (.doc, NOT.docx) OR rich text format. Indent the first line of each paragraph half an inch and double space (regular double spacing, do not add extra lines between paragraphs or do any other irregular spacing). US grammar (double quotation marks around dialogue, etc.) is required.

In your document at the top left of the page, include your legal name (and pseudonym if applicable), mailing address, and 50 word or less bio in the third person to dsrawildatheart@gmail.com. If you are using a pseudonym, please provide your real name and pseudonym and make it clear which one you’d like to be credited as. Authors may submit up to 2 stories.

About the editor: Ms. Devlin has published over one hundred stories in multiple genres and lengths. Her published print titles include Into the Darkness, Seduced by Darkness, Darkness Captured, Down in Texas, Texas Men and Ravished by a Viking. Her short stories are featured in Zane’s Purple Panties, and Cleis Press’s Lesbian Cowboys, Girl Crush, Fairy Tale Lust, Lesbian Lust, Passion, Carnal Machines, and Dream Lovers. She is published by Avon, Kensington, Harlequin, Atria/Strebor, Ellora’s Cave, Samhain Publishing, and Berkley. In Fall 2011, she debuted her first anthology with Cleis Press, Girls Who Bite.

Direct any questions you have regarding your story or the submission process to Delilah at dsrawildatheart@gmail.com.

I’ve had my eyes open for a replacement, tossing around several option. The iPad was cool, but more of a unit than what I wanted. I wouldn’t go for the Kindle as I have issues with any proprietary software that limits what books and where I can buy. I was leaning toward getting another Sony, especially now they managed to fix their PDF issues. For awhile, I even toyed with the idea of getting a netbook.

I hummed and hawed…and generally drove my saint of a husband insane.

Today, I made a decision! I even have gone so far as to pre-order my device of choice and now I’m sitting on my hands, waiting for delivery day.

My decision? I’m getting the Kobo!

What? You’ve never heard of the Kobo??

That’s okay, I hadn’t either until last week. I’m not sure if this is also available in the US, but here in Canada you can get it directly through Chapters Indigo. I’m assuming its the same as the Barnes & Noble Nook, and they will in fact have a US version coming out this summer. The list price is $149 Canadian, and for what I was personally looking for in an e-reader, this does it.

Is it perfect? Probably not. But at a fraction of the price of a Sony and far more durable than an iPad, I’m okay with that. Plus, when the next generation of hoo-haw comes out a year or two from now, I’ll won’t feel this will owe me anything.

I’ll be giving some updates on the quality, look, feel, downloading, etc once it arrives.

For those of you not familiar with it, the program itself is very easy to use. You can add pictures, videos, titles, music and blend them together into something fun. I’ve been toying with the idea of making a few book trailers for my novels. I’ve made other videos with the program and I’m thrilled at how they turned out.

Now, this isn’t free. I need to buy the music and any stock images I need, but I don’t mind that. What I’m curious about is if it’s worth the time.

As a reader, do book trailers make a difference? Would it sway you to buy a book?

Authors, if someone was willing to do the work for you, how much would you be willing to pay?

It’s exciting! I love technology (hugs her BlackBerry) and think we are on the cusp of a major paradigm shift when it comes to how information will be distributed to the masses. No, print will not go away. But the digital age allows for broader and faster marketing of material.

I’m an impulse buyer and a pack rat. Like many people I know, I don’t have room for all my books. And no, I don’t get rid of them. Ever. E-books give me more “room”. They are cheaper than print, so I’m willing to take a chance on a new author.

Is the e-book industry perfect? No. We are still working out the technology for easy reading. We are still figuring out pricing. We are still figuring out business models that will work for publishers, distributors and authors alike.

But we are doing it.

Looking to try an e-book? Here are some amazing publishers for you to check out:

Ellora’s Cave

Samhain Publishing

Liquid Silver

LooseID

Cobblestone Press

Carina Press (no books yet, but coming in June!)

And as always, feel free to check out my bookshelf on my website for some of my books.

Happy reading!

I woke up this morning and read the news that Amazon pulled all Macmillan books from their site over a price point dispute on Macmillan e-books. They pulled not just e-books, but all of them. If you haven’t heard about this yet, I recommend reading this article.

I work for a very large corporation in my day job (no I won’t mention the name here). I’ve seen a wide assortment of business decisions, corporate posturing, market jockeying, etc in the six years I’ve worked there. All businesses are out to make money. It’s the point of having one. You get your particular widget, make it the best widget you can and then you sell it. Now some companies don’t sell their products direct to consumers. They use a third party to do that. For example, cell phone companies typically sell their devices through a carrier, rather than invest in a storefront infrastructure to do so.

Publishers sell their books to bookstores (through distributors), who in turn sell to us. Yes, there are exceptions, but for the most part that’s how it works. Amazon didn’t like the idea of selling an e-book for their Kindle for $15. Now, the business side of me really can’t blame them. I will barely pay that for a mass market book. But Amazon’s reaction to Macmillan was way off base. Pulling every book is like shooting yourself in the foot.Take this example.

Let’s say I make a brand of pop called Super Duber Sugar Blast (obviously I’m not in marketing). I sell my product only to fast food restaurants. Now let’s say the biggest of those restaurants and I fight about what they are charging. Really, I would normally have negotiated via contract the price range I’d have wanted the restaurant to charge, but let’s pretend that didn’t happen. We fight, only for the restaurant to come back and say, “Hey, we are in charge of our prices, not you. We’re not selling any of your products in protest!”

Fine. I look across the street and see a competing fast food restaurant. I know they also sell my pop. I smile, nod and walk across the street.

Hello Barnes & Noble.

I’m sure Amazon will have Macmillan books back on the virtual shelves soon enough. They are still out to make a profit and have investors who will be breathing down their necks. What they have unfortunately done, is added another black mark on their records with consumers. After the yanking of the e-book fiasco, this erodes consumer confidence yet again. While the biggest game in town, Amazon isn’t the only one. The mighty have been known to fall on occasion.

For more perspectives on the events, I recommend you check out the following blogs:

Shiloh Walker

John Scalzi

Jackie Kessler