The Book Army

Have you ever given thought to how many people put time and effort into making the books you enjoy? It’s a small army, really.

The author is obvious. Maybe our job is the hardest and most time-consuming, but we also get nearly all of the credit. There are our names, splashed across the covers.

But there are also editors. Before I submit a book to a publisher, a good friend who’s also an excellent pro editor goes through the complete manuscript twice. Of course she looks for grammar and punctuation errors, but that’s only part of it. She also makes sure the story makes sense, the characters stay in character, the facts are correct, and the entire prose flows smoothly.

Once the manuscript feels polished, I send it to the publisher. An editor will read it over and also likely send it to some reviewers for their response. If I’m lucky, the publisher offers me a contract (which is created by an admin person).

Now the manuscript will usually be seen by three different editors. Each makes suggestions, I respond, and then the ms moves on to the next editor. After that, a copy editor looks it over. This may seem excessive, but small errors often have snuck through this far. With a recent book, the copy editor found a spot where I’d mixed up the MCs’ names (something I do often)–and the prior 5 sets of eyes hadn’t caught it.

Next, somone in the design department takes the text and makes it look pretty. They’ll add the copyright info and title page, the chapter headings, and the stuff at the back of the book. Then the entire manuscript gets one last look by an proofreader–and by me–to find any problems.

Meanwhile, a blurbs coordinator has been helping me craft the blurb (the brief description that appears on the back of the book and in online listings). And an artist has been taking my (usually vague) ideas and turning them into cover art. The artist will also design the outside of the book as a whole, including the spine and back.

Other people at the publishing house will work on getting the book up on websites and sending it to distributors. Folks in marketing will be doing their jobs too. This might include working with review sites and bloggers to plan cover reveals and blog tours. Reviewers will be offered ARCs.

And finally… the book is in your hands! Ah, but we might not be done yet. If the book goes to audio, we have audio coordinators, talented narrators, and sometimes sound producers. If there are translations, those require a translator and proofreader too, sometimes new cover art, and all the work of getting a book set to go.

So the next time you pick up a new book, take a moment to thank all the hard-working people who put that book in your hands.

Landry’s Blog Tour

Redesigning Landry Bishop releases May 21, and I’m celebrating with a blog tour!

Each stop has unique content: interviews, top 5 lists, and bits of fun stuff related to the story. Stop by all of them to learn more about cravings, things to see in Nebraska, unique hotels, and lots more.

Chained playlist

Sometimes I listen to music to get me in the right mood while I’m writing. Since Chained takes place in 1989–and since music is important to one of the main characters–I had an appropriate playlist as I worked on that story. Not so much the stuff I listened to in 1989, which tended toward punk and dinosaur rock, but rather the songs you’d hear on a top-40 station or maybe dance to in a club. These are the songs that are so important to Terry.

In case you’d like to listen too, I’ve compiled a playlist of the songs alluded to in the story. Where possible, I’ve linked the original music video. Give them a listen and take a little trip backwards in time.

Do you have favorite songs from this era? List them in a comment!

Contest!

I have a new book releasing in 2 days. Yay! You can preorder now, even, and feel good about yourself because all my royalties go to Doctors Without Borders. Also, if you read the book you’ll discover there’s an unforgivable pun in the book blurb.

Order links

Amazon

Smashwords

To help celebrate, I think a contest is in order. Winner gets a free copy of any of my backlist books, plus a $10 Amazon or Dreamspinner gift certificate (winner’s choice). Rules:

  • To enter, comment here with your attempt at the worst romance book title ever. Not a real title, please! This is your chance to be creative. You can include shameless puns, things that should never ever be associated with romance, or whatever else you think makes for a terrible title.
  • One entry per person, please.
  • I’ll choose a winner at noon Pacific time on Sunday, May 5.
  • Have fun!

Between journeys

I had an amazing three weeks in Europe. I got to see some of you in Paris and Leipzig, and also got to hang out with some wonderful authors and my favorite publishers. Shira Anthony and I spent almost a week in the Loire Valley, where we stayed in a luxurious cave, visited chateaux, and came up with a great idea for a new book! I had the chance to visit Ghent for a couple of days and fell in love. And I also had the treat of spending a couple of days in Munich. It was wonderful, despite some minor snafus with my luggage and, later, with trains.

I’ll be leaving again in less than two weeks. This time I’m off to LA for the LA Times Festival of Books. I hope to see some of you there! After that I’ll take Amtrak up to Portland to visit with family.

As I travel, I’m busy with a bunch of projects. Two books are on the way this spring–visit this page for details and preorder links. And Dreamspinner has just offered me contracts for two new books! Drawing the Prince is scheduled for October 2019 (it’s book 3 in the Stars from Peril series). Love Has No Direction is due out in early 2020 (it’s book 3 in the Love Can’t series).

What’s new in your world?

Antici…… pation

I am bad, bad, bad at waiting for things. I’m old enough now to have developed patience, but I have not. So what’s killing me now? I have four complete books right now–three novels and a novella–none of which I can share with you yet. Four!

One of them, Redesigning Landry Bishop, will release on May 21. You can preorder it now. Chained is the fourth book in the Bureau series. We’re editing it now, and I hope to have it ready for you in April. I just submitted the third Love Can’t book to the publisher. And I recently finished the first draft of the third Stars from Peril book; we’re polishing it up now.

Luckily, I’ll be distracted somewhat from my impatience by my travels. This week I’m heading out for three weeks in France, Belgium, and Germany. I hope to see some of you there. I’ll be sure to post lots of photos, so make sure you’re following me on social media.

Ithani by J. Scott Coatsworth

Ithani
The final MM sci fi book in J. Scott Coatsworth’s “Oberon Cycle” trilogy is out – “Ithani”!

Time is running out.

After saving the world twice, Xander, Jameson and friends plunge headlong into a new crisis. The ithani–the aliens who broke the world–have reawakened from their hundred millennia-long slumber. When Xander and Jameson disappear in a flash, an already fractured world is thrown into chaos.

The ithani plans, laid a hundred thousand years before, are finally coming to pass, and they threaten all life on Erro. Venin and Alix go on a desperate search for their missing and find more than they bargained for. And Quince, Robin and Jessa discover a secret as old as the skythane themselves.

Will alien technology, unexpected help from the distant past, destiny and some good old-fashioned firepower be enough to defeat an enemy with the power to split a world? The final battle of the epic science fiction adventure that began in Skythane will decide the fate of lander and skythane alike. And in the north, the ithani rise…

Oberon Cycle Trilogy

Ithani Buy Links

Dreamspinner eBook | Dreamspinner Paperback | Amazon eBook | Amazon Paperback | iBooks | Barnes & Noble | Google Play | Kobo | QueeRomance Ink | Goodreads

Book 1: Skythane:

Dreamspinner eBook | Dreamspinner Paperback | Amazon Kindle | Amazon paperback | iBooks | Barnes & Noble | Google Play | Kobo | QueeRomance Ink | Goodreads

Book Two: Lander:

Dreamspinner eBook | Dreamspinner Paperback | Amazon Kindle | Amazon Paperback | iBooks | Barnes & Noble | Google Play | Kobo | QueeRomance Ink | Goodreads


Giveaway

Scott is giving away a $50 Amazon gift card and ten copies of “The Stark Divide,” the first book in his other trilogy, his other trilogy, “Liminal Sky,” with this tour. Enter via Rafflecopter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Direct Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b60e8d4753/?


Excerpt

Venin stood under the dome of the chapel, the waters of the Orn rushing past the small island to crash over the edge of the crater rim, where they fell a thousand meters to the broken city of Errian below.

The Erriani chapel was different from what he was used to back home. The Gaelani chapel in Gaelan had sat at the top of a tall pillar of stone, open to the night sky, a wide space of grass and trees that intertwined in a natural dome through which moonlight filtered down to make dappled shadows on the ground.

This chapel, instead, was a wonder of streaming sunlight, the columns a polished eggshell marble with glimmering seams of gold. Red creeper vines climbed up the columns, festooned with clusters of yellow flowers that gave off a sweet scent.

Both were bright and airy, but the Erriani chapel lay under a dome supported by fluted marble columns, a painted arch of daytime sky and the rose-colored sun blazing overhead.

The last time he’d gone to chapel had been with Tazim, before his untimely death.

Long before the troubles that roiled the world now.

Something drew him back. A need to reconnect with his past. To bridge the gap between then and now, between who he was and who he had become. Taz would have liked this place.

The chapel here had survived the attack, while much of Errian had not. The city below was a jumble of broken corrinder, the multistory plants that were the main building stock for the city. They would grow again, but the sight of the city’s beautiful white towers laid low struck him to the core.

So had Gaelan looked, after the flood.

Venin turned back to the chapel and unlaced his boots, baring his muscular calves before he approached the fountain that splashed at its center. The cool flagstone beneath his feet sent a shiver up his spine, and green moss filled the gaps between the stones.

Some builder whose name was lost to time had tapped into the river itself to make the fountain run, and the water leapt into the air with a manic energy around the golden statue of Erro, before falling back down to the pool.

Venin knelt at the fountain’s edge on one of the well-worn pads, laid his hands in the shallow water, and let his wings rest over himself, making a private place to pray.

Erro and Gael, spare us from danger and lift us up into the sky with your powerful wings. He gave Erro deference, being that this was his chapel, but he hoped Gael would hear him too. The god of his own people had been known to intervene in mortal affairs before, and if what Quince had told them about these ithaniwas true, they would need all the help they could get.

Venin’s wings warmed.

He looked up in astonishment to see the statue of Erro giving off an intense golden glow. His mouth dropped open, and he stood and stared at its beautiful male curves and muscles. Maybe the gods were answering him.

Venin reached up and touched the statue’s outstretched hand. The shock knocked him backward onto his ass, and he hit the ground hard, slamming into one of the marble columns.

Venin groaned, stunned, and reached back to feel his wings and spine. He seemed to be in one piece.

Taz would have laughed his ass off at the whole thing.

After a moment he sat up cautiously. He wrapped his arms around his legs and stared up at the statue, his chin on his knees.

The glow was gone.

Did I imagine it? He stood and felt the back of his head. A lump was already forming there. That’s gonna leave a mark.

Something had changed. Venin didn’t know what yet, but he was sure of that much.

He pulled his boots back on and laced them up. With one last suspicious glare at the statue, he turned and stepped out of the chapel, taking a deep breath of the moisture-laden air.

Then he leapt into the sky to soar down to the broken city.


Author Bio

Scott lives with his husband of twenty five years in a Sacramento suburb, in a cute little yellow house with a brick fireplace and two pink flamingoes out front.

He inhabits in the space between the here and now and the what could be. Indoctrinated into science fiction and fantasy by his mom at the tender age of nine, he quickly finished her entire library. But he soon began to wonder where all the queer people were.

After coming out at twenty three, he started writing the kinds of stories he couldn’t find at Crown Books. If there weren’t many queer characters in his favorite genres, he would will them into existence, subverting them to his own ends. And if he was lucky enough, someone else would want to read them.

His friends say Scott’s mind works a little differently than most – he makes connections between ideas that others don’t, and somehow does more in a day than most people manage in a week. Although born an introvert, he forced himself to reach outside himself, and learned to connect with others like him.

Scott’s stories subvert expectations that transform traditional science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary worlds into something different and unexpected. He runs both Queer Sci Fi and QueeRomance Ink with his husband Mark.

His romance and genre fiction writing brings a queer energy to his stories, filling them with love, beauty and power. He imagines how the world could be – in the process, he hopes to change the world, just a little.

Scott was recognized as one of the top new gay authors in the 2017 Rainbow Awards, and his debut novel “Skythane” received two awards and an honorable mention.

You can find him at Dreamspinner here, Goodreads here, on Amazon here, on QueeRomance Ink here, and on Facebook here.

LOGO - Other Worlds Ink

New year, new chaos!

January’s nearly over already. How did that happen?

As always, I have about a zillion things going on, so I thought I’d give you things in bullet points. I look almost organized that way! These are all confirmed dates–look for additions as the year progresses.

That’s pretty good so far, huh? I’m also currently polishing up Book 3 in the Love Can’t series, and I’m about to begin a new book in the Stars from Peril series. I think that should keep us busy for a little while, but more will be on the way!

Happy holidays!

I hope your holiday season is going well!

I’m posting here mainly to thank you. As you might know, I donate the royalties from my self-published books (including audiobooks) to Doctors Without Borders. I just made this year’s donation, and do you want to know how much it was?

$9800.

Just… wow.

It’s your support that allowed me to do this, so thank you so much! Take a bow!

I spent this week in Vegas. We did a lot of fun things and ate wonderful food, but my favorite part was a trip to Valley of Fire State Park. It’s a gorgeous place with lots of petroglyphs–and some bighorn sheep that allowed us to get amazingly close.

Our New Years plans are as thrilling as always. The older kid will be home from college. She and her younger sister are having friends sleep over. We’ll watch movies, drink sparkling cider, and make cinnamon rolls. Woohoo!

Here’s wishing you a joyous 2019!

Summerfield’s Angel notes—chapter 7 through epilogue

Notes for Chapter 6

Links to the entire set of notes

Page numbers refer to the page in the PDF and print versions.

 

95—he was in a gang.  Alby’s childhood neighborhoods were infamous for their gangs as early as the 1820s, when an Irish gang called the Forty Thieves was active in Five Points. There are some good photos here and lots more good stuff here. I didn’t specify in the story, but Charley was most likely a member of the Whyos.

96—He’s in a town called Port Townsend. The town of Port Townsend was founded in the Pacific Northwest in 1852. It lies at the northeast tip of the Olympic Peninsula, right atop Puget Sound. At one point, people predicted it would be the West Coast’s largest port. That didn’t happen due to a depression and unfavorable railroad lines, but it remained a viable town. Today it’s a wonderful place to visit, but during its heyday it was a fairly rough-and-tumble place. It’s still home to a major ship repair yard.

96—My sister, Aspasia. Aspasia was an influential woman in Athens during the 5th century BC.

103—There’s increasing demand for goods from Asia. Japan opened to  trade with the West in 1868, and Japanese imports became very popular in the U.S. Chinese exports such as porcelain were also in demand here. In London, fondness for blue-and-white porcelain amounted to Chinamania in the 1870s. Goods coming to the US from Asia landed at West Coast ports such as Port Townsend.

104—Port Angeles. This is another town on the Olympic Peninsula, about 45 miles west of Port Townsend. It was just beginning its growth during Alby’s time. Logging was a major industry, and the town is also conveniently located directly south of Victoria, Canada, across the Strait of Juan De Fuca.

106—this was the Olympic Peninsula. The Olympic Peninsula lies across Puget Sound from Seattle; if Washington were a mitten, the OP would be the thumb. The Olympic Mountains run down the center of the peninsula, and the peninsula rain forests get over 12 feet of rain a year. Port Angeles is considerably drier than that, however, with only about 2 feet of rainfall yearly. But a lot of that rain comes in a light drizzly mist, and it rains an average of 230 days per year.

107—Did I tell you Father sent a telegram yesterday? Commercial telegraphy was available by the mid 19th century. In 1890, Marconi was still a few years away from perfecting wireless communication, but a transcontinental telegraph wire had been in place since 1861. By Alby’s time, Western Union was the major player, and it would have been fairly simple and relatively inexpensive for someone to send a message from New York to Washington State. Western Union handled over 55 million messages in 1890.

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed these notes! I’d truly appreciate your feedback so I can assess whether to publish notes for future stories!