Jeffe's Spotlight on Ellora's Cave

In honor of Veronica Scott, #1 Jackson fan, joining the Word Whores - a photo of said kitteh working on his plumbing apprenticeship. I'm told he's more of a hindrance than a help, but I don't see how this could be.

This week we're all doing a spotlight on one e-publisher. Since the aforementioned Veronica is the only other Carina Press author in the bordello, I'll leave that one to her. Aren't I nice?

We've never really done this before, so I guess I get to invent a style.

E-Publisher: Ellora's Cave

A little bit about them: EC is one of the oldest e-publishers out there. I remember back when they started in 2000, well before I considered writing fiction, much less romance. A colleague and I traded romance novels frequently and we were intrigued by the concept of e-books, which we'd read on the computer, since this was before e-readers. We were also interested that they promised to be very hot. She bought one as a trial and shared it with me. Amazing to look back at that. They were recently the subject of a CBS Sunday Morning segment on "Mommy Porn."

Ellora's Cave started as a way for the gal who wrote as Jaid Black to publish what she called "Romantica." In fact, up until just a few months ago, the URL for EC was jasminejade.com. Thankfully they fixed that. You can read the history here, if you're interested.

This Word Whore's Experience: I've done two books with EC, Feeding the Vampire and Hunting the Siren. They are part of my Blood Currency series and both take place in a post-apocalyptic world where vampires have been driven out of deliberate obscurity and into the open by the dearth of humans to feed on. Drinking blood involves lots of good sex. My editor is Grace Bradley, a lovely woman who actively recruited me to write for her.

What I like: EC is committed to getting a lot of books out very fast. They publish 150-200 books/month. The turn-around time between sending a story to Grace and seeing it on the virtual shelf (I call it my sub to pub number) is the fastest of all my publishers - 69 days for one, 115 days for the other.

EC also has a built-in audience. Because they've been around for so long, they have many loyal readers who routinely buy every new title.

They're working hard to promote the books and the press. EC has a high visibility at conferences like the RT Booklovers Convention, where they sponsor a big party and authors walk across the stage escorted by handsome men. They have their own convention, Romanticon (I've never been, but I'm told the authors are treated like rock stars) and have been setting up booths at sex expos across the country. I signed at one in Toronto and it was a totally different - and very fun - audience of readers than I've encountered at *any* other signing I've done.

What I don't love so much: EC is quite corporate and insular. They want to cultivate exclusive relationships with their authors. Thus their contracts are quite draconian about rights to worlds and characters. They don't allow me to mention books with other publishers in my bio, making cross-promotion pretty much moot.This frustrates me greatly. EC does not use Net Galley and does not allow us to distribute copies for review - everything must go through them. This can really limit the opportunities for review.

While I love my editor, she has a much more circumscribed role than any of my other editors do. She cannot answer most of my questions and instead refers me to a contact list EC maintains. This list is insanely long and determining who to address my question to can be a painfully long process. Then when I have emailed the correct person, they usually refer me to an article in their internal newsletter or to FAQs. I asked them if they'd like to participate in a special deal with me and I was referred to an article that basically said "No." Carina Press on the other hand, created a special rights dispensation for me, to allow me to take advantage of this particular publicity opportunity. This is not a place for flexibility.

All that said, I understand many EC authors do quite well there. The have grown intensely loyal followings and make excellent money. My feeling is that EC is clinging to an old business model and they are not keeping up with innovations in the e-publishing market. But that could be me. Working with my lovely editor is really the best part for me.

Hunting the Siren

Word Whore Jeffe Kennedy has a brand new novella out today! Welcome to the Russian Steppes. In a world devastated by natural disaster, vampires hunt the few humans remaining. And sometimes, one of those humans hunts the vampires in turn. Click the title to read an excerpt or to buy.

HUNTING THE SIREN

Book two in the Blood Currency series.
A vampire queen grown powerful with age, Imogen has protected her band of nightriders through the centuries. When refugee vampires from earthquake-shattered Europe seek shelter and sustenance, she’s honor-bound to feed them, by any means necessary. When her lieutenants dump the vengeful human man Kasar at her feet, Imogen succumbs to his masculine vitality and her overwhelming hunger for his blood—and his body.

Kasar has survived the breaking of the world, only to discover the vampire queen has slaughtered his sister and her unborn child. With the last of his bloodline dead, only his desire for vengeance keeps Kasar alive. He imagines he can pretend to succumb to Imogen’s seduction—not that he has a choice, chained as he is to the foot of her bed—and bide his time until he has an opportunity to kill her. The passion he finds in her arms is unexpected and impossible to resist. But this haven of desire and satiation could easily destroy them both.


As for rejections? It's that old Clint Eastwood movie. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The bad were easy. Those were the crooked photocopies or the obvious auto 'thanks but no thanks' responders. Good rejections have feedback. The feedback may sting like mad for days or weeks, but it's at least a point of evaluation. You can go back to your work looking at it with an eye to the feedback and then decide whether you agree or disagree. The ugly? There was one. It was a rejection letter written by an editor at a publishing house that no longer exists. The wording of the rejection felt deliberately insulting in this form letter - and it WAS a form letter - it simply said "the writing's not good enough", but offered no other information about what, where or how. Granted, it was not this editor's job to hand hold anyone through a rejection. But if you're going to auto-reject someone, why not go with the old, polite, useless standby "not to our taste, best of luck elsewhere"? Sure, I think we all get that 'not for us' means 'this sucks' on some level, but professionalism and good manners let us all pretend we're not thinking that when we write 'this isn't my cup of tea'. Moral: don't sub to a house that doesn't respect you. Life is too short to expose yourself to that kind of passive aggressive abuse.

The best rejections, though? Two. The first came from Marion Zimmer Bradley. I'd written a short story and submitted it to her sword and sorcery anthology. The letter came back saying, "This is a perfectly fine story, but I've already bought one on this theme." Looking back, let's just say she was being kind. This was a great rejection because it was first. It was the marker. I'd actually finished something. I'd gathered up my courage and sent it out to someone who had the power of life and death over it. The letter is still filed away in a box, a symbol of the beginning of the journey.

The second? It wasn't actually a letter. It was a message relayed by my then agent. It was from Leis Pederson at Berkley. She'd passed on Enemy Within when it was first making the rounds. But, she'd said, if no one else picked it up, she'd like to talk with me about a revise and resubmit. No one else picked up the book. Rather than writing up a revision letter, Leis called me and talked me through what she wanted to see if I agreed to undertake the rewrites. I came away with pages and pages of notes. And even though these revisions didn't guarantee a sale, editors do not call to talk about your book unless they're REALLY interested. So I revised. Besides. While Leis talked, I saw in the story everything she mentioned. Everything she wanted to see really did make the story better. This initial rejection, then, became the one that sold my first book. That's a pretty sweet rejection.