Will your team win it?

Well, my new book is in its final stages, I've sent it out to my lovely beta readers to make sure that it functions on their ebook readers and for now, I have nothing to do except watch preseason hockey. (And of course, do all the things around home I ignored while finishing my book. But the vacuuming can wait, the vacuuming can always wait!) Probably I should be marketing or something, but I feel that hockey romances have a pretty limited audience. As the saying goes, "If this is the sort of thing you like, you will like this thing."

So, since the season hasn't even started, let's talk about the Stanley Cup already! Here are the current odds that every team will win the Stanley Cup, courtesy of Bodog Sports:

	Chicago Blackhawks	6/1
	Pittsburgh Penguins	15/2
	Boston Bruins	10/1
	Los Angeles Kings	12/1
	St. Louis Blues	12/1
	Detroit Red Wings	16/1
	Vancouver Canucks	16/1
	San Jose Sharks	18/1
	Minnesota Wild	20/1
	New York Rangers	20/1
	Anaheim Ducks	22/1
	Edmonton Oilers	22/1
	Ottawa Senators	22/1
	Philadelphia Flyers	22/1
	Toronto Maple Leafs	25/1
	Washington Capitals	25/1
	Montreal Canadiens	28/1
	New York Islanders	33/1
	Carolina Hurricanes	40/1
	Colorado Avalanche	40/1
	Columbus Blue Jackets	40/1
	Dallas Stars	40/1
	Nashville Predators	50/1
	New Jersey Devils	50/1
	Tampa Bay Lightning	50/1
	Winnipeg Jets	50/1
	Phoenix Coyotes	66/1
	Buffalo Sabres	100/1
	Calgary Flames	100/1
	Florida Panthers	150/1

If the ranking of your favourite team makes you sad, just think: how the heck do they calculate these odds? The team rosters aren't even finalized, and there is a lot of uncertainty with the lower salary cap. Many talented mid-level players don't even have contracts yet. And of course, injuries – the great leveller – are already beginning in the pre-season. It's a long way to the Cup, but the ride will be an exciting one.

New And Improved

One thing that made me very sad was that changing the title of my book to How The Cookie Crumbles meant I couldn't use the original cover I had created. I really loved that cover, mainly because the doughnut looked so yummy. Last night, I was looking at Joel Friedlander's site, he's a professional book designer, and once a month he judges all the book covers sent to him. There are winners, and there are not winners. Frankly, some of the covers are lousy, but I admire that the authors or designers were brave enough to submit, since I'm not. But reading Friedlander's comments is like a crash course in cover design. The main message I took is that covers need to look as professional as possible.

So armed with my new design knowledge, I took another look at my cover and sighed. The most amateur part is the photo. I took the photo of the cookie myself, and I have to admit–it looks a little green and unappetizing. It also floats weirdly on the page, since I didn't add a shadow. While I'm sure I could fix that in Photoshop, I'm also sure it would take me ten hours to figure out how, given my learning curve in creating the covers. So, I headed over to my favourite free stock photo site, Stock.xchng, and managed to find a better cookie photo. It has colours similar to the doughnut I loved.

So, here's the original doughnut cover. Nice, eh? Well, I think so. Expert opinions may differ. It's probably the photo that makes it, since everyone loves doughnuts.

And here's the cover I did with my own cookie photo. After publishing my first book, I added the grey border because otherwise the cover disappears on the Amazon website, and I also made the hockey sticks a little more visible. I preferred the subtler sticks, but they completely vanished when I looked at them on an actual Kindle.

Now, here's the new cover. I added the new photograph, and put the font in the same colour as the cookie. I thought it looked way better, but the combined colours were a little too Barbie.

So, I tweaked the cover: shrinking the cookie (and thus its calories) and making the font colours closer to the original doughnut cover, but keeping the new "cookie pink" colour in the subtitle. Voilá!

Another thing I like about my cover design is that it's a template, so I can easily create covers for all my zillions of books, by choosing a new photograph. Now I just have to write zillions of books.

Now, what do I think Joel Friedlander would say about my cover? Probably that I need to look at book covers in my genre, and make it look more like them. So, if it's a romance book about hockey, it needs a ripped male torso and skates, or two people making out. But I would argue that my books are not typical romances, they are Frankenstein hybrids of chick lit/romantic comedy/hockey story–and therefore the covers should look fun and different. And then Joel would shake his head and say, "Mel, I give you expert advice worth thousands of dollars and you insist you know better. You're an idiot."

What do you think of the cover? I have to admit, I have a background in arts and design (but not Photoshop!) so I have pretty strong views, but I am willing to listen to the opinions of people who actually read my books. Oh, at first there'll probably be crying and ripping of t-shirts, but then I will take your criticism into consideration. Maybe.

The Thrill of Destruction

For me, the fun part of a book is writing it. I like carrying the characters around in my head, writing up their conversations, and thinking up funny predicaments. I also like making the covers, which in my case means thinking up new twists on the basic design, and then spending way too long trying to resolve photoshop issues. (Like why does the background look white on some books and gray on others? You can see for yourself I haven't resolved that yet.) And like every author, I enjoy tracking my sales online.

The parts I don't enjoy are editing, proofing, and formatting the book. If there was a little fairy who could come over and do all this, that would be excellent. However, errors and inconsistencies in books drive me crazy, so I realize that good editing and proofing are vital for the reader's enjoyment. This time I did find a way to make editing more enjoyable. I printed out the book–yes, all 150,000 words of it and blew out a printer cartridge in the process– and then edited by hand with a red pen. Old school, but it was immensely satisfying to input the changes and then shred the pages. Why is destroying stuff so much fun? 

But hooray! I've finished all the edits now, passed the book on to my lovely and talented editor, and  it looks like I'm right on schedule for my launch date of October 1st. After I finished last night, there was a celebration when someone sweet got me ice cream treats. It does seem fitting to celebrate a book that's about food with food. Destroying stuff, ice cream, and a whole day off before I have to start inputting the editorial changes. Woohoo.

Finally a launch date for the book...sort of

You know that saying, “Make hay while the sun shines?”  Well, out here in Vancouver, we do pretty much everything while the sun shines: riding bikes, swimming, hiking, shopping farmers markets, and on and on. The only trouble is that the sun has been shining for almost two months, and while that has meant a fabulous summer, it’s also meant not enough time for writing.

But today, it’s raining. I must be a true Vancouverite now, since I found myself staying outside long enough to get soaked, and then feeling completely energized. I’m set for a full day of editing and rewriting, and I’m going to come out and commit to an October publication date for my new book. I realize that October is not a date, but it’s a lot closer than just saying soon. I have my fingers crossed for October 1st. 

The book has a new title now: How The Cookie Crumbles. Still food-oriented, of course, and I have to admit that writing this book often makes me quite hungry since there are tons of eating scenes. I have a new cover too, and that involved trying to get exactly the cookie I wanted from the puzzled girl at the bakery: “No, not that one, can you give me one with more blue Smarties?” My cookie model was quite cooperative, but unfortunately by the time the photo shoot was done, it was too stale to eat.

I have the first half of the book completed written, edited, proofed and beta-read. So, that leaves the second half, which is all written, one-third edited and completely unproofed and unbeta-read. But I’m committing to a blog hop on September 30^th, with the hope that a deadline will get my butt in gear. I think you’ll find the hop quite interesting, since it’s all writers who write about hot hockey players. More details to come when I find out what exactly a blog hop is.

What I loved about online serial writing was the fixed deadlines, churning out a chapter nightly or semi-nightly. I proofed but I never worried about errors. But publishing is different, and I’ve been a little angsty around the perfection of the finished product. No more though, I want to get this book out there…so I can begin on the next ones.

Love, but not the romantic kind

My book on my Kindle!

I love my Kindle.

I got it about three weeks ago, and we’ve been inseparable ever since. Now, I don’t want this to be an advertisement for Kindle. If you have a Kobo, Nook, Sony or any other e-book reader, just insert the name of yours wherever I write Kindle. It’s especially satisfying since I bought mine with the profits from the sale of Fresh Air, so if you bought my book…hey, thanks!

I love the convenience.

I pick it up and it’s full of books. Plus, I can pick up where I left off. I have a fabulous collection of bookmarks…somewhere. I suspect I leave bookmarks in books, including library books, so that they slowly disappear over time. That bookmark I got from a hotel in Istanbul, the hand-painted one from Winnipeg, the one from a defunct bookstore---they’re all gone. So I’m usually reduced to using receipts and those stupid inserts from magazines, but no more!

And to have something to read whenever I’m waiting brings out my happy multi-tasker. My doctor runs 30 minutes late, minimum. When I went last week, that wait just flew by. “What, me already?” And then when I got into the examining room for my second wait, voilá: book to read! Not wasting time makes me feel virtuous, even if I am reading some cheesy freebie. It’s a book and therefore > a parenting magazine from 2010.

I love working on it.

I loaded my next book, which I have been editing forever, onto the Kindle. It allows me to actually experience the book as a new reader would. Currently my inner new reader is telling me that the book is waaaaay too long. So editing is ensuing. Unfortunately I love my words, and keep thinking I don’t want to lose the good parts. But if there’s anything I know from reading the cheesy freebies, it’s that a good editor is worth her weight in [insert your favourite treat here.] And if I would just stop reading, maybe I could get that editing done.

I love feeling like a techno-geek-leading-edger.

Seriously, I know that there is no technology knowledge needed for an ebook reader. Open box, load Kindle, begin reading. And I still have trouble turning pages back. But since the Kindle Paperwhite has just arrived in Canada, I am ahead of the curve. The most knowledgeable technology guy I know (his job involves vaguely consulting with startups for something cool I don’t understand) doesn’t even have one yet. Recently I gave a friend advice on her Kindle at the library. In a loud voice, of course. And yes, it’s a big deal because I am kind of a luddite. I keep phones so long that people want to see them because they think they’re new. “Oh, what’s that? I’ve never seen a phone like that before.”

In summary, I am very happy. There are still a few drawbacks. I don’t have a cover yet so I use a Ziploc bag when I take it in my purse which lowers my cool quotient. I want to make an adorable cover myself. And I have some complaints about the cheesy freebies I’ve been reading, but they were free, right? Finally, the Paperwhite has no colour, so my cover looks blah on it. But overall, very happy!