Betsy Horvath

Category: Handling It

  • Print News and Other Newsy-News

    Computer ReadingHello, my friends!  I thought I would write another chatty, newsy little blog post, because I actually have news to chat about!  And that, as we all know, is so rare an occurrence that it must needs be celebrated.  So, I’m going to try to ignore the incredibly persistent fruit fly determined to fly up my nose and persevere.

    Just as a side note, is there anything more annoying than a persistent fruit fly?  I don’t think so! *pfffff*  Gah!  I think I just snorted a fruit fly!

    Okay, back to business.  First of all, you may have seen on my Facebook page (or more likely, since it’s Facebook, you didn’t see it), “Handling It” is now available as a print book.  HOORAY!!!!  Man, I’m telling you, I thought getting that thing set up was going to kill me, but it’s finally done.  It’s what they call a “trade-sized” paperback, so it’s one of those bigger paperback books because we independent folk can’t easily put out the regular mass-market size (yet).  For what it’s worth, I’m very pleased with how it turned out.

    If you are a print book fan, the paperback version is now available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and BooksAMillion.com (among other places).  You should also be able to special order it from your local bookstore using the ISBN number 978-1-943725-01-4, if you are so inclined.  I sincerely doubt you will find it stocked in a physical bookstore, but perhaps, eventually, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.  🙂

    print book
    Well, I had to get a couple of copies, didn’t I?

    You may remember that I was chattering about the possibility of selling the paperback direct from my website.  I’ve decided against that at the moment for a lot of reasons – lack of time and needing to keep inventory on hand being chief among them.  And now that I’m feeling more secure about availability, it’s not as big an issue.  I’m still mulling over the whole selling direct thing, though, so more to come on that in the future.

    Second, I wanted to let you know that the monthly newsletter I’ve been blathering on about for months will FINALLY be starting up on September 15th (assuming I can figure out how Mail Chimp works).  If you’d like to join me, you can sign up to receive it by clicking here.  This is still a work in progress, but the goal of the thing is to make it something fun for all of us.  Otherwise, why do it?

    I’ll be including stories from the Hardy Falls Gazette (the online newspaper spearheaded by Hardy Falls librarian Mathilda Gregory, and reprinted with her grudging permission), short stories exclusive to the newsletter, and other stuff I haven’t thought of yet.  Will I succeed?  Will I fail miserably?  Will I at least meet expectations? Only time will tell!!  It’s like a genre writer reality show!

    Finally, I wanted to let you know that I’ll be blogging more regularly again – I  promise. The posts will be a little shorter (most of the time), but I want to get back on schedule.  Harry, Muse, Skipper, and the rest will all be back on Sunday as we start a new mini-series – “Objectives”.  I’m thinking that the regular blog post day will be Sunday, but I’m hoping to post some Wednesdays as well.  I’ll also be primping the website a little bit, giving it a new hairdo, adding some info about works in progress, that sort of thing.

    Oh, and I’ll be writing.  Can’t forget the writing!

    So, I hope you stick with me!  It should be fun. 🙂  And thank you for reading my blog!

    And now, I’m off to kill me some fruit-flies…

    Butterflies
    Butterflies are prettier than fruit flies.

  • There, And Back Again

    ClimbEveryMountain

    My dears, I have climbed the mountain this week.

    I chipped at the rock of Amazon Kindle, breaking off enough pieces to give me toeholds so I could start scaling the sheer cliff face.

    I pored through the underbrush of Kobo, slithering into the hidden clearing, pushing my way through despite the thorns piercing my skin.

    I was almost smothered by the dense, choking weeds of Nook, forced to take up my machete and slash the fronds that bound me whilst bellowing my battle cry.

    I peered into the dark, mysterious caves of iBooks, finding my way through to the light on the other side guided only by a single candle and a good deal of cursing.

    I forded the stream of All Romance eBooks, slipping on rocks whilst the racing water threatened to sweep me away.

    Slowly, struggling, I climbed.  I pushed myself to the point of collapse (and I mean that literally).  But eventually I made it.  I got to the top of the mountain.  I planted my flag.

    My book went up and is available as an ebook on all of the main stores, and some that aren’t so “main”.

    Panting, sweating, I smiled at my flag with pride and joy.

    Then I went home again.

    That, I think, is the biggest mistake I made with “Hold Me” – and the biggest lesson I (hopefully) learned.

    You have to push through all the way to the end.  You can’t quit when you’re MOSTLY finished, or not QUITE there.  You have to go all out, heart pumping, and cross the finish line.

    But then you have to go home.  You have to stop thinking about the book that’s out, and go to work on the next one.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy “Handling It” is available.  I’ll be happier still when it’s also available as a print book (in a couple of weeks). Hearing that people have read it, that they liked it, makes me feel incredibly satisfied.  I’ll even be happy when the bad reviews start to come in (if they do), because that will mean that people read something I’d written.  I don’t even know some of the people reading it.  How awesome is that?

    But I have to go home again.  I can’t stay standing on top of the mountain smiling at my flag.  I can’t pull my flag out of the ground and wave around it wildly, trying to get the attention of the people on the ground.  I mean, I CAN.  I can stay on the mountain and flail around like a dancing monkey, if that’s what I want to do.  But doing that won’t get the next book written.

    One thing I realized over these years since “Hold Me” was published is this – for me, the important thing is climbing that mountain, planting my flag, coming home, and doing it all over again.  That is how I will view myself as a success – not as a writer, but as a person.  I have climbed, I have succeeded in climbing, and now I have returned to do it again.

    Lather, rinse, repeat.

    I gave myself the weekend off.  Boy did I need it!  I had to sleep, to get back into a healthier eating pattern, to read words I hadn’t written.  And tomorrow I’ll be able to go back to work on Believing It, plotting out the next book, and setting up the print version of “Handling It”.

    The air on top of the mountain is very nice. I want to be able to breathe it again.

    mountain

     

     

     

  • “Handling It” Is LIVE!

    Handling It Cover revised final high resMy angels, my darlings, my little treasures sent from heaven, I’m pleased to tell you that my book, Handling It, is LIVE!!!!!   Hooray!!!!!  It can now be purchased on all of the Amazon Kindle stores and on the Kobo store.  It will be available on iBooks in the next couple of days (I hope).  And then I’ll tackle Nook.  Nook is making me cranky, but I will not be beaten! *shakes fists at sky*

    But regardless, it’s LIVE!  It’s UP!  It’s AVAILABLE!  In some places!

    Whew.

    If you decide to buy the book – THANK YOU so very, very much. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. Even in my last minute panic trying to get everything finished, there were scenes that made me laugh.  So I can say that I amused myself, if no others.  Although I guess that’s not a terrific sales pitch.

    If you buy the book and read it, please consider leaving a review somewhere – Amazon, Goodreads, wherever.  Reader reviews are incredibly important and help other people find the book. They don’t have to be elaborate – they just have to be honest.  Unless you’re my sister.  Then  you have to leave a five-star review or there’ll be trouble at Thanksgiving.

    Please also consider signing up for my new monthly newsletter.  There’s a signup thingee on the front page of the website and in the sidebar to the right.  Why should you sign up, you may ask?  Well, because once I get going, I’ll give you news on new releases (yes, I said NEW releases!), various updates, and exclusive excerpts from The Hardy Falls Gazette, the online newspaper run by Mathilda Gregory, librarian in Hardy Falls – the town where Handling It is set. You’ll be able to keep up with the characters and meet some new ones who might pop up in future books.  For example, I hear there’s a romance writer wandering around town interviewing people. Ms. Gregory is suspicious…

    Thanks again!  I’m so tired!  But happy!

    It’s ALIVE!!!!!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8GRQHsAVjI

  • It’s Always Something

    What the....!Hello, my friends! I thought I would give you a quick update on how things are going as I walk the rocky path to the publication for my book, Handling It.  Now that I’ve made a commitment to a date and all.

    And that date’s coming right along.

    Yup. Right along.

    Pretty soon. Preeetttyy goldarned soon.

    Eeep!

    Okay, um, well I’m not going to think about it now.  This is just about reporting what I’ve been doing.  Or not doing, as the case may be.

    By the end of May, I had finished the edits I’d gotten from the editor. After they were done, I thought I would read the manuscript again to make sure everything flowed properly. If you don’t know, when you do edits, you tend to focus on the details, but you can lose track of the big picture and how the changes you’ve made will impact the piece as a whole.

    So, I started reading it again.  I expected this to take a couple of days, as the intent was that it would be a quick thing.  Because, you know, publication.

    However, as I was reading, I found several scenes that struck me as wrong – out of place, discordant notes in the story, or just plain dumb.  That’s the advantage of looking at something after it’s rested for a little while – you see things with fresh eyes. Some of these scenes had been in the manuscript since the beginning (so maybe I should have caught them sooner), but some of them didn’t fit in with changes I’d made, or had been questioned by the editor.

    Anyway, the upshot of the whole thing was, my short little read-through turned into a bigger endeavor, culminating with a scene where I got completely stuck until I finally broke down and just cut it.  It’s funny how your subconscious tries to tell you something and, if you don’t listen, it just shuts you down.

    The good news is, I’m basically (finally) finished with the read-through.  But, of course, now I’ve made some additional major changes so I shall have to read it AGAIN.  Gah! But this time it will be very quick.  It WILL!!  *shakes fist at sky* (well, it kind of has to be, doesn’t it? Because, you know, publication…)

    The other good news is, because I’m going independent, I have the flexibility to make changes right up to the publication date.  But that’s not going to happen.  Right?

    Whilst grappling with these manuscript issues, I was able to set up vendor accounts with three of the major retailers – Kindle, Kobo, and Nook.  I had hoped to have the book up for preorder by now, but since it’s not finished yet, that didn’t happen.  I expect I’ll still get it up for preorder – even if it’s just by a few days (on Kindle and Kobo – Nook doesn’t allow preorders).

    iBooks is another story. Because Apple is, well, Apple, the only way you can load a book to iBooks is through a Mac.  Not even an iPad can do it (the publishing program doesn’t work on that operating system).  I’ll be renting time on a virtual Mac site to load the book, but that will add to the learning curve.  So, I hope Handling It will be available on iBooks on June 22, but it may be a few days later.

    I also want to put the book on Smashwords because that’s a way to distribute to Overdrive (libraries) and FlipKart (the biggest ebook retailer in India), as well as Scribd, Oyster, and other places.  Since Smashwords will only accept a Word document with strict formatting requirements, not an ePub file, that might be a few days later, too.  I’m going to focus on the other four first.

    And so what is the moral of this story?  What have I learned in the last couple of weeks?  I think it can all be summed up as: “no project is ever as finished as you think it is”, or “everything takes longer than you think it will”, or “nothing’s as easy as you think it should be”.

    Or all of the above.

    roseanne roseannadanna:

     

     

  • “Handling It” Cover Reveal!

    I’m sure there are some of you out there who thought it would never happen. Heck, I didn’t know if it would happen. But here it is! The cover of my new book!

     

    Handling It Cover revised final high res

    Not everything in life is “business as usual.”

    This is definitely not a good time for Hannah Frederickson to be having entirely inappropriate thoughts about hot bartender, Deacon Black. First of all, the guy works for her at her restaurant, the Country Time Bar and Grill. Secondly, she’s got way too many other things to worry about. Like the fact that her uncle has just run off with all of her money, leaving her with a payroll to meet, bills to pay, and fifty bucks in her bank account. The Country Time Bar and Grill has been in her family for generations, and now Hannah might lose it all. Why in the world is she spending time daydreaming about Deacon?

    Deacon has wanted Hannah since they were in high school, but she only ever had eyes for his brother, Sam. Now, after spending ten years drifting around the country, he’s back, tending bar at the Country Time and ready to get Hannah’s full attention in the best way possible. If only he can keep her from falling under Sam’s spell for the third time. And help her save her business. And get her to truly see him once and for all.

    Welcome to Hardy Falls, Pennsylvania, nestled in the heart of the Pocono Mountains, where love happens no matter how hard you try to avoid it. There must be something in the water.

    Click HERE to read the first chapter.

     

    “Handling It” is the first book in my Welcome to Hardy Falls series and will be available as an eBook on June 22nd. It will also be coming out as a paperback on July 21st. I don’t have plans for an audiobook at this point (they’re more complicated to produce), but maybe someday….

    The eBook should be available for preorder soon – on the sites that allow preordering, anyway. More info on that when I figure out what I’m doing.

    PS – HUGE thanks to my wonderful beta readers, my marvelous editor, and everyone who helped me with information, insight, and support.

    So….one step further down the path.

    HOORAY!!!

    [tube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYD1fzwsrVk[/tube]