New Old Books…..

Getting the rights to a book back from a large publishing house can be a challenge. I spent at least three years trying to get the rights back on my last traditionally published book, MAN OF THE WEST, written under the pseudonym Sadie Callahan.

Last year, I finally got that letter returning all rights to me. I’m now in the process of doing some revising and preparing that book for re-release as an Anna Jeffrey book.

I had to have a new cover designed. First, you aren’t allowed to use the publishing house’s original cover because they own it. Second, it had Sadie Callahan’s name on it, a pen name that I will probably never use again. So I called on the fabulous Kim Killion (as I always do) to design the new cover.

COMING SOON!

This book is a sequel to LONE STAR WOMAN. The hero is the second Strayhorn cousin who is still trying to live down his father’s disgrace.

“Sheriff of a small, remote town in the Texas Panhandle, Jake Strayhorn’s calm and uncomplicated life changes when he meets the Circle C Ranch’s new cook. He’s drawn instantly to her wholesome beauty, different from any other woman he’s ever known. As a career cop, his honed instincts detect that she’s running from something, but she refuses to reveal her past. How can he protect her if he doesn’t know what’s making her so skittish?

Escaping an abusive, drug-addicted husband in the dead of night, Jolie Jensen found the perfect hiding place on the Circle C Ranch, working as a cook. This seems to be the safest place she’s found in years, yet fear lingers. Billy Jensen’s bound to find her and their daughter, and with no family, the only person she knows she can lean on is the too-attractive sheriff. He’s shown himself willing to be her protector, but can she protect her heart from the quiet, strong Jake Strayhorn?”

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 I love writing sagas about big families and all of the drama that can be associated with them. And here’s the blurb to LONE STAR WOMAN, Book #1 of this trilogy that was also originally released as a Sadie Callahan book.

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“Jude Strayhorn, the only child of the vast Circle C Ranch’s CEO, is in constant conflict with her father and grandfather. Her greatest desire is to exert her education and influence on the ranch’s operation, but the two men thwart her at every turn. Giving up, she goes outside the Circle C intending to use her trust fund to buy a small spread from a deceased widow’s estate where she can put her ideas into practice. That is, until she runs headlong into the widow’s heir, Brady Fallon, who has his own plans for the 6-0 Ranch.

Brady Fallon is no stranger to Willard County, though he hasn’t been around since childhood. His inheritance needs a lot of work and he needs money to put it back into shape and revive it as a cattle operation. He hires on as a hand at the Circle C Ranch, a move that leads to unexpected benefits for his future as well as unwanted conflict with his boss’s daughter. Can he set his attraction to her aside for his own good?”

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The Strayhorns was always supposed to be a trilogy, so I’ve planned a third book. It will be Cable Strayhorn’s story. Cable is the third Strayhorn cousin who returns to the Circle C Ranch after living away most of his adult life. So far, the title of that book is SON OF THE PLAINS.

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I’m still working on THE HORSEMAN. Almost finished. I’ve had some distractions and writing it has taken much longer than I thought it would. It’s a complex story. I have to wind up the loose ends left in THE TYCOON and THE CATTLEMAN as well as solve the mystery of who is harassing the Lockhart family and try to keep the word count as low as possible. However, I can finally see the top of the mountain. Please hang in there with me. I’ll have it on the market soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guest Author, New Book

Chick Lit

Date Published:  05/31/2017

Only $0.99!

 

“A feel-good, heart-warming, tear-jerking love story.”

The best sort of holiday read, recommended for fans of Jane Costello, Erica James, and Lucy James

“My dog didn’t like men. Actually that was a lie – she didn’t like the men I chose. The only ones who rocked her world had been my father (who was no longer with us), Ross (who was gay), and the butcher on the high street (for obvious reasons).

When Jenni Meadows has the opportunity to expand her dog-grooming business she takes it, and when a nice man appears on her horizon but fails to make any sparks fly, she decides she has enough on her plate with her business without adding a boyfriend into the mix.

Besides, Millie doesn’t like him and when her dog doesn’t like a man, Jenni knows all about it. So why does Millie take a very strange liking to the new vet, especially since he has a taciturn expression, wears a wedding ring, and wields a needle?

Under the Cherry Tree is a tale of love and hope, waggy tails, and cold noses.

 

 

 

Excerpt 

 

 

His name was Rupert, and that should have told me all I needed to know. Not that I’m nameist or anything, but with a name like that there was no way he came from the council estate up the road; the other kids would have decimated him! And he wasn’t a kid, not by a long stretch, not if that chest and those arms were any indication. He was tall too, like many rowers tend to be.

 

Rupert and I moved in entirely different circles, and I don’t know what on earth possessed me to agree to go out on a date with him, though the three glasses of white wine I’d drunk may have had something to do with it. I was drinking for two, because Amber had just that morning found out she was pregnant, and that meant I had to drink her share. Oh, and don’t forget that chest. It bulged and rippled and clung to his body like I wished I could. I only took my eyes off it long enough to make sure he didn’t have two heads. The face above a set of extremely broad shoulders looked nice enough, so I didn’t bother to check again.

 

But why the hell had I agreed to let him take me shooting? Who actually did something like that on a first date? Dinner, a drink, maybe a concert, ice-skating at a push – but definitely not clay pigeon shooting.

 

The only redeeming thing was that he told me I could bring Millie. And did I mention his chest?  If that’s what rowing did for a man, I made a vow to meet more rowers (if this one didn’t pan out).

 

Rupert the Rower. I should have realised, even without the accent, that he was way out of my league. He was an ex-Kings student (private school – very private, because mummy and daddy had to have a great deal of money to send their children there, and he was the youngest of three boys).

 

Then there was the house, or should I say, mansion. As I trundled up the gravelled drive in my little Micra, Millie panting on the passenger seat, I was under the impression this was where the shooting meet was taking place, not that Rupert actually lived there.

 

I pulled my ten-year-old car into a space between a brand-new Range Rover and a top-of-the-range Jag, and clambered out. Hollington Hall. Nice. I wondered if they did wedding receptions. Not that I had any plans on getting married any time soon (had to find the right guy first), but it was something to consider for the dim and distant future. At least I wasn’t like some of my friends who had picked the dress, the shoes, and the bridesmaids’ outfits, all before their sixteenth birthdays! I was merely mildly interested.

 

Surprisingly, for a hotel, the front door was firmly closed.

 

After unclipping Millie from her harness, I carried her up the steps and placed her gently on the ground between a pair of tall columns, and tried to turn the door handle. Locked.

 

There didn’t appear to be a bell, but there was a huge knocker in the shape of a lion’s head, so I banged it a couple of times and waited until  it was opened by an elderly woman in a pinny. She frowned at me.

 

‘I’m here for the shooting,’ I said.

 

She gave me a blank stare.

 

‘With some guy called Rupert? Sorry, I don’t know his last name.’ Perhaps I hadn’t got the right place either, because the large hallway behind her looked nothing like a hotel reception area. It lacked a front desk, for starters. A sleepy spaniel lifted its head and blinked, but made no move to get up. It was probably so used to guests that another one, even one with a dog, was nothing to get excited about.

 

‘Master Rupert,’ the woman said, issuing me with a stony stare.

 

‘Pardon?’

 

‘His name is Master Rupert Hollington.’

 

‘I thought Hollington was the name of this place?’

 

‘It is.’ She opened the grand door a little wider, and moved to the side with a sigh. ‘I’ll let him know he has a guest.’

 

I stepped into the hall, my eyes on stalks. Rupert Hollington of Hollington Hall. Rupert the Rower, who’d gone to Kings and had a plummy accent, and who thought taking a girl clay pigeon shooting on a first date was a good idea.

 

I wanted the highly polished, black-and-white tiled floor to open up and swallow me.

 

The maid/servant/housekeeper (I had no idea what to call her – she might be his long-suffering nanny for all I knew) stalked down the hall and disappeared through a door at the far end, leaving me to stare up at the sweeping staircase with my mouth open. The place was huge!

 

‘Jessie, how lovely you could make it.’ Rupert strode up to me, both hands outstretched, and moved in for a double cheek peck.

 

‘Jenni,’ I corrected him, mortified.

 

‘Are you sure?’

 

‘Erm…yes?’

 

‘Jenni it is then, though I could have sworn you told me your name was Jessie.’

 

‘It was noisy in the pub,’ I said, trying to make him feel better, though to be fair, he didn’t seem in the least bit fazed that he’d got my name wrong.

 

Never mind, it was an easy mistake to make.

 

‘I see you’ve brought your dog,’ he said. ‘Does it retrieve?’

 

I glanced down at Millie, with her white fluffy fur and pink diamante collar. ‘Not even a stick,’ I admitted, wondering why he thought a West Highland Terrier would double up as a retriever. Now if he’d asked about her ability to dig holes…

 

Rupert looked a little put out, but recovered quickly. ‘No bother. Just don’t let it off the lead, or it might interfere with the real dogs.’

 

Was he calling my dog fake? Huh! She was as doggy as any other canine.

 

I had a feeling this date wasn’t going to go as well as I’d hoped, especially when he asked, ‘Are your wellies in the car?’

 

Wellies? What wellies? Oh dear; I hadn’t thought to dress for mud, assuming my leather boots and chunky jacket would be outdoorsy enough. Clearly not. When I took the time to really look at him, I realised he was wearing a Barbour jacket and a pair of green Wellington boots. Both the jacket and the wellies were liberally spattered with mud.

 

‘Is the shoot in a field?’ I asked, pleased to be able to display some shooting terminology.

 

He gave me an odd look. ‘Where else would it be?’

 

Maybe I should have done a bit more research on Google. ‘I’ve never handled a gun before,’ I admitted. ‘The only thing I know about it, is that you call “pull” and then do your best to hit the thingy.’

 

I was unprepared for his sudden burst of laughter. ‘Oh, my dear girl, you’re priceless!’

 

‘Eh?’ So what if I didn’t know the correct term for those flying disk things? I’d already confessed I knew nothing about shooting.’

 

‘We’re shooting pheasant,’ he said, taking my arm and guiding me towards the door he had appeared from.

 

I pulled back. ‘Wait. What? As in real, live birds?’

 

He nodded.

 

‘Ew. No thanks.’

 

‘You don’t have to touch them,’ he said, giving my arm a tug.

 

It wasn’t the touching which bothered me – it was the killing itself. Millie, close by my side, gave a small grumble in the back of her throat, half warning, half concern, and nudged my leg with her nose. I bent to pat her, using the movement as an excuse to shake off his hand.

 

‘Is it friendly?’ he asked, leaning forward and holding out his fingers for her to sniff.

 

Millie drew back behind my legs.

 

‘She,’ I emphasised the word, ‘is perfectly friendly.’ And Millie promptly made me into a liar by emitting a low growl.

 

I tugged at her lead in annoyance, vowing to give her a good telling off later. Not that it would do any good; if a dog had to be admonished for bad behaviour, the ticking off had to take place immediately after the event, else the dog would have no idea why its owner was cross.

 

‘I don’t think shooting is for me,’ I said, and turned to leave. Even if Rupert suggested doing something else instead, I wasn’t sure he was my kind of guy.

 

Millie simply confirmed my thoughts when I glanced down at her.

 

She was weeing on his wellies.

 

 

About the Author

 

Lilac spends all her time writing, or reading, or thinking about writing or reading, often to the detriment of her day job, her family, and the housework. She apologises to her employer and her loved ones, but the house will simply have to deal with it!

She calls Worcester home, though she would prefer to call somewhere hot and sunny home, somewhere with a beach and cocktails and endless opportunities for snoozing in the sun…

When she isn’t hunched over a computer or dreaming about foreign shores, she enjoys creating strange, inedible dishes in the kitchen, accusing her daughter of stealing (sorry – “borrowing”) her clothes, and fighting with her husband over whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher.

 

Contact Links

 

 

Website

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Promo Link

 

 

Purchase Links

 

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Book Launch

New Directions….

I’ve finally done it. I’ve given notice at my day job. I work only 3 days a week, but it feels like 9. The chaos, thus the stress level is off the chart and it takes sooo much “thinking” time away from  writing. I read somewhere once that responsible people don’t leave jobs because they hate the job; they leave because they are unhappy with the management. Enough said.

To be sure, there is motivation beyond that. Number One is realizing that at the moment, I’m  making $3 an hour more than I was when I went there to work 9 years ago and no policy in sight to be paid much more. The past two years, my raises have amounted to 20-cents an hour. I will always wonder just exactly how much having that job cost me.

So, when I thought about the stress level compared to the pay, I just couldn’t find a reason to do it anymore.

Now I’ll be able to concentrate more of my time and energy on writing and I’ll be able to revive this blog. I had given it up because it was just too much to add to trying to write books and do a little marketing. WordPress has made changes since I blogged last and I’ve had to spend a couple of days re-learning enough about WordPress to actually write and send the blog.

I have several projects underway or on the back burner. So here’s my writing plan:

#1 project is to finish THE HORSEMAN, Book #3 of my Sons of Texas trilogy. I’ve blogged here about it before. It will present a romance for Troy Rattigan, horse whisperer and Bill Lockhart, Jr.’s bastard son. It will also complete the arc that began in Book #1, THE TYCOON, and solve the riddle of who is threatening and harassing the Lockhart family and the Double-Barrel Ranch. My books usually are between 25 and 30 chapters. I’m up to 15 chapters now on THE HORSEMAN, so I don’t have too far to go.

#2 project is work on MAN OF THE WEST, sequel to LONE STAR WOMAN and Book #2 of the Strayhorn trilogy, a book that has already been written and traditionally published as a mass market paperback by Sadie Callahan. I FINALLY have the rights back. I’m going to revise it a little and re-release it as an Anna Jeffrey book.

#3 is CLAIMED, the 2^nd book of Miranda’s Chronicles. The first book, DESIRED, is a 40,000-word erotic novella. CLAIMED will be a full novel. I want to complete this duet because I really liked writing in first person and I liked the 2 main characters in this story. When I wrote DESIRED, I believed I had created one of my strongest, therefore best, heroines in Miranda.

#5 is to write Book #3 of The Strayhorn trilogy. This will be Cable Strayhorn’s story. I haven’t settled on a title yet, but I’m toying with MAN OF THE HIGH PLAINS. I’m also thinking about THE PRODIGAL and or THE PRODIGAL OF THE PLAINS, because it will be the story of a Strayhorn heir who leaves the fold for a different life, then returns after personal tragedy. I know—soap opera. 😊 I don’t yet have a cover. I have to settle on a title before I can choose a cover. ….. What do you think about the 3 titles? Would love to hear your comments.

Woven between all of these is a new Dixie Cash zany adventure for the Domestic Equalizers. I’ve got the title: WHEN I SAID YOU’RE THE BOMB, I DIDN’T DREAM IT WAS TRUE. I’ve also got the basic plot idea formed in my head and am doing research. So far, I have only 3 chapters on paper, but the more research I do, the funnier the concept seems to me. The title is a clue to the story. 😉 ….. This will be the biggest challenge of all of all my writing projects because I no longer have my sister as a partner and she is the funny one. I don’t have that “Saturday Night Live” sense of humor that she does. She has too much going on in her life to fool with it.

Also woven among and in between all of this is an attempt to narrate my own audio books. The fees for narrators makes them too expensive to do very many and unless a ton of books sell, it takes too long for the ROI. If I can do a decent job on my own narration, I’ll be releasing more audio books. Doing it myself is relatively inexpensive compared to hiring a narrator.

As you can see, just because I’ve quit my day job doesn’t mean I won’t be busy. 😟 I only hope to live long enough to complete all of these projects. Wish me luck!

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CAN AN OLD DOG LEARN NEW TRICKS?

Or to be more specific, can someone who has been doing something in one way for a very long time learn to do the same thing a different way?

This is a question that looms before me as I embark on a mission to learn Scrivener. I’m starting a class in how to use this program in a couple of weeks. The author who wrote “Scrivener for Dummies” is teaching the class, so she sounds like the perfect teacher for someone like me.

I bought Scrivener months ago. I didn’t even take the “30-day free trial” offer. I was so confident I could use it I just bought it. Because I had more pressing things going on, I let its icon sit on my desktop for a couple of months before I opened it. I’m not an expert at the computer, but I’m reasonably savvy. After an hour with Scrivener, I was ready to pull out my thinning hair.

Since then, I’ve gone back to it. Even tried to fit my WIP (THE CATTLEMAN) into it, but haven’t advanced one iota. So it’s time for a class.

For those of you who have never heard of Scrivener, it’s writing software designed to replace or enhance Microsoft Word. For novelists and screenwriters, it’s supposedly more intuitive and more organized, with authors in mind, than Word.

And why am I trying to do this? Because I want to be faster and more efficient in my writing. I need to be turning out more than one book a year.

I wrote my first book, THE LOVE OF A COWBOY, as a pantster. A pantster is someone who writes organically. Stream of consciousness. Whatever pops into one’s head goes on the page. But being a pantster wastes a lot of time as you can probably imagine. You write stuff, then throw it out and replace it with something new. I don’t know about others, but by that method, I’ve ended up with stories that didn’t resemble the ones I had imagined in the first place.

After I became published by two of the Big Six publishing houses under two different pseudonyms, I no longer had the luxury of being a pantster. Time became precious. I *had* to become an outliner and a planner because I had to present new stories for the editor to consider before she would renew a contract and I had to meet deadlines. Consequently, over time, I developed a clumsy way of outlining in Word and in Excel. And that’s how I’ve written the last few books, with not much time for a story to “gel” in my mind.

But now I want to try something I hope will be better. So here I go into yet another class. <sigh> I’ve taken so many.

“And speaking of THE LOVE OF A COWBOY, it will soon be available in print from Amazon. Hopefully before the end of the month.Amazon has a new feature for authors to offer those who want to hold a printed book in their hands. If you buy the printed edition, you can buy the same book in e-book format for a reduced price. Of course, the author has to opt for this feature. I’ve added this to the books I’ve got in print, THE LOVE OF A LAWMAN and SWEET RETURN. And I will soon be adding it to THE TYCOON.”

Meanwhile, wish me luck as this old dog sets out to learn a new trick.

HECTIC, HECTIC, HECTIC…

AND AN EXCERPT…

Hectic week. Up to my neck in writing. Don’t even have time for opinions.

I’m trying so hard to get THE TYCOON ready to market. I did find some beta readers, but I still haven’t settled on a copyeditor. As it turns out, that appears to be the most expensive part of this e-book project. When I start to get it put into print, I expect that, too, to be expensive.

But I do have the cover! So I have to claim progress. Since I discovered the awesome Kim Killion, the covers have become the easiest part of this.

Here’s an excerpt from the heroine’s first encounter with the hero:

“Her family’s bucks aren’t a temptation to a high-roller like Drake. He’s a lone wolf. And if she hasn’t figured that out, she’s dumber than I think.”

Lone wolf. High-roller. The words stuck in Shannon’s mind as if they had been thumb-tacked. If they were true, the guy was even more dangerous than she had first thought and that idea sent another potent surge through her. “How is it you know him so well?”

“I just do.”

As Shannon puzzled over that non-answer, the beautiful couple and the short man were joined by a slender middle-aged woman. She, too, was tall, with silver shoulder-length hair and draped in silver lame that fell to the tops of silver cowboy boots. She wore chunky Southwest style jewelry. Boots and turquoise were not choices Shannon would have worn with that particular dress, but the look had an old-world panache and screamed I’m-from-Texas-and-proud-of-it.

“And there’s his mommy,” Jordan said snidely. “He’s a mama’s boy.”

Shannon gave Jordan a look. “You really don’t like him, do you?”

“Like I said. He’s an asshole.”

The silver-haired woman and the blonde moved away together, but Drake continued in conversation with the shorter man, seemingly unaware that half the women in the room must surely be drooling over him. Then, he raised his head and for absolutely no reason, turned Shannon’s way. His eyes locked on her for the briefest moment and her heartbeat stuttered. His gaze moved over her and though the whole thing happened in a matter of seconds, Shannon felt as if she had been undressed and thoroughly examined and her whole body grew warm. She turned quickly toward a server and exchanged her empty champagne glass for a full one.

Besides THE TYCOON, I’m starting work on formatting THE LOVE OF A LAWMAN. (This is the original print cover.) I’m getting more proficient at this, so hopefully, I’ll be able to do it a little faster. LAWMAN first came out in print in 2005. I can’t believe it was that long ago. How time flies when you’re having fun.

I say that, but then I get a couple of readers posting on Amazon about all of the mistakes in THE LOVE OF A STRANGER. So I’m also going back through *that* book to see what went wrong there.

Mistakes are very bad. I hate them. I dislike them enough in books I read by other authors, but I absolutely abhor them in books I write myself. <huge sigh>

I offered THE LOVE OF A STRANGER free in the Kindle Book Store a couple of weeks ago. Had very good results, IMHO, and a lot of downloads. It climbed to #3 on the Top 100 Free Books in the Kindle store. Hopefully, Anna Jeffrey found some new readers.

Last, I just want to say that I know you probably grow weary of my comments about writing and what I’m doing with it, but now that I’m my own promoter, I can’t let it slide. Just have to keep blatting about what I’m doing.

I wish I had the time to post on other authors’ blogs, but I just don’t.  So far, the only one I post on is THE NAKED HERO the 2^nd Tuesday of every month. In April, I posted about heroes to laugh at, who were Buddy Overstreet and Vic Martin from the Dixie Cash books. What’s not to like about those two guys? Tall, dark and handsome and tall, bald and tough. LOL

And speaking of Dixie Cash, my sister and I are underway with the next Dixie Cash book. No official title yet, but when I took the poll on this blog, the title most people seemed to like was “You Can Have My Heart, but Don’t Touch the Dog.”  …..  It’s already emerging as a very funny story.

Oh, and one more thing. I’ll be offering THE LOVE OF A STRANGER free again in the Kindle store on May 14^th and 15^th. The link will take you to the page. Hopefully, by then, I will have found the errors and fixed them. So if you would like to read STRANGER, there’s an opportunity to get it free for your Kindle or your computer.  …..  If you have an iPad, an iPod or an iPhone and have the Amazon app downloaded, you can get it there, too.

Related articles

• Work on the Book Goes On… (annajeffreyauthor.wordpress.com)
• ON TO TITLES (bugle blaring in the background)… (annajeffreyauthor.wordpress.com)

AN EXCERPT

My sister and I are pounding away on the next DixieCash epic. We’re up to Chapter 5.

Midland, Texas, where most of the story takes place

One of the main characters in the books is a dog named Wafflle.

And here’s a short excerpt from Chapter 1

The last thing Trudy Coffman wanted on a blistering July day was a trashy alley. As a specialty pet food merchant and the owner of the only pet food bakery in Midland, Texas, she insisted that the area around her shop’s back door be kept neat and clean. LaBarkery did not need an open invitation to bugs and vermin. Trudy had been known to rent a high-pressure hose and blast the alley.

Recently, to her everlasting consternation, the City had placed a Dumpster almost directly behind her back door. The other shop owners up and down strip mall claimed to feel the same about the alley, including the owners of the mom and pop burger joint two doors away. But so far, they hadn’t contributed much physical effort to keeping the Dumpster area clean. As far as Trudy could tell, they hadn’t even reminded their teenage employees who closed at night and took out their garbage to have a care whether they hit the Dumpster.

So after she finished her lunch, she gathered her trash and stepped out into the sunlit alley to dispose of it. To her horror, the area around the Dumpster looked as if a garbage bomb had exploded. Trash cans were upended, including hers. Debris lay everywhere. She knew that unfortunately, she had no choice but to pick all of it up. Besides her personal stake in keeping the alley clean, her neighboring tenants had come to depend on her as the “alley policeman.”

Her shoulders sagged. The temperature hovered around a hundred. “Oh, hell,” she mumbled.

She recognized some of the refuse as coming from her own shop, but sure enough, most of

it had come from the burger joint. On a sigh and a grumble, she righted the garbage cans, placed her plastic bag of trash inside one, then bent and began to pick up the surrounding litter.

Just as she reached for a sack of discarded French fries, a large scruffy dog came from behind the Dumpster and began to wolf down everything in sight. Common sense told her to give a stray dog a wide berth, but he was so thin his sides were sunken and her heart went out to him. Among the things she had never been able to ignore was an animal in need. And for proof, she had two rescue cats, two dogs, an opinionated parrot, two hens and a one-eyed rooster at home.

As she replaced the lid on the trash can, she said to the stray, “Hey, sweetheart, are you friendly?”

The dog looked up at her with soulful brown eyes and wagged its tail, but kept its distance, as if it feared a blow or some other cruel response. From the looks of it, it had been on the street a long time.

She felt a stab in her heart. “Awww, don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”

A soft voice seemed to work. The dog inched toward her. Wagging its tail more, it began to dance around. Trudy noticed it was male. She didn’t know when she had seen an animal so starved since a weekend trip to Juarez with her friends. Down there, mongrels ran free, but they were timid and scared, slinking around with their tails tucked between their legs.

The dog wore a collar, so he had belonged to someone. She saw no tags. Unfortunately, now he had fallen on hard times and was getting by the best he could. A heaviness filled her chest. She related all too closely. Been there, done that. Not that long ago, she, too, had belonged to someone, then been abandoned.

Sand storm that passed over Midland, Texas, February 20, 1894 at 6:00 p.m. Windmills and houses visible just below the whirling sand. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BOOKS AND EXCUSES

I now have the cover for THE TYCOON. And it’s gorgeous.

I’ve already posted the blurb and the trilogy arc a few weeks back. I don’t know when I will get this uploaded. I was hoping for March, but now it might be May. This is taking me so much more time than I originally thought.

I’ve also finished and uploaded THE LOVE OF A COWBOY to Kindle and to Barnes & Noble. This book has been on a journey. I thought I would never get the copyright back. I’m so happy to now have it available again.

The  cover for it is gorgeous, too. The cover designer’s name is Kim Killion. And she’s awesome.

Work on these two projects, as well as some more personal demands on my time, is what has kept me from blogging for the past couple of weeks. There’s just so much to do. I’m trying to figure out how I can give up my day job so I can spend all of my time writing new books and marketing the old ones.

Also, my sister and I are hard at work on a new Dixie Cash epic. We’re up to Chapter 5. Here are some title ideas we’re kicking around. Let me know if you like any of these. Or if you have some ideas of your own, throw those out there, too. Bear in mind a dog and a loud-mouthed parrot will play prominent roles in this story.

1.  “Paws for Love (instead of Pause)”

2.  “You Can Have My Heart, but Don’t Touch My Dog”

3.  “My Heart is Yours, but the Dog is Mine”

4.  “Milk Bone Triangle”

5.  “The Bride Was a Beauty, but the Best Man was a Dog”

6.  “Canine Cupid”

7.  “Canine Custody”

Thinking of titles for these books has always been fun. In the New York publishing houses, selection of titles is done by committee. So please be our “Committee” and help us select a title.

Some of you might have noticed the book movie in the upper right hand corner of this blog has disappeared. The site where I designed it went offline and I haven’t yet mastered another method of putting up the covers. Another time-consuming task. New movie coming soon.

Hang in there with me, folks. Sooner or later I’ll get it together.

WORK ON THE BOOK GOES ON…

Work on the first book of my new trilogy continues. Everything takes so much longer than I thought it would. So many more authors are self-publishing now, which slows down the process. But that’s good that aspiring authors who have been shackled or shunned by traditional publishing are finding an outlet.

I now have a title and have ordered the cover. That’s going to take several weeks. Not too long ago, it took a few days or a week. I don’t know yet how long copyediting will take.

At this moment, I’m planning an e-book release, followed by a POD release through Amazon. The title I’ve landed on for the trilogy is SONS OF TEXAS. And the title for the first book is THE TYCOON. The second book will be called THE COWBOY and the third will be called THE HORSEMAN. The setting is Fort Worth and rural Texas.

The book titles are fairly self-explanatory, but here’s the trilogy arc:

“The three grown children of an old wealthy but dysfunctional Texas ranching family find love in unexpected places in spite of their quarreling parents. Crisis and near tragedy ultimately reunite the parents who have been the root of the family’s breakdown and harmony that has been missing for many years returns to the Double Barrel Ranch.”

And here’s the blurb for THE TYCOON:

“When successful, wealthy Fort Worth businessman, DRAKE LOCKHART, encounters a beautiful redhead at a fancy charity ball, the last thing he expects is a tryst he can’t forget with a woman who disappears. With her continuing to haunt him, he’s driven to search for her. Once he finds her and persuades her to spend time with him, he recognizes that his bachelor days are over. But she has no trust in love or in him and erects barriers between them. Just when he thinks he’s winning her over, without his knowledge, an associate in his powerful company goes head to head with her in a business deal involving real estate she desperately wants. Restoring her faith in him is a challenge Drake must face and win if he’s ever to be happy.

Presented with the opportunity to spend time with one of the most successful businessmen in Fort Worth and one of Texas Monthly’s most eligible bachelors, SHANNON PIPER, smart, successful real estate broker in the small town of Camden, Texas, cannot deny her wilder side. Falling in love with a man she doesn’t trust isn’t on her agenda, yet she can’t ignore his attention or her own attraction to him. Her solution is to confine their relationship to “just sex.” After he claims to love her, his treachery in a business deal proves her original fears well-founded. She can’t easily be convinced she can ever trust him. Her unexpected pregnancy forces both of them to stop playing games and embrace their true feelings.”

Drake

As always, Hugh Jackman is my mental image for Drake, but I haven’t yet found one for Shannon. Sometimes I think of Julia Roberts, but with green eyes. Suffice to say Shannon’s beautiful and smart because all of my heroines are beautiful and smart. This book will be a typical steamy Anna Jeffrey drama. 🙂

Shannon

I had hoped to get it out the door by the end of February, but that isn’t going to happen. So now I’m pushing for the end of March. <sigh> I’m nothing if not flexible.

I welcome your comments.

DIXIE CASH, ER… RIDES AGAIN…

The saga continues. After a lot of angst and hand-wringing, Dixie Cash is going to attempt a comeback.

Here’s a little history. When the marketing department at our publisher, Avon, (an offshoot of Harper-Collins) decided that the public was no longer interested in Debbie Sue Overstreet and Edwina Perkins-Martin, my sister and I more-or-less threw in the towel. The books were getting harder and harder to write anyway and as long as they were being marketed as they were, they really didn’t have a chance to reach their true audience. They were getting to be an exercise in futility.

Our editor at Avon wanted us to come up with new characters and take Dixie Cash in a new direction. We made a stab at that, but after seven books, we were sort of  wedded to Debbie Sue and Ed and their zaniness. After all, we knew them better than we knew our kids.

Our agent believed Debbie Sue and Edwina were not dead. She wanted us to take them to a new publishing house, but at the time, my sister was changing jobs (her *real* job) and neither of our heads was in the right place to give it our all. Still, we made a stab at that, too. We came up with a couple of ideas we thought were good ones, but our agent believed they weren’t “strong “enough.

Through that whole process, I’m asking myself, what was so *strong* about the books we had already written? “Strong” is one of those words you hear bandied about by the New York crowd a lot. I never have known exactly what it means. “Funny” seemed like the word we should have been looking for, since laughter was what we had always wanted.

We have always believed the books should have been marketed at mass market paperbacks, as SINCE YOU’RE LEAVING ANYWAY, TAKE OUT THE TRASH was. TRASH hit the USA Today list and stayed on Walmart’s shelves for a month. And here’s an irony for you. At about the time we were going into contract on a second book, I attended a writers’ conference and sat in a lecture given by a well-known and highly respected New York agent who talked about what a mistake it is to take an author into hardback before a broad fan base had been established.

So what happened? A couple of weeks later, lo and behold, Avon decided to publish MY HEART MAY BE BROKEN, BUT MY HAIR STILL LOOKS GREAT and I GAVE YOU MY HEART, BUT YOU SOLD IT ONLINE, in hardback. My sister and I squalled like mashed cats. We whined to our agent , but she was giddy from the dollar signs swimming in her head. The books went on the market at somewhere around $25. What my sister and I wanted and hoped for were mass market paperbacks in the neighborhood of $5. Volume, you see.

But it was not to be. It goes without saying, the sales on the 2 hardbacks tanked. Avon came out a year later with the same 2 books in trade paperback, but it was too late. The bloom was off the rose.

Unfortunately, Avon didn’t, and still doesn’t,  really have a paperback line in which the Dixie books fit. Avon is, after all, a romance house and the Dixie books aren’t romances. Avon tried to market them in trade paperback as Southern humor, which they love for some reason. But they don’t fit that category either.  And the trade paperback books still had to be sold for $15.

For the most part, the only place they were for sale was in book stores. I don’t know about you, but I know very few people who travel to book stores to buy books. The people I know buy them where they can get them the cheapest, which isn’t book stores. So the Dixie books in trade paperback never did show up regularly in a venue where the largest number of people could even see them, much less buy them. Occasionally, one would show up in Sam’s or Costco or even Target, but that wasn’t a regular thing. They *never* showed up in Walmart stores or in grocery stores. Consequently, the marketing department determined readers must be tired of Debbie Sue and Ed.

I’ve written before about what happens when you sell a book in New York. It can be like finding a pot of gold, i.e., Harry Potter or he “Twilight” series. Or it can be like slipping and falling into a water slide head first.

For a struggling  author, you see, unless you’re Nora Roberts or John Grisham, every day brings a surprise if not a shock. One of the surprises came in the form of a lengthy conference call with a Hollywood producer who pitched a sit-com idea to one of the networks, using Debbie Sue and Edwina as characters. We crossed our fingers on that one, but it was a huge long shot. Beyond that, Avon flew Pam and me all over the South, to book signings, book fairs and festivals, which only went to show that those events don’t do much for sales in the final analysis. We did entertain a lot of people and we had a lot of fun.

So now we’re at it again. Pam and I decided to go ahead and write one of the stories we proposed that our agent rejected. And we’re going to self-publish it. We *do* believe it’s *strong.* It doesn’t have a name yet, but we’ve started. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Keep your fingers crossed for us. Because this time, we’re on our own. And if we screw it up, we’ve got no one to blame but ourselves. Yikes!

ON TO TITLES (bugle blaring in the background)…

Last week, I closed by saying we would talk about titles and how they come to be. So I’m simply going to describe my own experience. I’m not speaking for anyone else. I’m sure every author has a different experience.

“What’s in a name,” we ask. Well, if you’re writing books or songs, the answer is, “A lot.”

I always stick some kind of name on whatever I’m writing. But that doesn’t mean that’s what I will finally call it. But you have to have a way to identify the file, if nothing else.

I sold my first book in a 3-book contract. I had titled it “For the Love of a Cowboy.” I had this notion that the title should perhaps reflect something about the book. Since the book was Dahlia’s story (the heroine), I wanted it to say what she did because she fell in love with a cowboy.

Well, it took only about 30 seconds for the editor to inform me that for marketing reasons, they had changed the title to THE LOVE OF A COWBOY. I did not know at the time that the marketing department has almost as much sway as the editors.   …..  Granted, they hadn’t changed it much.  So, I said, “Fine.” Because I didn’t really care what they called it.  …..  Nobody in publishing tells you much. You sort of have to ferret out information on your own or learn it by accident. So it took me 3 books to learn that most of what happens with books is decided by committee, of which the marketing department is a large part.

I titled my next book “Out of Ashes.” The story had a fatal fire in it, which played into my thoughts at the time. But I also thought about Doug and Alex, the hero and heroine building a relationship out of the ashes of their troubled lives. Melodramatic, huh?  …..  I did not know at the time that a book about Saddam Hussein had the same title.  😦  …..  Although, thinking back, I don’t know if that would have mattered.

At that point, I had a new editor who didn’t like the story or the characters and who was a bit more heavy-handed than the editor who bought me originally. She and my agent got together and renamed the book, THE LOVE OF A STRANGER. Again, I didn’t care. But I learned something.

I didn’t even put a title on the 3rd book. I just called it Book #3 and waited for them to name it. And they did. They called it THE LOVE OF A LAWMAN.

In the end, all 3 of the books were appropriately named, I thought, though they were not titles I chose. All 3 of the stories are set in the same small town in Idaho, and the play on the phrase, “The Love of,” seemed like a good marketing idea.

My next experience was with SWEET WATER. My title for that book was “The Mayor of Agua Dulce.” The book is set in the West Texas desert and a well for drinking water was an important item. Marisa (the heroine) is the de facto mayor and agua dulce is Spanish for “sweet water.” The marketing department thought the title was too long and too many people wouldn’t know what it meant, so they changed it….I liked *my* title, but again, I just moved on.

I had absolutely no idea what to call what finally became SALVATION, TEXAS, but I knew they would come up with something. Imagine my surprise when they decided to call the book the name of the town in the book.

When SWEET RETURN rolled around, my editor was about to leave on her 2nd maternity leave and just wanted to get a title on the book. She asked me for some ideas (shock) and I sent a long list. They decided on one that wasn’t even on my list. I think they took it from a sentence toward the end of the book. I protested slightly because of already having a book out called SWEET WATER and I even whined to my agent. But the editor said, “Look, do you really want to wait a week or two for a title and have my assistant go through another meeting on this?”  ….   I didn’t, so I acquiesced.

With LONE STAR WOMAN, I was hoping for the title to say “Texas” loud and clear. I asked for that and they worked with it. It was the 1st of what was supposed to be a 3-book series, all set in the same small town in the Texas Panhandle. MAN OF THE WEST followed, which seemed logical, although that’s also the title of an old Gary Cooper western movie. But hey, I could be in worse company than Gary Cooper. 🙂

Those 2 books were written as Sadie Callahan, which is another long, boring publishing story. I’ve got the rights back now to “Lone Star Woman.” Suffice to say, this book will be re-issued by me as an ANNA JEFFREY book.

The same applies to “Man of the West,” although I don’t know when, if ever, I will get the copyright back. If and when that happens, I will probably re-write the ending, as a lot of readers have hated the ending. I wasn’t fond of it myself, but I ran out of time and space.

Obviously, the 3rd book, Cable’s story, never got written and I have no idea what the title would be. I might write it yet and self-publish it. Then I’ll have to start the title search all over again.

So that’s how it works with titles. I don’t know if everyone in the publishing house committee gets to vote on it or what. But since an author no longer owns the book once it’s sold to a publisher, it’s purely a courtesy if an editor uses a title an author wants or likes. My sister had a great title idea for a Dixie Cash book, we thought, but it was completely ignored for several books and never did see the light of day.

Is it any wonder that indie authors are enjoying this new-found independence?

Although book content is copyrighted, the titles are not. Nor are the titles to songs. That’s why you see titles repeated. If one sold particularly well, then the publishers have no qualms about using it over and over again, whether it relates to the story or not. It’s all about sales and money, you see.

Now, for the first time, I’m dithering over the title to my new series and it’s going to be solely my decision. I’ve had a dozen ideas float through my head, all of which I’ve rejected up to now. Maybe I need that committee.

So far, I’m settled on  THE LOCKHARTS OF TEXAS – DRAKE  for Book #1. Sort of like Linda Lael Miller has named her McKettrick and Creed series. But by the time I’m ready to publish it, I might come up with something I like better.

It’s one of my typical Anna Jeffrey mainstream angsty romances. Sort of. But I’m trying to make it a little meatier. You recall the TV show, Dallas? It has that flavor. Big, old, rich, Texas dysfunctional family and their trials and tribulations.

If you have any title ideas, folks, by all means, throw them out there. I consider *everything.*  ….. In fact, I believe one of you gave me the name of this blog.  🙂  And I thank you.