This is the edit that never ends!

Dear Liana,
  I enjoyed EVEN VILLAINS FALL IN LOVE, when's book two come out?

Reader


*curls in a ball and sobs*

*peeks at Reader*

Do you know I wrote a song about Book 2? It goes like this...

THIS IS THE EDIT THAT NEVER ENDS! IT GOES ON AND ON MY FRIEND! I STARTED WRITING THIS, NOT KNOWING WHAT TO DO, AND I'LL CONTINUE WRITING THIS FOREVER JUST BECAUSE.... THIS IS THE EDIT THAT NEVER ENDS!!!!!

If you sing that constantly for three or four hours you might be able to hit the mental state I'm currently in with my EVERY HERO NEEDS A VILLAIN edits. I've rewritten this book twice. I've ripped it's guts out, edited, polished, and then decided to repeat the whole process again.

Why?

Because it's not Right yet.

It's Good, but Good isn't Great. Good isn't RIGHT. Good isn't PERFECT. And I won't be happy until this book is perfect, even if it means I sing THIS IS THE EDIT THAT NEVER ENDS! twenty billion times a day and rock in the corner with superhero action toys while I try to work out the next fight scene (true story).

I think the End is Nigh. Even the Mayans predicted that I would finish the edits by December 21st. Check their calendar if you don't believe me. And I did tell my betas they could yell if I didn't have the edits to them by the 15th. So... if everything goes as planned... Book 2 is coming out in Late Spring 2013.

And, if everything goes according to Liana's Master Plan! you will get Book 3 Winter of 2013.

*throws confetti in the air*

Now, I'm going to crawl back into my deep, dark editing hole while you, Dear Reader, go play in the sunshine safe in the knowledge that there are books in your future. #HaveACookie
-Liana

#SFFSat - Game Changes

Welcome back to Science Fiction and Fantasy Saturday! Make sure you check out all the other posts when you're done here!

*forget anything you saw earlier*

How's that for a Jedi mind trick?

I mixed up posts for the past two weeks and an out-of-order post showed up before I remembered to fix it. So, if you saw anything from DUNGEON CRAWL just forget about it. The real snippet for this week is from EVERY HERO NEEDS A VILLAIN, book two of the Heroes and Villains series. There are dual story lines in EHNAV, the present day which takes place just after the events of EVEN VILLAINS FALL IN LOVE where Tabitha is questioned about her absence from the superhero world, and the When We Met storyline that gives Tabitha a chance to explain why she fell in love with a villain.

In this snippet Tabitha is sent to guard a very expensive necklace and finds that Dr. Charm is already at the auction. Katrina is her handler/boss.

"Tabitha, do you have any idea what time it is?"

"No, I'm so sorry, I need to report in. Doctor Charm is here."

"What?" Katrina screeched.

"I went to dinner and I saw Doctor Charm. He was at a cafe not a mile from the hotel."

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as I can be without a DNA test!"

"Did you talk to him?"

"No!" What was I supposed to say? Sorry about your arm, want to make out again? By the way, I love how you kiss, can we forget about that whole dead minion thing? Hi! Remember me? We wrecked your lab together, or I wrecked it, but we kissed afterward so that makes it okay.

Social Networking and the 10% Rule

Ten percent. It's an important number to remember, especially for new authors who wind up pouring their time into blogging and social networking.

Ten Percent...
Ten Percent of your words should be on a public forum such as the blog, Face Book, or Twitter.
-- The average tweet is about 20 words long, that means you would write 200 words for each tweet.

Ten Percent of your followers will read any given post.
-- Out of the 243 blog followers about 24 regularly hit the blog on any given day. Out of my 1000+ Twitter followers I expect 100 to see any given tweet.

Ten Percent of your network are readers.
-- If I want to estimate sale generated by a blog post or Twitter feed I calculate the 10% after subtracting overlap from other source like blog readers who are also Twitter followers.

Ten Percent of your writing time should be business time.
-- If I have two hours a day to write I have roughly 15 minutes of that to devote to email, sending out review requests, and doing the busy office work that keeps the wheels turning. The more you write, the more you have in print, the more office work you're going to have.

Ten Percent of royalties should be set aside to pay it forward.
-- This is a rule I made for myself and don't expect or ask anyone else to follow. When I decided to take my writing from the "just for fun" to the "I want to get published" phase I set up my budget (because I like excel worksheets) and allotted percentages of my hypothetical income to the various things that I know are part of the Office Work of publishing. In my budget, ten percent is set aside for a specific charity for each book. If I ever publish JANE DOE ten percent of my royalties will go to the Wounded Warrior Project. For EVERY HERO NEEDS A VILLAIN the charity is March of Dimes. The tie ins are obvious when you read the books.

But I don't have a charity picked for EVEN VILLAINS FALL IN LOVE. I've gone back and forth considering child-focused charities, school, and battered women's shelters trying to decide which is the best fit. I know this is all hypothetical, I haven't seen a royalty statement yet, but it's something that bothers me because it's a loose end I need to wrap up.

So... which charity should get the ten percent?

And... do you have a ten percent rule? Do you think expecting ten percent of your follower to be readers is too high a number? To low? Let me know in the comments below!

What's your superpower?

In the Heroes and Villains universe there are four types of people: superheroes, super villains, rogues, and civilians. In gaming terms these people would be Lawful Good, Chaotic Evil, True Neutral, and Non-Player Characters.

Whose side are you on?

If you lived in the Heroes and Villains universe, what would you be? Are you a superhero, standing for tight spandex and killer smiles? A super villain with an over-the-top scheme and cunning minions? A rogue might do anything next?

I'm working on EVERY HERO NEEDS A VILLAIN, so leave your secret identity in the comments and you might find yourself surviving to the final draft (or not - I make no promises).

#SixSunday - Meet and Greet

In EVEN VILLAINS FALL IN LOVE the MMC Evan (aka Dr. Charm) tells his version of the night he met his wife, Tabitha. The events in EVFIL take place seven years after Evan and Tabitha get married and she never has a chance to tell her side of the story.

Why would a beautiful superhero marry a super villain anyway?

Tabitha's side of the story is Heroes and Villains Book #2: EVERY HERO NEEDS A VILLAIN and this is a snippet from their first meeting...

"You're the one that called." Fear choked me. My voice came out as a low, smoky purr rather than a clear alto.

His fingers steepled in front of his mouth. "You know," he said with a contemplative air, "I think I would have remembered calling someone like you. Almost positive, in point of fact; I make a habit of not calling superheroes."

A super villain at the top of his game must choose between the world he wants and the woman he loves.

Excerpt

Breathless Press | Amazon | 1 Place For Romance | Bookstrand | All Romance eBooks

Want more? Go check out all the authors at the Six Sentence Sunday site and see what they have to say. Or go to Twitter and check out #SixSunday

Want to join? Sign up, pick a project, pick six sentences, post on Sunday, it's that simple!

P.S. Since it is Easter Sunday I'll be reading posts on Monday while I eat jelly beans. :o)