Download Ebook

Decades (Book # 1) Top 5 on Movers and Shakers. This bestselling classic is the compelling story of a marriage at risk, a family in crisis and a woman on the brink set against the tumultuous decades of the mid-twentieth century. "Absolutely perfect." ...Publisher's Weekly "Terrific!" ...Cosmopolitan "Powerful. A gripping novel." ...Women Today Book Club

Husbands And Lovers (Book #2) Million copy New York Times bestseller! Top 10 on Movers & Shakers! Winner, Best Contemporary, Romantic Times! The story of a shy wallflower who turns herself into a lovely and desirable woman and the two handsome, successful men who compete for her love. "A contemporary tale of passion and commitment. Steamy and fast-paced, you will be spellbound." ...Cosmopolitan

Love And Money (Book #3) #1 on Amazon's Movers and Shakers. Honored by the Literary Guild and the Book-of-the-Month Club. Rich girl, poor girl. Sisters and strangers until fate--and murder--bring them face to face. "Richly plotted. First-class entertainment." ...NY Times "Fast-paced, superior fiction. A terrifically satisfying 'good read.'" ...Fort Lauderdale News Sun-Sentinel

Modern Women (Book # 4) Million-copy NYT bestseller! #1 on Movers and Shakers! Three likable, dynamic women--and the men in their lives. The right men. The wrong men. The maybe men. "Funny, sad, vivid, and raunchy. Harris seeks to enliven and entertain, and she does it in spades." ...The Cleveland Plain-Dealer  "Ruth Harris's rapier wit spices up a superb 'rags to riches' novel. You'll love Modern Women." ...West Coast Review of Books "Sharp and stylishly written." ...Chicago Sun-Times

The Last Romantics (Book # 5)--A sweeping love story set in Paris and New York during the glamorous Jazz Age of the 1920's. He is dashing, handsome and celebrated but dangerously flawed. She is beautiful, talented, lonely, haunted. Fate brings them together but will the tides of history keep them apart? "I love it, I love it! Fantastic, immensely readable." ...Cosmopolitan "Gloriously romantic" ...Kirkus
The Harper's Bazaar UK Short Story Prize is open to all writers. NO ENTRY FEE. Are you the next Dorothy Parker or Anita Loos? Submit an original short story (up to 3,000 words) on the subject of 'spring' to:shortstory@harpersbazaar.co.uk. The winning entry will appear in the May 2014 issue. Its author will be able to choose a first-edition book from Asprey's Fine and Rare Books Department to the value of £3,000 and enjoy a week-long retreat at Eilean Shona House, on the 2,000-acre private island off the west coast of Scotland where JM Barrie wrote his screenplay for Peter Pan. Deadline December 13th.

The Rumpus has launched the Weekly Rumpus and is calling for submissions. They are interested in "sharp, fresh, original work that grapples with life as it is really lived and felt in the world today. We want writing that walks on a wire, questions conventions, conveys a vision." 1000-6000 words. Here's their submissions page.

SMOKE AND MIRRORS podcasts. Get your short story recorded FREE for an online podcast! Fantastic publicity if your story is accepted by SMOKE AND MIRRORS. They broadcast about three stories a week. Spooky, dark tales preferred. No previous publication necessary. They judge on the story alone.

WILD LIGHT POETRY CONTEST The $25 entry fee is a little pricey, but this is run by the prestigious Red Hen Press and offers a prize of $1,000 and publication in The Los Angeles Review. Submit up to three poems of up to 200 lines each. Deadline October 15th.

***

This week Anne is visiting the Alliterative Allomorph, where she's talking about how the indie revolution has positively affected all readers, even if you still only buy paper books at brick and mortar stores. 

One of the biggest changes the e-reader has brought to the publishing industry doesn't get much cyberink in the online book community.

It's the huge international market that's opening up now that we don't have to pay to ship physical books around the world.

If, like me, you've ever experienced that terrible moment on vacation when you discover you have nothing left to read in your native tongue but a copy of Henry James' The Golden Bowl you got in trade for your last Agatha Christie in that Athens hostel...you know how tough it used to be to find English language books abroad.

Some pretty scary things have been happening in the online book world recently—stuff that's been shocking to those of us who expect our fellow book-lovers to behave like civilized adults.

I spend a lot of time telling new authors how to use social media to create a "platform," but I probably don't warn you enough about the dangers. I did write a post last spring on Gangs of New Media, talking about how the "hive mind" and rage addiction are adversely affecting our industry.

Unfortunately, so many authors have turned into non-stop spam machines that anti-author sentiment is on the rise. There are sites where anti-writer gangs dominate, and others that are tyrannized by groups who treat the Internet as a giant video game in which naivete is a crime and innocents are there to be slaughtered.

The bigger and older the site, the more likely it is to attract sociopaths and semi-literate potty-mouths. I'll be writing a series of posts starting in October about how to stay safe in this increasingly hostile environment.

But international legal teams and the media are gathering information. You can leave an incident report for NBC news here. It's better not to discuss specifics in the comments of this blog, or we'll attract trolls. (If you see a nasty comment, don't respond. That's what they want.)

However, a few out-of-control thugs don't make the entire online book world a bad place.

There are wonderful communities where new writers can network, learn, and comfort each other as they learn the ropes and go through the long and often painful process of learning to be professional authors. As creatives, we're confronting our demons and putting our raw souls out here in public every day, and we need places where we can feel protected and safe.

One of those places is the Insecure Writers Support Group, founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh.

Alex is one of the writing world's most prolific bloggers as well as the author of the bestselling Cassastar sci-fi series.

He's also one of my fellow contributors to the Indiestructible anthology, which donates profits to charity.

The IWSG, which turned two years old this week, is one of the most helpful online writing communities I've come across.

Blogger Julie Luek of "A Thought Grows" says, "I feel like I need to throw a little confetti in honor of Alex and the two year IWSG birthday. Thanks, Alex, for pulling a bunch of disconnected, fearful writers together. You've left quite a legacy in the writing-blog world."

I know. Rejections hurt.

But they're also a necessary part of your career as an author. So when you get your first one, give yourself time to feel the pain, then do something to celebrate. Maybe even print it out and frame it.

Yup. You read that right. Congratulations!

You now have the one thing that all professional writers have in common. Every single professional writer gets a boatload of rejections.

But you know what's worse than rejections?

No rejections.

The rejection system is part of your education in the publishing industry. Getting your work accepted before you've had time to learn about the business can backfire. Big time. You can get scammed or talked into signing a bad contract, or you can bumble into a comedy of errors the way I did.

The first agent I queried accepted me as a client. Great, right?

Not so much.

I'd sent out my query to one of the top agencies in L.A., got a request for a full manuscript, and a week later I heard from her assistant—a man about to become an agent in his own right—who was in love with my manuscript.  In a delightful British accent, he pronounced my story "hilarious" and said he'd "show it around to a few people."

So—since I'd heard you should  never phone an agent—I sat around and waited. And waited. Six months. Nothing. No contract. No word of anything. Finally I sent off a letter (no email in those days) asking if anything was happening. No word. So I waited some more. A month later, I finally phoned the agency.

Seems "my agent" had left the business a couple of weeks after we'd talked and gone back to England.

Thunk.

So I queried another agent. (No, I hadn't thought to keep querying during that eight months. I was naive enough to think that phone call meant what I had was a done deal.)

So did I finally get a rejection? Nope—acceptance, but again, no contract. My book went out to a dozen editors over six months, with no takers—so the agent dropped me.

Double thunk.

But I soldiered on. I bought Jeff Herman's Guide to Literary Agents and sent well-researched, targeted queries to dozens of agents. I was sure if I got two agents right off the bat, I could get my pick of others.

Ha! That's when I got the rejections. Hundreds of them. And they hurt worse because I'd set myself up to think I'd be easily accepted.

I'd search every one for clues to what was "wrong" with the book and go into a frenzy of rewriting.

• When an agent said, "I just can't connect with these characters," I'd make every character a little more bland.
• When an agent said "this plot is confusing," I'd eliminate the subplots. 
• When an agent said "humorous fiction is a hard sell," I'd remove the jokes. 
• When an agent said she was no longer taking adult fiction; she only wanted YA, I'd try to rewrite the story as YA.

So after years of rejections and rewrites, did I have a gorgeous, perfect book every agent would love?

No. I had an unreadable mess.

I wrote other books and went through the submission process with a few more agents and finally got my big break with a small UK publisher.

But that poor, much-rejected, over-edited book sat in a drawer, unloved.

I figured it was that practice novel that would never see print, even though my beta readers kept asking why I hadn't published it because it was their favorite.

Then about a year ago an old friend who had been cleaning out his garage came by with the manuscript of that abandoned book. He had one of the earliest versions, in printout and on a CD.

I looked over that old, unedited version and realized it was a pretty good story. It needed a polish, but it was 100% better than the Frankenbook I'd created while editing it to death—trying to please all the people all the time.

Recently I sent that ancient ms. to my publisher.

He loved it.

He wants a ton of edits, of course, and a new title.

The title we've decided on is The Lady of the Lakewood Diner. It will be #3 in my Boomer trilogy together with Food of Love and The Gatsby Game.

It's a fun, breezy romp through the last six decades, as a sixty-something small-town grandma tries to figure out who's trying to kill her childhood best friend—an aging rock star who calls herself Morgan le Fay. Think Beaches meets Mama Mia! at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

While I get to work on the edits, my friend and mentor, the phenomenal Catherine Ryan Hyde will tell you why you should never, ever do what I did.

Catherine is not only the author of the iconic novel that gave us the phrase Pay it Forward  but her three newest titles Walk Me Home, When I Found You, and Where We Belong rocketed her to the top of Amazon's bestseller list this summer.

She even knocked J.K.Rowling off her perch as the #1 top selling author on Amazon.

And now you're going to see why Catherine's career has been so successful: she never doubts her muse.
                                                                                                                                                        ...Anne
Between the time I wrote my first novel (my critique group didn’t much like it) and the time I wrote my third novel (ditto) I was unable to interest an agent in my work. Sound like anybody you know?

I sent out about 25 queries with synopses and sample materials, just like they asked me to do. And I waited. And not one single one of those agents wanted to know anything more about me or my novels. They either were not accepting new clients (or claimed they were not), or were “unable to give my work the enthusiasm it so obviously deserved.”

Right, I know. It’s incomprehensible. It’s not just you.

In an effort to batter down that brick wall, I decided I would market my own short fiction. Much easier. Right?

Over the next year or so, I received 122 rejections on about a dozen short stories. And no acceptances.

How did I keep going? A little bit of mentorship. A couple of authors in my critique group were much better published, and they said things like, “This happens to all authors,” and, “It’s right around the corner for you.”

Finally…finally, finally (did I mention that it was after a bit of a wait?) I received my first short story acceptance.

Five days later I received my second.

Nine days after that I received my third.

So, a year of nothing but rejection. Followed by three story acceptances in the span of two weeks. What does this say about the pattern of acceptance and rejection? So far as I know, nothing. There’s not much to be said, because there really is no pattern. A lot of it is just the luck of the draw. Getting the right story to the right editor on the right day.

Here’s the most important thing I want to tell you about my short story rejections: every one of those stories went on to find a home. And I did not rewrite them based on what each editor said.

It’s a good thing I didn’t, too.

That first acceptance was from a magazine called South Dakota Review, for my short story Earthquake Weather. South Dakota Review was a pretty darned good magazine for my first time out. Based in a reputable university, they’d been publishing stories for over 20 years.


Just before I sent Earthquake Weather to South Dakota Review, I got it back rejected from a magazine of much smaller reputation. It was called the Belletrist Review, may it rest in peace. They said they liked the story as a whole but felt there was a “hollowness” to the characters.

The editor at South Dakota Review was one of a very few who was nice enough to write an actual acceptance letter, telling me why he chose the story. He said I showed poise in the way I depicted the characters with brief brush strokes.

Hear what just happened?

• The characters have a hollowness. 
• The characters are depicted with brief brush strokes.

One editor took it for the same reason the other editor rejected it.

Now picture me getting it back from Belletrist Review and revising it. After all, I don’t want the characters to be hollow. Then I send it to South Dakota Review, and the editor shakes his head. Because I’ve shown no poise in the way I depict the characters. Because I used far too many brush strokes.

Yes, I do mean to say you should not revise based on rejection. 


If you had a first date with someone who didn’t fall madly in love with you, would you just keep changing yourself until they did? And, as a follow-up question, do you think they ever would?

You should fix a story if you agree that it’s broken, but for no other reason.

In the meantime, just keep looking for someone who loves it for what it is.

Even if you have to weather 122 editors who don’t.

The Oxford dictionary says the word "anthology" comes from a Greek phrase meaning a collection of flowers. I love that image. An anthology is a place to display literary or musical works that have been chosen to work together—like a floral bouquet.

Only 99c!

I've had the privilege of contributing to seven great anthologies over the past few years. The latest, a collection of personal essays from a broad spectrum of successful authors, debuts this month: Indiestructible: Inspiring Stories from the Publishing Jungle.

It's especially empowering for writers thinking of going the self-publishing or small press route. But all writers will enjoy the stories of authors' struggles and successes on the road to publication. It's a wonderfully inspiring book—and only 99c!


Anthologies have long been one of the best ways for a new writer to get publishing credits and start building an audience. They're also a great way for an established author to increase visibility. Collections of short personal essays do especially well, but theme anthologies that include fiction and poetry are strong sellers, too, and their popularity is growing.

Unfortunately, anthologies have got themselves a bad name among a lot of savvy people in the industry, because so many vanity publishers and scammers have used them to bilk naïve writers.

Here are the types of good and not-so-good anthologies you may encounter:



The vanity poetry anthology has been around for at least half a century. I remember when a sweet older poet in my town got so excited by her "acceptance" that she sent out press releases before she realized she'd been had.

The operation works like this: writers are invited to enter a "free contest" with a "prize" of inclusion in an anthology. Thing is, every piece entered gets accepted and the books cost $40 or more. So for $40 a copy, you get the privilege of seeing your work crammed into a huge book with a boatload of dreck. As Joe Konrath says, "Do the numbers. If there are 3000 poems in the book, and each writer in the anthology bought at least one copy, the publisher made $120,000."

Poetry dot Com was a famous vanity anthology outfit that flourished in the last decade. (The domain name has been bought by Lulu, where they're attempting to rehabilitate the brand.)


The bogus poetry anthology is bad, but there are other, even nastier scams out there. Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware tells of two vanity anthologies who have bilked writers out of up to $5000 each in what she calls the "pay to play" anthology scam. These anthologies of personal essays often mimic the highly successful Chicken Soup books, but instead of paying you, they expect you to pay them. Lots.

The Wake Up…Live the Life You Love series publishers boasted they included articles by well-known inspirational speakers like Dr. Wayne Dyer...but the pieces were simply reprints of old articles. Then they required contributors to buy up to 500 books each at a cost of several thousand dollars.

Another series, published by Inspired Living Publishing, required contributors to pay big bucks for worthless “marketing packages” as well as a huge number of overpriced books.

Always check Writer Beware before you sign on the dotted line.

However, most anthologies are fantastic venues for your writing. There are many good ones, both in print and ebook.



These are a boon to newbies. The venerable Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies and their cousins are an excellent way to start a professional writing career. (Alas, the Cup of Comfort series from Adams Media has quit production, and I see McAfee blocks their old site as dangerous, so don't go looking for them.) These collections usually pay a flat fee for a personal essay, plus a generous number of copies.

Acceptance can be a big ego boost, and it's a nice credit for your query letter or author bio. (Authors planning to go indie should work on getting credits, too. They show you have a body of work that has been vetted, which helps you stand out from the crowd.)

Right now, short fiction anthologies are trending. Short fiction is ideal for reading on phones and tablets. For more on the new popularity of short fiction, see my posts, Short is the New Long and Why You Should Be Writing Short Fiction.  and a piece in praise of short stories in BookRiot this week.

Because of all this, some publishers are bringing back vintage short fiction in new collections. This week, Sarah Weinman's compilation of vintage Ellery Queen stories, Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense, makes its debut from Penguin.

Publishers often put together an anthology with a theme and issue an open call for submissions. They usually pay a flat fee for first rights and may also give copies.

C. Hope Clark's Funds for Writers and Poets and Writers classifieds are good places to find vetted anthologies looking for submissions.

A few years ago, I found a call for submissions from the Silver Boomer press in Hope's newsletter and sold a poem to the anthology: From the Porch Swing, Memories of our Grandparents . I got paid and became a "published poet" at a time I couldn't give my fiction away. An excellent experience, (although I might have wished for more colorful cover.)


Indie publishers often put together short story anthologies to showcase their clients' work. The Saffina Desforges Presents Coffee Break Collection is a showcase of MWiDP authors. Inclusion helped me get the attention of fans of their better known authors when I first signed with them.

Genre groups like Sisters in Crime sometimes put together themed anthologies like Somewhere in Crime, a collection of historical mysteries written by the members of the Central Coast Sisters in Crime chapter. It's a fantastic collection by some of the area's best crime writers.

These days, a launch party for a single title isn't terribly cost effective, but launching an anthology for a large group of local writers gets on the local news and can garner everybody more visibility on their home turf. I didn't have time to contribute to Somewhere in Crime, but I got to go to a great party and buy a wonderfully entertaining book.

Sometimes indie authors get together to put out a theme ebook anthology like the WG2E Martini Madness. Since I happened to have a story on hand about drinking appletinis with an alien, I rushed to contribute to that one.

The overhead on an ebook or POD anthology is much less than the old print anthologies so they're cheaper to put together—and they showcase all the authors to each others' fans


Charity anthologies are hot. These are the ones where you donate your work and the proceeds go to a good cause. Both small publishers and self-publishing collectives have had success with these. Jump on the chance to be included if you get an invitation. No, you won't make any money directly, but you'll get a huge amount of free publicity and exposure to new readers.

Plus you're doing a good thing.

Also, a charity anthology saves the editorial staff the paperwork headaches trying to get small royalties to dozens of people. It's win/win. Just make sure you run it by the charity first to make sure you can use their name.

Author Paul Fahey—former editor of Mindprints magazine—put together an anthology of essays by well-known LGBT authors called The Other Man, published by JMS publishing this summer. It is getting fantastic coverage in the trad print magazines as well as online. Many of the contributors are well known, established authors. Profits go to the "It Gets Better" project that helps bullied LGBT teens. (I personally recommend this one for readers who don't mind a little "R" rated content. Every essay is fascinating—and what a great cause!) And it's 40% off on the JMS site this weekend.

Probably the most successful charity anthology I've been involved with was the inspiring Indie Chicks Anthology of personal essays by independent women authors, which donates all its proceeds to breast cancer research. I'm sure the Indie Chicks are partly responsible for the success I'm having now. The anthology included some of the top indie authors in women's fiction, mystery, and romance. Since they invited
me just as my first novel Food of Love was being republished in 2011, I got a ride on their coattails. Their many fans read my piece and checked out my work. I'm very grateful to this terrific group of women.

I'm also grateful to the (now disbanded) Literary Lab, who accepted my work for two of their anthologies: Genre Wars and Notes from Underground at a point when my fiction writing career was stalled and I was starting to despair. Proceeds went to literacy charities. Not only did I get my work into print again and put my name back into the marketplace, but I met a group of awesome writers who were supportive and helpful at a low point in my career.

Now it's four years later and I'm totally jazzed to be included in Indiestructible with some of the authors who appeared in the Literary Lab books. It also includes a number of authors who frequently visit this blog. It gives 100% of proceeds to BUILDON.org, an international movement which breaks the cycle of poverty, illiteracy, and low expectations through service and education.

Indiestructible brings together the experiences of 29 indie authors—their passions, insights, and successes—to help new authors who are trying to decide if they should make the leap into indie publishing.

It's not a how-to guide, but it gives you first-hand information to help you on your journey.

The editor of Indiestructible is author Jessica Bell, whose blog, the Alliterative Allomorph was one of the first blogs I followed when I ventured into the blogosphere.

Remember how I keep telling you networking on blogs will help your career? This is one of the ways. Invitations to six of the seven anthologies came to me through people I met on blogs.

Or you could try putting together an anthology yourself. If you know a group of writers who write in a similar genre, whose work you admire, think about asking them to join you. It's hard work, but if everybody works on the marketing, you can reach a huge audience you'd never find on your own.

What about you, scriveners? Have you ever contributed to an anthology? Was it a good experience? Have you ever been scammed by one? Have you discovered new authors reading anthologies? 

This week: I'm visiting Canadian author June McCullough to talk about my upcoming books any my own favorite characters. (And thanks, my Canadian fans, for making the Camilla boxed set #16 in single women's fiction this week!)

This month: while I recover from some surgery that's turned out to be a bigger deal than I expected, we'll have a parade of superstar guest posters:

September 8th: Catherine Ryan Hyde, a literary icon who reached #1 author status on Amazon this summer—she even knocked J.K. Rowling off her perch—will talk about rejection: what it means and what it doesn't.

September 15th: Alex J. Cavanaugh, sci-fi author, blogging ninja, and one of my fellow Indiestructible contributors, will post about forming a blog community, something he knows a lot about.

September 22nd: The blokes from EBookBargainsUK will tell us about the vast, untapped international market every indie needs to know about. (BTW, EBUK has had some technical difficulties this weekend but should be up and running by next week.)

September 29th: Our own NYT bestseller Ruth Harris is back in her regular spot, talking about how to protect yourself from writing scams.

On a personal note: For those concerned about my health, the lump they removed was benign and I'm going to be fine. I just need more time to heal.

It's been complicated by the fact I broke my own rules recently and let my inner Atticus Finch speak up at an ill-advised moment. (Never try to reason with rageaholics: you're only volunteering to be their next fix.) A legal team who monitors online hate groups informed my publishers I've been marked to be targeted with negative reviews and other harassment. So if you see any trollish comments here, ignore them—don't make my mistake and respond—and I'll delete ASAP.

And please, anybody who has read and enjoyed the humor of the Camilla Randall Mysteries, if you could take the time to write a genuine review on Amazon—I desperately need your help. It would make all the difference. Only a couple of sentences are necessary and all that's required is to be an Amazon customer. Waking up every day to a new nasty review by some "reviewer" who only repeats what other negatives has said and has never reviewed anything else gets pretty discouraging.

Bonus: any English major who notes in a review the parallels between the first Camilla book and Fanny Burney's 1796 novel, Camilla, a Picture of Youth, gets your choice of any of my books—paper or ebook—free.