GENREALITY

I have a book on the shelves this week. I hope. A LONG, HARD RIDE is a March release from Harlequin Blaze, shipping now from B&N and eHarlequin, and available in my local Wal-Mart but not, at last check, in the grocery and drug stores further into town. One of my blog readers reported seeing it in her B&N in California, while a reader in Oregon hadn’t spotted it yet, and a reader in North Carolina (I think?) was able to find and buy it.

Yes, I have a book due on the shelves the month Anderson News suspends its operations. Anderson stocks many non-chain bookstore outlets with books and magazines and shares Wal-Mart duties with Levy Merchandising. Publishers Weekly reported last week that publishers were working to reclaim their stock and find other methods of distribution. A fellow Blaze author talked to the line’s editorial assistant and was told Harlequin was doing the same.

Last summer, my first five Kensington Brava SG-5 trade paperbacks were re-released in a Wal-Mart exclusive mass market edition. Did that mean the books were available in every Wal-Mart store? Nope. The merchandisers were given a certain number of copies for their area, but were not held to distributing them equally among locations. Some readers wrote to report they couldn’t find the books anywhere (yes, they looked in more than one place), while my local Wal-Mart was stocked with six copies of AT RISK in June, six copies of IN DANGER in July, and six copies of DEEP TROUBLE in August.

We write and we polish and we revise, and our publishers package our work to sell, and then . . . it’s up to distributors to get our books into readers’ hands. Over that, we have no control. And it sucks. One of my recent Amazon orders was delayed due to storms; the weather kept the flights grounded, though the books did arrive a couple of days later rather than weeks as I was expecting. When I saw the FedEx cargo plane burning on the ground in Lubbock, Texas in January, I wondered if anything I’d ordered had gone up in flames.

Suzanne Brockmann credits a train wreck with her initial success. Boxes and boxes of books on their way to stores were destroyed, and well, Suz tells it better on her site:

The story I heard was that all of the Harlequin/Silhouette books were shipped to the West Coast of the USA on a train. (I picture the Little Engine that Could, bravely carrying boxcars of romance novels to California with a cheery smile on his brave little face…) And in early May, 1996, the happy train that carried the first shipment of books to the West Coast was hit (literally) by a freak storm. This storm was so powerful it actually derailed the train, pushing it off the tracks and into a reservoir. (As I recount this tale, I’m struck by the absurdity of this. However, I will continue. Whatever the details, the truth remains that a train (probably one without a smiley face on the front) carrying the first shipment of H/S books was derailed and the cargo (i.e. books) destroyed.

So, you know in those author/publisher contracts when they say things like “Act of God?” Well, this was considered an Act of God, those books were considered lost, and, kids, they weren’t ever replaced. (Which was a serious blow to the authors of those books, you can be sure!)

Now, by the time the second batch of H/S books made their way to the West Coast (and I’m talking about the entire West Coast. Not just California. But more like West of the Mississippi…) all those avid series romance readers were desperate for SOMEthing to read — especially the fans of longer contemporary romances, such as SuperRomances and Special Editions. And, alleluia, here was the shipment of Silhouette Intimate Moments. And, included in that shipment was a nifty little book with the rather unusual title of PRINCE JOE (and an interesting cover, too) by an as-yet-unknown new author named Suzanne Brockmann.

So, yeah. I’m supposed to have a book on the shelves . . . and it’s not just any book. This year, Harlequin celebrates their 60th anniversary, and each line is doing something as a tribute. March is Blaze’s month, and A LONG, HARD RIDE launches the From 0 – 60 miniseries which is our contribution. My book is the first of the three.

As part of the push, a snippet of my story went out in the back of every single February category romance published across all the lines; I bought Margot Early’s 02/09 Superromance THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE just so I could see the excerpt for myself. The piece I wrote originally was deemed too steamy (you can read it here) and so I had to come up with a tamer scene – and even then, what made it into all those other books is not how the scene actually reads. Still, hundreds of thousands of readers who may have never read me before, got a sneak peek of my work. Unfortunately, if they like what they read enough to buy the book, they might not be able to find it. And that sucks.

Did I mention A LONG, HARD RIDE is one of Romantic Times’ TOP PICKS for March? Reviewer Page Traynor says, “This very sexy, emotional story has strong and wonderful characters who make it a memorable read.” There are readers who take the page of TOP PICKS to their local bookstore as a shopping list. And now they may not find the March books at all.

I did everything right. I wrote a book that is actually one of my personal favorites, and about which blogger Laurie Damron says, “I truly think this may be the best Blaze I’ve read to date.” Harlequin did everything right, even excerpting my story in the February books. And yet due to circumstances beyond my control, my sales numbers may tank and I can only hope they aren’t held against me down the road at contract time because it can happen.

And to thank you for listening to me whine about the vagaries of the biz, here’s a safe for work GenReality exclusive excerpt – enjoy!

“Looks like you’re set for some kind of vacation.”

Trey looked up, saw Jeb Worth standing a couple of feet away in the shadows cast by the Kenworth truck that pulled the Corley hauler. “A change of scenery. A temporary change of vocation. But not much in the way of relaxation or time off.”

“You don’t have to stay out at your place.” Even at this late hour, Jeb’s crisp white shirt tucked into khaki pants worn with a cowboy hat and boots painted a picture of the lawman he should have been. “You’re welcome to stay at the house. We’ve got plenty of room.”

Trey wanted to sleep with this man’s granddaughter. There was no way he was going to stay at his house. He turned around, leaned against the open tailgate, the heels of his hands curled over the cool metal at his hips. “It’ll be easier if I stay out there. I’ll save gas and time not having to drive back and forth.”

Jeb nodded. “Any idea how long you’ll be in Dahlia.”

“As long as it takes to get the place ready to sell. Since I’m doing most of it on my own . . .” Trey stopped, wondered what Cardin’s grandfather would think were he to learn of her offer to help. Wondered, too, if the older man harbored any hard feelings toward him because of the fight his father had started, a fight that had seriously injured Jeb’s son. “It’ll take as long as it takes, I guess. Depends on how fast I do the work.”

“So you’ll still be here in a couple of weeks.”

“Yeah, I’m not that fast,” Trey said, hoping he hadn’t read Cardin wrong and that he’d be spending a lot of what he’d planned as work hours otherwise engaged.

Jeb glanced toward the racing rig where Sunshine was dismantling the pop-up under which the crew worked on the car between heats. “I’ve got a ’69 Chevy Nova SS with Crane lifters, an Eagle 4340 Nitrated Pro Crank, and more goodies than you can shake a stick at sitting in the garage behind my house.”

Interesting. Trey crossed his feet at the ankles. “That so.”

Jeb nodded, still looking away. “Eddie’s always driven it for me in the Moonshine Run. Doesn’t look like he’s going to be doing that anymore.”

Was Jeb here to blame Trey for what Aubrey had done? Putting Eddie out of commission and leaving Jeb without a driver for the local Outlaw 10.6 event? He kept silent rather than broach a subject he wasn’t sure was on the other man’s mind.

“The car’s won the last six out of seven years. It would be a shame not to run it this one.”

Trey knew the legend of the Moonshine Run. Hell, his great-grandfather, Emmett Davis, had been one of the moonshiners to draw the attention of the gangster Diamond Dutch Boyle. Jeb’s father, Orin Worth, had been Emmett’s partner in crime, and Boyle had hunted the two of them like dogs in his effort to put an end to their enterprise that encroached on his.

The whole town knew that Jeb, at fourteen, had found the gangster’s ’32 Plymouth at the bottom of the Labrecque ravine. The car had been there since before he was born, having crashed down the mountain during a wild and wooly midnight chase. Rumors that a fortune in diamonds were lost along with the car and Dutch Boyle had been circulating just as long.

Jeb had sworn since being told the story of the gangster disappearance that he’d find it. He did. And brought up the car’s two headlights from the bottom of the ravine as proof. Those same two headlights now hung on the plaque in the entryway of their namesake ice house, the inscription between them reading, “Look ahead. A wrong turn can be the downfall of anyone.”

Trey had always wondered if the epitaph meant something special to Jeb.

“I was going to ask you about it the other morning in the pits. But never got the chance.”

Trey frowned. What had he missed? “You were going to ask me what?”

“About driving White Lightning in the Moonshine Run.” Jeb turned toward him, pushed his hat a couple of inches up his forehead.

Ah, finally. The point. “I don’t know. I’m not a driver.”

“You know how to drive. You know cars.”

He did both, had driven more cars than Butch Corley’s in his time. He just didn’t know why Jeb would ask him of all people. “Why not get Tater to drive?”

“Because I want you.”

A loud crash came from the other side of the hauler, followed by Jimmy Gale’s yelling at Miller Borrill, the lead mechanic who was as lean as Jimmy was stocky, to watch the hell where he was going. “I don’t know your car. I’d have to look it over. Take it down the track first.”

“You’ll do it then.”

Trey laughed. “Now, I didn’t say that. But I will think about it.”

Jeb nodded as if that was good enough. “Don’t be a stranger while you’re in town. As many meals as you can eat are on the house at Headlights.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll definitely take you up on that.”

“Good showin’ today, by the way. I never thought Bad Dog would hit three-twenty on that track.”

“The amount of time I’ve spent on that engine? I was hoping for better,” Trey said, thinking he’d better grab his fireproof driving gear before the hauler pulled out, just in case.

“I knew you were the right man for the job,” Jeb said, patting Trey’s shoulder before walking away, leaving Trey to wonder if Cardin’s grandfather wanted more from him than his skills as a mechanic – and what the hell it could be.

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