Friday Fun Facts: From Halloween to December

Ooh, almost Halloween! Everyone have their costumes ready? Not sure what our plans are for the big day, though we'll be taking our exchange student to a parrt Saturday night. She's dressing up as a nun, with a few friends from school. They decided since most teenage girls take Halloween as an opportunity to wear the skimpiest outfit they possibly can, this group would go as far as they could in the opposite direction. I love it!





And I've added another appearance to my schedule, December 12th at 3:00 pm in the Newburgh, NY, Barnes & Noble. Actually, it's through one of my student's community service clubs. They're having a few different activities throughout the weekend, and one includes "book talks" by local authors. I'm thrilled and think it will be a great chance to target some different readers than I normally do in this area.

So if you're around, mark your calendars and stop by!

Monday Mentionables: Piers Anthony and Brenda Hiatt

There's been a discussion on one of my author loops recently about Piers Anthony's site. For those of you who don't know, he posts information regarding ebook publishers and updates the entries (fairly) regularly based on author feedback. I read his site often in my early days of looking for publishers, and though I don't check in that often anymore, every once in a while it's interesting to see what he has to say.

Other authors on my loop, though, have issued MAJOR caveats about his site, claiming that he often posts only one side of an author altercation and can make a publisher sound worse than it actually is. As with anything else on line, folks, it's surfer beware. Take advice with a grain of salt and do your research in more than one place if you can.

Speaking of online sources, though, here's a link to Brenda Hiatt's "Show Me the Money" site, listing romance publishers and their average advances/payouts for authors. Always interesting to peruse (and thanks Wendy for the updated link!)