On sale today: The Buyout

My new novella, The Buyout, is on sale today. It was mentioned in this week's Happily Ever After romance novel round-up in USA Today, which was incredibly exciting for me. I hope you'll pick up a copy!

All Parker Anderson has ever wanted is to take over as CEO of Anderson Industries when his father retires. But when his father is ready to leave the company, he doesn’t plan to pass the reins to Parker. Instead, he plans to sell the company, jeopardizing not only Parker’s job but hundreds of others.

Parker finds an unlikely ally in Mason Pike, the company’s resident IT guru. What starts as a flirtation takes them from coworkers to coconspirators in a plan to forcibly buy Anderson Industries out from under Parker’s father. While they focus on the buyout, their budding romance has to be put on hold, but that doesn't stop them from flirting and teasing each other to distraction—and once their master plan comes to fruition, nothing and no one can keep them apart.

ISBN-13: 978-62380-775-7

Pages: 125

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Cover Artist: Lou Harper
Categories: Novellas, Contemporary

Book type: eBook

File Formats Available: .epub, .mobi, html, pdf

Purchase The Buyout directly from Dreamspinner Press 

or find it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Editing and the EDJ

Things are plugging along for me, despite the Evil Day Job's best attempts at getting me off track. I'm a freelance journalist, so most of the time after a long day of interviews and writing the last thing I want to do is write more, but I'm trying hard to get past that. Having the daily word count goal I set at the Dreamspinner Author Workshop in April has been a big help.

I just finished the first round of edits on my latest novella The Buyout, which will be published by Dreamspinner Press later this year. My first instinct when I see one of my manuscripts all marked up is to cringe at all the mistakes I made and all the plot holes I left (or the number of times I changed a character's eye color or the city they lived in or, on one memorable occasion, getting the character's name wrong...not misspelled, just flat out wrong).

As a journalist, I'm used to having my pieces torn apart. What I'm not used to is having those ripped up pieces sent back to me, asking me to sign off on the changes and revise in areas--we journos usually work on a tight deadline that doesn't allow for that kind of dialogue between writer and editor. To be honest, I kind of prefer it that way.

This is the third story I've taken through production at Dreamspinner, and I have to say that my experiences with the editors has been top-notch. Their comments are insightful and they never fail to make my stories tighter, clearer, and better when we come out the other side of the editing tunnel. That said, the editing process is still a nerve-racking one, and my conversations with authors who are much more seasoned than  me leave me to believe that the initial roller coaster ride of self-pity and horror that accompanies getting that first edit back is never going to change. 

It's not that I'm not open to the criticism, because I am. The editors ultimately have the same goal I do--to make that story the best it can be. And like I said, once I've reworked paragraphs in accordance with their notes or changed the wording or sentence structure the way they've suggested, I always walk away from it feeling like that story is better for it.

But any feedback that isn't open gushing about your story--your baby, the piece you've reared from infancy and spent many a late night with--is hard to hear. I think that experience makes us better writers, though. And the work editors do with us definitely makes the books better in the end, and that's what should matter.

How do you deal with the editing process? Do you have any tips to share with a newbie?

Cover reveal for The Buyout

I'm thrilled to finally be able to share the cover for my upcoming book with you! Lou Harper at Dreamspinner Press did an amazing job putting it together--I really couldn't be happier!

The Buyout
Release date TBA
Dreamspinner Press

All Parker Anderson has ever wanted is to take over as CEO of Anderson Industries when his father retires. But when his father is ready to leave the company, he doesn’t plan to pass the reins to Parker. Instead, he plans to sell the company, jeopardizing not only Parker’s job but hundreds of others.

Parker finds an unlikely ally in Mason Pike, the company’s resident IT guru. What starts as a flirtation takes them from coworkers to coconspirators in a plan to forcibly buy Anderson Industries out from under Parker’s father. While they focus on the buyout, their budding romance has to be put on hold, but that doesn't stop them from flirting and teasing each other to distraction—and once their master plan comes to fruition, nothing and no one can keep them apart.

Read an excerpt from The Buyout here.