I’m breathing a sigh of get-that-thing-away-from-me relief right now. I just sent the manuscript for Breaking Cover back to proofing and formatting. By this point in the process I’m thoroughly tired of rereading my own words, but hopefully publication is getting close. My editor thinks we may get the e-book out by the end of July. I saw the mock-up for the cover. There’s a nicely pensive picture of Tony on it, and Mac in profile. Once again the artist did something better than just two-barechested-guys for me.
To keep my mind off the waiting for BC, I’m watching for a short story I wrote. It will come out on Goodreads’ M/M Romance site in the free Hot Summer Reads anthology. The stories released so far have all been great (they are posting a few per day). Mine is called Like the Taste of Summer. Once it’s out there, I’ll post it on my own sites too. And I wrote a new 20,000 word paranormal short story yesterday. 14 hours on the computer. I think I’m addicted.
I love technology in some ways. (The cut-and-paste function is my bestest friend.) Stuff like seeing my cover ahead of time and the ease of making modifications (at least when someone competent is doing it) – that’s cool. Dealing with bugs and security and invasion of privacy – not so much. I recently got an e-reader and I really wanted a Kindle, because so much of the stuff I’m looking for is on Amazon. Then I found out that the Kindle likes to call home to the mother-ship. A source I trust claims that if you highlight a passage in your Kindle, it shoots the details of just what passage you marked back to Amazon, to be stored out of sight in your profile. What might be done with the information no one knows. But Amazon’s monopolistic behavior doesn’t inspire trust.
Then a friend recently found someone had gotten into her Facebook profile and changed information (inserting some nasty stuff), presumably having stolen her password from somewhere. Another author got a poison pen snail-mail letter at the real-world address he had just moved into days before. The dark side of connectivity.
Some of my fellow authors found a site called Demonoid.me that appeared to be offering pirated free copies of their work. When they went to check it out, the site had malware that trashed their Windows computers. Someone trying to punish readers looking for illegal freebies and accidentally nailing authors? General mischief? Who knows.
But as I enjoy the ease of posting and reading new material, and connecting with like-minded folks, I’m reminded that there are risks. Playing safe isn’t just for sex any more. And I still buy a lot of paper books with cash, enjoying the knowledge that I can buy, read and highlight the heck out of them with no one peering over my shoulder. Not subversive books, or even m/m books, but just because. I don’t like thinking my whole life is stored out on the web in little searchable packets. Besides, there’s nothing quite like the feel of opening a new print book. Well, almost nothing.