Book – Page 3 – Jaye Em Edgecliff

Announcing: Love or Lust now available!

Published on 29 June 201329 June 2013 by Jaye1 Comment

Now available in eBook and Print: Love or Lust the first of four books in the Now & Forever series.

A light-hearted, slice-of-life, romantic-comedy for young adults, Love or Lust introduces you to Lauren Conners, a ballerina, a Good Girl, studious, and sweet, and to Salencia Constellino, an exotic, irreverent cowgirl new to the little Washington town.

When the girls meet it’s love at first sight; sparks fly, angels sing, lightning and fireworks. But they attend the best school in the area, a Catholic secondary school, Immaculate Conception. It’s not just their school that brings trouble for the young couple. The young teens have their own inner turmoils and anxieties — especially Lauren, who always wants to think the best of people, but quickly learns just how petty people can get.

It’s an uplifting story, though, meant to inspire and give hope. The girls have supportive and loving friends and families. And, largely, the obstacles of life and of being teenagers are navigated with quirky senses of humour and strange misunderstandings.

In this book Lauren and Sally are first and foremost, young high school freshmen, fourteen years old and trying to make sense of themselves and the world around them. It is my hope that it might show people that we’re all human beings no matter who it is we choose to love. That homosexual, heterosexual, bixsexual, asexual, trisexual, or what have you, are still people; still feeling beings with hopes and dreams.

Print book us$17.99/£11.50/€13.75

eBook us$3.99. Available in numerous countries at proportionate price.
Currently in:

Coming soon to:

Common Themes for Young Adult Books (homework.answers.com)
Like + Lust = List, Not Love (terahvandusen.wordpress.com)
Whats the difference between lust and love? (askanythingrelationships.wordpress.com)
From Lust… to Love!? (romantictruth.wordpress.com)
Love vs Lust (smurfyangel.wordpress.com)

What gives?

Published on 19 May 2013 by JayeLeave a comment

Okay, we’re all readers here, right? I mean I can think of few other candidates for followers of an author’s blog, and it breaks my mind to try to imagine a writer who doesn’t read.

Readers are notoriously opinionated people (about books).

So why is it, then, that I’ve only one reply to my question?

I did have one person click like — so I turned Like off for that post because, really? Why? What is the magic of the Like button that, not only does everything have one now, but that people will click it on things where it either makes no sense to do so or it is expressly asked not to?

Anyway stress is not fun. Editing is stressful. As is the realisation that I’m hitting the final week that 2/3 of my agents say they take to respond. I’m of a mind to say to Hell with self-publishing and just keep shopping the series out to publishers and agents till I get a bite, but I’m pretty sure I’m nowhere near so patient a person.

Wish me luck, I’m going back to editing now. At a scene I like, but have this sinking feeling ought to either be axed or relocated. Always such a bother to figure out if that’s true or not, and then if so there comes the question of which to do.

I’ll relax when I’m done stressing out (newbieyogi.com)
“Why Can’t I Find An Agent? Everyone Says My Book Is Really Good!” ~ by Mercy Pilkington (authorshelpingauthors.wordpress.com)
Is Self Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing a little like Duck Dynasty vs. Downton Abbey? (theyearofthecicadas.com)
The Demon’s Song by Kendra Leigh Castle (literatiliteraturelovers.com)
Blog Tour! Darkness of Light by Stacey Marie Brown (Interview & Giveaway) (thebookhookup.com)

When it rains, it pours …

Published on 8 April 20138 April 2013 by Jaye2 Comments

My God! I suddenly have a ridiculous pile of agents and agencies that look promising.

I will spend this week sending out queries. I do still plan to put a deadline to be accepted or self publish. Love or Lust will either be on the hands of an agent, being shopped to publishers, or it will be self published by the start of June.

I wish to give the agencies a reasonable time with which to respond, but I also don’t wish to sit idly on a completed story. I’m sure there are plausibly hundreds of relevant agents out there, if I can but find their names and sites. I will play that game to a point. When I could only find two promising looking agents, I didn’t like giving up so I looked – cautiously as I don’t need an agent, but I looked. I found a whopping three more. Today Google’s results were utterly different! Two pages of results I’d never found before before I decided to stop and get ready for bed! These were the top matches!

So I will continue to selectively query, but to a much deeper and broader pool (a wise thing, I should think, as it give the agent idea a far fairer chance). After this week, though, no more searching. This new pool of results gives me a more comfortably sized list, and looking much longer risks pushing my June deadline in order to give the agents fair time to respond.

Good night.
Wish me luck.

Agents (jayeedgecliff.wordpress.com)
Publishing Questions (gedwardsmithblog.wordpress.com)
What exactly does a literary agent do? (joylovelyjoy.wordpress.com)
Thoughts on Agents (quirkandquill.com)
How to find a literary agent (joylovelyjoy.wordpress.com)

And it’s done

Published on 25 March 2013 by Jaye2 Comments

Love or Lust is edited. I’m giving it another read through to make sure everything reads the way I meant it to, but it’s otherwise done.

I’ve submitted a query to the last agent I’d found and was interested in submitting the story to (would have done it days ago, but didn’t see that she wanted only 3 chapters, not the entire manuscript when I’d found her before). So this is the way it’ll work: if I’m accepted by an agent I will discuss details with them, I still might self-publish it’ll depend on various things. I’ll keep you posted on when the book is due based on the publisher, and will (of course) post links for pre-ordering if that becomes an option.

If I am not picked up by an agent, or decide not to go with one the book will go on sale 1 June 2012, and I may elect to set up a pre-order with Apple’s iBookstore before then.

It’s always a rush to not only finish a story, but to finish putting the polish on so that it really shines. All the little typos (theoretically, never fails you’ll find more — I swear little gremlins or imps sneak into the books at night and rearrange the print or edit the files!) are gone, the sentences clear and orderly. Beautiful.

Part of me does wish that I were just self-publishing this and had never thought about agents and publishers, but teen romance is not sci-fi/fantasy. I feel that, given a sensible and competent agent and publisher that there is genuinely more benefit in the long run to a contract. I hope I won’t be proven wrong, and I wish there were some way to know for certain … but I can’t exactly put the book out now and then go hunting for a publisher — it’s possible, but tends to go rather badly.

In the mean time, Ready or Not is on a quiet little hold for another week. I have only a chapter or two left but I want time to consider how the school year wraps up.

So … this is it, wish me luck. I may go mad with the waiting. I just hope it’ll be worth it.

IDW Brings Single Issues to Apples iBookstore! (graphicpolicy.com)
Publishing, agents, and my thoughts (jayeedgecliff.wordpress.com)
Self-publishing: a revolution for writers, not readers (guardian.co.uk)
Why is Editing Important? (barefootediting.wordpress.com)
How to self-publish (jblog.universal-nexus.com)

The Big Idea: Seanan McGuire

Published on 4 October 20122 February 2013 by JayeLeave a comment

Does making a post to link folks to another blog to read an article about another author’s work count as still more posting?

Meh, whatever.

Read this. It’s good for you.

The Big Idea: Seanan McGuire.

P.S. Read the book it talks about. It will induce laughter, laughter is good for the soul. Therefore the book it talks about is good for your soul, QED.