Category Archives: The Chevalier
*smacks self on forehead* Wait, I had a release this week, didn’t I?
It probably would be useful if I told you that Shifter Woods: Roar is now widely available at online retailers, huh? I blame exhaustion from repairing and reinstalling the pool pump motor; we spent most of Monday afternoon and evening trying to get it reattached to the pump, to no avail. After getting eaten alive by bugs and retreating inside in disgrace, Ramón did more research on Google and found some tips. The next morning he went out there by himself, and in his own words, “I just slathered everything in lube, and now that I could see what I was doing it popped right in!” Words to live by, folks.
Anyway, the pool pump is now functioning (ironically, the garage door opener failed that night, but more research indicated what was wrong and Himself fixed that as well), the second novella in the Esposito County Shifters series is out and selling nicely, and I’ve gotten a pleasing amount of reviews on it as well, so a huge Cameron thank you to everyone who’s bought a copy and left a review. And if you haven’t, just click on that link up there and it’ll take you to the book page where you can select your choice of ebook retailer. I’m all about making things easy for you.
And because I don’t think I told people about this, Shifter Woods is going to be a four-part novella series. The first two novellas will be followed by Shifter Woods: Snarl, which deals with cougar shifter Andrea Lochter, whose father Jim (the Alpha of their pack and a former Marine) owns a ski lodge on the mountain. When Caleb picks up John Rockwell, one of Jim’s itinerant service buddies, for vagrancy and drops him off at the lodge at Jim’s request, Andrea makes it a point to stay as far away from the homeless wolf shifter as possible. But the pull of a heart’s mate is hard to resist, especially when Andrea and John have to team up for a search and rescue mission involving a little girl.
The fourth novella, Shifter Woods: Scream, is about Deputy Jane Carey, the golden eagle shifter introduced in Howl. When drug dealers somehow “lose” their pet tiger while stopping for food and gas in Esposito County, Jane takes to the air to spot the big cat. But when she learns that the escaped animal is actually tiger shifter and FBI agent Eric Cho, things get particularly sticky, especially when a local zookeeper with a secret of his own gets involved.
Once all the novellas are done, I’ll be combining them at the end of the year into a box set and print version, and at some point early next year I’ll be doing a full-length novel set in Esposito County (first I have to finish the novellas, Cross Current (Olympic Cove 4), Lady of Thorns (Two Thrones 3), Uncertainty Principle (Pacifica Rising 2), Do No Harm, and The Chevalier’s Dilemma). Yeah, the rest of 2017 is gonna be kind of busy.
Welp, I passed 5000
And by 5000, I mean five thousand actual sales, not including returns (God, those annoy me because I know a good percentage of them are people who are gaming the system to read new stuff then return it and get the price of purchase back) or giveaways. And by “I” I mean Empress of Storms.
The funny thing? I honestly can’t tell if that’s good or not. Some sources say that you need to sell 10K copies, but that’s if you’re with a major publisher. Other sources say that a self-pubbed book sells 500 copies on average, so in that case I’ve done really well. I dunno, Marty. I guess all I can do is keep writing and hope people like the new stuff as much.
Lord, I just realized — I have to finish Palace of Scoundrels, Do No Harm, and Behind the Iron Cross, get those out, write The Chevalier and get that out this fall, then start researching the historical M/M romance that my BFF suggested so that I can start writing it in November. Sleep? What means this word, sleep?
I am grateful
An amazing number of things have happened to me professionally in the last two weeks things that have reinforced my decision to switch genres and start writing the stuff I always wanted to write. I am deeply grateful for all of these wonderful opportunities, and I want to thank each and every one of you who read my work because you’re the reason why so many good things are happening right now. You people rock.
- May 8th I signed a contract with Me and the Muse Publishing to have Trickster translated and published in German.
- May 15th held three important career milestones for me:1) For the first time in my writing career I cracked the five figure mark in writing income.
2) I cracked the five figure mark for yearly writing income.
3) I made five figures (oh, screw it — $10,000) on one title. And yes, it was Empress of Storms.
- May 16th I signed a contract with Juno Publishing to have Empress of Storms translated and published in French.
- May 18th I signed a contract with photographer Javier Cortina to use a photograph of Colby Keller from Javier’s The Legend of St. George photo shoot as the cover for my fantasy historical M/M romance The Chevalier, coming out in August.
On the verge of turning 50, I feel like my life and career are truly on track, and I’m very excited to see what the next few years bring.
I never actually told you about the cover, did I?
D’oh. So a couple of weeks ago an insanely talented Spanish art photographer named Javier Cortina did a most spectacular photo shoot of Our Man Sans Culottes entitled The Legend of St. George (click this link to see NSFW pics). And lo, L.D. Blakeley and I did squeal about the beauty of said pics, until I said the fateful words, “That second pic, the closeup where he’s holding the sword — that would make an awesome book cover, don’t you think?”
“I do! You should contact Javier and see if you can license it!” she enthused.
“No, I can’t do that. Can I?”
Suffice it to say that an hour later I’d fired off an email to Javier asking him if he ever licensed his photographs. It turned out he did, and we’ve negotiated a deal for me to use the picture as a book cover. Herein lies a story; Javier, quite reasonably, asked me what the book was about, to which I replied, “Um…”
*thinks frantically about picture*
“…it’s about…”
*pounds head against wall until something shakes loose*
“…it’s about a fantasy world loosely based on 17th Century France where an impoverished nobleman joins the royal guard as an officer and promptly gets embroiled in palace intrigue after he discovers the handsome young man he was flirting with at a masked ball is the Crown Prince, who is being blackmailed by a foreign ambassador. I’m calling it The Chevalier.”
I swear to God, I have no idea where this stuff comes from.
Nicola Cameron Writes 