MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR

After an extremely busy December with four concerts by our church choir (along with other performers at the church), and singing at the Christmas Eve service, we enjoyed a quiet Christmas at home. Quiet--and cold. Right now, at 10 a.m. Christmas Day, it's sleeting on top of the snow we had a couple days ago.
For the week after Christmas we'll be out at the Pacific Coast of Washington, at a little town north of Ocean Shores. The weather will be dreadful with storms coming in off the ocean, but perfect for writing, reading, and watching movies.
For Christmas I got the COMPLETE set of MASH, the movie and all the TV episodes. Wow!
I know what I'll be doing on New Years Eve!!!!!
Best wishes to all!
Lynnette

Outstanding article about publishing industry

Wow! I just read the following article by agent Richard Curtis.
http://www.ereads.com/2008/12/behind-publishings-wednesday-of-long.html

He says to read it twice, and I was thinking, Huh? Why would I read it TWICE? But he explains at the end that the article -- which sounds as if it were written yesterday, was written in 1992.
He points out how abysmally STUPID and DOOMED the publishing industry's way of doing business is. In short, they overprint books and the bookstores (who have nothing to lose) have unlimited right of return. There's a lot more to it, but at the bottom is the practice of withholding authors' royalties against potention returns.

He points out (NOW) that what he predicted in 1992 (some of which I'll quote below) has come to pass with Amazon, electronic publishing, and Print on Demand publishing. Here's some of what Curtis said, in 1992:

"In the coming era of "demand" publishing, we will see direct electronic delivery of text to reader-users without dependence on distributors, or even on paper. The technology for producing portable electronic books containing or accessing whole libraries is now at hand. . . . Thanks to the multimedia and interactive features of the new breed of computers, tomorrow's electronic books will entertain readers with audio and video displays that will make traditional books look as crude as cuneiform writing on stone tablets. Gone will be the disgustingly wasteful system of merchandising books, along with the creative bookkeeping that permits publishers to hold authors' money for years."

I recommend you read the whole article. Thanks to Kelli Finger, writing as Abbey MacInnis, for the heads up about this.
Lynnette

December news

"Love with a Welcome Stranger" came out in ebook on September 19, and the reviews are very good. I'll post some of them here in a few days. It will be available IN PRINT on January 2, 2009. You can order it from www.amazon.com, or ww.bn.com (Barnes & Noble) or from the publisher at www.thewildrosepress.com.

On November 30 I received notification that it's a FINALIST for a 2009 EPPIE AWARD for Best Contemporary Romance. Winners will be announced March 7 at the EPIC conference in Las Vegas.

Other big news -- the second romance set in Bitter Falls, "Lovin' Montana," will be released in ebook and also in print on August 14, 2009.
The beautiful cover (designed by Rae Monet, who also did the cover of "Love with a Welcome Stranger") is on the first page of my website, www.RainshadowRomance.com.
Lynnette Baughman

My new book coming SOON

"Love with a Welcome Stranger" will be out in ebook on September 19 (as expected), but date of the print edition has been moved up to January 2, 2009.
This contemporary western romance is a twist on a true feature article I did for Reader's Digest a few years ago. The real story was of a young woman who'd lost about a year of her memory (totally and always lost) in a horrible car crash. She had no memory of meeting, falling in love with, and marrying the man everyone said was her husband. She endured long months of painful rehabilitation, learning to walk, feed herself, and all the other things we take for granted. No matter how many times she saw the video of herself at her large wedding, she felt no connection to the man.
Finally, he realized he had to win her all over again, so they dated and slowly she fell in love -- for the first time, and yet -- again.
Their story was in a dozen magazines and was featured on Oprah, Dateline NBC, Inside Edition, and more TV shows. It was made into a book and a TV movie.
So, in real life, the young woman was surrounded by people who knew the truth, that she loved this man enough to marry him. She was the only one who didn't understand it.
In my fictional story, only two people know that Mandy (daughter of a wealthy businessman) and Cam (a poor cowboy who worked on the ranch) had a love affair when she was 18 and he was 24. Those two people are Mandy and Cam. At the end of that summer, Mandy left Montana and Cam behind--in anger--and moved to California to live the life of a Hollywood starlet. TWELVE YEARS LATER --- Mandy is shot by a deranged fan and has to relearn simple things. Some of her memory returns; some events are lost.
Her memory of Cam West--and their love affair--is part of what's lost.
When she returns to Montana and meets a handsome, successful horse breeder, she thinks she's falling for a stranger. Cam tries to avoid her, and tries to hold on to his righteous anger, but he's in big trouble. He has to tell her the truth, but how and when can he give her such a shock? And while he's walking that tightrope, he's lost in memories of the Mandy he knew so intimately.
Visit www.thewildrosepress.com to order the ebook. When it comes out in print, you can order from Amazon.com or bn.com.

Montana (and Wyoming) on my mind

Bill and I just returned from Yellowstone National Park where we had a splendid time with two daughters and five grandkids. (Photo is of Lower Falls.) I really enjoyed our route through southwest Montana. My upcoming release "Love with a Welcome Stranger" is set in the far-western part of Montana.
On August 19th we're driving to Banff/Lake Louise and Jasper to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary.
In the meantime, I'm waiting to hear from my editor at The Wild Rose Press on the manuscript I sent her. And-- I'm working on a new book.
Lynnette

Ebook Readers -- take a look

I bought an ebook reader, and I'm getting used to it. In fact, I like it. The one I bought, for $140, is the eBookwise-1150 with a 64 MB memory card.
Here is some information I found in Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine (August 2008). Author is Jeff Bertolucci.
The top two sellers in this technology of "wireless reading devices" are the Kindle and the Sony Reader.
Both feature a 6" screen with high contrast. Both are easy to read, even in sunlight. Neither is backlighted.
Through Kindle, owned by Amazon, readers have access to 125,000 digital books. Price is $359. The exterior is white plastic which Bertolucci said slipped out of its leather case. It has a mini keyboard that makes it easy to search while browsing online. (That would be a great feature, in my opinion.)
Sony has a metal case and stays securely in its attractive leather holder. Price for the Sony PRS-505 is $300. You can charge it through your PC with a USB cable, but if you want a separate AC charger you'll have to pay another $30. "Chintzy, considering the Reader's high price," says Bertolucci.
Sony's ebook store has 20,000 titles.
Sony does have one huge advantage, though. There's a headphone jack for listening to MP3s.
Sony requires you to download to a computer from the web and then transfer to the reader. Kindle uses a wireless Sprint connection to download books from Amazon.com, thus eliminating the PC in the middle.
Kiplinger's opinion is that 1) these two devices cost too much for the limited advantages you receive, and 2) buying digital books through Amazon and Sony is expensive. (Featured titles on Sony are $5 to $19 and most digital bestsellers on Amazon are $10.)
Bertolucci says, "A portable reader in the $100 to $150 ballpark would persuade us to overlook a lot of drawbacks."
I hope he finds the eBookwise Reader. I think it offers the best option in portable reader devices.
The AC charger came with my eBookwise, and downloading books through my PC is fairly easy.
I'd love to hear about others' experiences with these devices.
Lynnette

Farewell, faithful friend

Laddie died on June 16, '08, at age 13. He was part collie, part retriever, part who-knows-what. Sweet-natured, loving. He lived a darn good life, walks nearly every day. Camping trips in our motorhome. He was finding it harder to jump into the car, and generally harder to get up from lying down, hard to get his back feet under him. At the end, and very suddenly, that's what did him in. He was walking on a beach with the whole family, and his hindquarters collapsed. He couldn't move at all. We kept him as comfortable as possible, but we had to make the heart-rending decision. A very tender, loving veterinarian put him down.
I took this picture of him by our rhododendrons in late May, about three weeks before he collapsed.
We cried so much I couldn't write about it until now, nearly a month later.