There's another great social network out there I frequent called Shoutlife. It a place where folks of many different faiths are catered to. This blog post I'm making here is not an advertisement for that site LOL but I do have a lot of friends who cross-post between there and Facebook. One of those folks, Debbie S., reminded me of a post she put on Shoutlife a while back and I just had to share it. She put a link to it on my Facebook Wall but since you have to join Shoutlife to read it, I posted it here. I would encourage y'all to join Shoutlife as well as there are some great folks there who don't cross-post to FaceBook. Ahhh, variety, it's what it's all about, right?

Prophetic Dream About Sue Dent??? Wednesday, January 2, 2008 - 12:15 PM

Ok. So maybe it wasn't exactly prophetic, but I figured that'd get Sue's attention (and everyone else's too! hehe) Last night I had a dream that I was getting all dressed up for a formal affair. For some reason I was going to have my little brother tagging along for me to babysit for a while. In the dream he was around ten and I seemed to be high school or college aged, even though in real life, he's in his mid twenties and I'm thirty one. Some how, as dreams often do, the setting changed from me getting ready for the party to shopping at a Wal-mart type store...with Sue Dent!!! We were walking along as though we were half shopping and half looking for someone. I think wee were looking for Becky Depp, another fellow FaithWriter and Shoutlifer. One of us suggested having her paged on the intercom. Just then, a man approached us. He was an old friend of Sue's who couldn't believe the reports of her fame and success! He gave her a hug and went on and on about how he couldn't believe how well her writing career was going, with having yet another best seller on the way and that he couldn't believe here she was, the same old Sue, still shopping at Wal-mart like regular people do. That's when I realized that she wasn't just my friend Sue...I was shopping with a millionaire! She was still so sweet and fun to be with that I'd put her success out of my head and it didn't even occur to me how wealthy she had become! lol So Sue...when you hit your first million, don't forget to take me on that shopping spree at Wal-mart, ok? hehe I know this was a silly post, but I've always loved looking back at my dreams when I wake up. I love analyzing the more complex ones and laughing over the more ridiculous. In general, my memory is pretty bad. At times, it's down right terrible. Yet, there are dreams I had as young as six years old or even younger, that I still remember in great detail. Anyone else have any fun dreams to share?

UGH!!!

I don't mind google ads really as it seems they're here to stay. And I do understand that these ads are targeted ads based on what a viewer has viewed in the past. But God as my witness, I am having a VERY DIFFICULT time dealing with seeing ChristianBook.com ads show up on each and everything I view simply because I often use the label Christian etc . . . Especially in light of the fact that they are a heavily discriminating on-line bookstore that ONLY automatically lists books from fee paying CBA and ECPA affiliated publishers (and now some non-affiliated copy-cat publishers) and NEVER books from a publisher/author who has gone through the trouble of having their work approved by Spring Arbor because the publisher/author was told that doing so would make their books available to the "Christian" market. Bull hockey!!!!

Change your name or change the way you operate. Nothing right about this. The only way I can keep from being offended is to stop using the label Christian. Guess what ain't gonna stop happening!

When Will Reign of Terror End

I was emailing another Christian book site that just went up, attempting to determine if this site would be any different than the other 50 million "Christian" book sites that are out there. The response I got in return was this: ". . .we're just working as hard as possible to get as much book and author content on the site as possible. To this end, we've started with CBA authors . . . "

Guess the answer to my question is "yes, it will be JUST like the other 50 million "Christian" book sites out there." Which means seeing more heavily targeted fiction advertised as appealing to all Christians and not just denominationally targeted readers. And to the exclusion of any publisher who doesn't write for that targeted, exclusive market. These sites don't even make an effort to find fiction that appeals to more than just the targeted, exclusive audience CBA and ECPA serve.

Why?

Because one actually has to read the book to find these. They're broken up into genre and are mixed in with all the other general market books. You know, like C. S. Lewis and Tolkien etc . . . Actually these sites could automatically list books that have been approved by Ingram/Spring Arbor for distribution to the Christian market but they don't even do that. Won't even try. They simply go straight for CBA and ECPA affiliation and list those books straight away and usually ONLY. Most are getting a little wiser and throwing in a few books from targeted publishers who aren't affiliated which is ridiculous when all they have to do as a start is to list the books Spring Arbor approves.

When will this reign of terror end indeed?

The above response I received was from Family Fiction when I queried them wondering why they went straight to affiliated publishers for their Christian books. *Sue shakes head disappointed.*

What's this? A BRAND NEW awe-inspiring review of Never Ceese?!

WELL, Merry Christmas to me. And THIS review goes to show you that Pastor's can and do read books and truly understand them!!!! Reverend Steve Wilson, you have made my day. You truly have! So now all of y'all or you's guys whichever you prefer can go to THIS HERE LINK to see what the good Reverend had to say.

Here's another link that has that fantabulous new cover from Black Bed Sheet Books!

God bless you Steve, ;)

Me thinks Forever Richard might be in your future. Sort of a Merry Christmas to you!

This is what it's about folks. This right here.

Sue Dent

Oh my! I'm on the "blacklist!"

LOL You know how sometimes you receive newsletters from authors you don't remember signing up to receive newsletters from? You just click on the link to say you don't want one anymore and that's usually that. 

Well one of the ahem "larger" published CBA authors just dropped a newsletter in my inbox. So I of course clicked on the link to unsubscribe. This particular link, as some do, offered a place to put a comment about why you want to unsubscribe so I shared. I said that I may have inadvertently signed up for a newsletter when I knew nothing of CBA's discriminating ways but I no longer want to hear from authors who write for houses that discriminate on any level. In this instance denominationally. I then clicked enter and straight away received confirmation that I was unsubscribed only this is how it was worded:

This is the last email you will receive from us. We have added you to our
"blacklist", which means that our newsletter system will refuse to send
you any other email, without manual intervention by our administrator.

 In their defense they did preface this with Goodbye. Sorry to see you go. LOLROFL You CBA Christians. Y'all are too funny. *A precious smile* Sorry to see you go. *followed by exorcist type voice* You're now on our "blacklist." 

Oh my gosh! This made my night!

Wow. I found this mind boggling.

I saw an author asking for votes on their book for CSPA (Christian Small Press Association) book of the year. I rushed over to see about joining this association as I'd forgotten about them and thought I might find some help here with promotions or what not. I went to their FAQ page and read this:

What do you define as the “Christian Marketplace”?

CSPA defines the Christian Marketplace as that marketplace that is served by CBA member retail stores – mainly individuals who hold to Catholic or Protestant beliefs and doctrines.

I wonder if they know that no small press can get their Christian books in a CBA member retail store because most all small press books are non-affiliated. They can't afford to pay nor do they meet or want to write within CBA and ECPA's strigent, restrictive guidelines put in place to protect their core market readers.

Amazing that this is how they define the Christian Marketplace. And CBA member stores only recently started allowing "some" Catholic publishers to become members.

Makes you wonder if there is any real help for small press Christian publishers. Based on this, I'd have to say no. How depressing! 

Technically the Chistian marketplace is defined as those books approved for distribution to the Christian market by Spring Arbor. This includes way more books than just those produced by publishers who serve the closed market CBA and ECPA serve. 

Catholic worldview? Ann Rice territory?

Catholic worldview? According to my latest review from Father Obregon, Never Ceese, THE PAPERBACK version, and soon to be released e-book, sits nicely with Catholic Christians very much the way Ms. Rice's recent works do and G.K. Chesterton's work as well. Wow! . What a nice thing to learn!

". . . But, more than that, without being preachy or even overt, it is clear that this is a book written by a Christian who has put a lot of thought into what a vampire/werewolf tale would look like if it were written totally within the worldview of a Catholic Christian. Like G.K. Chesterton, she writes a fantasy tale that never preaches while clearly calling you to think about how life really works. Actions have consequences, one can struggle for holiness, self-sacrifice is the way the world really works, and change sometimes begins with suffering. . ."

You can check out the entire review here.

Thank you so much Fr. Obregon! ;)

I'm happy to report!

I'm happy to report that paperbacks of Never Ceese are selling quite well in the U.K. as I just got my report from Ingram for sales this month. So very excited about this and can't wait to see how well they're selling here in the US. Perhaps seeking a traditional publisher to help with distribution won't be necessary at all. How exciting is that?

Cornhusker Academy! Say what?

It might be in your best interest to go check out this review from one of my FIRST bloggers. :) Check out the drawing for a free book(s)! BUT ABOVE ALL check out the review. *Doing my best Calypso impersonation from Pirates of the Carribean* "Her is a big fan!" If you could hear me you'd know that I can sound just like Calypso. LOL ROFL

Oh the link. :)

Cornhusker Academy!

Christian Vampires again?

Christian Vampires? Recently, a larger CBA affiliated publisher, (meaning one of those narrowly targeted Christian publishers owned and operating under the umbrella of a larger general market house (not secular as there's no such thing) such as Random House etc . . .) announced the release of a Christian thriller vampire type story thingy. Honestly, it was about that messed up the way they tried to work the word vampire in there (because as we all know, that's what you have to write about now to get a reader's attention ever since Twilight made such a ginormous splash.)

*See, I get to slide by because my series actually came out BEFORE all the Twilight hoopla and fanfare (well-deserved fanfare and hoopla I might add. :)*

So this book, (not the first for CBA as affiliated publishers have put out at least two other novels that fall under the very sketchy description above,) is supposed to appeal to the general market the way Twilight did or Dracula or Buffy or every other vampire novel in existence?

Why would you think that? Do you not read my blogs?

No it isn't for general market readers. It is my understanding that affiliated editors even edited out the vampire like thingy having fangs. Sorry but I've a difficult time picturing my vampire without fangs!! *perish the thought* Wouldn't that be like a fish without fins? Other than that, this is from one of the very CBA houses (and one of the many) who told me that no affiliated publisher would ever produce fiction about vampires (of lore of course since it's clear you can call anything you want a vampire and get away with it until you're found out.) You might wonder why an affiliated publisher might offer this information to me since I don't write for an affiliated house. Because I sought to be published by an affiliated house when my work began to be enjoyed by their readers and before I understood they had writing conventions and rules to protect their narrow market readers. Rules and conventions that prevent general market readers from enjoying the work for the most part. :)

I'd mention the book's name so you can go check it out for yourself but neither one of my books are ever listed when similar titles are shown with this books advertisement. So there ya go. Of course, I'm not affiliated and only affiliated books are talked about in conjunction with each other. As one best-selling affiliated author told me once, we can't all talk about you, Sue. Fair enough. :)

What's new with Sue!

There are a few things coming up on the calender that I want to make sure you don't miss.

First off, my publisher, The Writers'Cafe Press, has arranged for Forever Richard to tour a Christian Blog tour called FIRST on September 11th. Unlike most Christian Fiction blog tours, this one will review books that aren't targeted to a particular Christian audience. Do understand however, that while non-affiliated books are welcome, most bloggers aren't used to reading non-targeted Christian work and they certainly aren't used to reading about vampires and werewolves of lore as affiliated publishers won't broach the subject at all. (Can you say, The Shack? Overall, based on reviews, affiliated readers ripped this self-published book to shreds once affiliated book stores allowed it in despite it not coming through an affiliated publisher. Yikes! *Sue bites nails nervously*) It should be interesting to see how this plays out.

Never Ceese toured FIRST earlier this year and the reviews were for the most part wonderful. I look forward to a good tour this time around but just wanted to let you know it was coming up.

Secondly, a wonderful book club called the Open Book Society has opted to review/discuss my Thirsting for Blood Series and will make Never Ceese their book choice for the month of October. This I am really looking forward to as I absolutely love hearing from my vampire/werewolf readers. =)

Christian readers - bottle-fed targeted fiction since 1950

Christian readers have, for the most part anyway, been bottle-fed fiction since 1950 when a group of Christian retailers banded together to form the Christian Booksellers Association to provide narrowly targeted fiction to Christian bookstore visitors, so targeted that they didn't even offer it for distribution into larger bookstores. Why would they? The fiction was for Christian Bookstore visitors only, evangelicals as stated at www.cbaonline.org and never intended to be placed on general bookstore shelves.

Christian authors who write and have been writing for the broader general market for years often find themselves at the mercy of some very odd reviews from CBA and ECPA (Evangelical Christian Publishers Association)core market readers who are now accidentally or on purpose, picking up these books to read. While most are gracious and give relatively high marks, the comments can't help but reflect these readers limited exposure to general market work.

Since reviews are supposed to help a reader know whether they'd like to read a book or not, it's important to remember that any kind of slant toward Christianity will most likely warrant the author of said books a few reviews off kilter from the majority. Those would be from our wonderful readers who can only compare books to what they've been reading since 1950.

Christianbook.com Still giving run-around.

Yes. Once I realized readers who favored CBA and ECPA fiction liked my books as well I went about finding ways to make it easy for them to find my work. Christianbook.com seemed to be the webiste to be on but sadly they seem to have their own agenda or at least from what I can tell.

Doesn't seem to matter if your publisher claims to be a Christian publisher, it doesn't even seem to matter if your work has been approved for distribution through Spring Arbor. Apparently you have to either be published by a CBA or ECPA affiliated publisher (targeted Christian material) and/or be selling enough books already for them to see money in carrying your non-affiliated Christian work such as The Shack.

I was told one time all I had to do was have the publisher contact "them."

A. They never tell you who "them" is.

B. And that's even if you're a publisher. (non-affiliated of course. :))

Anyone know how to get around the Christianbook.com run around?

Celebrating Anne Rice!

She certainly deserves to be celebrated. What a wonderful author and person. If you don't believe me, you can go read her new book: Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession.

Also, you may check out this video.



As an author who is a Christian and writes in the horror genre (at least for now), I'm even more inspired by Anne's journey from atheism and back to her Catholic roots. I understand that in this novel she talks about how her previous novels were written from an atheistic worldview. I so admire her coming out and saying this as it helps point to the fact that writing about vampires or werewolves or zombies isn't inherently evil but rather an expression of self as is the case with all fiction.

I also appreciate Mrs. Rice's decision to stay away from the type fiction that obviously pushes her to remember a very dark and sad time in her life. Perhaps one day she'll be able to forge ahead and revisit writing horror fiction from her new worldview. Until then, do check out her recent books. After all, these were written by literary genius Anne Rice and horror or not, she's well worth reading. I can only hope to ever be as talented.


Other books by post-atheist Anne Rice: