Recovering... Sort of

Ugh. I have been so sick. This is now week three of a bad cough that I just can't seem to shake. (I should probably go to the doctor, but, like many people in this country, I don't have decent health insurance. I have "catastrophic" coverage, so if I'm ever hit by a bus, I won't be bankrupted, but the deductible is so high I might as well not have any.)

Also in deference to the holidays (for me, Solstice), I've taken a break from working on my revisions for ALMOST. Now I'm back at work and I'm having such a rough time getting motivated. My editor has been so good about putting in notes like, "A little more explanation here?" that I feel kind of guilty that my first impulse this morning is to write, "No."

Plus, I had a near heart attack this morning (emotionally, speaking,) because a friend of mine wrote to me inquiring if I had any copies of Tall, Dark & Dead to sell her. Seems a friend of hers was looking to get his daughter hooking on a new vampire series after having devoured the Twilight series, and she suggested me. Only, when her friend went to find my books at his local, independent bookstore, he was told they couldn't get copies and thought TDD must be out of print.

Now Penguin has its faults, but they have always been really good about letting me know when my books are being remaindered so I can have a chance to buy some of the remaining stock before the books vanish off the face of the earth. (This is how my alter ego is able to still supply our local bookstore with copies of her OOP books, lo, these many years later.) So I was kind of shocked by this news. I quick fired off a "eek!" email to my editor (luckily, I didn't sound grumpy, just confused,) and she wrote back and told me that my panic was for naught. Tall, Dark & Dead is still in print. They have over a thousand copies at the warehouse waiting for some independent bookstore to make a request. She figured my friends' friend was dealing with a bookstore that uses a distributor that doesn't deal directly with Penguin and that the distributor was temporarily out of stock. Sending us all into unnecessary panic.

I assume the news of remaindering is on its way soon enough, though. With the series dead, I can't imagine the books will remain in print too much longer after the book comes out next May. I should start budgeting for a few boxes, as depressing as that might seem. I'd much rather be ready for the news.

Anyway, I hope you all had a good Yule/Solstice. I sure did. My parents (who are secular humanists/Unitarians) came up to celebrate with us on Sunday. They brought Mason all sorts of snow goodies, which is quite appropriate given the storms that are supposed to roll through here soon. I got some awesome loot myself: a year's subscription to InTouch (which I love for its trashiness) and well as money on my coffee card and a couple of Captain America tee-shirts.