Archive for January, 2010

Freelance developmental editors wanted

I know many of you are wondering the status of your copy editor applications. Not to worry, the fact that you haven’t heard isn’t a reason for panic, but only means I’ve had to triage my to-do list and that has fallen to the bottom. However, now that my travel is done until late February and I have no more presentations (or workshops) to plan for, I’m going to be addressing all copy editor tests and applications in the next two weeks. Thank you for your patience.

In the meantime, I’m also going to be hiring two more freelance content/developmental editors. Before you get excited, please read this carefully: I am only hiring experienced editors–editors experienced in editing fiction books, in the genres I’m going to specify. Please do not apply if you don’t have experience, as I will be forced to delete your email, without response, given the time constraints on my schedule. I’m very sorry to have to limit this, as I think there are potential candidates out there who may not have experience, but may have the necessary skills. Unfortunately, I simply don’t have time to devote to training unexperienced editors at this stage.

The position is paid on a scaled flat fee based on various freelance tasks the editor will perform for Carina Press, from reading submissions, line editing, developmental edits and revision letters. The work is strictly freelance, invoicing is done every two weeks, and your work schedule will be up to you to determine, with the only requirement being that given deadlines are strictly met.

I am currently looking for two editors who are interested in editing the following genres: I need one editor interested in romance–specifically erotic romance, but other genres of romance as well. Of course, it’s fine if you wish to edit other genres in addition to romance/erotic romance, but I specifically need editors who enjoy erotic romance and are experienced with it. I also need an editor with interest in and experience with science fiction, fantasy and any associated subgenres. Again, it’s a bonus if you’re open to other genres as well, so don’t feel you’d be limited to those genres.

To apply, send an email of interest addressed to me at generalinquiries@carinapress.com In your email, please detail your experience including what publishers or authors you’ve worked with, how you conduct the developmental and line edit process, and if you’re comfortable with editing digitally. In addition, please list the genres you’re interested in editing, and how you view the editor/author relationship. Only applicants sending emails containing all of the requested information will be considered.

Permission to forward this post is granted. Questions will be answered in the comments, if necessary.

Carina Press Podcast with Angela and Malle

by Amy Wilkins

Despite what it says above, this is NOT Malle Vallik today! :) This is Amy from the Carina Press Acquisition Team popping in to share with you a podcast from Malle and Executive Editor Angela James! In it, Angela and Malle answer some FAQs about Carina Press — such as what we’re acquiring, what we’re looking to acquire, marketing, and more!

So take a listen…and be on the lookout for more podcasts from the Carina Press team in the future.

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The lost week

You may have noticed this week has been rather…lacking in posts. It turns out that traveling from Toronto, to home to have LASIK surgery and then to NYC for a conference where you’re giving a presentation (and among all that running and writing a self-editing workshop), well, it turns out that those things take a lot of time and there are only so many hours in one day. So something had to give and it really couldn’t be sleep because that would just be ugly. No one wants to see that.

As we speak, I’m attending the DigitalBookWorld conference in New York City, along with other Carina team members. I appeared on a panel yesterday, and no one heckled me so I think we can assume that the panel was at least moderately successful. Today I get to enjoy being an audience member, and also will get the experience of being surrounded by other tech/publishing people during today’s Apple announcement of the Apple Tablet and whatever else they’ll be announcing. That should be interesting, being able to have conversations about the announcement in real time–in person!

Next week, I will (hopefully) have a better update about Carina Press and all the new happenings we’ve been exploring. Malle and I recorded a podcast while I was in Toronto last week, so I think that’s coming to the blog soon, and later this week I’ll be posting a blog post from a Carina team member you haven’t met yet.

In the meantime, keep those submissions coming and stay tuned for new developments and acquisitions!

Day 5…this historical cover could be yours

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Day 4…this erotic romance cover could be yours

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Day 3…this mystery cover could be yours

**Internet Explorer users. I just discovered today that the blog is rendering oddly in IE, stretching images and making the embedded poll appear badly. We’re having the webmaster look at it and hope to have it corrected as soon as possible.

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Day 2…this contemporary cover could be yours

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Meet Aideen…This could be your fantasy cover art!

PhotobucketAideen O’Leary-Chung is the Manager of Digital Commerce and has been doing sales and marketing of eBooks for several of her ten years at Harlequin. She will be working with Eleanor on the eBook Store but her main focus at the moment is the creation of covers as well as promotion around Carina Press. She’s an entertainment multi-tasker – within the comfort of her own home – where television plays far too large a role in her life and she often has several books on the go at the same time, one for every room and one at hand for commercial breaks. Working at Harlequin is the perfect antidote for her male-dominated household where she’s outnumbered by her husband and two sons.

One of the aspects of working on eBooks that I love most is creating the covers. It can be both exciting and challenging to put together a cover that does justice to the story. We decided to create several draft covers to illustrate Carina’s range of editorial and give people a sense of the style of our art. Every day this week, we’ll feature a cover in a different genre. Just think, if you’re an author, any one of these sample covers could have your name on it!

Our first sample cover was in the fantasy genre. Mandy M. Roth was the artist and I love it. It wasn’t without its challenges though! In the past few years, I’ve worked on a variety of covers but I’ve never dealt with dragons. Having read about them, I was aware that they could be capricious creatures, but I wasn’t fully prepared for the challenge of capturing one on a cover.  We had our heroine, colors and font at Version 1, but the dragon….well, we auditioned three of them to get the right one.

In Version 1 (bottom left), the dragon was realistic but appeared a bit fresh for our liking.

In Version 2 (bottom right), our dragon was in flight, but the cover seemed to lose some of its mysticism and I questioned his commitment, he didn’t seem convincing.

Finally, we settled on the suggestion of a dragon, a touch of its wing, the tip of its tail…which prevented the dragon from stealing the spotlight.

Working on these covers was a blast for our team. The Carina crew weighed in on every version of this and the other four sample covers. It was another exciting step in bringing Carina titles to life and to launch. And with our recent title acquisitions , we’ve started kicking into high gear on the launch covers. So feel free to share some of your pet peeves about covers and we’ll be sure to try and keep them in mind!

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Week Ten…We’ve Got Plans!

I don’t think I should start out by inundating you with all the things I did last week. It was a long week, I worked quite a bit trying to get things done (including the weekend, which I really try not to do) and as you read this, I’m winging my way to Toronto where I’ll be for the next three days, meeting with the rest of the team and giving a presentation updating Harlequin CEO Donna Hayes on what’s new with Carina Press. And there is definitely a lot to tell about the past two months we’ve been open: ten editors, two copy editors (don’t panic if you haven’t heard from me about your application, I’m only just starting on them), nineteen acquisitions (many of which you haven’t gotten to hear about yet), seventeen authors, 500 submissions in every genre, nearly forty blog posts, two trips (for me) to Toronto, multiple interviews, guest blog posts and invitations to attend conferences and give workshops. When you lay it all out like that, I think we’ve really accomplished a lot since we opened our doors mid-November.

And now we’re going to add one more thing…cover art! Starting this afternoon, and for each day this week, we’ll be sharing a sample cover art that one of several cover artists created. Five days, five different genres, three different cover artists (not all cover artists are represented). We know how important cover art is to both authors and readers, and we wanted to give you a sneak peek at the possibilities. If you’re an author, well, who knows, this cover art could be yours.

Opposite the cover art posts this week, I’ll also be sharing more acquisition posts from the authors who’ve joined Carina Press in the last few weeks. So stay tuned for two of our favorite things: cover art and books!

Join me for a self-editing workshop starting Monday

I am teaming up with the ESPAN (Electronic and Small Press Authors’ Network) special-interest chapter of RWA to bring you a multi-day workshop on self-editing your work. You can visit their site to register. The below information is lifted directly from their site.

January 18, 2010 Self Editing Workshop by Angela James

Join Angela James as she shares some of the common pitfalls she’s seen in submissions and contest entries. She’ll give you ideas, tips and tricks for polishing and self-editing your manuscript. Discuss things such as dialogue tags, whether all forms of “to be” really are evil and just what you’re doing to your life expectancy with your use of that exclamation point. Through it all, she’ll be available for clarification and questions in order to help you on your way to a cleaned-up manuscript.

This course will run over several days on the forum, so you can pop in and out as needed to ask Angela questions or see the new information she’s posted. So, you don’t need to be available at any certain time of day, but you do need to sign up for the course to attend.

The course will be $5 for ESPAN RWA members, $10 for non-ESPAN RWA Members and $15 for non-RWA