Hey everybody, two bits of news for you. First, I sold my very first short story! Yay! I mean, I actually got a real check and everything for it. Super exciting. Fantasy Scroll Magazine will be running my short short, “Grimm’s Home for Geriatric Fae” sometime this summer.

Second bit of news: this journal is now running a Kickstarter! While they offer token payments to their authors right now, they want to be able to upgrade those payments to professional level payments, and they are pre-selling editions of the journal to help with that. They’ve got some amazing talent with stories and interviews in the first few editions, so take a look! And, for all my fellow speculative writers out there, this is an awesome editorial crew to work with, so check out their submission guidelines!

Ashten over at EasyReadReviews was kind enough to break out of her normal genres to give Undeliverable a chance, and she ended up giving it 4.5/5 stars!

Here’s a link to the video and here is a link to her text blog, so you can check it out for yourself!

So, a while back you heard me crowing about my excellent Kirkus review, but now I have two more people who loved my book! I can’t tell you how excited I am to keep hearing this kind of feedback…

Portland Book Review:
“Demarest’s writing is sharp and witty. Her book is a great read with a bit of social conscience. While I was reading, I felt as if Demarest was taking me on a wild ride, a ride that I enjoyed and met a bunch of cool people along the way. From Gertrude to Sylvia – the characters are a great group of people. Benjamin faces struggles throughout the investigation, but in the end…well, read it and I think that you will enjoy it as much as I did.” (Full Text Here)

San Francisco Book Review:
“This is a well-plotted, well-written story — its central metaphor of lost mail for a lost child creative and poignant. Ben channels his frustration with his inability to find his child to reconnecting mail to its intended recipient — efforts often similarly futile. The details of the “mail recovery system” and history of the mail service, in general, are actually interesting. Most topics are inherently interesting, when gone into with enough depth and clarity. The details of the detective work that Ben does in his search are actually more thorough and systematic than that of the professional police detectives. Riveting. There is peace, if no real happy endings, at the resolution of the story for both Ben and Sylvia, both tragic figures who have experienced loss.” (Full Text will be online by April)

Today I am spending the day celebrating the fruition of many years of labor and several months of intensive learning and marketing. How does your character’s society celebrate the end of things? Graduations, coming of age, etc, give us a party!

Hello all! Undeliverable launched today! Its everywhere! Well…except Kindle cause Amazon is being difficult, but it should be there within the next couple days. Spread the word!

It is almost time for the launch of Undeliverable! And in preparation of this, I have been sending copies of the book hither and yon in an effort to cultivate reviews, and, as is expected when one has sent over 200 packages in the last three months, a few of them have gone astray. One was even gutted by a piece of machinery and the envelope returned to me sans contents. Two weeks later, what should arrive, but the contents! (Ms. Vejo, your book is back in the mail now!)

The irony of the fact that my book passed through the very center it takes place in, but no one appears to have even cracked it open is almost too much to bear. I think this means I must send a copy to them directly to read, what do you think folks?

Red alert, everyone to battle stations! If you have been contemplating putting your work up through Amazon’s ACX for audiobooks, I’d start rethinking that plan or securing a contract IMMEDIATELY as their terms are changing.

Previously, content producers were offered a sliding scale of 50-90% of the royalties of their audiobooks, depending on how many sold. Starting in early March, that changes to a FLAT 40%. Period. To be split between you and your producer. Oh, and if you choose a non-exclusive contract so that you’re not locked into only being sold on Amazon, iTunes and Audible? You are only entitled to 25% royalties.

I personally find this entirely unacceptable and have already voiced my opinion to the company.  I encourage you to do the same. They are a distribution company and have done absolutely nothing to help develop the content they are selling. We have spent YEARS writing the content and the producers we partner with spend MONTHS creating the recordings. They have no right to take that much of the royalty. I might have been okay if they had announced that it was going to a simple flat royalty of 70% or possibly even 60%. But to take a majority, and a massive majority at that, of the royalty is absurd.

Here is the official announcement.

Here is where you should send your complaint: support@acx.com

Join me in showing Amazon that we will not go quietly into the night. Then join me in trying to secure distribution for audiobooks through an independent platform.

Hey, all you wonderful party people who have been reading Undeliverable: If you have made it through the book, would you be kind enough to leave a review at one of these three sites, or, better yet, all the ones you have an account on? The more people we get talking about this book the better!

Amazon
Goodreads
LibraryThing

The print books are live now to purchase, the large-print will be available in a couple days, and the ebooks will be live on the 6th! We’ll get this party started right! You guys are amazing!

So, a couple months ago, I submitted Undeliverable to Kirkus Indie for a review, and, today, I just got that review back. This is the first time an independent source has reviewed my writing and…drum roll please…they loved it! Everything that I wanted to accomplish with the novel made it through, and the reviewers seems to have genuinely enjoyed the book. I cannot begin to tell you all how relieved I am.

“Engaging, inventive and full of feeling, Demarest’s debut engagingly addresses what we lose when we lose someone we love.” ~ Kirkus Review

You can read the full text here.