Most-read authors & other randomness

Hello out there! I apologize for the lack of blogging lately, and the missed Titanic Tuesdays this week. It’s been a crazy week at the day job, so I haven’t had as much free time as I’d like lately. I also spent the whole weekend working on my next book, which meant I didn’t get a TT post ready as I usually do. Hopefully I’ll be back next week with it.

Anyone a member of GoodReads? Well, they have a new feature (or at least, new to me, as I didn’t notice it until I saw it mentioned on another blog today) that shows you who your most-read authors are. It’s kind of neat. I was going to link to it, but the link is personalized to your account, so the best way to get to it is to go to any of your shelves, and in the left-hand column, there’s a section called “tools.” The link is in that group.

My most-read is interesting. I have 833 book on my “read” shelf, so that’s a lot of authors to organize. (I’m going by my personal account, which I’ve had much longer than my writer account, and therefore has more books recorded.) According to GoodReads, my #1 most-read author is Nora Roberts and #2 is J.D. Robb . Since Nora and J.D are the same person, that means I’ve read 91 of her books. Damn! That woman is impressively prolific, because that’s not nearly all the books she’s written. Here’s the rest of my top ten, just for giggles.

1. Nora Roberts (49 read)
2. J.D. Robb (42 books—man, has the In Death series really got that many???)
3. Janet Evanovich (31 read)
4. Stephen King (29 read, though that will be 30 soon, as I’m getting ready to start 11/22/63 this weekend!)
5. A tie between Charlaine Harris (25 read) and V.C. Andrews, who I haven’t read in ages, but used to love when I was younger.
6. Laurell K. Hamilton (22 read) She was once my favorite author – her Anita Blake series was pretty much my main inspiration to write vampire fiction, but lately the books have gotten away from what I loved most about them. Still, I’m loyal, so I continue to read, hoping one day they’ll get back to the good stuff.
7. Sherrilyn Kenyon (21 read)
8. Anne Rice (17 read) My original favorite vampire series, until it, too, got too weird. I haven’t read her more recent stuff, but I did like her Mayfair witches series.
9. Lynn Kurland (15 read) I love her time travel romances.
10. Another tie at 14 books each. This time between Victoria Laurie (she has two great series: Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye and her Ghost Hunter series) and Lynsay Sands, who writes the fantastic Argeneau Vampires series. It’s an original twist on the vampire myth that I love, and is lighter than most vamp romances.

Okay, so technically that went into #11 on the GoodReads list due to the ties, and was really 12 authors. Close enough.

Since it’s Veteran’s Day and therefore the banks and post office are closed, I was able to duck out of work early. This is good, because maybe today I will actually get that final revision started on my next book. Once I’ve done that, I can send it off to be read by someone that isn’t as close to it, who can hopefully help me work out the kinks and maybe slim it down a little more. (While I’ve done a good job hacking it down for it’s original 200,000+ word count to only 134,000, I’d still like to shave another 20k off if possible.) But before I do that, I need to rework the opening, tweak one of the characters some and remove an element from the ending I don’t like. If I can get that all done this weekend, I will be very happy.

While I’m doing this last read-through, I also need to keep my eyes out for possible titles, as it looks like I’m going to have to re-name it. *sigh* I’ve always been terrible at titles, but this was the ONE book that practically named itself. I was so happy that I wouldn’t have to struggle with naming it … until a few weeks ago when I discovered two other Urban Fantasy novels that came out recently with the same title (Bloodstone). Grr. So either I need to find a way to add to the title to make it more unique, or come up with a new one altogether. I have a similar issue right now with my current book, as Destined is not only the latest in P.C. Cast’s fabulous House of Night series, but another paranormal romance book is being released this month with that title. It doesn’t help that Destined is a common word, and therefore not easy to search without adding my name. So I want my next book to have a more unique title.

Since it’s also the first in a series, I want something I can use as a naming convention for later books. With Bloodstone, each subsequent novel was going to have a gemstone in the title. Maybe I can come up with something that refers to the setting (Miami) instead. I need something different: too many other UF series with vampires use “blood” or “death” in the titles, so I’m making an effort to avoid that. Another reason to toss out Bloodstone, I suppose. One option could be to change the bloodstone in the book to a different stone and use that, but I haven’t found one that would work yet. It doesn’t have to be a bloodstone, just a stone that isn’t commonly used in jewelry (so not a birthstone). I liked that the name was a wink to the vampire element in the book, and that it was kind of ugly, making it stand out. (It’s part of a murder case, so it needs to be recognizable.) I’m sure there’s another stone out there I could substitute if I can’t come up with another title idea. Either way, I’ll keep thinking. Eventually something is bound to come to me!

See what I mean? It’s not exactly pretty (some are more green than black), and it’s very distinguishable. If anyone has any suggestions for a good alternate, I’m open to them!

Posted in: books,reading,title