Bookcast Episode 68: It's That Time of Year...

Transcript

DL White [00:00:00]:
Well hello good morning. Welcome back to the BookCast. This is my platform for sharing short fiction and updates on what I'm reading and writing. This is episode 68. I am Dale White, your host and author of contemporary Southern and romantic fiction novels featuring black men and women. I'm also a big fan of books, so we usually begin with the Booker part. I talk about writing and news etc. I'm currently not writing, Home for the Holidays is complete, and release day is upon us.

DL White [00:00:32]:
You should be seeing this title on my website sometime today or tomorrow. We'll talk more about that in the writing update section of our show. If you love and enjoy this podcast, I would love your support. I love every comment, every retweet, every Download every listen. If you would like to support monetarily, I would Much appreciate that. Head to my support site it's bookcast. Buzzsprout.com. It's the same website as the BookCast because I am now eligible to receive support directly at Buzzsprout.

DL White [00:01:11]:
Buy Me a Coffee is still open. You are welcome to donate there, but I have turned off all subscriptions there. You can subscribe at bookcast. Buzzsprout.com with a one time or recurring monthly gift and I am already most grateful. The other way you can support is to buy my books. Booksbydalewhite.com/books has all of the good stuff in ebook, print, or audio. As I say every week, buying direct puts money directly into my pocket with virtually no middleman taking a percentage of the cover price, but if you prefer to buy them retail that is not a problem. All my titles are available in ebook wherever they're sold Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Kobo Books, Google Play.

DL White [00:01:51]:
They are also available via subscription sites like Everand and Kobo Plus and they're available to request at your local library. You can find print copies of my titles I have a few here at home. I'm about to run a paperback sale after Christmas just to get rid of the stock that I have here, so if you're fiendin' for some paperback, and my paperback sale will be 50% off. You can also find print copies at resist booksellers or bookshop.org. Just a reminder that my ebooks on my website are still on sale at payhip.com/booksbydly. All of my ebook and audio are 50% off those are darn good prices, like my holiday shorts are like 50¢ right now that's some good reading. Today we will start with the book report as always and we'll talk some book news, writing updates, and appearances. Today is Saturday, December 23rd.

DL White [00:02:44]:
It is 9:22 a. M. And it is sunny in the ATL. I have a mic and I'm ready to dig in even though I am really not feeling well. It's been a rough 24 hours, and I can't wait to finish this podcast so I can edit it and get it up and get back in bed, but first I'm actually having tea today, because I just could not stomach the idea of coffee. Let's have some tea. All right. Let's dig into the book report.

DL White [00:03:28]:
This is Low key my favorite part of the podcast because I just love talking about books. I am a book head if I'm gonna do anything. I'm gonna read a book. I have read 180 books which means I have surpassed my challenge goal to read 175 books this year. I don't know how many books I am ahead I'm way stop counting I'm way ahead. So this week I read 6 books looks like. 6 seems to be my average, so that's good that's good. I read Bread and the Bone or listened to Bread and the Bone, which is Widows Island number 4 by Kendra Elliott.

DL White [00:04:03]:
She is one of those authors that like puts out a you know a bunch of what do they call them? Thrillers? They're like easy listens while I do laundry or whatever. So Pretty much caught up on Kendra Elliott and Melinda Lee. I read From Meltdown to Mistletoe by Jessica Terry. This was so good. It's a holiday short. Super proud of Jessica for shooting this out real quick. It was really good. It's a it's a grumpy sunshine.

DL White [00:04:29]:
Really enjoyed it. I listened to Broke Down Profits by S. A. Cosby, and I let me tell you I just barely made it through this. I love love love Sean Cosby. I love his writing, I love his work, but this was not it. This was not it. It was it felt like listening to a TV show, Like if you were listening to like a cops and robbers kind of movie, but there was no picture.

DL White [00:04:57]:
It was like a live action scripted thing. I don't know how you call this a book. It it's not it's not it's not a book Because there was like no there was no there was no exposition. There was no then he went to the store and he got in the car. It was all dialogue, which is not a book to me. It's just dialogue. So, did not enjoy that at all and Sad to say I also do not enjoy 'Fall' by, Tracy Clark. I am I am a Tracy Clark Fan! I love her work, and I'm just, this new series, the detective Harriet Foster series, It just is not working for me.

DL White [00:05:39]:
It it just seems it seems wordy. It's I don't I just don't, like, I don't really grasp the story. The story doesn't yeah. I don't I don't I don't have the words to describe, but I think I gave that one 3 stars. It was alright, not terrible, but not I mean I wouldn't wouldn't listen to it again. I don't think I'm gonna read any further books in the Harriet Foster series. Bring back cast Reign. We like Casts.

DL White [00:06:08]:
I also listened to read Her Holiday by Renee Wolf. Renee is a new author to me. This was pretty good actually it was, it was a pretty good read. I'm struggling to remember what the book was about my my brain's cloudy, I did not really sleep last night, so, I believe I I enjoyed that one. And then I read All A Winter Romance by Crystal Davis, who is also new to me, there's actually 2 authors on this book, but Goodreads only picks up the first one. This was super good. There's like a handsome cowboy on the front. It's real hallmark y, which is Important at this time of year, like give us some some escape, give us some romance, give us some close proximity type of Romance.

DL White [00:06:57]:
It was really good. If you have a chance and need to read a book, pick up All Jingle'd Out, Winter Romance is about a guy who basically doesn't believe in Christmas, and then, it's a very grumpy sunshine. Very. But Then I believe her name is Holly I don't remember the hero's name, but Holly is the female main character, and, she's like, Yeah, we can't have that. You've gotta you gotta believe in Christmas. So those are the books I read this week. It was 1, 2, 3, 4, yeah, 6 books. I am currently reading The Law of Karma by Pamela Samuels Young.

DL White [00:07:32]:
It's good so far I'm only about 10% and I keep getting distracted by like holiday novels, but I am going to finish it. This week I was on the Romance in Color podcast with Tasiotta Richardson. She is an author and a podcaster. It aired on Friday, December 22nd. Catch it wherever you listen to podcasts I'll link to it on my website at books by dlwhite.com/praise. It was such a good conversation. I talked her ear off. That poor woman.

DL White [00:08:00]:
I love talking books and writing and all the good stuff, so if we, like, if we got to take it back to when I first started writing, We're going to take it back to when I first started writing. I had a really good time on this podcast. You should take a listen it's about an hour and a half ish, like an hour 15, so if you've got time, dial it up. We had a nice chat. And book news, this is the year of authors acting badly, but it's not, I mean, it's not anything new. Like this is kind of par for the course, but it does seem like we had Quite a few more controversies this year than in previous years. We started the year with an author who had previously died, in quotes quote unquote died, and decided she was done pretending to be dead and she outed herself. We had the booktucker that was harassing sexually harassing NHL players and got herself dropped from, a bunch of promo and I think she's back at it again doing something.

DL White [00:08:54]:
I don't she's always complaining about something. That's what I hear. I try to stay, out of the fray, but I like mess and drama, so I kind of like wanna know, like what's the scoop? What's the deal? There's the author that called the reader Bee for rating her book 4 stars because it broke her quote unquote 5 star streak. She ended up losing her book deal, which was actually like a vanity press anyway, so, I wonder if she got her money back. That's that whole situation was just so weird. That was just very strange. Like if your book was that good, Why did you have to publish it through a vanity press? You paid 1,000 of dollars for someone to publish your book. Weird.

DL White [00:09:43]:
Recently an author who feels like they own all of the rights to Sun Powers has been posting on Twitter and Listen, there's a bunch of things you can't copyright. Sun Powers is one of them. There's like a whole rundown of what can and can't be copywritten. The Sun Powers is not one of them. This reminds me of Cocky Gate from a few years ago, if you all remember that, this author that decided to copyright the term cocky because she was going to use it in her series, which meant that other authors couldn't use that term in their books or in their book titles, and I think she lost, and I'm just wondering, like, what do these authors do that they have money to waste on lawyers and court dates and to take, like, ridiculous crap to to court. Like, do the book sales that you get from being dumb, Like, outweigh you just looking dumb? I mean, is this for publicity? Are you unwell? What is happening? It just really goes to show you that the book world has never been without controversy. It's just all day every day authors behaving badly, Reviewers behaving badly. I told my friend twice sifted writers hear voices and we write down what they say and then we sell it.

DL White [00:10:59]:
We're not okay. So hoping for fewer controversies in 2024. The writing update, the moment that I hope you've all been waiting for Home for the holidays. Edits are complete. Great thanks to my editor a.k for a quick turnaround. We got it done in about a week, which is fast for like a pro editor. Elysium took about 4 weeks and it was twice as long. So we got it in.

DL White [00:11:27]:
I went through the edits yesterday. I am perfecting my front and back matter, and the book should be up sometime today or tomorrow. The book will be a website exclusive until the new year, so you have to check my website at booksbydlwhite.com/booksordirect@payhip.com/booksbydlwhite to grab it. This is again a Powder Lake story it's Powder Lake 3.5, so it's gonna come between The Guy Next Door and Still I Rise. Still I Rise will be book 4 in a series that I'm already like rethinking how I want that book to go because a lot of things I wanted to put in Still I Rise, I put into Home for the Holidays, so I need to retool that. I'm So kind of retooling The Pearl, which is the next book in the Black Diamond, Vacation Romance series, because a lot of things I wanted to do with The Pearl I did in Elysium, because I was not planning to write those books, so, so I'll get it figured out. Also, there will be an epilogue to this story, but I need more time to do it justice, and I didn't want to hold the book until I had written the epilogue, so it will come out later as a newsletter or subscriber extra. Sign up for my newsletter.

DL White [00:12:40]:
If you want to know when it drops, it's booksbydielwhite.com/newsletter, and again, The people that have subscribed to me at bookcast. Buzzsprout.com will also get a copy of that. I am super, super tired, so apologies for the lackluster and very short show. I I really heavily considered not doing one, but It's the last 2 shows of the year, so the show it must go on. Also, I wanted to announce that my book would be out, and I just I didn't I didn't want to skip a show. So, we're looking good for Home for the Holidays being out today or tomorrow, and then I will keep working on the epilogue. Next week I'm working on a fun idea to close out The year I'm going to try to talk about my 2024 goals I don't have any yet, but you know, we'll see what I come up with between now and next week, and I want to hear from my readers. So not my readers my readers, my listeners, the people that listen to this podcast.

DL White [00:13:46]:
So I'm working up something a little bit special to gather your insight, your opinions, your words, your questions, so that I can put the spotlight on you next week. So that brings us to the end of today's episode. Again, I apologize for a truncated show, but your girl is not feeling good, so Mettea and I are, gonna get back in the bed and Edit this show, get it up, get a transcript, all that stuff, and then I'm going to work on getting home for the holidays out the door. Thank you so much for joining me for today's show I was so happy that you were here I will be back next week to close out the year with a reading update and writing update and some input from you. Please enjoy your weekend, have a superlative week, Merry Christmas, happy holidays, We'll chat again next weekend.