Beauty

[dwg.livejournal.com]

It's only taken a small eternity for the Amazon page to be updated with some kind of information as to what this even is - and the publication date has changed from April 24 to May 8:

The steamy outtake that takes readers even further into Laurell K. Hamilton’s bestselling novel, Kiss the Dead.

You’d think I’d get used to seeing such a beautiful man and knowing he was mine, but it never grew old, as if his beauty and the fact that he was mine, and I was his, would forever surprise me.

With a vampire like Jean Claude around, it’s far too easy for Anita Blake to doubt her own appearance—and the hold it has on those who love her. But one hot tub and two incredibly sexy men—Jean Claude and Asher—will make her feel like the most lusted-after woman alive…or undead. Not bad for a mere human…

“Hamilton remains one of the most inventive and exciting writers in the paranormal field.”—Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author

Includes an excerpt of Kiss the Dead, the new Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novel.

[source]

I'm starting to wonder if this is what we get instead of the first chapter posted free on LKH's website? Given the revised drop date, Beauty comes out one month before Kiss the Dead. There has been zero chatter about what Beauty even is -- the closest I've found was just a couple of days ago over at the forum, and even then the mod couldn't actually confirm what the book was about unless she got word from Laurell herself. This whole thing strikes me as incredibly weird.

That said, yes I am going to try to get my hands on this as soon as possible. For science or great justice or something.

Comments

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

it’s far too easy for Anita Blake to doubt her own appearance

GAH so it's actually a novella about how Anita is so OMG hot and sexy and irresistible but suffers doubts because blondes were mean to her for being insufficiently blonde/tall/cheerleaderish when she was young, so Jean Claude and Asher have sex with her in a hot tub and there is much spilling and tight-wet spurting and screaming for an entire book?

What an unusual and inventive direction for LKH to take.

[shadwing.livejournal.com]

I doubt its a novella, it sounds like the scenes that her Editor made her take out of KtD and that editor was correct, multi-page/chapter sex scene about Anita's self esteem issues and mooning over JC has nothing to do with the advertised plot blurb about a kidnapped girl and a set of masterless vampires who would rather die then serve a master. They most likely agreed to this release of 'Beauty' to make some extra cash and get her to agree to the removal of the scenes from the book.

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

Do you think that maybe she actually had to edit some of the book and then someone saw a way to recycle what was cut out?

[dwg.livejournal.com]

There was a mention on Facebook about publishing some outtakes back in January:

Meeting with editor went well. She doesn't think we need both extra scenes, but one if there's room. Though we are talking maybe publishing one of the out takes in some form, so you guys could actually read it. We'll see, please don't say that I will be publishing an out take; it's only a maybe.

link (http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10150473060352632&id=136225597631)

ETA: I can type today, yes. How do words work. *facepalm*

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

Man you are hardcore to follow her on social media. Thanks again for taking one for the team.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Luckily, the Facebook feed I have is just LKH's entries. I'll have to consult my co-mod, but given that she's not been blogging like she used to (or said she would, because we haven't had three blogs a week since she announced it), I'll see if we can use blogfloggery for any writing-related FB messages. We both follow them just in case something crops up, but more often than not...well, it's Facebook.

[naeko.livejournal.com]

Seriously, it's all about her dogs or "ha! I forgot to eat again! What a hardcore creative-type I am!" -_-

[ex-naomi-ja.livejournal.com]

So much WTF. First of all, I'm sorry, but that's an ugly cover. Although I think it's appropriate that whereas most UF covers have women in active, or at least upright poses, Anita always appears to sprawled on the floor nowadays. But yeah, ugly cover.

Second - who cares? I mean, there's usually a good reason scenes get cut from books. Either they're not good enough or they're good but don't serve the plot. In both cases, I have no interest in reading something deemed not right for the final book.

THAT SAID. It gives me a tiny, fragile glimmer of hope that this is apparently a big old sex scene and somebody decided to slice it from the book. Maybe that means KtD has actually been, you know, edited for content? I still maintain this is just going to be Anita wangsting over being half-Mexican and not blonde and skinny, and JC and Asher being all, "no, no, you are the most super speshul snowflake ever and we'd take you over a million blonde soccer moms and whatever." So, yeah...I look forward to your thoughts.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

There's been at least two rounds of edits? This is one more than usual. I'm honestly shocked by this. But I'm also a bit antsy because usually we would have a chapter of KtD up on her website by now. The book is due out in about eight weeks, and aside from hunting down a blurb there's been mum. It seems like a really weird way to promote an upcoming title.

[ex-naomi-ja.livejournal.com]

The fact that there's obviously been some real editing makes my little heart pitter-patter. I don't except the old Anita, but maybe we'll get a less sucky Anita?

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Hit List was definitely less horrible than previous efforts and less awful than it could have been, so there's...some vague spark of hope in there. Baby steps, right? Even if people have been saying that it's a "return to form" since Skin Trade.

[c-l-craft.livejournal.com]

So, an entire book that revolves around the main character who happens to be a woman doubting her self only to have her fragile self esteem saved by her steamy manfolk. Great.

That being said, I could see someone taking the cut material from a book and turning it into a short story. But an entire book/novella? That's a bit much.

Do you have any idea how much they're going to be charging for this? From the sounds of it they might try to slip it in at a fairly low price, maybe even a packaged deal with KtD, but you never know with her.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Both Amazon and B&N have it for $2.99 - which...idk, I feel like that's pretty steep for an outtake. But the more I think about it, the more I feel like I'm being all entitled because okay LKH does not owe me anything for free - just at the same time, there hasn't been any of the previous "here's a chapter from my new book! Enjoy!" on her site. An outtake for free on her site would be a great thing to generate buzz about an upcoming title and create goodwill with her fans, and it could be early days and a chapter could still go up. But if it doesn't and this is the only way there's a preview of the book? That just seems iffy.

[c-l-craft.livejournal.com]

That's a bit steep for what, a chapter? Sure she doesn't, and shouldn't have to give it away for free but the price should fit the quality of the product. Heck, why doesn't she try to get in published in magazine or something? It would have to be an adult magazine, sure, but it would help get some word out on her new book and it would keep the price down.

If it is a preview for the book I will flip a freakin' table at the audacity of them to try and charge for that. Because that is just not cool, man.

If you released it as an ebook you should be able to sell it for dirt cheap, or at least cheaper than that. :l

[dwg.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to look around and see what other authors do, major names and not. I kinda like finding out that an author's got some free stories available just to see if I like their stuff enough to buy them.

I know some authors keep outtakes and see if they can use them later, so I wasn't sure if this was something else entirely based on her tweets/facebooking. But since it is here, and obviously cleared with the publisher that it's okay to be released, I'm just...I woulda thought that maybe there'd be something like "this didn't make it into the next book, but I liked it enough to keep it and now I'm sharing it with you :D" but there's been NOTHING. It's kinda like asking people to discover fire for themselves rather than Prometheus strolling down from Olympus to gift it to the mortals, some people might figure it out, but for the most part everyone remains in the dark. So there's going to be a lot of people who aren't aware that this book exists, and a lot of those people who would be willing to pay $2.99 for it.

I'm just...I'm really not sure what I should be thinking about this. I feel like someone's possibly dropped the ball in marketing, and that there's some kind of communication breakdown.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

Based on her last few releases, I'm mighty suspicious that this is nothing more than some random chapters from her book. I think Bite's "The Girl Who Was Infatuated With Death" was the only short story she's actually published like this. Starting with Craving, they've all been parts of a book.

Note: "The Girl Who Was Infatuated With Death" is an earlier story, and I do recommend it for a read.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Those are pretty much my thoughts, too. I'm pretty sure that Can He Bake a Cherry Pie? is the first actual new short story that she's written for an anthology (or recycled, as per "The Girl Who Was Infatuated With Death" as that popped up in <>Strange Candy too) for years. So it really would not surprise me if this was straight up a chapter or two excised from the book without any further editing or explanation.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

Well, Strange Candy was a retrospective of her work, so I don't see a problem with that recycling. But you're right, I think, that her last actual short stories were in there. "Cherry Pie" seems to be the only thing since.

[evewithanapple.livejournal.com]

You’d think I’d get used to seeing such a beautiful man and knowing he was mine, but it never grew old, as if his beauty and the fact that he was mine, and I was his, would forever surprise me.

The Department od Redundancy Department is on the phone for you, Anita.

I don't think there's anything especially wrong with making cutscenes available but $2.99 is a pretty damn steep price to pay for it. Kelley Armstrong (who also releases cutscenes) put out three brand-new novellas meant to supplement her YA trilogy, and they're on Kindle for ninety-nine cents. And she puts other novellas up on her website for free. Nothing wrong with sharing treats with fans, but the way LKH is going about it seems kind of . . . mercenary.

[shadwing.livejournal.com]

Given that all of LKH's fellow UF authors sell much better and her's have been slipping for years she might not be able to afford 'freebies' to her fans we've been speculating for some time that the reality of her career ending or at least most of her perks going away might be creeping in...she's been really quiet since she had to edit KtD...two rounds of edits and the editors demanding scenes re-written or completely cut/replaced was a shock to her 'My 1st drafts are 90% gold!' PoV usually she can BS though the copy edits as soon as the manuscript is turned in and then take a month off to 'learn to play as hard as she works' not this time!

She had to edit KtD and is most likely getting notes asking for progress pages on Merry right now

[magdalen77.livejournal.com]

Yes, usually she gets through her copy edits in a few days. This time it took her a couple of weeks for each round along with lots of whining about how hard her publishers new computerized editing system was. IMHO when she agreed to editing again she didn't realize how much more time it would take, otherwise she wouldn't have scheduled several vacations at the same time as the editing. She really must have believed that she would do the same amount of editing as she did in the past when she was merely getting some desultory line editing.

[vlredreign.livejournal.com]

I haven't rad an AB book since Danse Macabre. The funny thing is that I would have loved a book about just her, Asher and Jean Claude back when their balls were still attached. I think I really lost my love for the Anita-verse when NiC came out. Between the rape scene and the 15+ pages it took for her to feed the ardeur or however you spell it just did me in. Remember that? Seriously there were like...she was in bed, then about to get naked, then didn't get naked, then had to talk/beg Asher into joining them, then...and I was like STFU already and just do it!!!

Kind of surprised that her editor was able to actually edit for a change. I still hope and pray for the day that someone gets through to LKH and points out her many faults with regard to this series. At least with Merry, we knew she was a slut going in.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Oh god, I am so with you there. JC and Asher are pretty much my OTP in these books and are probably the poster boys for a healthy(ish) open relationship because they've worked out their previous issues to get back together again and stay together despite having Anita-shaped issues that constantly cockblock them for whatever reason the author felt like at the time. There was a time when I would have killed for a JC/Asher/Anita scene (one where Asher does not mention "your sweet ass," because way to kill the mood there) but that was ten books ago. We've gone so long without so many resolutions to the tangled mess of relationships in this series, I have honestly stopped caring.

It'd do wonders if either this book or the full novel actually solved some of the hanging plot threads in the series. However, I'm pretty sure this isn't going to happen in the slightest. It's a pity, because this kind of thing could have been SO AWESOME.

[vlredreign.livejournal.com]

After LKH ripped Richard's nuts off, I wanted the triad to be Asher, JC and Anita. Then out of the blue, she's creating her own, and I was like, wtaf?? The problem is that once you make a character uber-powerful there's no where else to go. Anita is never gonna learn from her mistakes because she doesn't think she makes any, and when anyone points out a fault, she shoots them.

JC/Asher is my OTP, too.

I guess we can be grateful that Anita hasn't shtupped Edward yet, right?

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure if Edward succumbed, that'd be the end of so many people with this series. Even dedicated readers that like the latter half. I really hope LKH stands by her promise that they'll never get together. *shudder*

[everstar3.livejournal.com]

Holy God, how long and pointless is this scene if even LKH's editors looked at it and thought, "You know, this really detracts from the taut, hard-thrusting erection narrative of Kiss the Dead?"

Edited because apparently I can't even remember the name of the book versus the name of the porn.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Even with the wrong book title in there, this comment is awesome. Because yes, this exactly.

[neriah.livejournal.com]

The whole thing is who really cares anymore? ABVH is pretty much done. Her board is less active than I have ever seen.

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

So is the story just about how pretty Anita is? Because that's really all I'm getting from the description.

[nialla]

Sounds like this is going to be an e-chapbook. Publishers used to do print versions of them as promos for some upcoming books, but with e-books, they don't have to deal with the printing cost.

I read an e-chapbook recently that was essentially a prequel. I haven't read the actual book yet (I'm on the waiting list at the library), so I'm taking a guess that it's a backstory that's explained but not shown in the book, so it's a plus but not essential to read.

In this case, I'd be willing to bet the publisher is using it as promotional material as they usually do, but it sounds like it's recycled scrap material from the book. Not something that really expands the story (unless you're talking about expanding cocks).

Also, I'm thinking it needs a subtitle. "Beauty: The Author Has Issues."

[poor-toms-acold.livejournal.com]

This wee book would be improved if Anita was edited out. Just sayin'.

[yaoihuntresse.livejournal.com]

Once I read about what Beauty would be about, I couldn't help thinking of this scene in an episode of Family Guy. It was the episode where the Griffins' get their own reality show and Meg is eventually replaced with some sexy piece of jail-bait who says, "I'm going to my room and write in my dairy how I'll never have breasts as big and beautiful as these."

[rodentfanatic.livejournal.com]

+1
That is exactly this