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

[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.