As of yesterday, BN was still having trouble with BAD BOYS AHOY!, but as of this morning BBA was the #696 ranked book. I don’t see how that’s possible if the book isn’t on the shelves somewhere, since BN’s rankings are a combination of in-store and online sales.

So, I’ll hop in the car and go look. My sister and I went to the Borders Express in the mall, but they didn’t have the Feb. releases out yet.

********UPDATE***********

Well we went to BN. I looked on the shelves and endcap for BBA. All of the February books were out, but not BBA. I almost started crying. It was so sad to see the February Bravas on the shelves but not my book.

I looked at the customer service counter and saw the bookseller was alone. I’m shy and can’t imagine waiting in a line to talk to them. Having people overhear me would just make me clam up. But since she was by herself, I walked up to her and asked her to look up the ISBN to BBA. She pulled it up on the computer and got confused. It says Feb. 28th, but it also says it’s in stock and should be prominently displayed on an endcap or center aisle display. (yay!) She called over another bookseller who also got confused and called the manager.

The manager came up and said, “Oh, it just arrived today. It’s loaded on the cart to be put out.” She ran off to get one, and I didn’t want to refuse the book after her trouble, so I told the girl next to me, “That’s okay. I’m the author. I just wanted to see if it was here.”

The next thing you know, they’re asking me to sign the stock so they can sticker it and make a front store display for the book.

Oh man… Can you imagine how I felt after not finding the book there at all?

So, I sat down and signed the stock, stuffed each book with one of my bookmarks, and grinned like an idiot. And they were so nice to me!! The staff came around and watched me sign the book. Thanked me for coming. Said how cool it was to meet me.

Too freakin’ awesome.

Of course, I looked like shitcakes with my hair up in a bun, no makeup on, and my sweats. But no matter.

AND!!! BBA is on the front page of the Brava Authors‘ website!!! It’s been almost 14 months since I got “THE CALL” from Kate Duffy. My first sale. With Brava. And now my book is up on the front page.

Well, if you’ve been checking out your local Barnes & Noble for BAD BOYS AHOY! you’re probably wondering when they’ll have the book on the shelves.

Fact is, don’t hold your breath. (< - holding breath)

Due to a human error on the part of someone at BN, they're listing BBA in their computers as a Feb. 28th release, so the brick and mortar stores presently don't have any plans to put the book out before then. To say my editor and Kensington's publisher is not thrilled is a huge understatement, as you can probably imagine. They're working hard to get it fixed, but since the glitch is in the BN computer system and nowhere else, they're having to wait for someone at BN to fix the problem. My editor asked me to assure everyone that Kensington is doing all that they can to rectify the situation.

In the meantime, BBA is on shelves in most Borders and Waldens stores across the country. Your local independent bookstore might have it, too. On Amazon.com beneath the “add to cart” button is a spot to type in your zip code and it will pull up a list of the Borders stores near you that have BBA on the shelves right at this very moment.

Giant thank yous to anyone who drives out of their way to pick up the book. I really, really appreciate it. Also, for you ebook readers, BBA is available as an ebook on Amazon and will eventually be available for download from the Kensington book site.

In other news, my editor loves THE STRANGER I MARRIED as is. No edits or revisions. :yay:

• 1.) Read and judge 6 GH entries
• 2.) Read and judge 7 5 RITA entries
• 3.) Answer the questions to 8 1 interviews
• 4.) Work on ASK FOR IT copy edits
• 5.) Write President’s letter for Passionate Ink newsletter
• 6.) Go to post office and mail prizes
• 7.) Get my tax stuff together (add up numbers, get the paperwork all in one place, etc.)
• 8.) Clean my house
• 9.) Think up new stories
• 10.) Think up book discussion questions for Feb. BBA book club
• 11.) Sleep

*getting there

• 12.) Think up title for MISLED/KISS OF THE NIGHT antho.

*trying. Sent a few to my editor

• 13.) Write up article on BBA
• 14.) Critique one partial and one story.
• 15.) think up a decent class to teach that hasn’t been done to death

*need to write blurb

Over at the Writer Babes, author Cathryn Fox is talking about plot hooks. Good stuff!!

Thanks to those of you who came to the chat tonight. It was busy and I couldn’t type fast enough, but you hung out anyway. :hug:

Something I wasn’t expecting was hearing from readers about BAD BOYS AHOY! so quickly. It’s wonderful and I love it. I can’t begin to tell you how cool it is for me. :hug: But what a trip that there are so many readers who have finished reading the book already. And the way I hear about it. “Oh hey, Sylvia! I just finished BBA and loved it.” So casually, like it’s not going to knock me off my feet, which it does every time. I mean I’m still hearing from people who can’t find it in stores. (The official release date is Feb. 6th) So to hear from people who are done with it and have been done with it for days, even a week… so trippy.

Amazon.ca is selling ASK FOR IT already, which is kinda freaky since it’s sitting here next to me going through copy edits.

I followed a trackback to a discussion on Diana’s blog about the old writing vs. storytelling debate. She linked to an older post of mine where I said:

“This explains why I can write a story in no time at all, but layering, editing, and wordsmithing take me weeks longer than that. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to be like Alison, who knows the craft well enough to get almost finished product on the page the first time around, but it’s a worthy goal and I aspire to it. I haven’t been writing long and every week that passes I find less errors and I catch myself before I make some of those errors so I think the goal is attainable.”

Reading this made me smile. I’m now at the point where I’m writing almost print-quality work the first time around. I still edit as I go. I write a chapter, send it to my cp, crit the chapter, and then move on. Lately, I’ve had to ship the books to my editors as soon as I type THE END. Literally. No time left to read through it again. (I’m hoping my recently revamped schedule will allow me more breathing room, which should prevent me from stressing so often.) But I think the last year has taught me to spend a little more time on word choices the first time around, which means less to clean up later.

Until I get to the copy edits stage and see the CE comments… but we talked about that already.

Thursday, January 26, 2006 9 PM EST
Sylvia Day will chat at NovelTalk about Bad Boys Ahoy! Door prize: One lucky reader will receive a book cover tote bag containing an autographed copy of Bad Boys Ahoy!