Still basking in the glow!

I'm still basking in the afterglow of the German foreign language rights news, but wanted to thank everyone who congratulated me in the last post. There's quite a few of you, and I don't know if I'll get around to answering individually. But THANKS! It's incredibly exciting news for me, since it's my first foreign language rights sale. I'm hoping it's not the last. Otherwise my world domination will be rather minimal.

I forgot to mention in the excitement of the moment that the books actually went up for auction. For those that don't know, this means I had a couple publishing companies actually bidding against each other for the rights, which means you typically get a much better deal in the end. I believe I did and I'm happy about that.

To answer some of the questions asked in the comments to the last post:

I have no idea why they changed the title to "Die Assassine" (The Assassin) although it obviously fits the book, and according to quite a few of the authors who responded who already have foreign language rights deals, this is not uncommon. I'm just hoping they didn't change too much in the translation. Of course, I'll likely never know, since I don't speak German (I had a few years of classes but . . .). As for the cover, I do think it captures Varis rather well. I'm not sure how I feel about having a cover where my main character is threatening to gut the reader, but we'll see I guess. I've been told by numerous other authors that Lubbe has treated them very well, so I'm hopeful.

Oh, and there is no French version yet. Given my name, though, I'm sure that all of the German readers will automatically assume I'm a French author. I'll certainly announce any French editions if I manage to sell the rights!

I don't know who my translator is. I can try to find out. I've been thinking of taking a trip to Germany next year after the release of the book, just so I can see the book on the shelf (which is a huge high for most writers), and perhaps the publisher would want me to do a book tour. (This is total wish fulfillment, but who knows. It never hurts to ask, right?) So those LEDERHOSEN pics might be possible! I'm totally willing to embarrass myself in horrible ways for books sales, yes I am.

As usual in the publishing industry, I have no say in the cover or the art or anything like that, so no, it's not unusual that they didn't run the title change and cover art by me. In fact, I never saw the cover to "The Vacant Throne" until I got the cover flats. Considering that I think "The Vacant Throne" cover is the best of the three for capturing people's attention, and that the German cover will do the same thing, perhaps I should never look at a cover again in the future and just be surprised. *grin*

Oh, and barbarienne? I had no say on getting "roman" added to the cover. In fact, I had to ask pbray what that meant. I was all, "Why do I have Romans on my cover?" Sorry!

Did you know I'm a fantasy animal? When pbray had the German pages she found translated, every single one of the press releases she found that mentioned me said I was a "fantasy animal". I will assume this is a bablefish thing, not that I'm being promoted as a fantasy animal in Germany.

And lastly, the contest: Still no idea what I'll do. How many German LJ readers do I have on here anyway? I figure I'll be getting a few author copies of the book, so I'll probably do something with a prize of a signed copy of the book. If I have enough readers of the blog from Germany, I may do one for here in the US and another for Germany or Europe. Something simple like comment on an entry and you'll be entered. So make your presence known if you're from Germany or in Germany right now. And if you ARE, please let everyone know about the book, especially once it hits the shelves! *grin*