The Winter Triangle (A Sweet & Steamy Novella) by Nikki Woolfolk Astronomy, Steampunk and Surprises

In the small town of Stubborn, West Virginia, 1880, happily single Cassandra Holloway has decided to come out to her father, Walter, on the eve of Valentine’s Day. Before she can reveal being a woman of “two-spirits” her well-intentioned, but offspring obsessed father has set her up on another blind date with someone named Morgan. When Cassandra attempts to cancel the date she is faced with a first. She must choose between a beautiful, deaf Astronomy Professor at the local University or the Professors’ handsome sign-language interpreter— both named Morgan.
With a comedy filled evening that Cassandra’s cupid playing father could not have planned, she must make a choice as the sun rises on Valentine’s Day. Which Morgan will be her Valentine?

***

Lady Astronomers in Steampunk

As a kid I grew up around science, whether it was astronomy, computers or aerospace engineering in the California Bay Area. When not overseas on deployment, my father would take me out stargazing a few miles away from the naval base we lived on. The beauty about living on the Moffett Field was that it housed the, still functioning, NASA Research Facilities. If I had a question about the stars I only had to walk from Hangar One and ask some of the most talented people on the base.

When I set out to write my Steampunk romantic novella, “The Winter Triangle” I knew that stargazing and astronomy had to be a part of this Valentine tale. Professor Morgan Thibodeaux was created and based on my research about two of the “Pickering” women—Henrietta Swan Leavitt and Annie Jump Cannon. Both ladies worked at different times for Pickering as human “computers” to measure and catalog the brightness of stars.

 These findings were later produced into the Henry Draper Catalogue. Annie Jump Cannon, while an undergraduate at Wellesley, contracted scarlet fever and became partially deaf. Not letting that stop her she went onto invent the Harvard Classification Scheme for stars. Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s discovery allowed astronomers to measure the distance between the Earth and distant galaxies. Her discovery of the period-luminosity law for Cepheids is still used by astronomers today.

That kind of dedication and love for the night sky is what I brought to Professor Morgan and she brings that love to Cassandra with the help of her sign language interpreter, Hunter. Professor Morgan has Leavitt’s cheerful personality and it shows throughout “The Winter Triangle”. Morgan’s silent world is not a hindrance. She sees the world around her in all its vibrancy and brings a sense of fun to Cassandra’s world during the eve of Valentine’s Day.

With good humor and cheer, Professor Morgan inspires both Cassandra and Hunter to look at the night with new eyes. Throughout their evening in “The Winter Triangle”, the trio’s adventures fill them with the same awe and wonderment only a clear West Virginia winter night sky can offer.

An excerpt from “The Winter Triangle”

“What is a Wicked Night Carnivale?” Morgan asked.

Hunter and Cassandra shrugged. The smell of hot maple sugar and popcorn filled the air as they approached the platform.

The black stemwinder train commanded the trio’s view. Lights glowed from the sleeper at the rear of the iron horse and the caboose, but the two middle cars were dark. All of the cars were painted in saffron yellow and rust red vertical stripes with a large bolted sign in the center of each that read "WICKED NIGHT CARNIVALE" in azure blue.

Festive entertainers circulated amongst the well-dressed passengers gathered on the platform. One, a

blonde-haired gentleman wearing a green and blue kilt over tattooed legs rolled a sphere with a glowing blue flame within along his fingers whispering things that made a gathering of women giggle uncontrollably. Elsewhere, an entourage of voluptuous women dressed in handmade winter shawls, silken skirts, and velvet coined scarves twirled through the crowd, the glint of their silver belled ankle bracelets sparkling in the extra lights strung between the speaker columns on the platform. Morgan Thibodeaux was mesmerized.

A very proper looking older gentleman stepped up to Cassandra, Hunter and Morgan with a tray stocked with dazzling trinkets and sweet treats. Cassandra spoke to the vendor, and the man handed her a bag of maple pecan popcorn still steaming in the February chill. She paid him, then turned and handed it to Morgan.

Morgan hadn’t been to a carnival in years and missed it. She missed the colors, the contortionists, and the jugglers. The stilt walkers towering above would always make her Emilie giggle with delight. If Emilie had not been staying with her parents this evening, her three year old would be reaching her chubby little hands into the trinkets and food, and attempting to crawl onto everything forbidden. Her daughter had made it a new practice to close her eyes whenever Morgan tried to give her a discipline speech. Morgan’s mother had told her that was normal for children her age, but it still drove her mad. Morgan smiled. Despite it all, she still missed her little peanut, and could not wait to see her again tomorrow afternoon.

She thanked Cassandra, took a small handful, and offered the open bag to her companions. After they all tasted, the pleasure on their faces made her laugh and thank Cassandra once again.

The entertainers had cleared away from the platform though a few of the vendors remained when a woman with a bright red top hat and matching red stained lips sauntered toward the loud speaker column. Hunter's jaw dropped yet he managed to translate what the scarlet woman said.

“Ladies and gentlemen! We welcome you to the Wicked Night Carnivale! Tonight you will experience sights to intrigue and delight you! I promise," she winked, "you will never be the same.”

The crowd clapped and laughed as they boarded the caboose. The two Morgans and Cassandra did not move.

What had they stumbled into?

***

Nikki Woolfolk grew up with her southern father’s good cooking and tall-tales and her mother’s science fiction loving influence early Silicon Valley. In 2013, a friend challenged her to mix her two loves, science and writing, the result is the multicultural Steampunk romantic novella “The Winter Triangle” now available on Kindle, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.com

Nikki is working on the next book with more original recipes for the Steampunk Sweet & Steamy series and would love to hear from you. Find her on Twitter @NikkiWoolfolk

Stop by Nikki’s blog thedrunkenmousse.wordpress.com to get your free copy of the original Chocolate Mud Cherry Cheesecake recipe from “The Winter Triangle”!

E-Book Pricing and the Black Hat

For any business, pricing their product is both an art and a science.  Yes writers, we are producing a novel, therefore it is a product.  For traditional authors this is not a hat firmly planted on their heads.  For the trad-author the discussion about price generally revolves around contract language and if their percentage will be based off MSRP, discount, or net sales.  The MSRP is set by the publisher as part of their strategy to position a book within their catalog and the market as a whole.

            For Indie-authors, pricing is personal. Among the many hats that the Indie-author must wear, I think of pricing as the Black Hat.  It is Black for some writers because, consciously or unconsciously, they view this as the Bad Guy. A philistine’s discussion of filthy lucre and demeaning to the art.

                                                                                               

  As a writer and a business person, I see the Black Hat as my goal.  I want my writing to be profitable---in the black.  So profitable that I can quit my current full-time job and make writing and selling my books my only job.  Some will say the odds are against debut authors today, but if you don’t have a goal you never achieve anything.

            So the question is: how to set the price of an e-book. There are many authors experimenting with the effect of price on sales (supply/demand) and list rankings, including Joe Konrath and his List Experiment.  It would be interesting to turn a herd of MBA students loose on any available data and see what they come up with.  While $0.99 pricing can boost sales in the short run (introductory pricing, special event/fundraising), I wonder if it may hurt in the long run.  I don’t have any data (hello Harvard Business School are you listening?) just a concern that readers may take a “you get what you pay for” response to prices. 

            Let’s assume I have followed the first rule of writing: Write a high quality book that people will want to read.  Does a discerning reader think less of my book and unwilling to even sample it if I price it at $0.99 as opposed to $2.99 or even higher?  What are the authors I consider peers pricing at?  I care where they price at because they are my rivals for the reader’s dollars.  As an example consider the change in pricing strategy taken by some colleges a few yrs ago.  Over a decade ago officials at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania decided that the tuition was too low to attract a large applicant pool. So, they raised tuition over 18% in one year.  They also raised financial aid 20%.  Applications jumped the following year.  Apparently, being cheap as compared to the colleges Ursinus felt were rivals left parents with the perception that Ursinus was a lower quality school.  The higher price with discounts strategy is also found in US healthcare billed to insurance companies, new car pricing and hardcover mass market books.  When I go into a Barnes & Noble I can buy a recent release hardcover for 30% of list PLUS an additional 10% off as a Member.  I am sure B&N forecasts revenues based on a percentage of books being sold at discounted pricing and the resulting volume not full price.  I suspect the big 6 also take this into account in their forecasts.

            Publishing and bookselling is undergoing powerful changes, but we are not the first industry to do this.  Let’s slap on our Black Hats and profit from what we can learn from others.