Daisy in Polish

by Carola

My Daisy Dalrymple mysteries are now coming out in Poland. The Polish publisher bought the translation rights to the first 10, and I gather they're putting out one a week. This is the cover of the first, Death at Wentwater Court:

Cute and eye-catching, if somewhat inaccurate as far as the story's concerned. Very different from the original cover:

and the large print:













Not to mention the equally cartoonish US paperback:

and the UK edition:

Or the audio and two German editions each with different artwork!
They're calling the series Daisy D. I wonder if Dalrymple is impossible for Polish-speakers to pronounce.

There seems to be a boxed set of all 10. I'm not sure exactly how this works. Perhaps readers can buy the box along with one book and fill it as they come out? Or perhaps once all of them are out, they'll start selling the boxed set already filled. This box has the cover of the second in the series, The Winter Garden Mystery.

The spines of the volumes are very clever, producing a cat that strongly reminds me of the Pink Panther, which also adorns all three front covers that I've seen. Here's the third, Requiem for a Mezzo:

Interesting--especially as I can't remember ever writing about a cat in any of the Daisy books. There may be a casual mention somewhere in the 21 I've written to date, but I'm a dog-person and so is Daisy! Her stepdaughter's dog, Nana, appears in several of the books, finding a body in one and digging up a Clue in another, only to run away with it and rebury it. Nana even graces one cover:

I'd never actually described her appearance in detail, so now the artist has defined her.

With the help of friends and relatives, I've managed to put a welcome message in Polish on my website. A couple of days later I got more than twice as many hits than ever before--though I can't tell whether there were a lot of Poles!

While on the subject of cover art, I'm thrilled that the artist who's done so many great covers for Daisy (including Black Ship, above, but not Wentwater Court) is passing through town today and we're hoping to arrange to meet. I'm trying to decide which is my favourite, in case he asks.

Daisy po polsku

by Carola

The first ten books of my Daisy Dalrymple series are coming out in Polish. This is the cover of the first, Death at Wentwater Court.

Cute, right? But wait... They're putting them out as compete boxed sets, each set with the cover of one of the books, and all with a clever and even cuter motif on the spines:

You may note that Daisy's last name has been dropped from the series title--because Poles can't pronounce Dalrymple, I wonder?

These three are all I've seen, so I'm just assuming the rest also feature the black cartoonish cat. To me, it brings to mind the Pink Panther, and the theme of the movies comes into my head every time I see it.

The odd thing is that, as far as I remember, there are no cats in any of Daisy's adventures. Me, I'm a dog-person!

Now that's more like it...


 Find Daisy (in English) on Amazon

And read about Cornish Mysteries release in UK here 
Amazon US  Amazon UK
 

Lost in translation...

by Carola Dunn

I've just heard from my editor that the first ten Daisy Dalrymple mysteries are going to come out in Polish.  Exciting news, and it made me reflect on the various translations of my books that have come out over the years.

 Daisy has previously appeared only in English and German. The German publisher brought out several editions of 8 of the first 9 books, skipping the 8th, and then stopped. The titles all began Miss Daisy und... but each edition had a different cover, in several different styles, and some came out in both paperback and hardcover, others only in paperback.
 I'm inclined to think the wide variety of styles just served to confuse readers!

 

 
Many of my Regencies were translated, into French, German, Spanish, Norwegian, Czech (author: Carola Dunnova!), Italian and Portuguese (sadly I never got copies of those two), and the pride of my collection, Mayhem and Miranda in Hebrew.  It has a cover that can only be described as appropriate for a "bodice-ripper," which the book certainly is not. And the only page I can read is the copyright page, where they spelled my name wrong.

I've read the French translations. I have to say Regency slang does not translate well. But then, the kind of word-play I'm inclined to indulge in must be practically impossible to translate. What comes to mind is a play on the word "mill," which in Regency times was slang for a boxing match. In my book, the double meaning leads to a misunderstanding. As it was translated into French as "moulin,"--windmill or watermill--the misunderstanding was missing.

The translation that surprised me most was the German version of an anthology in which I had a novella. It went into four editions, three paperbacks and one hardcover, with new art for each.

I guess kittens are popular in Germany.

Pet peeves

by Carola Dunn

Trying to get ms finished as there is now a pub. date (December) which, though far in the future, is not far enough for me.

They've already produced the cover art!

 So here is a link to a blog about "pet peeves" in mysteries.  Chester and I both contributed via DorothyL.

http://istoriabooks.blogspot.com/2013/02/mysterious-monday-pet-peeves-in.html

Do leave a comment about your own particular pet peeves--so that we can try to avoid them! 

Title? Cover Art? What makes you buy?

Carola Dunn

I expect some of you know that before I started writing mysteries, I wrote Regencies--32 full length novels and a bunch of novellas. (Many have mystery and suspense elements, smugglers, spies, attempted murders, impersonations, etc.) They have all been available as e-books for several years, but it's only since they became available on Amazon that I've been getting a monthly list of all titles and how many of each sold.

It's been interesting. For some reason the same titles tend to have the highest sales numbers month after month. Lavender Lady is almost always at the top.

Ginnie Come Lately also does well, as does A Poor Relation.

At the bottom are the collections of novellas. I can understand that. Some people just don't particularly like novellas. Somewhat above them are my ghost and time travel Regencies, The Actress and the Rake and Byron's Child. OK, so some people don't like ghosts or time travel.

But why are Angel and The Fortune Hunters so often near the bottom? 

 



















Is it the picture? Is it the title? It doesn't seem to be the number of stars or reviews on Amazon that makes the difference. It's all a mystery to me.





Especially as Smugglers' Summer has such wonderful cover art, the title seems to me as intriguing as any of the rest, and it has 5 stars, yet it's near the bottom in sales!














What do you think? Is there anything I can do to level the playing field?

Available in multiple formats at RegencyReads.com or for Kindle at Amazon.com/carola+dunn+regency

PS. Just after I finished this and turned off my computer, I went out to get the mail. Nice surprise arrived: The trade paperback large print edition of My Lord Winter, first published in 1992. I take it this means the hard cover large print sold well enough to justify bringing it out in paper. The work that keeps on paying!