The Tainted City heads to Germany!

So I finally get to share some good news!  (I hate the part of publishing where you hear something exciting and then have to sit on it for weeks until everything's official.)  From Publisher's Marketplace deal announcements:

"German rights to Courtney Schafer's THE TAINTED CITY, to Lübbe, by Whitney Lee of The Fielding Agency, on behalf of Becca Stumpf of Prospect Agency."

Bastei Lübbe is the German-language publisher of The Whitefire Crossing, which releases there on August 16 (coming up soon! woo hoo!).  I'm delighted they've now bought The Tainted City too - not the least because I'd hate for German readers to reach the end of Whitefire and be left hanging!  (There's no official publication date yet for the German edition of Tainted City, but it's my hope there won't be too long of a gap between books.)  I confess I'm also very curious to see what Bastei Lübbe does for Tainted City's cover, since I quite liked what they did for Whitefire.  

In case anyone's curious how the author-publisher relationship works for a foreign deal...doubtless it's different depending on country and publisher, but in my case, I've been amused to see how hands-off the whole experience is (and how laid back I am about it, in contrast to my dealings with my US publisher).  Communication is like a game of telephone - if Bastei Lübbe needs something, they ask the foreign rights agent, who then asks my agent, who asks me.  I've heard that sometimes translators will contact authors directly to ask questions, but I've had no contact with the German translator.  Basically, I send Bastei Lübbe (via agent & foreign rights agent) the final version of the book, and then, poof!  One day it shows up on Amazon.de with a new title and cover.  And I just nod and go, "Cool."  Without ever looking at preorder rankings or worrying over publicity or sales.  I only wish I was this blase' about the US version.  Here's an example of the difference:

Night Shade: *puts up descriptive blurb for Whitefire on Amazon that contains something I consider a fairly significant spoiler (the exact nature of Kiran's identity and his reasons for leaving Ninavel)*

Me: AUGH!!!!  NOT OKAY!!!  Frantically contacts agent, brainstorms new cover copy with her help, begs Night Shade to take down and replace old copy.  Agent demands NS run future blurbs past us first.

Bastei Lübbe: *does exactly the same thing as Night Shade*

Me: *shrugs* Oh well.

I rather suspect the second relationship is the more healthy one.  Maybe one day when I'm a jaded veteran of the industry I'll be all zen about US versions of my books, too.  (Everyone who knows me: HAHAHAHA not likely.)      

Anyway, I'm thrilled The Tainted City will join The Whitefire Crossing auf Deutsch.  To celebrate, I shall leave you with a picture taken on a lovely dayhike my husband and I did in the Austrian Alps:

My husband enjoying a rest break on a trail near Hintertux, Austria.

One day I will climb in the Alps again.  And who knows, maybe I'll even be able to spot the German editions of my books in a shop!