Wednesday, July 27, 2011

BROCK's HELLION: a blistering beautiful read!

In print, BROCK's HELLION appeared a few days ago at EC!
Lemme just say, WOW.

Brock is cool, calm and in control. Except when it comes to the feisty hellion who pushes all his buttons for the sheer fun of watching his patience snap. Far worse than the intense desire to choke her is the alarming, all-consuming compulsion to tie Tink to his bed and fuck her into next week.
Tink is no wimpy damsel waiting for a big strong man to rescue her or take over her life. Oh, hell no. She does her own thing, her own way, when she damn well feels like it. The last thing she wants or needs is some overbearing man bossing her around. Though she’d like to torture him with pleasure.
One night of explosive passion pushes Brock’s restraint past the limit. And hidden behind the cold-hearted bitch, he discovers a woman who longs to surrender to a man she can trust.
Come hell or high water, he’s going to be that man.

This book contains a smokin’-hot scene involving three men and one lucky woman.

The link: http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9468-brocks-hellion.aspx

Friday, July 22, 2011

Naughty Nature: Got One? Get One!

My buddy, Allie Standifer has a new one out today in the 1-800-DOM-HELP series and lemme just say, my eyeballs are on fire!
Here's the setup:

Aria’s always had a secret need to give up her normally tightly held control, but she’d never dared to act on it. Until one night a mysterious card with 1-800-DOM-help appears in a very personal place. For the first time in her life Aria’s taking a chance on fate and the promise of a stranger to discover her every veiled desire.
            ER doctor Mac Hudson has always known who he is and what he wants. Now he’s looking for a sub to explore all the erotic cravings and fantasies he wants to share. One hidden glimpse of Aria and Mac’s ready to claim the petite sub in every way he can.
            A single night of passion is all she expected, but with her handsome Dom she got so much extra.  Now Mac’s asking for more and Aria doesn’t know if her Naughty Nature is up to handling a dominate alpha male for more than a single encounter.
Here's the Link: http://www.jasminejade.com/p-9461-naughty-nature.aspx
Get your own Naughty Nature today!
I personally really want the SKIRT...The Man, too, but the Skirt to get The Man.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

PART 3: MY SELF-PUB LIFE or How I learned to love new aspects of publishing

Sorry for the delay on posting Part 3. I got totally off my feed when Amazon Kindle put up Lady Starling's Stockings within 12 hours of my Post for Review!  Yes. I got hysterically happy.

Trust me. You will too after you have put hours and hours into this!
Onward with my further adventures!
Yesterday, after discovering that the book was up and for sale (and had gone through their review process so seamlessly), I was relieved but also trying to catch up with myself!
What did I have to do?
1. Notify and thank my friends, my freelance editor and my graphic designer/formatter who had done so much to make this happen.
2. Send the cover, blurb and excerpts to my website designer.
3. Get on Facebook and tell the world.
4. Try to post it on NovelRank, through which I track my books on Amazon. Alas, this did not occur quickly. Glitch in system perhaps? I was able to add it to my list today.
5. Realizing I still needed to add an excerpt to the Kindle page, I have spent (no lie) the last few hours attempting to do this. Result? It seems a sample is available if one asks for this by clicking right on the page. Oh, duh.
6. Now I must also go in and find ways to list it in various Kindle promo vehicles. Not certain what all of those are yet, but I will return and list them for you!
7. Have I tried to put this up on Smashwords for Nook, etc., and ARe yet? No, but I will soon.
8. Meanwhile, I am all too aware of the fact that I must send this out for reviews. Because this is self-pubbed, only I can do that. I have a few ideas in mind for reviewers and of course, I will purchase advertising for LADY S., as I do for each of my books. Perhaps I will buy more than I usually do, just to  become a pervasive commodity!
9. One interesting aspect of publishing on Kindle I learned was to not only put the book into the proper categories, but today, I tagged them appropriately too. 
What are categories? Think divisions of the library: Fiction, General, Romance, Erotica, etc. 
What are tags? Think sub-genres or descriptives: Regency, Historicals, Romance, Erotic Romance, etc.
All in a days work, eh?
10. One thing I heartily suggest you do before you publish (and this is for already published authors who have books up on Kindle) is to become an Amazon Affiliate so that you can earn money from Amazon for the sales of your books from your website, etc.
Part 4 of this series will soon come after I post the formats through Smashwords (into various vendors like Nook, Kobo, etc.) and into AllRomanceEbooks.com.  I will be intrigued to see what happens in ARe as I sell a tremendous number of books through that vendor.
Please Follow this blog to be aware of my next Parts of this Series. I will discuss how to select a designer, an editor, how to be efficient and smart about it all and save yourself time and money.
Then too I will talk about strategies and how well I think this book accomplished my own goals. 
Thanks for reading--and happy publishing!

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

LADY STARLING'S STOCKINGS out at Amazon for 99 cents!

FOR 99 cents!
Buy link: 
Lady Starling's Stockings
And do read Part 2 of my self-pubbed journey below in the next post.
Part 3 begins tomorrow!

Part 2: MY SELF-PUB LIFE or How I learned to love new aspects of publishing

My latest thriller with Desiree Holt & available now: Until Midnight
Now that I had a viable story, I knew what was coming was the Picky-Picky Part, all those pesky details that can make you or break you in any biz.

What did I face?

The formatting came first. The very thought of all that text formatting and coding made my head spin. What did this girl do?

Yes, I downloaded the guides for Kindle and Smashwords. I read. I pondered in my heart if I could do this or even wanted to.

Concurrently, I read the wonderfully informative emails posted on the RWA-PAN loop (to which you may belong if you are a published author under RWA's guidelines). I read them, but more importantly, I took notes and I kept them in a special folder. THIS has permitted me to return time and again to re-read vital bits of info. Authors there came to share their experiences and their advice. The topics ranged from whether or not to buy ISBNs, how to post as more than one name, one type of genre, how to avoid errors of up-loading. Oh, the fun we have. But invaluable to me. And I am, once more struck by how much I have benefitted from belonging to RWA for almost 30 years. Yes. I was 12 when I joined.... I digress!

And also at the same time, I created my copyright pages. Advice on how to do this begins with the dictum to not use the copyright symbol because the formats do not like it. But then comes the other part of which text to use. There are many!  For this book, I used one for those who write historicals with reference to real people, now long departed, but nonetheless needful of clauses. This book refers to Napoleon's brother-in-law Murat and to the new king of France in this period. As for all else around the hero and heroine, many who did perform their functions, such as the English ambassador, needed to be disclaimed. Pesky, but true! Hence, this search for copyright and its citation took TIME. So did the writing of my bio, edited to be useful for this book and current listings of reviews pertinent to the book! Advice from me: Beware the details that will consume time and effort but must be correct to be useful!

Back to our discussion of formatting and reading the Guides!

So, how did I do with the Guides? I dunno, maybe I'm just thick, but much of it was like reading gobbledygook-pooh-pooh-pa-do. I had to re-read them. Take notes. (We always used to say in financial services that the jargon is in there to impress and keep people OUT of the profession. When I wrote financial issues for The Washington Post, the editors loved my stuff because I wrote for the common man and woman.) Armed with my insights (and I use that term loosely), I tried to develop a text that looked like what they declared they needed. Did I get it right?

To be honest, I am not certain. Why? Because at this point, I had spent a few hours and time is big money to me. Hence, I hired a formatter to do this task for me. Chicken, yes, you may call me that perhaps. But as a colleague of mine says, (Mary Jo Putney) she did not want to burn up her own mental Bytes with skills that someone else had mastered. That's me! I LIKE professional help that saves me heartaches. But mostly to me, Heartache Time IS money. Heartaches kill my creativity, bog it down in Things That Make Me Wince. Ergo, the formatter for me. And in my case, my graphic designer also provides this service for others of her clients who hire her for the cover design. (And yes, you may write to me privately and I will share her email with you, as I will for my professional editor. A list of all comes later in another part of this series.)

As of earlier today, I have completed the forms on my own Amazon Kindle Publishing page. I have posted the hi res of the cover. I have sent the .mobi file format given me by my designer and sent the whole package off for REVIEW.

Drumming fingers.

Waiting now.

Takes 24 - 72 hours for them to decide if they like your cover, text and if you have filled out all the blanks correctly, completely.
Tick tock. Tick tock....
TOMORROW, Part 3!

Monday, July 18, 2011

PART I: MY SELF-PUB LIFE or How I learned to love new aspects of publishing

My latest Regency! Lady Varney's Risqué Business
Am I ready this week finally to put up a 99-center at Kindle?
Oh, yes. But my journey into self-pubbing a book in digital format has been a journey! A BIG ONE!
Loving the success of my erotic Regencies, and cascading down a hill of delight after a week of SIX five star reviews for different books from different sites, I am giggly, jittery and in a panic.
Why?
I hate new learning curves. AND THE ONE FOR THIS has been gig-i-normous!
But I wanted to try this for many reasons. What are they? They begin with the fact that I thought this 99 cent push would increase my readership numbers and complement what I do at EC, Total-E-Bound and Resplendence. (I also have a few books rights' reverted to me from my print books and I wanted to learn how to do all this to get them out into the digital world.)
My goals in place, my strategy developed and I kept on going.
The first task, create a plot and characters I adore!
Now my challenge as an author is to see and feel the people before I write them. No outlines. No character charts. Nah. Not for moi. I have got to SEE these folks. This Takes Time. Usually 2 or 3 a.m. Time. You feel me.
Then, I need to know the conflict and I have to SEE the story. For me, this means visualizing the scenes and their dialogue.
Then, what? We come to my first WONDERFUL benefit of self-pubbing: I went, dear reader, SHOPPING. Not for shoes. Not for clothes. Or purses. Shopping for a LOOK. Yep. You get me. ART.
Now, for some this is a quick affair. For me? I spent my life in corporate and government PR and advertising. So art means the world to me. And if one benefit of self-pubbing is that I am going to be able to choose my branding look with art, lemme just say, it will be precisely what I want. So my shopping was a joy and I indulged myself in it for hours, days, days and days. I hear you as you say, wow, where is this art?
I will show you. Soon. (she teased.)
Having found the art to go with my plot, I knew what artist I wanted and I approached her. Yes, she is a pro and she had done work for me before and yes, I did love it all! Having worked with artists for decades, I can tell one who has not only software but skills AND an artistic eye. For me, this artist has it in spades and she understands romance and erotica. Vital to have an artist who knows your genre and the audience's needs.
Within one email and exchange of ideas on the art I had chosen, this artist had my perfect concept back to me within days.  Fueled now by the beauty of what my product would look like, I moved in fully to the task of writing the book.
Let me just say, the writing was not hard.
Oh, no. Never has been. I submerge, go into Flow and do not come out until it is done and I am happy with the product.
However, what happened after I thought I was finished was a bit of a rough go.
And what happened? I walked away, as I always do and asked myself (as you, Dear Author, also ask yourself), what's missing? What did I not say? What did I not include? How might this be better?
And as I asked, I did something I usually NEVER do: I sent it to a Beta reader.
As a professional writer now for many decades, I learned long ago the only person I must please is my editor. Without one, what's a girl to do, eh?
I had an answer! I have friends, accomplished, delightful, HELPFUL friends. I sent LADY STARLING'S STOCKINGS to her and she raved! She adored it!  Big hit, she proclaimed. Great conflict and resolution. We talked about this and that in the plot and I felt better. Relieved!
Result? I stopped worrying that this story was not up to my own standards OR that of my accomplished friend's.
Next step?
One I am used to. Send it to an editor. Now this person I know well, too. She is a professional fiction editor, an expert copy and line editor and one I knew would comb my manuscript for the elements it needed to make it, dare I say, superb. Especially if it already...wasn't.
This person I paid. Gladly. I am not a sloppy writer. I am good at grammar and spell check is my pal, but occasionally I will omit a word, a bit of logic, an emotion that might make the work perfect. I knew this editor would find all those pesky things.
And she did.
What's more--and I knew this would happen--during the interim, I had thought about my story. In the shower. In the car. Cooking. Dining. I re-read it one day. OH. I. FELT. WHERE. THINGS. NEEDED to be added!
So when my friend/copyeditor came back to me, I rejoiced at her comments and her copy edits. Yes, she had done what I, in my creativity, failed to see or do.
The result?
I edited as per her suggestions here and there. Then I went in and added those things I FELT it needed. And viola! In the end, the work had roughly 3000 more words! Not bad. I re-read them, too. All necessary, I concluded.
What was next?
Return for Part 2: My Self-Pub Life or How I learned to love New Aspects of Self-publishing!
When? Tomorrow!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Night Mission? Oh. You. Bet! Desiree Holt is in the house!

Night Mission (1 Night Stand Series)Navy SEAL Gabriel Walker didn’t think he was asking too much, just a hot woman with some brains who made his down time between missions pleasant. And maybe a little but more. Forty-something Maggie Fitzpatrick wanted a younger man with a sex drive to match her own and even smarts to hold a conversation. And maybe a little bit more. When Madame Evangeline paired them for the one night stand neither of them expected the explosive chemistry, the very hot sex…and a littler bit more.
Need a nibble?
Course you do!
Excerpt, Copyright 2011, Desiree Holt.
"The first thing he noticed was the living room of the suite, decorated like a room from the mid-1800s, only with modern upgrades. The second thing–which should have been the first–nearly made his heart stop. A nearly-naked woman lounged on the couch, wearing the shortest, sheerest…whatever the hell it was called, that he’d ever seen. He hoped his jaw didn’t become unhinged when it hit the floor, or that she expected a lot of conversation right off the bat.
No question about it. I am definitely locked and loaded.
“Hi!” She flashed him an incendiary smile, her low, seductive voice hinting at her Texas heritage. “Come on in. I’ve been waiting for you.” 
He lifted an eyebrow. “Have you, now. All your life?”
 “I don’t know. You tell me.” She laughed softly.
She rose languidly from the couch and the sunlight pouring in through the sheer curtains left nothing beneath her shortie to anyone’s imagination. If he’d ordered a dream woman, this would be her.
Oh, wait. I did. And here she is.
Gabe dropped his duffel by the door and strode over to where she stood on ridiculously high slip-on stiletto heels. 
“Well. Let’s finds out.”
He grinned down at her, placed his hands on her shoulders and bent his head. The moment his mouth touched hers, a jolt of electricity sizzled through him. Her mouth tasted every bit as good as it looked, and when his tongue slid inside, she tasted better than finely aged bourbon. She molded herself to him, her full breasts pressing against the hard wall of his chest, her slender fingers rubbing up and down his arms. He let his tongue wander everywhere inside her mouth, licking the slick, inner surfaces, drinking from her as if he’d never be able to get enough. When she glided her own tongue over his, he tightened his grip on her and sucked her deep inside his mouth.
“Well,” she gasped when he lifted his head, the pulse at her throat hammering wildly. “Hello to you, too.”

Friday, July 8, 2011

BEST BOOK of the WEEK for UNTIL MIDNIGHT!


Whipped  Cream's Best Book Sundae!
A fast-paced and exciting read from the very first paragraph, this story is truly riveting and magnetic in its intensity. Rarely have I found a more erotically thrilling and satisfying affair than the one between this powerfully sexual and dynamic couple. The voracious and undeniable passion they have for each other slams into them the instant they meet and is urgently and immediately answered.

Nicole is a sexy, independent woman who is also a highly trained security professional with her own agency. Adam is a human weapon of assault and defense for military, Massad. They are thrown together in a private resort in Mexico by mysterious circumstances, expecting solitude and rest rather that the full-scale assassination attempts that Nicole has become the target of. They meet suddenly when Nicole is shot at and Adam is there, out of nowhere, to save her life by taking out the assassin. That is only the beginning of their mysterious and unexpected battle.

The intensity of these two type-A personalities and their open and straight-forward approach to their wild, abandoned sex completely captured me. Their fierce attraction creates a raging hunger that they have no desire to deny. This results in an unexpected and unbelievably hot experience that follows them throughout a dangerous and exhausting adventure. Nicole and Adam become competent and exciting partners in this clever and gutsy crime thriller.

The pace and suspense of the story and the explosive energy of the love affair is addicting. There is just the right amount of tension and complexity to the plot, which is compelling in itself. I was impressed with the superior and subtle character development and the nearly flawless flow of dialog. Add to that the chemistry between the highly intelligent and active main characters and it spells winner.

Until Midnight kept me on the edge of my seat and was a fun, roaring-hot read. I have nothing but praise for Desiree Holt and Cerise Deland, and will follow this series wherever they lead. If you appreciate high voltage romance and adventure, and quality writing, then you will want to read this story.

Here is an eloquent quote from this highly romantic tale: “Yes, she craved him. Like sunshine and rain. And for an excitement and delight in living that she had never known until he took her in his arms and loved her with that fabulous body.” I hope you enjoy, Until Midnight as much as I did.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Cougar? Need inspiration? Try newest Nicole Austin

OUT IN PRINT! Cougar Hunt http://www.jasminejade.com 
 
Summer of the Cougar by Nicole Austin 
With the big four-oh looming, Larissa Cross is more than ready to shed the
roles that have defined her and make drastic changes. Gone are the widowed
Army wife, soccer mom and empty nester. She’s even setting aside the
schoolteacher until fall. 

A naughty challenge issued by fellow erotic romance booklovers on their blog
Tempt the Cougar, has come at the perfect time and ignited Rissa’s
competitive drive. It’s going to be a glorious summer full of hot younger
man lovin’ for a new cougar on the prowl. Rawr! 

Tattooed and pierced fireman JD Harmon is tempting prey but there’s much more to the hunk than his bad boy good looks. A one-night stand isn’t in his plans, and sex—no matter how mind-blowing— won’t distract him from his goals. JD intends to tame the wicked cougar and stake a claim on her heart.

Locked and Loaded Samantha Cayto 
Former army-turned- ER doctor Grace McKinnon is through with going to bed
with nothing more than fantasies and a yearning to resurrect her personal
life. She’s determined instead to take the Cougar Challenge with a flesh and
hot-blooded younger man. She discovers the perfect opportunity steaming up
the curtain of exam room four. 

Captain Mark Bennington has been locked and loaded—ready for action—since
meeting Grace. He’s on a mission to heat up the Boston nights while on leave
This sexy older woman is lighting his way, fulfilling double-time every sex
wish he’s ever made. But it’s going to be the toughest fight of his life to
convince her to take a chance on more than just a fling. 

Copping a Feel Lexxie Couper 
Darci-Rae Whitlam doesn’t know which is more disturbing, receiving scads of
obscene phone calls—or getting so turned-on by said phone calls. Then
there’s the email from her American friend, Rachel, taunting Darci with
something called a Cougar Challenge. Just the thought of seducing a younger
man is enough to permanently soak her knickers. No wonder her
ever-disapproving sister thinks she’s oversexed! 

Cybercrime Detective Jarrod St. James is investigating a case of stolen
identity. He quickly learns the fiery redhead claiming to be Darci-Rae
Whitlam is the real deal (his shoulder trapped in the jaws of her gargantuan
dog might have sped that decision along). He really should go back to Sydney
continue tracking the imposter who’s operating a phone-sex business in
Darci’s name…but the woman proves too tempting. Job be damned, he has to
have her. The fact she’s got a titillating challenge to complete only helps
his case. 

Darci just may be the fastest cougar to snag her cub yet. Being the victim
of a crime has never been more fun!