Friday, September 25, 2009

GUEST AUTHOR, FRAN LEE! WELCOME!

Good morning, Cerise! Thanks for inviting me to be your guest Blogger today. Today is very special to me because my newest book has just been released from Ellora’s Cave!
This is my fourth book, and is titled Her Own Set of Rules. http://www.jasminejade.com/ps-7637-50-her-own-set-of-rules.aspx
You know, when my first book (Out of Her Dreams) http://www.jasminejade.com/pm-7256-554-out-of-her-dreams.aspx was released a few months ago, I was a nervous wreck. I had promoted the book for over three months before it was released. I taught myself how to create book trailers, and I started several blogs and websites on every known social system I could find. It was quite a learning experience for me. Then came the “big day”. I waited tensely for the reviews to come in. He think I nearly got an ulcer…but then came the reviews…marvelous reviews! I took a few deep breaths, and got ready to start all over again.

When my second book was released in July (Hallie’s Cats), http://www.jasminejade.com/ps-7389-50-hallies-cats.aspx
I did the same thing, getting my trailer(s) out there…chatting up the book and worrying myself into a tizzy about how well it would sell, and so on. LOL! The big day came again. Another terrifying wait for reviews. A not-so-great first review. Not bad, but definitely not great. A fan wrote to tell me how disappointed she was that I hadn’t written another great book like Out of Her Dreams. I swallowed and tried to shake it off, but couldn’t quite do that. But subsequent reviews began to trickle in, and they were far better…much better than the first one. It appeared that fans loved OOHD so much, they expected the next one to be exactly like it. But Hallie’s Cats has picked up its own share of fans, too. And I bit the bullet and started all over again.

My third book, from a different publisher (Dictated by Fate), http://www.resplendencepublishing.com/m8_view_item.html?m8:item=131-200-101-446-1 was released in August by Resplendence Publishing. I found myself running through the same steps, doing the blogging, the trailers uploaded to YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/dragonlady10 and Blazing Trailers http://adult.blazingtrailers.com/browse.php?txt=fran%20lee …and putting excerpts and blurbs on every Yahoo Group created. And again I waited. The first review was marvelous…

You see…writing is a series of things. First, you write that great book. (At least, you hope it’s great) and then you promo the heck out of it so that people know it’s coming…so that they will be waiting eagerly for it. And then you can do nothing but sit back and watch…and wait…and keep on promoting, hoping that enough folks will buy it to make it worth the thousands of hours of time you have put into it. Praying that the pirate sites don’t start giving your work away before you even see a penny of profit.
And now I am sitting here staring at the walls, wondering if all that promo actually worked, or if I was just spinning my wheels.
I have heard from many experienced authors that once your e-book is off the new releases page, and hidden in the dense jungle of “back-list” books, it will never surface again, and so you must constantly be writing new books so that readers will look at your back list and perhaps purchase.

Unlike print books, e-books don’t sit on a shelf in plain view at your local bookseller, inviting the reader to pick them up and read the back cover. And the far smaller E-publishers do not routinely spend millions of dollars promoting authors and books, like the big New York Houses do, as they work feverishly to get another best seller. It is mostly up to the author to do the promo work after the big release day.

I have created websites for each of these books, and I invite readers to check them out. On each website I have added the wonderful reviews each book has received, plus the cover and blurb and a hot excerpt. Readers can browse to their hearts’ content, and they can even purchase the book from the website. One-stop shopping, and all that! LOL!

Now, I did bring along a blurb and excerpt from Her Own Set of Rules, plus the video I created for it. But I would love it if you would also take a look at my prior releases…just to humor me? Thanks so much!

Her Own Set of Rules


Although deeply in love with her husband of ten years, Haley is yearning for the deep sexual satisfaction that Harry just isn't giving her. Her dearest friend suggests she have an affair. But not just with any man...with Krissa's younger brother, who has had a crush on Haley since they were kids. Krissa wants her little brother happy. And she wants her best friend happy.

Nervous, but desperate to try anything that will make her feel like she is alive again, Haley agrees to meet Josh. The last time she saw him, he was just 16, tall and gangly...and on the brink of delicious manhood. Haley once had a mad crush on him, too…but he was three years younger, and peer pressure is hell.

Josh has always been crazy for Haley. She's married...but getting around an inattentive husband is not the hardest thing to do. Josh wants another shot at the delicious girl he fell in love with so long ago. At 26, he isn’t gangly anymore. He’s a man who can give Haley what he wanted to give her back then, but was too young to offer. His gain…Harry’s loss.

Except Harry isn’t giving up on Haley…he wants the hidden temptress that lurks inside his unresponsive, seemingly frigid wife…and when she seems to suddenly bloom into what he wants, he is so thrilled he couldn’t care less if it was another man who awakened her. He has the woman he married back, and he isn’t about to give her up!

Haley decided not to see Josh again, but he won’t take no for an answer. Desperate, he calls her at home, and Harry takes the call. Now Haley has a major dilemma…Josh wants her…and Harry wants her…and she wants them both. What’s a girl to do? Keep both? But how?

Excerpt:

Josh dropped his gym bag with a thump and reached for her. Krissa wrapped her arms enthusiastically around her little brother as he swung her off her feet then set her back down on the doorstep. “I missed you, Krissie! When’s supper?”

He was always hungry. Had something to do with the size of him, he figured. Standing six foot six inches, and weighing in at a clean, lean two hundred and fifty pounds, he had a hard body because he worked hard for a living. He grinned down at his sister and laughed as she swatted at his hands and flushed prettily.

God, how he had always loved to watch Krissa and Haley giggle like that and put their pretty blonde heads together, thinking he couldn’t hear them if they whispered. Shit, he’d heard every damn word. But he never let on. He learned too much information to want to tip them off to the fact his hearing was excellent, even across the room.

“Haley here yet?” he asked casually, and Krissa grinned up at him conspiratorially.

“Be patient! You know I had to damn near threaten to break off our friendship if she didn’t agree to come. You know Haley…she’ll be here if she promised.”

He’d switched jobs to come back to Spring City and be closer to family"and Haley Grant. No, Haley Gregory now. But what the fuck? Getting around a husband wasn’t the hardest thing he’d ever done. And from what Krissa had told him, Harry Gregory was a fairly inattentive husband. So much the better for him. He’d waited twelve years for a piece of Haley, and a husband wasn’t about to stand in his way now. He’d fallen hard for her when he was a gangly ninth grader and she was the Junior Prom Queen.

He had wanted her from the day she flashed her hot little breasts at him. He’d only been fourteen, but when he’d seen those delightful morsels bared for his delectation, and her fingers pinching them to tease him, he’d decided she wouldn’t be averse to letting him touch them. If she hadn’t hooked up with Harry Gregory, and if Harry hadn’t been so fucking possessive of her, Josh would definitely have sampled those nipples.

Over the twelve years that had passed since she’d dared him to taste her, he’d savored that memory. He had compared those lush, youthful breasts to every other set he’d tasted and licked, and all the rest had faded from his thoughts once he’d enjoyed them. Oh, he loved fucking and sucking. He’d gotten damn good at it over the years. But it had all been practice…practice for the next time she bared those amazing round globes to him…and he planned to see them again"soon.

As Krissa led him into the kitchen, he waved at Jim, who’d poked his head out of the living room and yelled a welcome. Talking with Krissie and Jim was appealing, but right now, food was his objective. Food then a hot shower. Krissie had invited Haley over tonight, and he wanted to be clean and sweet-smelling for her. Oh yeah. For what he planned with Haley tonight, he wanted to be sweet and clean all over.

Josh had always had it bad for her. But Harold Gregory was the jock-stud-prom-king dude who had stolen her away after graduation before anyone less almighty got a shot at her. And Haley wasn’t one to take on some gangly kid three years behind her in school and dump Mr. Hotstuff.

When Haley had married after graduation, Josh hadn’t gone to her wedding, even though he’d been included in the invitation. He’d spent that whole day walking by the stream that bordered the pasture a couple of miles from his house. He’d walked there with Krissa and Haley many times. He’d imagined her smiling up into his face, tucking her slim arm around his waist as he bent to catch those lush lips in a hungry kiss. He’d gone home and jacked off pathetically as he thought of that prick Harry Gregory taking her to bed when it should have been him, Josh Barnes, in that bed with her, fucking her blind.

Josh Barnes had been a gangly, awkward and fairly shy kid back then. And that wasn’t what a girl like Haley wanted. But he wasn’t a gangly kid anymore, and he’d had enough experience with women to know that what he had to offer was not something a woman would stick her nose up at. Oh yeah. He had big plans for tonight.
* * * * *
Haley was nervous. She checked her hair and her makeup three times before sliding out of her car and making her way to the wooden front porch of Krissa and Jim’s home. Hesitantly, she climbed the three steps to the front porch and pressed the doorbell button.

She almost lost her nerve, and was debating on making a run for it when the door swung open, and she found Joshua Barnes standing there.

Filling the whole damn doorway.

Her eyes must have shown her shock, because his crookedly sexy smile was enough to blow her away. “Hi! Um, is Krissa here?” Her voice sounded breathless even to her. My God! She was acting like a teenybopper on her first blind date.

She almost lost her courage as he stood aside to allow her to step inside the house. He was so tall. And so gorgeous. Oh…my…God! He was all prime, succulent male. Leaning in slightly as she scooted past him, she couldn’t hide her telltale blush as she didn’t quite manage to keep her breast from brushing his chest. She heard the quick inhalation of his breath and knew he wasn’t immune to her, either.

Her nipple tingled as if she’d leaned into an electric wire fence. Fighting down her glandular reaction to his appearance and his proximity, she stepped into the familiar foyer, and wrapped her arms around her body as if that might insulate her from his potent presence. The experimental contact told her what she had wanted to know"he was very much aware of her sexually. What she hadn’t counted on was her own reaction to the little brush of tight nipple to hard, delicious male muscle! Holy shit. Was she nuts to be here? Had she been kidding herself? Deluding herself that all she wanted was to regain an old acquaintance with the neighbor’s kid?

Haley bit the corner of her lip as she turned to face him in the tight confines of the tiny foyer, waiting for Josh to make the next tentative move. He moved slowly, and she watched as he closed the door, and shot the lock home.

Thanks again for inviting mew, Cerise! Here are the URLs to my book websites…
Out of Her Dreams: http://outofherdreams.blogspot.com/
Hallie’s Cats: http://halliescats.blogspot.com/
Dictated by Fate: http://dictatedbyfate.blogspot.com/
Fran Lee’s Romance Website: http://www.franleeromance.com/

5 comments:

Helen Hardt said...

Fran, you are everywhere these days! I think all your promo is working ;). So glad to hear of your success, and I wish you much more!

helen

Fran Lee said...

Thanks, Helen! You are a love to let me know! I truly appreciate your kindness...HUGS!

Teri Thackston said...

You are one hard working writer...and your books deserve all the promo you're giving them. Congrats on the new release.
Teri

Fran Lee said...

Thanks, Teri! You are sweet to visit!

Julia Barrett said...

Yup, hot stuff. Always great, Fran Lee.