What I like about my friends

http://sassyseven.com

They are downright funny.
They make me belly laugh.
They like to eat.
And did I mention DRINK? omg.
A lot.
And not just chocolate wine. I mean the hard stuff. Straight, mixed, lots of chasers!
The Sassy 7.
Ah'm just saying.
A hard group of gals to beat.
And each one of us has legs that look like these!
Would I kid you?

100 Top Bestseller in Amazon, Best Books of the Year!

Oh, boy. Is this a great time in my life!

A LONG TIME COMIN' has been in Amazon's Top 100 Best Seller list for weeks now!
This was one of the Sassy Seven's Toys-4-US tales that still sell so very well.  (Do go see our new website: http://www.sassyseven.com)  My gal pals and I are just tickled this series has done so well.
We were even invited by Decadent Publishing to debut their new line, The Edge, with our Valentine's Day series, called--what else--VALENTINO's!  This was named for the guy from whom each of the 7 purchased their chocolate wine.  Yep. That's our fave.  We drink it often when together.  And that togetherness becomes more and more frequent as we now go to each others' homes for "retreats" (yeah, right.) and conferences (to promote but also to schmooze.)
And of course, we also do on line pr together.
The way to succeed in this business is to have a posse you love.
Back to BIZ!
I also have a book nominated for BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR over at The Romance Reviews.
STRONG ARMS OF THE LAW is up for Best Erotic Western of 2011!

Confetti! Balloons. Hysteria as I revel in my Texas Ranger who falls for the sassy little crime writer sought by a nasty gun-running cartel!
Just finished the second in my new western series, Knights in Black Leather about a town with few women and loads of hot men. This is for EC and debuts...soon.
First one is ROPE ME IN.
Next? TIE ME DOWN.
Third one...soon afterward.
You won't want to miss any of these which will be a series of BDSM, menage and more and lots of hot Texas lovin'!!!

The Bunny who came to survey our garden

When our beloved doggie passed away recently, the morning of that sad event we saw this bunny come sit next to our garden. For hours, he sat there, legs straight out in back of him, looking into our kitchen window. Intently.
As if he came to say goodbye to our pal.
Then we did not see him at all until 4 days later...when we brought our long-time pal home from the crematorium.
Then, as you see here, he came to peer  into our herb garden.
And later, he sat right down, legs spread out in back of him, gazing into our kitchen window as if to say I came to mourn with you.
Could he have come just to join us in our wake?
We felt he did.
The aura of his presence was so striking. So palpable.
Have we seen him lately?
Only sporadically.
Never does he sit as the day our dog died or the day we brought him home to be us forever.
We go to the windows often and look out into what is becoming, given our extreme drought here in Texas, a barren wasteland. We wonder where our fellow mourner is, how he fares, if he will return.
We hope he does. We hope he can.
We wish he would return and sit and dream awhile.

Vitamin P! Got any?

Vitamin P.
Ever heard of it?
Me, neither. Until the other day in a magazine, the writer espoused a regular dosage of Pleasure.  Got any for yourself?
Connected to digital devices of every kind, we are definitely hyperactive.
Example? Last night on a newscast covering Irene, all four people on a boardwalk in New Jersey were walking into the camera view with cell phones to their ears.
Really folks. Sure, they were calling home to tell their families, "I'm on TV. Turn in!"
But really! My question is, why the heck were these people out on the BOARDWALK, rain pouring down, ONE WITH A BABY STROLLER, calling home when they should have been in their cars and, as their Governor so improperly told them, "to get the hell off the beach"?  I want to know why they were on their phones (and why the one with the baby stroller wasn't well outta there yesterday)?
More than that, I wonder why the heck they were connected via cell phone when their brains are not connected to their common sense?
Habit?
Addiction?
I vote for both.
I have Rules about how I use my electronic devices.
I don't do email when I travel.
I turn my cell phone off when I'm not using it or not expecting any calls.
I don't text. Ever.
If you want me, you have to email me or call me during normal human being type hours. I do the same for my friends.
I turn off my computer every night at 5, 6 at the latest.
I cook dinner. A really fine one.
I may read at night or I may watch movies.
The news I get comes from the NYT on line and anything else on line until I fold clothes after dinner and watch CNN and MSNBC or maybe (my newest fave) HGTV. (Wanna buy a house in Paris? London? Belize?)
My Blood Pressure is fine.
I work out 2-3x a week.
And my newest addiction is Dance Jam class on Saturdays.
WHAT's your addiction? What are your Rules for electronic devices?
What can you change to give yourself a dose of Vitamin P???

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!

What has reading romances taught our sons and daughters?

What have we taught our children about love and romance simply by having the books in the house?
I have a few thoughts on this and tomorrow (Monday) I post on http://www.saucyandsinfulreviews.com to show you how these discussions happened in our house!

Come over and read our family dialogue!

New kitchen. Done.

I cannot tell you what this has done for my mind.

Love the yellow. Cheerful. Opens up the kitchen. Makes it seem larger.

Love the black granite. Sharp and stunning.

The center island granite was a remnant from someone else's MAJOR expense. Doubt this pix does it justice as the silver and gold flecks in it change as you move and the light strikes it.

Two things we INVESTED in (snort!) were: a super sized sink, deep and wide, baby. Stainless. For all those big pots. AND a touch activated faucet. I LOVE THIS THING. MAY TAKE IT WITH ME TO PARTIES AND DANCES. When cooking and constantly washing my hands, this faucet is a dream to work with and I do believe saves water. Hubbie thinks this is the least the faucet manufacturer could do, since the darn thing cost an arm and 2 legs.

The lighting is different, too. Localized. Works for me as I am blind. Well, not really, but I do need my specs! And cutting my fingers is not such a swell idea considering I sit at the computer to type 8 hours a day.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Like it?

Kitchen pix...in progress

Here, the new look coming together...as the painters try to get 15 year old wallpaper off the walls.

How?

Oh. It comes off in little pieces the size of two fingers. No lie. Dawn to dusk, they were peeling, scraping.

Tedious to say the least.

Remodeling our kitchen, my brain and...

ALSO remodeling the family check book! (Hear hubbie groaning.) Now I need a few things more, besides all the new yummy lighting, plugs, new granite, sink, faucets, globbeta-gloppeta machine, new paint to replace old wallpaper. New pots, don't you think? New dish towels. Maybe new kitchen window shades and--

Wait, wait, says hubby. What do you need all that for?

Dunno, babe. Just in the mood. SEEMS right, donchaknow.

The above? Old kitchen.

Soon? New kitchen. We've been torn up here for--oh, shoot me, please--over 4 weeks!!!

Happy they are nearly done.

Why redo the place? Well, I spend most of my day in my office, approx. 8 hours. In the kitchen? 2-4 hours. I love to cook. It is my Decompression. Relaxation. And since I have promised for years now to close up my office at 5, 6 at the latest and come downstairs to share cocktail hour and create dinner, I figured after 15 years, it was time to spruce up the place. And hubbie has gotten himself a new super-duper wine cooler because he is my sommelier and my assistant chef and washes all the dishes, too.

Stay tuned for finished pix of new place to enjoy!

Titles I really want to write books for

I write to titles. Concepts just hit me and BANG! I have a story.

How about:

The DUKE WILL NOT DINE.

THE LADY REFUSED.

Regencies, no doubt.

ROCK THE CASBAH. Contemporary romance starring...um...a burnt out rock singer.

LIGHT MY FIRE. Contemporary romance starring a firefighter.

FIX ME UP. The plumber. The plumber.

More funny, a crazy romance: SNAP ON TOOLS. BDSM, natch. A handy man and his gal.

The couple above?

SCRUMPTIOUS stuff, just in case you are not into titles like I am and need a fresh bit of yum yum this a.m.

A chuckle with a Really Good quote

"Sex should be a misdemeanor:the more you miss, de meaner you get!" -- Mae West

Women who made Waves!

Having recently finished the new biography of CLEOPATRA by Stacy Shiff, I must say, first, WOW! WHAT A BOOK! Delicious research and writing. If you are at all inclined to read tales about notable women, this book is definitely for you.

I love tales about Elizabeth I of England, Eleanor of Aquitaine and more contemporary types, such as Queen Victoria. My daughter has a mad passion to read anything, fiction or non, about Anne Boleyn. I am drawn to fictional accounts of almost any English queen, and a few French, too.

Some hold a fascination because they ruled in their own right. Others because they endured some event, tragic or heroic.

But other tales, like the one of a British woman on the front in World War I France, Vera Brittain, also get my attention.

Do you have a passion for reading novels or biographies of famous women? If so, do you note a trend in what you read? Or the type you prefer?

Gifts we gave this year that WE LOVE!

Gifts my husband and I gave this year that we truly adored were two, with the expectation to give a third.

We gave a teenage girl in Kenya tuition for her last 3 years of high school. Yes, we did this through a non-profit and we did it in memory and honor of our oldest son who died in January and who would have gotten a kick out of this. The $900.00 was certainly an amount we would have spent on him, and now we spend it to give a young girl a chance to improve her life.

The other was a gift to FIRST BOOK, a non-profit that buys books for disadvantaged children. With more than 1/3 of the homeless people in America being children, their chances of having a book of their own to cherish is small. This organization buys books for children. Go visit and donate in any amount to www.firstbook.org

The gift we will give again this year is to Pathways to Housing www.pathwaystohousing.org , also a non-profit, whose mission is to provide housing, stability and social counseling to those in our country who suffer from dual diagnoses, usually some mental impairment and one of more addictions. I urge you to look them up on line to see if one is in your city. For our son who had a brain injury from an auto accident and secondary drug addiction, this group helped make his life more livable, productive and happy. When he died, he was stable, drug free, and very happy. All of this was because of their marvelous professional attention and knowledge. Their philosophy is that a person who has a home of his or her own has a safe environment they know they can go to each night. This alone stabilizes much of their thinking, aids in saving them from desperation and motivates them to continue to live with a sense of pride and self-achievement.

Merry Holidays! May they be healthy, safe and happy.

Ciao, bella!

What I like about contemporaries

Contemporary romances are dying?
Who said that?
A shift from the usual cry that historicals are dead, I am intrigued why some might think this, aside from the fact that sales for some authors may be currently down.
Perhaps the same plot lines are showing up? The same conflicts?
But what I would bet is that the same voices are showing up on the page.
And voice is what makes an author stand out from the crowd.
A sexy Texas western deserves a western voice. A sophisticated romp or a romantic suspense deserves the educated voice and wit that should go with it.
Fail to give the reader the expected parallel of voice to locale or premise or subject matter, and I'd say you have lost the punch you could have imparted.
It would be like reading a medieval with contemporary language and sentence structure. Now certainly, no one is currently writing Norman French to give verisimillitude to a medieval, but the jargon, the terminology and the flow of the voice certainly would help, no?
So my take on the reputed "death" of any sub-genre is to examine what is being published--what I'm currently writing, too--and ask the musical question, does it read as it should?
A song has a rhythm. A novel has a voice.
Have you read contemporary fiction lately that really evoked the characters or setting?
Let's hear about them! We need to celebrate them!
P.S. Those cowboys I wanted to post yesterday? My photography skills are The Pits. Sorry. Viewing scrumptious cowboys through barbed wire does not thrill. WISH it could! I got more shots of cows--let that read longhorns--than necessary!
I put up here one guy who is nameless, but not unknown, I think, to many viewers. Sigh.

Off to have fun with Cowboys, plural, this weekend!

Yes, I live deep in the heart of Texas.
And yes, I see Cowboys--real, rhinestone and drugstore--every day. Most are real, you might imagine because of where I live, but this weekend I join the owners, staff and writers of Wild Rose Press at the Silver Spur Ranch in Bandera, Texas for rodeo, roping, horseback riding, gun club and grub. (www.silverspurranch.com )
If I have internet access, (always a big question in the Hill Country) I will post for you the sights and sounds of real Texas men in their natural habitat. (Note here: nigh unto every Texas man is a cowboy in one way or another.)
Yes, ma'am.
Big white Stetson hats. (White this time of year because tomorrow the weather man says it will be 90 here. oh, boy.)
Skin-licious jeans.
Big shoulders. It is all that roping and branding going on, doncha know.
And a plug here for MY COWBOYS, all written from experience of various sorts with Texas men, she said with an ahem. And I have a recommendation for you to go read my novel, FALLING FAST over at Resplendence. (www.resplendencepublishing.com )This hero is a rodeo manager and former bronc buster.
Then in November at Total-e-bound, I have TWO Texas cowboys comin' at you in ONE TOUGH HOMBRE (a Texas Ranger, slurp!) and HARD DRIVIN' MAN (a ranch owner).
I have lived in Texas for alllmoooost 15 years now and learned a lot, for a city slicker gal. Laughed a lot, too. And let me tell you, the humor of Texans is incomparable. They tell the best jokes and most of them are clean! In this day and age, who can do that any longer?
Only good Texas men, deep in the heart of....