Vixenwriter

Finally, at long last, A Touch of Fae is out from Ellora’s Cave so I hope you’ll happen to get over there and pick your own copy up!

In about twelve hours, Touch of Fae will be releasing from Ellora’s Cave! A Touch of Fae is the second in the Witches Knot series and is the story of Em Charvez and Conchobar MacNessa. Plenty of the cast from Triad will be on the pages along with some new folks!

There’s going to be a release party at my loop all day so please stop in to say hello!

Hee! Only two days until you all get to meet Conchobar MacNessa, the ten thousand year old Faerie warrior and Counselor to the Queen of the Fae.

He’s tall, six and a half feet tall, with long caramel colored hair with warrior braids at the temple. Piercing eyes, rippling muscles and the tips of his ears are erogenous zones. He’s handy with his, er, sword, yeah, both of em!

When he’s sent by the Queen to keep an eye on the human who is searching for one of the Fae’s lost books he can’t help but begin to fall for her.

Em Charvez is shy and sick of living in the shadow of the outgoing, vivacious women in her family. When she embarks on her trip to London, she does it with a plan. She’s going to break free of the “shy, bookish, Em” sterotype!

And when she bumps into Con on the street neither of them will ever be the same!

Tomorrow, Sarah will be posting some excerpts at her list mom day at the EC list so keep an eye out!

On Wednesday, there’ll be a big party at my loop, we just hit 100 members so it’ll be a dual purpose celebration! Please come by for chances to win cool stuff and see some excerpts!

I’m making headway with Dark Justice - I’ve written 16,000 words in six days and I didn’t write Friday at all. This is an excellent productive week for me. I’m over halfway done now and I think that if I stick to my schedule, I should be finished in two weeks (this allowing time for promo for TOF releasing on the 31st and being at Pearl Jam on the 1st and other editing on Second Chances).

I’m a happy camper!

Dark Justice

34,000 / 65,000 (52.0%)

just got two more reviews from Fallen Angels and they both gave me five angels and made me a recommended read two more times! Thank you so much Michelle and Serena and FAR!!

Michelle says: Lauren Dane’s Triad is a lusty and dark tale of magic and the never-ending fight between good and evil. Lee’s been given a gift to help protect her world as she knows it, but she’s distracted by meeting the men of her dreams. Think sexy-contemporary-magic-shape shifter-vamp buffet and you’ve got this one pegged. I loved Lee’s character; she gave this piece realism and really endeared me to this story because of her innocence as to the depth of her power. Watching her learn herself was a rare treat, but seeing her come into her power was the real treasure of this tale. I’m going back for another read as soon as I can, and I know that I’ll enjoy Triad even more the second time. The way this one ended has some serious sequel potential, and I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for another book furthering and/or expanding upon this storyline. Kudos to Lauren Dane on this hotly erotic story; I’m so pleased to award Triad with Five Angels and a Recommended Read!

Serena says: Triad is one of the best books I’ve read this year. I was so impressed with this book that I actually emailed Ms. Dane and asked her if this is a series. Luckily, A Touch of Fae will be out this fall. The characters are so wonderfully crafted that you’d think they are real people. Aiden is a dangerous yet loving man who is willing to do almost anything to be with Lee. Lee is such a strong woman. She knows what she has to do and will do it no matter what. Alex is a man you’d love to have on your side both literally and figuratively. These three people make such an amazing team that it was hard to let them go at the end of the story. I was also impressed with the supporting cast and cannot wait for the rest of the series. I highly recommend Triad for its richly written characters and compelling plot.

Hey everyone! I just got an email from my editor - Second Chances is releasing September 27! Wow, nearly a month after TOF - busy busy fall!

I’m releasing the same day as Eve Vaughn’s Niccolo’s Witch and Willa Okati’s The Finest Line 3. A paranormal, a BDSM novel and what appears to be a fantasy - a good mix!

More as we get closer!

So what are yours? What are the things that show up in books that bring forth expletives from your lips and cause you to hurl it at the wall?

For me? Rape that’s packaged as seduction of any kind. Rape is not sexy. There’s a difference between a rape fantasy and “forced” seduction. I’d also like to point out that I wonder how often women who have rape fantasies have actually been raped. That tends to take the zing right of it.

Also, heroines who are stupid, whiny or otherwise annoying. The heroine and her “best friend” in one of the books in a very popular vampire romance series totally ruined the book (which was already marginal as it was). Gad, the woman was typical of those chicks in scary movies who insist on going around alone in the dark and her friend was an idiot too.

Heroes who are assholes. It’s one thing to be arrogant. I have a soft spot for arrogant men who aren’t dipshits. There are redeeming qualities about men who are arrogant for a reason. On the other hand, men who accuse the heroine of cheating or call her a whore or accuse her of getting pregnant by someone else - instant wallbanger. Elizabeth Lowell is the only writer who did this with a hero that I didn’t toss the book when he did it. I hated him, but whatever magic she has, made it work. No one else I’ve read can do it.

Historical inaccuracies. Okay, this happens most frequently in regency romance. My thing is this: either just use the period as a backdrop and don’t refer to it, or do your fecking homework! Words that wouldn’t have existed in the time period, behavior that would not have been acceptable (like say, young unmarried women going around unescorted) - this is stuff that drives me nuts. It’s also why I don’t write historicals, I’m afraid I’ll screw up, LOL.

General inaccuracies - and really, this is individual for each reader. My personal hot buttons are books with legal themes which are WRONG. Grrr. Don’t have the heroine be a lawyer if you haven’t bothered to even read about what the job is like. And PLEASE, no court room scenes unless you read about procedure. It’s rare to have Perry Mason moments, and even more rare that the other side isn’t going to object to totally leading questions and heresay. I’m sure nurses and teachers have their own peeves too.

Oh and I just have to add that there was one ebook I read that had a combo of the above issues making it into one of the most stupid, misogynistic pieces of drek I’ve ever read. Her facts about the presidency were totally wrong (like big time unconstitutionally wrong and this was a big part of the story). There was marital rape that the “heroine” actually thanked the “hero” for. There was massive infidelity on the part of both people. There was emotional and mental abuse. It was awful and I’ll never pick up another book by this author again, ever. In fact, I try to avoid that epub because I have a hard time understanding how this book got through editing (neither of my editors would have let me get away with all of that)

What about you all?

Hey everyone! My new website is up and running, go check it out! I wanted something simple and elegant and not too busy but easily navigible and I think Crane and Crow delivered that in spades!

It’s so purty!

Last night’s WS chat was loads of fun (as per usual).

Save the Dates:

1. August 31 - Touch of Fae releases
2. September 9 - Touch of List Mom - I’m hosting the EC Readerboard for the day!
3. September 15 - Maverick Authors take over FAR Chatters for the day!
4. September 17th - New Issue of Vixenwriter
5. September 21 - New Issue of Between The Sheets comes out
6. September 23 - ERA hosts the EC Readerboard for the day - 10 authors, loads of fun!

At some point in late September, Second Chances will be releasing from Loose Id so keep an eye out for that as well! I’ll keep y’all updated!

So this weekend I’ve listened to writers whine online about promoting. Now, we all whine. It’s a pain to do when you feel the lure of your story beckoning. It takes time to get out there. But the facts are simple, you have to do it. Even if you are a big name the publisher isn’t going to do it all for you and most of us aren’t big names.

Someone said that promo wasn’t part of writing. Bullshit. Promotion is almost as important as the actual writing if you want people to read your books. And for those of us in epublishing, it’s one step more difficult because of the frequency of other books that get released. Readers don’t want to wait a year between books, they want a few months. That’s a lot of pressure to perform, but that’s the reality of this business.

I keep hearing people say they don’t know if promo even makes a difference. I have to say I’ve seen that it does make a difference, especially to a new author like me. My sales have been really good, which is wonderful but the book didn’t sell itself. I had to get out there to attach a person to Triad, give people a reason to choose it over another book with their limited book buying dollar.

And I like my readers. I really don’t mind doing chats, they’re fun and they are a great way to get out there and make contact with what people want to see and read in a fairly short period of time. I’m not that fab at creating banners and such (Megan Hart is amazing at this), but you know, I try and get my name out there where receptive audiences will see it.

I need to make promo items, both for when I send out prizes for contests and for RT (never to early to get started on that). I don’t know if my bookmarks will make someone buy my book, but it’s worth a try.

Essentially, I see promo as about 35% of my job and 70% once I finish the book until about three weeks after release and then it moves back to 40% or so.

(BTW, if you are reading this, I am not talking about you!)

In one of my sex scenes, a big, tall man is over the heroine’s body. He’s teasing her with himself, drawing out her pleasure and she writhes beneath him in anticipation.

Only my editor insists that I can’t use writhe because writhing indicates pain only. But it’s not like I haven’t seen it in sex scenes before. So she and I have been having a comments back and forth in the margins on track changes, LOL. She says something, I respond but don’t change it. She’s now asked the FLE what she thinks and suddenly, i’m seeing writhing women everywhere.

Most of the time when she suggests changes, I take her suggestions. I respect her editing, she’s excellent at her job and she gets me, that’s priceless. But sometimes, we get hung up like this and it’s sort of funny, two strong people being nice but not giving any ground.

It could be worse. If I didn’t like her or respect her, I’d view it as an attack. I’m lucky that way.