Putting the Social Back In Social Media

For various reasons, I’ve been hitting the social media a lot lately, Tweeting manically, posting on Facebook two or three times a day. But I’ve noticed something about the social networks where I’m a member—they’re frequently not very social. A lot of the posts seem to be aimed exclusively at sending me to Amazon links where I can buy the authors’ books.

The thing is, though, I understand those posts. I’ve put a few of them up there myself.

Which leads me to my basic question: why exactly are we part of these social networks in the first place? To make contact with other people, certainly. That’s supposedly the basic purpose of a social network. But we authors are also out there to try to get people interested in our books, and that requires a certain amount of judiciously phrased promo.

But it can be tough to walk that line between promo and social contact. If all you do is flog your books, chances are people are going to unfollow or unfriend you. Because frankly, constant promo is a bore. I’m sure Author A’s books are great, but I want to hear about something else occasionally when she posts her status. I’ve seen all the jokes about compulsive Twitterers posting what they had for breakfast, but I’d really rather see that than the fifteenth repetition of a book ad.

One example of someone who gets this right (IMHO) is the singer Rosanne Cash. I love Cash’s music and I started following her on Twitter last year after she did her hilarious Jane Austen At the Superbowl Tweet series. Cash Tweets about her tours and her records, but she also talks about her husband and her children and, occasionally, about the joys and annoyances of living in New York. And I’ve actually bought two of her albums since I began following largely because of her restrained promo.

It’s true that the principle reason most of us hit Twitter several times a day is to stir up interest in out books. Otherwise, we’d probably spent the time writing (or anyway, that’s what I tell myself). So we’ve got to mention what we’re working on or the book that’s coming out next month or the one that came out last month or last year. If I’m blogging somewhere, I want you to know. And all of that is promo.

But the thing is, along with all this clearly promotional stuff, I’ll also tell you about what my cats did or a decent restaurant I visited in Denver. I’ll mention the weird thing that happened this morning, or the minor annoyance that’s, well, annoying me. In other words, not everything I post will be selling you something. And I think that’s important.

Yes, tell me about your books, but also tell me about you. If you don’t, I’ll probably skip your Tweet, and eventually, I’ll probably clear you off my Tweet stream.

So what’s your take on authors and social media? Hate Follow Fridays? Love links to cat pictures? What can we do to make you happy with us while selling you a book or two?

Thursday Thirteen -- Waiting for the Big One

Waiting for the Big One was released this week as an audio book. In honor of that I thought I'd post 13 lesser known facts about this book.

1. This is the third release this book has had. Twice as an ebook (the first publisher sadly is no more) and now as an audio book. Besides being my first audio-book it was also my first erotic romance book and my first contemporary (non-paranormal) romance. Should that be four things?

2. I remember the exact moment the idea for that first scene came to me. It was a Sunday morning. In LA. I was driving somewhere. Shocking, isn't it?

3. The story actually started out as a very long poem. I believe I still have a copy of it. I might conceivably be pestered into posting that somewhere, sometime...but probably not here or today.

4. It was originally written for submission to Liquid Silver's zodiac series--hence the whole astrology thing, which actually annoyed several early reviewers. Notably, Mrs. Giggles. It was also my first Mrs. Giggles review--and the only negative one. Actually, I think it was also my first negative review ever. Hmm. LOT of firsts.

5. In the spirit of making lemonade out of life's little lemons (I prefer Meyers, if anyone was curious) I actually used that Astro-aversion to my advantage by purposely including astrology-references in every promo I did for the book from that point forward. Never let it be said that we Pisces don't know how to make a point. (see? there's another one.)

6. My critique partners ganged up on me and basically dared me to write this book because it was specifically for the Pisces book in the series and, hey, I'm a Pisces. And also because I'm the one they went to for Astrology help when they were writing their books for the zodiac series. Theirs all made it into the series, btw. Mine didn't. Sad, I know.

7. This is still the shortest book I've ever written. 18,000 words. I don't see that record being threatened any time soon. It's also the fastest book I've ever written. I wrote everything but the last love-scene in one month. That last scene took almost another month, however. It was all the sex that slowed things down. Whoever said sex with Pisces was easy, hadn't met my heroine. Just sayin.

8. The apartment Gabby lives in is almost identical to the apartment my husband and I lived in when we first moved to LA.

9. In the apartment downstairs from us lived an actress who was one of the main characters in the last season of Dynasty. I modeled Gabby in part on her. She was very upset when her show was cancelled, btw. Very loudly upset.

10. Oh, yeah. Not only am I a Pisces like my heroine, my husband is a Scorpio like my hero. And, yes, I did that just to tease him. Oh, and our son--who was born while we lived in said apartment--is also a Pisces. I wrote a poem about that too.


11. I once applied for a job as a dog walker--similar to Gabby's day-job. I didn't get the job. This was also very sad.

12. I was initially asked to change this story from first person POV to third person POV but I declined. I fell in love with Gabby's "voice" in my head and really didn't think the story would be the same without that.

13. After Liquid Silver Books rejected the story, I sold it to Venus Press. After they went belly-up I resubmitted it to LSB--where it was accepted. The acquiring editor who first accepted the book at Venus Press was Tracey West...who is currently in charge of acquisitions at LSB. Small world, isn't it? Or, as Gabby probably would say: It's kismet.


To learn more about the audio-book, go HERE

To listen to the first chapter, go HERE

To learn more about the ebook, go HERE

Caution: Teenage driver

Saturday morning I went out to do my grocery shopping and errands. When I got into my car, it was dead. Totally, completely dead. I turned the key and…nothing. My son had been out the night before and somehow in the few hours between when he got home and when I went out, the car had died.

My son is a new driver and I'm still not over the worrying every time he goes out in the car by himself, waiting for that call to tell me he's been in an accident. Every new driver gets in an accident, right? (Some time I'll tell you story of my daughter's first accident. Oy. It was a good one.) But apparently he'd made it home the night before safe and sound and parked the car in the garage. It was just...dead.

My husband said it had to be the battery but I could not figure out how it had just died completely. He asked if a door got left open, the trunk lid got left open, the interior light got left on…but no. The trunk was closed, the door was closed and locked when I went out there, and my car has an automatic shutoff on the interior lights so that if you do leave them on accidentally they shut off and don't drain the battery. The headlights have an alarm that sounds if you leave the headlights, once you turn the engine off. I rarely actually turn the headlights on because the running lights come on automatically when you start the car.

So the hubs borrowed a charger from a neighbour and got the car charging and when my son got up (around noon - teenagers!) I asked him what he'd done to kill my car. He shrugged.  He said the car was fine when he got home.  Then he said, oh yeah, it was beeping when I got out.

Gah! He DID leave the headlights on!  I asked him why he left it when it was beeping…didn't he wonder what that was? He shrugged again. He didn’t know what it was so he just ignored it. And left the headlights on all night.

In a way I was relieved that was all it was because I just spent a small fortune on other work on my car and wasn't going to be really happy to spend more on something else. But once the battery was charged up the car started and all was fine.

Now I can only hope that's the worst thing that will happen with having a new driver in the family…somehow I think it's not...

Guest Blogger Roz Lee - Taking a Whip To Stereotypes

If I asked you to describe a dominatrix, you’d probably come up with a tall, dark haired woman wearing leather, spike heeled thigh-high boots, carrying a whip and calling herself something like Mistress Payne. She lives in a big city and makes her living torturing subs in a club devoted to BDSM. Her makeup would be dramatic, and she’d strike fear in the hearts of a submissive with her voice alone.

That’s the stereotypical dominatrix usually depicted on television, sometimes in an almost comical setting. We’ve all seen the shows where the sub or dominatrix is exposed and their lifestyle is then treated as an aberration. The main characters snicker behind their hands about the fem-dom and her sub. I can think of one where this wasn’t the case, but that was definitely the exception.

Okay. So maybe those do exist, but I’m not a fan of stereotypes. So let me introduce you to the heroine of STILL TAKING CHANCES.

Mary Beth Winters is a dominatrix. She stands five feet four inches tall and prefers to go barefoot whenever she can. Her wardrobe mostly consists of tank tops and shorts. She doesn’t own a corset, or a pair of thigh-high boots. She makes her living sculpting cowboys, horses and other western scenes. She rarely wears makeup. In fact, she’d be hard pressed to remember where her small stash of mascara and lip-gloss is. Her voice wouldn’t intimidate a mouse.

What she does have is a toy box. It’s tooled leather and has a sturdy lock. She keeps it in the back of her closet, and wears the key on a chain around her neck. She hasn’t opened the box in five years. She’s tried her best to deny her sexual needs since moving to the small town of Prairieview, Texas, but when Elgin Huddleston shows up to take possession of his recently deceased grandmother’s house, there’s something about him that tempts her to open her heart and her toy box to help him.

Shame has followed Elgin ‘Hud’ Huddleston all his life, but add on the guilt of a mission gone bad, and grief over the loss of his only relative, and he’s on the edge of a breakdown. He’s come back to his boyhood home to get his head on straight before he goes back to his job as a DEA Agent. What he craves is a good session with a dominatrix, not a busybody pixy who wants to play with fire, but he’s just desperate enough to offer himself up as her plaything.

I don’t want to spoil the read for you, but I’ll tell you, Mary Beth is more than Elgin bargained for, but everything he needs. He’ll try his best to stay away because of all the Mistresses he’s served, this one won’t quit until she brings him to his knees.

BLURB

After a mission in a South American jungle goes wrong, DEA Agent Elgin ‘Hud’ Huddleston returns to his boyhood home to lick his wounds. Despite his better judgment, Hud is drawn to the woman across the street, a petite Dominatrix with a freeze your balls off name.

Mary Beth Winters packed away her toys and put the BDSM lifestyle behind her years ago when she realized the men she dominated didn’t need her as much as she needed them. But when a troubled bad-boy, Elgin ‘Hud’ Huddleston, moves in across the street, she dusts off her toy box and risks her heart to help him heal.

EXCERPT

Hud looked at the door, unsure what to do now. He’d gone for a walk and found himself outside her studio door, frozen to the spot. His heart pounded in his chest. He recognized the symptoms of the fight or flight response. Elevated heart rate, shallow breathing and heightened sensory perception. He couldn’t have mustered an erection if his life depended on it. His body was primed to do battle. He’d never run from a challenge in his life, and he wasn’t going to start with a pint-sized woman who thought she was a fem-dom. He remembered how she’d run practically screaming from his house when she’d seen his handcuffs. What real fem-dom would do that?

No, he had nothing to fear from Ms. Frost Your Balls Winters. He’d go in there, tell her what was what, and have her naked under him in minutes. Maybe he’d let her spank him a little first so she’d feel like a real fem-dom. He smiled. Yeah, she’d like that, and he would too. He knocked on the door. When she called out as if she’d been expecting him, he opened the door and stepped inside.

She sat with her back to the door and didn’t bother to turn and greet him. He took in her skimpy summer outfit, her bare feet with pink-tipped toes, her fire red hair pulled into a high ponytail and almost sighed with relief. No, this was no fem-dom, just a woman who was a little too brave for her own good. He mentally stripped her before he even got the door closed.

“Go relieve yourself,” she pointed to a door in the corner, “the bathroom is over there.”

What? He couldn’t believe his ears. She still hadn’t moved or so much as looked at him. He glanced over her shoulder to see what she was working on. Her attention was focused on a clay sculpture in front of her. He moved so he could see it better. The sculpture was about a foot high, and even to his untrained eye, he could tell it was exquisite. She was putting what looked like the finishing touches on a miniature cowboy carrying his saddle. Lines on his face conveyed his weariness, the lines of his body shouted his fatigue. Hud had never seen anything like it. At the sound of her voice, Hud snapped his gaze from the statue, to the artist.

“What part of that did you not understand?” she asked without moving her eyes from her work.

“I’m supposed to relieve myself? Is that what you said, Mistress?”

“Yes. Now. When you’re finished, stand over there.”

Why not? It wasn’t such a big price to pay for having a go at her delectable body. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time he allowed a woman to play out her fantasy. Hud followed her orders and took up his position in the spot she’d indicated. She continued to ignore him until he’d just about had enough, and then she looked up from her work.

Her eyes raked over him, and he had the impression she was mentally undressing him as thoroughly as he’d undressed her in his mind. Something about her perusal made him want to squirm, but he held still. “Do you always wear black?”

“Yes, Mistress.” Yeah, he could play this game. She jumped off the high stool she’d been sitting on and walked around the worktable. He followed her with his eyes, admiring the curve of her legs and the fine bones in her feet and ankles. She stopped and dug around in a large pink canvas bag that sat on the end of the flower-print covered sofa along the long wall opposite the door. His heart almost stopped beating when she pulled out a serious looking set of leather handcuffs and a length of chain. Whoa there! Where the hell did she get those? All the fight went out of him and all he could think about was getting the hell out of there, but she was such a little thing. How much harm could she do anyway? He willed his body to relax and his feet to stay put.

“Hold out your hands.”

Hud allowed her to fasten the cuffs around his wrists. She hooked them together with a short length of chain that looked like it came from a hardware store. If he twisted his hands around, he’d be able to unfasten the cuffs, he reasoned, as panic threatened to set in. He was momentarily distracted by the sweet curves of her ass as she walked away from him. She picked up a step stool and dropped it next to his feet. “Take your shoes off.”

He toed his shoes off and kicked them to the side. When he looked up from his task, Mary Beth was on the step stool, a head above him. In one hand, she held an S hook attached to a chain and pulley, the other she reached down to him. “Give me your hands.”

Hud swallowed hard and lifted his shackled hands. For the first time, he thought he might have underestimated Mary Beth Winters. She looped the chain at his wrists through the hook, and with a hand on the pulley chain, she jumped off the stool. Hud watched in dawning horror as she pulled the chain tight enough to make his shoulders burn and secured the pulley chain to a hook on the wall, well out of his reach, even if he had his hands free. He cursed under his breath. How had he missed the chain pulley overhead? If he’d been on a mission, a mistake like that would mean he’d be dead.

About the author:

Roz Lee has been married to her best friend, and high school sweetheart, for over three decades. These days she splits her time between their home in rural New Jersey, and Southern California, where her husband works. Even though she’s lived on both coasts, her heart lies in between, in Texas. A Texan by birth, she can trace her family back to the Republic of Texas. With roots that deep, she says, “You can’t ever really leave.”

Roz and her husband have two grown daughters they couldn’t be more proud of, and are currently raising a ten-year-old Labrador Retriever, Betty Boop, who isn’t aware of her canine heritage.

When Roz isn’t writing, she’s reading, or traipsing around the country on one adventure or another. No trip is too small, no tourist trap too cheesy, and no road unworthy of traveling.

Other books by Roz Lee – The Lothario Series - THE LUST BOAT - SHOW ME THE ROPES - LOVE ME TWICE. Look for FOUR OF HEARTS, Nov. 1, 2011

Contact Roz :

Website

Blog

Facebook

Twitter

Buy Link

Congestion

I hab a code.

A nasty, stuffy-nosed, head-packed-with-cotton, box of Kleenex a day cold. I seem to get one every year about this time, probably since the whole family is back to school and bringing home germs like they're going out of style.

I can't sit around nursing my poor cold, though, with soccer season in full swing. So I'm shuttling kids hither and yon (especially yon) and cheering myself hoarse on the sidelines for hours at a time. And in between there's laundry to do, meals to prepare, carpets to vacuum, bills to pay. All I *really* want to do is flop down on the couch with a blanket and a mug of tea, watching mindless tv shows and reading my new library downloads on my nook. But moms aren't allowed to take sick days, are they? ;)

And even worse, not only is my head congested, but my writing is, too. I've been stuck for a while, and it stinks. Not being able to get the words on paper? As irritating as my scratchy throat and achy head.

Luckily, like the cold, the block on my writing will go away in time as well. In fact, I started a new story yesterday that I have high hopes for. So fingers crossed that my writing congestion is on the mend!

*what do you do when a cold - or other congestion - gets you down?

The Brain You Save

I’ve noticed this weird thing about my husband. (Husband, I have a husband!)

Yes, I just quoted Love’s Savage Whiplash. So sue me.

My  husband can only do one thing at a time. If he’s on the phone, he has to finish the phone call before he can answer the teeniest tiniest question about whether the spaghetti is done. When he’s working, he’s totally focused – no chitchat, no listening to the radio. If he’s watching a movie, I could dance naked in front of him and … well, that would probably work, but nothing short of that would get his attention.

Meanwhile, I often have several windows open on my computer. One’s my WIP, then there’s Twitter and Gmail and maybe a blog I’m working on. If someone calls I cruise my email while I’m talking to them. Often I’m making supper at the same time, or helping my 7 year old shroud herself in blue fabric so she looks like an Avatar. You know … juggling. 

If you’re a woman, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Women multitask more than men, in my experience. No doubt there are exceptions. (And of course, I could be wrong. There’s usually a strong possibility of that.)

In my secret heart of hearts, I always figured my ability to multitask made me superior somehow. I could accomplish more, right? I could handle everything anyone threw at me. Switch from one task to another in the blink of an eye.

Multitasking was my own personal superpower.

Until I started reading articles about how it can cause neurological damage. Yes – apparently it forces the body to release extra hormones and adrenaline, which causes actual chemical changes in your brain. Bad changes, like short term memory loss. The study was done by Dr. Russell Poldrack at the University of California. Here’s more about it. It also affects how you learn, because multitasking sends information to a different part of your brain that doesn’t retain it as well.

Not only that, but multitasking isn’t even effective! A Stanford University study showed that chronic multitaskers are less productive, more easily distracted and less able to focus. They have worse recall so they can't remember as much about the task they just did. And, believe it or not, they're actually worse at switching gears than the low multitaskers such as my husband. Which was the whole point of multitasking in the first place!

So I guess my superpower was just an illusion. All that time I was actually harming my brain chemistry. Oops! Now that I’ve been enlightened, I try to follow my husband’s example and just do one thing at a time. If I’m writing, I write. If I’m checking email, I check email. And so forth.  

Oh, I nearly forgot the worst part. Just thinking about multitasking apparently causes your IQ to drop 10 points – temporarily.

So sorry, everyone! Don’t worry, it’ll come back. And hopefully you’ll remember this post and save your brain. (It might be too late for mine.)

Blurbing

The blurb.

It’s such a little word. Funny sounding really. It seems innocuous. It’s like two hundred words. Nothing compared to an 80,000 word manuscript.

Yet, I would argue (and I wouldn't have to argue too hard, I'm sure) that it’s one of the most important parts of a book. For me, it’s also one of the hardest parts to write.

As a reader I totally depend on those two hundred words to tell me if this story is one I want to pick up or not. For instance, if the word zombie is one of those two hundred, I’ll probably pass on it. On the other hand, if Navy SEAL shows up, I’m there.
Imagine a book without a blurb. What’s left when you’re deciding to buy—or not?
The cover? Sure, that can be important. It can tell you a few things.

For instance, I think this Kelly Jamieson cover

and this Juniper Bell cover tell you a few things about the books.

How about the title?

This PG Forte title gives hints about the story for sure.

And, of course, this title is very descriptive ;)

But how can I decide based just on those things? I guess I could read the first page.

Lines like this More than a few residents of Wynette, Texas, thought Ted Beaudine was marrying beneath himself. It wasn’t as if the bride’s mother was still the president of the United States (Call Me Irresistable, Susan Elizabeth Phillips) give you some flavor of the story.

How about She had a choice to make. To go or to stay. To have an incredible adventure or to stay snuggled in the soulless crypt of her comfort zone (Insatiable, Cari Quinn). Sets up this story so well, makes you want to read more.

How about last pages?

His hand closed automatically around the fake Horcrux, but in spite of everything, in spite of the dark and twisting path he saw stretching ahead for himself, in spite of the final meeting with Voldemort he knew must come, whether in a month, in a year or in ten, he felt his heart lift at the thought that there was still one last golden day of peace left to enjoy with Ron and Hermione (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling)

Or

“Well, then I’ll tell you what.” He tipped her over onto the couch cushions and rolled to prop himself over her. “Whata’ya say we practice makin’ babies?” Hands moving with speed and skill, he began to divest her of her clothing. “That way, when you’re ready, we’ll know exactly what we’re doin’.” “It’s very important for one to know what one is doing,” she agreed solemnly, as she unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders. “Oh, yeah. Absolutely. My thoughts exactly.” (Be My Baby, Susan Andersen).

Definitely different feels, different types of stories, but reading the ending does give you an idea about the book.

Yeah, there are other ways to decide to buy or not buy, I suppose. But nothing is as important as that blurb.

As an author those two hundred words describing my books are even more important. I want readers to know what they’re getting. For the ones who would love a story like mine, and for those who wouldn’t. I do want them to know that there will be sex scenes, hopefully pretty hot ones. There will be one hero and heroine. The most shifting anyone will do is into a different sexual position. And if there’s a third person involved… no, never mind, that’s probably not going to happen. What I’m saying is that I want those words to really matter, to capture the story, to give a feel for why someone would want to read this book.

The pressure!

Seriously, it’s tough. At Samhain, I’m lucky enough to have quite a bit of say in my blurbs. In fact, my editor Lindsey has me write a rough blurb to get things started. Now, I’m the first to tell you that I’m not great at this. I have a hard enough time writing a synopsis (a 3-5 page summary of the book that tells the editor if she/he wants to read the full manuscript). Condensing the book into a good blurb can be really hard! But it’s nice to have a chance to get the important highlights in there. Then she sends it to a blurb writer (well, I think she does other things too but she’s got a knack for blurbs) and she uses mine and tweaks it. Then they send it to me and ask what I think. And we go back and forth until it’s perfect. Or as close as we can get.

So, all of that is a long way of saying we’re still working on the one for my upcoming release Hotblooded. I can tell you a few things though (which won’t surprise my readers ;)) It’s set in a small town (Honey Creek, Texas), both hero and heroine are medical professionals, there are some steamy sex scenes, there are some funny scenes, there’s a cappuccino machine and there’s a happily ever after.

I don't have an official blurb yet but... I do have a title and a cover!!!

Finally, I’ve come up with five things that, if they’re in the blurb, I’ll definitely give it a try and five things that are definite put-it-back-on-the-“shelf” items for me.

Yes to:
1. Navy SEALS (mentioned that one right? ;))
2. Friends to lovers
3. Reunion story
4. Firefighters, doctors, paramedics, cops, etc. Love those heroes!
5. Pretend to be lovers (for some good reason) then fall in love

No to:
1. Zombies (still :))
2. Vampires (unless your name is PG Forte. I’m serious.)
3. Settings in space or aliens of any kind
4. Kidnapping of a child, death of a child (in the story—in the past I can usually deal with)
5. Hmmm… can’t come up with a 5th. I try to be open-minded. :)

How about you? What should or should not show up in a blurb to really get you excited about a book?