Lex walked into Which Wich and carefully ordered her sandwich, a cookie, and a pineapple milkshake. After paying, she moved to the far end of the sandwich shop and leaned against a wall, watching the staff make sandwiches. Absently, she sucked on the straw, thinking about her current WIP and what needed to happen next. She never realized that she must have somehow presented some sort of strange picture sucking on the straw, wrapping her tongue around it, eyes narrowed to slits as the creamy shake oozed from the straw onto her tongue all the while with a faraway expression in her big brown eyes.

A movement across the room caught her eye and Lex looked up from her shake to see a tall man with impossibly broad shoulders barely contained in a navy tank top. He was headed right for her. She blinked in astonishment. The man wore shorts and flip flops and walked with a cock-first kind of stride that she recognized from what she liked to call her “slutty past.”

Cocking up her right brow just slightly, she eyed the young man who had to be at least twenty years her junior. He had the kind of hotness women got drooly over. Raven hair, a lean, chiseled, stubbled jaw… and oh, those shoulders. The muscles rippled as he walked, yet he wasn’t muscle bound like a bodybuilder. He had lean hips and the thighs beneath his loose khaki shorts spoke of wiry muscle not bulk.

Sky blue eyes beneath impossibly black brows focused directly on her… and no one else. He walked toward her, ignoring the stares of men and women alike as he crossed the busy sandwich shop. Beauty like his commanded attention and it had Lex’s too, but for a different reason.

For all of three seconds she remembered what it was like to be twenty years younger and on the prowl. A plethora of sexual double entendres hovered on her tongue born from an instant spike of animal attraction. Then her lips twitched as amusement took over. Of all the people in the shop, he had to make a beeline for her. She wondered why until he spoke.

“Is that a pineapple milkshake?” he asked as he stopped a mere two feet from her, oozing sexuality.

His eyes blinked slowly, a move probably designed to make her melt. He was obviously used to people falling all over themselves with him. She could see the anticipation in his gorgeous eyes as he waited for her to get starry-eyed over him.

Her brow arced a little higher and her mouth curved up in a wry smile. ”Yeah. It is pineapple,” she replied coolly, her gaze stroking over the perfect lines of his shoulders and arms. He sure was pretty, she thought to herself and stuck the straw back in her mouth, her tongue twining around it before she sucked.

The young man’s eyes glittered knowingly. He watched her suck on the straw, his own tongue peeping out to lick at the corners of his mouth. “I was going to get that, but I didn’t know if it was any good,” he murmured and Lex wondered if he realized that someone might think his words weren’t about the milkshake.

“Oh, it’s good, but it’s not real pineappley,” she told him smoothly.

She sucked on the straw again and the young man started to move forward. He jerked then, bumped from behind by a friend. He turned away as they discussed their drinks and sandwiches. Lex leaned on the wall, her mouth quirked up in a smile of immense amusement. She didn’t look like much that day. Black suede flats. Black and white tweedy baggy pants with cuffs. An off white henley type shirt with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows. Her hair was fuzzy from the humidity and shoved into a scrunchie. As usual, she wore no makeup but her expressive eyes rarely needed any.

The young man and his friends moved away. As the other two men pushed in front of the beautiful man, he looked back over his shoulder at Lex. She noticed that the back of his left arm had an Old English R tattooed on it. The back of the right arm had an L. His sky blue eyes flicked over her from her grey streaked, mussed hair to her wry expression, and the body that was no longer trim and muscular as it had been twenty years before.

And then he smiled, white teeth flashing. As he turned back to his friend, his left eyelid dipped in a wink. Lex let the tip of her tongue spiral around the straw and the young man laughed, his hand lifting in a sort of wave to her as he left the shop. Returning to her shake, Lex looked around the shop and found every eye, male and female alike, on her. This time, both her brows rose. Apparently, weeks away from her 49th birthday, overweight by more pounds than she would ever admit to, and definitely not dressed for success, Lex still had an indefinable something that sparked hot men.

The counter person called her name and she took her sandwich, walking out of the shop with that wry smile still on her face. More than one of her boyfriends had said her eyes could seduce a monk. A man young enough to be her son seemed about on a par with monks to her these days so she figured she was doing okay for an old lady who wrote sex scenes in her spare time and called them novels.

She unlocked her non-descript Dodge and tossed the sandwich in, eyeing the pineapple milkshake. “Yeah, I’ve always loved a good pineapple shake. You just never know what will happen when you’re sucking on something you love…” she murmured wickedly.

If you’re interested, the guy sorta looked like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC7sGAf6dUY

Lunch With Lex is a post from: Lex Valentine

Last week I bought some books. When I can, I buy using PayPal in order to keep from using my credit card on the internet.  It’s a piece of information I try not to type into a website if I don’t have to. Of course, I use a special credit card solely for online purchases and it’s not attached to a bank account (although it appears that it is) so it doesn’t have access to ALL my money as a debit card with a Visa or Mastercard logo would. Still, I’d rather use PayPal.

At any rate, here’s what happened when I bought some books. The first situation is that a publisher’s website took me to PayPal. I paid for the books and I was taken back to the publisher’s site… but not to where I could download the books. Instead, I was directed back to the order page. It said to click here to complete the transaction. So I clicked. I got a page that asked for my credit card info.

I thought that was kinda weird since I’d just been at PayPal. But you know how it is when you do stuff you’ve done a thousand times before. I’d spaced sorta and I didn’t exactly remember if I’d had to click the button in PayPal that actually pays the seller. (You have to click so much stuff so many times, who remembers which button 5 minutes after you do it?) So I thought maybe their PayPal stuff didn’t work. That’s happened to me before. I checked my email. No notice from PayPal that I’d paid them.

Admittedly, my next move was stupid, but it was late and I was frustrated. I wanted the book so I could read in bed. I put my card info in and bought the books. Pretty much as soon as I’d downloaded those books, two receipts showed up in my email. One from PayPal and one from the publisher’s website. I wasn’t exactly happy, but I wasn’t all that miffed either. Websites that don’t work right are a fact of life. It’s annoying but you learn not to waste a lot of emotion on it.

I emailed the customer service address on the publisher’s site, sent them the receipts, and received an email back the same day stating that I would be credited and apologizing for the error. The money was returned and all was well.

It dawned on me then that I’d bought quite a few books in the last month. I’d had a number of false starts with websites that lagged or didn’t work right when trying to purchase. And I’d noticed that a couple of publishers had some really BAD FOR YOU websites.  I’m not going to name names with the publishers but I am going to tell you a couple of things YOU need to watch out for in order to protect yourself. And for the record, I’m not talking about bookstores like ARe. As far as I remember with the bookstores, none of them suffer from the issues I’m about to relate.

First of all, is the website that takes you to PayPal but doesn’t give you your books and instead takes you back to a page where you have to pay. Don’t be a lazy ass like me and end up paying twice. Wait for your PayPal receipts at least a half hour. If it doesn’t show up, THEN go buy the books again. If you end up paying twice, let the customer service people for that publisher know that they have an issue with their website and shopping cart. Hopefully, if they start seeing a trend or start receiving complaints, they will fix the issue.  Unfortunately, in this instance, just like the next one I’m going to relate, what generally happens is that people get disgusted and walk away because it’s taken so long to get a book. Losing sales is a BAD thing too!

Next, is the website that lags. It lags HARD when you search for books. It lags hard when you purchase books. Sometimes you put all your info in and their site just sits there… lagging… with your card info on display while you wait for their servers to get their shit together and take your card and give you download links for your books.

The lagging website loses sales on a regular basis. How do I know this? Because I hate the lagging websites and I often end up not buying from that publisher until their books are on ARe. And I know if I get frustrated and don’t buy…there are a lot of other people who are doing the same thing as me. This particular publisher is pretty high up in the ranks of eBook publishers and I personally think it’s just stupid of them to not have a hosting company that can handle their traffic better. I don’t like hanging buy screens with my card info just sitting there. I bet you don’t like it either.

The last thing I want to talk about with regard to buying eBooks is the MOST IMPORTANT thing! I capped that because I not only want to capture your attention, I want to emphasize this. First, I have to say that the publishers I’m with don’t have this issue. THANK GOD. I would be emailing their staff and nagging them if that were the case. I would feel horrible if someone tried to buy my book and had their credit card or their identity compromised because of it. Second, even if you email me, I’m not going to tell you where I saw this. I just want you to be extra vigilant when you buy.

Here’s the worst thing EVER when purchasing an eBook:

A webpage that asks for your credit card info and your billing address… and there is NO PADLOCK on the lower right corner of your browser or where there’s a broken or open padlock.

Do you even know what that means to you? It mean SOMEONE CAN STEAL YOUR INFO!

Yep. There are e-pubs (and a whole lot of other stores) out there on the internet selling you stuff without protecting your information. To me, this is unconscionable. I have an e-commerce site I oversee at my day job. I have regular PCI scans by Trustwave to ensure that our customers’ data is always safe. The CLOSED PADLOCK shows up in any browser I choose to use on my company’s e-commerce site. We take PCI compliance very seriously. Visa and Mastercard require that you keep a customer’s card data secure at all times. If a breach can be traced back to your lack of security as a merchant, you can lose your ability to receive Visa and Mastercard payments. That is a really big thing.

There are a lot of new pubs springing up. When I see them, I wonder if they know what they are doing. Do they know how to use shopping carts? Do they know how to protect a customer’s data? Do they even know that they HAVE to? When I saw a couple of sites without closed padlocks in the lower right of the browser, I realized that there are indeed publishers who will sell you a book while giving the World Wide Web access to your information by not having a secure website. I wonder how long it will be before they are caught in a net of litigation because someone’s money was stolen through their insecure website.

So when you are buying eBooks with your credit card on the internet, LOOK FOR THE CLOSED PADLOCK on the lower right corner of your browser. Also, check the location bar of your browser. If the URL starts with HTTP, the page is not encrypted. If it starts with HTTPS, the page IS encrypted and safe for you to enter your information.

If you find a publisher that sells books on an unsecure site (the page where you enter your card info has no padlock or an open padlock on the lower right of the browser and/or the location bar at the top of your browser shows a URL of http with no S) please STOP. Don’t put your card info on that page. Email the publisher and let them know you won’t buy from them until they fix their site. Protect yourself because apparently, some publishers won’t protect you.

Publishers Without Protection is a post from: Lex Valentine

It probably won’t happen because I don’t use Yahoo mail. Apparently, people with Yahoo mail have had their email addresses “spoofed” by spammers. This is not an uncommon thing in this day and age. It happens a lot to people who a) put their email addresses out there on websites and such regularly, b) it happens to people who have gotten a virus, and c) it happens to people who use those free POP3 mail accounts like Yahoo and Gmail.

A lot of authors, readers, and others on Yahoo groups have had their Yahoo mail accounts send out spam recently. The spam is being sent, not to individual people so much as it’s being sent out to the Yahoo groups. Most groups have rules about spam and will ban you if you do it.

But here’s my problem with that rule: Usually, when something like this occurs, it’s not the fault of the person whose email address was spoofed. It could happen to anyone who has a Yahoo mail account.

Banning the person doesn’t make a lot of sense when it was something they didn’t do on purpose. Groups whose mods and owners get obnoxious and ban these victims show incredible ignorance. I would prefer not to be on a group with someone who doesn’t understand how technology works and uses a situation like this to be mean. Also, if all the groups start banning their members who have been spoofed, pretty soon they won’t have too many members because most of them use Yahoo mail, Gmail, and Hotmail.

The other problem I have with this witch hunt attitude is that I’ve seen mods and owners turn a blind eye to authors who spam and promo outside the rules of the group. Those are their favored authors I suppose, but to me, a rule is a rule. If you are not the owner, you shouldn’t be breaking the rules and allowed to get away with it.

I see a lot of posts that start with “I’m sorry if you feel this is promo but…” and then they promo something. The mods might email the person after and delete the message from the group’s web interface, but those who use email to receive their Yahoo group messages (the majority of us) have already gotten the message and deleting it is closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.

And what about those people who break the rules of one or two promo posts allowed per day? I can’t tell you how many authors I’ve seen break this rule. I have my Spam filter set to put anything from them directly into the Spam folder. It’s rude. And it’s hugely annoying. I don’t want to read five sexy excerpts from the same 20K book every day on 50 loops for weeks on end. I’ve read more than a quarter of it with those excerpts! I understand posting one or two promos on every group that allows promo that day, but c’mon. Some of the stuff I see is just nuts. Those authors aren’t getting more readers, they are growing their list of readers and authors who have them on auto-delete.

Another thing about all this that gets old is the litany of emails from half the group telling each other that the Spam email is a Spam email. C’mon. Give it up. One or two people announcing it is all you need. Do you think we can’t read? That you have to reiterate it over and over? I rather think I have enough brain cells to figure this out without the endless repetition.

Okay, I’m about to step off my ranty little soap box here in a moment, but before I do, I want to encourage those of you who have been banned and/or spoken to in a mean, obnoxious, and unnecessarily harsh manner by a group mod, to NOT FEEL BAD. You are better off out of a group run by someone who is ignorant and arrogant. If they cannot behave professionally and courteously, you don’t need to be there. I don’t care how “popular” they currently are. Popularity can wane and situations like there where someone you thought was sweet turns into a virago are often catalysts to the decline of their popularity.

If you feel I’ve been a little more ranty than usual, you’re probably right. However, I rather think I have more to back my opinion in this than others do. You see, I’m an IT professional and have been for almost 16 years. Companies PAY ME to be a tech and run their network. I have to know how this stuff works.  And yanno, I wouldn’t have been a Network Admin for this long had I not made it a point to know my job and do it well.

So, go ahead and ban me all you mods and group owners who feel free to become obnoxious over the spamming stuff that’s going on with Yahoo mail and Yahoo groups. Go ahead and take me off your groups. I don’t really want to see your meanness and your ignorance anyway. It just makes me disgusted at the state of mankind and humanity. And all of you who have been banned for this spam attack, feel free to email me. I’ll tell you about some groups where the owners and mods are not only educated about this sort of stuff, but who have a hell of a lot more compassion for their fellow man than these mean people do.

Hey, Moderator! Ban Me! is a post from: Lex Valentine

Dedication

For Ross Harrison Koty,
who nearly fell out his bathroom window throwing his boots onto the roof, who put ashy boot prints on his pristine white tile, and who put up with a Disney themed Christmas tree in his bachelor pad… all to make a little girl believe in Santa.

And for the many Tales fans.
Thank you from the depths of my heart.

This freebie is for the people who love this series. It’s not a standalone Christmas story at all. If you haven’t read the other books you’ll have no idea who these characters are. As for the other dedication… he won’t ever read this free story. In fact, I doubt that I will ever speak with him again and that makes me sad. He brought a lot of light into a very dark life. Two very dark lives. But I don’t matter nearly as much as my daughter does. He gave from his heart and made her life better. I wish he still spoke with her so he could share in her excitement as she starts at the Art Institute. He’s an artist too, but with a camera. I’m sure one of the reasons she loves art so much is because he gave her an appreciation of it at a young age.

At any rate, I digress to the personal and that’s not really what this blog is about. So going back to the writing, the tie in is that when you write you sometimes have to draw from the well of your personal emotions and experiences. In this free story, every character assesses Christmas and what it means in their heart. Hence, the title Holiday Hearts.

I created the cover art for this book and I wanted it to be Christmas red but still warm and welcoming with a sense of the Darkworld. I think the fire in the shape of heart reminds us that the main characters are dragon shifters. I know that the cover seems warm to me so I hope that it is for you too.

And so, I drew from the Christmases of my heart to bring you this story and cover. I hope that when it’s up (later tonight or tomorrow) that you will download it and find it to be enjoyable. When you read, you should remember all the people in your life who did something like Ross did. Remember the special something they did to make you believe… and then relive that Christmas from your heart.

Merry Christmas, from my heart to yours.

Christmas in Your Heart is a post from: Lex Valentine

I don’t know how many of you have discovered that the author you’ve been regularly chatting with online is not what he/she tells you they are. I know I’ve found out the truth about a couple of authors who portray themselves as something far from the truth of their lives.  In one case, it meant nothing because I had invested nothing. I just chalked that person up as a liar. In the other case, I felt used. Now, why should I or anyone else feel used or think of these people as liars? It’s the internet. Everyone lies there, or so I’m told, as if that makes lying to people a-okay.  Why would you feel used?

The truth in my world is this: People who talk to you on a regular basis, who interact with you daily on groups and IM and Twitter, are people you begin to develop a relationship with. In any relationship, you should be truthful about yourself or someone’s feelings will get hurt and the relationship thus becomes damaged. If you consider these people your friends, why wouldn’t you tell them the truth? Why would you say you are a man if you are a woman? Why would you say you’re 25 if you are 50? Do you think your fellow authors and your fans won’t love you if you are a 50 year old woman instead of a 25 year old man? Don’t you think that the strength of your writing would hold up with them? If you don’t think your writing is good enough to capture them without you lying about who you are, what does that say about your work and your dedication to the craft?

I use a pen name. That’s not to say that there aren’t people out there who know who I am, where I live, where I work, and what my real name is. There are LOTS of people who know those things about me. And who I am when I talk to you on the loops is who I am if you were talking to me in my living room or the parking lot at Staples. I don’t mind divulging my age. I don’t mind telling you about my latest problems with my kid or my DH. There are some things I hold back, but I would hold those things back from most people anyway.  I am an open and honest individual and I want my fans and readers to know who crafted the characters they love. I want my fellow authors to see me as a forthright, honest, fair-minded person who has no qualms sending out a goodie bag with my return address on it nor any qualms speaking my mind.

Those of you who hide behind lies about who you are inside and who make yourself out to be something you are not just in the hope of getting more sales… I feel sorry for you. I am more inclined to buy books from an author known for his/her ferocious honesty than one who makes up a persona just to sell books.

So yeah. I think that about covers my thought for the day. What are your thoughts on made up personas?

Who Are You? is a post from: Lex Valentine

Someone is a big fan of Lex Valentine. This person loves Lex so much that they apparently bought all three of the Tales books that are out currently. It’s very flattering. Well, it would be if it weren’t for Google Alerts. Google Alerts showed me where this fan posted all three of my books on one of those pirate message boards. This person apparently loves Lex’s books soooo much that they even went to the trouble of copying the review blurbs from each book’s page here at LexValentine.com to ensure that the board members would be interested in the books.

Wow. They must really love me to want to share me with the world like that.

Some of my author pals asked if I pissed. I’m not. I’m incredibly sad. I’m not so stupid that I think we can eradicate the world of thieves and pirates who take money from our pockets by giving away our copyrighted works. I’m just really sad that someone would buy my books and love them so much that they just HAD to give them away to everyone else. This person made doubly sure that people would download those pirated copies by putting up all my glowing reviews.

I’m very sad to say that I don’t think that’s a true fan. I give away lots of copies of my books. More than I should probably. It’s really easy to win one of my contests actually. I never made it difficult. Yet, this person still felt the need to do this.

If too many of my “fans” do this, you may not see any more Lex Valentine books. Know why? It’s because I use the royalties I receive from my books to keep my computer up and running. Without a computer, there are no more books.

More pirates = less royalties = no money to fix computer when it breaks = no books from Lex.

It almost makes me want to just stay at The Bar Story. Almost. I know I have fans that are not like this fan. I know they understand that I live paycheck to paycheck, supporting a family of three and a lot of furbabies. I have a kid in college and a DH with dependency issues. I have health issues. And there is never enough money to go around.

So if you happen to know a fan who gives away my books because the books are so awesome they just can’t help themselves, let that person know that they are bringing about the eventual demise of Lex Valentine. Maybe then they won’t like me so much that they have to copy from my website and distribute my work for free.

Fans or Thieves? is a post from: Lex Valentine

How eager are you to be published? Do you burn to have something accepted? How far will you go to “make it”? There’s been so much out there lately about warning signs from publishers: poor editing, late payments, and other stuff. Sure, it’s a dream come true to get published, but do you want that at any cost? Or are you willing to pay your dues and learn more about the craft, do your homework about the places you submit your work to, and perhaps shelve your dream for just a little while until your work is good enough for a worthy publisher to take?

If any of my words hit home with you today, read these articles and the comments. The pain these authors suffered will not be in vain if you and I and others learn from their mistakes. The last link has advice and info for those who are or have been caught in the crossfire of bad pubs.

If you take away anything from these links and posts, you should take away the knowledge that your desperation to be published is chum for sharks so you’re better off learning patience now and saving your limbs (your manuscripts) from the razor sharp jaws of the unscrupulous.

Karen Knows Best – E-Publisher Does a Runner and Screws Her Authors

EREC – Smokey Moon

EREC – Considering Smoke

Mary Winter – Recovering From Publisher Issues

That bit above was an article type post that I wrote and posted to some Yahoo groups this morning. It was a news-style commentary on what’s been going on in this industry. From a personal perspective, as a relatively new author on the epub scene, my next words to you are not much different.

I went at this “getting pubbed” thing full bore late in August 2008. Yes, only last year. However, no matter how driven I was, I had the patience to be cautious where I subbed my work. I waited an entire 6 months for Cobblestone to give me thumbs up for The Pixie Prince. I wanted to be pubbed, but I was not so desperate for it that I sent my work to places that didn’t strike me as completely on the up and up. If the pub pinged my beware-dar, I steered clear.

I had been encouraged to submit my work to a new epub by some people who were very enthused about them. When I started digging into the stories and articles about them, my beware-dar went off. I read things that told me I would not be comfortable sending them my work. So I didn’t. Had I been desperate to be pubbed I probably would have. But I’d been looking around and listening to authors I knew who were at places like Liquid Silver and Cobblestone and EC. I gave this new epub a wide berth for several reasons and I am glad I did.

I went with Pink Petal Books for a reason too. Mary is a very solid author who has been with a lot of pubs. She has a sound business model, is very ethical, and a hard worker. Yes, PPB is a newer pub, but Mary isn’t cramming it down everyone’s throat in a big media blitz of “Oooh, lookit me! I’m the next big thing!” She has been careful and methodical about her company’s growth. She takes care of her authors, encouraging them and nurturing them. She was just as happy for me that I got that Cobblestone contract as she was to receive Fire Season’s first draft in her email. She cares about the people who trust her enough to send her their babies. THAT is the kind of small pub I don’t mind giving my work to.

Yes, I’m on a mission toward the big houses (Loose ID and Samhain), but I will always give PPB my work too. The owner has earned my respect, loyalty, and friendship. I can count on her and in this industry that is something seemingly harder and harder to find.

Please pass this post and these links to any authors and would be authors you feel would benefit from it.

Learning From Mistakes is a post from: Lex Valentine

As an author, you do yourself a mighty disservice if you get excited to receive a contract and don’t read AND understand what you signed. There are a lot of authors in this industry who have been ripped off and hurt when a publisher closed it’s doors. There are lots of authors hurt every royalty payout day because they signed a contract that gave the publisher the right to basically charge that author for the cost of doing business.

What you know – or rather what you don’t know – about your publisher and their business practices and their contract clauses can hurt you. Maybe not today, but at some time it could. If you get a contract, and you don’t know what those clauses mean, you need to ask someone who does. Not someone at that house, but an independent someone. Find out the truth. Know who and what you are dealing with before you give your baby – your manuscript – into their keeping. Make sure you know how much of that cover price you are entitled to or whether most of it will go to the publisher for things like their credit card fees and shipping costs.

Take a run over here to Mary Winter’s blog where she shows you what kinds of clauses in a contract are huge red flags for an author. This blog post could save you money and heartache. I advise you to read it, bookmark it, and use it as a guide to helping you discover what you should know.

What You Know is a post from: Lex Valentine

Noble is the publisher for my book The Wise Guy. I decided to try for one of the open slots in their Child of the Week series because all of the other authors were multi-pubbed, fairly well known in these circles, and mostly – if not all – were Cobblestone authors too. Those of you who are familiar with me and my work know that I have a submission in at Cobblestone. In fact, it’s been there 164 days I think. Since the 15th of October. I thought this series would be a great opportunity for me since although I had three contracts under my belt at the time I sent in a proposal for The Wise Guy, I had yet to have a release.

Just prior to release day, the seven authors in this series had a little discussion about a big release day promo that included all of the authors. The little discussion got a little heated. Well, maybe not heated but uncomfortable. The upshot was no promo went off with all authors in attendance. Everyone did their own thing and although I showed at one of the events I frankly just kinda felt left out in the cold while other authors who weren’t in the series were showcased as part of this promo. Now, granted, I suppose I could have asked to be included, but I’m the noob here. I don’t always do what I should in part because of ignorance and in part because I don’t want to feel like or be perceived as some arrogant buttinsky.

Anyway, a month later Noble starts these workshops on their Yahoo group. I had my day in the sun talking about making trailers and the power of branding and social media. The following weekend was a workshop on similar stuff… and promo. Now, when someone tells me that in order to do well as an author, I should be spending four hours a day on promo… do you realize how many flies I caught in my open mouth? To begin with, I don’t have four hours a day. I worked a 50 hour week last week and those kinds of weeks aren’t going to go away for the foreseeable future. For another, HELLO! I need to freaking WRITE!

Being told that about promo and making it as an author kinda put my panties in a bunch because yanno, I already have this really big soapbox that I get on regarding people who can’t write very well, are hand held by editors through five rounds of edits, and still end up with a book whose plot is kinda MEH, or those people who go to publishers that don’t really edit. I’m tired of buying books where the best part was the blurb and excerpt I saw on the groups. Because I’ve been burned in this fashion a few times in the past, there are publishers I will not buy from and will not sub to. I buy from them only if they put out something by an author I know delivers. And yeah, I did read those Dear Author posts that had everyone howling. And yeah, I did see some of what Jane from DA posted on Twitter on a Friday night recently. I had already decided that house wasn’t for me long before all the DA stuff came out. Maybe things will change with them and me, but for now I know who I want to sub to and I’m not deviating from that list.

All of that being said, if you believe the four hours a day of promo thing… that means all the stay at home moms are the only authors selling. Which, if I’m being snarky, makes sense in the whole scheme of things whereby I buy these books I see in promo on the groups because they seem like they would be great. I open em and read em, find them to be MEH and weeks later I see em winning awards. Maybe I better put the soapbox away now…

Despite the fact that I cannot promo for four hours every day, I know I can write well. I’ve been told this by people who would know. And I’ve been told this by countless readers on the groups when I have promo’d. Hordes of people have told me how great my excerpts and blurbs are. Most of them were glowing in their enthusiasm for my writing… most of them said they couldn’t wait to buy my books. Yet, according to my royalty statements… they have waited. And here is the crux of my rant.

Lip service. These people paid me lip service on those groups. At least a hundred or more of them… giving me lip service. This is like being fucked in the ass with only the promise of lube (that never materializes) and no damned reacharound either.

I’m an honest person. If I don’t like something or it doesn’t sound like my kind of book, I try to find something positive to say anyway. But that positive thing is NEVER “I can’t wait to buy your book!” when I have no intentions of buying your book.

I’ve become hideously cynical about the groups now. Yeah, I promo. Not a lot and I really don’t think it’s going to make a huge difference. There are people who say, “Oh, you just need to join three dozen group blogs and post to them to get your name out!” Well, I happen to think that isn’t any different than the groups. Yes, I do belong to the Flirty Author Bitches, but that’s not about promo for me. It’s about having a venue to talk about stuff that we got slammed on the groups for talking about. My own group, Tales of the Darkworld, really has no rules because it’s just starting up and we don’t do anything formally yet. And I just think a lot of the group stuff is… lip service.

I just want people to tell me the truth. And if they are interested in my books, I’d like them to show that by purchasing them. But don’t tell me in droves how wonderful I am, and what a big star I’m going to be, and how awesome my excerpts are, and how my stuff is going to the top of your TBB list… when you DON’T MEAN IT. By that I mean, you don’t put your money where your mouth is and buy the book and read it.

I’m sure someone will slam me for this post too. I’m sure they’ll say I’m asking people to buy my books. Yet, isn’t that what promo is? And I’m not asking people to buy my books with this post. I’m asking them to stop lying to me. Stop telling me you’ll buy it when you have no intention of buying it. Stop giving me lip service. I’d rather have your honesty so that my royalty statements aren’t a surprise. If a hundred people hadn’t sworn up and down they were gonna buy my books I wouldn’t have expected to see 50 sales on my statement. When I didn’t see 50 sales, I realized that the stinging sensation I had was my chapped butt cheeks from all the lip service.

Do me and all the other authors out there a favor… stop the lip service. You’ll save yourself some needless typing and you’ll stop getting people’s expectations up for nothing. I just want what I am prepared to give in return… honesty.

Have a happy Easter-Zombie weekend.

Lip Service is a post from: Lex Valentine

So, now I wanna talk about inspiration. Someone asked me recently what inspired me. I find that lots of things do: other stories and books, other authors’ characters, my friends, the Bar writers and their stories, pictures, news, things I see and hear every day… and some times, just stuff in my head. Memories, wishes, daydreams, night dreams… You get the picture.

Really, inspiration can from from the least little thing. I was in a Talking Two Lips chat with the authors and publisher of MLR Press. They were talking about the I Do anthology (something I’ll be blogging about again soon) and how they should do another antho… this time maybe on… ghosts! I said, I can do that. And I started to get an idea… The publisher threw out the submission guidelines. Then she said oh, how about 20K, due in August, published around Christmas and… my imagination went wild. It doesn’t take much sometimes. I have the plot down, and the main characters, 1K written, and a tentative title of Rousing Caine… Caine being the ghost who is roused from his eternal sleep. LOL

Since I’m a really visual person, I do respond well to photos. Faith Bicknell-Brown of Freya’s Bower has been tossing out photos on her Yahoo loop to see if she can inspire us. She has inspired us. In my case, a little vignette today with Max and Bliss from The Pixie Prince. Last time around it was a longer piece about fallen angels. That one will eventually be part of a much bigger story, one of the Tales of the Darkworld.

One of the photos that never fails to inspire me when I look at it is called Steps to the Jewel Box. To me, this photo looks like what I imagine the fae world Behind the Veil to look like. This realm is part of the Otherworld, the world of the paranormal characters from The Bar. The photographer is a young friend of mine who is going to college in Missouri. Justin Scott is a sweet person, charming and witty, and a kick ass photographer! His images astound me constantly.

Like any college student, Justin doesn’t always have the funds for the things he wants and needs. So he sells his photos on the internet for $50 to $80 depending on the paper and size you want. I decided that the first thing I would do with the first of my royalties would be to buy something totally for myself, something that would last, and have meaning for me. Something I could look at and think to myself, “I bought that with the proceeds from my own imagination.”  I decided I would buy a copy of the Steps to the Jewel Box.

Recently, Justin had a little accident. His Nikon took a nasty tumble and decided not to work properly any longer. Justin had already been saving for a new Nikon, but now, he had to figure out a way to get it sooner. So while chatting on Twitter, Justin joked around about taking donations. Feeling bad for my friend, and being a little flush in my pockets for once, I went to PayPal and I sent him $10. Someone else did too. The joke and our generosity turned into pure inspiration.

If you go to Justin’s site you will see all his lovely photos. Now, you can have one of those photos, the ones that cost $50-$80, all for a donation toward the camera fund. Justin already had 2/3rds of the money, this will just take him to the end of the road and allow him to continue creating these inspired photos.

I know exactly where Steps to the Jewel Box is going once I have it framed and matted… over my desk, where it will continue to serve as inspiration for me. So I’m pimping Justin out a little. Visit his blog. Visit his photo site. If you see something there that you like, donate $10 to his camera replacement fund and he will send you a print of the photo of your choice. Then you, like me, will be able to hang your inspiration over your desk.

More news and info coming soon about lots of things so stay tuned, and more importantly, stay inspired!

Inspiration is a post from: Lex Valentine