Friday, January 31, 2014

BOOK COVER FRIDAY: EAGLE'S HEART by Alyssa Cole

  
Welcome to Book Cover Fridays!
Stop by every Friday and check out a new book cover from one of New York's Leading Romance Authors.  They are all gorgeous.  Enjoy.
 
 
EAGLE'S HEART
by Alyssa Cole
LooseID
 
To learn more about Alyssa and her debut book, visit her at
www.alyssacole.com.  Happy Reading. Happy Friday.
  
  
 

Monday, January 27, 2014

CRAFT CORNER: Let's Begin at the Beginning

by Isabo Kelly



The opening of a book is one of the most important aspects of a story. This is what will pull readers in, what will grip them and convince them to keep reading. A lot of craft goes into the start of a novel. In this article, we’re going to focus on when to start.

A brief caveat: don’t worry about this too much in your first draft. You may well discover you’ve started in the wrong spot as you learn more about your characters and story, but none of the writing will be wasted. Every­thing you put on the page, even the stuff that gets cut, adds to your under­standing of your story and allows you to infuse the tale with richness and multiple dimensions.

So when do you start your novel?

Well, you start at the beginning of your story. Easier said than done, right? When is the beginning exactly? Con­ventional wisdom says the start is the day the protagonist’s life changes, the day their normal life gets turned on its head.

But if you’ve developed multi-layered, complex characters, they’re likely to have had several experiences that changed their lives, for better or worse--though, since this is fiction and fiction is all about conflict, usually for the worse.

Maybe your hero lost his parents in a terrible accident when he was 15. Is that the start of his story? Or does his story start when he turns 17 and discovers there’s more to his parents’ death than he thought? Does your story start at the end of the world? Or does it start on a “normal” post-apocalyptic day, when something else life-changing happens to your main character? Is it the day your hero and heroine meet? Or farther into their rela­tionship when something changes in the status quo?

The type of story you’re telling will play heavily into the choices you make here. A coming-of-age fantasy novel might start when the 12 year old heroine first meets the horse that changes her destiny. But if the story is a romance, you will probably start the day she meets the hero, or the day her relationship with the hero is pushed into a new realm.

Building a good, strong character means you create an interesting backstory for them. But a novel doesn’t start in the backstory. It has to start at the moment things change in relation to the current plot. Are you telling a coming-of-age story, an action-adventure, a grown-up romance? Knowing this going in will help you decide the best starting point.

To complicate your decision, however, some writing instructors will say you should show your character in their normal life just before the change takes place so readers will get to know them and like them before all hell breaks loose. Others will say you should jump right into the action to hook readers and let them get to know the characters as they go.

Honestly, you can use either of these techniques and have a successful opening. But there is a trick to using each.

If you start with a normal day in the life of your character, you can’t just show them taking a shower, getting dressed, going off to work as they might any old day. There’s no tension in this and no real reason for readers to keep reading. On the other hand, infusing the “normal” opening with some level of tension will keep a reader’s attention long enough to get to the dramatic life-changing event.

For example, as your heroine is getting ready, if she is thinking about the huge mistake she made at work the day before and contemplating the meeting she has to have with her boss as soon as she gets into the office, the “getting ready for a normal day” opening has tension. Then you can open that time rift, throw her into the past and into the arms of the Highland warrior who’s going to change her life forever. Readers will be worried about your heroine getting fired long enough to get to the point where her life really changes and the story really begins.

On the other hand, you might decide it’s better for your story to open in the middle of the action. This is often put forward as the best way to start a modern fiction story, though there are some who will argue the point. If this is how you feel your story will be best served, you do encounter the issue of character sympathy. Opening in the middle of the action, means readers haven’t had time to get to know your heroine yet and therefore might not care enough about what happens to her to keep reading.

To make this opening successful, you have to build in ways to reveal your main character as sympathetic from the very start. You have to give readers a snapshot of their character and why they should be worried about the outcome of your opening action.

A random man running away from gun-toting thugs could be anyone. Maybe he’s just as rotten as the guys chasing him. Why do we care if he survives the chase? If you introduce an aspect of his character--through the action--to make him sympathetic, you give readers that reason to care.

Perhaps your running man sees a family with kids coming into view and knows if the thugs see them, they’ll kill the family. So your hero leads the thugs in a different direction, even though it’s more dangerous for him, in order to keep the family safe. This reveals a lot about your hero and gives readers the sympathy for him they need to keep reading and to care if the thugs catch him or not.

The way a book starts is always going to be a very personal choice, depending entirely on the genre and the type of story being told. Just keep in mind three points. First, the opening needs to start when this story starts--not in the backstory. Second, if you jump into action from the first sentence, you need to show your character’s per­sonality fast. And finally, if you start by showing a “normal” day, you need to fill it with tension, then introduce the life-changing moment quickly.

Making sure the opening of the book is both tense and character revealing will ensure readers stick with you past the first few pages. Then give them a truly plot-worthy upheaval in your main character’s life and they will read to the very end. ♥


 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:   Isabo Kelly is the multi-award winning author of science-fiction, fantasy and paranormal romances. Her up­coming fantasy romance, THE DARKNESS OF GLENGOWYN, started in the right place but not in the right way and had to be seriously tightened. For more on Isabo and her books, visit her at www.isabokelly.com, fol­low her on Twitter @IsaboKelly, or friend her on Facebook www.facebook.com/IsaboKelly



Friday, January 24, 2014

BOOK COVER FRIDAYS: NEVER TOO MUCH BY TROY STORM

  
 
Welcome to Book Cover Fridays!

Each Friday stop by and check out a new cover from one of New York's Leading Romance Authors. Let us know what you think.


 
 
NEVER TOO MUCH
by Troy Storm
Secret Cravings Publishing
 
Last book in the CoveHaven Menage Romance series.
 
For more information about Troy Storm, visit http://troystormwriter.blogspot.com/.
 
 
 

Monday, January 20, 2014

THE PUBLISHING GAME: 2013 – The Year of the Gavel


Please welcome a new columnist to this blog, Lise Horton.  She will be bringing us monthly updates on the world of publishing.  Game on!



2013 – The Year of the Gavel
by Lise Horton


In a recent issue of Publishers Marketplace they ran the following headline: “2013: The Year We Gaveled On.” And while some of the suits and legal wrangling were higher profile than others, there were many spreading across a variety of issues and they will all, ultimately, have an impact on us as au­thors specifically, but as members of a volatile industry in general. So here, in the interest of attempting to get a handle on the legal lay of the land, is a bit of a recap of this year’s litigious fun & games:

The massive cases that came to a close were the nearly decade-long Google book-scanning case, with Judge Denny Chin lowering the gavel on the last hold-out, The Authors Guild, following the “secret” settlements a year ago between Google and the original publisher plaintiffs. Because no details were given as to how the AUTHORS would fare in that settlement, the AG doggedly held on. And lost. But they vow to appeal the deci­sion. Google’s altruistic intent to make the books available to everyone seems lofty – but the indirect benefit to having these books in their sole hands provides them the KNOWLEDGE base present in those books. And could that be why they are solidifying their place as the pre-eminent source for on-line searches – a monopoly on information?

The #2 legal behemoth was the Department of Justice case against Apple and the publishers who had “colluded” to fix pricing vis a vis the agency model that was promulgated. And on the heels of the DOJ came numerous State suits as well on the same matter. The publishers all settled, as Macmillon admitted that the legal cost to fight would be more than their net worth. Apple hung in but lost big – though the initial penalties were ulti­mately watered down a bit. But the case has many ramifications as digital pricing is so in flux. The line about just how creative publishers and on-line providers of digital books can be may harden. Immediately thereafter Amazon began playing with pricing. Clearly this case was huge. Otherwise, would we REALLY be seeing this presiding judge among the Publishers Weekly Notable People of 2013?

Of tremendous concern to authors is the issue of piracy. Clearly it is a protean evil that will never die, but 2013 saw some positive legal challenges. Early in the year, 2 New Yorkers were successfully sued for their pirating efforts by John Wiley, and will be forced to ante up $7,000 in penalties. What was important was these individu­als were offering up these titles via BitTorrent and the case was the first of its kind to find the uploaders guilty.

But there were numerous other cases and causes that added to law firm coffers in 2013.

There were cases by famous authors like Harper Lee against their agents and managers for mismanagement of funds. There were settlements in the case brought against a number of their authors by a big 5 publisher seek­ing return of their advances. There was the class action suit brought against Authors House (and its new big 5 owner, Penguin) by self-pubbed authors over royalty shenanigans. A collection of independent booksellers – including NYC’s Posman Books - sued over Amazon and the big 6 over DRM damages to competitive purchas­ing, a case that was just dismissed a few days ago. The Wiley suit over pricing of foreign editions of textbooks was a bust and immediately the first sale doctrine became a front and center concept: Especially as the ques­tion of whether or not First Sale can EVER apply to digital material is going to be a huge legal quagmire for all concerned. CAVEAT (figured a legal term was apropos) - A bright light in this area was the court decision that ReDigi’s sale of “used” music (iTunes) was clear copyright infringement. Will that stand? Only time – and lawsuits – will tell.

Of personal interest to me as a Harlequin author was the 2013 decision in the 2012 suit filed by authors pub­lished in the 90’s and early 2000’s, that claimed “intercompany licenses” were permitting HQ to cheat authors of royalties. The judge found against the authors though they have appealed.

And of interest to all authors was the quiet resolution of the 2012 case initially filed by Penguin seeking return of advances from authors who they claimed missed deadlines. It “went away” without fanfare, but showed the willingness of a big house to seek redress when authors – and not necessarily the “big names” - don’t adhere to contractual requirements. Given that this case came on the heels of last year’s Sourcebooks suit against an author for breach of contract, it should speak loudly to the importance of understanding what you are signing, and how NOT understanding, or breaching your contract, can come back to bite you. Big time. Just ask actor Stephen Baldwin, who was sued by Hachette over the $110,000 advance he received when he failed to deliver his book on time.

Other suits included public domain wrangles (Conan Doyle Estate), continued battles of digital rights by 3rd parties objected to by original publishers, Amazon’s NY State sales tax fight defeat went to the Supreme Court – who declined to hear the case. Publishers breathed a sigh of relief when 2 cases found that their standard pro­cesses for vetting books (i.e. – and reliance upon an author’s warranties about the writing and material) should stand. For an author? That means understanding WHAT you are repping and warranting in your contracts is paramount because you’ll be on the hook in the event of any problems.

Outside the courtrooms, a recent issue in the arena of contract law which has come to folks’ attentions, is the issue of the big houses’ contracts with authors some of which, it seems, are being revamped to effectively allow them to pussy-foot away from what had previously been clear and distinct promises of publication in certain formats. Now they can hedge their bets and opt NOT to issue a title in the print format originally intended, but say, rather in digital. Should it suit their purpose.

Other non-court legal matters were legion as well. We had the “disclosure” that the sneaky dude who leaked the truth that Cukoo’s Calling author Robert Galbraith was JK Rowling WAS – her lawyer! Even more salacious was the accusation against Larry Kirshenbaum – no LONGER the head of the Amazon publishing operation – of sexual harassment. The massive merger of Random House – Penguin (which was vet­ted worldwide) dominated publishing news. Barnes & Noble’s plan to hive-off of the tablet division to a separate entity waxes and wanes. Amazon’s rights-holder sanctioned fan-fic publishing arm came into being blurring lines further on the subject of copyright.

But from a legal perspective the most important conversation dominating the publishing industry might well be copyright. I have heard one intellectual property specialist proclaim “Copyright is dead”, and in nearly every corner the groundswell promoting a new copyright act that can address the myriad aspects of digital and elec­tronic material that was never anticipated, is getting louder and louder. It’s turning out to be a whole new ball game.

So how’s YOUR fielding?♥
  



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Lise Horton’s debut novel WORDS OF LUST launched in September 2013 and she is finalizing book 2 of the Stellato Siblings series for submission. You can read more about Lise, her books, and her blogs, by visiting her website, www. LiseHorton.com and to join her in the madcap whirl of social media!




Friday, January 17, 2014

BOOK COVER FRIDAYS & BOOK LAUNCH: RESCUE MY HEART BY JEAN C. JOACHIM

  
 
Welcome to Book Cover Fridays!

Each Friday stop by and check out a new cover from one of New York's Leading Romance Authors. Let us know what you think.
 
 

 
RESCUE MY HEART
by Jean C. Joachim
Secret Cravings Publishing
 
First book in the new Manhattan Dinner Club series and
debuts TODAY!  Congratulations, Jean.
 
Visit Jean and learn more about her books at www.jeanjoachimbooks.com.
 
 
 
 

Monday, January 13, 2014

RAINBOW ROMANCE: THE CHANGING ROMANCE MARKET

 
Please help us welcome author Kate McMurray, who will be blogging with us monthly on LGBT Romances. 



THE CHANGING ROMANCE MARKET
by Kate McMurray


I was at a party a couple of years ago when a friend of mine asked me about my latest book. I summed up the plot, and she said, “Oh, so you’re still writing gay romance.” Yes, I said. “You could make so much more money if you wrote some­thing else.” Sure, I said. And maybe I will someday.

Here’s the thing, though: I’m not really sure she’s right.

Since this is my first column, I’ll get the “Why gay romance?” question out of the way. I first discovered gay romance six or seven years ago. I’d stopped reading romance novels for a few years during a pretentious post-college, “I have a litera­ture degree so I will only read literary fiction” phase that I have thankfully gotten over. I’d forgotten how much fun reading could be, and I’d always really enjoyed love stories, so romance was such a natural fit, I don’t know why I resisted it. In the hunt for new books to read, I started following review blogs, and one recom­mended an m/m book. I had no idea such things existed prior to that point, and I was so intrigued, I bought the book immediately.

It’s hard to explain what it was about that book—and romance novels featuring LGBT characters generally— that I found so appealing. I mean, it was a flat-out great book, but the fact that it had two heroes both intrigued me and gave me a giddy thrill. Why? The stock answer I’ve heard a lot of people give is, “One man is great, but two are better,” and look, I’m a lady with a pulse, so I can’t deny that seeing or reading about two hot guys together is hot. But there’s a lot more to it than that. Part of it is the politics of it, I suppose; I believe whole-heartedly that every person deserves love, regardless of gender or any other factor. But part of it was just that I read a book I really liked and wanted to read more like it.

That’s how I came to write my first published novel, actually. LGBT romance has since exploded, but way back when, it was thin on the ground, at least in the places I was looking for it. I wanted for there to be more books like the ones I had read, so I decided to write one myself. I had been working on a novel with a gay protagonist for a while and not really getting anywhere with it—that book eventually became BLIND ITEMS after many, many rewrites—but I put it aside to write a big, gay romantic suspense—seriously, my working title was “gay cop novel”—that was published at the beginning of 2010 as IN HOT PURSUIT.

In the four short years since, the publishing industry has changed dramatically. In 2010, digital-first publishers were already taking over an increasing chunk of the market. They had lower overhead costs, since they were in the business of ebooks, and so could take greater risks, meaning the sorts of books the Big Six publishers thought were too risky could find homes and, more importantly, readers. This was not limited to LGBT ro­mance, by the way; ménage, BDSM, and other kinds of boundary-pushing erotic romance found its way into readers’ hands, and writers could tell other kinds of stories than what was being put out by the bigger publishers.

When Amazon came along and changed the way everybody reads. It’s not just that ereaders allowed us to read sexy books while fooling other subway passengers into thinking we were reading WAR AND PEACE; for me, the first device I had that allowed me to read all those digital books I was buying on something other than my laptop—something I could actually carry on the subway!—was like a godsend.

And say what you will about FIFTY SHADES, but it took a burgeoning market and made it explode. Main­stream publishing saw what the rest of us had known for a few years by then: there was a viable market for romances that did something differently.

LGBT romance has been steadily picking up new readers for the last five years. There are success stories, cer­tainly, books that found wider audiences, that nipped at the heels of the bestseller lists, that romance readers still talk about. But it’s been a steady climb, too, with greater sales overall. Bigger publishers are just starting to get in on this game, sometimes with new writers—Rie Warren’s IN HIS COMMAND was put out by Forever (Ha­chette) this summer—sometimes with writers who have been at this awhile—Z.A. Maxfield, whose books were among the first gay romances I ever read, has a series published by Berkley (Penguin). LGBT romance writers are making a splash at big romance conventions like RT. Thanks to the combined efforts of members of RWA’s Rainbow Romance Writers chapter, LGBT romance publishers, and some open-minded editors, LGBT romance is getting reviewed in places like RT Book Reviews, Library Journal, and Publisher’s Weekly, something that seemed impossible just five years ago.

Every time an author I know quits their day job to write full time, I think back to all those conversations I’ve had at parties with friends who suggest I could make so much more money if I wrote about heterosexual cou­ples. Maybe I could. But the stories I’m writing now are the ones that are speaking at me, have characters that I find compelling and want to write about, and they are stories that are populated by romance heroes who hap­pen to be gay. And as LGBT romance finds a wider and more diverse audience, the opportunities for those of us writing it seem endless. Seems to me, we could all have our cake and eat it, too; there’s an audience for the kinds of stories I love and am passionate about, and now that LGBT romance is going more mainstream, there’s an opportunity to make a career of it, and that’s really exciting.♥



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:   Kate McMurray is an award-winning author of gay romance and an un­abashed romance fan. When she’s not writing, she works as a nonfiction editor, dabbles in various crafts, and is maybe a tiny bit obsessed with base­ball. She’s currently serving as Presi­dent of Rainbow Romance Writers, the LGBT romance chapter of Romance Writers of America. She lives in Brook­lyn, NY. Visit her at www.katemcmurray.com.


Friday, January 10, 2014

BOOK COVER FRIDAYS: MURDER IN PARADISE by Carolyn Gibbs

  
Welcome to Book Cover Fridays!
Each Friday stop by and check out a new cover from one of New York's Leading Romance Authors.  Let us know what you think. 
 
 
 
MURDER IN PARADISE
Carolyn Gibbs
Secret Cravings Publishing
 
Visit Carolyn and learn more about her book at http://carolynwrites.blogspot.com/.
  
 

 

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

HAVE YOU HAD A BRAIN ORGASM TODAY?

By A. Charlotte Rose

 

Oh my God... oh my God... oh my God... I think I am having a brain orgasm. And just from hearing hubby whisper in my ear!

He has an awesome, sexy voice, but, according to the concept behind autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), any kind of whispering [and other sounds] can make your head all tingly and result in a feeling of, well, orgasmic pleasure, emanating from the general vicinity of your brain and sending a tingling sensation around your head. Sigh.

Perhaps you get that tingly feeling when a character you are working on starts whispering in your ear and a scene is flowing like magic, although it apparently can happen through more mundane activities.

You may have had one without even knowing it. Think back to times when you got your hair cut or washed and the touch of your hair stylists made you head feel so very good. Or even observing an activity or event where you felt a tingle run up your scalp.

There is not a whole lot of medical research for this phenomenon but they do have a website for research and support (which was down at the time of this posting but try later).

Steven Novella covered it recently in his Neurologica Blog and said the website reports that the following experiences that can lead to a braingasm:

- Exposure to slow, accented, or unique speech patterns
- Viewing educational or instructive videos or lectures
- Experiencing a high empathetic or sympathetic reaction to an event
- Enjoying a piece of art or music
- Watching another person complete a task, often in a diligent, attentive manner – examples would be filling out a form, writing a check, going through a purse or bag, inspecting an item closely, etc.
- Close, personal attention from another person
- Haircuts, or other touch from another on head or back


Turns out there is a big community of enthusiasts who swear by the ASMR phenomenon. They describe the sensation refer to it as a "brain orgasm", "brain massage", "head tingle", "brain tingles", "head orgasm", "spine tingle", and "braingasm."

Why are braingasms good for you? Seeking them out can relax you—and we all know that romance writers need to chill a little! There is, in fact, a growing field called "Whisper Therapy," according to this ABC15.com report.

An article in Time, posted yesterday, reported: "The term ASMR was coined by Jenn Allen, a 30-year-old New Yorker who works in Healthcare IT. She started the ASMR Research Institute, an unofficial organization that relies on volunteers to help analyze the neuroscience and psychology behind why the phenomenon exists."

Since 2008 hundreds have created ASMR videos and upload them to YouTube and the community just keeps growing. One fan started the Water Whispers Channel on You Tube.

This hot guy who identifies himself as Truth Revolutions is one of them. Click here for his video. 

I suspect reading and writing can also bring on a braingasm. Or even watching a hot guy perform a mundane chore without his shirt on might get you there. We are looking into this and will report back soon!

Have you ever had a brain orgasm while writing or reading?


ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A.Charlotte Rose is a journalist specializing in love, sex, and the new erotic romance revolution, and she is also an author in the erotic romance genre. She pens the “Hot Romance” Column for The Three Tomatoes. Visit her at https://www.ACharlotteRose.com. Follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/CharlotteRoseBooks.
 

Thursday, January 2, 2014

SETTING GOALS


Happy New Year! Please join us in welcoming RWA/NYC's new Chapter President --Ursula Renée.


SETTING GOALS
By Ursula Renée

At the end of the year, when I review the goals I had hoped to accomplish in the past 365 days, I celebrate my successes. However, the goals that were not achieved are not considered failures. Instead, they are reevaluated so I can understand why I came up short. Sometimes I discovered that despite my intentions to complete a goal, life had other plans for me. There were times when family, work and life had to take priority. Other times, I realized that I set too many goals for the year.

Despite my desire to reach for the stars, the moon and the sun, there is only so much time in a day. After all my other commitments have been attended to, I may only have time for the stars and moon. Reaching for the sun will have to wait until later. There are a few times when I realize that my heart was not in the goal that I set. Then there are the goals that were pushed aside when something else catches my attention, like the year I discovered stone carving and decided to focus on sculpting instead of painting.

Once I realize the reason I did not achieve a goal, I use the knowledge to help me create my goals for the New Year. Some of the older goals will end up on the new list and others will be placed back in the bucket list for the future. A few that I have decided are no longer important to me will be eliminated.

In the end, even if you do not believe in setting New Year’s Resolutions, set them; create the goals to give yourself something to work towards. At the end of the year, you can celebrate your accomplishments or, after analyzing the goals that were not achieved, have a better understanding of what keeps you from succeeding.#



Ursula Renée is the new President of RWA/NYC. She recently sold SWEET JAZZ, a historical romance, to The Wild Rose Press. When she is not writing, she enjoys photography, drawing and stone carving. Visit her at www.ursularenee.com.

 

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

LAST STOP: A CINDERELLA CHRISTMAS CAROL by Hope Tarr (Happy New Year!)

  
  
This is the last stop on RWA/NYC's
HOLIDAY BOOK COVERS BLOG TOUR
 
Covers from New York’s Leading Romance Authors. 
Their books are still available.
 
Happy Reading and Happy New Year!
 
 
A CINDERELLA CHRISTMAS CAROL
by Hope Tarr
 
 
 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:   RWA/NYC Author of the Year 2013, Hope Tarr is the award-winning author of twenty-five romance novels including Operation Cinderella, the launch to her popular Suddenly Cinderella Series with Entangled Publishing, now optioned as a major motion picture by Twentieth Century Fox. Hope is also a co-founder and current curator of Lady Jane’s Salon®, New York City’s first and only monthly romance series now in its fifth year with seven satellites nationwide. Visit Hope online at www.HopeTarr.com, www.LadyJaneSalonNYC.com, www.Facebook.com/HopeC.Tarr.com, and www.Twitter.com/HopeTarr.