Category Archives: Contests

The BANE blog tour is making its final stops today, with the last chapter of REFUGE, a free STRAIN-universe short!

I’m leaving in a few hours for Seattle, so I’m afraid I won’t have a chance to make this post later, even though one of the stops for the tour hasn’t been posted yet.

Today on the BANE blog tour, I’ll be sharing the final chapter of REFUGE. REFUGE is a sweet beginning to an trans romance set close to 30 years after BANE. There’s a chance it may be the basis for a continuation of the STRAIN universe, but we’ll have to see what the muse decides about that.

Yesterday, Kal and Billie resolved some of Billie’s misunderstandings about the Wapato Island Refuge and they set off with Zeus on their journey. Billie begins to understand how much she enjoys being with Kal, but is the time right for them?

You can find the installments for today at the following stops:

CHAPTER FIVE:
Smart Girls Love SciFi (Part 1)
BookLover Sue (Part 2)
TTC Books and More (Part 3)

I’m also making a spotlight stop at Rainbow Gold Reviews with another chance to enter the drawing for some Riptide store credit.

Thanks so much for joining me on the tour! If you need to catch up on REFUGE, you can find the previous installments here (or you can check out the Extras tab on the BANE page at Riptide):

CHAPTER ONE:
My Fiction Nook (Part 1)
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words (Part 2)

CHAPTER TWO:
3 Chicks After Dark
(Part 1)
Book Reviews and More by Kathy (Part 2)
The Jeep Diva (Part 3)

CHAPTER THREE:
Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents
(Part 1)
GGR Reviews (Part 2)
Sinfully Sexy Book Reviews (Part 3-please ignore the text labeling it Chapter 2, Part 3.)

CHAPTER FOUR:
Prism Book Alliance (Part 1)
Love Bytes Reviews (Part 2)
Butterfly-o-Meter (Part 3)

Remember that you can comment at each stop to enter to win some Riptide store credit!

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It’s Day 4 of the BANE blog tour! That means Chapter 4 of REFUGE, a free STRAIN-universe short!

Today is the fourth day of the BANE blog tour, and we’re bringing you Chapter 4 of REFUGE.

REFUGE is a sweet beginning to an trans romance set close to 30 years after BANE. There’s a chance it may be the basis for a continuation of the STRAIN universe, but we’ll have to see what the muse decides about that.

Yesterday, Kal and Billie started to get to know each other, but Billie’s desire to find a home outside the Clean Zone where she won’t be an outcast conflicts with her fear of Kal’s people in the Wapato Island Refuge and the horrible things she’s been told about them and their settlement all her life. Today they start to pick through the truths and the lies, to decide if Billie can ever feel safe there.

You can find the installments for today at the following stops:

Prism Book Alliance (Chapter Four, Part 1)
Love Bytes Reviews (Chapter Four, Part 2)
Butterfly-o-Meter (Chapter Four, Part 3)

Be sure to check back tomorrow for the final chapter! If you need to catch up on REFUGE, you can find the previous installments here:

CHAPTER ONE:
My Fiction Nook (Part 1)
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words (Part 2)

CHAPTER TWO:
3 Chicks After Dark
(Part 1)
Book Reviews and More by Kathy (Part 2)
The Jeep Diva (Part 3)

CHAPTER THREE:
Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents
(Part 1)
GGR Reviews (Chapter 3, Part 2)
Sinfully Sexy Book Reviews (Chapter 3, Part 3-please ignore the text labeling it Chapter 2, Part 3.)

Remember that you can comment at each stop to enter to win some Riptide store credit!

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It’s Day 3 of the BANE blog tour, with two new installments of REFUGE, a STRAIN-universe short! #postapocalyptic #mmromance

Day 3 of the BANE blog tour brings you the conclusion of Chapter 3 of REFUGE. REFUGE is a sweet beginning to an trans romance set close to 30 years after BANE. There’s a chance it may be the basis for a continuation of the STRAIN universe, but we’ll have to see what the muse decides about that.

Yesterday, Kal helped Billie out of the derelict building she was stuck in (and if you were paying attention you might have an idea of just how Kal relates to your faves from STRAIN and BANE.) Today you learn a little about what’s happening on the political front in the aftermath of BANE (don’t worry, spoilers are minimal and only very general.) You also learn how Zeus got his name!

You can find the installments for today at the following stops:

GGR Reviews (Chapter 3, Part 2)
Sinfully Sexy Book Reviews (Chapter 3, Part 3-please ignore the text labeling it Chapter 2, Part 3.)

There’s also an excerpt from BANE at MM Good Book Reviews.

If you need to catch up on REFUGE, you can find the previous installments here:

CHAPTER ONE:
My Fiction Nook (Part 1)
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words (Part 2)

CHAPTER TWO:
3 Chicks After Dark
(Part 1)
Book Reviews and More by Kathy (Part 2)
The Jeep Diva (Part 3)

CHAPTER THREE:
Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents
(Part 1)

Remember that you can comment at each stop to enter to win some Riptide store credit!

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The BANE blog tour continues, with Chapter 2 of REFUGE and more! #postapocalyptic #mmromance

Today the Bane blog tour has four stops, each one with a segment of REFUGE, the sweet (no sex) beginning of an MtF/M romance set some years after Bane. It’s possible it may someday be the concept for another full novel in the Strain universe, though I make no promises at this point.

Yesterday you met Billie, a transwoman in a bit of trouble. If you missed them, yesterday’s segments were:

My Fiction Nook (Chapter 1, Part 1)
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words (Chapter 1, Part 2)

Today you get to meet Kal and perhaps more importantly, Zeus!

3 Chicks After Dark (Chapter 2, Part 1)
Book Reviews and More by Kathy (Chapter 2, Part 2)
The Jeep Diva (Chapter 2, Part 3)

Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents (Chapter 3, Part 1)

Be sure to comment at each stop for a chance to win Riptide credit, and check in tomorrow for more segments of REFUGE.

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Check out some facts about James and an excerpt from Inch by Inch today!

InchByInch_TourBannerToday in the first two stops on our blog tour for Inch by Inch (The Professor’s Rule #3), Heidi Belleau and I are visiting 3 Chicks After Dark with a few facts you may or may not know about James Sheridan, one of our TPR protags. We’ve also brought an excerpt from Inch by Inch over to The Novel Approach.

If you take the time to comment and chat with us, you’ll be entered to win an ebook copy of either Giving an Inch (The Professor’s Rule #1) or An Inch at a Time (The Professor’s Rule #2) so if you’re not caught up on this series, now’s a great chance to see what you’ve missed!

Be sure to hit all the stops on our blog tour this week for more chances to win!

InchByInch_150x300

 

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Woohoo! Acceleration and Velocity both make it as runners-up in the #RainbowAwards

Rainbow Awards - Best LGBT Erotic Romance

Once I knew I was up against Heidi Cullinan and L.A. Witt, I knew I didn’t have a chance of placing first or second, but I’m beyond thrilled. Acceleration tied in 4th place with Finding Master Right by L.A. Witt, and Velocity ties for 7th place with two other books, which is more than I expected. Congratulations to Heidi for placing first, and to all the other finalists!

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Vote for Velocity in the Rainbow Awards cover contest

Good news! Acceleration made it through the first round of voting! YAY to Kerry Chin’s gorgeous artwork. Now Velocity is up! Let’s show Kerry some more love!

http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/2050429.html

Velocity-ecover-72dpi

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Less than 36 hours to go to Acceleration!

In the wee-small hours last night, I sent to final proof of Acceleration to Michael at Booknibbles to be formatted and converted. Since the upload and approval process for Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kobo takes 24-48 hours, I will begin uploading it as soon as he has it back to me (hopefully tonight.)

What this means is that there’s a chance that Acceleration will actually be available for purchase at various times the day before the official release, since I have no control over when the file actually gets approved and posted to the various sites. I don’t know what time zone All Romance Ebooks is in, but I know it’s at least an hour or two ahead of me, so if you bought Acceleration on pre-sale there, it will be available perhaps midnight Central or Mountain time (maybe even Eastern, I dunno.) I plan to upload it and have it live at Rainbow Ebooks and SmashWords around the same time.

I will be posting buy links as they become available.

It may be another week or two for the paperback to become available, as that process takes considerably longer due to the need to ship and approve physical copies.

Now, for those of you who are interested, a little insight into the life of a self-published author.

I don’t usually bother saying stuff like this, because I want readers to buy from the website that is most convenient for them, which is why I have it available at so many places. But, if you’re indifferent to where you get the file and want to know which sites are the most profitable in me (thus enabling me to continue writing once my kid is in school full-time rather than getting a day job) here’s the breakdown of the royalties I get from the various sites:

SmashWords: 85%
Kobo: 80% through Nov 30, then 70% after
Amazon: 70% minus a few cents for the file transfer fee
Barnes & Noble: 65%
All Romance Ebooks, Itunes and Rainbow Ebooks: 60%

So SmashWords definitely pays me the best, though if I had to express a preference for where people buy, it would actually be Amazon and ARe, even though I get lower royalties there. The reason? Because they have bestseller lists (Kobo, Itunes and B&N probably do, too, but my sales on those sites are practically non-existent so I’m not going to hit them anyway, and SmashWords just doesn’t move the volume for it to matter if I’m one of their best sellers.) If I end up on the bestseller lists for Amazon or ARe, however, I will get a lot more exposure and sell a lot more books.

The same principle applies to the paperback. I make about $3 more on a paperback sold through the CreateSpace website than I do on one sold through Amazon, but sales on CreateSpace aren’t going to boost my rankings, thus giving me more visibility and sales.

Of course, the question everyone is going to be asking once they’re done with Acceleration is “When does Velocity come out?”

The good news is, I’m much more knowledgeable about the process going into Velocity than I was going into Acceleration. Inertia was a whole other animal. No one was expecting it, I hadn’t done any marketing beforehand or generated any sort of anticipation. There was no timeline except when I felt it was ready to be released.

I’m actually a bit embarrassed at my own naivete there. 🙂

It didn’t take me long to realize Acceleration would be different, because people were expecting it. I had to set a release date. I had to set target times for cover art and edits and such to be done and ARCs to be released, because people were watching and waiting for it. I didn’t plan ahead enough (for instance, I didn’t lock in my reservation for when my editor would be available until after I had the manuscript written, which meant that a lot of the delay was simply the manuscript gathering dust because it couldn’t go anywhere until my turn in her queue came up. Likewise, the cover art reveal was a little rushed and haphazard because I didn’t schedule a slot for my artist to work on the art until much later than I should have.

What this meant was that if I wanted to get the book released before the holidays (which I’ve since learned wasn’t really necessary as apparently ebook sales aren’t great in December-I imagine it’s actually after the holidays, when everyone is cashing in their bookstore gift cards, that ebook sales take off) I was really cutting it way too close. But even without the factor of the holidays, there was the fact that people were demanding Book Two and I really needed to get it out there before people lost interest and I fell off the map.

I’ve learned my lesson with Velocity and hopefully have my ducks in a much neater row. I’ve scheduled my slot with both my cover artist and editor well in advance this time. I hope to have the cover art by the end of December, preferably for a January cover reveal. The turn-in date for the manuscript to go to my editor in mid-December and I’ll have it back in mid-January.

So when will Velocity be out? Well, if you’re looking at that banner up top here on my blog, it says March 2013. At which point in March depends on how extensive the revisions I need to do once I get my edits back. If the revisions are minor, I hope to have ARCs available at the beginning of February and will release at the beginning of March. If the revisions are more extensive, we’re looking at mid-to-late February and March, respectively. I’ll have a better idea once I have my edits back in mid-January.

So. Keep an eye out. We’re in the final stretch of the wait for Acceleration. If you would like your chance to win a copy, the drawings at Stumbling Over Chaos and The Novel Approach are still open, so be sure to go register. And also, I’m doing my first GoodReads giveaway, too! I’ll be giving away a paperback of Acceleration at the end of December. Be sure to go enter!

Finally, for those of you who are interested, because it’s being released on November 30, Acceleration will still qualify for the Members’ Choice Awards over at the GoodReads M/M Romance group! Nominations close December 5. The award I’m most concerned with there is the Cover Art award, because Kerry and Michael’s hard work deserves to be recognized. Inertia has been nominated there, but Acceleration has not. If you want to know what other categories Inertia and Acceleration might qualify for, I will list them here:

Nomination - Favorite All Time M/M Romance Book (Inertia or Acceleration)
Nomination - Favorite All Time M/M Series (Impulse)
Nomination - Favorite All Time M/M Author (moi)
Nomination - Favorite All Time M/M Character(s) (Derrick and/or Gavin)
Nomination - Best Debut Book (Inertia has already been nommed)
Nomination - Best Cover (Inertia has been nommed, Acceleration hasn’t)
Nomination - Best Title (Inertia or Acceleration)
Nomination - Best Couple/MC’s (Derrick and/or Gavin)
Nomination - Best Sex Scene (take your pick from either Inertia or Acceleration)
Nomination - Best Side/Supporting Character (Miss Ingrid, LeeAnn, Andi, Devon or Hannah)
Nomination - Best Tearjerking scene (there’s one from Acceleration that just might qualify. You be the judge)
Nomination - Best First Time (this would be Inertia naturally, though honestly, after having read the first time in Frat Boy and Toppy by Anne Tenino? Hoo doggies! I don’t stand a chance.)
Nomination - Funniest Quotes/Best Lines (take your pick)
Nomination - Best book of the year (take your pick)
Nomination - BDSM (sex content) (probably Acceleration more than Inertia)
Nomination - Contemporary (genre) (take your pick)
Nomination - Hurt/Comfort (theme) (maybe? I dunno.)

So. If you decide you want to participate (and this is not meant to be pushy: as I’ve said, the only one that will break my heart to not see the books get the nod is the Cover Art category) check out the rules for the contest, and you have until December 5 to make your nominations.

So excited for people to start reading Acceleration! It’s almost here! Whee!

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Filed under Acceleration, Administrative, Announcements, Contests, Inertia, News for Released Titles, Upcoming Releases, Velocity

Acceleration Giveaway at Stumbling Over Chaos

Chris at http://stumblingoverchaos.com is hosting a giveaway for a shiny new copy of Acceleration on release day. Head on over and comment according to the rules to win!

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New Excerpt from Inertia and giveaway at Dark Divas Reviews!

Head over to Dark Divas Reviews to see why AJ is giving Inertia 4.5 Delightful Divas, and enter to win a giveaway! There you will also find an new free read, the steamy Kitchen Floor Scene from Chapter 13 of Inertia. Check it out!

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And the winner is….!

… Laurie G! Congratulations!

I will be contacting you via email to deliver a coupon code for a free download of Inertia at SmashWords. Thank you for participating!

If anyone else would like another chance to win a copy of Inertia, I will be featured Monday morning, August 27, over at Coffee and Porn in the Morning. Look for me there! Otherwise, you can buy Inertia at the following retailers:

SmashWords
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Itunes

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What if? (What Writing LGBTQ Literature Means to Me)

For the Rainbow Book Reviews Blog Hop

(please see end of post for giveaway details)

As a storyteller, I’ve always been drawn to the “what if?” I know I’m not alone in this. For those of us who tell stories, it’s something our minds naturally do, I think. From the novelist crafting an entire new world from scratch to the fanfiction writer putting the smallest twist on canon and turning it into an intriguing alternate universe, this is what we do.

We ask ourselves, “What if?”

For example:

“What if Kirk and Spock were lovers?”

While same-sex romance has appeared in literature throughout the ages, usually very subtly and in the subtext, I think for many who now write LGBTQ literature, that question is actually where it all began. That question is where most of us got our first exposure to the concept of same-sex pairings in fiction. Even if we never actually read a word of the early Kirk/Spock (or other flavors of) fanfiction that was circulated in print fanzines while the internet was still the pipe-dream of a few pioneers, we all heard of it.

Then along came the internet, and with it instantly accessible, low-to-no-means methods of disseminating non-mainstream fiction to a targeted niche audience. Skinner/Krycek. Clark/Lex. Spike/Xander. Garak/Bashir. Paris/Chakotay. Xena/Gabrielle. Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan. Methos/Duncan. Jim/Blair. Mackay/Sheppard. Harry/Draco. The list is, of course, endless.

I came to the gay fiction late, for a variety of reasons. I am and always have been a writer of erotic fiction, yes, but I didn’t want to simply write a titillating story for the pretty mental image of two men together.

Ultimately, the “what if?” that brought me to writing LGBTQ literature was a very simple one.

What if the doubts and questions and insecurities I explored with any heterosexual character were experienced by a gay character?

It’s a ridiculously easy question, isn’t it? And yet it took me years to come at the thought of writing gay characters from that angle. I was so determined not to fetishize or tokenize LGBTQ characters, or perhaps expose myself to accusations of ignorance regarding issues faced by LGBTQ characters, that I was neglecting them entirely instead. Despite my best intentions, I was still handling these characters as “other” still, unwilling to deal with them at all if it meant the possibility of being accused of mishandling them. And in so doing, I was denying a voice to characters representative of a segment of the populace that is all too often denied a voice.

Once I answered that question, others came much more easily. I discovered a lot more “what if?” in exploring questions of sameness and differentiation between heterosexual and homosexual characters. Given any particular situation or plot element, which aspects would be influenced by the character’s sexuality? Which would remain the same, and which would the character approach from the unique perspective of being closeted, passing, or out-and-proud, the victim of oppression or someone who has triumphed over it?

Writing LGBTQ fiction enabled me to approach the same human questions and truths I always explored with my characters from the perspective of people whose life experiences might give them a completely unique worldview. And at times – even more interestingly, I think – it has allowed me to explore a completely mundane and un-unique worldview. It has allowed me to explore areas of sameness as well as areas of “other”-ness.

Writing LGBTQ fiction means I need to be conscientious. I need to do research rather than make assumptions. I need to check my privilege. I need to handle issues faced by gay and lesbian people with sensitivity and respect, avoid stereotypes while still being honest about real problems faced in the LGBTQ community, and avoid putting a heteronormalizing slant on gay issues and relationships.

And that is just a little of what writing LGBTQ fiction means to me.

*****

In participation with the Rainbow Book Reviews Blog Hop, I will be conducting a giveaway of a copy of my book, Inertia. The winner will receive a 100% off coupon for my book from SmashWords, which will enable them to download it in the format of their choice.

Comment below to be entered into the giveaway, and please be sure to include your email address. Entry cut-off will be August 27, 2012 at 12 AM. Winner will be selected using The Hat (screencap available upon request) later that same day.

Discussion topic: I’ve shared a little bit about what writing LGBTQ literature means to me. What does it mean to you, as a reader? What do you look for in your LGBTQ lit?

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Coming Friday: Rainbow Book Reviews Blog Hop 2012 and a giveaway!

On Friday, Rainbow Book Reviews will be celebrating the launching of their site with a weekend-long blog hop. In addition to a lot of publisher-sponsored giveaways over at their site, I’ll be giving away a copy of Inertia. Come back Friday to see my thoughts on this year’s theme, What Writing LGBTQ Literature Means To Me, and a chance to win a copy of Inertia!

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