Tag Archives: giving an inch

Today, the “Every Inch of the Way” Tour: “Every Inch an Exhibitionist” Part 1! @HeidiBelleau @RiptideBooks @twinmom

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Today is the first day of the Every Inch of the Way (The Professor’s Rule #4) Blog Tour. You know what that means? It means you get to read the first of six parts of Every Inch an Exhibitionist, an exclusive, free, bonus short featuring Satish, James, and Carson from The Professor’s Rule.

Heidi and I are making two stops today, each with chances to win an ebook copy of An Inch at a Time (The Professor’s Rule #2) in your format of choice. Just be sure to leave a comment including some means of contacting you. You can leave your email, if you wish, or some other form of social media ID: Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr or Goodreads.

In the first (VERY EXCITING) stop, we’re at That’s What I’m Talking About, with part one of Every Inch an Exhibitionist. This short, set at some indeterminate time after The Professor’s Rule series ends, weaves the past and the present together just as Heidi and I did throughout The Professor’s Rule, as James reveals more of his past with Carson to Satish. (Tune in also for me getting in a few cheap shots at the hyper-glamorized urban myth of kink culture versus the reality as I’ve experienced it.)

In our second stop, Mrs. Condit and Friends Read Books are offering you another chance to get your name in the drawing for TPR #2, so be sure to comment there as well!

EveryInchOfTheWay_400x600Satish Malhotra is in over his head. What appeared to be the hookup of his dreams turned out to be another man’s kinky sex game, and thus ended his relationship with sweet, submissive James Sheridan before it’d hardly begun.

Or so he thought. Being used in someone else’s domination/submission play should have been a deal breaker, yet James—bruises, boyfriend, and all—is too compelling to let walk away. But James has needs Satish isn’t sure he can fulfill, and it seems his mysterious Professor isn’t willing to share.

Can Satish keep James happy in bed and in life, or will James be forced to choose between his dominant and his burgeoning vanilla romance with Satish?

Every Inch of the Way (The Professor’s Rule #4) and To the Very Last Inch (The Professor’s Rule #5) are now available at Riptide, and just about every other major ebook retailer. Or, exclusively at Riptide, you can get The Professor’s Rule: The Complete Collection for 40% off! And if you want to “try before you buy”, you can grab Giving an Inch (The Professor’s Rule #1) for absolutely free.

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Coming this week: A COMPLETE free bonus short from #TheProfessorsRule! @RiptideBooks @HeidiBelleau #mmromance #erotica #blogtour

Exciting stuff coming this week and next on the blog tour for Every Inch of the Way (The Professor’s Rule #4) and To the Very Last Inch (The Professor’s Rule #5)!

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This week, March 3-8, my co-author Heidi Belleau and I will be on tour for Every Inch of the Way with the first three parts of Every Inch an Exhibitionist, a nearly 6000-word free short featuring Satish, James, and the Professor. The short will be serialized over several stops along the blog tour, so be sure to follow each day, and comment for your chance to win a copy of An Inch at a Time (The Professor’s Rule #2).

Satish Malhotra is in over his head. What appeared to be the hookup of his dreams turned out to be another man’s kinky sex game, and thus ended his relationship with sweet, submissive James Sheridan before it’d hardly begun.

Or so he thought. Being used in someone else’s domination/submission play should have been a deal breaker, yet James—bruises, boyfriend, and all—is too compelling to let walk away. But James has needs Satish isn’t sure he can fulfill, and it seems his mysterious Professor isn’t willing to share.

Can Satish keep James happy in bed and in life, or will James be forced to choose between his dominant and his burgeoning vanilla romance with Satish?

TPR5_TourBannerThen next week, March 10-15, we’ll be on tour for To the Very Last Inch with the last three parts of Every Inch an Exhibitionist. During both tours, we’ll also be featured in some really great spotlight stops, and each one gives you another chance to win!

Just days after their scorching reunion, Professor Evander Carson has kicked his one-time pupil James Sheridan to the curb—and tried to sabotage James’s new relationship with Satish Malhotra. Something isn’t right here, but James isn’t sure he should bother trying to figure out what. Carson isn’t good for him and will never change. He needs to accept that and move on.

Satish knows something is up, too, but he thinks the relationship between Carson and James is worth saving. To do the right thing, Satish will have to make James and Carson confront the secrets they’ve hidden for years and help them to overcome the pain and mistrust they’ve caused.

But if Satish succeeds, where will that leave him and his intensifying romance with James? Will the three of them be able to find the right balance, or will James be forced to choose between the pain and submission he craves with Carson, and the sweet, vanilla stability he’s found with Satish?

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Don’t forget also that the very first The Professor’s Rule book, Giving an Inch, is now free at Riptide as well as at Amazon, All Romance eBooks, and any number of other ebook retailers, if you want to see what it’s all about! The Professor’s Rule is also available as a complete collection at Riptide for 40% off!

There’s so much going on I’m sure I’ve forgotten to mention something. We’ll see you on tour!

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The first week of #STRAIN: a recap #postapocalyptic #erotica #mmromance @RiptideBooks

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Friday wrapped up the Strain blog tour, but there is still time to comment and enter to win one of three copies of Impulse: The Complete Trilogy. Entries will remain open until February 28, with the drawing being held on March 1, so be sure to comment at each stop and leave contact information (you can leave a Twitter or Facebook ID if you don’t want to leave an email.)

I tried to structure this blog tour a little differently, making it like the extras on a DVD. Along the way, I shared not only a deleted scene and a sneak peek at Bane, the upcoming prequel to Strain, but also a lot of behind-the-scenes discussion of the world-building that went into Strain. Here’s a brief recap:

Part One: Project Juggernaut (The Jeep Diva)
Part Two: The Juggernaut Battalion (Pants-Off Reviews)
Part Three: Does a Sex Scene Have to be Sexy? (3 Chicks After Dark)
Part Four: The Women of Delta Company (Queer Town Abbey)
Part Five: Oh, But This Darling was Tough to Kill (a deleted BDSM sex scene at Sinfully Sexy Book Reviews)
Part Six: Fluid Exchange in Strain (The Book Nympho)
Part Seven: A Sneak Peek at Bane, the prequel to Strain (Book Reviews and More by Kathy)

There were also a number of stoplight stops. Be sure to check those out as well!

Coffee and Porn in the Morning
Words of Wisdom from the Scarf Princess
TTC Books & More
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words

Also, in case you missed it, on Valentine’s Day, The Book Bella shared bonus content not only from Strain, but also from books by Lisa Henry/Heidi Belleau, Andrea Speed, and Reesa Herberth. As far as Strain goes, I wrote a brief scene that pre-dates Strain, dealing with Joe and Toby and the genesis of their relationship. Be sure to check it out!

Since it’s still February, I am still Riptide’s Author of the Month. That means you can find an interview with me at Riptide’s site, and get Giving an Inch (The Professor’s Rule #1) for absolutely free! (it’s also available for free at Amazon, ARe and other retailers.) There are also significant savings on a number of my other titles, including An Inch at a Time (The Professor’s Rule #2), The Laird’s Forbidden Lover, and finally, pre-sales of Every Inch of the Way (The Professor’s Rule #4) and To The Very Last Inch (The Professor’s Rule #5) are only $0.99 each-67% off! If you pre-order at Riptide, you get to download the books two days in advance, which means they’ll be available at midnight this coming Friday!

Speaking of pre-0rders, Saugatuck Summer is available at Riptide now, as well, for 22% off. If you’re a reviewer, the ARC is also available at NetGalley, so go ahead and check that out. Saugatuck Summer is coming in May.

Whew! That was a lot of links.

On the professional level, I really don’t have much of a basis of comparison for how well Strain is performing. It has broken the Top 10 Bestsellers in Gay Fiction and the Top 20 in Sci-Fi > Post-Apocalyptic over at Amazon. Of course, seeing as how the book is a Riptide release, I have no way of monitoring sales in real time like I do with my self-pubs, except for the Amazon sales via NovelRank, which isn’t always accurate. I do know that it is much higher in the rankings at Amazon than any of my other releases have ever gotten, and has stayed there longer.

BestsellerIcon100X100 It has also made its way to #15 on the All Romance eBooks bestsellers list, which, again, is better than any of my other titles have done. And it is on the Riptide best sellers list for this month, along with three of the five The Professor’s Rule titles (no doubt that has something to do with all the discounts!) The reviews at Goodreads and elsewhere continue to be overwhelmingly positive. All in all, this has definitely been my most successful title so far, and I’m absolutely thrilled to see it doing so well. It was a long, hard slog to get this book to market, but I’m glad it’s finally here.

I’m sure I had something else to say about all this, but apparently I’ve lost track of what all I meant to say in this post. All in all, it’s been a great first week for Strain, and I’m thankful for all of you who have come along for the ride.

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Up on NetGalley, excerpts, reviews and more!

Lots of news this week as we get closer to the release of Strain and TPR #4-5!

First of all, an excerpt of Every Inch of the Way (The Professor’s Rule #4) is available at Riptide. For all you Satish lovers, we get his POV in this one! Because they’re being released simultaneously, I’m not sure if we’ll get a preview excerpt for #5 (it would spoil the end of #4) but if we do, it should be available soon so keep checking back!

Also, remember that because I am Riptide’s Featured Author of the Month for February, there are lots of discounts on The Professor’s Rule right now:

Giving an Inch (The Professor’s Rule #1) is FREE all month!
An Inch at a Time (The Professor’s Rule #2) is $2.25-25% OFF!
Every Inch of the Way (The Professor’s Rule #4) and To The Very Last Inch (The Professor’s Rule #5) are $0.99 each-67% OFF!
And if you want to catch up on TPR all in one go, The Professor’s Rule: The Complete Collection is available for $8.97-40% OFF!

Most of these discounts will expire at the end of February, so be sure to grab them while you can! If you pre-order at Riptide, TPR #4-5 will be available on-site starting at midnight on March 1.

In other news, Saugatuck Summer is now available at NetGalley! I know some readers have really been looking forward to this one and, well, I’ve made it pretty clear a number of times how I feel about this book, so I’m really excited to get this into the hands of readers and reviewers! Saugatuck Summer is also available for pre-order at Riptide for 22% off-only $6.99!

Finally, with less than two weeks to go, more reviews are starting to come in for Strain, so if you’re still wondering if it’s for you, check out this list of review links, as well as the link to GoodReads, here on my Strain page!

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Guess who’s @RiptideBooks February featured author of the month?

Yep, that would be me!

This means, of course, that a whole bunch of my titles are on sale this month at Riptide. You can get The Laird’s Forbidden Lover for 50% off ($1.99), An Inch at a Time (The Professor’s Rule #2) for 25% off ($2.25) and-get this-pre-orders for Every Inch of the Way (The Professor’s Rule #4) and To the Very Last Inch (The Professor’s Rule #5) are 67% off ($0.99!!!)

And, of course, there has to be a freebie! That would be Giving an Inch (The Professor’s Rule #1), free all month!

Also, pre-orders of Strain and Saugatuck Summer are both still 22% off, or $6.99 each. And the entire The Professor’s Rule collection is on sale at $8.97, 40% off.

So, uh, yeah, get it while the getting’s good, huh?

While you’re there, be sure to check out the interview I did for Riptide, where you can also get a little info on my upcoming projects!

Also, Kazza K. at On Top Down Under Book Reviews has named Strain her Book of the Month for February! If you haven’t read her incredibly generous review, be sure to do that! (caution: may contain spoilers)

So February is going to be a hopping month for me! Just over two weeks until Strain releases, and just over four weeks until TPR #4-5 release. Come along for the ride!

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Delay on the The Professor’s Rule #1 & #2 drawing

I know during our blog tour, Heidi and I said we’d be drawing the winner January 1, but Heidi has actually been travelling since the tour began, and while I kept track of all the entries, I’m not exactly sure how she wanted to handle the drawing (and, to be totally honest, with all the holiday stuff, I forgot to ask her.)

But we will handle that this weekend. I apologize for the delay.

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Check out our final Inch by Inch blog tour stops! #mmromance #erotica #giveaway @RiptideBooks

I took the weekend off from updating the blog, so I missed announcing a few blog stops! But there is still time to play catch-up, as the drawing for the giveaway of copies of Giving an Inch and An Inch at a Time won’t be held until New Year’s Day. So be sure to check them out!

On Sunday, we stopped by Queer Town Abbey to answer a few questions, and today Shirley over at LeAnn’s Book reviews has shared a review of Inch by Inch (The Professor’s Rule #3).

Tomorrow in our final stop on the Inch by Inch blog tour, we’ll be over at Attention is Arbitrary, where Lisa will be interviewing Heidi and I, so don’t miss that, either!

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Relationship geometry and facts about Carson today on the Inch by Inch blog tour! #mmromance #erotica @RiptideBooks

Today on the Inch by Inch (The Professor’s Rule #3) blog tour, Heidi and I are over at Sid Love discussing relationship geometry as it pertains to Satish, James, and Carson.

We’re also swinging by Up All Night, Read All Day to share a few facts about Carson you might not be aware of just yet! Be sure to stop by and comment to be entered in our drawing for copies of Giving an Inch (TPR #1) and An Inch at a Time (TPR #2). Each comment means another entry for the New Year’s Day drawing, so make sure to visit as many of our blog tour stops as you can!

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Check out @cupoporn today for a sneak peak at TPR #4! #mmromance #erotica @riptidebooks @heidibelleau

Today in the Inch by Inch (The Professor’s Rule #3) blog tour, Heidi and I have swung by Cup-O’-Porn to share another excerpt from Every Inch of the Way (TPR #4). Leave a comment to be registered in our giveaway for copies of Giving an Inch (TPR #1) and An Inch at a Time (TPR #2.) If you haven’t caught up on this series of smutty novelettes, now is a good time to do so! Be sure to check out our other stops on the tour and leave comments there as well! Each comment gets you another entry!

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Heidi and I are at Pants-Off Reviews and MM Good Book Reviews today! #mmromance #blogtour

Today in our next set of stops on the Inch by Inch (The Professor’s Rule #3) blog tour, Heidi and I are sharing a look ahead at Every Inch of the Way (The Professor’s Rule #4) over at MM Good Book Reviews, so if you’re looking forward to the next installment, be sure to check it out!

We’re also giving you a few facts you might not know about Satish at Pants-Off Reviews. I know there are a lot of Satish lovers out there clamoring for more, so here’s a little taste!

Remember that every time you comment on one of our tour stops, you are registered for another chance to win a copy of either Giving an Inch (TPR#1) or An Inch at a Time (TPR#2) so if you’re not caught up on the series yet, this is a great chance to get there!

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Want more Satish? Check out our blog tour stops today @LifeBuyTheBook and @AllIWantnMore ! #mmromance #erotica @RiptideBooks

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Today the Inch by Inch (The Professor’s Rule #3) Blog Tour is taking Heidi and me to Life Your Life Buy the Book to talk a little about Satish and what it’s like to pick up his story thread again after our step back into the past in An Inch at a Time (TPR #2). Keep following the blog tour for more info about Satish, including a couple sneak peeks at what you can expect from TPR #4.

Cecile at All I Want and More Books has also been kind enough to spotlight us today as well, so be sure to stop by there for another chance to enter the drawing for a copy of one of the first two The Professor’s Rule books!

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Humiliation #kink-getting the appeal #bdsm #amwriting #mmromance

So, apparently this is my week for rants. No, Mercury is not retrograde. Nor am I PMSing. I have no idea WTF is going on, but be warned.

I’m gonna come right out of the gate saying this: I don’t practice humiliation kink. I’m not a dominant at all, and I have a particular history and set of neuroses that would make anyone pulling humiliation kink with me as a sub pretty bad.

However, there’s this lovely little phrase that I’ve seen used in fandom circles-actually, it started in the BDSM community in the 90s-and I think it needs to be more widely adopted out here in the LGBT romance genre: YKIOK (Your Kink is OK-a shortened form of Your Kink is Not My Kink But Your Kink is OK-as opposed to its self-righteous evil twin, YKINOK, or Your Kink is Not OK.)

I think a lot of us in this genre have been forgetting that. I’ve seen a lot of kink-shaming and a lot of people savaging perfectly good books just for having kinks they don’t enjoy. And it pisses me right the hell off.

But, you ask, if you don’t practice humiliation kink, why do you write it?

Short answer: My characters are not me. They choose their own kinks. Sometimes those kink are things I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot bamboo cane.

Longer answer: My characters are not me. They have their own history, personalities, and neuroses that might make humiliation kink appealing, or even cathartic and healing. But what’s the appeal, you ask? It’s no different than masochism, really. It’s just masochism of a different sort. Instead of getting off on physical pain, one is getting off on shame or emotional pain.

Or, for those submissives who aren’t masochists (physical or emotional) it’s something else entirely.

It can be a removal from self. It can be a test of submission. This is how pain play works for me, in fact. I’m not a masochist. I don’t find pain to be pleasure. But if my dominant can do something to me that I find patently unpleasant, then I’ve truly surrendered, see? I’ve yielded myself, preferences, my will, to someone else and let them have complete control. If it pleases them to hurt me, then I’m pleased to be hurt, not because I enjoy being hurt but because it means I’m not calling the shots and my preferences are not driving the encounter (within negotiated boundaries, of course.)

It’s no different for humiliation kink (except that, for me, it falls outside the negotiated boundaries.) Instead of being removed from control of one’s physical self and preferences, one is removed from one’s ego. If a submissive has given the dominant the power to say or do or force the submissive to do anything the dominant commands, no matter how shameful or humiliating, there is surrender in that. And that surrender can be a beautiful thing.

My first experience writing humiliation kink came from the character upon whom I based Derrick from my Impulse books. It wasn’t in a story at that time, it was in a role-play. He and his partner were talking and trying to get an idea of his turn-ons, and the partner asked if proto-Derrick (who was named Garrick, in the role-play) would want to be nude or perform sexually in public. Garrick’s immediate reaction was “No” but even as Garrick was giving that response, I-being deep in Garrick’s head at the time-knew that if a partner made Garrick do it, he’d do it, even if it was something he would flinch away from or reject otherwise.

So, having made that discovery about Garrick, I had to ask myself why. Why would Garrick do that? And the answer was that his pride, his ego, his sense of self, was his final hold-out, the thing that would always keep him from surrendering entirely. And if he wanted surrender, then the dominant would need to break down that wall.

This is why you see Gavin, in the Impulse books, call Derrick names like “bitch” and “whore” and “slut.” Does he mean it? No, of course not. But it chips away at Derrick’s resistance, puts him in a position where he has to choose between surrendering his pride, or safewording. And once he surrenders his pride, that’s when he becomes truly open and vulnerable to Gavin and gives Gavin complete control, rather than just playing a part.

And in the complete paradox that only makes sense to those who truly understand BDSM, that total surrender becomes a source of even greater pride. On the other side, the sub emerges to say, “Look what I endured for my dom. That took a lot of strength.” It leaves the sub feeling even more confident and sure of themselves (assuming it’s done correctly.)

This is actually a bit of a recurring theme in my books, at least those dealing with kink. I have a lot of prideful characters, so finding various ways to slip past that pride to get to the vulnerability underneath becomes something the dominant must do.

There are lots of ways to accomplish this. Forced exposure and exhibitionism is only one way. Infantilism might be another. Or treating the sub as an animal (where do you think the collar and leash thing comes from?) Toilet play might be part of it, or even just taking away privacy where such bodily functions are concerned.

For example, I have a manuscript I’m working on (Risk Aware) where the dominant character, Robin, denies his submissive partner, Geoff, the right to close the bathroom (or any) door. On one level, it’s just a flat-out control thing. “You aren’t allowed to shut me out of wherever you are.” But on the other level, what he’s doing is depriving Geoff of the dignity of privacy, even when Geoff is using the toilet. Geoff is not allowed to hold back even his most embarrassing moments of biological functioning (arguments of whether basic biological functions should be considered embarrassing aside.) If he farts, Robin might hear it. If he makes a stink, Robin might smell it. If he pees, Robin might watch. Is it because Robin has some sort of toilet fetish and finds these things sexy? No. It’s just about denying Geoff the ability to hold back any part of himself from Robin (again, of course, always within negotiated boundaries, so keep that in mind if you’re going to try this at home, kids.)

We see some of this in The Professor’s Rule, as well. In the first book, Giving an Inch, we see James expose himself to Professor Carson in a way that he finds deeply embarrassing. But that is part of James’s submission, part of what he needs to do to get to the place of surrender he desires. He’s a masochist, so pain play isn’t going to break him down, at least not entirely. He has other hold-outs.

Leta Blake does something very similar in Training Season. The dynamics of Matty and Rob’s relationship and why this sort of play might be appealing and even beneficial for the two of them, I will leave you to discover for yourselves. But there is a moment in the book where, unless you get into the deeper intricacies of what submission and surrender mean in various circumstances, they could seem gross. I know a lot of people go off on “BDSM is not therapy” rants and that is, to a degree, very true. BUT. Just because it isn’t therapy doesn’t mean it can’t be cathartic or healing. Yes, a lot of people practice BDSM just because it’s fun and because it feels good for whatever reason. But we each of us come into it with our own unique set of life experiences and issues, and we each of us might find something within it that helps us in ways perhaps therapy can’t, because it fulfills a need or helps us face a fear, or for any of a multitude of reasons.

And here’s the thing: romance fiction isn’t real life. In romance fiction, people’s issues often infiltrate parts of their lives that in reality, might not be such a big deal. I mean, if I wrote a story about a character with A, B, and C neuroses, and I set it up so that those neuroses don’t come into play when he’s doing BDSM scenes just because he finds BDSM fun and pleasant, most readers would cry foul. Because we’re in his head. We want to know what affect this is all having on him emotionally and psychologically.

Sex isn’t just about tab A into slot B and BDSM play isn’t just about swinging a whip and “oh, ow, that hurts.” Those scenes would be exceptionally boring if we didn’t get into the characters’ heads and go deeper with it on the emotional level (as my esteemed editor Sarah Frantz likes to say, “but what is he feeeeeeeling?”) And going deeper with it includes figuring out how it plays off of and into the neuroses that are part of the character’s journey through the book.

So. Your Kink is not My Kink but Your Kink is OK. Does name calling or toilet play put you off? Yeah, me too. But I’m not my character, and neither are you, and you might find your reading experience enhanced if you look beyond “would I enjoy doing that?” into what the play in question is accomplishing for the character. Because the odds are that if an author has gone there, they’ve done so for a reason. Look for it.

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In other news, Inch by Inch (The Professor’s Rule #3) is already available for download at Riptide Publishing, and will be available at most other ebook retailers later tonight or tomorrow. And Heidi Belleau and I will be on a blog tour this week discussing James, Satish, and the Professor, and what we can expect from them going into the last two Professor’s Rule books. This will include a couple sneak peeks at Every Inch of the Way (The Professor’s Rule #4) and a chance to win ebook copies of TPR books you might not have read yet, so be sure to check it out!

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Cyber Monday! Get a 50% rebate on all my titles @AllRomance #ebooks http://www.allromanceebooks.com/storeSearch.html?searchBy=author&qString=Amelia+C.+Gormley #mmromance

It’s that time of year again! Last year, All Romance Ebooks had a rocking Cyber Monday sale, offering a 50% rebate in store credit on all books! It might not be actually half-off, but it’s double the books for the same price! Since ARe also has this wonderful “Buy 10 Get One Free” thing they do, it’s a great time to stock up and get your free 11th book for the price of only buying 5 books. (If you’re willing to pay $1.50 more, you can buy all three Impulse books separately and get three credits toward your ten books, rather than buying the Impulse all-in-one volume, which would only give you one credit.)

FIND ME AT ALL ROMANCE eBOOKS HERE!

In case you’re wondering, this is what you’ll be paying after rebate:

The Laird’s Forbidden Lover: $2.00
Giving an Inch (The Professor’s Rule #1): $1.50
An Inch at a Time (The Professor’s Rule #2): $1.50
Impulse: The Complete Trilogy: $5.00
Inertia (Impulse, Book One): $1.50
Acceleration (Impulse, Book Two): $2.50
Velocity (Impulse, Book Three): $2.50

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30% #rebate @AllRomance ebooks today! #mm #romance

FIND ME HERE AT ARe!

If you wanted to get my Impulse books, or any of my Riptide releases, today is a good day to jump on that. ARe is having a 30% rebate today only, plus there’s that “Buy 10, Get 1 Free” thing at ARe, so now would be a good time to chip away at your requisite 10.

 

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Finally! The #GRL2013 recap post

Okay, so I’ve been pretty much in my cave since getting back from GayRomLit. Not like I’m a terribly social person to begin with, and after five days of more social exposure than I normally get in any given year, I’ve been having some “me” time. Plus editing and writing. No kidding, this is my status message on GoogleTalk right now:

Editing and/or writing. Unless your name is God or Phil Coulson, you cannot possibly have anything to say worth disturbing me for.

So yeah, there’s that, too. Strain edits are progressing apace and it’s really exciting to think that there’s only three and a half months left until it releases. Even better, review copies and an excerpt should be going out within the next month, I imagine, so I can finally start to feel like this book, which has comprised a significant chunk of my creative energy since September last year, is finally getting into people’s hands and I can start getting the pay-off (by which I mean feedback and just knowing people are reading it, which is way more important than money for my creative soul.)

Edits are also in their final stages for Inch by Inch: The Professor’s Rule #3, and I believe we’ll have cover art and more information on that very soon. Heidi and I have begun on TPR #4 and if all goes according to plan, the series will wrap up with TPR #5.

I would love to say I have pictures to share of GRL, but honestly, I’m not a camera person. Like, if something is happening around me, my first thought is never “oh, grab the camera, take a picture!” so I actually don’t have that many pictures. We’ll have to settle for words.

My journey began on Tuesday, when I flew out of PDX with Devon Rhodes. Anne Tenino was on our same flight, but on Wednesday, so we didn’t get to travel with her. Devon booked a car from the airport rather than taking a taxi or MARTA, for which I ended up being extremely grateful because I decided to be very frugal with my packing space and managed to get everything I needed to take (minus the books and business cards that shipped from the printer right to the hotel) in a carry-on size suitcase and my backpack/laptop case, which meant that what I did have was VERY HEAVY. Especially that damn backpack. If I’d had to haul that thing on my back and take MARTA I probably would have cried.

Traveling in the car with us as well was Rick R. Reed, who had been waiting in the airport after his flight from Seattle. GRL peeps were already starting to congregate in the lobby bar of the Melia when we got there, including the lovely P.D. Singer, whom I’ve been blessed to see three frickin’ times this year. I also got to meet Eden Winters and EM Lynley, as well as a handful of others. The most interesting conversation I had that night, hands-down, has to go to Anel Viz, who sat with me and gave me some really lovely feeback, both flattering and constructive, on my Impulse books, which it turned out he’d read. He’s a fascinating guy and meeting him was an absolute pleasure.

Wednesday was the Writer’s Workshop, which was great except that the air conditioning in the hotel was set to “meat locker.” Well, not according to everyone else, but I was freezing. I kept ducking into the “powder room” area of the women’s restroom because it had all these big, warm vanity lights that kept it considerably warmer than the other rooms. The reason I mention this is because when I get cold, I go into hibernation mode and all I want to do is sleep. I swear I’m part reptile or something. Coupled with an already critical sleep deficit, I decided to pass on the third session of the day and catch a nap, but before I did that, I attended the luncheon where KA Mitchell was the guest speaker, and *sigh* I would sell my soul to be able to be that interesting and glib when speaking publicly.

The fourth session, I was a panelist on the BDSM panel, moderated by Sarah Frantz. There I got to finally meet LA Witt and Rachel Haimowitz, and KA Mitchell was on that panel as well. Being the final session of the day, only six people attended, but that was fine because it was intimate and we had a lot of fun and there are six people-including my esteemed co-author Heidi Belleau-who probably now know far more personal details about me than they ever wanted, since I was on the panel as a person who actually is into BDSM in real life.

Wednesday night, Riptide hosted a dinner for all the authors and employees who managed to attend, so there were a lot more people I got to meet, including Cat Grant, LC Chase, Aleks Voinov, Abi Roux, Marie Sexton, Alex Whitehall and Ally Blue, and Riptide’s new marketing guru, Keturah Jenkins. I ended up sitting across from Ally at the table and she was just a wonderful person to talk to over dinner.

Lots of people went out Wednesday night, but by the time I got back to the hotel I discovered my feet were swelling rather alarmingly. Like, I never was that swollen even when I was pregnant. So I decided to take it easy and stuck to my room.

Thursday morning launched GRL proper, and the first function-aside from the newbie informational session hosted by Jay of JoyfullyJay, was the Supporting Author’s Signing event. I had ordered a number of print copies of the Impulse books that I could offer for sale, and I also had coupon codes for ebook downloads. Riptide was giving away copies of Giving an Inch (TPR #1) as swag, complete with excerpts from An Inch at a Time, Apple Polisher and Strain in the back. There I got to meet Allison Hickman, who has been just lovely and supportive and kind here and on other social media. It’s always an ego boost to get to sign autographs, especially being someone so new to the genre whom a lot of people haven’t even heard of, but even more gratifying was the number of people who remarked on Kerry Chin’s artwork on the Impulse covers. I’m so proud of those, I really can’t get enough of hearing how beautiful they are. You’d think I was the frickin’ artist. Everyone kept remarking how sweltering the signing room was, and I was all, “No no! This is the first time I’ve been comfortable since I got here!” Me and my inner thermostat, I tell ya.

At the signing I got to sit next to Anna Martin, the author of Tattoos & Teacups, and listen to her absolutely adorable accent for two hours. That was a lot of fun.

By the time lunch rolled around, the swelling in my feet had escalated from alarming to “Um, do I need to see a doctor for this?” P.D. Singer, a pharmacist by profession, took a look at them and asked me very earnestly if I had a history of congestive heart failure. I’m not even kidding. Seriously, the things looked like balloons and all the tissue from my shins to just about where my toes began had the consistency of molding clay. So I ended up missing Anne Tenino’s reading and the rest of the Thursday afternoon events in favor of putting my feet up on a huge stack of pillows while P.D. Singer graciously brought me lunch so I wouldn’t have to order room service. By evening the swelling had gone down enough that I ventured out to the Juke Joint party, but I was still trying to stay off my feet as much as possible, and where I was staying off my feet was not where anyone I knew-or anyone to strike up a conversation with at all, really-was lingering, so I only stayed about an hour. Then I went back to my room to put my feet up again and fight with the hotel wifi some more.

God, the hotel wifi. I could write a whole post about that alone. It was horrible. Around Friday evening or so, I made a tweet entreating the hotel internet to get fucked with a rusty pitchfork, and I think just about everyone following the #GRL2013 tag favorited or retweeted it, so I was definitely not alone in my struggles. I would pass through an area where my phone managed to connect long enough for me to get a text from my husband and by the time I could stop and reply, I wouldn’t be able to connect anymore (no, I don’t have a data plan on my new iPhone; I almost never use it anywhere where there isn’t wifi, so there’s no sense paying for one.)

Luckily, keeping my feet elevated for the best part of a whole day did the trick and the swelling had gone down by Friday morning. I spent the morning in a bit of a panic because one of the Fun Faire events was a welcome for the supporting authors hosted by Marie Sexton and Lori Witt, for which I’d been invited to do a reading. I’ve only ever done one other reading, and that was in September up in Seattle, and I kind of bumbled it a bit. I REALLY didn’t want to make a fool of myself, so I spent the morning practicing. P.D. Singer promised me I was among friends who would understand if I stumbled or stammered, as did Lori and Marie, but still. However, the reading went very well, I think. I wish I had a video of it, but to the best of my knowledge, no one was taking video of that particular event (if someone was, PLEASE hook me up!) If I had a video, it would be your first look at Chapter Three of Strain, which is where things begin to get really interesting. As it is, you’ll have to wait for the excerpt from Riptide. Sorry. So I was really happy with that event, even if I didn’t win the bag of Tucker Springs print editions. The next event was hosted by Riptide, a competition where you had to guess a book’s title based on an excerpt of a sex scene where the significant give-away details had been altered to make it unrecognizable. I managed to score a paperback of Abi Roux’s Shock & Awe, which was very enjoyable and worth its weight in gold for bragging rights to my BFF, who is a C&R addict.

Friday night was the Dine With An Author dinner, and I ended up sitting with some absolutely lovely people there, including Anna Zabo. The woman sitting to my left-whose name I can’t remember now, I’m so sorry!-actually lives in the area of Michigan where I used to live, so when she asked me about my upcoming releases and I mentioned Saugatuck Summer, she was like, “You mean, as in Saugatuck, Michigan?” and that was really awesome because she knew exactly what I was talking about and why Saugatuck is such a perfect setting for a series of m/m coming-of-age and romance stories.

After dinner, there was the Dreamspinner cocktail party, where we got to see everyone dressed to the nines. I was looking for a place to sit down with my drink and dessert and a party of three other women asked if they could sit at the empty table I’d chosen because all the others were full, and what followed was the sort of socializing I almost never do, which is comfortable, engaging conversation with virtual strangers. Usually I hide in my shell like a turtle until I know someone well enough to venture out, but that evening it was effortless and I really loved sitting and talking with them. After they had moved on, Melanie Marshall, who reviewed the Impulse books over at JoyfullyJay as well as her own blog, made room for me at her table and I got to talk to them for a while until it was time to call it a night so I could go back to my room and call my son and husband before they went to bed.

I’d say of the entire retreat, that party was the most remarkable for me, precisely because of that socialization thing. I spent an ENTIRE EVENING socializing with people I didn’t know. That never happens to me. I am absolutely incapable of bringing myself to break the ice with strangers, but from dinner onward, I didn’t hang out with a single person with whom I had any sort of acquaintance, aside from an email or two I had exchanged with Melanie thanking her for her lovely reviews.

Saturday morning, I attended P.D. Singer’s reading and then hung out in the bookseller’s room with the Riptide peeps for a while. I went out to a late breakfast with P.D., Eden Winters and a couple others, and then I had an appointment with Nicole Forcine, who aside from being an author herself is a member of the Happily Ever After video book club on YouTube. I hadn’t heard of this club before, but I’m definitely a fan now. Being the only member of the four of them who would be attending GRL, Nicole got tapped to do some author interviews and vlogging, and I arranged to do an interview with her. It just so happened that Anne Tenino was also available at the same time, so the Ladies From Portland (minus the lovely Devon Rhodes) did a joint interview. You can find that here:

The interview was a lot of fun, and I’d never met Nicole before but OMG is she a hoot. I just adore her now. It also turned out that her book club had covered Giving an Inch just a few weeks before. You can find that video here:

The night was Totally Bound’s Heaven & Hell masquerade party, for which I got to dust off a very old outfit and add a mask. I don’t have any really good pictures of myself from the party that night, so here’s one from when I bought the gown about thirteen years ago:

gown2I don’t look as good in the gown these days, because I no longer fit into the corset I was wearing under it in this picture, and Spanx just don’t achieve that same effect (namely, pushing your boobs up so high you could wear them as earrings.)

I also had some absolutely amazing old-fashioned shoes laced up with ribbons, which I ended up taking off because Sarah Frantz-God only knows how; I suspect mind-control powers-managed to get me out onto the dance floor. So I spent a good chunk of the party dancing with Sarah, Heidi Belleau, Keturah Jenkins, Alex Whitehall, and Nicole Forcine, who is just a party animal.

I was going to go to the after-hours hangout in the pub, but then I decided it would be better for me to try to pack that night instead of rushing to do it Saturday morning. So I was pretty much almost completely packed by Saturday morning, which meant I got to linger over the farewell brunch with people I didn’t get to spend a lot of time talking to during the conference. And then I got to hang out with them some more in the hotel lobby while I had lunch and waited until it was time for the car service to take Devon, Anne and I back to the airport.

So. I met a lot of people, connected with several others I already knew, and even managed to socialize with some of them after I hit my stride. All in all it was a really great time, even if it was somewhat overwhelming at times. I probably would have gotten more out of the early days if my body hadn’t decided to get weird and turn my feet into inflatable rafts. I think next year in Chicago, if I can manage it, I will try to go as a featured author, and hopefully I will feel less like a clueless newbie and hit my stride a lot sooner.

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Maintaining Visibility: How Often to Publish?

I started 2013 with the intention of publishing one novel-length story every three months (this was when I thought Strain would be published in the summer.) It hasn’t quite worked that way, because Strain has taken longer than I first was led to believe, and I also have had several novelette/novella length books released. I’ll have five releases by the end of the year, but only one will have been a novel.

March: Velocity (novel)
April: Giving an Inch (novelette)
May: The Laird’s Forbidden Lover (novella)
September: An Inch at a Time (novelette)
December (I think): Inch by Inch (novelette)

Talya Andor

Conventional wisdom from authors attending the Gay Romance Northwest meet-up covered the subject of how often an author should publish in order to stay on the readers’ radar. The answer surprised me: there’s a push to publish quarterly to stay on top.

I am a prolific writer myself, but the thought of putting out something every quarter seemed pretty exhausting. After all, the process involves brainstorming, turning out a first draft, going back for the first edit, submitting, doing another, potentially more extensive edit for pre-publication that might involve re-writes, and galley approval. All of that for one manuscript–then the prospect of juggling four (or more!) manuscripts a year can be overwhelming.

That led me to take a look at my own experiences over the past year and a half. I started out submitting three manuscripts right out the gate. By the end of the year I’d submitted two more…

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Taking care of business before #GRL2013

So, Tuesday I will be heading to Atlanta for my first-ever GayRomLit retreat. I will admit I’m a little nervous because this is the first time since he was born that I will be away from my six-year-old for that long. Until last month at GRNW in Seattle, I’d never been away from him longer than over a single night, and even then he was just a mile away at his grandmother’s house. Now I’m going to be across the country from him for five nights. Eep!

Also, I have absolutely no idea what to expect from GRL. I know I will be on a panel at the writer’s workshop on Wednesday afternoon, the BDSM panel that Sarah Frantz will be moderating. So I’ll have at least one opportunity to make an idiot of myself publicly. I think at least part of my fear is that I didn’t know until very late in the game about the YahooGroup that most of the GRL stuff was being discussed on, so I think I missed some pretty significant announcements and information. Thus, I’m clueless.

TPR3Contest_newsletter

But before I go, some business to take care of. In case you have missed my tweets on the subject (and Heidi Belleau’s and Riptide’s) we have a sort of kink meme going on for some audience participation in the third Professor’s Rule book. This book will take us back to the “present day” in James and Carson’s lives, after the short trip into exploring their past in TPR #2. (Yes, I like non-linear storytelling. I feel like it often gives a narrative a sort of mobility that otherwise it wouldn’t have.) It’s time for James to re-unite with his Professor, and also for him to keep his date with menswear salesman Satish. Last week we were taking nominations for the sort of kinks you’d like to see in the next book, and this week we’ve narrowed the list to five and you get to vote on them. Those five are:

1. Voyeurism
2. Fire Play
3. Needle Play
4. Breath Play
5. Sensory Deprivation

You can go here to take the survey. Thanks to The Jeep Diva for hosting this contest.

As for GRL, I will have some items available for free and for purchase there. I will have coupon codes to give away for Inertia, as well coupon codes you can purchase for downloads of Acceleration and Velocity, and for the All-in-One ebook volume of the Impulse trilogy. I will also have paperbacks of all three books available, 30 of Inertia and 10 each (I think? Maybe 15?) of Acceleration and Velocity. Riptide will also have a free version of Giving an Inch (TPR #1) to hand out, which will include excerpts from An Inch at a Time (TPR #2), Heidi Belleau’s Apple Polisher, and my upcoming release, Strain. So be sure to grab that! For autographs and whatnot, I’ll be in the supporting authors session, not the featured authors. So look for me there!

Annnd I think that is all my business to attend to before I leave, so I’d better get back to researching how to pack a week’s worth of stuff into a carry-on sized suitcase. Fun!

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Great discounts on ebook bundles this week @RiptideBooks!

To celebrate the launch of their redesigned website (it’s really cool, guise!) Riptide has bundled some titles and are offering them for 60% off. My novella, The Laird’s Forbidden Lover is in the Hot Historicals bundle, and Giving an Inch (The Professor’s Rule #2) with Heidi Belleau is in the BDS-Mmmmm bundle. So if you’ve been wanting to check either one out, now is a great time!

BDSMMM_500x750_1 HotHistoricals_500x750_1

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“An Inch at a Time” (The Professor’s Rule 2) w/@HeidiBelleau #mm #erotica available for pre-sale @RiptideBooks

An Inch at a Time (The Professor’s Rule #2) is now up for pre-sale at the Riptide website (complete with excerpt!) The website will be going down for maintenance for a few days here shortly, but I’ll re-tweet this once it’s back up and running.

In An Inch at a Time, we take a step back, four years before the events of Giving an Inch (The Professor’s Rule #1) to examine how Professor Carson and his student, James Sheridan, began their power-exchange relationship.

Enjoy!

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20% off all my titles @RainboweBooks

Rainbow eBooks is having a Christmas in July sale (I presume today and tomorrow?) You receive 20% off throughout the store. All of my titles, including my all-in-one volume of Impulse: The Complete Trilogy, are on sale.

Check it out!

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An anniversary and a year in review

As of yesterday, it has been one year since I self-published my first book, Inertia.

I will be the first to admit that I went into publishing all wrong. I had no idea what it was about. A friend told me “you should do this” so I commissioned cover art, hired an editor, and did it. I knew nothing about the finer points of self-publishing or book marketing or the genre. I was fortunate in that one of the first contacts I made when I found out that offering copies for review was the thing to do was Cryselle, who runs her own review blog and also reviews for Jessewave and a few other sites. She was absolutely lovely and sort of took me in-hand and nudged me in the right direction.

Amusing anecdote time:

I was advised to self-publish by a friend in gaming fandom, whom we’ll call D.R. Her words were basically, “what you write is as good as any other the other stuff I’ve been reading in this genre, so you should go for it!” So I went for it. And because of that, I met Cryselle, who told me I should introduce myself to P.D. Singer, which I did. Pam was totally delightful and hugely helpful, and she told me to introduce myself to Angela Benedetti, who is also wonderful.

Then one night on Gchat, Angie and I were getting to know each other and she mentioned some fanfic pairings she read, one of which was somewhat unique, so I said, “hey, I know someone who writes that!” And she said, “You know T?” And I said, “No, but I know her wife” at which point Angie was all “Oh, you know D.R.!”

So. Apparently it is, indeed, a small world after all.

After releasing Inertia, which did, I admit, end on a rather abrupt note, a fact which has been pointed out many, many times, there was a lot of furor for Book Two. Unfortunately, my editor had quite a backlog, though, so I wasn’t able to release Acceleration until the end of November. As an author, I felt like Acceleration was a much more solid book, and both my editor and the reviewers seemed to agree with that assessment.

Luckily, by that point I was starting to get into a pretty smooth production groove. I knew Acceleration would be coming out in late November, so the last minute push there was going to each into NaNoWriMo. So I time-shifted my personal NaNoWriMo and began working on October 13, giving myself 30 days (until November 12) to write 50,000 words on Book Three, Velocity. I finished on November 4, scheduled editing for January, and planned the release for March. The entire process went incredibly smoothly.

In the meantime, I was also working on other projects. In August after I finished writing Acceleration, I wrote an 8K short based on nothing more than a mention I had seen on Twitter that there needed to be some m/m Highland romance. I really wasn’t happy with the result, though, so I shelved the short and began working on Strain.

Strain was an interesting endeavor, because it was written in response to Riptide’s At World’s End open call. Submission deadline was Nov 1, and I didn’t discover the call and realize I had a story idea for it until August 31, which meant I had two months to write and polish a novel for submission.

I finished writing Strain on September 28, and submitted it on October 10. It came in at ~65K. In 29 days. I thought that was pretty spiffy.

In mid-December, I heard back on the Strain submission and the manuscript wasn’t quite there yet, so the lovely Sarah Frantz gave me some revision suggestions and brainstormed with me and from the last week of December to mid-January, Strain went from 65K to 103K and I resubmitted it. In December, Leta Blake also did a beta read of the Highland story and gave me some suggestions (and also reassured me that a lot of my problem with it was my inner critic being too harsh) and that story went from 8K to 13.5K and I submitted it to Riptide as well in mid-January. Then I got my edits back from my editor on Velocity, turned those around, and began sending out review copies.

Then my brain got eaten by zombies a story. It started in the car on the way to pick up lunch for my son and I one afternoon. A single line of dialogue. That was it. Just one completely out of context line that I knew I had to write. So I began building the world and plot around that line. It was easy, because the character who spoke that line was the most amazing, clear, intensely vivid character to ever give birth to himself in my mind. And he did. I claim no responsibility for creating Topher. He created himself, walked up to me, whispered that line in my ear, and demanded I write about him. And his voice! Oh, God, his voice. Clarion-clear from beginning to end.

I actually deviated from my refusal not to write out-of-sequence working on Topher’s story, because scenes were composing themselves in my head so clearly and loudly I had to get them out to make room for other things. Honestly, I don’t know how to begin describing the experience of writing Saugatuck Summer. It was magic. I knew as I was writing it that it was the best thing I had ever written, and quite possibly would ever write. I completed writing the entire 93K novel in 15 days, edited, polished, and submitted it. I actually waffled on whether or not to submit it or self-publish. I knew I could turn it around a lot faster if I self-pubbed, and I really, really wanted to get it into the hands of the public because it’s just such an amazing story. But I knew going through Riptide, it would reach a much broader audience and have a lot more marketing support, and it’s a book that really deserves that sort of backing.

Velocity released in March, and I began working up another story in the Saugatuck universe and conceptualizing a couple more novels. I received an acceptance for the Highland story, which was then expanded from 13.5K to over 20K and became The Laird’s Forbidden Lover, and Heidi Belleau surprised me with an invitation to write a novelette to fill a void in the Riptide schedule, which became Giving an Inch (The Professor’s Rule #1). We quickly completed TPR#2, An Inch at a Time, which is currently awaiting edits and is, for my money, better than the first. We have TPR#3 mostly written. All it’s awaiting for is an audience participation element that will take place when TPR#2 is published.

Giving an Inch was published in April, and The Laird’s Forbidden Lover was published in early May. During April, May, and June I worked on the second book in the Saugatuck universe, and also began a new and somewhat different project: a murder mystery, an honest-to-God whodunnit, which is called Third Wave. I’d say it’s about 2/3 complete in its first draft, but it definitely needs some work. I also am now working on a third book in the Saugatuck universe and I have a few other projects just beginning.

I admit, I’m hitting a bit of a slump at the moment. I’m trying not to stress out over it, because I know I’ve been plenty productive, but I’m one of those perfectionist people who feels utterly useless if they’re not actively working on something, so this not writing thing is grating on me. But between drafting, revisions and edits, I’ve written almost 500K so far in 2013 (closer to 700K if you go back a full year to when Inertia was first published), and I’ve gotten contracts on both Strain (coming January 2014) and Saugatuck Summer (coming May 2014). I’m not sure I’m going to meet my goal of writing a million words in 2013, but I can’t say I haven’t kicked some serious writing ass the last 12 months.

When I get back into the groove, I’ll be working on Third Wave and Risk Aware, which is the other Saugatuck story I have completed, but which needs some pretty extensive revision.

So, that’s my first year in publishing. Not bad, if I do say so myself. Can’t wait to see what the next year brings.

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Two weeks until “The Laird’s Forbidden Lover”

TheLairdsForbiddenLover_500x750

Two weeks from today will be the official release date for The Laird’s Forbidden Lover, which means of course that if you order it on the Riptide site, you can have it in 12 days. If you haven’t checked out the excerpt, you can do so at the Riptide site: http://www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/lairds-forbidden-lover

It hasn’t gone up on NetGalley yet, but I’m hoping that will happen any day now. In the meantime, if you’re a reviewer/book blogger and want a review copy, I have copies of the files in my possession. Just contact me using the form on the About page, or via email if you already have my address, and let me know what format you would like.

I’m very…curious to see how this release goes. Contemporary is the bread and butter of the m/m genre, obviously, so it will be interesting to see what happens with an historical title like this.

In other news, the first round of developmental edits on Strain is complete and we will hopefully begin line edits soon, assuming it doesn’t need much more work. An Inch at a Time (The Professor’s Rule #2) has been written and is awaiting acceptance, and TPR3 is mostly done. If things work out according to plan, Heidi Belleau and I will have some interesting audience participation activities taking place as we get further into this series, which will move back and forth between an exploration of James’ and Professor Carson’s history and their present, including James’ burgeoning involvement with Satish.

Contrary to what some people are assuming, TPR is NOT a serial. It’s true that there are not necessarily HEA or even HFN endings to these shorts, but erotic shorts are about the encounter not about the development of the relationship. Erotic shorts don’t require an HEA or HFN.

Which is not to say that there won’t be relationship development and evolution-there definitely will be-but it will be explored through the context of a series of interconnected shorts that each focus on a single encounter or cluster of encounters.

In the meantime, I’m going to go back to working on developing a story the likes of which I’ve never written (or thought I could write) before. Stay tuned. 🙂

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Get “Giving an Inch” early!

For those of you who aren’t aware, if you pre-order a Riptide title on their direct website, you can get it at midnight two days before the official release date. So, since Giving an Inch is due to release on the 15th, it will be available at midnight tonight at Riptide’s site. So grab it here:

http://www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/giving-inch

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Cover art reveal! Whee!

Yay! We have our cover art (and a banner, too!) for Giving an Inch, due out April 15.GivingAnInch_468banner

School is Back in Session

History grad James Sheridan thinks his biggest problem in life is trying to find a suitable outfit for his upcoming Ph.D. candidacy exam. That is, until he accidentally texts a changing-room selfie meant for his fashionable sister to his ex, the domineering Professor Carson.

James and Carson haven’t seen each since James fled their power games two years ago. Back in his undergrad days, Carson was his Professor, and not just in the academic sense: a man of unusual tastes and extreme sexual demands, James had been happy to sate Carson’s savage appetites. Too happy, in fact. He never could trust himself not to let Carson push too far.

Now James is older and wiser, and sharing some seriously flirtatious vibes with a cute menswear rep. When Carson replies to James’s errant text, ready to pick up where they left off, James can’t help being drawn back into Carson’s control. It’s only when Carson suggests involving the salesman that James has to ask himself how far is too far, and whether he’s willing to go there with Carson again.

GivingAnInch_500x750

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More on “Giving an Inch” — the project I never saw coming.

As I mentioned in my last post, yesterday morning I signed two contracts with Riptide Publishing. The one for the Highland story, I had been expecting for a couple weeks, but the second one (which was actually the first one signed and delivered) took me completely by surprise.

First of all, allow me to refer you to Heidi Belleau’s post on the subject.

The story went something like this. My current WIP was paused while I did some fact-checking, my latest round of edits on the The Laird’s Forbidden Lover had been turned in, I was waiting for edits on the two other novels I have in progress, and while I have two more novels in the conceptualizing stage, neither of them were ready for me to begin writing. So, I found myself one evening without anything to do and since I don’t know what to do with myself when I’m not working anymore, I whinged about it on Twitter (because I’m reasonably certain Twitter was invented to give me an outlet for my whinging while restricting the number of characters in which I have to do it.)

Next thing I know, Heidi’s telling me she has a short she could use a co-writer on. And while I’m certainly familiar with her, I didn’t expect she had ever heard of me, much less would invite me to co-write something with her. I mean, I’m pretty small potatoes so far. (And now I’m really, really nervous that she — being something of an authority — will find my Highland story terribly, terribly wrong.)

But, in very short order we had a manuscript ready to turn in and a concept for a kick-ass series.

The series will be called The Professor’s Rule and it will explore both the past and present dynamic between a professor and his student. The current story, due out April 15, is called Giving an Inch:

History grad James Sheridan thinks his biggest problem in life is trying to find a suitable outfit for his upcoming Ph.D. candidacy exam. That is, until he accidentally texts a changing room selfie meant for his fashionable sister to his ex, the domineering Professor Carson.

James and Carson haven’t seen each other since James fled their power games two years ago. Back in his undergrad days, Carson was his Professor, and not just in the academic sense: a man of unusual tastes and extreme sexual demands, James had been happy to sate Carson’s savage appetites. Too happy, in fact. He never could trust himself not to let Carson push too far.

Now James is older and wiser, and sharing some seriously flirtatious vibes with a cute menswear rep. When Carson replies to James’s errant text, ready to pick up where they left off, James can’t help being drawn back into Carson’s control. It’s only when Carson suggests involving the salesman that James has to ask himself how far is too far, and whether he’s willing to go there with Carson again.

I find the dynamic between the characters fascinating, particularly with the addition of the third party, the menswear salesman, Satish. I’m pretty much halfway to in love with him already. It’s going to be fun, so stay tuned for future installments from this series.

Within the next day or two, the book should be available for pre-order on the Riptide website.

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