First off, MISLED has been nominated for the CAPAs, which is The Romance Studio’s Reviewers’ Choice Awards!!! :cheer: :dance: :yay:

Second, the cover has been completed for the print anthology featuring MISLED and KISS OF THE NIGHT. I’m waiting for the go-ahead to post the cover, but let me tell you… It rocks!!! :bounce: I asked for something similar to the MISLED cover and that’s exactly what I got!!

However, lots of things happened today that made me

First, my mom. She just rocks!! You know, she has to listen to me talk about my books all the time. She has to listen to all of my ramblings about sales, covers, promos, etc. etc. Armed with this overload of information that is of no use to her, she went out and bought 20 copies of my book. She anticipates using them for gifts over time, but bought them now so that they would count in the first two-weeks of sales. (are you smiling yet?)

She’s also been pitching my book to her co-workers for months. The last couple of weeks she’s been reminding them to go buy the book. A few of them have, most of them forget. So she took her stash of 20 books to work and began to hand sell them. Then she goes to the bookstore and buys more to replace them so the sales are happening now, instead of later. (are you grinning yet?) :cheer:

I told you my mom rocks!!

Other stuff going on is the title was finally selected for the print anthology combination of MISLED and KISS OF THE NIGHT. DECLASSIFIED: DARK KISSES is a June trade paperback release. The cover request form is in, and like all authors, I can’t wait to see what it’s going to look like. I asked for one as much like MISLED as possible. *fingers crossed*

I’m sure I’m forgetting something.

Funny thing about getting a lot of good reviews is waiting for the other shoe to drop. You wonder if it will be a bearable thump or a loud bang.

I’m back from my short jaunt up north for the book signing. This signing wasn’t near as successful as my last one, but I had a lot of fun anyway. I sat next to Kate Douglas and spent the couple of hours talking to her, which (as many of you know) is a delight.

I’m a bit wiped out, because I don’t sleep well in hotels, so I’m going to bed early. Tomorrow, I plan to work on my Avon story, and get caught up on mail that accumulated. I’ll blog more then.

Giveaway - The Knight Agency blog

Chat - February 9, 2005 9 pm EST
The Knight Agency Chatroom

Multi-Author Booksigning - February 11th
Borders Express #0252
1:00pm-3:00pm
222 Del Monte Center, Monterey, CA
831-373-0987

BAD BOYS AHOY! made BookScan for the week ending Feb. 5th. Four days on the shelves!!! :dance: :cheer:

I’m asked my opinion on the proposed Erotic Romance RITA/GH category quite a bit, perhaps due to my office as President of Passionate Ink. My thoughts are often not agreed with, but here they are:

Do I think RWA will ever establish an erotic romance category for the RITAs or GH? I doubt it, and I would be very surprised if they did. Who’s to say what is erotic romance and what isn’t? I’ve had writers tell me Blaze and Bravas are not erotic. Others say they’re close to porn. No one can even agree on what the definitions of erotica and erotic romance are. How can we define a category when we don’t know what subject matter fits the criteria or not? How much romance is required to make it an erotic romance? I guarantee that one judge’s erotic romance is another judge’s “not a romance”.

And that’s not the only problem with having an erotic romance category. While the other categories are based on genre, the ER books would be based on how much sex was going on and how it was worded. Is that what we want? Do you want the erotic romance RITA for your vamp story? Or the Paranormal RITA? What does the erotic romance RITA mean? You write better sex?

When I ask proponents why they want an erotic romance category, they say it’s because prejudice against the sexual content lessens their chances of winning in other categories. Does creating a category that holds the sexual content up as the criterion for winning combat the prejudice? Or does it feed it by saying the most important thing about the story is the sex?

What about authors of sweet romances? Should they have a category for books with less sexual content than norm? Perhaps they don’t have a fair chance because so many romances feature a certain number of sex scenes and theirs have none.

After all, if you have a category for ‘excessive’ sex, then surely there should be a category for ‘minimal’ sex?

To me, the Erotic Romance category is an impossible, and not necessarily desirable, goal.

Are they any good for promotional purposes? They take up a lot of time, and I’m not sure if they’re worth it. :scratch: