Inspirational Mondays

My inspiration for today is the importance of milestones in your life. And the milestone I have just achieved is to reach triple figures in my book sales – exactly two months after my very first book was advertised for pre-sales.

Now some authors may reach triple figures for the pre-sales of one book alone. However, I am happy with small steps!

So my next milestone will be to reach 500 sales. Other milestones are to have my first fan mail and to have a professional review (other than from people I know – I had a lovely one from the writer Janine Ashbless on her blog) – and only good ones of course!

http://janineashbless.blogspot.com/2011/09/just-good-friends.html

Have a good day.

Jennifer

Friday Funnies

This is one of my favourites:

The Smiths were unable to conceive children and decided to use a surrogate father to start their family. On the day the proxy father was to arrive, Mr. Smith kissed his wife goodbye and said, 'Well, I'm off now. The man should be here soon.'

Half an hour later, just by chance, a door-to-door baby photographer happened to ring the doorbell, hoping to make a sale. 'Good morning, Ma'am', he said, 'I've come to...'

'Oh, no need to explain,' Mrs. Smith cut in, embarrassed, 'I've been expecting you.'

'Have you really?' said the photographer. 'Well, that's good. Did you know babies are my specialty?'

'Well that's what my husband and I had hoped. Please come in and have a seat'. After a moment she asked, blushing, 'Well, where do we start?'

'Leave everything to me. I usually try two in the bathtub, one on the couch, and perhaps a couple on the bed. And sometimes the living room floor is fun. You can really spread out there.'

'Bathtub, living room floor? No wonder it didn't work out for Harry and me!'

'Well, Ma'am, none of us can guarantee a good one every time. But if we try several different positions and I shoot from six or seven angles, I'm sure you'll be pleased with the results.'

'My, that's a lot!', gasped Mrs. Smith.

'Ma'am, in my line of work a man has to take his time. I'd love to be in and out in five minutes, but I'm sure you'd be disappointed with that.'

'Don't I know it,' said Mrs. Smith quietly.

The photographer opened his briefcase and pulled out a portfolio of his baby pictures. 'This was done on the top of a bus,' he said.

'Oh, my God!' Mrs. Smith exclaimed, grasping at her throat.

'And these twins turned out exceptionally well - when you consider their mother was so difficult to work with.'

'She was difficult?' asked Mrs. Smith.

'Yes, I'm afraid so. I finally had to take her to the park to get the job done right. People were crowding around four and five deep to get a good look'

'Four and five deep?' said Mrs. Smith, her eyes wide with amazement.

'Yes', the photographer replied. 'And for more than three hours, too. The mother was constantly squealing and yelling - I could hardly concentrate, and when darkness approached I had to rush my shots. Finally, when the squirrels began nibbling on my equipment, I just had to pack it all in.'

Mrs. Smith leaned forward. 'Do you mean they actually chewed on your, uh...equipment?'

'It's true, Ma'am, yes.. Well, if you're ready, I'll set-up my tripod and we can get to work right away.'

'Tripod?'

'Oh yes, Ma'am. I need to use a tripod to rest my Canon on. It's much too big to be held in the hand very long.'

Mrs. Smith fainted

New book, out for pre-orders

YEAH! The Submission Challenge is now being advertised on www.sirenpublishing.com for pre-orders and it will be available on 1 November. I can now say truthfully I am a multi-selling author (if two books counts as multi?! Well the third is due out in early Jan).

It certainly feels like I am more than a ‘one trick pony’ or whatever the expression is.

I don't know what it is like for authors who have tons of best-selling books out but at this stage in my writing 'career' each book that is accepted, each time I get the edits in, each time it is published, each and every sale is terribly exciting and I hope I never get tired of it.

I will put up an extract from this book next week. Watch this space.

Jennifer

Story extract

Hi

Following on from my blogs last week about my first book I thought you might like some extracts:

This is when Sam discovered Jessie read erotic romances:

Sam chuckled. He decided to play this one a little further. “Will it help if I also admit to reading some erotic romances?” Actually he hadn’t, but he wanted to see how far he could get her to open up about her secret desires.

Her head shot up so quickly he was surprised her neck didn’t break. Her mouth opened in astonishment. “No way!”

“Yes way… but I don’t think I’ve read any from this publisher,” he blithely lied since he hadn’t read any erotic book from any publisher. “So what’s your favorite type of ‘scenario’ and why?” he asked offhandedly, looking away from her face for a moment in case she guessed his game.

Not expecting this question, she asked hesitantly, “Um, do we have to continue this discussion? Can’t we get back to our original topic?”

“Nope, I want to know more about this passion of yours—forgive the pun.” He smiled wickedly.

“Oh, ha-ha! All right,” she said, giving up any resistance. He noticed her eyes glinting like she was about to plot something. “My favorite scenario usually involves lots of guys—preferably over six feet, fabulously good looking, and hunky—very hunky—all making love to the same woman.” She crossed her arms in defiance.

Sam sat stunned. He would never have imagined in his wildest thoughts that Jessie would be a woman who fantasized about having a ménage.

Have a good day

Submitting stories

You may be wondering after my last two posts exactly what prompted me to submit my story in the first place.

All my life I have written stories or come up with story ideas and it is (was!) in my 'bucket list' to get published one day.

I am an avid reader and everytime I downloaded a book from publishers' websites I kept noticing a tab 'Submissions'. So I decided to see what the procedure was for submitting a story. Each publisher has different guidelines but suffice to say you have to write your story first. After deciding I could do this and wrote my first one I then spent a lot of time 'googling' how to submit it as there is a lot of terms banded about like 'query' letter, 'cover' letter and so on.

Some publishers may like a cover letter or email with your manuscript - this needs to be straight-forward. Don't say things like "I've been writing this for 25 years and have fallen in love with my hero and I will kill myself if you don't publish it." Publishers, understandably, don't like that sort of blackmail!!!!!

Then there is a synopsis of your story. Some give you several pages to write it in, some a few hundred words.

My publisher, Siren, just goes with one email to include the synopsis along with the full manuscript. And that varies - some publishers like the first three chapters and last only. Either way it needs to be finished, proof-read, no spelling and other errors.

Think of it as a step by step process. 1. Your cover letter/email needs to be professional enough and well-written enough that the publisher will want to read the synopsis. 2. The synopsis needs to be well-written enough and with enough of a hook that they will want to read the first page of the manuscript. 3. The first page needs to be well-written enough with no errors and with a hook that they will want to read further.

Clearly something is working for me as they have just accepted my third story (more to follow on that in later posts), although I do keep re-reading their acceptance email each time just to make sure that they did say 'We do want to publisher your story' and not 'We don't .......'!!!

If you are submitting a story for the first time and want further hints and tips do contact me. Happy to help.

Tribute to favourite erotic romance authors

Following on from my first blog yesterday, 'Just Good Friends' was written as my tribute to my favourite erotic romance writers several of whom are listed on my Author's profile on http://www.bookstrand.com/jennifer-denys

It was great fun analysing the types of themes that come up in this genre like Friends who fall in love plots (my favourite and the theme for my current two series of books), Kidnap or mistaken identity plots, Tortured souls or those with past baggage, Hidden Identity, Those wanting to discover more about their sexuality, and so on and working them into my story. The stories my hero and heroine read are based on these themes. Some of you may recognise these plotlines from your favourite stories by other authors.

That's all for today.

Welcome to my Blog

Hi everyone

Welcome to my blog and my first ever blog post.

I became a published author with my first book 'Just Good Friends' which was released on 7 September. This book is published with Siren Publishing. http://www.sirenpublishing.com/ or you can buy it on Amazon. It is only available as an e-book but if you don't have a kindle or e-reader you can still download it as a PDF via Siren's website.

Accidentally discovering shy Jessie’s secret stash of erotic romances, Sam pretends interest to persuade her to discuss her favorite books. Soon they try out scenarios they are reading, like bondage, etc., with laughs, tears, and lots of improvisation. Before long, they realize they are more than just good friends.

It has been terribly exciting becoming an author (a life-long dream). I had to keep re-reading the email from the publisher saying that they were accepting my book for publication!!! Since then it has been a huge and fascinating learning curve.

Watch this space for info on future books!