Wel­come! Hap­py East­er Week­end! I hope you’re hav­ing a great time gorg­ing on jel­ly beans and crème eggs. I don’t know about you, but I think East­er has the best can­dy of all the hol­i­days. Each year I stock up on these guys–>

If you’ve nev­er tried them, you haven’t lived. Also, if you’ve nev­er tried them, don’t start. I can’t take the com­pe­ti­tion in the stores any­more. Already they sell out with­in hours of being stocked onto the shelves. (Mouth is water­ing right now!) But enough of that. Here’s what I’ve done all week:

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Okay, this is fun­ny right here:

I know it’s not very Eas­t­er­ish, but it has a bun­ny!! Good luck get­ting rid of that ear­worm, by the way…

Work in Progress News ~ Well again, I did­n’t get many words in on Dean’s sto­ry, but I’ve been get­ting ready for the Romance Times Booklover’s Con­ven­tion, which starts on Wednes­day! I’ll be fly­ing out of the windi­er city to the Windy City on Tues­day. I sim­ply can­not wait.  I made some nifty mag­nets with my logo on them. I’m pret­ty proud of me, and my crafty self! I can’t take cred­it for the idea tho, I got a mag­net just like this from a Scentsy lady.  Then I put my free reads on a CD (and added a bonus nov­el on ran­dom discs) and burned my logo on the front. Pret­ty cool look­ing, yeah? Thanks to booknibbles.com for the way awe­some and use­ful logo

Indus­try News ~ Back in 2010, Google put its feel­ers out into the indy book mar­ket, sell­ing ebooks via a beta pro­gram. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Google is pulling the plug on that pro­gram as it intro­duced the new Google Play for­mat. I guess the rev­enue just was­n’t there.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ This one has popped up in var­i­ous forms over the weeks, and I thought I should address it. “retreat by alan­na coca detailed review” I’ve also seen “Alan­na Coca Retreat detailed syn­op­sis” and “Retreat spoil­ers”. It seems that the fact that the hero Jake is mar­ried in the book Retreat is giv­ing some read­ers the willies. I won’t post a detailed review or spoil­ers any­where online, lest I spoil it for oth­ers, but I am more than hap­py to answer your ques­tions about Retreat via email. I can be reached at alanna@alannacoca.com. I love to hear from my readers!

What I’m read­ing ~ I fol­low Cat Grant and Rachel Haimowitz on Twit­ter. I heard a dis­cus­sion about their joint­ly authored book. Pow­er Play: Resis­tance. I went to the pub­lish­er’s site and read the excerpt, and I was hooked. It’s book one in a series, and I already checked for book two (June, 2012) so at least they aren’t mak­ing me wait! I fell for Bran, espe­cial­ly his inter­nal dia­logue. This book is not for the faint of heart.

Hero Quote ~ from Treat, the free read pre­quel to Retreat.

“City folk have a strange sense of civilization.”

That’s all for me. Don’t expect an update next week, unless I find some time in between the RT work­shops. I’ll be tweet­ing pic­tures as I go, so fol­low me!

Woot! What a great week! Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I did­n’t get a lot of words in on my WiPs. I don’t real­ly have an excuse either.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ I nev­er watched this video until just now. I’m not real­ly sure how I feel about it. But still, take a rap/hip hop artist, pair him with a coun­try music singer, and what do you get?

Work in Progress News ~ I’ve had Dean’s sto­ry open all week. Not a whole lot of words yet, but I already love these guys. I real­ized that none of the first chap­ter is in Dean’s point of view. Prob­a­bly since this book is a sequel of Falling Star, the return­ing char­ac­ter should start the next book, huh? So I start­ed anoth­er chap­ter one. Not in love with it, so we’ll see. The joys of pantsing!

Back­list News ~ Last Call came out last week, which means I’m get­ting reviews as it climbs the charts! Writ­ing a book with humor is always sketchy. One wom­an’s fun­ny is anoth­er’s eye roll. So far, I haven’t had any eye-rolling reviews.

Indus­try News ~  You’ve heard the 50 Shades talk. I won’t rehash. Except to say that this book did not invent the erot­ic romance genre. Main­stream media needs to get that fig­ured out before my Twit­ter feed blows up.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ Noth­ing too excit­ing here, but I got this one: “west­ern heat by alan­na coca”, which remind­ed me that I did­n’t show you all the won­der­ful ban­ner that booknibbles.com made for me for the Romance Times con­fer­ence on April 9th! Both West­ern Heat and City Heat have been writ­ten quite yet. They’ll be free reads, and I’ll be using these ban­ners at RT to find the hero­ine to star in the book.

Nice, huh? I can’t wait for the con­fer­ence. I hope to see a ton of famil­iar online faces!

Hero Quote ~ from Fine Print, this is Derek:

“Bull­shit. I think I got a total of two smiles out of you in the last two hours. You don’t exact­ly strike me as the June Cleaver type.”

Okay folks. That’s it for me. Have a great week!

Howdy! Sor­ry I missed last week. I spent a long (very long) week­end in Den­ver. This Tyran­nosaurus stands inside the entrance to the Den­ver Muse­um of Nature and Sci­ence, where I could have spent three full days, but only had time for a cou­ple hours of explor­ing. I hope you all had a won­der­ful St Pats with­out me.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ True Romance by Cit­i­zens! This is a bit of ABBA meets ele­men­tary school tal­ent show. I got such a kick out of it, I had to share:

Work in Progress News ~ Well I final­ly fin­ished the free read. It real­ly should­n’t have tak­en me that long, but I’m pret­ty good at pro­cras­ti­nat­ing. And pro­cras­ti­clean­ing, pro­cras­teat­ing etc. You can find the new free­bie HERE. It’s not free at Ama­zon yet, I have to wait for them to price match the oth­er sites (if you feel like report­ing it as free else­where, I’d be much oblig­ed). So now I’ve got the WiP known as Dean open. This is the sec­ond book in the Earth Scents series which fol­lows Adam and Jade’s sto­ry in Falling Star. I already love both heroes, so I have high hopes that I won’t clean the garage dur­ing this one.

Indus­try News ~ I was­n’t here last week to give the won­der­ful news about Pay­Pal. After see­ing that Visa was­n’t going to take the blame for dis­al­low­ing “ques­tion­able con­tent” Pay­Pal execs backed down. Great news! Though I still don’t trust that PP won’t pull anoth­er stunt when the mood strikes. We’ll see.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ I delet­ed the post from 2010 that men­tioned two spe­cif­ic 1980s movie stars in the buff. I did­n’t even have pic­tures of said men, but I con­stant­ly get vis­its. Oth­er than that, my favorite this week was “trip chasti­ty”. I have no idea, folks.

What I’m read­ing ~ First Time For­ev­er by KC Burn. An estab­lished cou­ple deal­ing with emp­ty nest. Although these two don’t fall in love in the book, they recon­nect in a beau­ti­ful way. A very char­ac­ter dri­ven book with plen­ty of emo­tion. I real­ly liked it.

Hero Quote ~ from Last Call, which releas­es MONDAY! throws con­fet­ti Eric is a hunky firefighter…

“Turnout gear? That’s not sexy, it’s bulky as hell.” He inched lower.“If you’re good, I’ll mod­el for you.”

Okay, that’s it for me. Have a great week!

Wel­come! Anoth­er week gone, and I real­ly don’t have much to show for it wip-wise. One week away from St. Patrick­’s Day! I’d bet­ter get my corned beef roast before the town runs out (and they always do).

Favorite Song of the Week ~ More Irish music!  This week I’m shar­ing a song by the love­ly group Celtic Woman (I still think they should be called Celtic Women, but what do I know. This song, Dan­ny Boy brings tears to my eyes, espe­cial­ly when per­formed so beautifully:

Work in Progress News ~ Soooo close to fin­ish­ing this free read. Alan­na has been slack­ing all week, and I’m wait­ing so patient­ly for my use of the cor­po­re­al body so I can get some­thing done. She does have a beau­ti­ful cov­er for it though. Thanks Booknibbles.com!

Indus­try News ~ It seems that Dorch­ester Pub­lish­ing has appar­ent­ly closed its doors. After years of some­what shady deals and with­hold­ing author roy­al­ties, this isn’t much of a sur­prise, but there it is. My thoughts are with the authors who will ulti­mate­ly be pawns in the big sell-off game. Good luck to you all!

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~  I could­n’t fig­ure this one out. “coca sol­ca”.  Turns out Sol­ca is a town in Roma­nia. Maybe some­one is writ­ing a Seuss­ian sto­ry about Alan­na Coca in East­ern Solca.

What I’m read­ing ~ This might be why I did­n’t fin­ish my free­bie. I’m so sor­ry, but I saw this book and could­n’t help myself! So I helped myself and bought Rule of Three by Kel­ly Jamieson.  It’s a menage about an estab­lished cou­ple adding a third.

“If you fol­low the rules, you miss all the fun… Kas­sidy is a good girl who wants to be bad. Dag is a bad boy who is very, very good. And Chris? He likes to watch…”

Hero Quote ~ Anoth­er from this free­bie that ALANNA BETTER FINISH!!

“Either you admit that our kiss felt as damn good to you as it did to me, or you say it did­n’t affect you, and we can do it again.”

Okay, that’s it for me. I work at 5am tomor­row, and with the whole spring­ing for­ward thing, I’m gonna be one grumpy girl at 4:00 I think they should offer nap time on Spring For­ward Sun­day. That’s going in the sug­ges­tion box. Have a great week, everyone!

Yay! It’s March! June is just around the cor­ner! I can’t wait for flip flop season.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ March means Irish music until you puke! I’m sure you were won­der­ing where you’d get your reel and jig fix. Well, I’m here for you. I was raised in a big Irish fam­i­ly, where we learned all the lyrics to drink­ing songs before we knew they were drink­ing songs.  Enjoy John­ny Jump Up by Gael­ic Storm, the band that gained fame from the bel­ly of the Titanic.

Work in Progress News ~ I went through three rounds of edits on Wyoming Solace, two last week alone. I’m ready for some con­tem­po­rary lovin! So I’m kick­ing some major butt on my free read. It’s at 10K right now, but some of that is part of Pre­View that I tossed in there to tie it in. I real­ly like the chem­istry between these two. If you recall, this sto­ry was inspired by a blog hop post I did for Valen­tine’s Day last month. With luck by next Sat­ur­day you’ll have a link to download!

New Release~ Woohoo! Com­pa­ny Ink was released on leap day! Blurb:  Sid­ney has crushed on her boss Grant for over two years. When she final­ly push­es him to his break­ing point, they both end up win­ning. The frat­er­niza­tion pol­i­cy their com­pa­ny holds dear means they’ve got to keep their new rela­tion­ship deep under wraps. Grant knows this could end very bad­ly. He could be charged with sex­u­al harass­ment, accused of favoritism, or worse—they could both be unem­ployed. Grant is will­ing to risk it all to dip his pen in the com­pa­ny ink. Excerpt and buy links can be found HERE.

Back­list News ~ Both Fine Print and Pre­view got reviews at Scorch­ing Book Reviews last week. The review­er’s thoughts on  Fine Print: “Once again this is a fan­tas­ti­cal­ly writ­ten sto­ry where the rela­tion­ships aren’t rushed and the sto­ry flows at just the right pace.” And her thoughts on Pre­View: “With the sus­pense build­ing sto­ry­line and the huge twist I found this dif­fi­cult to put down.”

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ Some­one found Alan­na by search­ing for “Retreat Movie”. Now, I do own the film rights to Retreat, so if there’s a pro­duc­er out there that’s inter­est­ed, just know this: It’s John­ny Depp or no deal.

What I’m read­ing ~ Anoth­er week to reread some old favorites. This week it was Cameron Dane’s ReneCade. A con­tem­po­rary west­ern-ish m/m. There is a whole lot of emo­tion in this one, and one of the big plot points is a “mis­take” that Ren makes that real­ly sends both men reel­ing. I won’t give it away, but Cameron does a great job by not gloss­ing it over, or mak­ing Cade so quick to forgive.

Hero Quote ~ From the free read I’m work­ing on. I real­ly need a title for this…

“I have one ques­tion Mac can’t answer. Do you taste as deli­cious as you smell?”

Okay, I’m back to work on this free read. It won’t write itself! (I tried that. It real­ly won’t) Have a great week.

Wel­come! It’s the last Sat­ur­day of Feb­ru­ary! Spring is just around the cor­ner! I’m so excit­ed. Of course here in Wyoming we get the most snow­fall in March, but we’re inch­ing clos­er to warm sun­ny days! This week I dis­cov­ered a very very bad thing.  Yes, Pin­ter­est. It’s like Twit­ter for pic­tures. I’m hav­ing a won­der­ful time over there, but I can see myself spend­ing waaay too much time just look­ing at all the won­der­ful things the inter­net has for me. If you’re pin­ter­est­ed, I’d love to fol­low your pins!

Favorite Song of the Week ~ As I work on Wyoming Solace, I get into a coun­try mood. This is one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite coun­try singers. The King. Enjoy Des­per­ate­ly by George Strait. (No video)

Work in Progress News ~ I’m work­ing on edits this week. Round two for Wyoming Solace. Reg­u­lar blog read­ers know that I strug­gle to get my hero Cody to speak more than a few sen­tences at a time. Some­how, my edi­tor at Samhain has a rap­port with him, because he’s now decid­ing to open up a bit. Thanks, Lin­da! I love dig­ging deep­er into the male psyche.

Indus­try News ~ This week we had an author get ripped off…some­one copy past­ed her entire free read and offered it up as her own free read. She changed char­ac­ter names. Ugh. In bet­ter news, JK Rowl­ing has announced a new deal for an adult book for her adult fans! It’s rumored to be a mys­tery (haha that’s fun­ny) but title and plot have not been disclosed.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ Some­times the terms are just so strange, I don’t under­stand how they find me. Then I post them here, caus­ing their term to find me again. (I learned my les­son with the hairy naked 80’s celebri­ties) This week it’s “nurse heather scrubs”.

What I’m read­ing ~ Speak­ing of the 80’s…I reread a book this week, no time for new stuff. I’d for­got­ten how much I enjoyed San­dra Brown’s Demon Rumm. It’s a con­tem­po­rary romance told in third per­son, but 100% in the hero’s point of view. I read this in paper­back. That’s right, folks. Real dead trees and stuff. Part of the blurb:

“It was the pub­lic­i­ty stunt from hell as far as Kirsten Rumm was con­cerned. She may have been writ­ing the book about her late hus­band, aero­nau­ti­cal dare­dev­il Demon Rumm, but she didn’t see the need to play host to the arro­gant bad-boy actor star­ring in the film version’s title role. Still, for the good of the project, Kirsten agreed to share her beach­front home with the impos­si­bly sexy screen idol.”

Yeah, you can guess where it goes from there. Sigh.

Hero Quote ~ One of Cody’s new lines in Alan­na’s Wyoming Solace:

“So far, your idea of pro­tec­tion seems to be an aging hus­band and a sharp tongue.”

Big news!

My book Com­pa­ny Ink comes out on Wednes­day! I’m very excit­ed for this one. My good friend Gem Sivad’s book Pinch of Naughty is being released on Fri­day ³⁄₂, and we decid­ed to park our­selves in a chat room on Fri­day night from 7pm EST until the cows come home. When­ev­er that may be.  It’s going to be a great time, we’re giv­ing books away, shar­ing excerpts, and talk­ing shop. Please stop by »CLICK HERE« I’d love to visit.

See you there!

Woops. A bit late get­ting this post­ed. I hope you for­give me!

Favorite Song of the Week ~ This week I want to share a par­o­dy of a cov­er. If you’d like to check out last week’s post for the orig­i­nal, this might make more sense, but maybe not.

 Work in Progress News ~ I real­ly got mov­ing on my free read. I love the way it’s turn­ing out. Then my edi­tor sent me the first round of edits for Wyoming Solace. I knew this would be a tough one. Send my edi­tor your best wish­es. Or choco­late. Or both. Poor lady.

Back­list News ~ A new review for Pre­View! I love how that sounds hehe.  Ram­blings from a Chaot­ic Mind had this to say: “Coca’s writ­ing is strong and I did enjoy her abil­i­ty to draw you into a sto­ry. She lets you get into the char­ac­ters heads and you nev­er feel like you’re an out­sider look­ing in. It feels as if you are there. ”  Long time blog read­ers will remem­ber how I strug­gled to make Trevor nice, and it seems he’s still on the gruff side for some tastes. I should have tried whips and chains.

Indus­try News ~ One of my pub­lish­ers Samhain Pub­lish­ing is dip­ping its toe into the POD pool with the Espres­so Book Machine! This is like a POD vend­ing machine, where you order a book and it prints it while you wait! I would love to see one in action. The clos­est machine to me is almost a three hour dri­ve. Some day though.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~  How about this: “why is jake mar­ried retreat alan­na coca” Kin­da sounds like my moth­er giv­ing me the third degree. All I can say, dear Googler, is that you’ll have to read the book Retreat to find out, but I promise there’s noth­ing fishy going on at the V‑Bar Guest Ranch. Well, not too fishy.

What I’m read­ing ~ An anthol­o­gy called THREE, fea­tur­ing sto­ries by Lisa Andel, Bon­nie Dee, and T.A. Chase. This fea­tures three dif­fer­ent sto­ries about trios. Three total­ly dif­fer­ent sto­ries.  One is a m/m/f shifter, the next a m/m/m con­tem­po­rary, and the last a f/f/m con­tem­po­rary. This was the first taste of Ms. Andel’s writ­ing, but Bon­nie Dee and T.A. Chase are auto­buy for me, so it’s nice to see some works I had­n’t read. I like short sto­ries, espe­cial­ly when I’m sup­posed to be doing oth­er things…

Hero Quote ~ Just because I’m lazy, I like to pull a quote out of what­ev­er man­u­script I have open as I write this sta­tus update. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Cody in Alan­na’s Wyoming Solace isn’t very talk­a­tive. I think I’ll be loos­en­ing his lips as I edit this pup­py. So until then, how about a quote from Mar­cus from Posi­tion Secured. This cop has just used Mar­i­ana’s win­dow as a van­tage point. Now the stand­off is over, and he wants some­thing else…

“…I need one thing from you first.” He didn’t con­tin­ue until she lift­ed heavy lids to meet that elec­tric blue stare. “Tell me your name.”

That’s when the fun starts.

Okay, that’s it for me this week. Back to edits! Right after I check Twitter.…

Wel­come! I’m glad you made your way through the dis­gust­ing SNOW that’s falling out­side my win­dow right now.  Is it July yet?!

Okay, a short update this week:

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Okay check out this one by Gotye. Appar­ent­ly I’m the last per­son in the world to know about him. He. Is. Awe­some. This video took my breath away too.

 Work in Progress News ~ Well, I worked on a ver­sion of a free read to com­ple­ment Pre­View for a week or so, then as I’m writ­ing a post for the blog hop (the post below, join us!!) I decid­ed to go in anoth­er direc­tion. I think it’s because my orig­i­nal plan was to write a sto­ry with­out a romance, and that’s just appar­ent­ly beyond my abil­i­ties. So, since I switched I wrote about 4K words. I guess that was the right move.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ How about this one: “woman sexy fun­ny acci­dent”. Not real­ly sure about where that came from, but glad you found me!

What I’m read­ing ~ With the blog hop and a few weird eye issues (I can’t see out of parts of my right eye, every­one!) I did­n’t get time to read any­thing new. I’m start­ing to get withdrawals.

Hero Quote ~ This is a quote from what I’m work­ing on now. Meet Gregory:

“This is my bed­room, Miss Mey­er. If I want some­thing beau­ti­ful and fem­i­nine in here, she’d damn well bet­ter have two legs and a pulse.”

I think that’s it for me. Be sure to join us on the hop (just scroll down a bit…there ya go) where you can win a NOOK touch! Along with a ton of ebooks.

Wel­come! What a week. Got some snow here, so I’m not a hap­py camper. Damn groundhog.

So what do you think of the new back­ground? I’m prepar­ing for Valen­tine’s Day.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ DoZo (Guns For Hire), a song from by Pus­cifer. This is a remix of the song “Dozo” by Lust­mord. I dig it.

Work in Progress News ~ I’m in the mid­dle of writ­ing a free read pre­quel to com­ple­ment Pre­View. So a Pre­View Pre View. That should be a fun title to find. I’m doing this because my oth­er free reads have been so well received! Check them out.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ This one makes me proud. “did adam and eve have navels bloom coun­ty” If you don’t remem­ber Bloom Coun­ty, then you’re not old like me. If you do, you might remem­ber this par­tic­u­lar strip, which is embed­ded in my wee lit­tle brain for all eternity:

 What I’€™m read­ing ~ I re-read one of my favorites. This one was released back in ear­ly 2009, won a few awards, and re-released to its ador­ing pub­lic Per­fect Strangers by Gem Sivad. Wow. If you haven’t read a Gem Sivad book, you’re miss­ing out. She’s got a great knack for bring­ing the past to life. In all it’s grit­ty glo­ry. These char­ac­ters are very true to the time. One of my favorite books right here.

Hero Quote ~ From Josh, the hero in Tes­sa’s Pride.

“First insults and now lies. I can think of bet­ter uses for that mouth.”

I think that’s it for me. You all have a great week­end. I hope the foot­ball game does­n’t get too much in the way of your com­mer­cial viewing!

Howdy! It’s a win­tery week­end here in Wyoming. I hope you’re all cozy and warm wher­ev­er you are.  Feb­ru­ary is hot on my heels. I hope the ground­hog sees his shad­ow. Or does­n’t see it. I always for­get which.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Ordi­nary Heroes by Howard Jones. A sto­ry about the hero inside all of us. This song is my inspi­ra­tion for my cur­rent work in progress, about an injured K‑9 cop.

Indus­try News ~ This is pret­ty inter­est­ing. A bit of a mind-bog­gle for you. Accord­ing to this post on Ebook Newser,

“In a pre­sen­ta­tion at the Dig­i­tal Book World con­fer­ence in New York today, author/futurist David Houle shed some per­spec­tive on where the pub­lish­ing indus­try is today, com­pared to its place in his­to­ry. “There were more books pub­lished this week than there were in all of 1950.”

Wow.

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~ Pret­ty tame this week! Besides the usu­al fur-cov­ered celebri­ty (I swear, I’m nev­er going to live that post down). This week, it’s: “some­one came but for a vis­it”. Well okay! I guess that’s you! Welcome!

What I’m read­ing ~ This week I read an alter­nate uni­verse slash dystopi­an pseu­do d/s book. Here’s part of the blurb: Trans-Glob­al IT direc­tor Con­nor Witt is a rare and prized anom­aly: the aggres­sion cen­ters in his brain have been sup­pressed rather than stim­u­lat­ed by the mutat­ed crops that so recent­ly took over the world’s food sup­ply. Bewil­dered by his phys­i­cal changes and ter­ri­fied of a world grow­ing more and more preda­to­ry, Con­nor risks harass­ment and worse until Trans-Glob­al CEO David Mar­tin col­lars Con­nor to pro­tect him against men like secu­ri­ty con­sul­tant Emmett Drake. Men who stalk Con­nor as sweet, sexy prey. Men to whom the new­ly sub­mis­sive Con­nor feels irre­sistibly drawn.  Real­ly well writ­ten book, the char­ac­ters grow and change, adapt­ing to their new roles with­in the pages. I’m real­ly lik­ing Rip­tide Pub­lish­ing’s stuff!

Hero Quote ~ Here’s a quote from Olivi­a’s next release from Dark Moun­tain Books. Com­pa­ny Ink will release 2/29/11. This sen­tence pret­ty much sums up the book:

“But when I’m this close to you…and I get drunk on your scent…I strug­gle to give a shit about my career.”

I guess that’s it for me. Every­one have a great week­end. Stay warm!

Jan­u­ary is fly­ing by. I guess that’s good, I can’t wait for warmer weath­er. I can’t com­plain too much though, this win­ter has been mild for the most part knock on wood Also, base­ball sea­son is com­ing up! I know you’re all as excit­ed as I am about this. I’ve got a Swedish exchange stu­dent liv­ing at my house who has (get this) nev­er seen a base­ball game. Does­n’t that just hurt your heart? Don’t wor­ry, I’m tak­ing care of the situation.

Favorite Song of the Week ~ Etta James passed away ear­ly Fri­day morn­ing. She will be missed. Here is the song that made her famous: At Last:

Work in Progress News ~ Still chug­ging away on Dean’s sto­ry. Book two in the Earth Scents series. I had a great name for my hero, but now I can’t use it. Lots of rea­sons why. I’m blog­ging at RomanceWrit­ers­Be­hav­ing­Bad­ly on Mon­day 1/23/12. You can help me out with my angst over there.

Indus­try News ~ Besides the big Apple announce­ment regard­ing a user friend­ly inter­face to upload ebooks to iTunes (which looks to be for text­books, not fic­tion) the only news I have to share is that the big Print On Demand (POD) pub­lish­er Cre­ate­space (aka Ama­zon’s POD wing) did some tweak­ing on their end. This makes paper­back books sold through them earn a lot more roy­al­ty! I cel­e­brat­ed by low­er­ing the retail of all my paper­back books some by almost three dol­lars! Plus, over at Dark Moun­tain Books, we’re offer­ing a “buy the paper­back, get the ebook free” pro­mo­tion. It’s like buy­ing a DVD and get­ting the dig­i­tal for­mat for your portable device!

Search Term of the week aka How Peo­ple Found My Web­sites ~  I’m shar­ing three this week. To this person: “dowload tes­sa pride on to your nook for free”, I wish you would­n’t (sub­text implied) And ‘down­load’ has an N in it. To this per­son: “earth scents 2 brynn” I’m work­ing on it! See above. To the two peo­ple who found my site by search­ing for “fun con­tem­po­rary romance authors”, I love you.

What I’m read­ing ~ I read a very good one this week. And again, it’s book two of a series, and I did­n’t real­ize it until halfway through this one. It’s okay, it stands alone just fine. This is an old­er man younger man romance, and K.A. Mitchell is quick­ly becom­ing one of my favorite authors. Here’s a snip­pet that I just have to share. I don’t even need to set this up:

“C’mon. I’ll take you down­town for some pie.”

“How het­ero­nor­ma­tive”

“I can’t have pie on Thanks­giv­ing because straight peo­ple do?

“Fine. Have pie. I want crepes.”

Any­one who can give her char­ac­ters per­son­al­i­ty through four sen­tences is my kind of author.  I’m off to read book one now…

Hero Quote ~ From the unnamed hero in the unnamed work in progress men­tioned above:

 “I’m not pout­ing about being sin­gle. I like being sin­gle. I just don’t want to see your lovey dovey crap. You’re my lit­tle sis­ter for Christ’s sake.”

Okay boys and girls. I’m off to do wild author things (Twit­ter) so you all play nice. Have a great weekend!