Repeat?

The Ariana finalists came out yesterday and I have two this year. As a winner last year, I wonder if this year will see me repeat. Possibly not. It’s always a stiff competition. There are more than a few talented cover artists out there. I’m not up against Anne Cain who is the best cover artist on the planet in my opinion, but Reese Dante is definitely very, very stiff competition. Most artists work for one or two houses and some only do freelance stuff, preferring not to be tied to a house. And many of them work for a publisher and do a lot of covers for people who are self-publishing.... 

date26 Sep
comments1 Reply
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Ghosthunters

Last week I had a nice whine over a simple tummy ache. Funny how the small stuff can just feel devastating sometimes. This week I’ve moved from whining to mental eye rolling. You see, I have galleys to read. For you non-authors, galleys are what authors get prior to a book going to print. You have to proof the galleys to ensure there are no mistakes. If there was a mistake in the ebook that didn’t get fixed, this is your time to fix it. So I had a nice cover flat of Tales of the Darkworld Volume Two and a big fat file of galleys. Volume Two is two novellas, each one just over 40K.... 

date22 Aug
comments1 Reply
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Go Shopping

I spent Sunday redoing my Cafepress store. I haven’t done anything about the template, but I have added products including a whole Lex Valentine section. This was one of the main thrusts of the store for me. I have people ask me about my cover art all the time. Now, they can go buy themselves a poster of my latest covers. Well, the covers I created anyway. Eventually, I think it would be cool to sell posters of all the covers I’ve done even the ones for other authors. I like the idea of cross promotion in this manner. The store still has the Socially Dead stuff and a couple of the original... 

date18 Jul
commentsComments Off
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The Power of the Tweet

I’ve been on Twitter a long time. You wouldn’t know it to look at either of my usernames and how many tweets there are attached to them or by checking my Tweet-Karma, but I really have been on Twitter since early 2008.  In the last couple of years, I’d gotten away from it because writing really consumed me and I just didn’t have time for Twitter and Yahoo IM. I rarely turned on either of those things. They were a distraction most of the time. So the number of tweets I have is rather low for someone who’s been on it as long as me. However, one of the things I re-discovered... 

date18 Apr
comments3 Replies
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Conference Moments

As you all know, I went to the Romantic Times Book Lovers convention this past week. It was my first convention and also my first as a published author. I had a great time mostly because I had very cool people to hang out with. The workshops turned out to not be my thing but a lot of that had to do with the fact that I was on sensory overload and I wouldn’t have remembered a damn thing from a workshop. I went to the lunches and balls and cocktail parties and mixers. And I hung out in the Lobby Court with a lot of very cool authors. I didn’t have to fly to the conference because it was... 

date11 Apr
comments9 Replies
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Autographed Copy

Today being Valentine’s Day meant that I needed to do something special as an author for the readers out there. It would look pretty stupid if an author named Valentine who writes romances didn’t do squat on Valentine’s Day, right? I’ve been pondering what to do for a week. And then I got these nifty little gold stickers in the mail. I bought them for the book signing part of the Romantic Times convention. They say “Autographed Copy.” So what I’m going to do is post over at my Lex Valentine blog and devise a contest of some sort that will include people... 

date14 Feb
comments2 Replies
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What Was I Thinking?

Umm, yeah. I registered for the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention. Do you know how much money that was? And how much the rooms are? And the parking? And all the stuff I have to buy (like a suitcase) because I don’t travel? And all the promo stuff I have to get? Good thing this convention is deductable for me. Still, please don’t tell Rott how much I spent… Actually, he has a fair idea. He already ix-nayed on the parking for 5 days at $35 a day.  “Oh, no. You can pay ME half that and I’ll drop you off Tuesday and pick you up on Sunday!” Yeah, right. I’ll... 

date7 Feb
comments6 Replies
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Risk

I did taxes yesterday. I love the online programs for them. Sure I used to have a tax preparer’s license but I love doing them online. They ask you all the questions and you click yes or no or continue. Sometimes you fill out a box or two.  They import your data from last year’s return and it’s just too easy. You can practically do it in your sleep. When you have a business like I do (author=business) you get to answer a whole slew of different questions. I always like the one where it asks you if all or part of your business is at risk. Uhhh. DUH. YES. Always YES. See, that... 

date24 Jan
comments2 Replies
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Lush

Lately, I’ve not been able to produce too many words on my WIPs (work in progress.) Just too tired. Life at home and at work has just been frenetic. And I’m on my annual sabbatical from the horse racing sim too! I typically don’t race in December and January.  So you’d think I have a little more time than usual, but oh no. It is true that I’ve been watching some TV. Hard to resist concerts in high def and Rott is loving the Palladia channel.  The Foo Fighters concert at Wembley was amazing in high def. I was totally enchanted and spending time watching the new TV... 

date17 Jan
comments1 Reply
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Sparkles

Oooh, sparkly. That would be me. I wore sequins to the company Christmas party. A sequined top and sequined ballet flats. My shrug sweater had silver threads. I sparkled. Funny how sparkles can make you look a whole lot more interesting than regular clothes. It’s probably why that Meyer woman decided to make her vampires sparkle. They are a whole lot more interesting – in a WTF kind of way mostly – because they sparkle. A lot of people complimented me, so I suppose I looked a lot more interesting wearing sequins than I do in an Eddie Bauer sweater.  Either that or they all thought... 

date13 Dec
commentsComments Off
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Hairy Grannies

What’s the deal? Have you looked at the spam on your blog lately? Mine is filled with ads for photos of hairy grannies. That has to be the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard. I mean, I know there is every kind of fetish imaginable out there and hundreds of thousands of websites that will indulge those fetishes despite how extreme they may be. But c’mon. Hairy grannies? Who gets off on looking at hairy grannies? And just exactly what IS a hairy granny? I’m starting to think maybe I just don’t want to know. It’s gotta be something bad. Like gross bad. Like pervert... 

date6 Dec
comments5 Replies
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Big TV

Well, Rott did it. He bought a big TV Saturday. He’s been talking about it forever, drooling over the LCDs, high def, and 3D stuff. On Friday, I caught him measuring the wall across from the couch. He said, “Sixty five inches is pretty big.” He holds up the tape measure, extending it across the wall above the TV wall unit. I think my eyes bugged. He pays no attention to my eyes, of course. He’s considering that wall and what it will look like with 65-inches of flat panel TV on it.  So I tell him, “I’m sixty five inches tall.” He stares at me momentarily... 

date29 Nov
comments8 Replies
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