JAMAICA LAYNE AND RAVENOUS ROMANCE ON NATIONAL TELEVISION!!!!!

Okay, folks, here's the news you've all been waiting for. Jamaica Layne and the authors of Ravenous Romance are hitting the airwaves of NATIONAL TELEVISION tomorrow, September 14, 2009!

Ravenous Romance has partnered with HSN , a home-shopping channel that averages 90 million daily viewers, to present "Escape To Romance," an exclusive collection of 18 romance novels, grouped into three categories----Contemporary, Historical, and Paranormal. I've got titles in the Historical and Contemporary groups----The Mercenary Bride and a "PG-13" version of my medical-romance novel Vital Signs.

The "Escape to Romance" segment airs tomorrow, September 14, 2009. See below for airtimes, and check your local listings for the exact channel location. HSN is available on all basic cable services, and is also broadcast free over the air in many areas. Even if you can't tune in, you can order the collections RIGHT NOW at HSN.com---here's a link. It's very likely this could become a regular ongoing segment on the network.

Airtimes: Monday, September 14, 2009 at 8:35 AM (7:35 am Central), 4:35 PM (3:35 pm Central) and Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 3:00 AM (2:00 am Central). Note: This is LIVE TV broadcast from the East Coast, so if you're out on the West Coast check HSN.com for local airtimes.

A full press release is available at the Ravenous Romance blog.

Romance novels on national television! Who'd have thunk it?

Tomorrow will be a very important day for the publishing industry---maybe even a game-changer.

Peace.

Thoughts For The Day

Here's a few quotes and platitudes in light of some recent events:

----Pressure creates diamonds. And diamonds are indestructible. Charcoal leaves a brief dark mark, then falls apart.

----Be kind to others on your way to the top. You'll meet them on your way back down.

-----"Small people will criticize, naysay, and tell you you can't do it. The truly great will encourage, support, and help you become great alongside themselves." ---attributed to Mark Twain

----Oceans form one drop at a time.

----Quitters quit, doers do.

----Little pitchers have big ears.

-----Sometimes the nerdy new kid that nobody likes grows up to be Bill Gates.

Stay tuned for a news release posted here this coming Sunday that will be a very, very big deal. (Hint: National television is involved.)

Peace.

On Manners, Professionalism, and Karma

I don't blog about the publishing industry at large on here much, since my blogs are mostly focused on my own writing life. And I've learned the hard way not to get sucked in to online flame wars. But I just couldn't resist commenting on the Quartet Press debacle.

Those of you who follow my writing career know that I write for Ravenous Romance, a relatively new epress that was founded by several people with literally decades of experience in traditional NYC print publishing (my venerable literary agent Lori Perkins among them). The relatively new world of epublishing has never mixed well with the old-school, big-time NYC print publishing industry (most of the people who run independent epublishers started those epublishers with no prior publishing experience of any kind)----indeed, it's been kind of a "Wild West" for many years. So when Ravenous was founded in late 2007, it created quite a stir in the very tiny epublishing community, mostly due to the fact that Ravenous had big-time print publishing connections and business experience---and wasn't afraid to show it.

The relatively small, close-knit (and dare I say, snarky and emotionally immature) epublishing blogosphere pounced on Ravenous and its authors, claws drawn. The attacks, flame wars---even out-and-out harrassment---of Ravenous Romance's staff and authors by a small group of epublishing bloggers and (mostly) unpublished authors was like something out of Dante. It was like the meanest sorority-girl-slash-junior-high-school prank turned into an online horror movie. Worst of all, even some editors and staffers at some of Ravenous' competitors got in on the "fun," in appalling public acts of unprofessionalism. One blogger in particular (who shall remain nameless here) became a ringleader of sorts, dragging on the vicious mean-girl hazing (I can think of no better term for it) for several months.

And today, lo and behold, Quartet Press, which had been praised and cheerleaded to the high heavens for months by the very same bloggers that had viciously derided Ravenous Romance and its authors (not to mention had hired one of the aforementioned editors who had joined in the hazing, and had even publicly announced it would publish the ringleader blogger's debut novel) collapsed and shut down today before it published a single book.

Meanwhile, Ravenous Romance (and its authors, myself included) is going strong, has just signed an 18-book print deal in partnership with major media, and will be making a MAJOR national media splash on September 14 (stay tuned).

Poetic justice, perhaps? Karma? Something else?

I'll leave that for you to decide.

Edited 9/11/09 to add: The above-referenced blogger has categorically denied having a book deal with the defunct publisher, despite making prior Twitter posts, comments, etc. to the contrary (which may have been a practical joke on her part, who knows). Whatever the truth is, it seems there may be a gag order in place on the publisher participants, so it seems we'll never know. In any case, there was certainly a strong relationship of some kind, financial or otherwise, between the above-referenced blogger and Quartet Press' staff, which likely contributed to the chummy PR relationship between the two.

Moral of the story: Don't believe hype without actual dollars and results behind it, no matter who is dishing it out.

Peace.

The Wee Small Hours of the Morning

I've never been much of a night person. I'm not really a morning person either. I've always been more of a middle-of-the day person. Or perhaps just a stick-to-a-regular-schedule person. I'm definitely an eight-hours-of-sleep-a-night person. None of which bode well for being a writer/mom.

Anyone who has small children can tell you that you absolutely, positively cannot get anything productive done at the same time you are watching/feeding/bathing/otherwise taking care of said children. Which basically leaves you no time to do anything besides Take Care Of Your Kid. Forget about doing (or folding, or ironing) laundry. Forget about cleaning the bathroom. And certainly forget about Writing The Great American Novel---let alone 10 of them, like I've done in the two years since my kid was born.

How did I do it, you may ask? By not sleeping. Ever.

The only time I can get anything productive done is when my kid is sleeping. I reserve my child's morning and midday naptimes (which can range anywhere from fifteen minutes to three hours, totally unpredictable) for doing dishes, checking email, cooking, and other must-do chores. Any real writing (or anything else that requires time and concentration, like paying bills, or reading a book, or doing my taxes) has to be done after my son is in bed for the night. And since getting his needy little toddler self to bed each night has become a long, drawn-out, two-hour chore in and of itself, that means my prime work times are between the hours of 10:30 pm and 3:00 am. Working this late several nights a week is the only way I can meet my contract deadlines, balance my checkbook, or do basically anything else that involves being an adult.

I still have to get up by 6 am every day, mind you. My son still wakes up at 6 am on the dot every day, and does not understand that Mommy Is Still Very, Very Tired. I still have to cook his meals, clean the house, bathe him (and myself) and basically run a 24-7 nursery school every single day on less than 5 hours' sleep. My body runs on a combo of Cheerios and Diet Coke.

Don't let anyone tell you that stay-at-home moms don't actually work. Come spend a day on my schedule sometime. I'll show you work.

Peace.

Microblogging

In today's world of ever-shortening attention spans, it seems that even blogging is beginning to suffer. (Hence, I haven't been posting here as much, as I'm sure you've noticed.) I've gotten away from traditional blogging in favor of microblogging on my Twitter and Facebook pages.

For those of you still living under rocks, Twitter and Facebook allow users to "microblog" via short sentences in their status updates. Twitter even goes so far as to limit how many characters you can use (140). Facebook is more user-friendly, with a lot more features (and a vast improvement over its clunkier, now-passe competitor, Myspace), and real-time updating that is completely addictive.

I've been using my Twitter account mostly to promote my Jamaica Layne-branded writing. I use Facebook the same way, but also take advantage of its other many features to not only promote my writing work and sales business, but also to microblog about my day-to-day life as a stay-at-home-slash-working mother. Being a full-time writer and mom to a rambunctious two-year-old definitely has plenty of not-so-glamorous moments, and I've built up quite a following of friends who wait with baited breath to hear what shenanigans my son has gotten into lately. Here's a sampling of my recent Facebook updates:

"Looked in the mirror today and was stunned at how thin I've gotten. Haven't looked like this since my mid-20s. I highly recommend breastfeeding as a means of weight loss."

"Kiddo hits me, kicks me, bites me, pulls my hair, destroys everything I own, misbehaves wildly, has no respect for "time out." But I love him anyway."

"Add my brand-new trendy wraparound sunglasses to the list of things kiddo broke today. sigh."

"My son's capacity for destruction knows no bounds. He destroys jewelry, calculators, remote controls, toilet seats, carpeting, computer cables, books, and clothes. All in 24 hours."

All this Facebooking and Twittering instead of doing what I really should be doing (like writing, or exercising, or reading a damn book) really makes me wonder. If even novelists get distracted by Facebook (huge time-sucker that it is) what kind of future do novelists really have?

Peace.

THE MERCENARY BRIDE releases today!

My latest novel, THE MERCENARY BRIDE, releases today at Ravenous Romance. This book is a bit of a departure from my usual style----it's a "sweet" (i.e., non-erotic) historical romance set in 12th-century England. Fans of my bestselling book KNIGHT MOVES will find a lot of familiar settings and themes, though, and lovers of traditional historical romance will enjoy it, too. The ebook is out now; the print version will release nationally (details to come, stay tuned!) on September 14.

Here's more info:

The Mercenary Bride:

Synopsis

It’s the year 1101, and England is still reeling from the Norman conquest a generation earlier. Lady Sabina of Angwyld is the eldest daughter of the Duke of Angwyld, a Saxon nobleman with estates near the Welsh border. The Norman invaders want to take the Duke’s land and title by force, and the only hope the he has for saving Angwyld is to marry his eldest daughter off to a ruthless, evil Norman nobleman, Lord Reginald de Guillaume. Sabina will have none of it, however. She thinks her only alternative is to take the veil and enter a convent. So she runs away.

Sabina is fleeing Angwyld on horseback on her way to the Abbey at Glastonbury when she meets Robert de Tyre, a swashbuckling Norman mercenary who serves as a cavalry officer in Lord Reginald’s army. Though Robert de Tyre has been sent by Lord Reginald to capture his intended bride and bring her back in time for her forced marriage, the sparks soon fly between them, and their worlds are turned upside down. Will Sabina overcome her hatred for all things Norman as her romantic feelings for Robert grow? And can Robert protect Sabina from the pursuing armies of his ruthless, jealous employer and make her his own? Only time will tell...

I'm in WRITERS DIGEST!

Some of you might recall last year when I (or rather, when my non-sexy, boring alter ego Jill Elaine Hughes) had to go through the rather unpleasant process of firing a literary agent. It's never a pleasant task, but it's something most writers have to do at some point in their careers. Firing an agent can be especially terrifying because industry etiquette requires that you fire your current agent before seeking a new one----and there's no guarantee you'll find another agent willing to represent you, either!

Fortunately for me, the process was a relatively easy one because I understood the importance of crafting a very graceful and carefully worded query letter that explained why I was seeking new representation. That query letter landed me a new agent less than a week after firing the old one. And this month's issue of Writers Digest magazine thought enough of it to do a special online feature on that very letter, along with commentary from the new agent I landed, the legendary Lori Perkins of the L. Perkins Agency.

Here's a link to the WD article. Enjoy!