Josh Lanyon's Blog, page 86

And Da Winnah Is

Karan with this entry:


It was quite a bit harder to choose this time, despite the fact that there were fewer entries. I think maybe because a lot of you know me or know my work enough to have a feel for what I like.
But in any case it finally came down to a handful of covers, and to be honest I could have gone happily with any one of them. They were all excellent.
I don't know if it was conscious on Karan's part or not, but she got me with that feel of heat and sundazzled water. I am partial to swimming pools, as some of you know. The bare and beautiful male body will sell books and I really liked the colors -- I don't have a lot of blue covers currently, so...in other words it was partly logic and partly that instinctive, gut response that defies explanation.
Congratulations, Karan!
I want to say how really appreciative I am of each and every one of these submissions. I'm always startled and touched by how really generous you are all with your time and your creativity -- and your patience with all my goofy ideas.
As a way of saying thank you, I'll be very happy to a supply a copy of the new edition of the book to each person who submitted a cover to the contest -- I'll keep you posted on the release date.
Meantime, if Karan could drop me a line so we can get moving, I'd appreciate it!

Cards on the Table Cover Contest

As most of you know I'm currently in the process of taking back many of my titles as the rights come up for renewal with various publishers. It's nothing personal, it's just that the publishing industry has changed so much in the past 18 months that it makes sense to retain control of my work. It's a financial decision, plain and simple. I don't want to kill myself trying to make a living at my writing, and I can make more money, and also in some cases keep the cost down for readers, if I eliminate the middleman.

Anyway, as the rights to these books revert to me, I'm having the stories copyedited once more, reformatted, and then converted. The titles will appear on Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook, All Romance Ebooks and the Smashwords site (which offers pretty much every format you could require).

Obviously, I'm learning as I go -- I never planned on being my own publisher -- but so far so good. I love the new covers on my reverted titles. The wonderfully talented LC Chase is doing a lot of the new art (including the Dangerous Ground series), much in demand Lex Valentine at Winterheart Designs   did the well-received cover for Until We Meet Again, and the enigmatic and brilliant Kanaxa is redoing the Adrien English series. It's so good to finally have control of the cover art for my work, I can't even tell you.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to do another cover art contest for Cards on the Table, which reverts back to me this month. (The last one I did was for In a Dark Wood, and the winner was LC Chase, which according to LC started her off a whole second career as a cover artist!)

So we'll do the same deal here. I'm offering $50 in prize money to the winning artist along with cover credit and a good bit of exposure and promotion.

Here's the technical stuff:

Please provide a Jpeg with the following Dimensions:
• Image dimensions of at least 500 by 800 pixels.
• A maximum of 2000 pixels on the longest side is preferred
• Ideal height/width ratio of 1.6
• Save at 72 dots per inch (dpi) for optimal viewing on the web

Color
Product images display on the Amazon website using RGB (red, green, blue) color mode. RGB is the color mode native to the web and many color screen displays, as these three colors displayed at varying levels of intensity create over 16 million colors.

Use color images whenever possible and relevant. The Kindle reading device has a black and white screen today but Kindle applications for other devices, such as iPhone or PC, take advantage of color fonts and images.

Borders for White Cover Art
Cover art with white or very light backgrounds can seem to disappear against the white background. Adding a very narrow (3-4 pixel) border in medium gray will define the boundaries of the cover.

If you haven't read the story, you can see an excerpt on my website. A reporter tries to solve a decades old mystery with the help of his ex-lover cop. Possible artistic elements include the murder of a 1950s starlet, tarot cards, astrology, palm trees and Old Hollywood.

The way it works is you do up a cover and submit the link in the comment section below. You can submit as many covers as you like. Just remember that the cover needs to look good thumbnail sized as well as full size.

The contest will end on the 20th so I can pick that weekend and then send it off to my faithful Virtual Assistant for conversion. Feel free to ask any questions below!

Fingers crossed that we receive even half as many wonderful entries as we did last time. Good luck!

The Lone Star Book Trailer

Thank you for making Lone Star the #1 Bestselling title in Gay and Gay & Lesbian fiction on Amazon Kindle this week. I'm so pleased you're enjoying this little holiday story about second chances.

The Pirate King is Free!

Well, for 48 hours. Death of a Pirate King -- check out the beeeouutiful new cover by the gifted Kanaxa -- is free for 48 hours at All Romance Ebooks.

Buy it now, because come Wednesday, that ship will have sailed.

And don't miss the interview with Jake and Adrien at Jessewave's tomorrow, December 20th.

And To All a Good Night!

It's time to bring the holly jolly Men Under the Mistletoe mini blog tour to an end. I want to take this  opportunity to thank Harper, KA and Ava for making this a very special holiday season. It's been my pleasure to take part in two of these anthologies, and each one has been a delight. It's kind of a new holiday tradition!

I also want to thank you, our readers, for playing along with our reindeer games and, of course, buying the book!

On behalf of Ava, K.A., Harper and myself, I hope that your holiday season is filled with love and laughter -- and that the New Year finds you happy and healthy!

K.A. put it so beautifully:

Every year, one of my blog posts falls on the day before Thanksgiving. Every year, I can't think of anything I'm more grateful for than my readers. At this time of year when custom asks us to consider our blessings over the year, make resolutions for the year to come, and honor those important to us with gifts, I can think of nothing that makes me feel more blessed as a writer than the honor of having wonderful readers. I promise to continue to write the best books that are in me, always striving to improve. I'm sure between now and the end of the month, one of my previous couples will be filling my brain with a what-we're-doing-for-the-holidays kind of story, and I'd love to slip that in your stocking as a free short.(Hmm. Some of my characters in a stocking. What a delightful image.) I'll post it on lj or on my turn on Slash and Burn and send a link here to Josh to post on Just Joshin. Some of my best stories have come from readers asking if a certain character is getting a story, so if any of you have a couple you'd like to hear about celebrating the holidays, please let me know in the comments or drop me an email. My very best wishes that your season and your years to come are merry and bright.
And Harper, always eloquent, added:


KA has said it so brilliantly already that I can only really second her thanks and good wishes to the wonderful readers who have made this year so amazing. I've been writing in the M/M field for a couple of years now and I'm just bowled over by the loyalty, enthusiasm, and sheer niceness of the people who not only buy and read my books but take the time to email me or seek me out on Facebook or talk to me via my Livejournal to tell me they enjoy my writing. I've done my best to respond to every single one of those messages. I appreciate them so much (and if I've missed anybody, please forgive me and give me a nudge!)
 All I can do by way of return is tell you all that your support , both emotional and in terms of sales, is making it possible for me to contemplate edging a little further out of my day job and a little further towards full-time writing, so in future I hope to be able to give you many more of the stories you've been kind enough to tell me you love. I wish all the very best and warmest of festive seasons, wherever you are.
It's been our great pleasure to share the Men Under the Mistletoe release with you. Thank you all very much -- and Happy, Happy Holidays!

Christmas Kisses

Happy Holidays! Today Men Under the Mistletoe releases from Carina Press. The anthology features romantic holiday stories to warm your heart and tingle your toes by Ava March, KA Mitchell, Harper Fox and yours truly.
We're promoting the anthology with a mini blog tour starting right here and right now. Along the way there will be snippets to read and the occasional prezzie to giveaway -- check the bottom of this post for the week's scheduled stops.
Anyway, today's topic is Christmas Kisses. There's something inherently romantic about Christmas, I think, though I'm not exactly sure why that is. It's not romantic in the way Valentine's Day is. The romance of Christmas is tied in with a sense of nostalgia -- that longing for the way things used to be -- for home and family and all good, familiar things. It's the time of year when we finally stop to count our blessings, and it's also the time of year when we almost can't help but evaluate our lives against our childhood dreams.
It can also be a lonely time of year if you're far away from family and friends, and maybe that's part of where that wanting someone special and all our own comes from. Someone to open presents with on Christmas morning and kiss under the mistletoe Christmas night.
Anyway, that's the day's topic. Christmas Kisses. You'll find some tantalizing oscillatory excerpts from the anthology below.
Oh! And today I'm giving away one of the rare print editions of the anthology. To be eligible for the random drawing you must A - Follow the blog (look to the right hand sidebar and follow the directions) and B - leave a comment.


AVA MARCHIn the beginning of My True Love Gave to Me, I tried to capture the intensity of first love. The rush of emotion, the innocence of youth, the all-encompassing need to be together. In Alexander and Thomas's case, it's 1817 and the holiday season, which means a continual press of social and family obligations. Finding time alone with no one else being the wiser is almost impossible. In this excerpt, Alexander arranges some time completely alone with Thomas. It's first time since they've arrived in London from Oxford when they have more than a brief stolen moment together.
A cool draft of air swept into the entrance hall as the butler opened the front door. "Mr. Norton, your carriage."
It was all he could do not to dart out the door. His father's black town carriage stood at the ready at the foot of the stone steps. Another one of their hostess's footmen had the door already open. Rather than immediately enter, he paused to give the direction to the driver then followed Thomas inside, settling on the black leather bench opposite him.
The door snapped shut.
"Why are we going to Drury Lane Theatre?" Thomas asked.
"We aren't." He closed the shade on the window in the narrow door, cloaking the interior in almost full darkness. "I needed to give the driver a direction and it will do as good as any."
The carriage lurched forward.
"But—?"
Alexander pounced on Thomas, cutting off his words.
Knees straddling muscular thighs and with his hands cupping that strong jaw, he pressed his lips to Thomas's. Greedy and impatient, he flicked his tongue against the seam of Thomas's lips.
With a groan, Thomas opened his mouth. A silken tongue brushed his own.
Hot and intense, sensation washed over him, filling his chest, his heart, his soul. A moan shook his throat.
By God, it was only like this with Thomas. No other had ever come close to rousing these feelings within him. Making his pulse pound through his veins and need claw desperately at his throat. This was where he belonged. With Thomas. In the man's arms.

HARPER FOX Harper's tag for this scene from Winter Knights read "A less-than-obviously-romantic Christmas Kiss from Harper – this one takes place in a cave, and isn't even between the book's two main protags." But I think you'll agree that this scene where rescue-worker Arthur desperately tries to calm Gavin down after a rockfall, and one thing leads to another, is anything but unromantic.

He lifted me carefully into his arms. My mouth found his and he pushed me back for a second, then groaned and sought me for himself. I buried my hand in his hair's rough silk. Shuddering, he kissed me, his fingers clenching on the collar of my shirt. He laid usdown on the debris-strewn floor. Dust and small stones were still falling—seeing this by lamplight, I choked in terror, but he hushed me. "No. Look at me. Just look at me."
His clear grey eyes, his smile, were enough to stop the roof from caving in. They would hold up the sky. I imagined him as Orion, or Bootes, the shepherd-god who bore his namesake star Arcturus, stretched out across the starry night, and I seized him.
KA MITCHELL
The first kiss in "The Christmas Proposition" is more about a kiss that they don't share, mirroring the words that neither of them were willing to risk saying during their first time together. It also gives the reader a chance to see how things went down (ahem) the first time Mel and Bryce met.
Mel is a waiter at Skipper's Diner and he's just helped a waitress handle a bunch of rowdy drunks. But as it turned out, one of the men wasn't drunk, and Mel knows him very well.
The bags thudded and clanged as I tossed them up into the dumpster. The air froze the inside of my nose, almost enough to make the smell bearable. I might have been expecting it, but my heart still leapt into my throat when a hard warm body pressed into me, shoving us through the back door, pressing me up against a stack of empty crates from Doyle's Dairy.
The smell of him, sweat and dirt and man, chased away the leftover stench that leaked from even frozen garbage.
The back door banged shut behind us.
"Still fucking cold," he said.
"It's winter." Not my best comeback. I'll warm you up had a lot more charm. But my heart still pounded and the smell of him, the feel of him against me had way too much of that circulation focused on my dick. My brain was suffering oxygen deprivation. At least, that was my story, and I was sticking to it. It had nothing to do with whose body had me pinned against the crates.
The body that was sliding down, the man who, without a word or a kiss hello, was dropping to his knees for me. Why kiss me hello? He hadn't bothered to say good-bye.
I knocked the cap off his head. Even in the dark, his hair gave off those beautiful auburn highlights I remembered from two summers ago.
Bryce reached behind me and untied my apron, letting it drop to the floor before working back around to my fly. His breath flowed hot and damp over my cock.  The instant before those full lips closed around me, I whispered, "Just like the first time, huh?"   JOSH LANYON:
Though Mitch and Web were best friends and boyhood sweethearts, their relationship ended bitterly. They haven't seen each other for nearly a decade and their lives have gone in very different directions. Mitch is on the run from a busted romance but somehow he finds himself falling for Web all over again.

The first kiss was tentative. The second kiss not so much.
They had kissed as boys, but back then the simple pleasure of mouths pressed together and shared breath had been fraught with their own insecurities about who and what they were. Kissing had somehow seemed more gay than the other things they did, and neither of them had been totally comfortable with it.
So it was a surprise to realize how familiar the taste of Web's mouth was. Twelve years ought to make a difference, seeing that it was unlikely Web still lived on chili dogs, Dr Pepper and Goodart's Peanut Patties. But Web still tasted sweet as Mitch parted his lips with a gentle tongue. He closed his eyes, savoring Web's instant, generous response. Yes, they'd both learned a few things over the years. Web's tongue touched his own. It really didn't get a lot more personal than tongues twining in the dark, moist heat of two men's mouths.Mitch broke the kiss with reluctance and one final, teasing lick. The hardness under his caressing hand began to throb more urgently, and he was conscious only of wanting to make this good for Web. The best ever. Maybe he had been a moody, difficult kid, but he had loved Web with all his heart, and if he hadn't taken the time to show it then…
*****
Don't forget to join the blog and comment below for a chance to win a print copy of Men Under the Mistletoe.
The schedule for the rest of the week looks like this:
Ava March on Home for the Holidays -- December 6th
KA Mitchell on Scene and Setting -- December 7th
ALSO ON DECEMBER 7TH we'll be blogging at Carina about what the boys will be doing next year -- and we'll be exchanging cookie recipes. Seriously.
Harper Fox on Dark to Light -- December 8th
And a final Happy Holidays from all of us on December 9th right back here where you started!

Men Under the Mistletoe Scavenger Hunt

Today kicks off promotion for Men Under the Mistletoe, the male male holiday anthology being published through Carina Press the first week of December. This year the stories are by Harper Fox, KA Mitchell, Ava March, and yours truly. I'm hoping you'll enjoy them as much as last year's wonderful offerings.

Anyway, KA was the one who hit on the idea of a scavenger hunt to kick off the promo efforts. The hunt begins today. It's pretty simple.

THE MEN UNDER THE MISTLETOE
SCAVENGER HUNT

Who doesn't need a little something extra in their stocking this time of year?

Come visit the authors of Men Under the Mistletoe and enter to win a $100 gift card to the e-book retailer of your choice. (Hey, you could buy an e-reader for that!) Two entries will also be randomly selected to win a free download of the Men Under the Mistletoe anthology.

In order to play, visit each of our websites and read the excerpt for our holiday releases. Then fill in the entry form with the correct answers to these four questions based on our excerpts. The winners will be randomly selected from the correct answers. All entries must be e-mailed by 11:59 PM EST on December 2.
Good luck and come see what we have waiting for you under the mistletoe.
 
You can start at any of our websites. Here's the link to mine. But from there you're on your own! We have to make it a little challenging, after all.
There's lots more fun to come as we count down to the book's release, so don't touch that dial!

Flying High Interview Questions

I'd mentioned a while back that although I didn't have energy for an Adrien English Christmas story this year, I would probably go ahead and do an interview with Adrien and Jake -- something on the lines of Slippery When Wet.

So, in conjunction with Jessewave Reviews, I'm going to be collecting questions for a few days for the interview that will run the next to last week of December. 
Now, guessing from the number of questions that popped up for Will and Taylor's interview, I think I'd better caution people right now that I probably won't use everything and there will be a lot of consolidating as there was for the earlier AE interviews. I won't be using the same format Wave uses.  
If you have a question for Adrien or Jake, go ahead and put it in the comment section below.

Oh, time, time, time is on my side, yes it is

[image error] One of my reader friends, Emma, sent me a copy of an essay by Maj-Britt Rosenbaum, MD titled Sabbatical. I wish I could find a copy of this article on-line because it's probably the best thing I've read on the topic. Rosenbaum perfectly captures the mix of anticipation and anxiety triggered by the very thought of that much "free" time.
"The private fantasy of uninterrupted time--time to waste, time to pour through my fingers if I want to, time to savor, time to loll in--has a different emotional texture than planned time off. Time extracted from the ongoing stream of schedules, commitments, and responsibilities, always balanced against such counterweights as "Can I afford it?" "Do I deserve it?" "What are my responsibilities?" "Will it be worth it?" and "Dare I, can I actually get away with it?"
All this -- and more -- is constantly churning in the back of my mind as I get closer and closer to the end of the year. Am I really going to do this?
In fact, it's pretty much too late to turn back now. I've steadily (stubbornly?) resisted taking on any commitments for 2012, and now most of my publisher's schedules are filled. If I publish anything next year it will be self-published.
That in itself is exciting. A new direction. A new challenge. A new adventure.
But doubts whisper in my other ear. I've worked hard to reach this point, the point of being able to even consider taking a serious amount of time off. Am I subconsciously sabotaging my success?
 Will I miss my fantasy, so shiny and satisfying, so "unattainable"--an ideal I can wistfully compare to my busy, hectic life? With no future fantasy beckoning in the distance, will I instead look back to these busy days as the more rewarding times, when what I did mattered, when I felt useful, and "good," because I did for others?
How ingrained the work ethic is: to contribute, to excel, to climb the mountain, to use my "gifts" to do, to do, to do--to produce, to accomplish, to succeed.
Oh yes. I feel guilty even contemplating rewarding myself with sabbatical. Especially when everyone I know is busting their butt to make ends meet, to hit their goals, to carve a career out of ice.
Not that I'm choosing a sabbatical as a reward. I'm burnt out. I've been burnt out for nearly two years. But so what? I can still produce. The fact that I've come to dread writing is sort of beside the point, right? Because as long as I can function, it seems like I ought to.
I suppose that's why the decision to go on sabbatical feels increasingly like a reward and not therapy.
All I want is the chance to stand still for a while, to reflect, to feel, to listen more carefully to my own voice. Just to wait and see what bubbles up. One fear is that nothing will "bubble up," that no combustion, no energy will be generated. I fear that only cold wind blows in there--I fear a desert inside.
Yes. Exactly. Worse…right now I can function. I can produce. What if I come back from this break and I've lost the ability to drive myself forward, to work under this kind of pressure? What if it turns out I can't refill the creative well and on top of that, I've lost the discipline to march on without water in my canteen?
What then?
It's a risk. Will readers remember me in a year in a genre where there a couple hundred new titles every month?
I wake up at night thinking are you really going to do this? And yet…and yet…
I prefer to see it as a test run, a chance to find out if I have filled my house with enough life. I prefer to see it as an opportunity to listen to--and to express--my own voice, not the echo of others, not what they want to hear, what they want me to do, but just because, just because.
Maybe it is a mistake. But then, leaving the security of my day job was a risk too, and I've never regretted that decision. Not for one moment. I don't know if this sabbatical will bring equally dramatic results to my life, but I know that for better or worse, I'm going to do it.
And in an odd way, making this decision to leave, grabbing this chance, feels like taking the first step to coming back.

The Mummy Walks

Hopefully onto your Kindle or Kobo or Nook or reading device of your choice.

Yep, Mummy Dearest is live and currently haunting the #1 slot on Amazon's Gay & Gay & Lesbian lists.


Genre: Contemporary, Gay, Holidays Publication Date: 10-04-2011 Length: Novella ISBN: 978-1-60928-536-4 Series: The XOXO Files Price: $3.50
BLURB:The truth is out there. Way, way, way out there!The XOXO Files, Book 1Drew Lawson is racing against the clock. He's got a twenty-four-hour window to authenticate the mummy of Princess Merneith. If he's not at his boyfriend's garden party when that window closes, it'll be the final nail in their relationship coffin.The last thing he needs traipsing on the final shred of his patience is brash, handsome reality show host Fraser Fortune, who's scheduled to film a documentary about the mummy's Halloween curse.The opportunity to film a bona-fide professor examining the mummy is exactly the aura of authenticity Fraser needs. Except the grumpy PhD is a pompous ass on leave from his ivory tower. Yet something about Drew has Fraser using a word he doesn't normally have to draw upon: please.With no time to waste—and a spark of attraction he can't deny—Drew reluctantly agrees to let Fraser follow his every move as he unwraps the mummy's secrets. Soon they're both making moves behind the scenes that even the dead can't ignore… --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Product WarningsWhoso shall ever open this tomb, er, book shall suffer the curse of the Pharaohs. Okay, maybe not. But set aside a chunk of time for marauding mummies, too many cosmopolitans, illicit sex in hotel rooms, and other non-academic shenanigans.
You can purchase through All Romance Ebooks, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Samhain itself...