Lynn Michaels's Blog, page 3

No Fooling!

An appropriate title for April first, don't you think?

In the spirit of the day here's a headline that cracked me up:

"SFWA SUES INDIVIDUALS, CORPORATIONS, NATIONS AND GOD FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT"

SFWA is the Science Fiction Writers of America. Read the entire spoof here. It's hilarious.

In other, this is not a joke news, on Monday I did an interview with David Wisehart at his Kindle Author Blog. This is a great blog, and great place to keep up with new, cool books available on Kindle.

Here's a fun find I made on the Internet:

The Duke's Downfall, the Regency I originally wrote for Fawcett as Jane Lynson is #604 on the list of "1001 Best Romance Novels" voted by Readers of Romantic Time Magazine. I was tickled pink to discover this.

Thanks to Kindle readers The Duke's Downfall and its prequel, Captain Rakehell, are still in the Top 50 of the Kindle Bestsellers List in Regency Romance.

Romance readers rock. No fooling!

Spring Has Sprung -- Pass the Puffs

The grass is greening, the trees are budding, and I'm sneezing my head off. That's the box of Puffs that sits on my desk.

I still blame Kansas for this. See my post A Funny Thing Happened for why I blame the Sunflower State for my screwed up sinuses.

Last year spring came late, but it hit like a thunderbolt. Temperatures in the high 70's and astronomical pollen counts. I opened the windows and ended up with a yellow dining room table; that's how much pollen was in the air.

My summer was one long misery of sinus infection after sinus infection. Actually, I think it was just one infection that never cleared up, but what do I know? I'm only a writer.

In August I gave up and went to see the ENT doctor who saved me after my disastrous run-in with Kansas.

He told me I have a deviated septum, a crooked sinus passage on the right side. That was part of the problem. He also suspected that I'd developed an allergy to something. He prescribed a sinus spray that finally gave me relief. When the first hard freeze killed everything outside my symptoms vanished, almost as quickly as flipping a light switch.

I could breathe and I was happy -- until mid-February of this year when the trees started to wake up and my symptoms returned. Stuffy nose and cough due to post-nasal drip. Remember the TV commercial with the big, sniffling red-tipped nose walking around on little stick legs? That was me.

I learned my lesson last year so I went straight to the ENT doctor. He put me on a 6-day course of steroids to calm the symptoms and suggested 10-mg. Zyrtec.

Knowing zip about allergy medications, I took myself to our neighborhood pharmacy. I bought a package of 10-mg. Zyrtec-D. The clerk had to scan my driver's license and I had to sign a statement on the electronic pad promising that I wouldn't abuse the product. I said to the clerk, "Like this is going to stop anybody who wants to make meth."

Anyway. The Zyrtec-D dried up my nose, my eyes, my skin, my throat and my mouth. I drank tons of water plus two 20-ounce bottles of Gatorade's low cal G-2 every day and still didn't have enough saliva to swallow. I tried Allergra next, but it upset my stomach.

This was not going well.

At the grocery store a couple days later I discovered 10-mg. over the counter Zyrtec, sans the decongestant, and bought that without fear of being arrested for running a meth lab in the basement. I took one before I went to bed that night and fell into a 13-hour coma.

When the fog lifted -- as John Denver used to say, "Take a trip and never leave the farm" -- I examined the tablets and saw that they're scored, which means it's okay to cut them in half.

I gave myself a head slap and cut the tabs in two. That's a 5-mg. dose instead of 10. I take half at night, the other half after lunch, and now I can stay awake to write. Yes, I'm writing a new book. Two, actually. I'll tell you about them later. (That's what writers call foreshadowing.)

To my fellow allergy sufferers: If we pool our funds maybe we can buy a few shares of stock in Proctor & Gamble, the company the manufactures Puffs. I believe it's in our best interests to keep these folks in business.

Daily Cheap Reads

I love this site. If you own a Kindle, you will, too.

Here's a snippet of their mission statement:

"Every day, we list cheap reads available for your Kindle e-reader through Amazon. We guarantee no book will ever be priced over $5. At least once a day we post a SuperCheap read for less than $2. We also post FREE books as soon as they become available. The only thing better than cheap is free."

This month Daily Cheap Reads is featuring backlist titles that are available on Kindle. Tomorrow, Monday February 7, Daily Cheap Reads is giving three of my books a mention in their 10 AM post. Click on the link to see which three.

Okay. End of shameless plug -- now back to Daily Cheap Reads.

This is the best site I've found for discovering books that I'd likely miss if I were surfing Amazon on my own. I mean, really, who has that kind of time? I don't know where the good folks at Daily Cheap Reads find the time, but I'm glad and grateful that they do.

The site is devoted solely to Kindle books. It's attractive, easy to read, straightforward and a breeze to navigate.

Follow the link above and bookmark Daily Cheap Reads. You can also follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

You'll be glad you did. I am.

A Funny Thing Happened

One of the nicest things I get to do as a published author is travel. Mostly to writers conferences where I get to see my writer friends.

The Boston Romance Writers of America conference was just weird. The hotel was very old, and I swear it was haunted. There were two fire alarms late at night. During the second one I smelled smoke. Or was it sulfur?

I flew to Denver for another RWA Conference, but drove home to Kansas City with a friend. An eight-hour, seven hundred and fifty mile drive across Kansas in July.

First, it was hotter than blazes. Second, my sinuses went nuts. We were rained on, and I mean rained. I kept looking for Noah and the Ark. Instead I saw a tornado drawing a bead on I-70. Thankfully, it dissipated. The rain ended, we were back in the inferno, it rained again, then dumped us back into the blast furnace.

Last we drove through a brush fire. By the time we got home I couldn't breathe or hear. When I told my husband Michael about the trip he said, "What? No plague or pestilence?"

I've had trouble with my sinuses and my right ear ever since. I blame Kansas. Don't drive to Denver. Fly, both ways. Trust me.

The most fun RWA conference I attended was in Hawaii in 1995. My fourth Harlequin Temptation, Aftershock, was nominated for a RITA, the Oscar of romance writing. I wanted to be there in case I won. I didn't, but I had a wonderful time in Hawaii.

On the shuttle bus from the airport to the hotel, I saw Diamond Head. The driver said it was open to the public and you could climb all the way to the top. That's all I needed to hear. I live in Missouri. When would I ever get another chance to climb a volcano?

My friend and fellow author Linda Randall Wisdom, is as nuts as I am. She agreed to go with me. What's left of the cone in only 761 feet high. Piece of cake, we figured. That's Linda and I in the photo on the left.

We went on the bus early one morning, got off at the wrong stop and ended up walking halfway to Diamond Head. All uphill. We finally got there and followed the road that's cut through the side of the mountain into the crater, which is so huge it looks like another country. That should have been our first clue.

Initially, the hike wasn't bad. The path was nice and wide and paved, but the higher we climbed, the narrower and rockier the path became, and the iron railing enclosing it kept getting taller. On our of our stops to breathe and drink water, we saw a sign warning tourists not to leave the trail. Several had in the past year and died. That gave us pause, but we were determined. And stupid. Did I mention that?

On we climbed, huffing and puffing, our calf muscles burning and our knees turning to Jell-O. We were almost there, almost to the summit we thought, when we came to The Stairway to Ben-Gay. So steep we couldn't see the breaks between the steps, let alone the top.

"We can do this," Linda said, hooking her arm through mine. "Just pretend there's a shoe sale up there."

What a pal. And that's how we made it. All the way up those God-awful stairs, through the tunnel beyond and up a flight of spiral iron steps to the top of Diamond Head. That's me in the photo on the right, trying to look nonchalant while leaning on the rail to keep from falling on my face with exhaustion.

From that vantage point, we realized how close we were to the stinking volcano from our hotel. Close enough to spit and hit it, if only we'd followed the beach. We did on the way back. Took off our shoes and strolled back to the hotel along the sand in less than half the time it took us to get there on the bus. I brought home a t-shirt that says on the front: I CLIMBED DIAMOND HEAD AND LIVED.

On the back it says: After 299 Steps, Dark Tunnel, Spiral Staicase (Yes, it's misspelled. Misspellings haunt me) No Lights, No Water, You Better Believe...I EARNED THIS T-SHIRT.

I still have the shirt, and I still wear it proudly. I get a lot of comments in the grocery store.

What Sells A Book?

It may surprise you, but no one knows. That may be the biggest secret in publishing. Well, not anymore because I just told you. Anyway, editors, publishers, executive editors, agents and the gurus in the marketing department don't have a clue what compels readers to buy a book.

Is it the cover? That's the starting point, an attractive, eye-catching cover will, editors and art directors hope, prompt readers to pick the book up in Barnes & Noble and Borders.

That's why once upon a time, hand selling was so important. At Waldenbooks (which is no more, alas) leading the customer to the section and placing the book in his or her hand was the #1 duty of every clerk. I know because I used to work at Waldenbooks. Best job I ever had -- I loved it! 'Course I spent most of my paycheck on books.

I told you in my "Favorite Books" post how awful the original covers were for The Patriot and Aftershock. To prove I'm not exaggerating I'm showing them to you above. As the old saying goes a picture is worth a thousand words.

In fairness to publishers, and Harlequin in particular with all their category lines, the art department has to crank out a lot of covers every month. That's a ton of work. Every cover can't be a masterpiece, and Harlequin did give me two splendid covers, for Second Sight and Nightwing.

I pulled the covers of The Patriot and Aftershock off the Internet so they're on the small side. If you look closely at the cover of The Patriot you'll see that my name is misspelled, Lynne Michaels instead of Lynn Michaels. This is the only book that Lynne with an e Michaels ever wrote. If readers sailed into Waldenbooks or Barnes & Noble in 1992 and asked if The Patriot by Lynn Michaels was in stock they were told no. The editorial department at Temptation felt so bad about the screw up that they sent me flowers.

When I received the cover flat for The Patriot I called my editor and said, "I'm pretty sure I never said in the book that Quade (the hero) has ears like jugs."

At the next RWA National Conference, Harlequin gifted me with a 24 x 18 poster of The Patriot mounted on foam board. They shouldn't have, really, but I schlepped it home and stood in on the floor against the bookcases in my office. Every time my husband Michael walked by he turned the poster face to the wall. He called it the Ugly Man cover.

Print published authors have no control over covers. We get what we get, and we're stuck with it. That's one thing I love about e-books. I get to create the cover.

It took me a while to figure out what the Harlequin art department was going for with the cover of Aftershock. Here's a sentence from the back cover blurb: "Rockie Wexler's father had created a device that would predict earthquakes. Unfortunately, it could also cause them, and now both Dr. Addison Wexler and the machine had disappeared."

I think all the rocks and cracks in the background are supposed to represent earthquake fissures. I think. What's your guess?

Wow! I Made Two Bestseller Lists!

My two Regency romances are on the Kindle Bestsellers in Regency Romance List, and the Kindle Bestseller in Regency Historical Romances List!

The Duke's Downfall is #3 on the Regency Romance List, #4 on the Regency Historical List. Captain Rakehell is #6 on both lists! Look fast -- these lists update several times a day.

Thank you, Kindle readers! With all my heart, thank you!

I'm amazed and excited. Amazed because I wrote these books 20 years ago. Excited because it means there's still a market for short Regency romances. New York publishers gave up on them years ago, because they thought the readership was too small. Obviously Kindle readers disagree.

In the early 90's when I wrote Captain Rakehell and and The Duke's Downfall, Fawcett, Signet, Avon and Kensington (if memory serves) all published 4 to 6 short Regencies every month. These short novels were less than 60,000 words. I call them category romances for the ton; that's a Regency term for the British aristocracy.

I love the Regency period, and I love Regency romances. I've read zillions of them. Everyone who loves Regencies loves Georgette Heyer. My second favorite Regency author is Marion Chesney. My favorite of all her books is Deirdre and Desire.

I wrote Captain Rakehell first about Lord Lesley Earnshaw. The Duke's Downfall is the sequel about Lesley's older brother, Charles, the Duke of Braxton. I'd planned to write a third book about Charles and Lesley's youngest brother, Teddy, and then New York decided to throw in the towel on Regency romances.

That was then, and this is now so sometime this year I'll write that third book about Teddy. The title is The Terror of the Ton, which describes Teddy perfectly. I can't wait to get started!

Thanks again, Kindle readers! You're the best!

And thanks to the very talented Pati Nagle for the great covers.

Favorite Books

One of the toughest questions for an author to answer is "Of all the books you've written which one is your favorite?" I've been known to go totally blank when asked that, but I'll usually say, "All of them." I don't mean that to sound pat or off hand, it's simply the truth.

If you asked me "Which one of your books did you enjoy writing the most?" two that come instantly to mind are The Patriot and Aftershock. I had more fun writing those books than a person alone in a room with a computer should be allowed to have. I'm glad there are no laws against that.

The bad guy in both stories is a mercenary named Conan. That's not his real name -- no one knows his real name, not even Interpol -- that's just what he's called because he resembles Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was only a movie actor when I wrote the books. Conan makes his first appearance in The Patriot and returns in Aftershock.

Like the Terminator, another of Arnold's iconic characters, thanks to the boom in e-readers like Kindle and Nook, The Patriot and Aftershock are baa-aack -- and so in Conan -- this time as e-books.

Preserving books is the coolest thing about e-publishing. A book never goes out of print; there's no spine to crack and drop pages, and you can't lose it or leave it in the dentist's office.

For authors, especially category romance authors (The Patriot and Aftershock were first published by Harlequin Temptation) this is a huge thrill. Why? Because the average shelf life of a category romance is three weeks. A book that took me 6 to 9 months to write has a sales window of 21 days and then, pffft -- it's gone, outta there, pulled off the shelf to make room for the next month's titles. That's heartbreaking for authors, and frustrating for readers who really wanted the book but somehow missed it. I know because I've been one of those readers.

Bookstores don't return whole copies of mass market paperbacks. They strip the covers and return those to the publisher for credit. The rest of the book is tossed in a dumpster. It boggles the mind when you think how many trees died only to end up in a landfill.

And speaking of covers, whoever said you can't tell a book by its cover must have seen the original covers of The Patriot and Aftershock.

The Patriot had the worst cover ever, my editor even said so. Aftershock wasn't much better, but it was nominated for a RITA award, the Oscar of romance writing. Authors have no control over covers. We get what we get, and we all hold our breath waiting to see what the art department comes up with.

My good friend Judy Johnson, a very talented artist, created the e-book covers for The Patriot and Aftershock that I'm sharing with you here. I love them!

If you like suspense and adventure with your romance then The Patriot and Aftershock are your kind of books. I hope you'll enjoy them, but there's no rush. They'll be waiting for you on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, as they say in fairy tales forever and a day.

E-books are a win for authors and a win for readers. Hallelujah! Can I have an amen?

Excerpt from The Cat Before Christmas

Here's the excerpt I promised from The Cat Before Christmas:

All week long Wiki hunted the spider. He knew its scent, dry and desiccated like a cicada casing, faintly ashy from hanging out in the flue. He searched, he stalked; he lay in wait still as a statue for hours near the fireplace, by the dining room window where he picked up the spider's scent Wednesday afternoon.

Friday morning a hastily spun web caught his right ear as he shook his paws stepping out of his litter box in the back hall. He whirled, ready to pounce, and heard only an echo of eight eyes' laughter coming from -- the sun porch!

The door to the sun porch had a glass top half. The tallest thing in the hallway was the old microwave cart Cary parked outside the kitchen. An ivy plant in a blue ceramic teacup sat on the top of the cart. It was a tight space, but if he gauged it just right…

Wiki dug his back claws into the braided rug in front of his box and vaulted onto the cart. He turned carefully to avoid knocking the plant onto the floor and saw the spider swinging by a thread of silk from the ceiling in the sun porch.

How did you get out there? Wiki growled.

Wouldn't you like to know, furball?

Little chilly out there for the likes of you, isn't it?

I find it bracing.

The furnace cycled. The blower came on, and warm air fluttered up from the wall vents in the hallway. From the vents Cary kept open all winter on the sun porch, too, stirring the silk suspending eight eyes on the other side of the window.

"I've got the world on a string," the spider sang, his voice raspy enough to pass for Frank Sinatra past his prime.

Wiki hissed. If I promise not to eat you will stop singing?

Eight eyes started on the second verse. Wiki raced into the bedroom. He snagged the spread with his claws, tugged it down and stuck his head under Cary's pillow to drown out the spider's voice.

He was still there when she came home from school, happy and humming because it was Friday and she was going to a movie tonight with Tina. Wiki had heard them making plans on the phone last night.

"I had a hypothetical, what would you think if I went skiing for Christmas chat with mom today," Cary had told Tina. "Her face almost hit the floor, but I planted a seed for next Christmas. If you and Pam want to take another ski trip then I can go."

Ski trip? Wiki had pricked his ears. What ski trip?

Cary sat with her ankles crossed on the window seat in the dining room talking to Tina on the cordless phone. Wiki sat on the floor pretending to clean his ears. His hearing was sharp enough to pick up Tina's reply.

"Awesome," she'd said. "For next year we're thinking about a weeklong Caribbean cruise. You'll have the time off from school, and Pam and I can save up our vacation days."

"Oooh," Cary sighed. Wiki sat close enough that he could feel the thrill of gooseflesh that shot through her. "I'd love that."

Wiki stared at Cary. Was she crazy? She wasn't going anywhere at Christmas! Thank the catnip gods for Lorraine. She'd put the kibosh on the ski trip. He could take care of the cruise.

That's what starts all the trouble for Wiki, the cat who loves Christmas, and launches his plan to keep Cary from going skiing. To paraphrase the Scottish poet Robert Burns, the best laid plans of mice and men -- or in this case cats -- often go askew.

I hope you'll enjoy reading The Cat Before Christmas as much as I enjoyed writing it.

And remember: From now until January 31, 2011, I'm donating 15% of all proceeds to Wayside Waifs and The Humane Society of Kansas City.

Happy day after Christmas!

The Real Cat Before Christmas

Yes, he's real, and he's now a member of our family. He's not Siamese like Wiki in The Cat Before Christmas, he's just a cat, a big gray grown-up boy. He showed up the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

A few days before the idea for The Cat Before Christmas hit me like a lightning bolt. I hadn't given a single thought to writing anything but a grocery list in four years. Interestingly, that's what I was doing when the idea struck -- making a grocery list for Thanksgiving dinner.

That Saturday our youngest son Paul and I took the list to the grocery store and did the shopping. When we pulled into the driveway the cat appeared, a big, beautiful gray cat with green eyes and a shiny, groomed coat. He wasn't a stray; he was healthy and well cared for. We assumed he was just strolling by and stopped to say hello.

But he kept hanging around. I'd see him when I went out to get the mail. On Mondays and Wednesdays when I met our grandson Zachery at the school bus the cat was also there to meet Zack. Zack loves cats. So do I. Cats know who loves them and who doesn't.

The cat wasn't obnoxious or pushy. He sat politely, looking up at Zack and me with his big green eyes. He followed us to the front door. Each time I saw him he looked thinner and rougher. This went on for two weeks. I was starting to worry. Where was his family? Why was he now, obviously, homeless? What had happened?

I checked the online lost and found notices, the bulletin boards in the grocery stores -- no gray cat with green eyes lost in our neighborhood. I was really worried about him now -- and the big coyote that sleeps in our backyard on sunny days.

When we lost the last two of our three cats, The Little Queens, Michael and I swore off cats, but this guy's plight was driving me crazy. I talked to Michael. "If you want to let him in the house, go ahead," he said. "But just one cat."

The next day was Wednesday. I was prepared. I had cat food and a cat box ready. When Zack got off the bus, there was the cat. He followed us home. Zack petted him while I filled bowls with water and food. I fed the cat and I petted him.

I went in the house and came outside a few minutes later and petted him some more. I did this three times. The fourth time I simply opened the door. He looked up at me with his big green eyes, meowed and stepped delicately into the living room.

Michael named him Smokey because he's like a puff of smoke; one minute he's not there and the next he is. Michael also calls him Senor Smoke (after the Minnesota Twins pitcher Juan Berenguer) because he's not a kid -- he's a grown-up. Zack calls him Gray Stripe. I call him Smoke.

He has impeccable manners. He has all his claws, but he doesn't use them. He's very careful if he jumps in your lap, and he hasn't scratched one thing in my house. He goes outside, but he always comes back. He loves to be brushed. He puts his chin on my shoulder and purrs when I pick him up.

Life imitates art so be careful what you write about. I wrote about a cat, and now I have one. And I'm glad.

A New Book -- At Last!

Just in time for Christmas, barely in time for Christmas, The Cat Before Christmas is available on Amazon Kindle!

I'm so excited about this I can hardly stand it. This is the first thing I've written in 4 years, since my husband Michael won his battle with RA; it's the first sweet romance I've ever written, and it's my first published straight to e-book novella.

If that's not enough firsts for you here's a couple more. This is the first Christmas story I've written, and the first time I've written a story with a cat as one of the main characters.

I love cats so giving Wiki, the Siamese cat of the title a point of view was great fun for me. I love cats so much, and dogs, too, that from now until January 31, 2011 I'm donating 15% of the proceeds from The Cat Before Christmas to the Kansas City Humane Society and Wayside Waifs, two no-kill shelters in the Kansas City metro area.

My good friend and very talented artist Judy Johnson designed the cover. Here's a link to the book in the Amazon Kindle store, and here is the blurb:

Wiki the cat loves Christmas. Batting the ornaments, basking in the blinking lights -- he even helps choose the Christmas tree each year!

But this year there's trouble in Wiki's yuletide paradise when his mistress Cary decides to go skiing in Colorado instead of staying snug at home with him in Kansas City, Missouri.

To derail her plans, Wiki escapes to the Christmas tree lot where he's sure Cary will find him. He doesn't count on a blizzard or a huge German shepherd with a handsome and stubborn master named Ben. All three conspire to trap Wiki on the lot. For his own good, of course.

Cary is frantic, searching everywhere for Wiki -- everywhere except the Christmas tree lot where Wiki waits to be saved, and Zeus' master waits to sweep Cary off her feet. Can Wiki escape and get home to Cary in time to save Christmas?

That's the big news for now. Tomorrow I'll post a short blurb from the book and tell you a little bit more about the story. Promise! The post is already written.