Jen Doyle's Blog, page 5

Harlequin Junkie Spotlight

Going back through some old links and I thought I’d share one of my favorite memories of the CALLING IT release blitz: being highlighted on Harlequin Junkie. With questions ranging from “Random Facts” to “Did any scene have you crying or laughing (or blushing) while writing it?” I got the chance to really think about different aspects of the writing process. If you didn’t have a chance to read it back in April, you can check it out now at: http://harlequinjunkie.com/spotlight-giveaway-calling-it-by-jen-doyle/

 

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The Only Way I Take the Bed…

So, as I mentioned, oh, a month ago, I’ve been trying to catch up on everything that has happened in the two months since the release of CALLING IT, and one thing I wanted to call attention to was this awesome fan art by The Lusty Literate. I am in awe of people who can take a snippet of text–the right snippet of text–put it together with a photo, and make it into the perfect bite, for lack of a better word.

The Lusty Literate was part of the blog tour I did with Tasty Book Tours, and I am again so very appreciative of everyone who took part in that. If you have a chance, stop by and say thank you for me.

Author Spotlight on Anna Harrington’s Blog

My very dear friend Anna Harrington is an author of historical romance, with three books out at the moment: Dukes are Forever, Along Came A Rogue, and How I Married A Marquess.

I was so honored to be the first in her “Author Spotlight” series (I’m the featured author for May).

The interview starts off with:

Anna: What would readers be surprised to find out about you?

Jen: That I can’t talk about sex. I can write the hell out of it, but to actually talk about it with anyone? Nope.

…And it goes from there.

Thank you, Tasty Book Tours!

So it’s been quite a crazy month and a half since CALLING IT released on April 11. I have to admit, I was a bit unprepared. But rather than lament all the things I did wrong, I thought I’d focus on the things I did right–and one of those was working with Tasty Book Tours and all of the wonderful bloggers that took part in my virtual tour in April.

Because I have some catch up to do, over the next few weeks I’ll be posting links to some of the interviews I did there as well as some of the reviews because I think they might have gotten buried what with everything that was going on. But I look forward to working with them again in August when CALLED UP (i.e., Book 2

What They Mean To Me…

As I had mentioned in last week’s post about tonight’s Facebook Party (join us from 7:30 – 10:30 p.m. at https://www.facebook.com/events/1769646836591549/), each of the guest authors has some significance to me. For the past week and a half, I’ve been posting on my author page about each of the guests, but I thought I’d pull it all together here. (Note, the posts got shorter as time went on and release day got closer–thank you, Real Life. So don’t go reading anything into that, LOL.)

In order of appearance at the party, here’s the lineup:

7:30 p.m.: Marina Adair

Marina is up first because she’s one of the first authors I read when I began reading romance, and she pulled me right in.

I, like many others out there, had a skewed view of what a romance novel was. So when I came upon Kissing Under the Mistletoe, the first in Marina’s St. Helena Vineyard series, I was utterly delighted and surprised by the amazing heroine, the great cast of characters, and the humor throughout the book. (O.k., yes, Gabe, too.

Facebook Party Jen-Style

 

Because I can’t ever go about anything in a straightforward way, for the Facebook Party celebrating the release of CALLING IT (on Monday, April 11, just in case I haven’t mentioned that, oh, a billion times already), rather than just have a flat-out party, I decided to go with a theme approach. A theme within a theme, in fact.

There’s the baseball aspect, of course, complete with a starting lineup of ten authors (designated hitter included). But then there’s also the part where each of those authors represents a specific aspect of my journey to publication. So since we’re ten days away from my release date (!!!!!!!!!!), I thought I’d do a ten day countdown on my Facebook page, introducing one guest author per day in the order in which they’ll be appearing:

7:30  Marina Adair (Featured TONIGHT [3/31])

7:50  Lisa Marie Perry (Featured on Friday, 4/1)

8:10  Nicole Michaels (Sat., 4/2)

8:30  Adriana Anders (Sun., 4/3)

Inserting Designated Hitter, Anna Harrington, here.

Where Am I? – Part 2

From today’s post at Scribblers Ink, “A Perfect Process”:

I consider myself a perfectionist—this is not a good thing. Things may be collapsing in chaos around me, but, darn it, I’m going to make whatever it is that I’m working on the absolute best it can be. For example, in preparing for this blog post on the writing process—and knowing what I consider my writing process—I spent several hours researching others’ definition, not to mention all the different ways every other writer in the world approaches her/his craft. (Full disclaimer: I gave up after two.)

 

Read more at: http://scribblersink.com/new-blog/2016/3/28/a-perfect-process-by-jen-doyle.

Thank you, Bobbi Lerman, for having me!

Where Am I Now? (Part 1)

I’m so excited to be appearing on Linda Rose’s Romance At Its Darkest blog today. Here’s the very start of the interview. Read the rest at: http://writerldrose.com/2016/03/30/author-interview-with-sports-romance-author-jennifer-doyle/

Author Interview with sports romance author, Jennifer Doyle!

I’m so thrilled to have fellow NEC-RWA member, Jennifer Doyle, on my site today! Her debut sports romance, CALLING IT, is out for preorder and I can’t wait to read it.

T – 2 Weeks!

Two weeks from today, CALLING IT is available! After all of this time, it’s hard to believe that it’s finally here. And since I’ve been warned by so many about the letdown after it officially hits the (virtual) shelves, I’ve decided to milk the ramp up for all it’s worth.

Let’s Talk About Sex. Or Not.

So there I was on Friday night at the (AWESOME) Romance Roundtable sponsored by Porter Square Books and one of the first questions asked from the audience was, essentially: men and women experience sex differently–how do you, as a woman, write it from the male point of view? Give explicit details.

Ok. So the “give explicit details” wasn’t stated, but it was pretty much implied. And, yes, I had one of those OhHolyCrap moments.

I mean, it’s not like I haven’t considered the idea that someone might ask me a similar question. But, well…

I can’t talk about sex.

I just can’t.

I can write it. I can write about it. But I can’t talk about it. It’s the biggest joke ever in my family, especially when my mom, sister, and cousin are some of my main beta readers and I write some fairly explicit scenes.

But it was also why I thought it was kind of hysterical that my first Facebook ad ever got flat-out rejected due to “sexually suggestive” content. (Not nearly as hysterical as the fact that, due to various likes and comments, after the ad was rejected, Facebook kept telling me that I should consider boosting the post due to its being an “engaging” one. But I digress.)

First, the ad:

“No!”, says FB.

I’ve learned a lot about FB ads over the last few days, I have to say. For example, all those really out there pictures that get posted? Not ads, therefore there’s no problem. The pictures in the headings? Also not ads, so ditto. If you don’t pay for it, it’s not an ad, and FB apparently keeps its hands off. (NOTE: I’m actually fine with that. Yay, Facebook, for trying to find a line between control and censorship.)

One of the main issues of my ad was actually the amount of text involved. FB is very clear that they allow no more than 20% text in the images used as ads. There are even tools involved to test it out. See http://www.social-contests.com/check-image/ and https://www.facebook.com/notes/living-fabulous/facebooks-20-percent-text-rule-on-ad-images/828458160511405/.

I, incidentally, totally didn’t do that.

Um, oops.

Also, a few people mentioned it might be because of the amount of skin showing in the picture. And, yes, I did choose that picture quite intentionally to use pretty much across the board. (You may have noticed it’s used as the heading for my author page, and on Twitter, and on my website [look up above!], and on my business card, etc.) And I chose it specifically because it was, yes, suggestive–in a way that I think fits my first two books quite perfectly, thank you very much. Jeans and t-shirts, baseball and apple pie, Nate and Dorie and Deke and Fitz–and lots of happy (and not so happy) sexy times–in small town Inspiration, IA.

There was also the matter of the quote itself:

“Just because you like my cooking,” she whispered, “doesn’t mean you get to have everything in the kitchen.”

He stared at her, seeing every iota of doubt and vulnerability she kept bottled up inside. Then he smiled. “Guess I’ll have to keep coming back until I’ve licked the cupboards bare.”

Um… O.k., yes, that’s pretty suggestive, too, in a way that makes me both blush furiously and, well, smile. Because, hey–since I can’t talk about it straight out, I do my absolute best to be suggestive.

But then my mom walks into the house to visit and the first thing she says to me (before even saying hi), is: “Well, of course, Facebook rejected your ad! ‘Lick the cupboards bare?'”

And that right there was when my worlds collided and I pretty much self-combusted.

Write it? Yes.

Write about it? Yep.

Talk about it with my mom? Absolutely freaking NOT.

So, Facebook, you got it right. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to say a word out loud about it.*

 

* But if you’d like to see how I write about it, please feel free to preorder CALLING IT. I’d be 100% o.k. with that.