The EPIC Awards are Coming!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE / PERMISSION TO FORWARD GRANTED

Twelfth Annual EPIC EBook Competition (July 15-Aug. 15, 2010)
EPIC’s ebook competition, the oldest continuing competition honoring ebooks and the e-publishing industry, is a premier event for authors and publishing houses. It opens for submission entries on July 15, 2010, accepting entries through midnight (CST) August 15, 2010. Entries must be e-published between June 1, 2009 and May 31, 2010. The Competition Guide will be on EPIC’s website (www.epicauthors.com) on June 1.

Judges consist of active EPIC Members and guest judges, all of whom are either published authors or publishing professionals. Entries are judge in two rounds, with finalists announced during the first week of November 2010.

EPIC’s 2011 Art Competition (Nov.1 – Nov. 15, 2010)
Also in its twelfth year is a competition that honors the finest selection of cover art for electronically published books. Details will be available on the EPIC website (www.epicauthors.com) the first part of October 2010 with entries accepted from November 1, 2010 through November 15, 2010.

Covers go through two rounds of judging by EPIC’s membership, with finalists (in category) awarded the Ariana before moving on to the final round. The ultimate winner, the artist whose work receives the most membership votes, is celebrated with EPIC’s highest honor for art – the Quasar.

EPICon Conference (March 10 – March 13, 2011 in Williamsburg, Virginia)
All awards, other than those for the New Voices Young Writers competition, will be presented during EPIC’s 2011 EPICon conference’s gala award ceremony March 13, 2011 in Williamsburg, Virginia. The New Voices Young Writers awards ship to winners, and their indicated schools/libraries, within six months of EPIC’s conference.

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EPIC – Electronically Published Internet Connection is a non-profit, professional organization for published and contracted ebook and print authors that was established to provide a strong voice for electronic publishing—the major publishing marketplace of the future.

Logical-Lust finals twice in EPIC’s Ebook competition!

Two e-books produced by Logical-Lust Publications have finaled in EPIC’s 11th annual ebook competition!

“Time Currents” by Brenna Lyons finaled in the Fantasy Erotic Romance category.

And newcomer Amber Hipple’s “Bittersweet: tales of tainted erotica” finaled in the Anthology Erotic Romance/Erotica category

The Electronically Published Internet Connection (EPIC) is holding its annual convention and awards ceremony, the EPICon, in New Orleans from March 4-7, 2010.

http://www.epic-conference.com/index.html

The EPIC Awards is the most established ebook competition recognizing excellence in the industry so we are very proud of both finalists!

And if you plan to be in New Orleans in early March 2010, we’d love to try and meet you!

Zetta Brown
Editor-in-Chief

You can still enter the EPIC 2010 ebook competition!

EPIC - home of the premier ebook awards competition

We’re pushing the EPIC contest hard in the last few days of the entry period. Because we brought the contest forward to a new time in the calendar, this year is a foreshortened year and entries aren’t quite as high as previously. Entries are healthy, but to keep momentum going we’d like as many late entries as possible!

I’m looking for a favour from you all and asking if you can forward this to all your groups, loops, and anyone you think might find it interesting! Also consider entering yourself!

Please copy and forward to all!

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EPIC’s premier eBook competition needs YOU!

How you may ask? Let me tell you how…there are a few ways you can help this wonderful ebook contest out.

First, this contest is in need of entries. Last year you knew the contest as the EPPIEs but with the ever changing field of ebook publishing, EPIC has decided to revamp the contest and rename it more in line with what it has come to be to the industry as a whole. This is the best ebook competition out there and there are those within the finalist ranks who have gone on to become NYC authors. EPIC has been seen as an innovator in the ebook industry for more than ten years and wants to continue to do so for each and every ebook author!

With over 30 categories to choose from there is a category specific to your genre in the ebook field. This includes categories in children, poetry, fiction, romance, erotic romance and many, many more.  Entries are still being accepted until August 15, 2009 for ebooks published between October 1, 2008 and May 31, 2009. Full details, plus entry forms here: http://bit.ly/M9NUc

Finalists will be announced November 2009 with the awards presented to the receiptents at EPIC’s 2010 conference in New Orleans, March 4-7, 2010.

Second, EPIC needs judges and if you feel you can qualify as a judge, please sign up immediately for participation! Only industry professionals need apply. Contact Anne Douglas at epic.competition.coordinator@gmail.com for more information. You will read some of the best books in the field…and love doing it!

And finally, don’t forget to sign up for EPIC’s 2010 Conference in New Orleans. We have a host of great people this year with agents, editors and authors alike. The conference is still small enough that you will get the special attention you need as a writer but large enough that you’ll be rubbing elbows with industry professionals in the eBook field. Just some of our schedules guest include Debra Dixon, Deidre Knight and Holly Jacobs as well as industry professional such as Daniel Reitz of Mundania Press with more signing up every day!

The information for EPIC can be found at http://www.epicauthors.com/, so don’t hesitate to stop by today!

Thanks!

Jim Brown
&
Carol MacLeod

Interview with Lori James of All Romance ebooks and OmniLit!

With the opening of their exciting new bookstore, OmniLit, who better to interview today than the forward-thinking co-owner of All Romance eBooks, and OmniLit, Lori James!

Lori James obtained her Bachelor of Science in Psychology at Baylor University in 1984 and her Masters in Social Work from San Diego State in 1988 before beginning her career as a psychotherapist. After working for fifteen years in the healthcare industry, first as a clinician, then in Quality and Regulatory Management, Lori left what she used to call her “real life” day job in early 2007 to pursue writing and working in the publishing industry full-time.

Lori was a founding partner and the Chief Operating Officer of Linden Bay Romance, LLC, a small independent publishing house that was sold in late 2008 to Samhain Publishing, Ltd. Today she is the co-owner and Chief Operating Officer of All Romance eBooks, LLC. The eBook distribution company does business as All Romance, selling to the romance market and OmniLit, selling to the entire fiction and non-fiction market.

When not hard at work, Lori enjoys travel, spending time with her friends and family, reading, watching movies, and wine tasting (she collects California cabernets). Or, you might find her sequestered in her office with her laptop or out at a convention or book signing. Writing as Samantha Sommersby, Lori is the author of many novels and novellas, including the critically acclaimed cross-genre paranormal romance series Forbidden.

All Romance ebooks

1) The first question needs to be: Who are All Romance ebooks?

I co-own All Romance eBooks, LLC (ARe) along with my business partner, Barbara Perfetti. The company was founded in 2006 and is based in Palm Harbor, FL. We currently have two brands under which we do business, All Romance (www.allromance.com and www.allromanceebooks.com), which specializes in the sale of romance eBooks and OmniLit (www.omnilit.com) which sells both fiction and non-fiction eBooks.

Barb and I certainly don’t run the company by ourselves. We couldn’t possibly. We have a full-time Marketing and Promotions Manager (Julie Cummings), a full-time IT Manager (John Jacks), and a part-time Media and Public Relations Manager (Cat Johnson). In addition, there are several people with whom we have contract and/or consulting arrangements.

2) Where did the idea for ARe come from and what factors do you think have contributed to the success of All Romance?

Like almost everything that Barb and I do together, it started with one of us calling the other one and uttering those four little words that honestly can make both of our husbands wince: “I’ve got an idea.” In this particular instance, it was the belief that romance readers deserved their own on-line store, one place where they could find books by all of their favorite authors and publishers.

Barb and I are both very driven, we seem to find inspiration everywhere, we have similar values, and we’ve each had lots of experience working in big business. ARe wasn’t our first collaborative endeavor, we also owned Linden Bay Romance, LLC, a small independent press that was sold to Samhain Publishing, Ltd in late 2008.

Although it was our experience as a publisher that initially sparked the conceptualization of ARe, it quickly became apparent that in order to establish something that was truly unique, something we could be really excited about, we needed to focus on meeting the needs of three primary customers—readers, publishers, and authors. This has been very much a collaborative effort.

During the development stage we interviewed a lot of people and we listened. Raven Moore, president and publisher of Liquid Silver books, gave us a piece of advice in the beginning that has served us well. “Make it easy,” she said. That became our mantra. So much about life is already hard. We face enough challenges. Barb and I decided early on that we wanted the customer experience at ARe to be spectacular.

We started with what we knew best, Romance. Today we continue to work closely with readers, publishers, and authors, accepting their feedback and often incorporating their suggestions as enhancements. We’re constantly looking for ways to improve and we’re very invested in doing what we can to help grow the eBook market.

While broadening our customer base is an on-going focus, we’re also very committed to keeping the customers we have and servicing them fabulously. There’s a personal feel to the All Romance site akin to that of an independent brick and mortar store that specializes in romance. We know our site, we know romance, we know the publishers and the authors, and we know that even though we don’t see our customers face to face, that they are real people that are entitled to real service.

3) How many books are currently listed with All Romance?

Right now we have a little over 18,000, and the number’s growing all the time. Publishers are constantly adding new content. We’re also in the process of bringing on several additional publishers, so by the time this is out I expect that number will be quite a bit higher.

4) What else makes up the ARe empire?

First let me say that my parents are going to be very impressed you’re calling it an empire. What I do is largely still a mystery to them.

After opening our doors, All Romance quickly became more than just an on-line bookstore. The best neighborhood bookstores are places where customers can hang out, where authors can promote their works, and where the two can interact. So we have launched quite a few initiatives to support those ideas.

We have a customer newsletter, Wildfire, which contains new releases and a variety of columns. Due to it’s popularity and growth over the past few months, we’re in the process of a substantial expansion of it’s content. For about a month we’ve been quietly interviewing prospective columnists. It’s being announced here first, that soon the Wildfire will be re-launched as a twice-weekly eZine.

Then there’s the “What’s Hot in Romance” radio show hosted by Cat Johnson. The show is aired on Blogtalk Radio every Monday night from 9:30-10:30 EST. Cat does a fabulous job with it and our listenership keeps growing. The archive is posted to our library and the link is embedded in our newsletter, so there’s lots of exposure. Each segment contains interviews with two or three of today’s hottest authors. She always schedules around new releases, so there’s fresh content for listeners. This year we took the show on the road with a sound crew to the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention and BookExpo America and taped interviews. It was a blast!

We also just announced a new charity project – 28 Days of Heart – which will benefit the American Heart Association. This coming February, when everyone’s attention is focused on matters of the heart, we at All Romance will be partnering with authors to fight the number one killer of women, heart disease. Authors interested in reading the details of the submission call can do so here.

Then there’s a host of author services we provide that Julie Cummings coordinates. Most of these are of no cost, although we do have a couple advertising opportunities as well. We offer group ads in print magazines where authors can participate, we host videos, there are chats, interview opportunities, support for eBook signings, and our Free Read program which allows readers who aren’t familiar with eBooks to try them risk free. Authors can go to the Advertising/Affiliate link at the bottom of our webpage for details of all these promo options.

Last, but certainly not least, there is OmniLit – our new sister store. Although we should probably start calling it our mother store since it contains the entire catalogue of romance/erotica from All Romance in addition to other fiction and non-fiction titles. More on OmniLit later in this interview!

5) How have you seen the popularity of ebooks change since you began?

The popularity of eBooks is soaring and they are becoming more and more mainstream. When I first became involved with the industry eBooks were very much a niche market, but in the last twelve months we’ve experienced an excess of 300% growth in sales. A lot of those sales are due to mobile phone users discovering the fact that they are carrying an ebook reader in the palm of their hand.

For years I heard folks say that the eBook market wouldn’t explode until there was a good enough eBook device on the market. Now we have the Sony, Kindle, Cybook Gen 3, and Cool*ER. More compelling, in my opinion, has been the smart phone technology. With the iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry Storm, etc., people have a viable reader in their pocket. They can search the Internet, download, and read instantly.

Almost all of the NY publishing houses now are offering digital content. It’s no longer a fringe market. But it does still provide the reader with options that are edgier. The ePublishing business model allows publishers to take more risks, more chances. That won’t go away. In fact, I think we’re going to see more of it.

6) Do you think sales of ebooks, in general, are affected by economic issues?

Yes, I think the current economic climate has helped increase sales in the eBook industry. Our average price point on an eBook in All Romance is $4.67, which offers readers an inexpensive way to take a break from life during these stressful times. We sell a lot of Happily-Ever-Afters and Happily-Ever-After-For-Nows. We get emails daily from customers thanking us for providing them with a venue to easily find the types of books that bring them joy.

7) What do you think the next big step in improving ebook popularity will be?

Improved content and advertising. When you’re a niche market, people will come to you and they will be tolerant of variance in quality – they don’t have other options.

For publishers, the content challenge will be whether they can keep up with production demand AND maintain quality. In the digital world that means not only strong editing, but making sure that files are formatted correctly, and that your selling venues are cutting edge, attracting the right market, and bringing you the return on investment you need. Keeping abreast of the technological curve is time consuming and expensive. Not all publishers will be able to do it well and not all distributers will be able to do it well.

A publisher’s time is a very valuable commodity. Because of that I think we’ll be seeing publishers questioning and re-evaluating their business model. We’re already seeing some houses that have elected to drop out of the business of selling. Instead of dividing their attention between being a publisher and being a retailer, they are focusing solely on the publication. We’re also hearing from publishers that they are being more selective about which distributers they work with. No one wants to put all of his or her eggs in one basket and no one wants to miss market opportunity. But a scattershot approach to distribution just isn’t cost effective in the long run. We’ve done quite a bit over the past couple years to provide authors with tools to help them connect with the reading public. We’re turning our attention now to focus on some projects that will aid the small and mid-sized presses.

The advertising issue is going to become extremely important. The Internet is vast. You can’t build a website using the Field of Dreams philosophy – “If you build it, they will come”. If you want people to purchase eBooks you need to be actively and smartly going out there and advertising eBooks. And I’m not talking about a particular author promoting their particular title. I’m talking about increased industry advertising to increase public awareness. That’s something we feel strongly about at ARe. Increasing public awareness about eBooks has been a core goal of ours since we opened and we invest heavily in it. One project that resulted from that goal is the www.gogreenreade.com site that ARe sponsors to promote eBook awareness and their relation to the environment.

8) What’s your views on the ever-present debate over whether ebook authors are “real” authors or not.

Personally, I think that people are focusing on the wrong argument and that the divisiveness is both petty and damaging to the industry as a whole. The fact of the matter is digital publishing is here to stay and it’s a business model that is both growing and profitable. This digital v print argument seems to be about as meaningless as waging a war to once and for all determine whether a song downloaded from iTunes is “real” music. I think people are getting distracted by the argument because it’s easier to focus on and put a label on than the real concern – which is that some individuals want to see more quality control and standards set within the publishing industry. If it should be done and who should do it, are questions worth exploring.

Standards would have to come from an organization that has comprehensive and unbiased expertise AND that offers something of value to authors, publishers, and readers. Until that happens on a large scale we’re looking at voluntary compliance with little to no deterrent for non-compliance. Perhaps more importantly, I see a lot of energy going into internal arguing that could be redirected in a positive way to grow and expand the industry.

The New OmniLit bookstore

9) Do you see yourself doing the same with other genres as you have with romance/erotica on All Romance?

We’ve been asked this question repeatedly over the past couple years. Romance was something that Barb and I both loved and knew, so we focused on that genre first and foremost. Although All Romance is a specialty store, it was really created with the idea to decrease fragmentation in the market, to allow readers to shop in one place, to give them, as our tagline says, “All the romance they need from all the publishers they love”.

With the launch of OmniLit, we’re going to be taking that model further and offering hundreds of thousands of books in all genres. The OmniLit site will have the same kind of search and filtering functions, the same convenience, and the same stellar support. We’ll be offering all the choice and have the technological advances that customers of larger stores have become used to, but we’re going to hold on to those little personal touches and service goals that the smaller stores are sometimes better known for. That’s why we’re calling ourselves “The bookstore on the corner of your digital neighborhood”.

From a reader perspective the shopping experience between the two sites will be seamless. They will have one login and one library. If a reader enters our store through the All Romance door, they can shop to their hearts content there just like they do today. If they want to purchase something other than romance, they can click on the OmniLit button and continue to shop and add items to their cart before checking out and downloading. Or, they can enter through the OmniLit door, choose from hundreds of thousands of fiction and non-fiction titles, then click to continue shopping in the All Romance section of the store before checking out and downloading. Simple.

10) What conferences do you attend annually? Where can our readers meet you?

This year we’ve had a crazy conference season – EPICON in March, Romantic Times Booklovers Convention in April, BookExpo America in May, Lori Foster’s Reader Event in June, Comic-Con in July, Dragon*Con in August, and the West Hollywood Bookfair in September.

Historically we found that attending conventions affords us the opportunity to connect with many of our publisher and vendor partners as well as with readers. For the past six to eight months we’ve found there are many businesses and individuals that have had to curtail their travel budgets, so we’ve been reaching out more by email, chat, and phone. People contact me all the time to tell me what they like about the site and to ask for enhancements. We review and respond to each and every request and we evaluate all suggestions. Because this market and technology is an ever-moving target, we believe that we can keep getting better. There’s no such thing as the status quo. Our enhancement queue will never be empty and we will never get to the end of our project list. Improvement will be on going and continuous.

Readers that can’t make a convention but have an idea they’d like to share can email us using the contact form at the bottom of the website.

Thanks to Lori (and her business partner Barbara Perfetti) for this amazing interview. The All romance/OmniLit brand is going places, and is in great hands!

Brought to you by the Official Logical-Lust Blog!

Interview with author Brenna Lyons

Brenna speaking at EPICon

This week we interview the non-stop Brenna Lyons, prolific writer, promoter, and wearer of many hats, sometimes all on the same day. Brenna is the current, third-time, president of EPIC, author of more than 60 published works, columnist, special needs teacher, wife, mother… Moreover, she’s a member in good standing of ERWA, WRW, TELL, IWOFA, WPM, MWW and Broad Universe. In her first five years published in novel-length, she’s finaled for 6 EPPIES (in five different categories), 3 PEARLS (including one Honorable Mention, second to Angela Knight), 2 CAPAS and a Dream Realm Award. She’s also taken Spinetingler’s Book of the Year for 2007. Brenna writes milieu-heavy dark fiction, mainly science fiction, fantasy and horror, straight genre, romance and erotic crosses, poetry, articles and essays. She teaches classes in everything from POV studies to advanced editing, networking to marketing.

LL: How/when did you decide to become a writer?

BL: This question always makes me pause, because my gut response is, “People choose to become writers?” The old joke about the writer who dies and gets to visit heaven and hell is fairly accurate. Whether I’m publishing or not, the muse is whipping me into gear and keeping me moving. There’s not a choice in writing. The muse won’t stand for anything less.

So, when did the muse hit me full steam? For poetry, when I was seven. I still have an early dated poem from that time period. I started writing articles and poetry for the school newspaper at 10.

In the meantime, I started competing in writing contests, at the suggestion of my English teachers. At 11, I became the youngest winner of Taproot (a YA poetry contest) of my time. At 13, I became one of the first girls to win a place in the Boy Scout Explorer’s program for journalism and was published in a local newspaper. At 15, I won a place in the Young Poet’s Symposium at the University of Pittsburgh. At 17, I won a four-year scholarship in a timed essay contest. When I have time for SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism), I still compete in poetry contests, and I have a resume of professional contest wins now that amazes me.

I was convinced, in college, that I had no talent whatsoever for novel writing and playwriting. I woke up on April Fools Day 2001 (no kidding) with the idea for what I thought would be a short story. Two months later, I came up for air with nearly 100K of PROPHECY and realized two things: I hadn’t started at the beginning, and I hadn’t reached the end. I started working both ends at once, and less than two months later, I came up for air with the full 214K of the original serial draft. Two months after that, I came up for air with the full 165K draft of FAIRY DREAMS. After that, I started writing them in packs of four or more books at a time (the first three books of Night Warriors series and TYGERS together on the next shot). Oh…and I’m working on screenplays for a couple of my novels now. I seem to just grow into writing forms, when I’m ready to embrace them.

In just over 8 years, I’ve written 15 novels, 15 novellas, 27 novelettes, 14 short stories, a dozen flash fiction pieces, 2 poetry books, a children’s book, and countless articles. At the moment, I have more than 55 works in progress, 25 of them novels. I write in 19 series worlds, three of them overlapping and crossing over into each other.

LL: Describe your experience getting published for the first time. Would you have done anything differently?

BL: I tried the agent route, but agents didn’t know what to do with a first-time novelist with a serial novel…and the second book coming in at 165K…and the third at 145K. I racked up about 80 agent rejections, before I exhausted my search for an agent. I did manage to get a couple of partial reads, a full read from one agent, and was a biscuit from an agent contract, when she had a family emergency and stopped taking new clients. That’s the closest to an agent I’ve come yet, and I’m still amazed I made it that far with what I was offering, knowing the market as I now do.

At the time, green as I was, I didn’t know that you could approach publishers in NY directly, but with what I was offering, I probably wouldn’t have fared any better with NY editors than I had with NY agents.

I was on a bunch of lists for writers and readers, and one of them had a call for a poem, to be used in the release of Jacqueline Elliot’s FULL MOON INHERITANCE. I won her contest and got my poem in there. While talking to Jacquie, she suggested her indie publisher for my work, and the first two mega books signed within a few months. After that, indie editors found me…or I found them. I’ve met a lot of them through EPIC (The Electronically Published Internet Connection).

What would I do differently? When I was starting out, I didn’t know what to do or where to go. Few authors do. I don’t think the types of information I’ve since made available for aspiring and new authors was available then. If I had to do it over, I’d start with the advantages authors today have…the information on vetting publishers, risk management, marketing options, etc. I had to learn it all by trial and error and take my lumps. Today, authors can shortcut the lumps and learn from those who’ve already taken them.

LL: Do you preview your work to reader groups or fans?

BL: There is precisely one person who gets to read all of my work before it publishes (my best friend, Lisa). She’s my gut reader…the one who tells me if I fall short on the emotional and intellectual punch my books usually deliver. Other readers may get connected free reads and excerpts/sneak peeks. The full novels/stories only go to Lisa and the publishers they are contracted to.

LL: What is one of the nicest things a critic or fan has said about your work?

BL: Oh, that’s hard to choose. The most striking was when a fan said she was so freaked out by TYGERS that she threw away her son’s stuffed tigers. The second to that was when a reviewer said she wanted to kill me for creating another great world she’d have to beg and plead to get more of. One reviewer comment I’ll never forget was that one of my books had her crying at the drop of a hat for the last three weeks. I was horrified! I was about to apologize when she said: “I’ve read it four times in the last three weeks. It’s just that good. I can’t put it down.”

LL: What is your philosophy on writing?

Write the story that is.

I have a character-driven process, so very little happens without the character saying it’s so, and the story is as long as the characters say it has to be to tell it. If I try to change the character to fit the “plot,” the story stops flowing. The story turns the way the characters say it will. The only control I have over the whole process of writing a story is in setting the world rules, outside influences (roadblocks thrown at the characters that they don’t control), and the physical consequences to the choices they make, as determined by the world I’m creating around them.

Seriously, while you’re in the writing process, don’t concern yourself with what subgenre you’re going to market it as or what warning labels the book will have to carry or which publisher is going to be the best fit. Those are concerns for later, when the story is finished, and you have the specs in front of you. Even if you start out writing a story for a particular market, there is rarely only one right market for a book. If it grows out of the box for A, redirect it at B. If it fails at B, submit it to C.

LL: What makes your writing different from your peers? What kind of reading experience can you give your audience?

BL: The cross-genre markets are a balance beam, with books that are primarily romance with elements of sci fi/fantasy/paranormal/horror in them on one side and speculative fiction books with romance elements on the other…and the entire spectrum of true co-genre books in the middle. The co-genre books written by authors who are (first and foremost) romance authors and speculative fiction authors secondarily are more common than what I do.

I’m primarily a spec fic author and secondarily a romance author. That means I’m not afraid to let the ending fit the characters and story, even if it’s not traditional…and not happy. I’ll warn the readers that it’s not a HEA/HFN, but I won’t change an unhappy ending to a HEA, just to fit the ideal of the genre romance market. One of my books ends with every main character dead, but it’s the “happiest” ending they could have had.

It also means I’m not afraid to write dark, milieu-heavy, very realistic conflict. I’m not afraid of the hard choices. I’m not afraid to delve into the whole of human experience: laughter and tears alike. I’m not afraid to grind up a character and spit her out, because in my worlds, characters who are too stupid to live learn painful lessons…and sometimes die.

A lot of people really don’t get what I do, and that’s fine. I once had an editor reject one of my more popular books, because she didn’t understand what I meant when I said my writing was “dark” until she had my first horror erotic romance in hand and freaked. The editor who signed it said, “It starts out Stephen King dark and goes darker. I like Stephen King.” That’s my audience. People who enjoy David and Leigh Eddings are my audience. People who enjoy Sherrilyn Kenyon are my audience. My books appeal to both men and women, and they appeal to readers of urban fantasy and dark fantasy/horror.

LL: Does your writing turn you on?

BL: Absolutely! If it doesn’t turn me on, why would I expect it to turn anyone else on? Now, not everything I write turns me on. Some things are to the tastes of the characters and not me personally, but I get a sort of vicarious thrill from them off of it. Some things make me squirm personally, because they really aren’t my thing.

Then again, a good example of that is reading KISS THE GIRLS. Everyone I know who has read it will remember the milk snake scene for the rest of their lives. It isn’t so much “appealing” to them, but it’s erotic, in some indefinable way.

LL: How do you create your “world?”

BL: As I said, I have a character-driven process. I may start with a vague idea of a scene or a paragraph worth of idea of what the story encompasses, but I start with a character or two and work my way out from there. At times, I do character questioning/interview. Why would he/she do that? Ah, because the law says… That’s how I start building my world. Some pieces just arrive on the page, fleshed out and without plan. At some point, I may take a break and start collecting the “world information” into a single place…and fleshing it out further from there.

What’s amusing to me is that I’m a complete pantser/organic writer. I don’t write linear. I don’t write on one project at a time. I don’t know what’s coming next. It just appears on the page. So, sometimes…odd times… I will suddenly have something happen in a book that I realize later was set up three books earlier, and even I didn’t see it coming. Or…I go back to weave something in only to find I’ve already written the scene that weaves it in and didn’t remember the scene was there.

LL: Where did the idea for the Kielan series come from?

BL: One of my most popular and awarded series is Kegin series. In that series, I mention the Council of Worlds, and I mention that there are three humanoid races on the Council. In book six of Kegin, readers will meet the Kielan and the Wolkin, the other two races.

Ever since Lisa and her husband (Sean) started with Kegin and Renegades series, asking me: “But what’s next?”, I’ve had this nasty habit of writing series, instead of stand-alones. Even things intended as stand-alones often turn into series later, like the PROPHECY serial has turned into a series. (Picture me rolling my eyes that I’m writing a sequel to my first book, eight years after the serial was done.)

So, I started writing CUBED (Kielan series). That one is actually straight-genre science fantasy and isn’t complete yet, but other portions of the series are much further along. The first of the erotic pieces, THE LADY’S LOWBORN LOVER, is available from Logical-Lust, and there are more coming from the series: ANOTHER MAN’S MATE, MIGHT HAVE BEENS, and CROSS-CUBE. As an aside, I’m also working on a novel from the Wolkin world. That’s the way my worlds grow.