Charity's Auction in Audio

Do you like audio books? My dad loves them.

Yesterday, I wasn't feeling well enough to even read but I'd found my author's copy of Charity's Auction in audio in my inbox earlier so I decided to listen.

It was perfect. I was able to close my eyes and focus solely on the story. I really got into the romance with no distractions. The author's sexy voice lulled me into the story's fantasy. I was able to relax and still enjoy. I'll definitely be buying a lot more audio books.

If you enjoy listening to audio books, or if you'd like to try for the first time, take a listen. There's an audio excerpt here.

Blurb:

When Char bids on and wins both sexy doctors Hunky and Hottie in her hospital's charity auction, she knows exactly what to do with them and it's not tidily winks.

Although head nurse Char Reynolds is desperately head over heels for bad boy Dr. Dexter Graham, he's moved on. Still she gets caught up in bidding for him at the hospital's auction for the new children's wing and wins. His smug expression drives her to also bid on and win the very hunky Dr. Ben Price, Dexter's nemesis and to plan a very naughty, very sexy night with both men.

Here's the book trailer.




Excerpt:
Charity “Char” Reynolds stared at Dr. Dexter Graham, her eyes narrowed, her heart doing the cha-cha while mathematical calculations flew around in her head. He was gorgeous with his dark, five o’clock shadow, the sexy glint in his eyes, and his broad, powerful shoulders. If it weren’t for that smirk on his lips, he’d be perfect. But he was far from it. He only looked perfect.


The good doctor was a bad boy through and through. It was a toss up whether he mended or broke more hearts. His record on the operating room table was stellar. Off, however, was horrendous. He’d broken so many hearts with that killer smile and huge dimples he should be thrown into solitary confinement for the rest of his miserable life.

Amy Koch, the hospital’s chief administrator, adjusted the microphone with her only hand. Then she tapped the instrument and blew into it. “Can you hear me?”

When the sound from the mic blasted through Char’s head, she clapped her hands over her ears in self-preservation. “Have mercy, woman.”

Once her brain stopped spinning and she was able to see again, she looked over a sea of other people holding their ears. Tentatively, she removed one hand, keeping it close just in case the mic went crazy again.

So far so good. Slowly, she lowered her other hand but kept it at the ready as she warily kept her eye on Amy.

Although, she felt sorry for Amy since the car wreck that had amputated the administrator’s left arm, that she couldn’t find anything to like about her caused her to war with feelings of guilt and distrust. Even before the accident, Amy had only been out for number one, stepping on anybody in her way, claiming it was for the greater good. Now people overlooked her mean tempered whining—until they came into her sights. Char had been dead centre in Amy’s far too often. As head surgical nurse, she and Amy butted heads daily.

* If you really prefer the written word, don't fret. The ebook version releases May 31, 2010.

Charity's Auction in audio is available at Total-E-Bound.


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Rejection: Where Do You Go Next?

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You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Wendi Zwaduk are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)

Why Short Stories?

For the past couple years I've been writing a lot of short stories.

Why?

I have several good reasons.

One: it means I have more releases in a year than if I write only one or two long books. This keeps my name in front of the reading public.

Two: One of my publishers usually releases short stories that are part of an anthology later as a stand alone title. They also put stand alone short stories into an anthology later. AND they've started recording mainly their shorter stories as audio books.

Three: One of my other publishers just jumped into the audio book bandwagon and they told us that they prefer to make the shorter books, not the longer books, into audio books.

Four: Since I write erotic romance, a lot of erotic romance readers say they prefer to read erotic romances that are about 40,000 words or less.

Occasionally, I still write longer stories, too. But for now, as long as I have a day job, I foresee writing many many more short stories.

Recent posts you might like to read:

What Do You Want in a Romance Hero & What Do You Want in a Real Life Husband?

Rejection: Where Do You Go Next?

Procrastination

Cliche or Coincidence?

What Prompts Me To "Follow" A Blog

Make Sure Pretentious Words Don't Turn Off Your Readers

Dedicating Books

You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)

Saturday Snippets: Arrivals

Today's theme for Saturday Snippets is "arrivals".

When I thought about this I thought about the arrival of a new child. But it can mean other things as well.

My morsel for you today is the arrival of the demi-God Leo, as in Leo the Lion. He's tired of being in heaven and wants someone fun to celebrate his birthday with so he skips down to Earth. His father Zeus is mad at him of course and wants him to learn a lesson so he can't get home without help. Meanwhile, without Leo's guidance all his earthly Leos start to run amuck and chaos ensues.


This was a fun story to write and I was thrilled when Ellora's Cave selected my story about Leo for their month of August Zodiac story in 2006. It's still available if you want to read the entire story. :)

By the way, I'm a Scorpio and my birthday is today. My moon is in Leo, however, and if you know anything about the Zodiac, I'm on the cusp of Sagitarrius.

This story began as a story directed at Scorpio - the heroine's a Scorpio like me with her moon in Leo. But Ellora's Cave asked me to write it for Leo babies and I was happy to oblige. I hope you like it.

So here's my birthday present for you.

Hubby gave me a new laptop for my birthday this year and I love it! However, it has a different version of Word and everything including blogger is acting wonky. I don't know if my links will work. I'll have to fix them after my daughter's softball tournament game which I have to run to now. If they don't work please stop by again later so you can also visit all the other authors in today's group to read their excerpts.

An Excerpt From: HEAVENLY HIJINKS
Copyright © ASHLEY LADD, 2006

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

The bell tinkled again and Clestie slumped against the counter and breathed a sigh of inordinate relief. “Hallelujah! She left.”

Then a duet of voices interrupted the blessed silence, and Clestie’s heart skipped a beat. She clawed at Elizabeth’s wrist. “Hurry. Lock the door. They’re multiplying.” Like an invasion of locusts and all the other frightening biblical stuff in Revelations.

Her cousin rolled her eyes and shook off her death grip. “Our aunt was revered.”

Clestie could go for a little mediocrity about now. “Do I have to go out there?” She’d rather face a swarm of locusts.

“Afraid so.” Elizabeth patted her back.

She wished Elizabeth had a canister of oxygen as well. She might have to purchase an inhaler of her own. Truly, she’d have to practice her deep breathing exercises as soon as she could get a few minutes to herself. The way things were going, she’d have to lock herself in the bathroom to get any private time. “Save me.”

Her cousin cracked a smile. “Welcome to the joys of entrepreneurship.”

Clestie checked her watch and almost groaned when it only emphasized how many hours of daylight were left. “You mean the headaches.”

The bell tinkled again…and again. By the time Clestie ran to the front, a mini mob had formed. She dragged in several deep, cleansing breaths. “I’m sorry, but we’re not open for business.”

“But we’re lost. We need guidance.” They started chanting, “Sun. Moon. Sun. Moon.”

A tall blond man with golden tresses cascading down his back pushed through the crowd. And he was only wearing a loincloth! But he moved oh-so sensually, with leonine grace and assured strides, that he could be forgiven anything. “Perhaps I can lend assistance. I am a master of reading the zodiacal charts and prophesying fortunes. I also read the tarot.”

Really needing that oxygen desperately now, Clestie was about to hyperventilate as her gaze took in the nearly naked Tarzan. Mesmerized by the man’s godlike beauty, Clestie’s skin tingled in decadently scandalous ways and she prayed that mind-reading wasn’t another one of his many talents. Her respiration shallowed and perspiration beaded heavily on her brow, threatening to run into her eyes. She dabbed at the tiny droplets with her fingers as she searched for her voice. After several muffled attempts, she finally croaked out, “You can?”

Elizabeth hissed, “Mr. Chippendales is stealing our business. Kick him out.”

Ignoring her cousin, Clestie stepped forward, trying not to ogle the man’s hunky bod. But his rippling muscles and shimmering hair made her pussy clench and her nipples peak so tightly that she was about to orgasm without anyone touching her. His intensely golden eyes and sparkling smile stole her breath. “Are you applying for a job?”

Heavenly Hijinks is available at: Ellora's Cave

Vivian Arend
Leah Braemel
Taige Crenshaw
Shelley Munro
TJ Michaels
Juliana Stone
Eliza Gayle
McKenna Jeffries
Jody Wallace
Lauren Dane
Juliana Stone
Kelly Maher
Shelli Stevens
Victoria Janssen
Moira Rogers

Too Many Books?

I just came home from Walmart where my kids dragged me. To kill time while they shopped I looked at books.

Although I'm in the middle of three other books I always want more. At this time of year the holiday themed books particularly attract me.

But there were so many romance novels begging to be bought. I couldn't make up my mind which one - or two - to take home.

I examined covers. I read blurbs. I looked for my favorite authors. I even opened one book and read a page.

Still, I couldn't choose one over another.

One was by one of my favorite authors. It had a time travel theme which I love. I was leaning toward it. Then I flipped to a random page to sample it. Unfortunately, the page was all show not tell so I was scared to buy the book.

None of the other books were by my auto buy authors although several of the blurbs looked enticing.

In the end, my kids tracked me down before I decided so I decided not to buy any of them.

Have you ever felt so overwhelmed by such a large selection of books you didn't buy any? Or did you do just the opposite and buy a lot? My bank account is on the short side till payday or maybe I would have bought three or four.

What entices you to buy a book? How do you decide between them? Do you go with what feels right at the moment? Or do you also go with your auto buy authors? Or the first one that has an intriguing blurb? Or a tweet on Twitter? An excerpt on a blog? A beautiful cover? Or word of mouth? I'm sure Twilight and New Moon are flying off the shelves this week.

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Dont Give Up Too Early

Must Write Must Write Must Write!!!

You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)

Don't Miss This Sure-Fire Money-Making Offer!

"Currently our unknown erotic writers are earning between USD$250 and USD$600 a month..."

I opened my first email today to this statement. So I read on.

Another statement caught my eye, "We charge nothing upfront and share royalties..."

So far, so good. I would love to have another $250 US monthly period and if you multiply my 30+ published books by that, I could earn $7,500. extra monthly! Woo hoo! That would be awesome. I could retire from the day job, write full-time and be financially independent in no time.


That's conservative - according to the email. If I earned $600 per each of my 30 books, I'd earn $18,000 monthly.


Heck! I SHOULD BE doing that now, from my regular royalties. In fact, I want to know why I'm not, what I'm doing wrong.


Anyway, I checked out the site and lo and behold, there could be fees to the author. Whereas you can record your own book in audio and submit it, if you want to hire voice actors, the fee is anywhere from $1,500 to $7,500 per novel. Of course, you will earn that much back in the first two months the book is out - so says the email's sender.


Of course, it's possible this could be right. It's possible it might not be this good, but pretty good.


I'm not saying this is a scam, but a lot of these too-good-to-be-true deals, if not scams, are not guaranteed, either. I'm going to look into this one a little more - if I even have my audio rights intact. I know one of my publishers owns my audio rights to the books I have with them. I'm not sure about the other three. If audio is really the gold mine this email states (think iTunes, Amazon and Audible.com) why would publishers already in business want to miss out on this? So hopefully my publishers already have this handled and soon I'll never have to worry about whether or not I can make my mortgage payments again.


Of course, that's always been my plan.


Sometimes good deals do fall into your lap as easily as getting an email, so don't assume all are frauds. Just be diligent in checking them out. One of my current publishers emailed me and asked me to submit to them. They've been absolutely wonderful and I'm extremely happy they found me and I trusted them. Of course, this same publisher never asked me to invest one penny. It's been a true, up-front and above-board working relationship.



On the whole, however, I'm skeptical. Maybe this is because I've been burnt by too many deals that sounded too-good-to-be-true and weren't. My younger daughter and her best friend still think it's a good deal to pay a few hundred dollars to become an extra in movies. Obviously, they're sure to become movie stars. I shudder to hear them... I try to warn them, but a lot of people have to learn the hard way.




Recent posts you might like to read:

Author Interview: Claire Ashgrove


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I'm Part of a Tribe 

Big Brother Is Watching You - This Means You BLOGGERS!

Are You Writing Me Into Your Book?

Dont Give Up Too Early

Must Write Must Write Must Write!!!

You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook,
Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch,
Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape
are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)