A New Beginning

It’s official!   I’m blogging!  Woohoo!  I know.  I know.  Millions of other people are blogging.   Some of you are blogging and have been for quite some time, very successfully.   (If you’d like me to visit your blog, by the way, either post the address below or email it to me.)  But this is another new endeavor for me, one in a substantial list that has been steadily growing ever since I signed the contract with Kensington almost a year ago.

With that in mind, I’ve been pondering lately how different getting published is for new authors today as compared to getting published -- say -- twenty or thirty years ago.   There are so many more tools at authors’ disposal now, most of which center around the internet.  Home computers with internet access were still a luxury twenty years ago.   Today they -- and cell phones with internet access -- are as standard as televisions and DVD players.   Aspiring writers twenty or more years ago had to rely on Writer's Market and similar books to find agents and editors seeking submissions . . . and sometimes that information was lacking or already out of date only a few months into the year.   Now, writers can find numerous publisher and literary agency websites on the net that offer current detailed guidelines.  Writers can also get a better idea of what individual agents and editors are looking for through blog posts, interviews, e-newsletters and excerpts of conference appearances that are posted online.

Twenty years ago writers interacted with readers and other writers on message boards and in chat rooms.  Thirty years ago, writers had to travel around the country on book signing tours and attend conferences to interact with readers and other writers.   Today, there are social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and more that make a very large world small.   I joined Facebook earlier this year and have met so many nice readers and writers from countless different countries, all of whom have reaffirmed by belief that the romance community is the greatest community on the internet . . . and in person.   :-)   If you’ve friended me on Facebook, I’m sure you’ve seen me say that more than once.

And now there are blogs.   In recent days, when I haven’t been editing the second book in my Immortal Guardians series, I’ve been organizing a blog tour to promote Darkness Dawns when it is released in February.  The bloggers with whom I’ve corresponded have all been so friendly.   I’m really looking forward to the tour and think it’s yet another wonderful way to connect with readers around the world without all of the limits that travel and snail mail correspondence can impose.

These hospitable ladies have all inspired me to finally start my own blog.   I have no ARCs to giveaway yet.  So, to celebrate, I’ll randomly choose five commenters to send one of the lovely Darkness Dawns cover flats my editor sent me.   Just answer the question below, check back tomorrow to see if you were chosen, then email me your mailing address by the end of this week.

Question:  What would you like to see on my blog?  Contests?  Excerpts?  Writing updates?   Guest posts by other authors?   Interviews with other authors and bloggers?  Q&A sessions with readers?  Occasional mention of my independent filmmaking activities?   Any particular subjects you’d care to discuss with me, anything you’d like to see . . . just let me know.

Thanks so much for stopping by!