I just finished up my final round of edits for THE OPAL HUNTER. That means I am halfway through the edits I have on my plate. Three more books to go: Kiss & Spell (which should be any day now), Ice White, and Beef Cake.

The last two are pretty short, so it won’t be a lot of work. I hope.

I just hope that means I’m getting some more cover art soon. Dying for some more cover art. One new cover won’t last me long. Although I really love the cover for Kiss & Spell.

I’m anxious to be done with all the editing, because then I will have no excuses NOT to be writing. I’m very close to finishing my shifter bank robber story. After that’s done I need to focus on something BRAND new!  Whoo-hoo.

When my new story KISS & SPELL is released, it will have been almost a year since my last book came out. MOONLIGHTING was published on March 14, 2008, and we are now into February of 2009.

That was never my intention. There were a series of snafus on my part and some others (who shall remain nameless) which delayed some of my work from being released. But that is life. Sometimes crappy stuff happens, and you need to learn to roll with the punches.

My question has been this lately…how do I build a career with fits and starts? A writer doesn’t find her audience overnight. You have to build upon each successive book release and hope that eventually you reach enough readers that they will come back and buy some of your old titles.

And I stalled. Right in the middle of it all.

2009 is the year of the comeback for me. As I’ve stated before, I have six new releases coming out in the first half of 2009. I’m getting close to finishing another story….so that would be seven. I have plans to work on some other books, too. I’m not stopping. Not taking a break. Almost every day I either write, edit, or work on some aspect of my writing career (blog posts, website tweaks, forum posts, etc.).  This is serious business to me.

I’m not writing merely for fun and enjoyment (although this has been the most fulfilling ‘job’ I’ve ever held). I’m writing to try to make some kind of living at this. And any true job takes work.

So, is it too late? Did I squander the chance to keep my audience (small as it may have been) by not pushing myself harder to release more books last year? I hope not. Otherwise, I guess in 2009 it will be like starting over. And I’m ready for the challenge.

I have created two book trailers. There are links to them on my homepage, if you’d like to check them out. The one for MOONLIGHTING has had very few views. A modest amount for me, however. Not like I’m some NYT bestselling author.

GOING DOWN, however, has turned into the YouTube phenomenon. The title with its obvious erotic play on words plus the random scene pic by YouTube (woman’s torso in a bra) has created a constant stream of viewers.

My most consistent pool comes from the Middle East. And the ratio of men to women viewers is something like 3 to 1.

You would not even believe the number of viewers I’ve had on that video. If only all of these views would translate to sales on my books.

So check out the growing You Tube sensation….

Book trailer for GOING DOWN.

Kris

Well, I spent my morning adding two new excerpts for ICE BLACK and ICE RED. So enjoy those. Warning: these are different books than I’ve written in the past. A little hotter, a little raunchier. And I think that is reflected in the excerpts. You have been warned!

I also added KISS & SPELL, ICE BLACK, and ICE RED to the My Books page with blurbs. I don’t have cover art for the two ICE books, but wanted to get those up there, since I now have release dates.

I’m right in the middle of edits for THE OPAL HUNTER, but I’m not sure of the process with Liquid Silver quite yet. Not sure what that means for a release date or cover art. But hopefully, I will have an excerpt for that as well and a place holder cover on the My Books page.

The only two left in the near future would be ICE WHITE and BEEF CAKE. Haven’t started any work on those yet. Although I probably will add them to the My Books page soon as well.

Yes, this is 2009!  Busy!!!  But good.

I found out last night that the first two books in my Arctic Shifters series with Cobblestone Press now have release dates:

April 17 - ICE BLACK

May 15 - ICE RED

And in all likelihood the 3rd book in the series, ICE WHITE, will be released in June.

These books are a bit of a departure from what I usually write. They are part of the Wicked series of books at Cobblestone, which means super hot! The first two in the series are menage romances. ICE RED contains BDSM elements. ICE WHITE, though it is only m/f, contains a bit of BDSM as well.

I will have to make note of that elsewhere on the site, because I don’t want those who enjoy my regular books to be shocked or surprised by the content of these 3 books.

They were a lot of fun to write, but definitely difficult. To get into the head of a character who likes to be dominated is quite hard…but very interesting once I got there. 

I’m going to start updating the My Books page and the Excerpts page today and tomorrow. ICE BLACK and ICE RED have both been edited, so I can add excerpts now.  What I’d really love to have are some COVERS!