by Mlissa | Oct 12, 2016 | Wordy Wednesday
…But they’ll be coming back with new covers, revised editiions, different pricing, etc… I know I announced before that these books would be reverting back to me and they have, but I wanted to give y’all an update. I know many are looking forward to Vinter again, and honestly, So Am I!
Speaking of… here’s the first new cover!
Which books am I talking about?
Simple Need
Carnal Ecstasy
Ink Spots
The Demon is an Angel
Trouble in the Making
Slide Down on Me
The Swing
All the books once published with Ellora’s Cave Publishing. These books are still available on vendors such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble, iBooks, All Romance eBooks, and Kobo. Ellora’s Cave was supposed to send out notices to all these vendors for take down as the rights have reverted back to me as of October 7, 2016. I’ll be giving it a few more weeks, but will likely end up contacting the vendors myself asking for their removal.
Until then, I’ll be removing old covers, all references to Ellora’s Cave Publishing, redirecting pages, and revising the manuscripts.
Once I settle on a date for the first re-release and which title it will be, I’ll let y’all know!
~lissa
by Mlissa | Sep 28, 2016 | Wordy Wednesday
Social media. it’s a pain in the ass. It’s in our collective faces 24/7. It never shuts off or shuts up. It never takes a nap or a time out. It never earns it’s keep. It’s just… It’s become our source of warped truth, of vindication, of revenge, of mud-slinging, of endless commercials.
Every company uses social media. Twitter followers. Facebook likes. LinkedIn connections. Google Plus…(I haven’t figured out what this one is for yet). Instagram and Snapchat and Periscope so every second of every day can be recorded and posted for the world to see.
Life isn’t richer because of social media. Instead, it’s much more shallow. It’s a soap opera. It’s high school some days and jr. high on others. It’s I’m better than you and I’m going to prove it. It’s cliques and bullies and petty bullshit. It’s hate and my opinion is better/strong/more right than yours. And lately, it’s become a place to draw even more lines in the sand between the haves and have nots, the racists and the ones trying to forward a movement, the open-minded and the shriveled up and died minded.
There are instances of good. But it’s the bad that seems to win out on social media most of the time and rise to the top.
It’s given some a sense of power and prestige and a voice that is used more often to exclude than to include, to hurt, to malign.
I don’t want any part of it. I’m tired of the stress of it and stressful it is. And the worst of all? Facebook. Sure Twitter gets bad, but Facebook is a fucking pit in the worse neighborhoods of Hell. I’m over it. I post what I want, which isn’t much. I check my profile, the groups I’m in, and my Page roughly twice a day. That’s the extent of my involvement anymore. The newsfeed is hate and baiting, whether it’s race baiting or click bating. It’s people trying to tell others how to live, what opinion to have, what is and isn’t acceptable in the romance writing world,what is and isn’t acceptable to do for their family, and what posts they can or can’t comment on based on whether they’re black or white. Seriously? This is what we are? This is what we’ve become?
Sadly, yes. It is.
And this is why I’ve removed myself from it but for very limited involvement. The negativity, the stress, the hate, the drama, the racism. There’s enough of it in the outside the computer world. Except, I don’t see it in the interactions of actual human beings when I’m out in public, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Not like I see it online.
This kind of vitriol is not bringing anyone together. It’s tearing us apart. It’s making us weaker, not stronger. It’s bringing out the worst in us, not the better.
Life is too short. We’ve seen it. We know it. It plays out every second of every day on social media, on 24/7 news channels, on event alerts on our phones and tablets. But as a society, we’d rather fight than work to find a way to live together and revel and learn through our differences.
How fucking sad and pathetic we’ve become.
This is why we can’t have nice things. And dammit… I want nice things.
~lissa
by Mlissa | Aug 10, 2016 | self publishing, Wordy Wednesday
I spent the better part of yesterday morning changing prices, delisting books at distributors, and making lists of things I want to do with the next few months.
I am putting the majority of my self-published books in Kindle Unlimited for 3 months. You may wonder why and you may not. But the simple fact is that my books aren’t selling anywhere. Not really even at Amazon. It’s worth a try in Kindle Unlimited, but I understand I may make less. Honestly, though, for the last 3 months at other book sellers, I made $11.
The place where I sell most is at Amazon. The books that are selling the best for me and that’s not saying much are the Amazon exclusive Kindle World books. I make more from those 3 than I do from the other 20 something titles I have combined. That’s… I don’t know what that is. Sad. Scary. I… I don’t know.
So, I’m trying Kindle Unlimited with the majority of my self-published titles.
Other titles, I’m pulling off sale for a while to do revisions on and look into new covers for… Masked. Melting Jane.
Love & Tattoos will get revisions, but not a new cover.
And I’ll be adding a revised short to Arresting Holli.
More Than This and Double Up have reverted back to me from Loose Id, so I’ll be revising those and putting them back out sometime late this year or early next year.
I’ve also changed the prices on the books that will be going into Kindle Unlimited. Lowered some. Raised some. Granted, if you’re a member of KU, you pay a set rate and can download for ‘free’. If you’re not a member, but are curious about Kindle Unlimited, you can Sign Up HERE
I do have new books coming. I am getting organized. I am finding my way. I am grateful to all who have stuck by on this weird merry-go-round ride I seem to be on. I love y’all more than words can say.
~lissa
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by Mlissa | Aug 3, 2016 | Reading, Wordy Wednesday
Welcome to Wordy Wednesday!
It’s been a while. I’ve revamped things. Not in the look of the site, but I’m working on what content I want on the blog. I’m not even sure anyone still visits the blog (this is where I should go check Google Analytics, but, nah. Not right now.). Maybe though with this new fangled schedule/plan/not by the seat of my pants this time thing in place, I’ll be able to build up the following again. More on the plan, later.
Today I want to talk about reading. More specifically, I tell you what books I have on my Kindle and you tell me what books you have on yours (Or your Nook, your iBooks, your Kobo). Or what you have in paperback that you’ve recently acquired.
Reading is vital. Reading is necessary. Reading is escape.
So, the last 10 books I One-Clicked are:
Six by James Crow
Prince With Benefits by Nicole Snow
The Heart Of It by M. O’Keefe
Sugar Daddies by Jade West
Ethan by Ruby Shae
Now & Then by Brenda Rothert
Witch Slapped by Dakota Cassidy
The Devil’s Kiss by Gemma James
A Man Of Character by Margaret Locke
Man Candy by Melanie Harlow
70% of these were free or $0.99 at the time of posting and at the time of purchase. Some were first in series. Some were standalone. I have differing tastes in reading, as you can see.
What’s on your reading device?
Oh, and my latest paperback purchase was Marrying Winterbourne by Lisa Kleypas
There’s just something about holding a historical romance (my first love) in paperback the way I bought all of them when I first started reading romance. le sigh...
Now, you tell me what books you’ve recently found!
~lissa
by Mlissa | Feb 17, 2016 | Wordy Wednesday, writing
Because let’s face it, there’s a crapload out there to be fearful of when it comes to writing:
Failure
Success
The success or failure of other writers
Falling behind the curve or being way ahead of it
Writing great stories
Writing craptastic stories
What are other writers saying
What if other writers aren’t saying anything at all
Doing it right or doing it wrong
Being different
Being the same
And there are countless more fears… We all share some level of the same fears, but we also share some level of more personal ones. None of it feels good. Fear can motivate and fear can paralyze.
I’ve talked about fear some this year, and it would seem that while I thought maybe I’d admitted most of my fears, it turns out I was wrong.
I promised a book by the end of October and I didn’t deliver. Then I promised it by the end of the year and I didn’t deliver. I then promised it by the first week of February and still nada. So, while I’ve been working on this book, I’ve not finished it. And part of the reason for that, is fear. I’m scared.
Are you wondering why?
When I started working in the Southern Shifter Kindle World, I had only planned one book, Ink To Bear. Then, I was asked if I’d write another one. I said yes and added on to Gus and Bex’s story with Inked By The Bear, which ended in a bit of a cliffhanger. I didn’t want to leave it for long, but I did have other commitments to finish at the time, and I worked on it. Real life bit me in the ass HARD and I lost all sense of time beyond exhaustion; mental, physical, and emotional. I didn’t have anything else in me. I had no creative spark. I’d sit down to write and end up going to bed instead. I looked to all the things going on and I just couldn’t do it.
Now, when I was writing Inked By The Bear, and hearing a lot of other voices in my head, I got a wild idea to connect all my
bear worlds into one big conspiracy. I drew no frills diagram on my whiteboard. I started playing with how to connect things in my brain. It consumed me and I was ready to spend the next few months on this.
Then life happened. Then the holidays happened. Then deep thinking happened. Then new directions happened.
And in the midst of all that, fear happened. What the hell was I thinking? I couldn’t connect different worlds like that. I couldn’t pull off something that big. I didn’t and don’t like reading things that intricately woven together, how on Earth was I going to write something so intricately woven together? I wasn’t a paranormal romance author. I don’t watch all the paranormal shows. I don’t read all the paranormal romance books. What the hell was I thinking? I didn’t and don’t have people I can turn to and ask for help in plotting such a massive over-arching storyline.
Those were just some of my thoughts. There were others. The point being, Bearing The Ink isn’t finished and part of it is because of fear. Fear that I wouldn’t measure up. Fear that I would fuck it up. Fear that I would tank more than I usually do. Fear that other writers would laugh and mock. Fear that they wouldn’t even notice. Fear that readers would hate it. Fear that I would hate it. Fear that I would fail. The thought of succeeding never entered my mind so I couldn’t be fearful of it. I was and am very scared and it paralyzed me.
Paralyzed. Past tense.
I’m still fearful. In fact, I’m scared shitless. But I’ve been scared shitless since the beginning of the 2016. I’m writing contemporary in a new voice and trying new things. I’m looking at marketing a little differently. I’ve walked away from a couple of projects. And I’ve begun working hard on Bearing The Ink again. All of it scares me. Every bit of it. The fear of screwing up, of making a fool of myself, of failing freaks me the fuck out and I truly want to go crawl into a hole. But, I’m not going to. I’m going to do this, no matter what. I’m going to deliver the book. I’m going to continue writing. I’m going to figure it out.
And if you’re along for the ride, hold on.
If you’re waiting for Bearing the Ink, please hold on just a little longer. You won’t be disappointed.
~lissa
