Category: Romance Novels

Romance Novels

Down the Rabbit Hole: Avoiding the Slippery Slope

It seems as if, like Alice, we’ve all slipped down the rabbit hole into a world that is less Wonderland and more WTF-land. In the year 2012, politicians are on TV actually discussing the legalities of birth control, even as banks are telling legal adults what we can and can’t sell and buy for our own personal use. It’s surreal. It’s frightening. It’s angering (if that is even a word). It’s a slippery slope I don’t want to go down. So what can we do? Mark Coker, the owner of Smashwords, explains the situation better than I can in his email to indie publishers, which I have pasted below. He outlines steps we can all take to make sure we don’t go down that rabbit hole and find ourselves in a place we don’t want to be….     PAYPAL CENSORSHIP UPDATE ________________________________________ In case you haven’t heard, about two weeks ago, PayPal contacted Smashwords and  gave us a surprise ultimatum: Remove all titles containing bestiality, rape  or incest, otherwise they threatened to deactivate our PayPal account. We engaged  them in discussions and on Monday they gave us a temporary reprieve as we continue  to work in good faith to […]

Romance Novels

Newly Rereleased: BENEATH THE SURFACE

  A multiauthor anthology I was in recently went out of print so what did I do? I brushed up the story, gave it a shiny new cover and uploaded it to the sites I haven’t been shut out of (meaning all sites except Bookstrand). It’s my pleasure to reintroduce you to BENEATH THE SURFACE, my contemporary short story set in Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. Enjoy! BENEATH THE SURFACE Rick Jones is on a mission and the answers he seeks may lie deep beneath the streets of New York within the secrets of Grand Central Terminal. While Rick goes both undercover and underground in search of clues, he encounters a woman he finds just as intriguing as the mystery he’s working to solve. Beth Cooke’s job as a conservation expert at the landmark train station gives Rick just the in he needs to explore areas otherwise off-limits to the public. He only hope Beth isn’t equally off-limits. Rick’s determined to both satisfy his desire for her and find the answers to his questions, but will Beth believe him when the truth is finally revealed? This story has been previously published. It has been reedited from the original version. 15,000 […]

Romance Novels

Bookstrand no more…

It’s ridiculous that I have to take time away from my full-time writing career to do this, but here it goes… I just received the following email: Dear Indie Author,   We have made a decision to no longer maintain most indie author accounts at BookStrand.com.  Therefore, we are deactivating all titles associated with your account and no new uploads will be accepted.  Your final distribution payment will be disbursed to you within 30 days and your account will be closed. During this time you will still be able to access your sales report from your account.   BookStrand will focus on its core business by servicing accounts of publishers with clear submission and publishing guidelines that best serve our targeted audience.  Our customer base was successfully built on this premise, and it’s time to go back to our roots.   While we understand you may be disappointed in losing a distribution outlet for your work, there are still several outlets that currently accept self-published titles. We wish you the best in your endeavors.   Sincerely, Howie M. BookStrand.com No, I didn’t make a lot of money from my self-published titles on Bookstrand. In fact, hardly any at all. Seriously, […]