Deadlines, New Beginnings, And An Anniversary

I missed the Sunday update yesterday because I was under a deadline. Not a writing deadline, mind you, something different that I'm really excited to be a part of. Say hello to the new NA Alley website!

I was asked to be a board member there a few months ago when the majority of the original members moved on to new ventures. I offered to help Carrie and E.J. with all the website changes and updates, and we've been working hard on getting the new design up and running for our launch today. I've been putting aside writing time to work on it, and I'm so pleased that it all turned out well. Be sure to stop by, take a look around, and enter the giveaway to win a whole bunch of awesome New Adult books. http://www.naalley.com

I also had myself under a deadline to finish a draft of Book 4 in September, but now I'm moving this to the end of October. It's not because the writing is going badly. September was just swamped with plenty of personal stuff and some other professional ventures (box sets and NA Alley). I've had to juggle things like swim lessons, Jewish holidays, roof repairs, and a whole host of other things and each has kept me from writing BECAUSE THEY ARE EXHAUSTING! Every night, I almost fall asleep on the couch.

But I've been trying to keep my life balanced by knitting and reading too. I need that in order to not go insane.

So my new goal is to finish this draft by the end of October so I can be ready to start a rough draft of the next Love in the Digital Age novel during NaNoWriMo!

And that leads me to my other news: FACE TIME will be exclusive to Amazon starting October 1. There has always been a lot of debate in the self-publishing world about whether to enroll a book in Amazon's KDP Select Program. For those who don't know about it, anyone can publish their book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, etc. But Amazon has a few programs underneath their “Select” umbrella that you can only take advantage of if you are exclusive to them. Meaning, you can't publish the book ANYWHERE ELSE. My Nogiku Series does well enough on the other vendors that I can't see myself ever going strictly to Amazon for them. But FACE TIME, my adult contemporary romance, has only ever sold at Amazon (minus 3 copies I have sold elsewhere).

When I move FACE TIME to Amazon exclusively, I'll be able to take advantage of a few cool features. After 30 days, I'll be able to use the Kindle Countdown Deals feature to put FACE TIME on sale if I want to, and FACE TIME will also be available to Prime Members in the Kindle Lending Library and to Kindle Unlimited Users. Hopefully, this means my contemporary romance will find some new readers.

This is for a trial 90 days, and after that I can move FACE TIME back to other vendors if I wish. Will I? I want to see how it goes! I love experimenting in self-publishing and seeing what works for me or even individual novels. I'll be sure to keep you posted.

And finally, my husband and I celebrated a whole ten years together married (we met in 2000, so we've been together for 14 years) by spending 24 hours away from the house and in Atlantic City. My mom babysat the kids, and KP and I had blissful massages, ate lots of awesome Japanese food, and gambled until we couldn't stand anymore. It was great! I doubled my money at the roulette table and KP only lost $40 playing craps all night.

Stay tuned! I'll be here again in a few days to talk about the whole of September :)