My 20th book!

I'm still pinching myself about that...my 20th book!

I swear it feels like I only just sold yesterday...but 5 years passes mighty quickly when you have 2 babies in that time!

This Modern Heat was slotted into December 09 a while ago but I've been waiting on the title and now I have it!

MARRIAGE: FOR BUSINESS OR PLEASURE?

This book features my Italian bad boy, Nick Mancini and career-oriented London gal Brittany Lloyd.

Considering they were teenage sweethearts, you can imagine the sparks flying when they reunite ten years later...and Nick has a proposal for Britt that blows her mind!

I've tried to upload an excerpt to my webpage but after that part of my PC got fried in the lightning strike, it's refusing to work.

Much gnashing of teeth will ensue, I fear.

My blog in the Top 50!

I've discovered my blog is in the Top 50 Aussie Writing Blogs, as determined by Jonathan Crossfield, Marketing Manager of NetRegistry.

He used figures from Technorati, Google Page Rank and Alexa, plugged them into a formula, and there I am, sitting pretty in the Top 50!

Mind you, I can't understand a word of all that gobbledygook, but I guess I just keep doing what I'm doing. Post daily, interact with you fabulous followers and keep it interesting.

Which brings me to my next question. If there's anything you want covered here, just shoot me an email and I'll try to do a post on it.
Reminds me...I'm due for another 'Write Whisper' post too...

'Those titles'.

A snippet of a recent review got me thinking about titles.

"As a reader, I tend to cringe when I see titles such as The Billionaire's Baby. I like series romances, but in recent years I've been reading them in spite of their titles, not because of them. Still, that being said, once I got past the ridiculous title, I found a mostly entertaining and heartwarming story."

When I give talks, one of the things I mention is the fact authors don't usually choose their own titles or covers and people are surprised.

Harlequin Mills and Boon titles are chosen with the hook of the book in mind.
So that a reader knows at a glance what the book is about.
The marketing department are highly skilled at their job and know what sells so next time you see a title with too many hooks, don't be put off. Bet the story between the pages is fabulous!

Blowing off steam

Had a lovely Easter, a really enjoyable family day.

So with kidlets in bed last night, thought I'd do a bit of research for current WIP.

Before I started, I whizzed through my emails to clear my inbox and discovered a nasty snake curled up there...in the form of a Google Alert for my latest Harlequin Presents.

What's so bad about that?

'The Boss's Bedroom Agenda' was freely available on an illegal download site!

A reader had uploaded it last week and the book had been viewed 248 times already.

As you know from my posts here, a lot goes into writing a book. Loads of blood, sweat and tears. If you enjoy my books, I'd hope you'd shout it to the world: tell your friends/family/dentist/grocer/librarian/everyone to go out and buy copies of my books. Lend them to friends. Spread the word.

What I'd hope you wouldn't do after enjoying one of my books is upload to a site where hundreds of people can download it for free.

As Trish Wylie succinctly put it in her post here, it's stealing.

Our books are copyrighted.

When I lose out on sales, my sales figures go down.

My sales figures continue to go down, my publisher doesn't want to buy any more of my books and you don't get to read any.

That's the way it goes.

This blatant disregard for respecting authors' work makes me mad.

Yes, I spend a small fortune on books but I want to keep reading my favourite authors.

As for the steam coming out of my ears...every time I find one of my books being illegally downloaded from the Net, I have to report it to Harlequin.

It's a pain.

It's time-consuming.

And I'd much rather be writing.

Wish these darn download sites would disappear into cyberspace forever...