HelenKay Dimon

I have four releases coming out in 2008. That’s more than I had in 2006 and 2007 combined. I’m excited, but the idea of multiple releases gets me thinking about promo stuff. I wish I knew what worked and what didn’t. Think of the money to be made in packaging and selling that info…

For my book buying habits, I can say the more I see a cover, the more likely I am to pick up the book in a store. Yes, I am a marketer’s dream. Great covers grab my attention. So do terrible ones. In general:

**I read Romantic Times every month. RT is the one place where ads have an impact on me.
**I check out the monthly recommendations at Dear Author (can’t get the link to work at the moment)- and, yes, the fact YOUR MOUTH DRIVES ME CRAZY was a July recommendation there is part of the reason.
**I look at the Coming Soon pages on authors’ websites. I also get a tad miffed when I find a 2006 release on that page even though I know the author has had books out since then.
**I like to see which books are getting attention on reader blogs like Sybil’s. However, I am puzzled when I see all the same books everywhere when other books aren’t getting any attention. Not sure how that happens but I’m thinking it has something to do with the ARCs reader blogs get from publishers. For example, Berkley seems to send out tons of ARCs. As a result, you see more Berkley books getting attention. Or, that’s my theory.

Some things do not work on me. For example, I never look at those flashing banners and small ads on sites. For some reason, they just don’t register with me at all. I look at the bookmarks on the tables at conferences, but I rarely pick one up. Again, for me it’s a matter of checking out covers. Once one sets in my mind, I’m going to track it down.

That’s me. I know other things work for other people. If anyone has a suggestion about what does or does not work, let me know.

Between the Southern California fires and a computer hacking problem, I’m ready to forget about last week. I need to get back to writing. The next few days will be a struggle to do just that. The stop-and-start way of writing has never worked for me. I have to dig in and work on the book until it’s in my head all the time. After a one week break, there’s not much of anything in my head.

While I figure all of that out, here is an opportunity for you to consider:

Romance author Dawn Thompson is in the hospital and money is an issue. Her friend and fellow romance author Deborah Macgillivray is hosting an incredible raffle. This one gives you the chance to do something good and to get your manuscript in front of an editor. You pay $100 to be entered. You can win a critique from Hilary Sares (Kensington), Chris Kesslar (Dorchester), Leah Hultenschmidt (Dorchester) or Leanne Burroughs (Highland Press). The specifics of the critiques are on Deb’s blog (click on the “raffle” link above). The important thing to note is that 21 people will get a critique from this raffle. Hilary Sares is promising a two-week turnaround for the folks who win her critiques – and that’s amazing.

Deb says this about the raffle:

All monies raised go to help author Dawn Thompson’s hospital and medical bills. Dawn recently had a bad fall. She is a new writer so has to wait for nearly a year or more to start receiving her royalties. She doesn’t have family to help her and has a lot of needs not being covered by her insurance. Money will go to help her pay for medicine not covered, and other needs arising from her recovery.

You have until December 15th to enter. Don’t miss this opportunity and chance to help Dawn.

I got hacked…or something. Had a serious problem with email last evening around 10 pm PST. Very personal and very nasty emails went out to writing/reader loops of which I’m a member. They are under my email address. These are not from me. I know I can be clueless and do some jerky things, but I rarely rise to the level of being this much of an ass. Yeah, the content is that bad.

AOL and Yahoo insist all is fine now. Some sort of trace is being run on my accounts. The one thing that did happen is all emails on my system dated before 11pm PST last night are gone. AOL erased them. If you wrote me and are expecting a response, please write again. The email is fine now. No viruses or trouble – I promise! I’m sorry for the inconvenience.

Personal apologies to Cindy, Shelley and Darlene – the subjects of the nasty emails.

To everyone else: Check and make sure you have a firewall on your computer. Also, clean out your old email (in your inbox, saved, recently deleted and otherwise) because there can be viruses and other nasties in there. Both the AOL tech person and the Dell guy who entered my system remotely lectured me on this.

Going offline for a few hours while AOL plays…

UPDATE: It had something to do with phishing and MySpace. See, I got an email about a month ago that was one of those “XXXX wants to be your friend” emails you get when you have a MySpace account. At the time, I followed the advice of my lovely webmistress and friend Mica and did not click on the link in the email, notified MySpace, etc. Unfortunately, I ignored the part where she told me to erase the damn email. Common sense, I know, but I didn’t do it. Instead, I saved it in my “saved” file on AOL. Last night while cleaning things out, I opened the email, did not notice which email this was, clicked on the link, went on to MySpace and put in my new password…yeah, dumb. I did not realize what I did until this morning. The damage is done. The upsetting part is that someone I know and someone who is familiar with writing loops did this. I’ve decided not to think about that part. The real problem was me. I messed up. Everything is fine now…except my nerves which are fried!

I’m blogging over at Access Romance today. Check it out.

Also check out Kerry Allen’s blog. I found it because she commented at Access Romance and, being nosy, I clicked on her link and read through her blog. Kerry is funny. Her insights and reader peeves give me a “I wish I said that” feeling. Here are some examples:

On the men in J.R. Ward’s Brotherhood series:

I do think the Brothers’ size issues are expounded upon to a grotesque degree, so much so that I ignore them completely. I was startled in Book 3 or 4 to read Rhage is the most physically imposing of the bunch. He’s my favorite, and while imagining him too pretty to look straight at without suffering retinal damage, I’m definitely not superimposing him on Andre the Giant. I have my own idea of tall, broad, and built to whoop evil ass, so don’t interrupt me with freakshow measurements, m’kay?

On bathtub sex in romance novels:

The heroine is soaking in a bubble bath, tub full of water and suds up to her neck. The hero joins her in the tub. The heroine chooses to welcome him with a bit of felatio.

Either she has gills and a fondness for the taste of soap, or he has a 24-inch periscope that rises above the water level.

On heroines with glasses:

Ah, the ever-popular heroine who is dumpy and frumpy until she takes off her glasses and suddenly becomes the uber-hot object of every male character’s lustful fantasies.

Those must be some DAMN ugly glasses to overshadow not only her “cover girl” facial features but also her “generous cleavage,” her ass that is so extensively lauded I can’t select a single quote, and her “long, shapely legs.”

Check out Kerry’s blog.

First, Brava editor (my editor) Kate Duffy is blogging at the Brava Authors’ website today. She’ll be there every month. It’s a fabulous opportunity to say hello, ask her questions and get to know her. Take advantage of the opportunity.

Speaking of Kate Duffy…when the San Diego fires hit the news, she called. She offered support, money, assistance and whatever else I needed. For those who are afraid of her, remember that she has this side too. I am grateful to her for many things, including for buying my books, but I am most grateful for that call.

Parts of San Diego still are on fire. We are home and safe. Many others are not as lucky. I have not read or written this week. Mostly, I’ve watched television and worried. My plans for this weekend are a bit different. When everything calms down, I’m going to hunt down a book, probably an old favorite, and fall deep into reading.

I’m going to go ahead and use the blog to make a general announcement since I’ve received a few calls and emails: I am safe and fine.

For those who have no idea why I’m saying this, I live in San Diego and a good portion of San Diego is on fire. Very dangerous. Very serious. None of the fires are contained – and, yeah, I mean fires as in plural. There were three wildfires when I went to bed last night. There are about eight now. The strong winds are making it tough for the planes to get in the air and throw water on the flames. The fires are jumping highways and getting into very residential areas. Again, very scary stuff.

But, really, I’m fine and not near the evacuation zone. No worries at all. In fact, I live right near one of the places where people who have been evacuated are being sent. I’m safe and very grateful.

It’s Sunday. Remember to check-in at the Sweat Challenge today.

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I played around in MySpace this week. Changed the look of my MySpace page and generally updated all the information. While nosing around, I found a few books of interest. The authors of this week’s books come from legal backgrounds. Now they’re writing. I appreciate career change.

First up is Chambermaid by Saira Rao

The synopsis on the author’s website goes like this:

The devil holds a gavel in this wickedly entertaining debut novel about a young attorney’s eventful year clerking for a federal judge. Sheila Raj is a recent graduate of a top-ten law school with dreams of working for the ACLU. When she lands a coveted yearlong federal clerkship with legal goddess Judge Helga Friedman, she cannot help but think that her life is destined for jurisprudential greatness.

But law school did not prepare Sheila for the power-hungry sociopath who greets her on her first day and insists that she is Pakistani (she’s Indian), that her name is Sheba (it’s Sheila), and refers to her co-clerk Laura as “the gay”; nor for Her Honor’s secretaries—Roy, who moonlights as a medieval bard called Felemid McDowell, and Janet, who pets the Pound Puppies draped over her computer when she’s not thumping her Bible. Only when she is assigned to a high-profile death-penalty case does Sheila realize she has to survive the year as Friedman’s chambermaid—not only her sanity, but actual lives hang in the balance.

Next is Ivy Briefs by Martha Kimes.

Publishers Weekly says this:

First time author Kimes is entertaining and funny in recounting her three years at one of the country’s premier law schools. A smart young woman with a good, but not always engaged, sense of perspective, Kimes jumps from the University of Wisconsin to Columbia Law School on the wings of a spectacular showing on the LSATs. Once there, she faces the predictable sadistic professor, hypercompetitive fellow students and, of course, rampant elitism. Kimes is happy to treat with an equal measure of humor the highly stylized courting dance between summer law clerks and mega law firms, as well as the foreboding horrors of the bar exam. Though some stories seem hyperbolic and re-created conversations can be suspiciously pat, Kimes captures with accuracy the gestalt of the law school experience. Kimes did get a job at what she calls “Lavish Law Firm.” But she eventually left to join the Make-a-Wish Foundation, which may be her final comment on the world of big-time law. The self-deprecating wit, catty observations and healthy sense of the absurd with which Kimes describes her approach-avoidance reactions to the world of law school raise the book above the ordinary.

The first is fiction (I hope) and the second nonfiction, but both sound interesting. Any thoughts?

My editor offered, and I accepted, a new book contract. Wahoo!!!! This one is for three more single titles. Except for the Christmas novella, my 2008 releases are all written and turned in. So, the books from the new sale will come out in 2009/2010. I’ll let you know when I know something more definitive.

And…the sequel referenced in the sale stars Josh from YOUR MOUTH DRIVES ME CRAZY as the hero. Several of you asked for his story. I’m tackling that one first.

Here’s the listing from PW:

FICTION: WOMEN’S/ROMANCE
HelenKay Dimon’s sequel to YOUR MOUTH DRIVES ME CRAZY, to Kate Duffy at Kensington Brava, for publication in 2009, in a three-book deal, by Ethan Ellenberg at the Ethan Ellenberg Agency.

Let me preface this entry with this disclaimer: People should feel free to write and read whatever they want. But…is it too much to ask for some variety? I had dinner with my fellow published authors from the San Diego RWA chapter last night (which was awesome). Before dinner, I looked around the shelves in the B&N next door. Yes, 90% of the offerings were either paranormal or erotic romance* or both. That was irritating enough. The bigger frustration was that most of the erotic romance titles had a plot with a menage a trios.

I am begging – really, on my knees begging – erotic romance authors to find another plot device. This reminds of when the hotter (non-erotic romance) books started hitting the shelves about 5 years ago. All of the plots seemed to center around sexy, adults-only, live-out-your-fantasies resorts. I kept wondering where all these all-sex-all-the-time joints were located. I got so sick of the premise that, to this day, if I see any book involving a one of these fantasy resorts I can’t read it. The idea is just so contrived and overdone.

And, back to the topic at hand…I’m starting to feel that way about the menage a trios story. There has to be something else to write about. Something more creative and not done-to-death in the genre that still has the level of heat and boundary-pushing feel you want. Please, please, please, mix in other plots.

*Note: When I say erotic romance, I mean books that might be more erotic than romance and come out in imprints like Berkley Heat, Kensington Aphrodisia, Avon Red and EC, etc.

We have some winners from the contemporary romance contest I ran last week. Thanks to all who volunteered to read and then give us their thoughts. Using random selection, the winners are:

*Of Hot Like Fire - Carrie Lofty

*Of When I’m With You - Christy

*Of Only You - Brenda Crider

*Of Feel The Fire - Teresa W.

Congrats!!! Email me so I can get those out to you and we can make arrangements to get your thoughts posted here.

For those who love books and contests and contests about books and…well, you get the idea, check out Sylvia Day’s website. Sylvia has given her blog over to the American Title IVcontestants. Check out the interviews and see what you need to do to win some awesome prizes. Good luck!!!