Where do YOU Read?

What’s your favorite place to read? 

Fess up... 

Are you a book snuggler, like me? Do you take one to bed with you? Do you read under the covers? At the Park? 

Are you a sunny porch with a cup of tea reader? Do you have book tucked in your purse and whip it out whenever the opportunity to read arises? 

Do you read in the carpool lane? Are you a beach reader? Do you prefer the quiet of the library for your reading adventures? What about the easy chair in the living room, is that where you curl up with a good book?

Take our survey and let’s see where readers enjoy their books the most:

Ok, I'll admit it.  I basically shot myself in the foot.  I was supposed to post yesterday's blog and got so busy with other stuff that I totally spaced and forgot to schedule it, and it sat on my computer in a word file instead of posting to the Plotting Princesses, where it was supposed to be.

So I'm rewriting it a bit and posting it today.  TA DA!!!  (Well at least I'm getting something up – better late than never, don't you think?)

What do Readers Want?

Weekend before last I spent in San Francisco with some of the biggest names in romance talking about how to increase our presence on Amazon and reach more readers. This conference was small, personal and so unique. It’s not often you can ask Belle Andre or Tina Folsom or Sara Fawkes about their success.  Not to forget Nina Lane, Delilah Fawkes, Courtney Milan, Cynthia Woolf and several other Best-selling authors that attended.

We spent the weekend discussing metadata, keywords, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Street Teams and all the other details that help sell our books. As we sat there, I couldn’t help but wonder if we shouldn’t be asking questions of our readers.

So I would like you to take the following unscientific, totally random for my own purposes survey. It’s only five questions, with a bonus round and someone (randomly drawn number), who answers will receive a free book just because they participated. The results will be tallied and shared with other authors.

DO YOU HAVE A NOTORIOUS AUNT? by Kathleen Baldwin

Do you have a Notorious Aunt?

This week I am launching my award-wining Regency romantic comedy as an eBook. LADY FIASCO was voted best Traditional Regency by the cataromance readers, and won 2nd place in the prestigious Molly. It’s book one in the series, My Notorious Aunt.

It about and unusual heroine. Fiona Hawthorn grew up running free. Without a mother to restrain her, she spent her days riding her horse neck or nothing across her father’s fields and swimming like a sea nymph. But in a sitting room she’s bound to overturn the teapot or accidentally trip the footman. Her notorious Aunt Honore decides to takes the hoyden in hand, but amidst the strictures of society, Fiona is a fish out of water.

When she was younger, Lord Wesmont was her hero. But he came home from fighting Napoleon a hardened man. Nothing can breathe life back into his cold heart, nothing except, perhaps, the love of an unusual young woman who regularly turns his life upside-down. Can a lady with a reputation for disaster, stumble into love?

Why Can’t We All Just Get Along: Readers versus Writers

There has been so much discussion lately about readers trashing writers that I wanted to take today to jump in and say how much I appreciate my readers. Without you, I would still be writing, but there would be no one who relates to my point of view. No one who enjoyed my characters and my story. I need you.

Let’s face it, a writer can’t help but put a big chunk of herself in a novel. I have received some of the nicest reviews and yes, they affect me emotionally. I’ve had readers make me feel wonderful with tears of joy and occasionally comments that left me frustrated.

As a writer, I want to spend my time focusing on the next story, not on whether or not the book was formatted correctly or even whether or not all the commas are in the right spots. (I hate commas, I truly do.) I’m interested in getting the movie that is playing in my head down on the page. I pay people to format the book correctly, and I pay a free-lance editor to make certain all those pesky commas land in the right spot.

When Amazon sends me a notice saying someone said there is an error on page 1374, I take it seriously. I make the changes and upload the book again. But there is a small part of me that wonders…did you do this when it was a New York Publisher?

The Great Hunt for Readers

Some of the Plotting Princesses attended the RomCon Convention, and have been talking about what a great experience it was spending three days with readers. For those who don’t know, RomCon is a romance readers convention. A place where women who love romance novels get together for a weekend. There were silly games, contests, meeting authors and a book signing. Mainly there was just a lot of fun attending events.

As a writer, you want to interact with readers, but sometimes they’re hard to find. I’ve done book signings where there were a few readers lined up, and I’ve done them when I sat there all alone and smiled thinking I’m so uncomfortable, I just wish this hour would end. People will walk by gaze at you and think, oh my God, she wants me to purchase something from her. You can see the panic in their eyes, right before they run.

Michelle Miles: the Princesses Debut at RomCon 2013

This past week, the princesses had the pleasure of attending RomCon. For all of us, this was a first-time experience. And it was so much fun!

I got to experience a high—meeting my favorite author on the face of the planet. Here’s a picture of me with Gena Showalter. She is one of the nicest people I’ve met. Very gracious and lovely in person.

Okay I promise I won’t fan girl on that much but she gave me her email address so like I’m totally in. *grin*

LET'S ALL WRITE TOGETHER -- By Kathy Ivan

We've had a lot of author interview posts and getting to know a bunch of new people lately, plus lots of blogs about writing and craft; so I thought we'd do something a little bit different and kind of fun today.

We're going to do what's called Round Robin writing. It's fun, quick and easy and everybody gets to participate. The rules are fairly simple and I'm listing them here.

1. Read the scene below—it's very short.

2. In the comments section, leave a comment continuing the scene in your own way. Please only write a maximum of 3 lines in your comment.

3. The next person should read the continued scene in the comments section. Then starting with the last comment posted, they CONTINUE THE SCENE, again writing no more than a maximum of 3 lines in their comment.

4. Each person who visits the blog continues the scene, writing their 1 to 3 line comment, advancing the story. You can take the story in any direction you want with your comments, but remember, you are trying to advance the story that is being written (not start something new). You can add in a suspense element, paranormal element, a sci-fi element, a steampunk element, whatever you'd like.

5. PLEASE and I can't stress this enough, PLEASE KEEP YOUR SCENE PG RATED. No explicit sex scenes for this round robin.

6. Feel free to come back as many times throughout the day as you would like, adding additional posts and continuing the scene/story.

Everybody is invited to participate. Whether you are a reader or a writer, we encourage you to leave a comment and add to the story. We all have vivid imaginations; let's see where they take us.

SCENE:
The loud roar of the speedboat's engine drowned out all conversation, though occasional laughter could be heard from the party's guests. A water skier zipped and whirled through the swirling wake behind the boat, one hand holding the tow line while waving frantically with the other.

I HEART BOOKS by Kathy Ivan

I was very fortunate. My lovely sister gave me Amazon.com gift cards for my birthday, so I could load up my Kindle Fire. Wasn't that sweet of her? Anyway, I ordered a few books I'd wanted to buy, from authors I know and have read in the past, which is always fun. But I want to try something or somebody different. So, in the spirit of finding new authors, I'm going to open up today's blog for your suggestions and recommendations.

If you are a reader, I want your inside scoop. Who are you currently reading? Is it a print book or are you into E-books?

If you are an author, you can list information about one (and unfortunately only 1) of your releases. We have to keep the space limited—if you post more than one book the additional ones will be deleted. To keep everything consistent and to keep my head from exploding from too much information, please follow the format below. (Hint: I'll list mine here, so you get an idea of what I'm talking about.)

TITLE: Desperate Choices
AUTHOR: Kathy Ivan
PUBLISHER: Carina Press
GENRE: Romantic suspense with paranormal elements
FORMAT: E-Book only
AVAILABLE AT: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Carina Press website, and wherever E-books are sold.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT. . .by Kathy Ivan

We've had a lot of author interview posts and getting to know a bunch of new people lately, plus lots of blogs about writing and craft; so I thought we'd try something a little bit different and kind of fun today.

We're going to do what's called Round Robin writing. It's fun, quick and easy and everybody gets to participate. The rules are fairly simple and I'm listing them here.

1. Read the scene below—it's very short.

2. In the comments section, leave a comment continuing the scene in your own way. Please only write a maximum of 3 lines in your comment.

3. The next person should read the scene below and the comments. Then starting with the last comment posted, they CONTINUE THE SCENE, again writing no more than a maximum of 3 lines in their comment.