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Thursday, March 09, 2006

Guest Blogger: Jade Lee

Well hello blog-readers! It's Jade Lee popping in to say a big hello to fellow Crimson City author-extraordinaire Patti and a massive hello to all of you readers. For those of you who have NOT been paying attention, Patti wrote the amazing Through a Crimson Veil (book 3 of the series). And I wrote, Seduced by Crimson (book 5) which has gotten awesome reviews and was an RT Top Pick. (Hint, hint. That means it's good so go out and buy it, okay?) It's also sensuous and action oriented and sexy and has interesting characters and is very spicy and...hmmmm, am I repeating myself? Anyway, we both wrote fabulous books, so go out and buy them! Mine just hit the stands on March 1.

Okay...so that was the over-enthusiastic opening that I really had to do because...you know...you just do. The following is the pure unadulterated truth of what I'm feeling RIGHT NOW. Are you ready? Here it comes. I'll put it in bold, so everyone will know how I feel. Promotion sucks. I know, I know, you all are rolling your eyes and thinking, well duh. Writers write. They don't really want to spend their time pressing the flesh and kissing up to readers. But you see, that's where you're wrong. I'm an EXTROVERT. Not just an extrovert, but a LOUD, EXUBERANT IN-YOUR-FACE EXTROVERT. Patti can attest to this.

Frankly, I love doing book signings, conferences, and speaking engagements. Those are AWESOME!!!! I've got five conferences scheduled this year, will be traveling all over the place, and that's not counting the times I just go drop into bookstores. I love meeting people and will hop in a car for the stupidest reasons. Yeah, I get tired. But at home I'd have to fight with my teenagers and cook dinner. Who wants to do that? I want to be out in the world!

That's not the part of promotion that sucks. Even this chatting on a blog is kinda fun though I don't meet any of you face to face. I still get to babble away and people e-mail me to tell me I'm brilliant. (Hint: that's your clue to e-mail me or comment on this blog to say...Jade! You're brilliant! I loved your blog and will now go buy all your books! My e-mail, btw, is jade@jadeleeauthor.com) This is fun!

Here's what sucks: I just spent all morning setting up arcs (advance reading copies) for my June book, Burning Tigress. It's a good book. Actually has a bit of humor in among the dark sensuous Asian tantric sex stuff. And the love story is clever, IMO. Hours, I am working on this. HOURS. And I finally hit Print. What happens? I get half of it and then the printer dies. UGH!

Plus, you know what I had to do this past week? Bundle up 800 sets of 10 bookmarks to send to bookstores. Is that a big ole waste of time or what? I know, I know it's important. Bookstores love bookmarks. It will help people learn about the book and then they'll go buy it because everyone will be able to tell from my fabo bookmark that this will be a fabo book...right? Okay, well, I'm praying that's true. Otherwise I might just have to go drown myself in 15,000 Burning Tigress bookmarks. (yes, I know the math doesn't add up, but I needed extras for my conferences.) Anyway, I ended up paying my daughter's boyfriend to do this for me. And since it actually got done, I'm thinking that was many hours when the teenagers were NOT doing something I didn't want them to do.

But now I have to mail these suckers. Do you know how much 8,000 bookmarks weigh? I do. ACKKK! So...here's my grand plan. Are you ready? Every one of you readers are going to be so impressed by my blog (and not my website since it hasn't been updated in months...yet another promo thing I HATE). Anyway, you're going to be so impressed by this rant that you think, what the heck, her book is going to be worth my time. You're going to rush out there and buy Seduced by Crimson then tell all your friends how fabulous it was and make them go out and buy it. That's my plan.

Of course...that might not be your plan. Hmmmm...this could be sad, but don't disillusion me! Please, lie to me. Tell me that you bought the book, loved it, and have now bought it for 10,000 of your friends. Please. I love to live in fantasy worlds. Why else would I have loved working in Crimson City?

Okay, I now have to go pray to the techie god (ie my husband) that he can either (a) fix my printer or (b) wants to gift me, the love of his life, with a new printer. What do you think the odds are? Never mind. If I wanted the truth, I wouldn't be a fiction writer, right?

Jade

Jade Lee / Kathy Greyle
www.jadeleeauthor.com / www.greyle.com

NEW from JADE LEE and Leisure books:

Desperate Tigress, Nov 2005
Seduced by Crimson, March 2006
Burning Tigress, June 2006
Cornered Tigress, January 2007