Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Writing Retreat - Scanguards Vampires

I'm leaving for a writing retreat tomorrow. There'll be no internet access for five days, and I hope to return with a pretty decent first draft of Yvette's Haven on Sunday night, so that my critique partners and editor can then have a go at it.

I'm still on track to release Yvette's Haven, Book #4 in the Scanguards Vampires series at the end of April. Wish me luck!

Friday, March 18, 2011

100,000 Books sold!!!

Just updated my spreadsheet with yesterday's sales data, and couldn't believe my own eyes:

I've now sold over 100,000 e-books since I started self-publishing!

Yippeehh!!!!!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Audio cast on the Lit Chick Show

Sylvia Massara from the Chick Lit Show posted an audio cast about my books on her website. Check it out:

Lit Chick Show

Monday, March 14, 2011

All the good news!

I've been offline for a little while. And while I was gone, lots of good things happened.

Samson's Lovely Mortal hits B&N Top 100
On March 7th, one day before my birthday (thanks for all the wishes!), Samson's Lovely Mortal hit the top 100 Nookbooks on Barnes & Noble! I was totally thrilled, even though it only stayed there for about two days. It went as high as 33 in the rankings! And since I made the top 100 of a major national retailer, I can now call myself National Bestselling Author - hi hi hi!

Interviews
I was interviewed for the Next Web about the economics of e-publishing and was later quoted on the Blog January Magazine. Check out both articles. Also check out the interview I gave on Forbidden Bookshelf's Tied up Event - the giveaway is still open, and it's open internationally.

Writing
I'm back at the computer, continuing my work on Yvette's Haven, the fourth installment in the Scanguards Vampires series. So, if you don't see me much on Facebook or the blogosphere in the next few weeks, you know what I'm doing.

Until then, signing off to get some work done!

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Scanguards Paperbacks temporarily off sale

Just to let you all know that I've taken the Scanguards paperbacks off sales in order to make changes. They'll all be getting the new cover that already graces their e-versions, and they're currently undergoing extensive copy-editing and proof-reading by a professional editor.

The paperbacks should be available again within the next few weeks. Thanks for your patience.

Update: Amaury's Hellion is available on Amazon.com again.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Exciting News: A Touch of Greek is approaching TOP 100 on Barnes & Noble

I have some really exciting news today:

Currently, my Greek God romance

is ranked in the low 100's at Barnes & Noble, perched to break into the top 100!

This is so exciting! None of my books has ever ranked this high!

I know I'm shameless, but I'm so close to making it into the bestseller list that I figured, I'll just ask all of you for help.

For those of you who haven't read A Touch of Greek yet, if you purchase it today or tomorrow (March 4th or 5th, 2011) from Barnes & Noble and email your purchase receipt to tina@tinawritesromance.com I will send you another one of my books or two novellas or short stories for free. Just let me know which ones you want and in which format (Kindle / pdf / ePub etc).

Thanks so much for all your help, and enjoy reading.

Click on the cover to be taken to Barnes & Noble's product page for A Touch of Greek.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

B&N removes ability to download free samples

It was quite a shock when I noticed last night that I couldn't download any free samples of my books on Barnes & Noble anymore. I'd wanted to download a sample of one of my books because I'd just done an update on the formatting and wanted to make sure it looked alright. Imagine my shock when I realized that none of my books could be sampled.

In the morning, I checked the website again and spoke to several other authors only to find out that I wasn't the only one this happened to. I started a topic on Kindleboards to discuss it with others, and a pattern soon emerged.

It appears that Barnes and Noble has removed all "Download Free Sample" functionality from self-published authors who write in the erotic romance or erotica category.

Censorship anybody?

I've already seen a sharp drop-off in sales today. And I can't really blame readers. I wouldn't buy a book if I couldn't sample it.

I have therefore done the following: my blog now has samples of four of my most popular books online (see the legend above), and I'm referring to these samples on the product pages of my books on Barnes & Noble. I've also pasted short excerpts onto the product pages themselves, but I'm restricted as to the number of works I'm allowed to paste, so those excerpts are short.

I don't know whether this will help revive my sales on Barnes & Noble, but it's the best I can do right now. In the meantime, some of us are trying to get answers from Barnes & Noble about this obvious discrimination.

Needless to say, I didn't get any writing done today.