RWA Nationals Day 3!

I'll be heading home from Atlanta today, but did we ever have fun yesterday!

I had a great time at the Sourcebooks signing, meeting some fans and (hopefully) making some new ones. I was signing Stud for the second year in a row. As you can see from the photo on my table, I was expecting to have Wildcat. Yet another of those breakdowns in communication between Sourcebooks and their authors. But I digress...

The awesome Sara Humphreys at the Sourcebooks signing.

Sandy James and I opted out of going to the Rita Awards, but fellow IRWA member, Jim Cangany wore his kilt!

Sandy and I had dinner at the Gibney's Irish pub across the street, then I went to the Metro Cafe for karaoke with Sara Humphreys and Sharon Lathan. As I could've predicted, Sara was the star of the show. After her rendition of "Proud Mary," my "Hotel California" was pretty damn tame! Sharon cheered us on and took pictures while Sara and I sang a duet on "Old Time Rock 'n Roll" and Sara--a New York native--did a great job on "Red Neck Woman." I have video to prove it, but have been threatened with death if I post it anywhere!

We've had a blast, and I'll miss all my buddies, but it'll be good to get home to my guys.

So long, Atlanta!

Wonder if anyone cut the grass while I was gone...
Nah. Prob'ly not.  

RWA Nationals Day 2!

Greetings from Atlanta!
Here I am Sara Humphreys and Terry Spear at the Prism awards, where Sara was a double winner for dark paranormal and best of the best!

And now for the pictures I couldn't post on Casablanca.... Can you believe it? Sara had never met Willy! 

Sharon, Sara, and Willy!

 Sandy and Willy!

And me and Willy!

I'm blogging on Casablanca Authors today. Hop on over for more pics!

RWA National's Day One!

Lynne and I started the day with a self-pubbing presentation. For the most part, I'm doing what I need to do, except for marketing. Lynne works in marketing, and she's decided to take on the project of making me successful. Go for it, Lynne! She is seen here (in orange) with fellow IRWA member Judie Aitken. That's Judith Bastin waving the checkered flag so our buddies can find us at the Keynote Luncheon.

After a lunch and terrific keynote speech by Kathy Maxwell, I had a meeting with my agent and a nice long chat with fellow Sourcebooks author Amelia Grey. I'm going to the Sourcebooks dinner tonight, but last night, I wound up at the Fantasy Futuristic &Paranormal chapter's Prism awards ceremony as Sara Humphreys' date, since she was nominated for an award and was allowed to bring a friend. We sat with Terry Spear and Caryn Moya Block.

We hadn't been there long before the announced the winners in the Dark Paranormal category, and Sara won!

Then she won again for Best of the Best!

I joined the FF&P chapter prior to the event. It's the largest chapter in RWA and is conducted online for the most part. I may enter the Prism contest next year. Hey, you can't win if you don't enter, right?

We stayed for the dinner (filet mignon and chocolate cheesecake!) and then met up with a bunch of people in the bar and chatted for a while. Then I went up to the room and tried to blog. No dice. Internet was so slow I waited until this morning. It didn't really speed up until 8:30 when the workshops started.

That being said, I guess I'd better go comb my hair and get going now. Have a great day!

Hello from Atlanta!

This may be a short post. The Internet here is very slow, so I may only get a few pictures posted. Or maybe I've just had one margarita too many....

After a very expensive breakfast at the hotel's buffet, Lynne and I found the way through the walkway to the mall.

 
And discovered a much cheaper place to have breakfast tomorrow!

I don't have any idea what building this is, but it looked interesting.

We did actually make it outside the building for a brief period, but we weren't out long.

I spent the afternoon talking with Sharon Lathan who was headed to the Regency soiree after the Literacy signing looking lovely as always!

Supper was sushi, which was AWESOME!

Then the Literacy signing with my pals Carolyn Brown...

Sandy James,

And me!

I couldn't tell you what I'm doing tomorrow, but surely someone will tell me where to go and what to do. Too tired right now to think!

Preparations

I'm spending today shuttling Sam back and forth from work (Budley has the truck) and getting ready to head to Atlanta tomorrow. Deciding what to take shouldn't be too hard, since my collection of "Conference Clothes" is fairly small. I haven't done any major shopping for these events since the first one to Washington, DC in 2009. I keep wearing the same stuff over and over again, a different shirt here, different jacket there. You get the idea. Hey, it's only been five years. Styles haven't changed that much. Amazingly enough, neither has my weight.

Yesterday was "Get the yard in shape so I don't come home to a jungle" day. I had better luck missing the rain than I have all summer, and for once, everything was actually dry enough to mow. I'm hoping the deer don't eat all of my plants while I'm gone. I think they're beginning to enjoy the nasty smell of the stuff I've been spraying around the yard to keep them away. It's certainly keeping me away. It smells a bit like a festering wound.

I'm not going to have Unrivaled ready to publish on the 22nd as I had hoped. Just not enough hours in the day and too much other stuff going on between now and then. I'm going to keep working on it and put it up as soon as it's ready. I put Unbridled on sale for 99 cents yesterday, (Kindle and Nook only) and I've seen a slight upswing in sales--the operative word there being "slight." Guess I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and put it on Kindle Select for 90 days so I can put it up for free for a few days. Right now, I'm sticking with the lower price, but I may do the Kindle Select thing when Unrivaled goes up. The problem with the Select program is that I have to unpublish it everywhere else, but I figure those of you with Nooks who were planning to get Unbridled have already done so. If not, better get it while it's cheap!

We had a great IRWA meeting on Saturday. I was on a self-pub panel discussion with Aleatha Romig and Valley Brown. Aleatha is probably the one we should all be listening to. She's had great success with her books Truth and Consequences. I haven't read them--I have a feeling they're too dark for me--but she certainly has some rabid fans, and she's a helluva lot better at self-promotion than I am. She's willing to spend money to make money. I guess I'm just too cheap. Valley's book, Speeding Tickets was indie book of the day yesterday. http://indiebookoftheday.com/speeding-tickets-by-valley-brown/

As always, I'll be blogging from the conference. Who knows? Maybe I'll actually see some hunky guys and take pictures of them!