Raine Miller Romance

Where history comes unlaced..

They made me a banner~

20 May 2011

Now, isn’t that pretty?  My book released yesterday and I must say the excitement of first sales is pretty heady.  The nice folks at Bookstrand give you a sales tracker that lets you know how many books you sell every hour.  For new authors here is a tip… “you check it a lot.”   *smiling wink*

Upon opening my email this morning I was thrilled to see the banner that was created for my first book.  I love that the blue shawl got added to this one.  It’s definitely part of the story and it pleases me to know that whoever made the banner actually read the cover questionnaire I filled out way back in February.  I’m telling you, Siren-Bookstrand has done me good and I couldn’t be happier with my first publishing experience.

Excitement is good and motivating to most people, BUT like most things, needs tempering.  You’ve all heard the saying~ Too much of good thing…

So, it’s pretty simple really…if I can just restrain myself from returning to my Sales Report, oh, every 10 minutes or so, I might actually get my word count in for the book I’m writing now. 

~Raine

My cover! Come to Momma~

5 May 2011

The long awaited cover has finally arrived. And I feel like a new mommy recovering from the birth. Kind of appropriate with Mother’s Day just around the corner. *wink*

Not to take anything away from mothers and the life-altering experience of actually giving birth, I can now say I have endured both, and while difficult and emotional at times, the rewards of holding the prize in your arms is incomparable.

Let me just say that I love my cover. *I love my babies too*

The final product incorporates my vision for His Perfect Passion, well…perfectly. I love the way Darius is holding Marianne and the expression on his face. There is no doubt about what he feels for her. Marianne’s face is hidden, and that fits too because she is hiding a secret which compels her actions throughout their story. I’m glad the mansion along the coast is in there because the sea is critical to the plot of His Perfect Passion.

Now, the journey to getting to this point was not without its bumps, but I’ll share that story another time.  Let’s just say that the first version didn’t quite mesh with my vision.  *takes a deep breath*

I hope you enjoy my very first romance cover as much as I am.  And if you’re wondering and don’t already know, yes, that’s Jimmy Thomas.  *blows kiss to Jimmy*

~Raine

Please help me! Facebook’s taking over my life!

26 Apr 2011

The first thing a new author learns is that “self- promotion” should become your new best friend.

“Okay.  So what’s an easy thing to do to promote my work?” I asked innocently.

“You set up a Facebook account and interact with people.  Social media is how you build a readership.  All authors have them, Raine!”  *feels like an idiot for asking and gets <where have you been living, under a rock?> kinds of looks*

Now, that’s all well and good, but gosh darn, there are only so many hours in the day!  As soon as you set up your account, Facebook sucks you in.  I mean literally within minutes!  There’s a news feed that tells you what your friends are doing.  There are new friend requests, people you want to be friends with, and old friends from high school to reconnect with.   And all of it drags you back to your computer repeatedly to check for updates.  I’ve heard this is not unusual.  In fact it’s the typical response for most new Facebookers.

All of this interacting takes time though.  You have to be friendly and social by posting on your wall and thanking others for “friending” you.  You must be funny and share witty prose and cool pictures for your friends to comment on.  And don’t forget that you have to go around clicking the “Like” button on your friends stuff.  There is a protocol and it must be followed.  Duh!  You don’t want people to think you’re a jerk do you?

What is the point of your rant, Raine?  Why are you telling us what we already know?

*looks sheepish*  Sorry, I just needed to get that out, I guess.  You see, I’m finding it very hard to write when it’s so much more fun to play on Facebook.  Or when I should be plotting out a new story or editing one I’ve already written.  So I’m learning that finding a balance between the crafting and the socializing is harder than I ever thought it would be.  As my Facebook friends have grown in number, my daily word counts have shrunk.  And that is not a good thing if you are trying to build a successful writing career.

I like this quote by Paul Boese:   “We come into this world head first and go out feet first; in between, it is all a matter of balance.”

Yeah, thanks for that, Paul.  That’s really great  advice you’ve–  *beep sounds*  Oh, sorry–  I gotta go.  Just got a txt message… 5 new friend requests waiting for me on FB…

“The new phonebook’s here!”

16 Apr 2011

Remember that line from the movie, The Jerk with Steve Martin?  He runs around doing the happy dance when the new phonebook is delivered.  That was me when my long-awaited first edits arrived yesterday for His Perfect Passion.  Except nowadays documents are delivered in an email and I don’t think I’m quite as ignorant as poor Navin Johnson was in that movie.  Well, I hope not anyway.

It was an exciting moment because it validated once again that my book really is being published.  I’ve learned there’s a lot of waiting around in the publishing business.  You have to use that waiting time to write your next book because you’ll have to wait some more for it too.

And the result wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d worried it might be.   The editor sent two documents.  One was a checklist with notations, suggestions and compliments, and the other was a word doc. of my whole book with all the corrections highlighted in different colors and balloon comments telling you what they want you to look at over on the right.  I like how my editor said, “please consider changing this to…for better clarity,” rather than saying, “that’s just stupid the way you wrote this, Raine!”  (Thanks, Caroline, for being so nice to me.) 

That kind of niceness is another thing I’ve experienced over and over since I’ve started down this writerly path.  The people in this business are just downright wonderful.  Whether they’re writers or publishers or bloggers or readers or Facebookers or whatever, they are kind and helpful, funny and interesting.  I’ve met so many lovely people and am having such a good time doing this, I wish I’d started writing years ago.

~Raine