First off, I am sorry for this late post and being so quiet as of late. I’ve been sick for the last couple weeks with a nasty head and throat infection and it started to take over my life. Fortunately, I finally got some medicine that works on Monday night and I am slowly starting to feel human again.

One thing about being sick is that while I haven’t felt good enough to get much else done, I have been doing some reading. My reading time is limited, so I often tend to read my favorite authors and then those books that I receive to judge through contests or as hand-me-downs from friends and family. I love getting my hands on other people’s books as this is how I find so many of my new favorites. Some authors I have found through this manner include Marie Harte, Kimberly Iverson, J.D. Robb, and Lisa Hendrixon. I loved all of these voice’s styles, though each was as different as could be, and admittedly maybe not something I would have picked up on my own.

How about you? Have you come across any new favorites by reading other people’s books or in a similar manner, and if so, who are they and what about their writing did you enjoy so much?

~ jodi

P.S. I will be sending out the prizes from last week’s winners tomorrow. As noted, I am real behind with everything due to being under the weather for quite awhile.

Typically I struggle to think about something blog-worthy. Today I had all kinds of stuff floating about in the mostly empty and always scary place known as my mind. Since my next newsletter, Passion Press, is due out very soon, I am going to go with that topic: Newsletters.

Most every author has one these days, so there are literally thousands of available newsletter lists/groups out there. As a reader, what makes you want to join a particular author’s newsletter list and what portion(s) of a newsletter are you most apt to read? I am always looking for ways to make my newsletter more enjoyable for readers, so your feedback is mucho appreciated!

~ jodi

And now for a drum roll please…

Last Week’s Winners are…

SUE A. and LISA WILLIAMS! (Ladies, please shoot me an email to: contest @ jodilynncopeland.com w/ no spaces)

Thanks to all for the excellent feedback on writing the erotic romance! I loved reading all your answers, and some of them had me laughing out loud.

As authors many of us tend to obsess . . . over the rankings on various bookseller sites. On our sales track record with various publishers. On what the average reader thinks about our book, and if they post a bad review, why?

Obsessing over the sales track record (sell through), is for good reason, since that number is a big factor in our future sales to our respective publishers. Obsessing over the other stuff, may be a waste of time, in that it probably doesn’t mean a lot in the long run, since only a small percentage of books (at least paperback) are bought online and an even smaller number of readers post reviews. Even so, I still obsess and I sit and wonder how to please more people. How to write a book they love enough to want to read more of my books in the future.

This particular post is going to be geared toward erotic romance, since that is where most of my writing time is focused at the moment and where I really would love to excel even more than what I already have. My question is when you pick up an erotic romance, how much of a plot do you want and, more specifically, how out of the norm do you expect the sex/love scenes to be? Is it simply enough that there is more ingrained sensuality and perhaps more of a sensual/sexual feel throughout the story, or do you anticipate opening the book to find a heaping of toys, voyeurism, exhibitionism, and perhaps multiple partners?

Thanks for your feedback! From those who comment, I will pick a random winner or two to receive something shiny . . . a gift certificate or a signed book, based on your preference.

~ jodi

Yep, it’s true, I really am. For years I swore I hated first person. After attempting to read a book written in first person and not getting past the first chapter for my disgust with the style, I wouldn’t even consider picking up another book written in first. But then, more and more of that “nasty” first person point-of-view kept popping up, until finally it was my own darned critique partner (CP) writing it.

Sucking up my first-person snobbiness, I opened her story and started to read. And sat there stunned as I discovered what an immense joy reading first person truly is. But how could this be? Well, as I told my CP, it was a simple matter of her version of first person not sucking. Not exactly the most articulate feedback, I know, but those were my words. You see, I’m afraid I did what some readers do with genres or subgenres. I based my opinion of the collective first person POV off a single book and author. That author’s style didn’t connect with me, and so I mistook it for a dislike for first person as a whole.

Being a true hypocrite, I not only began picking up books written in first person and reading them with great enthusiasm, but I eventually gave writing in the first person a try. You know what? I loved that, too! It came so much easier to me, yet my CPs swore was actually stronger than my third-person material. Thankfully it wasn’t just my CPs who saw the strength, as shortly thereafter my first first-person novella was picked up by Harlequin SPICE as part of the What Happens In Vegas… anthology.

The Vegas anthology, out from SPICE in May of 2008, also includes two other great authors from this blog, Anya Bast and Lauren Dane (in addition to Kit Tunstall), and today I got some more great news, which is loosely connected to this anthology and completely connected to this post. Needing a break from third person, I wrote a first-person prequel to my story in the anth and just found out it will be released as a SPICE Brief in April of 2008. Woohoo, I can’t wait!! I really do love this couple.

I also really do love first person. What about you? Do you enjoy first person? And if not, have you given it a fighting chance?

~ jodi

As I was working on Sweet & Sinful this week I found myself encountering a lot of questions. They weren’t really new ones, but ones I managed to sidestep in the past. With the help of the ever wonderful Laura Bradford, I was able to reach a decision on this current one, as well, though I am still left wondering how the readers feel about it.

With Sweet & Sinful, my hero is just returned from a third-world country. While I don’t actually set the book in the country, he does talk about the current lifestyle/happenings of the place. The problem is that I am writing this book a year before it will releases, so how do I guarantee the details I include now will be accurate come release time?

To get around this issue in the past, I have created new countries or cities, so there was no worry about current day/event accuracy. However, for this particular book, I really needed the country and using an imaginary one would steal from the story. I plan to be as vague as possible, but undoubtedly some of the material may run the risk of being inaccurate come release time (August 08).

So my question is, with a contemporary/present-day manuscript (I feel historicals greatly differ on this topic), how much accuracy do you expect from the setting in relation to current day events? And would you prefer to read about a made-up place over a real place where the information is not up-to-date?

Thanks for the feedback, y’all!

~ jodi

I am really bad at blogging. I just never know what to say, or what will interest a person enough to bother reading my post. So today, when my mind is an even blanker slate than usual, I am just going to share my happenings with you.

August has been a good month, starting with my birthday and then two family reunions—one for my family and one for my husband’s. I did more revisions to my Blaze proposal, and the wonderful Laura sent off a Brief for me to my editor at Spice, and now I am working on Sweet & Sinful, my next Aphrodisia due October 1st.

So how goes the writing? Very day to day. I had a really tough time getting started on this story and I think it’s because I wrote that Blaze proposal, which meant toning down the heat just a bit, and then the Spice in 1st person—totally different from 3rd. Or maybe just because the day job is being really crazy and my daughter is almost two going on almost twenty two. Well the good news is after several false starts, I now really love the opening of S&S. Progress is still going a little slow—mostly due to my anal internal editor—but I should be able to make the deadline without any huge overnighters. I had to do that with Operation G-Spot and I really do not recommend those if at all avoidable.

I also launched the companion site for my next release on August 15th. Body Moves (out in late October from Kensington) is a book truly close to my heart, so I had a ton of fun designing the site and chatting with the characters. Drop on by and check it out at: www.JodiLynnCopeland.com/bodymoves.html

How about you? Any exciting news or fun happenings this month? Are you as ready for fall as I am? I really loathe how it gets dark so darned early, but at the same time I have a feeling my daughter’s sleep schedule will get back to normal once it happens. And maybe, just maybe, my writing schedule will, too.

I love babies, adore them, write about them—heck, my upcoming Cerridwen book is based around one more or less. So why am I asking for no babies please? Because so many books—particularly category romances (excluding lines such as Blaze)—end with an epilogue that show the happy couple with either a new baby or a baby on the way. This ending has gotten so cliché, that I don’t even bother to read it most of the time.

I do love babies, and I am so glad the couple ends up with one if that’s what they want, but I just don’t think that every epilogue needs to end the same way. This is one of the reasons I love erotic romance. Very, very seldom do you see an epilogue like this. Instead the ending is original and interesting and holds my attention till the very end.

What are your feelings on this? Do you see a rash of babies in epilogues? Do you like to see them? Or does it feel like the epis should be called copies instead?

~ jodi

After having my daughter almost two years ago now–holy cow, where did all that time go?–my idea bucket was dead, empty. I had nothing. It took several months before I could write my then contracted and quickly becoming overdue book (Operation G-Spot), let alone formulate ideas for future ones.

As all good things have a way of doing, eventually the ideas started coming back to me. Still, though, there were days I struggled to really pull all my thoughts together into a cohesive storyline. But, as of the last few months, that is no longer an issue. The ideas are popping clean out of the bucket, and I swear I can’t write fast enough to keep all those characters in my head happy.

My most recent idea came to me while watching the Discovery Channel a couple weeks ago, and I just have to write this story! I mean I am so in love with the concept that I am afraid to even share it for fear someone will tell me it isn’t as wonderful as I have myself convinced. The problem is I have two other currently contracted books to write first, and then another couple proposals I would love to see go to contract.

So what to do? How am I to placate these characters in my head and get to this new idea I so love yet meet all these other deadlines? What do you all do, when you have too many things to accomplish (be they writing or otherwise) and know you can never get them all done? In my case I really don’t have a choice but to focus on my current contracts (which I am excited about too, don’t get me wrong), but then how do I keep my love and excitement for that other story fresh while these current ones get written?

I look forward to your thoughts…and in the meanwhile last week’s contest winner is…

Thanks to everyone who shared their villain POV thoughts–They really helped to make the decision of how much bad guy to include in my WIP.

I am working on my next Kensington Aphrodisia, Sweet & Sinful, and I have reached a point that has me in a bit of a quandary. This is no new quandary, but one I face with every story I write with some form of suspense element. With this story I had planned it to be light and fluffy, and hot obviously, but then throw in a bit of suspense along the way. However, as I was writing the other night, my villain just had to have a say. In fact, they wanted their own darned scenes. Not just one, but several.

And so I was left with that same old question: To reveal the identity to the reader, as I had intended it to be fairly frothy read, or keep the person anonymous?

Well one thing the reader does know regardless of anything is that the villain is a man. So at least I can go the He route as opposed to It, or using some other name like The Stalker, should I indeed let him keep his demanded for scenes. But do you think I should?

As a reader, do you prefer to hear from the villain as well as the primary characters? Do you feel it adds depth to their character, by almost making them a primary character themselves? Or would you prefer that unless it truly is a dark suspense, to keep the villain’s viewpoint as seen only through the hero and heroine’s eyes?

Also, as this is an erotic romance, does the genre reflect your answer in anyway?

Thanks for the input!

And, of course, I must reward those who respond. From all those who comment, I will pick a winner to receive either an ebook or paperback of one my backlist books with a suspense edge or element (Sons of Solaris: Aries, Sons of Solaris: Taurus, Wild Hearts 2, After Hours (technically story 2 in the anthology has one), or Lions Eyes).

~ Jodi

Validation … something everyone wants in one way or another. In both my day job as a technical writer and my night job as an author, I have spent years searching for validation that I was doing my job right and in a manner that left others happy (key to both of my careers). Sometimes I felt like I had it. Other times I felt like I would never get it. Still other times I felt like I was bone weary from all those long hard nights of work and, yet despite my best intentions, being run over by a steamroller of negativity.

For the first time these last couple months, I can honestly, eagerly, blissfully say I feel as though I have found validation where both of my jobs are concerned. With the day job, I believe taking a year off to raise a baby really opened my employer’s eyes to how much I do there and how much wasn’t being done, at least not correctly, while I was away. For the night job, I would say it’s simply a matter of time and continuing to grow my craft and voice with each and every book I write.

So how is it I am seeing this validation after so many years?

At the day job, the “thank yous” for a job well done, the awards that are regularly being won, the project managers requesting me specifically to do their work, and of course those all important great reviews that conclude with a raise.

And as an author…

Authors rely on validation from their critics—readers as often (generally more often) as reviewers. Those out-of-the-blue emails to say how much a reader loved an author’s latest book, reviews that clearly illustrate the reviewer’s appreciation for a story in the excitement their tone conveys, interview requests for well-known magazines and web zines, and inclusion in articles on the very genre/sub-genre an author focuses on.

And so my question to all of you, dear readers (yes, authors are readers, too), is have you written an author lately to share your enjoyment of their work? Have you ever?

Sure, there are some big names who won’t have the time to read each email that comes their way. But most authors will have that time, they will make that time, and they will feel not only validated after reading your email, but be left with a smile on their face and a love stronger than ever for what they do.

Speaking from personal experience, whenever I am in a writing funk—convinced every word I write is garbage—and I receive an uplifting reader email, suddenly that funk starts to dissipate. Suddenly, I remember I can write and that the only way to prove it to myself is to get out of that funk completely and move that story along.