The Bradford Bunch

Vivi /

A Vivi Meme

I’m totally being lazy and copying this meme. 

Six odd random things about me that you probably didn’t want to know…

1. I’m the most disorganized person ever…yet I’m extremely rooted in routine.  I’m not sure how that works, but somehow it does.  So when someone messes with my mess or bumps me out of routine I get very irritated.  Hmm, OCD much???

2. When I was in high school, I had a big blue mohawk and sometimes my English teacher couldn’t teach because I was too distracting.  (I sat at the front of the class eagerly, so he would make me move to the back)

3. I love teen movies.  I can’t get enough of them.  It’s probably because I don’t want to grow up.  Some favorites: Superbad, The Faculty, The Craft, Cursed, Ten Things I Hate About You

4. I started a writing course by correspondence, but only ever finished one assignment before I sold my first short story to Playgirl magazine.  Needless to say I never finished that course.

5. I wrote screenplays before I ever wrote a novel or even a novella.  I’ve written seven and have been close to selling twice.   It was extremely heartbreaking so I decided to write books instead.   I still have aspirations to screenwrite.   My lifelong dream is to win an Oscar for best original screenplay.

6. When I saw WANTED in the theatre on Sunday, I got turned on while watching the part where Wesley completely innihilates his enemies.  Lots of gunplay and blood.   I thought it was one of the sexiest movies I’ve seen in a long time.  Hmm, I wonder what that says about me???

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Cover Goodness

I have a new cover.  I’m so excited about this one.  It’s the second anthology that I’ve been in with my writerly friends the Allure Authors.

Isn’t it purdy??  I love it.  Avon has done an amazing job of branding our covers. 

ALLURING TALES II: HOT HOLIDAY NIGHTS releases November 2008.

What is your most wicked fantasy?

Seven steamy tales that are sure to heat up the holidays from the authors of the immensely successful Alluring Tales: Awaken the Fantasy. Each of these authors uniquely brings something special to her story–perhaps a bit of paranormal, or humor, or fantasy. And together they have created one of Avon Red’s most popular anthologies.

If you haven’t read the first one, it’s on sale for $3.99 at Barnes and Noble online.

Do you read anthologies?  What have been some of your favorites?  What would be your dream anthology?

Mine would be one with:  Kim Harrison, Rachel Caine, Patricia Briggs, Rachel Vincent, and Vicki Pettersson

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Excerpt Goodness

*****WINNERS******  I had so many wonderful comments, I had to pick two names.  So drum roll please….   Jolene, and JC, you’ve won any book from my backlist.  Please email me at vivi@vivianna.net to claim your prize.   Let me know which book you want!

 

I’m off to the zoo today with the kidlet for a fun filled adventure.   I love the zoo.  When I was in my early twenties and lived downtown I used to go to the zoo, especially in the summer, almost every day and watch certain animals.  They always filled me with a sense of peace.  I need some of that today.

My awesome web diva Frauke always does up these amazing interactive excerpt booklets for me for my Valorian Chronicles website.  I love them.  She’s so freakin’ talented.

So just yesterday she completed one for my upcoming Nocturne VEILED TRUTH.   Check it out!  It is so cool.

So in the event, I think I will give away some books.   Let me know what you like about the excerpt, whether it’s words or the pictures, I will toss your name in a hate for a chance to win one of my books–Hell Kat, Inferno, Blood Secrets, Dark Lies.  I will pic a winner tomorrow.

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Ooooo, so good!

Have you seen the trailer for Joss Whedon’s new show DOLLHOUSE?  Damn!  It’s fantastic.  I CAN NOT WAIT FOR THIS.   It has the yummy Tahmoh Penikett in it.  I puffy heart him!

Check it out.  Dollhouse Trailer

It just might be my replacement Moonlight, which I am still upset that they canceled.  I mean how can a show win a Golden Globe award for best new show and then get canceled??  I mean.  Hello???  Think much?  And please you just have to place Alex O’Loughlin in a room and have him smile and its worth it.

Oh and I had a great dream about Jensen Ackles last night.  He asked me what sexual torture was…*shakes head* poor Jensen, he just had to ask. 

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The Horror of the Royalty Statement

Well its that time of the year again…royalty statement time.  You’d think I’d be happy for this time, but as it is, I’m not.  Why?  Because I don’t really truly want to see how many books I’ve sold.  I want to remain in this euphoric fog of delusion that I am selling my ass off.

When the truth is, I have no real clue if I am.

On one of my publisher’s loops we are talking about our statements and sharing numbers.  I think this is fantastic and will help all of us in the end, but I have a sense of trepidation every time I open an email from one of the members and see their numbers.  Do I really want to know that Author X is selling more than me?  Um, not really.  It is a huge blow to the ego.

On the other hand it really puts this business in perspective.  And really that’s what this authorly thing is, a business, a career.  And any information, whether it destroys me or not, is good to have to help me advance forward or take a different path.

But still it hurts like hell!

After comparing numbers it makes me wonder what really sells a book.  What factors go into one book doing better than another?  Let’s say they are equally well written and in the same genre…what makes one book sell more than the other?

Cover art - a better more evocative cover sometimes can give a book an edge

Subject matter - maybe one book is about vampires and the other about witches, maybe vampires are selling better

Publisher promotion - certainly that helps, getting that book and author’s name out to more people

Higher print run - goes with publisher promotion, a higher print run sometimes can mean the publisher has confidence that book will sell more in more places

Author promotion - maybe the author is a master at self-promotion

Positive word of mouth - I think this is one of the most powerful forms of promotion and can make a book

What say you?  Any ideas?

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More RT Goodness

It all started on Tuesday night with this…

This yummy little thing jumped started a fabulous time in Pittsburgh at RT.  I had a great time.  And can’t complain about one thing.  Not even the fact I had a sore throat. I thought I sounded sexy after that.

The best thing about RT….seeing old friends and making new ones.

My bestest buddy Kimberly Kaye Terry and I.  Good times!

I loved being on the erotic paranormal panel and holding my own on a panel with Caridad Pineiro and JR Ward.  I was nervous as all get out, but managed to get a few laughs.  And from that I sold probably 10 books at the bookfair.   Very cool!

I had a chance to host a big party with my friends the Allure authors, Sylvia Day, Delilah Devlin, Myla Jackson and Sasha White and we signed books to almost 400 people.  It was AWESOME.  And I of course couldn’t resist the marjaritas…

Best of all, I loved hanging out with the ladies of the Bradford Bunch.  Megan, Lauren, Anya (also sexy super agent man) and Ann rocked big time, and of course the lovely Laura Bradford herself.  I couldn’t have asked for a better bunch of authors to hang with.  Beautiful and talented–every single one of them.

It was so good that I’m already thinking about next year in Orlando!

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Feeling it!

Well, I’m finally recovering from RT 2008. By this I mean I’ve unpacked my suitcase, paid some bills and organized (though not cleaned off my desk,) and started to get back into the swing of family life.  You know. Yelling at the kids, doing laundry, generally being the domestic diva I am.

I didn’t feel well at the convention, unfortunately, and I wasn’t alone. But even so, I came back energized, writing-wise. No, I didn’t come up with a brand-new, shiny, full-fledged idea the way I did last year when Lauren and I brainstormed Taking Care of Business while standing in line. (Though we did talk about a followup to that book!) But I did come home with inspiration and ideas for layering some themes into the edits for my current WIP, Switch. 

I finished SWITCH before I left for RT and had planned to let it sit for awhile while I worked on some other things, but while there my mind kept turning back to it. Switch hasn’t been an easy book for me for many reasons. For one, it took me a lot longer to write than usual, partly because I stopped a few times to work on other things and partly because I struggled with the writing of it. I was really glad to have finished the first draft because it meant I could take a break from it, so to discover when I got back from RT that I really wanted to dive back in was…suprising.

Here’s the thing: I take a lot of my work from my life — not things that have happened to me, necessarily, but feelings and emotions and situations that make me THINK about “what if.” I don’t live everything I write about (my goodness, who has time?) but I do…FEEL it. I do feel what I write. Sometimes I feel it first and hold onto that and use it. Sometimes during the writing I start to feel the work, instead, which is also interesting.

I’d had an inkling about what Switch was meant to be for a few months, and it was pretty far from what I’d first anticipated the book to be. In its first incarnation it was a story about dominance and submission, a woman who finds misplaced notes in her mailbox meant for an anonymous person being given increasingly erotic commands. She discovers she likes the content of the notes — craves it, in fact. But when she discovers who the notes are really for, everything changes and she becomes the note WRITER instead of the note receiver.

The book is still “about” that — it’s what happens, anyway. But somewhere along the way a minor, throwaway character became more important, and now he’s an irreplaceable part of the story. I didn’t expect that.

And somewhere, somehow, the book became about choices. The ones we make, good or bad, right or wrong, and how sometimes no matter how much you think you want something, in the end you don’t take it because not having it is better for you. Sometimes, as Paige, the heroine says, you walk away.

So now I have to finish entering all my receipts and put some laundry away and take a shower and have some breakfast, and then I need to crank up the iTunes and get lost in this world again. But you know what?

I feel it.

M

 

PS — I was so happy to hang with my lurvely agent the glorious Laura Bradford (or LB as I like to call her) and Lauren Dane, Anya Bast and Ann Aguirre and Vivi Anna, and we missed Cynthia! NEXT YEAR IN ORLANDO!!!!!!!!!!!

Some of my favorite photos –

 

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An Unexpected Snow Day

I’m so late posting this. 

I woke up to tons of snow.  And when I say tons, that’s what I mean.  There was about four feet of snow piled on top of my car.  And my car’s white, so when I looked out the window this morning, I thought it had disappeared.

I homeschool my daughter and my niece, so instead of doing school we decided to go out and enjoy the crazy snow.  It came up to my knees, and my girl could hardly walk.  It was a lot of fun.  But then I had to shovel all of that damn snow.  It took my about an hour and a half to clear the walk way front and back.  So now I”m all sweaty writing this post….just so you know…

Well, this is my innaugral post here at the Bradford Bunch.  I’m thrilled to be a part of this fab group and to be one of Laura’s authors.  It already feels like a family.  Of course I already knew some of these great ladies, so it’s like coming home to great friends.

A little about me…

name: Vivi Anna

age: 37, acts like 21

height: 5′5”

weight: none of your business

hair: blond and black

eyes: blue

sex: yes please!

I write mainly paranormal romance and erotic futuristics.  I’m published with Silhouette Nocturne, Kensington Aphrodisia, Avon Red, EC, Samhain Publishing, Loose ID and Whispers.  I started in epublishing and sold my first books to NY in 2005.  2006 my first print book came out  HELL KAT.  Still one of my favorite books to date.

2007 saw my first books with Silhouette Nocturne.  BLOOD SECRETS and DARK LIES, books 1 and 2 of the Valorian Chronicles.  VEILED TRUTH, book 3 will be out in October.

I’m a huge BATTLESTAR GALACTICA fan.  I think its the best thing ever to grace the television screen.

I also love SUPERNATURAL.  Dean is mine! 

And my favorite new show is MOONLIGHT.

As you can tell I’mall about the HAWT DUDES!

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