Silent Night, Haunted Night

I'm starting to get excited by the upcoming release of book #4 in the Nicki Styx series, SILENT NIGHT, HAUNTED NIGHT. It will be in bookstores everywhere Oct. 27th, just in time for Halloween - what more could a ghoul want?

Waiting for those first reviews is nervewracking, let me tell you, but I was thrilled to find out yesterday that Romantic Times Magazine has given it 4 Stars, and Library Review Journal says, "This sultry, upbeat urban fantasy puts a new twist on visitations by Christmas ghosts, and is just the thing for readers who want their holiday fare with a darker edge."

Everyone knows that the holidays can be Hell, right? :-p Read the opening paragraphs to SILENT NIGHT, HAUNTED NIGHT, as Nicki Styx sets the stage for her latest adventure:

Silent Night, Haunted Night (Excerpt)

Ebenezer Scrooge isn’t the only person who’s ever had to deal with ghosts at Christmas.

You remember the tale; crabby old man, three spirits coming to visit on Christmas Eve—the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future—all there to show him the error of his ways and to give him a second chance at life before it was too late.

Unlike Scrooge, my second chance at life came much earlier. My name is Nicki Styx, and I’m only twenty-nine. A faulty heart valve nearly did me in last year. In fact, it did do me in; I’ve been to the other side and back again—and I mean that quite literally. Bright light, tunnel, and lifetime instructions to “do unto others as I’d have done unto me” before waking up in the hospital, sore and forever changed. I was very lucky, although getting kicked out of the afterlife definitely came with some strings attached; the restless dead, the ones who weren’t so lucky, keep popping up with unfinished business, expecting me to finish it for them.

Which I do, if I can.

Even if it gets me in trouble, which it frequently does.

This year, however, the holidays seem to have brought nothing but trouble: three unpleasant spirits out to teach me a lesson for interfering in the “natural order of things”. Three ghouls, three harpies, three sisters in crime… better known as the Three Fates.

The worst of the three is a succubus, a beautiful woman who can seduce any man alive by invading his dreams.

I know ‘tis the season to be jolly, but this year, Santa’s “ho,ho,ho” is all too real, and worse—she’s out to steal my boyfriend.

If you read this far, then you deserve a treat (or two!). Since I'm already in a Halloween kind of mood, leave me a comment here, or on MySpace or Facebook for a chance to win one of these cool "coffin tins" of mints, and a special Limited Edition bookmark!

The 69 Eyes - Back In Blood!

I got an awesome treat in the mail this weekend, a brand new CD by The 69 Eyes, called Back In Blood. (If you say it correctly, the way the band members do, you'll sound exactly like Bela Lugosi.) :-)

The 69 Eyes (also known as the Helsinki Vampires) are a gothic glam rock n' roll band from Finland. They've been performing for years, consistently topping the charts in their native country, and very popular in Europe and Australia. Their sound is a unique blend of Elvis, the Doors, Motley Crue and AC/DC, while their style has more of the 80's attitude and fashion sense of Billy Idol and Adam Ant. Underlaying both their sound and their style are the gloomy gothic undertones of bands like The Cure and Sisters of Mercy. Their music, their look, and their incredibly effective use of eyeliner make them well worth noticing. :-)

Don't believe me? Watch and listen as the band describes their style in their own words:



All of the songs on the new CD are loosely themed around the realm of the undead, the black abyss of eternal suffering, the shadowy world of the vampire. It's an absolutely fabulous mix: killer guitar riffs, pounding drums, five sexy guys in black leather singing about eternal loneliness - what more could a ghoul want, right?

The title song, Back In Blood, gets your vampire-lovin' heart pounding, and is backed up perfectly by Track #2, We Own the Night. One of my absolute favorite songs is Track #3, Dead N' Gone. LOVE IT!

And then, of course, I ain't gonna lie: Track #7, Dead Girls Are Easy, is to die for!

Back In Blood is the band's 10th CD, and their US label, The End Records, has been great enough to provide me with a few extra copies, which I'll be giving away on my website during the month of October as part of a special Halloween promotion. Four "paranormal party" baskets filled with spooky books, spooky CDs, and other ghoulishly grand goodies in honor of one of my favorite holidays, and one of my favorite bands. The CD isn't being released in the US until September 15th, but they're available for preorder.

They'll be touring all over the US and Europe over the next few months, so if you get a chance to see them, take it. (I mean, you know what they say about vampires, right? Centuries of experience, incredible stamina, and they know the value of a little neck nuzzling to get you in the mood!) Nuzzle up to these guys, and you'll learn - like I did - that the Eyes have it!

They can bite me anytime. :-)

Just When You Thought You'd Seen Everything...

This piece of art, entitled “For the Love of God”, is a skull made out of platinum, diamonds, and human teeth. The total thing has 8,601 diamonds and comes in at 1,106.18 carats. It’s the most expensive piece of art ever created, costing between $16 and $20 million to make, and $99 million to buy.

Is it wrong to say I'd love to have it? (Ooo, spooky and shiny!)

Want A Bookmark?

Are these cool, or what? I had new bookmarks made to celebrate the upcoming October 27th release of Silent Night, Haunted Night and they turned out so great that I want to share them directly with my readers.

Normally these are sent to bookstores, libraries, writers conferences and trade shows as part of the promotion efforts from my publisher, but hey, I want YOU guys to have some, too.
I mean, why save your place in a Nicki Styx story with a scrap of paper or *gasp* fold down a corner of the page (sacrilege!) when you can have one of these marvelously macabre markers?

At any rate, all you have to do to get one is to send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to:

Terri Garey
P.O. Box 320386
Tampa, FL 33679-2386

The front is as you see here, and the back shows the entire series, in order, in case you missed any of them. :-)

(If you'd like extras for your book club or some of your cooler friends, just let me know, and include a little extra postage!)

Save your place in style, ghoulfriends, and come to the dark side... we have cookies! (well, bookmarks, anyway, and unlike cookies, they're not fattening.) :-)

The Devil's Bargain - a new series by Terri Garey!

The dark side is calling, and it's hard to resist... particularly when it appears in the form of a smokin' hot guy wearing tight jeans and a leather jacket! I'm thrilled to announce a brand-new series based on my favorite bad boy from the Nicki Styx series, Sammy (Satan) Divine! Here's the official announcement from Publisher's Weekly:

The Devil's Bargain trilogy, a spin-off of Rita Award-winning Terri Garey's Nicki Styx series, featuring the ultimate fallen angel, Sammy (Satan) Divine, and the souls of three lost women, again to Erika Tsang at Avon by Annelise Robey and Christina Hogrebe at Jane Rotrosen Agency. (World English)

Yes, the Nicki Styx series continues with a deeper look into the dark side as the world's most diabolical bad boy takes on the job for which he was originally created... that of a guardian angel. Blond-haired, blue-eyed and sinfully sexy, Sammy is hotter than Hell, and lives there, too. Once divine, now cast down, forever blamed for the seduction of Eve and the destruction of Paradise, the angel once known as Samael has his own version of mankind's fall from grace, believing temptation goes both ways. For centuries he's made it his business to lurk the shadows, wreaking havoc in the lives of humans.

Now offered a chance to step into the Light, will he take it, or remain forever trapped by the darkness he himself created?

No, that's not Sammy's picture above, but it's a very good likeness of Finn, who'll you'll also meet in this upcoming series! Those of you who are familiar with the character of Sammy Divine know that he looks a bit more like Simon Baker from The Mentalist, only hotter, with some Billy Idol thrown in. :-) Sammy doesn't like to share the spotlight with anyone, so sparks may fly!

Having always been fascinated by legends and stories surrounding Satan's Biblical fall from grace, I'm excited to be able to tell it from a whole new perspective, from the side of the arrogant fallen angel whose lust for the flesh led him to defy his creator. In The Devil's Bargain, I'll get to delve more deeply into Sammy's world: Where does he go when he's not tempting or tormenting Nicki Styx? Who (and what) are the creatures that surround him in his kingdom of darkness?

Even more intriguing, how do they feel when their Dark Prince is the one being tempted?

I hope you'll enjoy reading more about Sammy, Finn and a host of other interesting characters when the first book in this new series, The Devil's Bargain, is released in 2010!

Zombies Need Love, Too (apparently)

You may have heard about a book that's evidently pretty popular right now, called PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, which is billed as: "The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!". (Talk about your classic twist, hm?)

At any rate, the success of this book has apparently re-animated the formerly dead genre - ok, that was bad! :-) - of zombie romance. Yes, boys and ghouls, some publishers are apparently looking for zombie love stories, as evidenced by this call from the editor of an electronic press called Ravenous Romance: http://ravenousromance.blogspot.com/2009/07/call-for-zombie-love.html (Big honking disclaimer: I do not write for Ravenous Romance, I know very little about Ravenous Romance, and this is not a plug for Ravenous Romance. I just found it interesting, and thought I'd share.)

So, as I read this call for romantic tales of the living dead, I took a moment to imagine how in the world one could mix love with lividity, and came up with this short little tale I like to call:

LOVE STINKS, AND SO DOES YOUR BREATH by Terri Garey

“Is that a femur in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

Donna snuggled in closer to Derek, brushing the dark hair from his eyes with one hand. Unfortunately, a clump of it remained in her fingers, and she knew this particular boy toy’s time was limited. That was the problem with zombies—their shelf life was much too short, the pesky problem of decomposition being one she hadn’t solved yet.

Even embalming didn’t help, and she didn’t care for waxy buildup on her fingers any more than she did her floors.

“Brought you a present,” Derek murmured, with a lopsided grin, “for our two-week anniversary.” His breath reeked of blood and sausages, which made sense considering his job at the local meat packing plant. With a flourish, he whipped a hand from behind his back, and offered her his prize.

“How sweet,” Donna squealed. “It’s a heart!”

“Yeah, baby,” he answered smugly, blood dripping between his fingers. “A fresh one. Nothing but the best for my girl.”

“Awww,” Donna said, “I got you a present, too.” She let go of him long enough snatch her purse up from the bed. Digging inside, she brought up an object about three inches long. Picking off a piece of lint before handing it to him, she announced, “I usually wait at least a month before giving my boyfriend the finger!”

Derek and Donna both died laughing, which was long overdue, considering Donna had been dead for two centuries, and Derek for two weeks.

She eyed him with regret as she giggled, knowing his laughter would soon be a thing of the past, much like Horatio’s, the guy who’d gotten her into this fix. It had been Horatio’s idea to visit the cemetery in Edinburgh that night two hundred years ago. Bodysnatching had been a good way to earn some quick cash back then, unless your body happened to be the one that got snatched, of course.

Poor Horatio, she’d known him well, until that shovel had come out of nowhere, and smashed his head in. The doctor who’d done it hadn’t hit her hard enough, though, and she’d woken up in his laboratory to find him on top of her. After that, what was a ghoul to do except defend herself? It was only after she’d killed the doc with his own dirt-encrusted shovel that she’d found the secret book lying on his desk, in plain sight, and learned the ancient grimoire’s secrets about how to reanimate the dead.

“Hey, baby,” Derek said, interrupting her musings. “I got a perfectly good boner going to waste here.” He grabbed her hips and pulled her close again. “What say we get naked and put it to good use, hm?”

Donna smiled. She’d learned a few secrets about herself that night, too, including how her brush with death and her newfound ability to reanimate dead flesh left her with a taste for more of it. Immortality had cost her soul, but she was pretty sure she didn’t need it where she was going.

“Absolutely,” she answered, with a smile that revealed her own teeth, pearly white and perfect. Her eyes glowed red as she began to tug his shirt from his pants. “No use letting a good piece of meat go to waste."

Yes, I have a weird sense of humor, but if you didn't know that by now, then welcome to my world. :-)

Life Is Strange, and Then You Die

Ok, I apologize for the weird blog title, but that's a bit how I feel today.

I woke up this morning to a front page article in the Sunday paper about a big, multi-author booksigning I attended recently, where I and my fellow authors were interviewed for the local newspaper (see post below). While the article itself was all about the fact that book sales of the type I write are booming, and that authors like me are not only normal people, but can make a decent living at what we do, the lead-in photo was of a plus, plus-size woman in a muu-muu holding a bunch of books and wad of cash.

I apologize, anonymous woman in the photo, for what I'm about to say, but this was a plus-size tactic designed to not only draw the eye, but to denigrate what I do for a living by implying that the only people who read what I write are overweight, lonely, and can't "get any" any other way except reading about it. And that, quite frankly, troubles me.

I could go off on a rant about the statistics (which quite frankly, are impressive). I could point out that I am neither overweight, nor wear a muu-muu (which if I did, would have nothing to do with my writing ability, or my taste in reading material. Oh, and I get plenty, thank you very much, as do many others like me who value love and genuine feeling over the occasional, meaningless sexual hook-up.) I could also point out of that if the photo were of, say... Angelina Jolie... holding a bunch of books and a wad of cash, the tone of the article would be competely different even though the words written were exactly the same.

I'm a writer. I know the value of a well-placed word or photograph, and that photograph ruined the whole point of the article. It made what would have been a "high", into a "low".

And then there was the afternoon, which fell along the same lines. I got together with an old friend from high school, who I was thrilled to hear from. We had a wonderful time catching up about our families and our life experiences, who we'd kept up with and who we hadn't, and the years rolled away as though they'd never been.

Except that during the course of our conversation, I learned that all these years, my friend had been operating under a major misconception about me. An unflattering misconception, that I'd been completely unaware of. Worse yet, one of those misconceptions that not only had I been unable to defend, but even today - when I did - never goes away, because hey... once that seed's been planted, it's kind of hard to uproot.

Kind of like the misconception that romance is only for plus-sized women in muu-muus who can't "get any" any other way.

At any rate, I don't mean to imply that I had anything other than a wonderful time with my friend, because I did. Eye-opening, a little bit "WTF?" but wonderful. :-) She deserves an award for contacting me after all this time given the fact she was operating under such a major misconception, and my hat's off to her.

The article in the newspaper? Not so much.

A Video Excerpt for Tampa Bay Online

DISCLAIMER: I had no time to rehearse for this, and reading an excerpt of your own work on camera is harder than you think! :-) (I'm also unclear as to why every time I'm in a video, the stillframe always shows me with a goofy expression on my face!)

At a booksigning last month, Tampa Tribune reporter Rich Mullins asked if he could make a video of me reading aloud from my current release, You're the One That I Haunt.

Here's the result: http://tiny.cc/b5WtV

Rich was doing a story on how sales of romance novels have risen, while book sales in general have declined (take that! o-ye-literary snobs!), which will appear in this week's Sunday paper. Sex sells, as do hopes of happily-ever-afters, silver linings, hot hunks, and the dream of finding your soul mate - who, after having met you - decides that no other woman will do.

I ask you, is that so wrong? I think not. (Particularly if there are ghosts, sexy devils and evil spirits involved, but no actual danger to you, the reader.)

Anyway, I'll put away my soapbox for now, and hope you enjoy this little glimpse into my little world. (And hey, it ain't Hollywood. If it was, the lighting would've been better!) :-)

Win An Advance Reader Copy of Silent Night, Haunted Night!

Advance Reader Copies of Book #4 in the Nicki Styx series, Silent Night, Haunted Night are now available! This is the first book not to feature Nicki on the cover, but somehow I just don't seem to mind! :-) If you're familiar with the series (and I hope you are!) you'll recognize this hunk of burnin' love as none other than Joe Bascombe, Nicki's main squeeze. Joe plays a bigger role in this book than he has in the past, so he got his own cover! Here's a little blurb about the book:

All I haunt for Christmas is you...

Joe Bascombe is no stranger to desire, but when a sexy spirit begins haunting his dreams, he finds himself ensnared by dark passions. What he doesn't realize is that the devious demon and her two sisters, otherwise known as the Three Fates, are out to teach the woman he loves a lesson...

Unwilling psychic Nicki Styx survived a near-death experience to find herself able to see and hear the dead, but she only has eyes for Joe. Together they've conquered evil spirits, saved lost souls, and beaten back the Devil himself, but they're about to learn that there are more things in Heaven and Hell than they ever imagined. As far as Nicki is concerned, Joe is the man of her dreams, but now they're at the mercy of the creature who's invaded his.

It'll be a Christmas to remember... and it could be Joe and Nicki's last.

The book itself won't be release to bookstores until October 27th, 2009 but you can find out what happens before anyone else! All you have to do to be entered to win an autographed ARC is to go to my Contest Excerpt Page and correctly answer the question:

What was Joe wearing? :-)

Then send me an EMAIL* with the answer.

Drawing will be held August 31st, 2009.

(*Entering this contest will automatically add you to my quarterly newsletter list, to keep you informed of new releases.)

Photos From DC - the 2009 RWA Convention

Part of the fun of going to a big, giant writers conference is getting to hang out with your friends, your editor and your agent. You get to do some things you wouldn't normally do, see some things you wouldn't normally see, and hear some things you wouldn't normally hear.

I wanted to share some of those things with you, like being in a room where 500 authors are signing books, all at one time, while over a thousand readers chat, browse, and squeal over the books they love to read, and the people who write them:


I love this picture of the elusive and stylish Avon Executive Editor Erika Tsang (in the orange), and her lovely Editorial Assistant, Amanda Bergeron.



How about this photo of the irrepressible Jenny Gardiner, signing copies of her book, Sleeping With Ward Cleaver in true 60's American housewife/sitcom style, complete with an apron and pink Playtex gloves (and a pink "pebbled nub" button. Don't ask.) :-)



Here's one of my favorites - several hundred well-dressed women boogeying down to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel (not as easy as one might think, particularly after a few drinks, but huge fun!)



Hanging out with dear friends, like Golden Heart double nominee, Lindsay Brookes, (a/k/a Kimmi):



Enjoying a well-deserved trip to the bar with former Golden Heart nominee and super cool Brit Chick, Anna Sugden:



"Skyping" with friends would couldn't be there, like Harlequin Blaze author Tawny Weber (I particularly love this picture because of the angle - that's Tawny on the screen, and me in the mirror, along with RITA nominee Kathleen Long, and Mills&Boon Medical author Janice Lynn who's taking the photo. Harlequin Superromance author Beth Andrews is manning the keyboard.)



Going to parties with your friends every night is always fun, particularly when someone wears a tiara:



And when the party's over and you're looking for a Ladies' Room? No problem!

A Cinderella Story

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, lived a little girl named Pug. That wasn't her real name, of course, but that's what she was often called, for her button nose, her plump cheeks and tomboy-ish ways reminded some of a puppy, clue-less to the ways of the world, yet eager to please.

Pug grew up in a house with five other children, one boy and three other girls, all far more beautiful than she. Her three sisters were loving and kind, but being older and quite popular with boys and girls alike, they had little time for sturdy little Pug to be trailing at their heels. Her brother - being a boy, of course - was the bane of her existence, and never tired of pointing out the buttonness of her nose or the plumpness of her cheeks. So, Pug spent most of her time in the woods, climbing trees and building forts, or curled up in a shady thicket where she would sit silently for hours, watching the squirrels and the birds and the butterflies go about their business, all the while pretending that she was one of them - a shy fawn, perhaps, waiting for her mother to come back from foraging in the meadow.

Pug lived in a world of make-believe, you see, a world aided by the books she simply couldn't stop reading: heroic fables of King Arthur and the Round Table, fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, spine-tingling stories by Edgar Allen Poe. Books were the solace of her childhood, but as all children do, Pug eventually grew up. Still lost in the world of fairy tales, she was quite surprised when, as an adult, her Prince Charming turned out to be a toad, and her happily-ever-after turned out to be a unhappily-here-and-now, but ever determined - much as that pugnacious little puppy she was once compared to - Pug persevered. She stopped waiting for her dreams to come true on their own, and decided to make them come true.

And here is the result:
The little girl who once hid in the bushes reading stories of other worlds and other places, now writes stories of other worlds and other places, and is lucky enough to share them with the world.

She has beautiful, wonderful friends who write them as well, and once a year, she gets together with as many of them as she can, and lives out the dream of being a butterfly instead of clumsy little puppy. She laughs and she dances and she enjoys the here-and-now with a true Prince Charming who (after 18 years) has yet to sprout warts or to croak her back into the shade of the forest.

And she never, ever forgets the little girl who lived inside her head when she was small, wearing her older sisters' hand-me-downs and playing alone in the forest, hoping all the while that others will enjoy the world she's created in her stories.

And, as in most fairy tales, they all lived happily-ever-after.

Dead Girls Are Easy... and they ROCK!!!

The Lesser of Two Evils

I've been fascinated lately by the concept of choices, so that's what I'm guest blogging about today over at WRITERS AT PLAY.

Come on over and read some hypothetical questions about possible moral dilemmas, and then make your choice between the lesser of two evils. You could win a gift certificate for a free e-book!

What I Love About Florida

Individuality is encouraged...














and so is proper footwear...




















It's the only place where your mail comes via dolphin,



















grouper,

















or pelican.


















Oh, who am I kidding? THIS is why I love Florida, baby!















Vacation was over too soon...

I've Been "Examined"

During the booksigning at Borders last week, I met a lovely woman named Julianne Draper, who is a reporter for The Examiner. She interviewed all the authors who were signing, and wrote a great article called "Romancing South Tampa", which you can read HERE.

(There was a reporter from the Tampa Tribune at the signing as well, who's promised to keep us posted on his article. He taped several of us reading aloud from our books, and I must say, it was a bit odd to be reading sexy scenes I'd written myself out loud to a man I didn't know!) :-)

Anyway, hope you enjoy Julianne's article!

Good News and Good Times At Borders

Times are tough these days, aren't they? The economy's down, unemployment's up, and most of us have had to do some belt-tightening of one type or the other - fewer dinners out, fewer vacations, fewer trips to the mall or the movies. Many consumers have given up everything that might even be considered a luxury, except for the those they consider the most important, like books. Yes, book sales are up, and consistently rising, according to Sue Grimshaw, corporate romance buyer for Borders - romance more so than other genres! Yay!

I spent a fun and fascinating day this past Saturday, listening to Sue talk books during a chapter meeting at Tampa Area Romance Authors. She led a lively question and answer session about what's selling and why, the importance of covers, trends, publisher support, promotional efforts, reviews, cover quotes, and reader shopping habits (all before lunch!). It seems that readers can't get enough of paranormals, romantic suspense, "soft" romance centering on small towns and women's issues, and historicals are once again on the rise. Great news for us writers, and hopefully great news for our readers.

All this industry talk was followed by a field trip to our local Borders, where Sue walked us through the how's and why's of bookstore placement and displays. Here she is on the far right, posing with Mart Sadler (the local Borders General Manager), TARA president Vicki Lane, author Kathy Carmichael, and Borders employee extraordinaire, Gypsie (in black). Why is Gypsie so extraordinary? Because she and Mart not only hosted our entire chapter (approx. 40 excited, chattering, giggling women) in their store at one time, but she put together a group signing for ten different TARA authors afterward (here we are in the photo below). She promoted the heck out of us beforehand, too, and we all got chocolate chip cookies! Woohoo! :-) A great time was had by all - we came, we signed, we conquered - and we all came away with a much better idea of what goes on behind the scenes of a major bookseller like Borders.

And did I mention the cookies? :-) Give a writer a chocolate chip cookie and you've got a friend for life!

Thanks so much to Sue, Mart and Gypsie!

Signing Books in South Tampa

Join me this Saturday, June 13th, at the S. Tampa Borders at 909 N. Dale Mabry!

I'll be signing books along with NYT best-sellers Karen Rose, Virginia Henley and Joan Johnston, USA Today best-sellers Alyssa Day, Julie Leto and Roxanne St. Claire and several other fabulous authors who'd love to make your summer just a bit more cool. :-)

If you can't find a book you'd like to read among this bunch, then there's simply no pleasing you!

Seriously, it'll be fun. We're being joined by Borders executive and corporate buyer, Susan Grimshaw, and I'm looking forward to seeing my sweet friend, Gypsie, who works at the store. This particular Borders is my local hangout - the moment you walk in and smell that fabulous coffee, you'll know why. :-)

My son even worked there for a while, but now Mom makes him crack the books in college instead of the bookstore!

Hope to see you there!

DEAD GIRLS ARE EASY Inspires a Goth/Rock Single and Video by The 69 Eyes

One of the best things about being an author is that sometimes the coolest things can happen, right out of the blue!

A few months ago, one of my friends recommended I check out a Finnish "goth n' roll" band called The 69 Eyes, also known as the Helsinki Vampires. I watched their videos, listened to their music, and thought they were pretty freakin' awesome! So, I "friended" them on MySpace, and immediately got this really nice email from Jyrki, their lead singer:

Did I tell you - can't remember...But wait till the next 69 Eyes album comes out, you'll see which book of yours inspired me the most...Let's keep in touch!

From Helsinki,
Jyrki69

And then guess what I saw this morning:

The 69 Eyes will release their new album "Back In Blood" in September, 2009. The album is produced by American, Grammy awarded producer Matt Hyde (Slayer, Monster Magnet). The album was recorded in Los Angeles, USA during the spring. "This record rocks ten times harder than anything The 69 Eyes have previously done!" says the producer. "It's like when Rick Rubin helped The Cult discover themselves on ‘Electric' - we made a similar spiritual journey with Matt," continues the vocalist Jyrki69.

The first single cut will be the hard & dark rocking "Dead Girls Are Easy" of which the band will shoot a video with Bam Margera as a director. The MTV skate superstar has earlier directed the band's classic video of their anthem "Lost Boys".

Can you believe it? I cannot WAIT to hear this song and watch this video!

And they're such nice, clean-cut guys, too. :-)

Jeff Strand, under PRESSURE

I recently mentioned author Jeff Strand here on my blog. We met last month at the Romantic Times Convention, where I caught him ogling cover models we bonded a little over dark humor, severed heads and the fact that we live in the same Florida town. He has a new book, PRESSURE, coming out on May 26th, and is desperate for promotion eager to tell us about it! Unfortunately, Jeff is a bit on the lazy side, so he decided to put together a cookie-cutter guest blog, which I happily stole from his MySpace page, because hey... that's what friends (even new ones) do.

Anyway, I want you to read Jeff's charmingly innovative guest blog, which will be full of references to me and my own current release, You're the One That I Haunt, because Jeff kindly left tags everywhere reading [Insert Your Book Here] and [Insert Your Name Here], so I did.

(Hey, Jeff - your scheme to get free and easy promo worked! You're brilliant!)

In all honesty, I wouldn't be pimping Jeff if I didn't think he deserved it, and I mean that sincerely. I just finished one of his earlier works, GRAVEROBBERS WANTED (NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY), and it was good - mystery, murder and mayhem (Hah! The protagonist's name was Andrew Mayhem! Am I lame, or what?), graveyard humor, and plenty of twists. One of the few times I've read a mystery when I didn't know "who done it" until the very end. At any rate, Jeff is a clever guy and a good writer, and I think you should buy his books.

And now, without further ado, meet Jeff:
_______________

Hi! I'm published author Jeff Strand! My novel PRESSURE will be at a bookstore near you on May 26th, and it answers the age-old question "What if your best friend was a killer...and he wanted you to be just like him?" Publishers Weekly called it "marvelously creepy reading...the horror in this tale of twisted friendship is relentless." Sweet, huh?

But you know what? Screw PRESSURE. [YOU'RE THE ONE THAT I HAUNT] is way better. After I read it, I called up Leisure Books and begged them not to publish my crappy book. "Don't worry," they said, "not everybody can be [TERRI GAREY]. Even [TERRI GAREY] has trouble being [TERRI GAREY] some days. It's a level of awesomeness that only three or four people can attain at any given time. PRESSURE may not be as good as [YOU'RE THE ONE THAT I HAUNT] but it's still a fine piece of work."

So I broke into the Leisure Books warehouse and burned every copy of PRESSURE that my flamethrower could reach. I think a few copies may have survived, so if you've already read [YOU'RE THE ONE THAT I HAUNT] and everything else by [TERRI GAREY] you might want to give it a shot.
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Aw, Jeff... I'm a little teary here from all that praise! Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy schedule and joining us today! When did you say your book was out again? May 26th? At bookstores everywhere?

Kewl. :-)

Just Say "NO" to E-book Piracy

I've been spending way too much time lately trying to get free versions of my books taken down from "file sharing" sites all over the Internet. No sooner do I find a stolen file, fill out the form to have it taken down and provide documentation that I hold the copyright to the work itself, when another stolen file pops up somewhere else on another site.

What absolutely amazes me is that people think it's absolutely fine to gleefully download these stolen files, never once thinking about who they're hurting (which, quite frankly, is me). In fact, some people even think they're doing me a favor by spreading my work around and making it easy for others to get them without having to pay for them. Um.. no. Not only are they stealing the royalty money from legitimate ebook sales from my pocket, they're stealing my numbers, which is far more damaging. Pirated books don't get counted toward the number of books I've sold, which is the biggest thing my publisher looks at when they decide to continue publishing me or not.

Publishing is all about the numbers. Publishers make an initial investment and print X numbers of books. Needless to say, for an author to be considered successful, those books have to sell. No, ebooks are not printed, but the demand for them is another huge indicator of an author's success - every sale of an ebook through a legitimate source like Kindle or Sony is registered and recorded, which is another way my publisher sees whether people are buying my books or not. So if hundreds or thousands of my books are being given away free through file piracy, my publisher has no way of counting them. An author may be hugely popular when it comes to free downloads out there, but that popularity does them no good in the eyes of their publisher, because all they see is the number of legitimate sales. So those people who LOVE those authors enough to download those files are actually upping the odds that those authors won't ever be able to publish another book, because their numbers will be too low.

Make any sense? Oh, and let's not forget this basic fact: downloading pirated files of any kind for free is stealing, plain and simple. So just say no, would you, and support your favorite authors in a way that helps them go on doing what they do. Books are very inexpensive forms of entertainment, after all.