H is for Hello/Goodbye (2016 A to Z Blogging Challenge)

Today marks the completion of one-third of the 2016 A to Z Challenge. I wasn’t sure how “Rayne” would do in the challenge, but so far so good. Plan the work and work the plan, or some such saying.

One of the things I find most odd about authors online is the “hello/goodbye” relationships that are formed. With no hard feelings, I must firmly stress. Whenever our paths cross, stranger or not, there’s the shared experience of being a writer. We blunder into each other, chat like good friends, and then move on without animosity. It’s fascinating and I love it.

Hello, goodbye. Thanks for stepping into my world today.

Rayne

http://rayneforrest.blogspot.com

www.twitter.com/rayneforrest

http://kckendricks.com/RayneForrest_bookshelf.html

It's Money Back Guarantee for My Sexy Saturday #107

Welcome to my corner of the My Sexy Saturday blog hop! Thanks for stopping by. This morning I'm highlighting seven sexy paragraphs from the new release Money Back Guarantee. Enjoy!

* * *

“Ah. So you were Slade the Slayer and your brother was Keiko?”

“Close. A friend was my sidekick. Beckett never got into graphic novels, but he was the one who started calling me Slade. Soon, even my parents called me Slade. I’ve been Slade ever since.”

Iris batted her eyelashes at him. “Do you have a cape?” She laughed as strong arms lifted her out of the water.

“That does it, wench!” Slade perched on the edge of the tub with Iris sprawled across his lap. She yelped as his hand descended on her wet, bare buttocks, twisting to sink her teeth in his side. He grunted.

“Slade, this is not a good course of action!”

He spanked her again.

“I’m warning you, Martin! You’ve got dangling body parts that are in danger!”

* * *

About Money Back Guarantee:

Slade Martin is under attack. An electronic thief absconded with all his liquid personal wealth and someone on his board of directors is plotting a hostile takeover. The obvious culprit isn’t the guilty party, and Slade gets help to find the real perpetrator from a surprise source – the lovely and capable Iris D’Vance.  

Iris D’Vance is determined to not repeat her mistakes with men – until she meets Slade Martin, and decides all bets are off. Accepting the invitation to sit on the board of Slade’s charitable foundation lands her in the middle corporate intrigue. Slade needs her help and makes her an offer she can’t turn down.

Slade and Iris join forces to unravel the plot to ruin Slade and discover their interest in each other runs deeper than sharing altruistic works. When the person behind Slade’s woes is found, it’s Iris who’s in danger. Slade has to act fast to bring her home safe and make good on his money back guarantee.

* * *

Money Back Guarantee is available now at All Romance eBooks 
www.allromanceebooks.com/product-moneybackguarantee-1874114-148.html

Rayne Forrest
www.rayneforrest.com
www.twitter.com/rayneforrest

Be sure and check out all the My Sexy Saturday blog on the list below.

Taking Chances

Life is full of highs and lows. No one can escape them. Both can exhaust us, so with any luck balance will be quickly restored. 

I've been contemplating giving up the paid website for many months now. Yahoo developed a new marketing tool that sends information directly to a paying customer's inbox. That quickly became a low - for Yahoo.

Tracking website hits compared to blog hits left no doubt in my mind I needed to rethink a few things. Twenty-Six Keys gets five times the hits the paid website gets. It's a no-brainer. If I'm going to pay for a home on the web, I'd do better to pay Blogger. 

Oh wait. It's FREE. At least for now and until I can switch the .com domain over. 

I'm going to bite the bullet, as they say, and give up the paid website. Yes, I've had it for thirteen years, but we need to be frugal even if it makes us a bit sad. 

So rayneforrest.blogspot.com is my new web home. I'll still be blogging right here at Twenty-Six Keys, but I think having a separate site for the books will work out just fine. I might even give Facebook a look now. 

Rayne
http://www.twitter.com/rayneforrest

IWSG - The once and future writer

Way back in 2003 I signed my first publishing contract. It was 9:00 PM when the email came in and I screamed loud enough to make my partner jump out of his chair and come back the hall to the computer room (as we called it in those days).

No, I didn't see a mouse, dear. Someone is actually going to publish The Skies of Mahdis. 

And so it began. I had a very successful writing career up until the Triskelion Publishing debacle. Excuse me. They called it bankruptcy. RAYNE calls it a debacle. Same damn difference.

The debacle happened at the end of a very trying personal time. My beloved partner had, we prayed, been successfully treated for cancer. It's an insidious disease. Even after almost nine years we panic if he gets a cold or some weird symptom. Anyway, I was already mentally and emotionally exhausted and the debacle was pretty much the last straw.

I shifted gears and took on a new name and a new genre. Was it a "cut and run?" Yes, it was. I needed to write and I needed the stress free environment of anonymity. It's been a successful cut and run, though. I started over without telling anyone other than author Brenda Williamson what I was doing. I submitted the first story and it was immediately accepted.

Huh. Maybe I really do have some small talent at this writing stuff. But the world has turned.

Publishing isn't what it once was. Going indie is no-longer the kiss of death to the serious writer. Yet even as indie authors bask in the new freedoms, the screw tightens to control them. Amazon, the land of indie opportunity, keeps changing the game. Our, ahem, illustrious, government does nothing to control piracy.

I have a nice collection of completed stories sitting on my hard drive. I've already re-edited a few, learned some basic photoshop techniques, created a few simple covers, and indie published them. I might even indie publish The Skies of Mahdis and come full circle. 

It's daunting to be effectively starting over yet again. I question if, knowing so much more about the publishing industry, I can do it. 

Will I be as successful (or at least my definition of the word) in 2015 and forward as I was a decade ago? I don't know. Do I need it to be to be happy? Probably not. I simply know that as the once and future writer, I'll figure it out as I go. 

That's what all of us do, one step at a time. 

Thanks for stopping in here at Twenty-six Keys as part of the IWSG blog hop. 

Rayne
http://www.rayneforrest.com
www.twitter.com/RayneForrest

Share button?

It's a brave new world for this Luddite. What's a Luddite, you ask? The origin of the word goes back to 19th century England and mechanization of the textile mills. People fought that for a bit. These days it generally means someone who's not really ready to embrace EVERY piece of new tech or EVERY Internet app or EVERY upgrade of software that comes down the pike.

One of the comments on my last blog entry came from Lynn Crain - why not try a Twitter share button?

Egads. A share button. What the frell is that?

I went and looked it up and it seems harmless enough on the surface. I mean, how bad can I mess it up?

So here it is. I guess my only option is to give it a shot and see what happens.


Tweet