Some happy news to share this Mother’s Day–I just received my contract for a follow up to my February adult contemporary romance, RULES OF NEGOTIATION! This book is tentatively titled (are you ready for this?):

THE BILLIONAIRE’S FAKE FIANCEE!

No, seriously, that’s what it’s called. I’m not even joking.

Here’s the blurb:

She’s his worst nightmare…

Reclusive billionaire Garth Solen learned a long time ago that weakness and emotion only lead to pain. The last thing the “human computer” wants is a relationship, especially with a woman like Melissa Bencher, who thinks with her heart and not her head. When Melissa’s impulsive act lands the two of them on the cover of a tabloid, Garth is furious. To protect his ailing grandmother, he’s forced to play the adoring fiancee. But what happens when the lies become the truth?

…or a dream come true.

Melissa Bencher never meant for things to go this far. She only wanted to make her cheating ex-boyfriend jealous–and what better way than to suggest she was dating her gorgeous boss? Now she’s trying on rings and spending private weekends with a dangerously sexy fake fiance. The game is clear: for two weeks, they’re an adoring couple, and then they part ways. No emotions. No entanglements. Unfortunately, when it comes to matters of the heart, Melissa’s never been good at following the rules…

I’m thrilled to share Melissa and Garth’s story with you. If you read RULES, you will remember that Garth is a genius entrepreneur and scientist who guards his privacy like the crown jewels. Getting a job with Garth helped pull Melissa out of a dark depression; falling for him was the last thing she wanted to do. But in matters of the heart, there are no guarantees, right?

(Okay, there is one guarantee: there will be an HEA at the end of this book. Sorry if that ruins the surprise for anyone. )

BFF (as I’ve been calling it when I chat with my editor, the amazing Libby Murphy) is very tentatively slated for release in November 2012. It’s part of the Entangled Publishing Indulgence line. I am having a blast writing for the talented people at Entangled and am thrilled to be able to work with them all on this new project.

For all my YA readers, don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten about you. You’re next.

xoxo,
Inara

These two sexy guys are Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. They host a radio show called RadioLab. I don’t remember when I started listening, but at this point, I’ve downloaded every podcast and listened to them all (some more than once). It’s kind of like This American Life, only funnier, and with science.

So these guys are my current crushes. They’re smart and funny, and for me, that’s the best kind of Man Candy.

(Okay, my geeking out is done for the day! Back to your regularly scheduled program!)

I was on a panel with the irrepressible Maggie Stiefvater, the adorable Jessica Spotswood, and Orson Scott Card (hereafter known as OSC). Not sure what single word could describe Orson. Instead, I’ll say that, after writing, teaching, and working in publishing for decades, he has an incredible amount of advice, wisdom, and opinion to share. I thought he gave a brilliant keynote, and while our panel occasionally devolved into lunacy (seriously–ask the people who got a little sex ed at TeenBookCon!), I also learned a lot from the wonderful questions posed by the audience, and my fellow authors’ answers.

Among my fav memories from TeenBookCon 2012:

1) Best moment of the event, which brought tears to my eyes: OSC firmly instructing the audience to never, ever, let anyone make them feel ashamed of what they enjoy reading. As a romance reader, and strong supporter of the most-maligned and disparaged genre in literature, this meant a lot. I love OSC for saying this, and hope everyone who heard that speech takes it into their hearts and believes it.

2) Moment in which I knew I was truly odd: when I admitted I write in silence. Maggie and OSC clearly think I’m nuts: they must have music to write. Maggie builds a playlist for each of her books and listening to it transports her into the world of her novel. I love how different writers are!

3) Coolest author moment: meeting Ruta Sepetys, who wrote the book Between Shades of Grey. This is a book I am terrified to read because it is dark and sad, and chronicles the journey of a girl taken from Lithuania to a Soviet labor camp in 1941. This is a fate my mother, who lived in Latvia until she was 6, could easily have suffered, if she and my grandparents had not managed to escape to the United States in 1948. I am sure many of my other Latvian and Lithuanian relatives (my father is Lithuanian) were not so lucky. Ruta is an absolutely delightful person, and now that I have heard her story, I am determined to read her book.

4) Most outright FUN time: hanging with blogger friends Lindsi, Lena, Sarah, Ginger, Kelsey and others at dinner at Chuy’s in Houston after the conference. These girls are awesome fun and I’m so glad I got to get out of the hotel and see a little of Houston! Cheers ladies!

5) As always, I met so many wonderful people, too numerous to name, who I know from Twitter and blogging (waving to Yara Santos, I’ve been wanting to meet forever!)…not to mention all the fans, readers, teachers, librarians, booksellers (Blue Willow Books is amazing!) who made TeenBookCon a wonderful success. Thanks everyone who came to say hello–xoxox to all!

Keep reading my friends!!

Remember that post I put up a while back, about saying thanks (with prizes)? Well, it’s time to announce the winners:

EVERYONE!

Okay, you knew that, right? I’ll be sending something (as in, bookmarks, postcards, stickers, adorable faerie tattos) to everyone who filled out the form and sent me their address. But I did promise some other, bigger prizes, so here they are:

1) ONE COPY OF THE TALENTS

SARAH MILLER!

2) ONE ARC OF THE MARKED

JENNALY NOLAN!

3) ONE E-COPY OF RULES

ADRIANNE RODGERS!

4) ONE E-COPY of RADIANT DESIRE

SHERYL CORDEIRO!

and ONE GRAND PRIZE:

5) A PACK WTIH BOTH THE TALENTS AND THE MARKED!

JAIME HYPES!!

Thanks so much to everyone who has supported me, my books, and my writing. I wish I could give each of you a big ol’ hug, but that may be inappropriate, and/or get me arrested. Besides, all that traveling would be really hard on the pocketbook.

xoxo,
Inara

The fun is over, but the prizes have only just begun. Check the YA Scavenger Hunt blog to find out if you won one of the grand prizes. But for those of you who entered my contest, here are the three winners for a prize pack with both THE TALENTS and THE MARKED!

ELENA SANCHEZ

SUKI L

MARISHA ABBOTT

I will send out prizes to the winners. Thanks so much for playing!

That was a little sad. This was the first time I’d entered, and I’d thought RADIANT DESIRE had a shot. It didn’t sell thousands of copies, but it got really lovely reviews, and I had the feeling that if the judges read the book, maybe they’d score it high enough for it to final.

But at the end of the day, as I scrolled through the list of names, I had a little relevation. None of the names were from small presses. They were all Big Six publishers and imprints–Grand Central, Avon, Ballantine, etc. Being the analytic type, I mused on that a little, and why that might be.

Here’s what I came up with:

It could be a basic law of percentages.

I don’t know how many authors from small presses entered, compared to the Big Six, but I suspect we were a minority. Entering the RITA is expensive: $50 for the entry fee, and then you have to buy and ship five copies of the book. That can run you in the nature of $100, particularly when you have a small print run, so your book isn’t set to mass-market prices. Many of the Big Six publishers foot the bill for that. Small presses–and small press authors–can’t afford it.

But even if small presses are percentage-wise, a smaller portion of the entries, I would think percentages would put at least one or two small press books on there. So that doesn’t ring true for me.

It could simply be coincidence that there’s no small presses on the list. However, I think this happens every year. So I doubt that as well.

It could be quality. That’s the next most obvious answer. Those small press books just aren’t as good as the Big Six. The small presses get the leftovers that weren’t good enough for NY.

I tend to doubt that, as well. Without being too defensive, I’ll tell you about RADIANT DESIRE. I wrote this book for NY. My agent adored it and was eager to sell it. We submitted widely, and had a lot of the same response from editors: this is a lovely book, but it doesn’t fit the paranormal sub-genre. Paranormal readers want dark, alpha male stories, not stories about humans and faeries. We don’t think we can break it out of the midlist.

Determined not to leave my book under the bed, I went to Entangled Publishing, a small, boutique publisher with an eye for quality and a willingness to take stories that didn’t fit squarely into the mainstream. I had a fabulous developmental editor, Libby Murphy, who made the book shine. Entangled’s incredible cover guru, Heather Howland, created a gorgeous, ethereal, beautiful cover that has been universally adored.

So, modesty aside, I don’t think it’s quality. I’ve never believed that there happen to be exactly as many “top tier” books as there are slots for publication by the Big Six. I believe there are fantastic, wonderfully written books that don’t fit into an editor’s list, or may not have the potential for a huge, NY market. They may never find a home in NY. They may find it with a small press.

Yet after dismissing percentages, coincidence, and quality, what’s left? What about prejudice? Do the RITA judges mark down small press books simply because they’re from a small press?

Let’s assume right from the start that RITA judges are smart, well-read, well-meaning people, many of whom are themselves published by the New Publishing (e-books, small press, etc.). I certainly don’t think they deliberately mark down a small press book. I do think, however, that it influences their score–in several ways.

We judge RITA books with a single number. I believe that number really comes from our gut. I bet if you asked a RITA judge to mark a book after the first two pages, and after reading the entire book, the scores would be remarkably similar. And I think the name of the author on the book, the publisher of the book, and the look of the cover, has something to do with that gut reaction. I think books that were enormous hits, written by popular authors that received top scores from reviewers, get a better gut reaction than books no one has heard of. If you settle in with a book with “NY Times Bestseller” on the cover, you probably start out with a different scale in mind than if you settle in with an unknown small press book. Or if you crack the spine of a book from Ballantine, and you know dozens of people who were rejected from Ballantine, you probably unconsciously assume the quality of this book must be good, to have gotten past all those gatekeepers along the way to publication.

It’s natural. It’s inevitable.

And as you start reading, there’s a good chance that book is going to have emotional appeal. There’s going to be some quality to the book that attracts you the same way it attracted a NY editor and publisher. I don’t think it’s as simple as saying the book is going to be higher quality than a small press book–I’ve already said I don’t think that’s the case. But this book has been carefully chosen as one that has the highest likelihood of appealing to the biggest number of romance readers possible. So the deck is stacked in its favor.

And isn’t that the point of publishing?

The purpose of the RITA is to “promote excellence in the romance genre by recognizing outstanding published romance novels and novellas.” I think it’s natural for sales, gut feeling, and emotion to play into that determination. I don’t think the RITA can or should be some unemotional measure of “writing quality”– I think it must embrace feeling, emotional reaction, and broad crowd appeal. And based on this, I think an enormously popular book, and yes, a book published by a Big Six house, will have a better shot at winning a RITA.

So I’m not saying a book with a smaller audience can’t final in the RITA. Many of them do. I’m also not saying it’s not fair that a small press book is much less likely to final.

I’ve just realized it’s part of the nature of the contest.

It should be — it’s part of the nature of publishing.

Those of you who have been with me for a little while may remember the huge, incredible YA Scavenger Hunt. In this hunt, you jump around from blog to blog of YA authors, finding exclusive content, deleted scenes, and other delicious treats. At each blog, you collect a clue. The clues will be plugged into a puzzle at the end. Those who complete the puzzle are eligible for grand prize (lots and lots of books). We did it in the summer of 2011 and again winter 2011, and now it’s BACK and BIGGER THAN EVER!

This season there are 60 authors. Yikes! Can you believe the awesomeness of THAT? Go here to scroll through all the gorgeous covers of the participating authors.

Now, because the hunt has gotten so huge, and yes, I know, a little confusing, there have been a few changes.

FIRST, for all YA Scavenger Hunt (or YASH, to those in the know!) related questions, go here:
http://www.yascavengerhunt.blogspot.com/. It’s a whole entire BLOG (set up by the fabulous Beth Revis) dedicated to YASH.

Next, instead of having all 60 authors as part of the same hunt, there will be three teams (red, yellow, and blue) this year, and three separate hunts. I am part of the YELLOW TEAM! You can find out which authors are part of which team here.

Finally, here’s the schedule: March 29th, noon: The hunt opens. April 1st, noon: The hunt ends! All times are Pacific Standard Time.

So you’ve got 72 hours to enter. Remember, there are three contests open simultaneously, each with a prize of TWENTY signed books. You can enter one, two, or three of the contests, with a total of SIXTY signed books being given away!

Sounds fabulous, right? Well, stay tuned for more info and for a hint as to what my secret, exclusive content will be!

xoxo,
Inara

I have a lot to be thankful for right now.

First, I was completely overwhelmed and touched by your support and help through the crazy DABWAHA madness. No, I didn’t win, but thanks to you, I got almost 20% of the vote. I consider that a huge victory, considering that I was matched against the book that is probably going to take the whole contest. Thank you for your Tweets, FB comments, and emails. Thank you for reading and enjoying Radiant Desire (and for supporting me even when it wasn’t your sort of book!).

Next, I have to say thanks to all of you who have bought, read, loved, and reviewed Rules of Negotiation. Yesterday, it hit a high of 25th of all the romance series books on Amazon. It was a big deal for me to see this number, and an even bigger deal every time I hear from a reader that they enjoyed it.

And finally, I have to say thanks to all the people who are hosting me, blogging with me, reviewing me, and supporting me in the release of The Talents and The Marked. Hard to believe I’m putting out 3 books in 3 months, but I am, and if it’s exhausting for me, I’m sure it’s even more exhausting for you to listen to me talking about it!

So, I’m saying THANK YOU. But sometimes THANK YOU isn’t enough. I want to give THINGS too.

To that end…Leave a comment here, and if you want a prize, fill out the form at the end of the blog. (Scroll all the way to the bottom!) Please specify what kind of books and swag you would want to win. If you don’t specify, I’ll send you young adult stuff.

EVERYONE WHO FILLS OUT THE FORM WILL GET SOMETHING IN THE MAIL!

The contest will stay open until MARCH 31!

I have up for grabs:

1) ONE COPY OF THE TALENTS

2) ONE ARC OF THE MARKED

3) ONE E-COPY OF RULES

4) ONE E-COPY of RADIANT DESIRE

5) MANY BOOKMARKS, TATTOOS, POSTCARDS, and assorted swag.

and ONE GRAND PRIZE:

6) A PACK WTIH BOTH THE TALENTS AND THE MARKED!

Sound good? Well, you’ve earned it!

thanks friends.

xoxo,
Inara

It’s a big book, my friends. Goliath, some might say.

But Radiant Desire is no David. It’s better. It’s…a naughty faerie.

Kaia is the heroine of Radiant Desire, and she’s a Light Faerie, and one of four Handmaids to Zafira, Queen of the Fey. I like to call her my naughty faerie because her duty, as a Handmaid, is to seduce and humiliate men, to punish them for their arrogance and greed. And she’s very very good at it. But Kaia has the supreme challenge laid out for her in Radiant Desire: to get a man to fall in love with her, without using her faerie magic. And does she succeed? Well, it’s a romance novel, folks. What do you think?

But being a naughty faerie isn’t just about seduction. So I’d like to say a little about being a naughty faerie–and why I think YOU should become one.

1) You are Beautiful—No Matter What Shape You Are
Women come in all shapes and sizes. Kaia the faerie is the image of men’s fantasies, collected over hundreds of years. But when she becomes a real, flawed human, she becomes even sexier.

Here’s how Garrett, the man she seduced as a faerie, describes her transformation from faerie to human:

The woman he met just two weeks ago had been supremely self-assured, wearing an air of confidence in everything she did and every move she made. This woman was vulnerable. This woman did not know how she would be received.
This woman, amazingly enough, did not know how beautiful she was. Yet somehow, now that she’d lost that air of otherworldly perfection and confidence and her flaws had been revealed, she had become even more attractive.
It was devastating.
And infuriating.

You might have guessed that Garrett isn’t particularly interested in falling in love. LOL. Especially not with the woman who seduced him and deserted him a few weeks before.

2) You Admit To Being Vulnerable
Humans love. It is our greatest strength, and our greatest weakness. As a romance writer, I couldn’t believe more strongly in the power of love and the way it transforms lives. Kaia learns about love in Radiant Desire. YOU, as an honorary naughty faerie, already know that to love, you must risk your heart. You must become vulnerable. And here lies the greatest power of all.

Wings or no wings, she was as vulnerable as any human. And her heart could just as easily be broken.

3) You Know the Power of “I Love You” and “I’m sorry”
This is Kaia’s greatest lesson, which she learns by working in a flower shop, and by falling in love. As an honorary naughty faerie, you carry this around in your heart. Humans have the power to do really bad things. We fight wars, kill people, destroy the environment, and hurt others. But we do amazing things, too. We love, and we forgive. This is our power. This is your power.

“When people come to the flower shop, you know what they want to say to each other? Two things: I’m sorry, and I love you. That’s it. They say it different ways and with different words, but it comes down to the same thing each time. So I think that’s what it means to be human. I think it means taking chances and risking getting hurt. I think it means loving and forgiving.”

And that’s what it means to be a naughty faerie—are you ready to join the team?

Before I tell you about DABWAHA, let me preface by telling you a little about 2011. It wasn’t my favorite year. The sequel to my Delcroix Academy book, The Watchers, was re-titled, re-branded, and pushed out for publication in 2012. After having quit my job in 2010, I decided (for financial and mental health reasons) that I needed to go back to work. But I didn’t want to go back to what I’d been doing before, and really didn’t want to practice law full time. So I found myself starting over, applying for jobs I knew nothing about, and, frankly, not getting them.

That really wasn’t fun.

My single title adult romance, Radiant Desire, was released in October 2011 by Entangled Publishing, and while it got lovely reviews, it didn’t exactly hit the NYT bestseller list.

But here’s the thing: I’m a stubborn cuss. I wasn’t going back to corporate law, and I was going to keep publishing, damn it. I do school visits and talk to students all the time about not giving up. I was living that mantra, just like I lived it when I started in publishing (chalking up over 100 rejections before I found an agent).

And then 2012 came along, and things started to turn around. I found a good, part-time job (actually, several of them) that allowed me to make some money, keep writing, and finally try out my dream job of teaching at a law school. I released another book with Entangled, Rules of Negotiation, and right now, it’s #6 on Amazon’s “Hot New Releases” bestseller list for romance series. A nice review for The Marked (formerly, The Watchers) came in from Kirkus, a notoriously snarky reviewer, from someone who is apparently a fan of both Dancia and Jack.

Which brings us to…DABWAHA. DABWAHA stands for Dear Author Bitchery Writing Award for Hella Authors. I think that means “a contest for really good writers, sponsored by the gals at Dear Author and Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.”

The contest is set up like March Madness, that basketball thing I haven’t the least bit of interest in following, despite the fact that I went to Duke and really ought to care. 64 books are chosen as finalists, eight in each of eight sub-genres. Books are pitted against each other and readers vote for their favorites. Just like with college basketball, before the games start, readers pick brackets and try to figure out who will move on to the next rounds. There are big prizes involved for winning authors and winning bracket-pickers. Ipads, tons of books, that sort of thing.

But the best part about DABWAHA is the trash talking. Authors troll for votes, beg and plead with their fans, and trash talk other authors (all in good fun, of course—nothing mean!). I watched one of my favorite authors, Julie James, engage in an all-out crazy vote blitz last year, and this year I desperately wanted into the fight. With luck on my side, and 2012 being the year of the phoenix, I figured, what the heck?! I’m going for it.

So, I sent out some emails. Okay, a lot of emails. To family, friends, and whoever I thought might nominate Radiant Desire. And here’s the crazy thing—IT WORKED! Radiant Desire ended up as the “Reader Nominee” in the Paranormal/Urban Fantasy category of DABWAHA.

Needless to say, I’m thrilled. Thrilled beyond measure.

And grinning. A lot.

So, if you’re a romance reader, or even if you just like books and want to get into the contest, you might want to go to the DABWAHA website and fill out a bracket. It’s free. It’s fun. You’ll find some new, fabulous books to read. You might win a prize. You don’t have to pick my book in your brackets. (Some might suggest that it’s foolhardy to do so!) The bracket picks don’t affect the outcome of the match-ups. Only the voting matters when determining who advances to the next round.

Once the brackets are picked, you will probably hear from me that I’m looking for votes. In fact, why don’t we just get that out of the way right now—I’m really hoping you’ll vote for Radiant Desire in the first round. I’m a dark horse. A Cinderella story. The underdog. All those fantastic things. And all you have to do is vote.

But you can’t vote just yet. Voting begins on March 14th. You can find the schedule and more information, including how to select your brackets, at the DABWAHA website. But I’m getting my team in shape NOW.

Are you with me?

RAWR!!