Romance in Bonham, Texas and The Jack Ass Award!

I'm very excited to speak at Romance in Bonham this Saturday, Feb. 13th with ten other authors. We'll be speaking about our careers, the publishing industry, what inspires us, our travels, our books and writing in general. Afterwards we'll be signing our books. I'll personally be signing three of my books; Canyon Wolf Bride, The Wooden Nickel and Nocturnally Vexed. I look forward to meeting new readers and hanging out with ten very talented, inspiring ladies.

Romance In Bonham on the News

Changing the subject, I would like to personally thank all the wonderful authors who have nurtured and mentored me as my career buds. Sometimes we run into other authors who for some unknown reason, like to humiliate and hurt others. I came across this kind of ugliness this week when I found out a dear author friend of mine was doing a blog tour. Another author commented on the fact that her prize was not large enough. I was stunned. First of all, let me say that this lady is guilty mostly of having "foot in mouth disease" and while I don't believe she truly meant to be rude to my author friend, she didn't think before she wrote what she wrote on a very public blog. I think she meant to study what works and what doesn't work in blogs and marketing but she certainly wasn't delicate about the matter.

Let me be the first to say that we're all in a recession. Any prize given out is a valid prize to me. Even if it was a buck. This happened to be a gift certificate for ten bucks. (Did this lady know we're talking about U.S. Dollars here and not Pounds?)Heck, yeah...I'll take it! We all know that authors struggle for years before seeing a real profit from their books. It takes years to build an audience. And in those years, marketing may be slim but at least this author tries and has a growing audience. She inspires me. Stephen King was excited when he received an advance in the mail and he could buy the pink stuff for his sick daughter...not kidding...his own words in his book. Now I can't remember for sure if it was an advance he received or if it was when he sold the rights to Carrie for $400,000.00 but he couldn't afford fricking penicillin for his daughter. Authors are real people with kids, husbands, wives, struggles, strifes. For this other author to ask if the ten bucks could even buy anything decent and pay the shipping....WRONG!!! RUDE!!! Even if she didn't intend it, she could have wondered out loud and discussed marketing strategies, what works, what doesn't, author contests, etc. She should apologize. I'd feel like an idiot. In fact, I feel so embarrassed for her, I'll apologize on her behalf. I'm sorry for the inconsiderate author who thought it was okay to make fun of another author's prize and label her observation as "snarky". Here's my label. Well...I've got two labels. TACKY. SHAMEFUL. This author gets the JACK ASS REWARD. Feel free to upload it on your blog, Ms. Tacky-Shameful.



Okay...done with that negativity but it had to be said. Think before you write, ladies. And yes, I thought it out before I wrote this blog. Again, it had to be said. Now, you know who you are. Go pull the foot out of your mouth or at least off of your damn hand to keep yourself from typing rude..oh yeah..your word...snarky comments....snarky is too nice a word...HATEFUL. That's the word. I thought I was done with this...ugh....okay..now I am.

Happy Reading and Writing!
~Alisha