Remember walking through the fun house at the state fair?  The path twisted and turned, the floor shook and changed under your feet, and once you could see the end, the trail turned you around, back for more fun. Welcome to the world of a newly published author. This March I signed my first contract with a new publisher.  Not just new to me, new to the world of romance.  My book, THE BULL RIDER’S BROTHER released June 4th as part of their launch into this venture.  Yep, three months to get my feet under me and figure out all the must do’s an author in 2012 has on their daily to do list.  Three weeks after signing the first contract, I sold a second book to a more established e-publisher. (Note – for you who are still looking for your first contract, spacing them a little better than I did is highly recommended.  Between edits, and promotion, and filling out publisher forms, I was swamped.) Now, six months later, I’m still learning.  I’ve signed a second contract for THE BULL RIDER’S MANAGER, a book I wrote during this time and submitted a second book to my second publisher. And…

Oddly enough, I didn’t start out by writing a book for the Brazen line. SEDUCING CINDERELLA was intended for the Indulgence line, and before this I’d never written category romance. Heck, I was so green I didn’t even know what a category romance was and I’d never heard the word “trope” before. I’d only ever written paranormal romance before, so this was a huge learning experience. With category romance there’s certain rules you need to follow and true category fans expect certain things, all of which I’d had no clue about. When I gave my manuscript to my beta readers, they both warned me that my love scenes were too explicit for the typical category, specifically for the Indulgence line, and that I’d most certainly hear from my editor that I’d have to dial them back. I was pretty bummed because I’m the kind of writer who likes to give her characters their head to do what comes naturally to them, and the idea of censoring them doesn’t sit well with me. However, I was fully prepared to do whatever Liz needed to make it right for the line it was publishing under. So I was absolutely ecstatic when Liz…