Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Release, Retraction and Reaction!

Ahh...I love the smell of alliteration in the morning!

I have much to tell you and much to do, so let's get cracking. First of all, I wanted to mention straight off the bat that in my last blog I flapped my gums about the edits to my article in the RT Spotlight without knowing all the facts. Now that I understand everything much more clearly I have come to realize Romantic Times Magazine didn't even touch my article before it went live. The bad butchering job was someone else's fault completely. For that, I owe them a huge apology and lots of air kisses. Mwah! Mwah! They were super cool about it, though, and let me send a revised article in of my own editing. It will show up on the website as bonus content for those who subscribe.

Good news!!! Elijah was bumped to an early ship date! December 18th is now our official release date! Look at that! You just had 2 weeks cut off your wait time!! Aren't we thrilled? I am!!

I have so much to do and so little time to do it. Yule looms and I have a big family. I did most of the hard work already :) And this year, I am getting a PS3 for Christmas :)

Save me from Thanksgiving. I love my family, but as eager as I am to see them, I am just as delighted when it ends. Phew. And you know you feel the same. Don't look at me like that! :P

I have Elijah ARCs! Just a few, but a few is enough. I thought I would celebrate the day by giving one away. All you have to do is comment in response to this blog...except you have to tell me one of the funniest family holiday stories you have. (Or nightmarish if that floats your boat) It can be any holiday...I won't discriminate.

I am so happy to see so much activity returning to the forums on my website. I take total responsibility for it falling off in the first place. There were too many things happening back to back and it ended up being a design for quiet and boriiiing forums. I hope we can continue to fix that together.

Anyway...I have to go shopping now!

hugs and kitties,
Jacki

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Things to be THANKFUL for.

You.

Yep. That's it. I am thankful for you. You who have bought my books, you who have slathered me with adoration, and you who helped me raise $650 dollars for the Animal Compassion Network!! Laura, my contact at ACN, actually squealed when I told her that...and that I was jacking the total up to $750 with a one hundred dollar donation of my own. I am going to attend the wine tasting and silent auction party on 11/29 and she said we will take lots of GREAT pictures for you guys of me handing that juicy check over! She also promised me that my skills as a busy body will be warmly welcome and appreciated. I think she thinks she won the lottery. In a way, Hendersonville Shelters low treatment and respect for the beings it rescues was responsible for this; if they hadn't pissed me off so royally, I never would have found the ACN. Kinda ironic really. I believe ACN will be their utter destruction one day...and it amuses me to think they are feeding that fire themselves.

Beautiful.

This past year I have also been tremendously grateful for Kensington Publication, Editor Kate Duffy, the brilliant Art and Sales departments, and everyone there who helped launch me into your path with Jacob. It is Jacob's one year anniversary this week. Gideon was a solid follow-up, but it will honestly pale in comparison to Elijah. This week Kate Duffy let loose a little secret we've been keeping in an article for PW Magazine. The Nightwalkers series will be drawing to a close with Noah in the fall. But before you wail and tear at your clothes, she also told that in the following year we will begin a new series called The Shadowdwellers. Yes, my lovelies, you will finally get to see this race in great depth...and I think you will also get to see me open new doors for myself as I dare to stretch myself under Kensington's liberal auspices. I was very conservative and wary when I wrote the first five of my books...and now knowing Kensington like I do, I know I am free to explode in any direction I want to. I plan to bite into that apple of opportunity with really sharp teeth.

I am hugely grateful and thrilled to have yet another 4.5 star review from The Romantic Times Magazine! I am also honored to be an author In the Spotlight for the January issue. Unfortunately, the article I wrote was sliced and diced, and rather poorly at that, and so the true point and feeling of it was obliterated. It was meant to be a major ass-kissing, slurpy, lovey-dovey homage to all of you. Honestly, I had put all my heart and humor into it, not realizing there was a 500 word limit (and after all, how does one limit their love for their readers to 500 words??) and it was reduced without a final consult with me. Am I angry? Oh yeah. It sounds awkward and dorky, with references to things no longer there. Will it kill me? No. But that isn't the point. The point is I was trying to do something nice that I knew you all would get to see and now it's kinda ruined for us both. However, I am not trying to assign some kind of blame so much as I am trying to tell you that the dog ate my homework. I did it. I meant to hand it in. But I SWEAR the dog just gobbled that sucker up when I wasn't paying attention!

I also admit that I might not have been as sensitive to it as I was if I hadn't called a bookstore in Asheville to arrange a signing only to have them actually say to me...."Send us a copy of the book to review and we'll see if it's appropriate material for you to have a signing here."

Well...what a way to keep a gal humble. So, I am going to send them a book...and I am going to call another damn bookstore. 'Cause honey, if you don't know me, it stands to reason you don't give a damn about me, my book, or my readers...and I only want people handling my Elijah release signing who are thrilled to have us there. People who don't get that TONE in their voice when they say... "Oh...romance..." like you or I would say "Oh, festering pus-filled boils." What is up with that? I mean, I never claimed to be Shakespeare, but this is the one genre with consistently blistering sales numbers, dominated by a huge cross-section of women from all walks of life, and yet it's still a section tucked in the ass-end of the store as if it has something to be ashamed of? In a world where electronification of everything, including books, is wiping out careers, stores and quality control daily, one would think you'd know better than to spit on the hand that feeds you.

*kicks soapbox away*

Anyway, my sister arrives tomorrow with my brother in law and my gorgeous nephew. I can't wait to see him! And for once I will have him trapped in my house! MUHAHAHA!!! Pinched cheeks (on both ends) will abound! The cats have no idea what's coming. LOL. At least he has a cat and has learned how to treat them. I can't say the same for my cats knowing how to treat Christopher! LOL. Anyway, I have missed them so terribly. We are having a lot of family here this year. It ought to be interesting. But those are details for Saturday's blog. (We are having da turkey a day late cuz my dad has to work on the real day. Bummer huh?) But the point will be all of us being together. I think my dad will even come see my house if I am lucky! I think it is finally ready!

Better be. I'm freakin' broke. lol.

Happy Thanksgiving EVERYONE! Especially to you my so very loyal friends and readers. MWAH!

Hugs and kitties
Jacki

Friday, November 16, 2007

Okay, I give!

I just looked up who bought ticket number 86 and therefore won the ACN Raffle Basket.

The winner is....Selena Illyria! Yes, that naughty gal from The Pink Chair Diaries! I want to thank her so much, as well as all of you, for supporting my cause.

Now, what am I up to? Oh, the last forty pages of Damien. The slowest part of the editing process for me. Why? Because I ran out of my WAKEY WAKEY medication!!! It's a long story that I can give you in brief format. I moved. I made an appointment for a potential new doctor. New doctor was an asshole who thought my fat ass needed a good slicing and dicing to make me all better. Hated new doctor so had to find another. Now, you know how long it takes to get new patient appointments...so this new new doc can't take me until Dec. 11th. I only had three refills left on all my meds EXCEPT my Provigil. Which only had two of course. Now it has none. So from now until the 11th I cannot drive and every time I start reading the slightest bit of anything, including my own work, BAM!! I fall asleep. Snores abound. So even though the script is due back Monday, I had to beg for an extra day or two to offset the damn nap attacks.


This is very inconvenient. Annoying even. The cats seem to love it though. They just pile on and snooze right with me. That is when one of them isn't PEEING on everything. Apparently, (I believe it is Nino) one of them doesn't like a) the black and white neighborhood tomcat that has taken to taunting him through the sidelight windows of my door--neener neener neener, I am out here and you are trapped in there and can't do anything about it while I pee on the porch!-- or b) the Feliway hormone thingy I bought in an attempt to calm them down and to get them to quit fighting. Apparently it either works really well on cats to destress them...or they pee on it. I think mine decided to pee on it. Or there's c) the new kittens are really on his last nerve, or d) the litter in the boxes was way too fershtunken to stand! I have remedied this with deodorizer, some blue crystal somethingorother that works totally AWESOME. I have eliminated almost everything fabric from the floor, I am throwing that damn Feliway thing away and spraying Petzyme all over the place before I am forced to bonk a certain kitty on the head! Especially cuz I love him to death and we all know I am not giving any of my cats away. I will buy some cat attract later too to help the matter. I hope.


Other than that, I wanted to say I am generally happy and very much looking forward to my Thanksgiving this year. My sister is driving down from CT to stay with me. She is bringing my nephew and I decided to buy and wrap all his gifties early so he can open them in front of me. Sigh. I am going to miss having B here to play Santa for. This will help.


Also, on the 29th I am going to the Animal Compassion Network's 4th annual Wine Tasting and Silent Auction Event. I hate wine, but I love to buy stuff lol. I am also hoping to hand over our check at the event. This should allow me to get a pic with one of the founders. Or all of them! Also, Amy has done it again! I asked her to make up another one of her fabu baskets to put up for auction at the silent auction and, VOILA! She did a splendid job!!



I think that this basket could potentially earn the ACN a mighty pretty penny :) I am so proud of my Amy. She makes me look SOOOOO good!

Anyway, have I mentioned I love you guys? Well, I do. With the holidays upon us, I just wanted you to know that you all are one of those things I am so very thankful for!

MWAH!

Hugs and Kitties,

Jacki

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Generosity Makes Us All Winners

It's SO true. As corny as it sounds, it is so very true. I have never felt so good about anything I've done before, including getting published, than I have about organizing, pimping and then success at having reached my goal with the Animal Compassion Network raffle. First, we all owe Amy a huge debt of thanks for making that basket, all the time she has donated to me this year to see you all get your prizes and gifts in a timely fashion (cuz if you left it up to me, I would forget all about it, I promise you that) and the enormous effort she and her mother are putting into making the book thongs and key chains you've seen. They are also building up the stock of 400!!! thongs/chains I need for my party bags at the Romantic Times Convention! Not to mention she is storing huge amounts (and LBS!! Thank you very-strong-and-manly hubby Sean!) of goodies I am putting into the bags! Needless to say, I owe Amy, her mom and Sean a huge Yule gift. :) And these bags I am giving away at my party...well, let's just say they are legitimate gift bags, just for you guys, and will be bursting with delicious rewards.

I plan on generating a newsletter this coming year. It's goal number one. In that inaugural newsletter, I would like to introduce the Fan Club, finally. Joining the club will mean committing to the newsletter (electronic only I am afraid) and some sort of introductory gift package. Of course there will be some kind of fee if there has to be, but it will be more about balancing the cost of the gifties than it will be about me making some kind of profit off of you. I already get my percentage. I am happy with that. The Fan Club will have mailings, too. Either promotional gifts or release reminders. I also hope to integrate that with projects like my anticipated bi-annual raffle for the ACN. Yeah, bi..as in two. One in the fall and one in the spring. I figure you won't mind being generous twice a year, especially considering the cause and considering Amy and I plan to get better and better at these baskets.

Okay so...here it is...the moment you have all been waiting for!!

WHO IS THE BIG WINNER OF THE RAFFLE???

I don't know!! Well, not yet. Here's what I did. I asked Amy to pick the number. She had no access to my list of buyers, had no idea who bought what when or where, had not bought any tickets for herself for obvious reasons (she gets everything she wants from me already lol...but she and her mom both made donations without wanting tickets!) and therefore was completely unbiased. I needed to do this since my largest supporters were very good friends of mine. If one of them should be chosen, I want no cries of fair or unfair or fixed or whatever. So I left it all up to Amy. Then Amy made her son practice writing his numbers 1 thru 100 lol!! The numbers went into a 'hat' and I am sure she let him pick out the winner...which she emailed to me a little while ago.

Sound fair enough to everyone? Good. The winning ticket number iiiiiisssss....

86!!

Great number! Maxwell Smart's brilliant companion...or a number indicating nixing/killing something off. Just the same, it was lucky for somebody. I should go to my little list and see who bought ticket number 86...heh...but I won't. Not yet. I set your numbers in emails to you and you shoulda kept track of em. (Don't worry, if you lost it or whatever, I have the list) But it is far more fun to send you all scrambling for your tickets (emails) to read the numbers! So the name is my secret until the winner gives a shout out on here...or tomorrow when I coldly and cruelly force you to wait for the name to go with the number. To be fair, I won't look for myself until tomorrow either. I wanna be surprised too!

Congratulations Winning Ticker Number 86! You have won our gorgeous basket. Please email ASAP with your mailing address where you would like the basket sent so I can forward it to Amy.

Now, for a moment of mourning. It is official. I lost ALL of my books in the move. And when I say MY books...I mean MY books. All of my author copies of Jacob and Gideon and all of the Elijah ARCS are gone. So is all my Christmas wrapping. Turns out, I have a small closet that, when you open the front door of my former apartment, you cannot see that it is behind that door. So everything that was in there is gone. Now, were it me...when I repainted the place and saw these things had been missed, I would have called the former owner and let her know. But, clearly the management saw no need and chucked it all. (Are you wincing and groaning in agony? Can you feel the pain? Ugh! I felt the exact same way when I realized I couldn't find my holiday wrap and it confirmed my hypothesis!)

Anyway...this leaves me with no stock of my own (although, luckily, I had just signed about half of my stock and sent it home with Amy for future prizes...but I do not believe that included ARCS. Damn shame.) I will have to see what I can do about this, but the ARCs are gone forever. There's no getting those back. It occurs to me that a couple of people may have won ARCs in contests I had floated out there and never gotten them. If you are one of those people, please write me at jacquelynfrank@hotmail.com citing the contest, it's date and it's conditions as well as who sponsored it and I will come up with an alternative prize for you. I am so sorry this happened. Also, at RAW, Lora Leigh's Readers Appreciation Weekend, I put an ARC up for raffle and never chose a winner...because I could never find the darn books! I will select one of those names right now (yes I still have the bag! Although, the kittens did get ahold of it and tussled with it across the living room...I managed to salvage all the entries!) and will send the raffle winner and alternative prize: an official Nightwalkers Nightshirt and one of my new 2008 Nightwalker Calendars.

The winner I just picked for that RAW prize is Francesca Rodriguez of NY. I will be emailing her a link to this blog so she can see what is going on lol. I hope she forgives me for taking so long to figure this all out.

Okay! That has to be it for now because I am freakin busy!!! I gotta wrap up Damien and send the edits back by tomorrow. I gotta get the house in shape for family and company...I gotta give sick kitties medicine!

ACK!

Okay...I'm better. Good luck guys! See you soon!
Hugs and Kitties
Jacki

Thursday, November 8, 2007

GOAL! GOAL! GOAL!! FINITO!

SOLD!

Yep, you heard me. All the tickets are sold. 100 raffle tickets at five dollars apiece equals five hundred dollars donation for the Animal Compassion Network! YAY!! And better than that? People gave a few dollars here and there over ticket cost...and a few said keep the money anyway when I had to send back news the tickets were gone. I don;t have a true total as yet, I am waiting for some checks to clear and, until the 15th and the basket drawing, I am leaving pathways open to any donations still to come. I limited the field to make these tickets and the prize more appealing, as if the cause wouldn't be enough, and because I had no idea what the response would be. I am so thrilled to have sold out a whole week ahead of schedule.

I won't change the terms of the raffle. 100 tickets stay at 100 and the 15th is the drawing. Next time, we'll do a bigger basket and a wider pool of tickets. And yes, there will be a next time. But not to worry, I will keep it to a bi-annual event. One for autumn and one for spring...the seasons when the births of feral and unwanted domestic animals goes through the roof. I will get more creative and the rewards will improve over time, and I hope you will all have fun helping me help ACN.

Now the suspense...oh, my favorite part! The TEASE!...we get to endure days and days of waiting...mwahahaha! Perfect! Also, I am going to give the final total when I announce the winner. :) Heh...so maybe I am tormenting the winner and ACN.

Did I mention I love you all to bits!?!?!

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

HURRY UP!!

Seven! That's it! As of this moment I only have seven raffle tickets left to give out! I am so proud of you all and so freakin' happy I could just pop! I cannot wait to present this check to ACN. I know they have run out of funds...or are scraping by...as they try to launch bigger and better projects, so this is going to be a great little boost just in time for the holiday season.

If you have sent in money, it's all first come first serve. If I should run out of tickets, I will present you with a choice--to donate anyway or have the funds returned to you. Only you and i will know what you choose and I am far from making judgments. I am just pleased to be so close to my goal!

Now i have to make up cards numbered 1-100 and toss them in a bag. To make sure it is fair, I will have the cleaning girl pick the winner on the 15th. Heh. She doesn't know who any of you are so she has no vested interest in a winner. Sound fair enough?

Anyway, thanks again.

I just received my first edits for Damien. They give me like 13 days to run through them. Oy! I never know when they are gonna spring it on me either. It's like a warped surprise party...I have no choice but to attend...only I wasn't expecting it so any plans I had made kinda go to hell. But I am NOT cancelling my hair appointment again! Three months without cut and color? And somewhere in here I need a pedicure cuz, damn...I have Swamp Thing feet...only, the swamp dried out from massive drought.

I admit, I let a lot of things slide this past month. I am in a funk, I know. Guess we all know why already. I am doing a lot of things wrong and making it worse. I suppose we'd call that self-destructive behavior. I grumble at myself to 'snap out of it' but I already know that's not how these things work. It will take time and coping skills and an outside resource to help me manage and balance it all. But before I can find a good shrink, I have to find a good doctor. The first one I tried thought I needed a gastric bypass after one look at me...cuz, don't you know...all our problems can be solved by complicated major surgery and losing weight.

Anyway, I couldn't get a new appointment for a new doc until December 11th. This time a woman. So we'll see.

Oh! That reminds me! December 12th I have been invited to be a guest on a radio talk show with Mandy Roth and Michelle Pillow. There will be a call in number, live, and we can talk during my spot on the air. If you miss it and want to hear it, it will be archived later on and also turned into a podcast. We just made the plans so I barely know anything about it, but I betchya I will be giving something away to one of the callers. You guys gotta call and talk to me. If I start rambling aimlessly I am bound to say something dorky.

Anyway, I am off! Have a good night!
Hugs and Kitties
Jacki

Friday, November 2, 2007

And the winner is....

I wanted to make a quick announcement. The winner of raffle ticket number 21 is Renee! I swear this was utterly random. I am actually surprised I haven't chosen a friend of mine before this. Of course, Renee knows this doesn't get her ass off the hook and she is wholly expected to purchase a ticket as well.

And that goes for the rest of ya! I am only a third of the way there with 13 days left to go. That third has been given out to a small number of people being VERY generous. I am proud of them and YES I am guilting you! Maybe that's because my little kitten Magellan has now got a cold virus and is all sickly...and he ripped up one of the pads on his rear paw around his nail. He's certainly turning out to be an accident prone little bugger!! But What I mean is, I am shelling out big bucks to nurse my adoptee to a semblance of health (something I believe wouldn't be an issue had he been properly cared for) so one little raffle ticket won't hurt you. Oh and because it was asked...I will send that basket out to anywhere in the world so for those in foriegn countries...or Canada...just pay in American dollars and we are good to go! You can have a chance just like anyone else.

Okay, so I am being pushy and bossy and such. I can be that way when I am passionate about things. I really am grateful to everyone who helps and everyone who spreads the word for me.

A note about the Pittsburgh Romantic Times convention in April!! I am having a super fabulous party Friday in the morning entitled The Nightwalker Stud Muffin Mixer where I will be serving up gourmet muffins and, with any luck, some studs to serve them. Heh. Still working on that part. Anyone with a hot hubby they want to volunteer?? Anyway, I am in the process of crafting the gift baggies! The stuff I am gathering so far is utterly gorgeous. I am sparing no expense. Anything for those who take the time to come and support me. I am so very excited about my party debut. I plan on spoiling all of you. Especially those who are here with me every day of the year.

Love you guys. Thanks for putting up with my sporadic presence of late. I am starting to settle into a routine once more. I am lucky to have such patient people in my life. You're all fabulous.
 

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