Jill Myles - Author of Paranormal Romance

Quickie Update!

Posted by Jill Myles in Blog - Succubus Diaries - (6 Comments)

I'm at 25k on SLAVE TO HER DESIRES (the Succubus Diaries Spinoff Novella) and it'll be at least another 6k long before I'm done. I'm hoping to get it cranked out this weekend, but the best intentions, blah blah blah...

I always forget that I slow down a LOT when I get to the end of a story. There's a big, relatively exciting climax to shoe in, the plot to wrap up, and a happy reunion. There's no 'downtime' between scenes, and as a result, it's like a massive brain-dump in my mind. Which makes it slow to spit out onto paper. But I should still get this done by end of March. Of course, what that means is that once the story is done, I need to go back through and edit it, and then send it to betas to pick apart. And then when it's to a point that I'm happy with it, I need to format it and upload it. So I'm running about two weeks longer than I originally anticipated.

This novella is a little darker than the typical Succubus Diaries. There's no Remy and Jackie banter, and Olivia (the succubus heroine of SLAVE TO HER DESIRES and the narrator) has had a hard life and been betrayed many times. But I love her, and I love the hero, and I can't wait to wrap up their story and leave them in a good spot.

All that being said, one of the most exciting things about self-publishing a small project is that you can decide your own cover art! So I thought I'd poll the masses - would you like to see a girl on the cover? Hot guy? Or a couple embracing? A pony? (just kidding, no ponies) Let me know - I love feedback!

Jill

Mini update on Wicked Games for Nook/Kindle

Posted by Jill Myles in Blog - Misc - (2 Comments)

An intrepid, sharp-eyed reader pointed out a few continuity flaws in WICKED GAMES to me, as well as a formatting error toward the end of the book that made the text a little hard to read.

I'm so embarrassed! I do the coding myself, so this has taught me a very good lesson - look at the END of the book as well as the first 70 or so.

At any rate, if you bought WICKED GAMES and it has the formatting error in the back (you know what I mean) and want a clean file, I'm happy to buy you a new one - just email me. If you're looking to buy WICKED GAMES in the next 24 hours, I'd advise you to wait until the new one is uploaded!

Jill

I Lied

Posted by Jill Myles in Blog - Publishing Stuff - (0 Comments)

So I said that the next thing to go up on the Kindle/Nook ebooks would be a Succubus Diaries short. I lied, you guys! I forgot about WICKED GAMES, which is another short romance that I'd written. It's a contemporary this time - no dinosaurs, no werewolves, no men in mirrors.

Here's the cover (can we just pause to drool for a sec?), and here's the blurb.

Abby Lewis never pictured herself on the survival game show, Endurance Island. She’s just not the ‘survival’ type. But when her boss offers her a spot on the show and the opportunity of a lifetime, she packs her bags and heads to the tropics to be a contestant. Once in the game, though, it’s clear that Abby’s in over her head.

No one’s more competitive than sexy, delicious – and arrogant – Dean Woodall. Sure, he’s clever, strong, good at challenges, and has a body that makes her mouth water. He also hates Abby just as much as she hates him. That’s fine with her; she’ll just ignore the jerk.

But the rules of Endurance Island are working against them. Abby and Dean are teamed up – alone – on the beach. It’s either work together, or go home. Stuck with no one's company but their own, they learn they might just make a good team after all.

And Abby learns that with just a little bit of kindling, the flames of hate can quickly turn to flames of passion…

This book features enemies, lovers, enemies who become lovers, and lots and lots of tropical heat…

I realize that this seems like a veritable flood of projects lately! But I assure you that it looks worse than it is. ISLAND HEAT was written for Nanowrimo back in 2006, I think? WICKED GAMES was written about 2.5 years ago. I signed with my agent and told her I was writing a book! A contemporary romance! About a reality TV show and two contestants that fall in love. She wasn't interested in it, but I finished it anyhow and it ended up being a little shorter than your regular romance (it falls a hair under 60k). And it's just kind of sat on my computer for a long time. Ditto MIRRORLIGHT, which was sort of inspired by an old A-Ha video.

Anyhow, that's the last one to go up until the end of this month, I believe, when I'm hoping to get up SLAVE TO HER DESIRES (the Succubus Diaries novella with the new characters). If you read this (or any of my e-book projects), I'm curious to know what you think!

What I’m Up To

Posted by Jill Myles in Blog - Writing | promo - (15 Comments)

Hey guys! I know it's kind of quiet over here, but I wanted to give an update on what I'm up to so you don't think I died!

Update for HEAT - 90% sure that the title will be changed to BEAUTY DATES THE BEAST. I like it because it's fun and frisky, much like my stuff! What do you think? There's some other stuff going on with BDTB and as soon as I have stuff to share, I will keep you all posted.

Update for Succubus #4 - right now I'm calling this SUCCUBI ARE FOREVER. And I have one chapter written. And I will have more info on it soooooon, my pretties. Soon.

Update on Kindle Projects - Okay, so those that follow my journal and have for a long time know that I try to keep a project going at all times. AT ALL TIMES. This means that a lot of stuff that I write never makes it to New York or my publisher. Sometimes I'm not happy with the way a project turns out because I'm really picky. Sometimes I'm waiting on revisions. Sometimes I start something and never finish it. I have a 'crap I need to finish' folder that's getting larger than it should. And sometimes I finish something and it's just not right for NY publishing. Maybe it's only 55k instead of the 85k+ it should be. Maybe it's a weird genre. Maybe it's both. Anyhow, I have a few projects that have sat on my computer for a long time while I pondered what to do with them. MIRRORLIGHT was one, and I ended up Kindle-ing it. It's actually done really well and I'm really happy with it, so I'm going to Kindle a few more things. Starting with...

My conquistadors and dinosaurs book. I always talk about this one as my 'weird' project but it's really not THAT weird. I've always been fascinated by the Bermuda Triangle, and for Nanowrimo one year, I decided to write a Bermuda Triangle book. What if this chick's plane goes down in the Bermuda Triangle and she's stranded on a deserted island? Except the island is not so deserted? It's full of dinosaurs and neanderthals and bugs the size of her arm. It's a place where time doesn't exist properly, and those that are shipwrecked there end up staying for longer than they anticipated. It also has a rather sexy Spaniard for a hero. This book is just a hair under 60k, and it's sweet and romantic and fun (I think). So I stuck it up on Kindle and Nook. BEHOLD THE MANTITTY GREATNESS:

Now, my husband was not thrilled to make a mantitty cover for me, but he did a spectacular job, I think! Anyhow, if you want to read ISLAND HEAT, it's available on Nook and Kindle for $2.99 and I hope you enjoy it. There's an excerpt (a short one!) on both the Amazon and B&N pages if you click. This weekend, I'm going to take a stab at getting my stuff up on ARe if you are international and want to read.

(And if you are one of my book blogging peeps and want a review copy, please do let me know.)

But that's an OLD project, right? What am I doing right now, since I find myself between deadlines? Why, I'm working on another Kindle/Nook project. This one is set in the Succubus Diaries universe, but it's not about Jackie. (BLASPHEMY, I know). This one is actually about a woman named Olivia who was once a demimonde courtesan and was turned into a succubus against her will. She hasn't had an easy time of oh, say, the last 120 years because her vampire master has been cruel to her, so she's a little bit more broken and brittle around the edges, and she is totally pulling at my heartstrings. I cannot wait to write a happy ending for her, which sounds totally dippy, but it's true! Anyhow, this one is all ironed out on paper and I'm about halfway done with it. It's probably going to be around 30k long, and it'll be going up on the Kindle/Nook as well. I'm having a lot of fun with it, and even if you don't want to buy it, that's okay! Noah has a role in the story, but it is absolutely not going to be essential to read it to follow along with the regular Succubus Diaries books.
Intrigued? Here's a snippet - let me know what you think! (click on the 'more' tag at the bottom of the post)

(more...)

New covers for FOREPLAY and ZANE’S TALE

Posted by Jill Myles in Blog - Succubus Diaries - (6 Comments)

So I wasn't super happy with the covers for my short stories. I had my husband redesign them and the new covers are below. What do you think?

The content inside the book is EXACTLY the same. It just has a new, attractive cover. The old ones are still on B&N for the time being, because Smashwords takes a few days/weeks to feed them over. I could pull it down myself and send it through right away, but then the stories wouldn't be free over there, and I do want them to be free.

(The stories are 99 cents on Amazon, but as a reminder, you can still get them for free on Smashwords. Amazon won't let me set them to free, hence the lowest price tag I could give them.)

Ding dong, the draft from hell is dead!

Posted by Jill Myles in Blog - Midnight Liaisons - (5 Comments)

WHEW!

I feel like I've been working on this most recent draft for weeks now (and maybe I have). It started out at 86k, I ripped out about 10k, replaced that, and added some more. I added scenes, deleted scenes, added plots, removed plots...ugh. But I think it's good now. It's a frankenstein monster of a draft, but it's good. I'm reading through one last time to make sure that everything I added is seamless, and to see where one particular subplot needs to be patched up a bit more. Oh, and to see if it's sexy enough.

Then once all that is done, it's off to my editor FOR GOOD. (or at least until a second round of edits come back. or copyedits)

But right now, I'm feeling good about it!

(Still no title for the book. Soon, my pretties! Soon!)

All work & no play

Posted by Jill Myles in Blog - Writing - (4 Comments)

Makes Jill go stir-crazy.
I took tonight off from massive edits on my next Pocket book. It's not that it sucks, it's just that it needs to be better. I'm ripping out huge portions and layering in a brand new plot that I'm really pleased with, but it's a lot of mind-breaking work in the meantime. I finished draft 3 last night and I'm about to start draft 4, which will entail rewriting about 7 or 8 key scenes. Then I'm doing yet another read-through to make sure everything is coherent and then doing the last cleanup round. If I'm still nervous about it at that point, I'll fling it at my unsuspecting agent and cry on her shoulder. Or something.

In the meantime, I'm going to be kind of loosey-goosey and mostly not here until I get it done. Maybe end of January? Maybe earlier if I'm lucky? (Please, pleeeease let me be lucky.)

Cool freebie!

Posted by Jill Myles in Blog - Publishing Stuff | Blog - Succubus Diaries - (1 Comments)

So if you are a member of Pocket After Dark and have not yet read my 1st book, you can totally do so for free right now on the website! GENTLEMEN PREFER SUCCUBI is one of the monthly free reads over on PAD. It costs nothing to join and they offer free reads monthly, as well as sneak peeks of other books. In addition, the more you participate on the PAD site, the more points you win toward actual paper copies of books. It's a pretty neat network, and if you like romance you should check it out (if nothing else, for the free stuff!).
GENTLEMEN PREFER SUCCUBI is available on the main page there. You can't get a download (sorry!) but you can turn the pages and read on the website. I hear it's a good diversion at work. Not that I'd do such a thing, of course...