(Or the Facebook squealing...)
My husband made me a book trailer for Book 3, MY FAIR SUCCUBI. Check out its glory below:
Isn't that awesome? He is a great husband. I love his art, and if you want to see more of his stuff, check out his website at km245.deviantart.com.
RT Book Reviews posted their advanced reviews of January books online and I was happy to see that MY FAIR SUCCUBI got 4 stars!
They had this to say about the book:
Jackie is back with her oh-so-difficult life, a hot, sexy, fallen angel boyfriend — and hot, sexy, vampire ex-boyfriend she can’t stop thinking about. Poor Jackie! Myles’ characters are spunky and will make you laugh out loud as she puts them through the wringer. The pages turn quickly, and you’ll be sad when you reach the end of the book.
I am told there should also be an ad in January's issue, so I can't wait to see that. I also got in my bookmarks for book 3 (finally!) but am still deciding what to do with them. They are pretty pretty.
Not much Nano progress this week! I am feeling a bit under the weather and hoping i can shake it in another day or so, just in time for a weekend marathon of writing. Luckily I have ALL NEXT WEEK OFF (omg yay) so I am not stressing about things too much.
(Er, speaking of stressing? If I owe you something and you're still waiting for it? drop me an email. I have a few blog interviews I need to send back but they're not due until mid-Dec? So if you are waiting on me...don't? I am a scatterbrain. Email me. 
As promised, Zane's Tale is now available to download on Smashwords. In another day or so, it'll be available on Kindle to buy (again for 99 cents, because Amazon won't let me price it lower). If you want to support the author, groovy. If not, well, that's ok too.
It will continually be available for free on Pocket After Dark. If you want to try the story and don't want to pay for it, it's available to read there, always.
In an effort to make my stuff easier to download for the ebook crowd, FOREPLAY - my succubus diaries prequel short - is now up on Amazon (as well as Smashwords). I'm hoping it'll eventually make its way over to B&N as well.
You might notice that it's set to $0.99 cents. It's not that I'm looking to make craptons of money on the darn thing. It's that Kindle won't let me set it to free. $0.99 cents was the lowest price I could set on it. So if you want to buy it, that is perfectly groovy with me!
(You might also notice that it is $0.99 cents on Smashwords. I did this because I want it to be included in the premium catalog and eventually be ported over to B&N. But I think you can also port over freebies? So I am looking at changing this. It simply did not occur to me at the time. Swiftness, thy name is not Jill.)
If you do not want to buy it, it remains free on the web, but without the sassy nekkid hip. If you want a free copy of it, you can download it here on the Simon & Schuster website.
In another week or two, I'll be adding Zane's Tale to these sites as well.
If you wanted to read Zane's Tale, it's now available exclusively on the Pocket After Dark website:
http://pocketafterdark.com/_Exclusive-Zanes-Tale-a-free-short-story/blog/2727931/159176.html
It's totally free - all you have to do is sign up and poke around the community. It's a lot of fun and they have other free reads as well. It's going to be a limited time offer on the story, though - after a few weeks, I'm going to take it down and then kindle/b&n it. So go read it and tell me what you think!
This contest ends at 11:59PM TONIGHT, October 1. If it is October 2nd or later, do NOT comment!
I've got some stuff to send out, guys, and figured it's time for a micro-contest! First of all, I have a bunch of these:
Don't get excited yet! Those are cover flats, not the real book. It's basically what the finished cover will look like. It even has foil on the pretty title (which is a little hard to see in that picture).
There it is! Foil!
So anyhow, I have a ton of those bad boys to give away. Maybe you're into collecting author promo and would like a cover flat of your very own? Comment below - I'm going to mail out SIXTEEN packages that will consist of cover flat and some handy-dandy bookmarks.
But wait! There's more! I am also giving away FOUR copies of either GENTLEMEN PREFER SUCCUBI or SUCCUBI LIKE IT HOT. Signed! If you win one of those, just tell me which one you want.
So!
Sixteen cover flats winners - four free book winners.
YOU MUST COMMENT TODAY, HOWEVER. Contest is invalid after today, 11:59PM CST. I will select winners at random. One entry per household. I'll draw winners over the weekend and post them on my journal, so check back.
THE BAD NEWS: This contest is for the continental US only, guys. 
I know that sucks, but postage on a cover flat or a book outside of the US would totally chew up my budget for the month. I promise I will do an international giveaway as soon as Book Depository has my books back in stock again. PROMISE!
Okay, comment! And good luck!
Those of you that follow my tweet stream might have already seen these, but I love them so much I thought they were worth sharing again! My husband drew both of these, and if you like them, click through on the picture and check out his Deviant Art page. He's got some great stuff (and always appreciates the traffic!).
Jackie from the Succubus Diaries
Remy from the Succubus Diaries
I've seen a few people asking on Goodreads about the blurb listed for MY FAIR SUCCUBI. Specifically, most of the comments are of a "Where the hell is Zane??" nature. BE NOT ALARMED! Zane is in book 3. And to prove it, here's the official text you'll see on the back of the book:
It Sucks To Be Her…
Living as a succubus has a bit of a learning curve, but with sexy fallen angel Noah to scratch her sensual Itch, Jackie Brighton is finally starting to feel ahead of the game. She almost doesn’t miss her gorgeous vampire master Zane – or his sinful, teasing mouth. She’s trying to convince herself of that, anyway.
But Jackie’s past mistakes catch up with her, spinning her life out of control once more. Just as her friend Remy’s inner demon comes out to play, Noah and Jackie are arrested by the angelic Serim Council. When Jackie seizes the chance to escape, she falls right into Zane’s waiting arms. As she’s pulled into a game of cat and mouse between vampires and angels, she finds she must also finally choose between the two men in her life. Can she decide between Noah and Zane, or will she lose everything she’s ever wanted? Because there’s more at stake than just her heart…
See? Zane! Promise.
Someone on Facebook asked me what my first query letter looked like. THAT one was bad. But here's the one that got me my first agent:
I am seeking representation for my 98,000 word paranormal, SEX STARVED.
(note, that was my original title for GENTLEMEN PREFER SUCCUBI. marketing hated it. i can't blame them.)
Jackie Brighton has died, but she hasn't gone to Heaven. Thanks to some supernatural interference, the dorky museum docent has been reborn as a succubus--a sex vampire. Now she never has to sleep, has the body of a supermodel, and must have sex every two days to feed the 'Itch' -- quite a change from her crappy old lifestyle of pointing out museum paintings to tour groups.
But Jackie learns that the eternal life of a 'Suck'...does. Literally. And it's more than just the relationship troubles that a constantly horny immortal would have. She'll do anything to skip out on having the requisite sex with strangers...but in doing so, ends up blackmailed into running errands for the Heavenly Host. All she needs to do is get her hands on a missing halo before the vampire queen does and she'll have control of the situation (and her raging hormones). Of course, choosing sides in a celestial turf war means that she also has to make a choice between the men in her (After)life: the handsome, brooding fallen angel or the dangerous and witty vampire.
I like to think of this novel as 'Stephanie Plum meets Anita Blake', combining both a sarcastic first-person point of view and the darker, sexier elements of paranormal fiction. Would you be interested in seeing more?
Thank you for your time.
So, you know, it's not perfect. But I think it does a few things right - the beginning and end are clean and straightforward. I lead with my genre and wordcount. My 'X meets Y' at the end isn't terribly, terribly overused (at least not those two together) and it hits the right note to match the voice of my pitch. The pitch should be short but SPECIFIC. Character X has motivation because of Y. Z causes problems and then these things are at stake. SPECIFIC, though. Give the agent details as to why your book stands out from the others. I think mine stood out (once upon a time) because I was giving a succubus a tongue-in-cheek makeover rather than having it be straight-up erotica.
That letter is from 2005/2006, so a lot of things have changed since then. The paranormal genre has exploded, for one. When I queried my current agent back in 2008, I had a different approach, but I also had a contract on the table, so I can't say that would work for anyone else.
Questions? Thoughts? Rotten eggs?
(Quick! Someone send the St Bernard with the barrel of alcohol tied to his collar!)
Hello Journal! Long time no see, again. Sorry it's been a quiet summer - I'm trying to dig out from a lot of self-imposed deadlines (and some not-so-self-imposed). I've spent every waking moment since Mid-July working on a spec project. You haven't heard of it. It's not contracted. But it was eating at my brain (much like a flesh-eating virus would) and I really wanted to get it done while I had some downtime.
(Cue laughter at the thought of 'downtime')
I did finish it, though! And then I got handed my copyedit for book three of the Succubus Diaries. Normally my copyedits are clean and pretty, and all I have to do is just write STET and go along my merry way. Not this time. Clearly my brain was half-dead when I turned in this manuscript, and I thank the lord that the copyeditor has such a good eye. I cannot keep eye-color straight, or clothing, and there were several plotlines that I dropped and never recovered throughout the book that I had to fix.
What have I learned from this? No more magical objects that characters can wear. Ever. EVER. 
So now that that's over and I can breathe a sigh of relief, I'm back to my spec project, reading for draft two. I thought the book was totally crap, but it actually turned out really well and I'm happy with it. So yay! In a few weeks I hope to have it polished up and off to my agent, and then I'll probably be back to work on the next book in my series.
A few people have been asking me about the MIDNIGHT LIASONS book that is scheduled to come out next year. The only information on that is that I don't have any information! The title is changing, the date it is coming out is up in the air, and I don't even have edits on it yet. It's still on the schedule, though. As soon as I have more details, I will share them here, I promise.
