Trippin'

The bags are packed and stacked in the back of the minivan. The kids have collected their various odds and ends and stuffed their little backpacks to bursting with snackage. In T-Minus three hours and counting, we're hittin' the road for the family farm to spend five days communing with the maternal relations before school starts again.

In other words, we're about to embark on the Great Guilt Trip of '06.

It's not that I don't want to see my parents/aunts/ uncles/cousins and their various pets and livestock. But over the weekend, two different publishers released two different novellas written by me, and I'm not going to be here to promote them.

Let's be clear. I'm a big weenie when it comes to promotion. I'm too shy (shut up, I AM!) to enjoy flogging Yahoo readers' loops with "Just Released!" blurbs and excerpts and attending chats where I never know what to say and can't keep up with the conversation anyway. And as far as running contests--gah. Never done it, scared to even try. But I appreciate the necessity of tooting your own horn in this business, and I'm slowly-but-surely getting the hang of it. (And when I return, I WILL run a contest. There. I said it in front of God and everybody.)

So you see how I'm torn.

On one hand, I've got my mother luring me downstate with a positively lethal combo of promises and threats regarding Grandma's fried chicken and the opportunity to take pics of my kids feeding the ducks down at the cow-pond and how both she and my Dad are gonna up and DIE one of these days and won't I feel bad THEN??

And on the other, I've got two novellas that deserve at least a little promotional attention, lest they get lost in the really HUGE number of ebook releases in any given week. (Seriously, has anybody noticed the massive number of stories being published at any given moment? It's mind-boggling.)

I love my parents. I love my novellas.

My parents raised me. I raised these novellas, taking time and energy away from my husband and children to accomplish it.

I should visit my family, because I owe them my affection and support. I should promote my work, because if it doesn't sell, the time my children and husband sacrificed will be for nothing.

The rock. The hard place. And me with nothing but MY PARALYZING GUILT TO MAKE A DENT IN EITHER.

Ahem.

I'll leave the following for anyone who might be interested, and it'll feel like I tried, at least:

LIE TO ME by Selah March
Available now from Amber Quill Press

ISBN: 1-59279-593-5 (Electronic)
Genre: erotic romantics suspense
Purchase URL: http://amberquill.com/AmberHeat/LieToMe.html
Cover URL: http://amberquill.com/pics/LieToMe.jpg
Price: $6.00 (ON SALE IN SEPT. for $4.50)
Part of the "Just the Facts, Ma'am" AmberPax Collection

~ ~ ~

Sometimes in life, you make mistakes...mistakes so dire, they force you to abandon everything and everyone you ever knew and start over clean, in a new place. With a new name. And a new life.

It's not easy, but it can be done. If you're careful. If you walk a straight line and don't let anyone inside.

MaryJane Peters (not her real name) is about to find out what happens when loneliness and desperation make her stumble off that straight line and let someone get so far inside, she loses track of where she ends and he begins.

LINK TO EXCERPT (scroll down page)

~ ~ ~

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT by Selah March
Available now from Phaze

ISBN: 1-59426-608-5 (Electronic)
Genre: erotic vampire romance
Price: $3.00

~ ~ ~

Jack Murphy: Sub-human, blood-sucking freak? Or just a guy who's had the bad luck to be transformed into a vampire by forces no one understands? Either way, he's not taking the easy way out--no leisurely strolls beneath the noonday sun for him. If he's going down, it will be fighting the brutal regime that's taken over his city, and if he has to go undercover as a "male escort" to do it, then so be it.

Except his lover, Laura, doesn't care for Jack's new career choice. Their bond is strong, and when they hit the sheets, they spark a heatwave to match the one that holds the city in its scorching grip. But the gigolo thing? And the mean streak Jack's developed lately? The combination is enough to shake anyone's trust.

Telling Laura the truth about his job would put her life at risk. Telling her why his job makes him so crazy...that would put Jack's pride at risk.

And blood-sucking freak or not, he's still a man, after all.

LINK TO EXCERPT

~ ~ ~

Have a fine, blessed week. :)


SelahMarch.com - Romance of Dubious Virtue