Day 521

I have a lot of feeling about some things that I would love to share, but I'm under a tit crushing deadline so I'll just share some news and a beautiful picture.

I'll signing Better Off Red Sunday Dec 11th at 2 pm, at Dark Delicacies in Burbank, CA. There will be several other paranormal authors signing as well, listed below. If you're in the So Cal area, or your grandma is, come on by or send your grandma.

Dark Delicacies
3512 W. Magnolia
Burbank, CA 91505 
darkdel.com

other participating authors:
Collette Freedman signing Thirteen Hallows
PS Gifford signing Curiously Twisted Tales
VMK Fewings signing A Vampire's Dominion
Gabrielle Faust signing Eternal Vigilance I, II & III

AND

Through a little trading an bargaining, the sweet Fandangler drew me this adorable picture of Camila and Ginger from Better Off Red.

I found him through his awesome Adventure Time fanart and I love what he did to my girls. Check out his art here. Happy Friday!

Day 506: Interview & Giveaway

Hey kids. Check out Vampires.com today. There's an AMAZING interview with yours truly and you can enter to win a signed copy of Better Off Red. Run. Click. Fast. Go. Now.

http://www.vampires.com/book-giveaway-and-exclusive-interview-with-rebekah-weatherspoon/ 

Day 503

Gingered beardo and fellow author, Chuck Wendig has an excellent post on his blog today about writers following their own path. Over the past year and a half I have received some amazing advice, some terrible advice, met and chatted with some awesome agents and writers and come across publishing types I'd just as soon push in front of a subway car before I forced myself to speak to them again. In that time, I have definitely learned that this writing journey is my own.

If you haven't been following this blog from the start, 503 days have passed between my first submission to an agency and the official release off Better Off Red. No, Bold Strokes Books does not fuck around when it comes to getting books out. Just another reason I feel at home with them. Minimal BS. :) No other author will experience what I have in the same amount of time, just as I will never share their exact experience, but that's the beauty of this life thing.

Though it's been on sale for a week and some change, today Is Better Off Red's proper book birthday, which means you should be able to walk into bookstores and pick it up. I'll probably go to my local Barnes and Noble and put it up on some display near the front. :) I'm sure they love when people do that. So far Better Off Red has received some awesome reviews on Amazon and goodreads from people who aren't my mom and that makes my heart very happy. I'd like to give a special shout out to my editor Cindy who made Better Off Red the book it is now. I love her guts. 

Several of my fellow Bold Strokes authors also celebrate book birthdays.

Rob Byrnes's Holy Rollers (gay fiction/mystery)

Jeffrey Ricker's Detours (gay fiction)
I'm almost done with this one and its fantastic

Radclyffe's Sheltering Dunes (lesbian romance) The next installment in the Provincetown Series

Yolanda Wallace's Lucky Loser (lesbian romance WITH TENNIS)

Sam Cameron's Mystery of the Tempest: A Fisher Key Adventure (Young Adult/mystery)

Edited by Richard Labonté History' s Passion: Stories of Sex Before Stonewall
Finished this in one night. AMAZING!

In other news, check twitter and possibly BBC world news (anything that isn't fox new or cnn) if you aren't up to date on the situation with NYC Occupy Wallstreet movement. In the middle of the night, NYPD cleared protesters out and destroyed the camps while banning media coverage. It was just late night for me so I watched the streaming videos from inside and kept up with the tweeting madness. This is why we vote, people.

And here's some Beyonce for those of you who visit for visual stimulation. I plan to wear that first outfit at my next reading.

Day 488

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!

So mega surprise to me this morning, Bold Strokes Books is offering all of our November titles early. MEANING... you don't have to wait until Nov 15th to pick up Better Off Red.

Paperback it up!

or

ebook it down! 

In another news, I received this amazing 4 star review from Bibrary Book Lust. Check out the awesome things Sally had to say about Ginger and the rest of the girls here. (she put the stars up on goodreads).

And lastly - here's what I'm wearing tonight to the West Hollywood Halloween Carnival. I look ridic, but its okay. ITS HALLOWEEN!

Day 483

A spontaneous post because the TV has pissed me off again.

First - I'll be sharing a guest post AND giving away a signed copy of Better Off Red this Friday, Oct 28th over at Fangs, Wands & Fairy Dust. Do check it out.

Now I rant.

I have 29 episodes of Batman the Animated Series on my DVR that my boyfriend has asked me to delete. Instead, I went through the other stuff we had saved and found "So you wanna be... A Writer" which first aired on Current TV back in 2010. I'm sitting here preparing a guest blog post for Friday about why I write, so I figured this show would be acceptable background noise. I remembered quickly that I'd already watched it, but haven't deleted it and now I remember why. The first story in the program featured Ben Karlin, writer and executive producer of the Daily Show, who summed up his Hollywood career as if you can just show up in LA, be instantly funny and the next thing you know-  BAM - you're getting the green light to start production on The Colbert Report. Not to mention the two Daily Show and one personal book he has put out. I don't doubt that this dude had some connections along the way, but I refused to believe this was a painless process.

As I've recently tweeted, I FUCKING hate it when authors who've experienced major or even minor writing success pretend that their writing journey was some sort of easy task. I have read so many author interviews where the author completely breezes over the difficulties of finishing a book, finding an agent, promoting a book etc. I thought I was all alone in my struggles. I thought I would go crazy before things worked out. This whole blog is about how that entire process has driven me to pony loving insanity and massive weight gain. I've passed my all time high by 3 lbs at this point. Go me. But - I also started this blog after Better Off Red was finished. Writing this book was easily (?) the hardest thing I've ever done and I've hiked a mountain as an extremely overweight pre-teen.

Along the way I've cried a lot, been depressed, doubted my very existence and gotten in massive fights with my significant other. All the things that some writers fail to mention, writers who I wont throw under the bus here. After I restrained myself from throwing my shoe through the TV, a segment featuring Robert "Bobby" Moresco, co-writer of Crash and Million Dollar Baby came on. His segment was the reason I'd saved this program for almost a year. Robert acknowledge what being a writer is really about and how fucking hard it is to not succeed, but to simply stay in the business. Sorry I'm swearing so much, but I want to punch Ben Karlin in the face.




I think of this interview every time I'm crying over the state of my bank account or begging my boyfriend to be patient with me.

For the aspiring writers out there - its hard. It's really, really hard, to write, to complete and to get your work acknowledged. But if this is something you want, you can't give up. Read. Write. Read and write some more.

For authors who aren't telling the whole truth, seriously, suck it.

Day 458

More goodies!

This month an interview with lil ole me is featured in the Bold Strokes Monthly Newsletter. The newsletter is busting with info on Bold Strokes's new and upcoming releases and info Women's Week in Provincetown.

There's an excerpt from Better Off Red here, along with the first chunk of my interview.

My full interview can be found here.

You can also get to it here.

And since its October 1st...

Day 449

It's time for another confession. So here it is.

I don't want to promote my books.

And I know all three of you are saying something along the lines of "Why ever not?" Or something with more four letter words, but here's the skinny.

I've worked in sales three times in my life and I never really sold anything on purpose. My best day at the GAP involved helping a guy pick out a Christmas outfit for his wife. He was a wranglers and tee kind of guy and it was so sweet to see how badly he wanted to buy his wife something nice. We talked for a long time, he walked away happy and I made no commission what so ever 'cause it's the GAP.

I had a blast working at The Pleasure Chest, which celebrates it's fortieth anniversary next week. Helping Dave Navarro pick out rope or talking to Judy Geer and Ivana Milicevic about g-spot orgasms always made for a fun work day. The thrill of that job came with working somewhere where I could and had to talk about sex all day with no chance of getting fired or sued for sexual harrassment. I also got asked out a lot. :) But I never "worried" about making sales. People rarely walking into a sex shop to hang out. People need lube and condoms. Some need penis pumps. And I sold a shitload of harnesses and dildos. I knew if I was polite and helpful people would buy stuff and I would get paid.

My other sales job sucked and we need never speak of it again.

Promoting my book is different. It's about the book, but on the outset it's about me and I am terrible at selling myself. I'm TERRIBLE at fitting in or conforming to make other people comfortable. I'm awful in job interviews. Ask me where I see myself in 5 years, I almost always say I don't know. I can't bullshit like that. I'm loud, I curse a lot, pussy might be my favorite word. I'm never gonna do yoga so people should stop asking. I watch too many cartoons. On an average day I dress like a skater who just started 12th grade. I'm all for being nice, but I suck at lying so I think you suck I'm going to tell you.

On the flip side I can't stand it when people tweet links to their books non-stop. I'm also not a fan of reading a book just because everyone else is reading it. I will maintain till my dying day that I read Twilight for work. Ask Dave Kurtz.

I believe people follow me on twitter for two reasons - and this is my low self-esteem talking but I can't get her to shut up -  1) I have web friends from my fanfiction days and 2) I tweet tons of boobs and lesbian porn gifs from my tumblr. The voice in the back of my head is convinced that no one cares about Better Off Red's release in 53 days. 

And then this happened: 2 websites mentioned the upcoming release of Better Off Red and I had nothing to do with it.

KT at Babbling About Books And More: http://kbgbabbles.blogspot.com/2011/09/kb-pimpin-future-book-releases.html


Sally at Bibrary Booklust: http://bibrary.blogspot.com/2011/08/waiting-on-wednesday-better-off-red-by.html

If people I have no personal or pornographic ties to are interested in Better Off Red then there is hope.

The truth I have to face is that some people will want to read my book, but if I don't promote it and myself no one will know about it. I have developed serious love affairs with Beverly Jenkins and LaVyrle Spencer, two authors I would know nothing about if it weren't for social media. The system does work.

In my dreams there's some 16 year old girl out there dying to read something like Better Off Red (yeah the material is 18+ but let's be realistic, kids read up). I want her to be able to find that book and of course I want her to tell her friends because in the end I'd like to make a living off my writing so I must promote. I want that JK Rowling money. He he har. Promote I must.

Here's what I got so far. On my tumblr, http://rebekahloves.tumblr.com/ , in the side bar, if you search the following terms you will find pictures and art that tie into Better Off Red and The Fling. So far people seem to like the character teasers. please remember it is an 18+ tumblr with nude images.

Ginger
Camila
Natasha
Tokyo
Kina
Amy
Benny
Anna-Jade
Sam
Paige
Cleo

an image I love for Cleo

BetterOffRed (no spaces)
Sororitygirls
Sororityvamps
VSS
VSS2
Andrew
The Boys Of 8OBA

TheFling
Annie
Kat
Oksana


I'm also working on my romance trading cards which should be available soon for readers and I'm designing Alpha Beta Omega sorority t-shirts to sell on cafepress. And yes I will tweet and post facebook links to my books. I want this book to sell no matter what people think of me and my foul mouth so I have to promote it. Marketing and promotion are part of the game just like writing synopsisesses and the occasional block, things I also hate about the writing/selling process.

In random update news, I've been in North Carolina since Sunday for a funeral. The service was quite joyful. I've eaten my weight in shakes and other southern fats. The Hills didnt ruin "Unwritten" for me, YAY! I also think Floyd Mayweather and 50 Cent are in love, like secretly making love in love. And my my little pony obsession is spiraling out of control.