How Long Do You Want It and How Much Are You Willing to Pay For It?

Of course, I'm talking about books. Long ago, when I first considered writing romance novels, Harlequin set the rules. All their books had very specific length requirements and sensuality levels for the different lines. I'm not quibbling with Harlequin. But, with the advent of ebooks, books now come in all lengths from 2,000 words (about 10 pages) to more traditional tomes in all genres.

For myself, I have found that I like shorter books (sometimes called novellas). Maybe I just have a short attention span, but I now check to see how many pages a book has before I commit to buying it. I've also found that I like writing shorter works---probably for the same attention span reasons.

What about you? Do you like short reads---something in the 8 to 20 page range.
                            Novellas----20 to 80 pages (I don't know if there are any hard and fast rules about what constitutes a short story vs. novella vs. novel, so I'm just throwing some things out there.)
                           Novel---100 pages and up.

And, how much are you willing to pay? $1.99 to $4.99 seem to be the range on most ebooks these days (other than the big best sellers).

Do you think that there is a relationship between price and quality?

What about free or 99 cent books?

Feel free (in fact I encourage you) to use this like Pooky's Quiz a couple weeks ago and answer here or copy and paste into your own blog with your answers. I'd really like to get a wide range of responses.

Thanks!

Six Sentence Sunday

Welcome to Six Sentence Sunday. You can find links to nearly 200 writers who will be posting six sentences from their work here.

This my six sentences are from Judge Not: Class Reunion which is part of Legal Briefs: Over The Knee Justice.

Jimmy attends a high school reunion with his wife, Eileen. Throughout the night, Eileen exaggerates and pushes the limits of the truth in order to impress her classmates. Eventually, Jimmy has enough.

“You might have more education than me,” Jimmy said as he pulled the short skirt of her red dress up and exposed her rounded bottom. His hand came down in a firm swat on her left cheek. “And you might earn more than me.” His hand cracked down on her right cheek.

“Are you nuts?”

     He ignored her and continued with his corrective measures.

You can read a sample or buy the story on Amazon.

Hope you enjoyed Six Sentence Sunday. I'll see you next week.

The Spanking Blogger's Secret Life

Super Hereos have them. And so do most spanking bloggers. Sure, the answer could be capes or brightly colored boots, but what I'm talking about is an alter ego. A secret life.

As I am spending more time blogging, writing and connecting with others in the spanko world (and having a great time doing it) it's becoming a bit more tricky to keep the two worlds separate.

I have a vanilla friend who wants to publish a book. I've got quite a bit of knowledge about that, but I can't share it all without raising suspicions, so I share some info and tell her I read it "on some blog".

I am super duper excited about finally having my two new books out, but when people ask "what's new?" I just smile and change the subject.

One of the tricky things, and I'd love to hear from others out there who have some of the same experience, is accounting for my time. I'll spend hours tinkering with a story, laboring over the words, editing and then cowering in self-doubt and when someone asks how I spent my day, I  have to come up with some lame story about watching TV or doing the laundry.

Recently Spanky had a post about his love of redheads. Shortly after that I met a young woman with beautiful auburn hair and green eyes and I kept thinking "who was talking about redheads lately?" then I remembered Spanky's post. I didn't mention it to her. Sorry Spanky.

Batman had Alfred, the trusted butler who knew his secret and helped him keep it. How about you? Who knows about your secret life?

Have you had any close calls where someone almost "lifted your mask" (this is figurative, not kinky)?

Any pointers for keeping things separate?

A Tech Tip For Your Kindle

I noticed that Cara Bristol is giving away a download of her first book, which reminded me of this great tech tip. I've shared this info w/a couple people who were amazed that their kindle/iPad had this capability so I thought I'd pass it on.

Did you know you can email Word documents to your kindle and they show up in your list of books to be read? This is great for writers who want to see how their work looks but also for those who win books online (I won a book via Twitter and that's how I found out how to do this).

Here's what you do:

Go to Amazon and log into your account. Then go to manage your kindle. On the left there's a box that says Your Kindle Account and in that box there's a link called Personal Document Settings. Click that. There you see Send To Kindle Email settings. An email address has been assigned to each of your devices that you have registered. Then go to the email account that is linked to your kindle and send a word doc to the email address for your kindle. It automatically shows up in your list of books on the kindle.

I thought there was a whole other email account, but that's not how it works. It's very cool. If you have one email account for your "real life" and one for your spanko life, you'll need to make sure the email is from the email that is linked to your kindle. I just forward from my Celeste Jones email to my real name email and then send it to the kindle.

Six Sentence Sunday

Welcome to my first Six Sentence Sunday!

This excerpt is from my newly published book Twenty One Days to a Better Attitude.

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Darcy Hughes has her life tightly under control, at least until Ben Dawson moves in next door. Ben’s attempts to be friendly are quickly rebuffed. He calls her out on her rude behavior and suggests that a good spanking will cure her bad attitude.

“I’ll tell you what,” Ben’s thumb gently brushed a tear from her left eye. “I’ll give you a spanking.” Darcy opened her mouth to protest. He put a finger to her lips to shush her. “When it’s over, if you agree that you didn’t need one, then I’ll go back over to my house and I’ll never bother you again.” “But,” he continued to keep his finger on her lips, “if you find that you did need the spanking then I’m going to come back over here every Saturday night and redden your backside.”

If you'd like to find out more, please download the free sample on Amazon. Or better yet, take the plunge and buy it.

There almost two hundred writers participating in Sex Sentence Sunday. You can find links to all of them here.

More About Me

I know what you're thinking. It's a lovely Saturday but the one thing that would make it better is learning just a little bit more about Celeste Jones.

Well, here's your chance. Renee Rose was kind enough to inteview me for her blog. I hope you'll take a minute to stop by.

Thanks Renee! This is my first ever interview and it was lots of fun.

Pooky's Quiz

Pooky of CDD for Life? Pooky's Story has a quiz on her site and has asked other bloggers to take part. I found out about it because Christina at www.redbootywoman.blogspot.com mentioned me so I thought I'd join the party. Here are my answers.

1. Have you read 50 Shades of Grey? Have you read all of them?
No. I prefer to support Indie/small pub authors and I almost never read any book that "everyone" is reading. Maybe I'm cutting off my nose to spite my face, but that's me.

2. Have you read any other spanking fiction? 

Yes. However, I try not to read too much because I'm afraid that I might inadvertently steal an idea from someone else.

3. Did you start reading them before or after the 50 Shades?

Before.
4. Where do you find your find the best books? ie; Amazon, Blushing Books, Lulu, etc.

I love my kindle, so I do my shopping on Amazon.

5. Have you ever written any spanking fiction?

Yep. See my book over there ---->

And, I have TWO books coming out soon.

6. Do you follow Pk's Fantasy Fridays? Have you ever written for her?
  I just heard about it through this quiz, but I'm going to check it out.

7. Have you Read Clint's Bootcamp Book? Did you participate in it after you purchased it? No, but I'm curious about it.

8. Are you a reader in real life? How serious?
Yes! I've been a lifelong reader and although I resisted a kindle, now that I have one I love it and it has increased the number of books I read and the number of authors to whom I have access.

9. Do you generally purchase your reading material, check it out at the library, or borrow from a friend?
All of the above, though now that I have a kindle, I buy more than I used to.

10. Are you more likely to leave a review if you loved the book or hated it?
 I try to be fair and give more of a critique from a writer's perspective if I find a book that I really didn't like. I am more likely to leave a review for a book that I loved.

Bonus Question: Are there any famous writers in Blogland we should be aware of?  
See my answer to #2 above. But, I do have links to several writers on my blog list so you might check them out...Alta Hensley, Cara Bristol, Trashy Treasures/Amelia James, Renee Rose and Sue Lyndon are all there.
To view Pooky's original quiz and to take part, click  here.  

Feeling The Love in BloggerVille

When I started this blog in January, I wasn't really sure what would happen or even what my goal was. After a few years away from writing spanking fiction, I decided to get back to it and I figured that a blog would help me sell books and find a few others with similar interests. 

What I didn't expect was how much I would enjoy it and the connection with other bloggers.

Most recently I got a nice shoutout from Christine over at www.redbootywoman.blogspot.com. You can check it out here.

I also appreciate all the nice comments on my 7 Interesting Things About Me in the Lovely Blog post.

So, thanks everyone!

Monday Morning Entertainment

This is unrelated to spanking or writing, but what the heck. It's a new week, let's try something new.

This morning I was looking at another blog and noticed the "next blog" button at the top of the page, so I clicked on it. I came across a funny blog by three friends that had some cute posts and great photos. So I hit the button again. I think the blogs are listed alphabetically because I ended up with several NYC related blogs that were also interesting, up to date, and made me wish I had a trip to NY planned soon (but not until the weather cools down).

So, if you aren't already busy looking at all the blogs on my blog list (and yours) give blog roulette a spin and see what you find.

One Lovely Blog Award

Fondler's Anonymous nominated me for the Lovely Blog Award.



Yay! Thank you so much. I'm sorry I'm late getting my post up. My tardiness is not an indication of lack of appreciation because now I feel like one of the cool kids.

The One Lovely Blog Rules of Acceptance

- Thank the person/people who nominated you and link back to them in your post.
- Share seven possibly unknown things about yourself.
- Nominate fifteen or so bloggers you admire.
- Contact the chosen bloggers to let them know and link back to them.

Seven possibly unknown things about myself.
1. I knit A LOT. I donate about 100 items (slippers, mittens, hats, scarves, afghans) to the homeless per year.
2. I don't drink coffee but I love a hot cup of tea with fake sugar and 1/2& 1/2. If shortbread cookies are involved, so much the better.
3. I have walked several half marathons (13.1 miles).
4. In real life, I'm a lawyer and I once got the charges against my client reduced by beating the prosecutor at rock, paper, scissors. (It was a minor traffic violation, so no bad criminals were assisted by my rock, paper, scissors prowess.)
5. I've been to every state in the US including Alaska and Hawaii, many in the family station wagon back in the 70s. Not quite like National Lampoon's Family Vacation, but close.
6. I love The Big Bang Theory and have a friend who is very similar to Sheldon.
7. In order to prevent my son from getting a tattoo, I told him that if he'd wait 10 years, I'd get one too that he can pick out. So, I've got that to look forward to.

Bloggers I admire.
This is tricky since it seems that all the Spanking/DD related blogs that I follow have been nominated and I don't want to do a repeat so I'm going to tell you that all the blogs in my blog list are blogs that I follow and enjoy (that's why they are there), so I encourage you to check them out.

In addition, here are some of my favorite blogs that aren't necessarily spanking related

1. I get great crockpot recipes at A Year of Slow Cooking. Try the blue cheese and beef roll ups.
2. My addiction: The Sister Wives Blog.
3. Monique DeVere writes sweet, sensual romance novellas that I enjoy and she has a great series of interviews with authors who write fast.
4. Rachel Aaron's blog has some very useful posts on writing fast and effectively.
5. Glitterword is author Stevie McCoy's blog which she says is Paranormal Romance Author, Home of Flashfiction, Author Interviews, and over all confetti throwing in honor of everything writerly.

Thanks for the nomination, Fondlers Anonymous!

So Much to Celebrate Today!

I love being an American and I'm very patriotic. I have studied history and taught courses on The Constitution, so July 4 is a holiday that I appreciate for more than just an opportunity to picnic.

That being said...the real excitement today is the fact taht I have a new book, possibly two, coming out very soon. This was unexpected news, so that makes it even more exciting. I have two different books in the pipeline and I'm not sure which one will come out first, so I can't give you any details just yet, but I'm all squealy with excitement over it and wanted to share.

More details as they become available. Stay tuned.

And, happy Independence Day everyone!