Here’s a little secret… Flowers wither. Chocolate is fattening.  Here is what really makes me tingle–

• A new book contract. Seriously, heart-racing, hand-shaking tingles. Read the tale about my most recent contract offer HERE
• Finding my titles on a bookseller’s shelf and turning them all to face cover out! Feel free to do that for me as well in your local bookstore. You might want to not let the clerk see you though.
• Sticking my book promo inside the books of my fellow authors who write similar books to mine. Hey, no one of us can write as fast as our readers can devour our books so why not share? Again, I try not to let the salesclerk see me doing that.
• Typing THE END after working to complete a new work for weeks, sometimes months. The adrenaline rush is amazing.

Maybe it’s an author thing. Who knows? Sure, I’ll take take the flowers, candy and cards, and I’ll enjoy them and be very grateful. But give me a good book contract and some kick-ass sales figures and then you’ll see some real happiness, and as an erotic romance author I can be very creative in my gratitude, believe me.

Cat

As I pry my eyes open, both from the lack of sleep and the false eyelash glue from the New Years Eve festivities of last night, I can’t help but reflect on the year that’s past. 2011 was a hell of a year, and more than I ever expected. Some things I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around. Some things are still works in progress and my superstitions won’t let me talk about them for fear of jinxing them. But here is a list of some of the random, but memorable things from the year past.

• A fan telling me when they Google ‘hot naked cowboys’ my picture comes up right along with the hot naked cowboy pics.
• The cute cable guy calling his romance novel-loving mother to tell her I was an author and her not only knowing my name, but having read my Red, Hot & Blue series.
• Signing a contract for a super secret and very exciting project with the lovely and talented Amy Reiley (chef, author and owner of the Eat Something Sexy blogs).
• My first original self-publishing eBook ‘experiment’ which sold 6,000 copies in 6 weeks.
• Watching, live and in person, the bull rider I sponsored compete in the NBR Finals in February in North Carolina.
• Hitting an all new sales high, thanks to my publisher Samhain making my TREY a free read on Amazon.com back in March.
• Watching my fellow Samhain Publishing eBook authors hit the NY Times Best Seller list and knowing it is possible!
• And finally, the opportunity which I hate to say ‘fell into my lap’ since I worked damn hard to prepare for this moment, but it did kind of fall from the sky–an amazingly, unprecedented opportunity. I’m going to have to work damn hard to take advantage of it, and  I still won’t talk about it since it could amount to nothing at all OR it may make my career… Anyway, yeah, this surprise opportunity which happened just before Christmas, may be the most amazing of all and I hope to one day soon have an announcement for you. But even if I don’t, that’s okay, because it was amazing, nonetheless.

There are so many more things, meeting some of my PBR (professional bull riding) fans live at Madison Square Garden last January, having the father of one of the top riders in the country fact check my last cowboy release, the surprise gifts my generous readers send me, meeting so many great people both live and online. It all adds up to memories I’ll always cherish.

Happy New Year to all. If 2012 holds even half the magic that 2011 did, we’re in for one hell of a year.

Cat

I read my iPad app FLIPBOARD for food inspiration, and I get inspiration from Eat Something Sexy’s very own Amy Reiley (who FYI has a new cookbook release coming out next month!).

Anyway, I’ve recently made Spiced Rosemary Nuts (William-Sonoma), so easy and so impressive and tasty. I brought them to both a Friday Night Dinner with Friends as well as to a holiday party housewarming and they were a hit both places. I’m going to try Amy’s Hot Honey Nuts recipe from the monthly aphrodisiac newsletter that just came out a few days ago for tonight’s Friday Night Dinner with Friends.

The other night I made Roasted Carrot Soup (Food 52). It came out really tasty but more importantly I’m thinking something that colorful HAS to be good for you too. And yesterday, while watching that new foodie show on ABC, The Chew, I was inspired to–this is big so get ready–change out of my pajamas, go to the food store, and buy the ingredients for the Swiss Steak with Arugula Salad they made on the show. Anyone who knows me at all knows how huge it is. I rarely leave the house (or change out of PJs) unless it’s absolutely necessary, such as the horse is totally out of feed and is threatening to break out of the paddock and storm the house.

So yeah, I’m procrastinating writing right now (I even vacuumed in an effort to kill time) but I’ll get back to it, one word at a time. And in the meantime, I’ll keep my eye on the inspirational blogs of Food 52, William Sonoma, and our own Eat Something Sexy and hope the creativity spills over from the kitchen to the laptop.

Cat

One day a romance writer who was making a decent living, a better living than she ever dreamed she could by working from home in pajamas each day, read an article. There were vast riches to be made in that land called Self-published Erotica eBooks. Huge riches to be made in the provinces of Nook and Kindle and it was no tall tale. Alas there was proof. Authors who this romance writer actually knew were panning the gold from the erotica waters and coming up with mind-boggling profits. (Seriously folks, I’m talking a million dollars a year or more in their pockets not accounting for Uncle Sam and his evil tax collectors, of course.)

So this author read the million dollar author’s book and declared–I can do that! I will do that! I’ll do it right now! And she came up with a brilliant idea. Why not be who she was now, writing romance, AND be that other writer too, the one who was making a million dollars a year by selling what some critics have called “porn on the page”.

So she took this story she had already written, a story that had been rejected by 3 or was it 4 publishers. A nice little story she really liked about 2 cowboys and a rich girl from Connecticut, and she decided to sex it up. There’d be boys doing boys. Girls doing girls. Boys and girls doing each other, in public, in private, in the barn, in the pool, day and night. Hell, it was already written, and rewritten, and rewritten again, according to the suggestions by the very nice rejection letters she’d gotten so many of. After all, how hard could it be to sex it up? Then she too would have the millions in gold. THEN after that, she’d write more stories. Filthy, dirty stories that would bring even more gold.

And it worked, kind of, for a little bit. Not exactly, and not at all as she’d planned. In fact, not so much according to the plan at all.

Yes, the nice little story sold like mad, crazy sales, but it never really reached the level of filth the author intended, nor the million dollars said filth would have yielded. There was still safe sex. There was still character motivation and reasons for the sex. The characters, once they met each other, still wanted to be monogamous, even though there were 3 of them. There was still a happily ever after ending.

And then the second story wasn’t the filthy dirty one it was meant to be at all. That too ended up being kind of tame to be called erotica. And the happy ending, and the monogamous relationship and the safe sex tried to sneak in again, and the author had to beat them down as best she could, but alas they were stronger than she was.

She had tried…that is I had tried. I really did, but it comes down to this–we are who we are, and no amount of determination or inspiration to change will change who and what we are.

My vow to be the raunchiest writer I could be for my RED line of “erotica” books did not end up exactly as I planned. I put “erotica” in quotation marks because I hesitate to even call it that. As much as I tried to write erotica, it’s still more erotic romance, which is what I have always written, and probably always will write.

I’d made up this long warning label for my RED books, to make sure the readers of my erotic romance wouldn’t be horribly shocked by my new erotica line. It turns out, I needn’t have, because no matter what, I still am who I am as a writer.

Oh don’t get me wrong, the RED stories are hot. Very hot. But there’s still a happy ending, no matter how convinced I was I’d be writing pure erotica without one. There’s plenty of sex, even experimenting with other partners, and same sex, but the characters always seem to end up in a happy committed relationship in the end.

So what am I going to do? Hell if I know. I still have plenty of ideas for some raunchy adulterous erotica stories about a bored cheating housewife who does everyone from the carpenters, to the waiter, to the UPS man while her husband is at work. It was these story ideas that I created the RED line for–and then chickened out miserably. Will these ever see the light of day? I have no clue. If they do I suppose I’ll have to make a sub-line–the REALLY RED line for stories that really are erotica this time, I swear…

Maybe having written for publishers and editors who drilled the HEA (Happy Ever After) into my head, along with the concepts of safe sex and monogamous relationships has influenced me irreparably. Kind of like the lessons beaten into students with a wooden ruler by nuns in Catholic school–you can be sure you’ll never forget them and if you ever do bring yourself to break those rules, you’re going to be twitching while doing it.

So there you go, my tale. I’m happy I wrote Educating Ansley. I’m thrilled with the sales. I’m happy I wrote The EX-Files. Compared to Ansley I’m not as happy with those sales but that’s what I get for hitting it out of the park on the first at bat–it’s a hard record to live up to. I’m iffy on the creation of the RED line. I could probably just as easily have published those stories just as Cat Johnson titles and no one would have been offended or disappointed. And if I ever have a lobotomy or start taking hard core drugs to overcome my romance indoctrination and actually get myself to write the pure erotica I’d planned–well then we’ll have to figure out how to market those alongside the others in the RED line. We’ll see.

And so the author’s coffers are far from empty, but the biggest heaps of gold still belong to the others who dare to stretch beyond, and for now, that’s okay.

Cat

My, how times have changed. Now most of my day (from sunrise to well after sundown) is spent updating web pages, responding to emails, promoting online, social networking, building name recognition, blogging, and traveling to book signings, book club meetings and reader conventions.

Little did I know all those years ago I’d be spending hours online searching for the perfect Mardi Gras costume to wear to the masquerade ball at Authors After Dark 2012 being held in New Orleans. Or that I’d have a pile of odd objects (faery ears and wings, a steampunk gun and holster, a belly dancing skirt) in my bedroom waiting for me to figure out where and how to store them from the last convention. Or that my clothes closet would be overflowing with Cat Johnson promotional items and giveaways. But alas, this is now my career and so I embrace it wholeheartedly and in the meantime try to find some time to write in between all the rest so I have something to actually promote.

So since I’ve bored you with my life, such that it is, let me amuse you with a little something I stumbled upon on Etsy last night while searching for masks. It proves, I think, that no matter how strange I think my life is, there is always something else out there that is a little bit stranger. On another note, I fear Etsy is addictive and I think I need to avoid it!

I give you the strangely beautiful, custom made, Swarovski crystal covered gas mask for the bargain price of $850 with free shipping. How many do you want?

I do know this, to not try at all is a guarantee of failure. And so we keep trying, stumbling at some times, soaring at others. In the end it may come down to ’she with the most books (or albums, or movies) wins’.  Again, who the hell knows. Certainly not me.

So what’s the problem? This–in the court of public opinion working from home is not considered “working” at all. Case in point, the following phone conversation I have with my good friend nearly once a week.

Her: So what are you doing today?

Me: Working on my ______( fill in the blank with new book, rewrites, edits, research, proofreading, etc)

Her: Oh, well I’m taking so-and-so to the dentist then I’m going to the gym then I have to food shop, then I have to get so-and-so from school.

Blah, blah, blah, more conversation ensues to eventually be followed by…

Her: So, you’re not doing anything today?

Me: *sigh* Nope, not doing a thing.

Her: Okay. Talk to you later. Bye.

Then there’s the husband, and his critique upon coming home from work and finding me still in PJs…

Him: Did you even get dressed and leave the house today?

Me: No, I didn’t. I emptied my email inbox, proofread the ARe Wildfire newsletter, did edits on my own book, wrote a synopsis, wrote 2 blogs, posted excerpts, checked my sales, updated FB and Twitter, tagged my books on Amazon, promoted on x-number of Yahoo groups, made and uploaded a book banner and a video AND paid the bills, did laundry, emptied the dishwasher, fed your dog, cats, horse, birds, fish, and myself instead.

Okay, I’ll admit that last instance with the husband has changed a bit just these few weeks–ever since I self-published Educating Ansley for my new RED line. Now when he looks askance at the fact I’m in the same spot wearing the same thing at 6 pm as I was when he left me at 6 am that morn, I just throw the daily sales numbers for Ansley at him and he shuts right up about it. Apparently I’m allowed to stay in jammies all day now that he can anticipate cold hard cash pouring into our bank account from it.

I still shouldn’t complain. I don’t have children myself, but I know stay-at-home moms have been battling the same situation for generations. Their work undervalued simply because it takes place inside the home, as if only things that happen in an actual office outside of the home count.

On any given day I’ve probably done more work before breakfast than some people do all day in an office, without my getting any credit for it, or even a guaranteed paycheck since I only make money when/if I sell a book. But what can I do about it? Nothing I suppose except sit out here enjoying the birds and sunshine and fresh air while in my sweatpants on my front porch, my hair in a ponytail, my flip-flopped feet up on the ottoman, as I sip on my iced coffee and gaze at my pond, my wifi computer in my lap, one browser open to this new blog I’m writing, another open to the book I’m working on, and a TV show I missed last night playing in the third browser window. It’s a tough life, but somebody’s gotta do it.

“So, you’re not doing anything today?”

“Nope. Not a damn thing. You enjoy that commute!”

In 2006 I’d sold my first romance to a small indie publisher. It was a romantic comedy featuring computer geeks, firemen, and the women who loved them, but what I was reading at the time was military romance from authors such as Suzanne Brockmann and Alison Kent. So I asked my editor if I was to write a military romance, would she be interested in it. She said yes and so I started to research and write. I was fortunate there was lots of info on the internet, and in 2006, just as today, the war and the troops were all over the news. I was lucky enough to find some info on Special Task Force 145 and based my team of SpecOps on them.

I boldly (and probably foolishly) went ahead and published that first book and it was a hit with readers so I of course planned more. It was while I was writing the second book in the series that I stumbled upon a troop support site called Books for Soldier. How absolutely perfect! I had books, I liked soldiers, and I was interested in hanging out with others who did as well. So I started sending packages…everything from flip flops for the showers, to candycanes for Christmas, to books for them to read, both used paperbacks I purchased at the library sale and my own and in every package I’d stick one of my cards so they’d know who’d sent it.

Then the thank you notes began to come. Some paper, some emails. Among them, two servicemen emailed– one Army from Iraq, one USMC from Djibouti– both intrigued that a real live romance author was sending them books. (They had no idea I had about 3 books out at that time and was an absolute nobody, but they were impressed none the less.)

And so we became pen pals, and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect since, as I said, I was writing my next military romance and this time, I had men living in the world I was writing about at my disposal for research instead of just Google and Wikepedia and MSNBC. And not just two men either, but a whole platoon in Ramadi and a whole squadron on the Horn of Africa, plus various military wives and children, became my resource. It made all the difference in the world. I wrapped up my second SpecOp book and moved on to my new passion–GIs. Not the elite BlackOps but the ground pounders. Not the SEALS but the tankers. They were true heroes as well, and they had stories to tell me, which I in turn wanted to tell.

Real life stories from my Army muse from his tank days in Ramadi and later his two tours as ground infantry in Afghanistan became the makings for A Few Good Men, Model Soldier and A Prince Among Men (all currently out of print but rereleasing soon). Real tales of a heavy helicopter squadron deployed at the Joint Forces camp on the Horn of Africa became Crossing the Line. A real life leadership training in Georgia became the basis for my free short read Fireworks. Of course I tempered the reality of war with a heavy dose of romance–Sean often jokes how he recognizes his deployments in the descriptions in my books but he doesn’t remember having any of that sex I write about. My excuse? Who needs 100% reality? Now is the time we need the fantasy the most.

Anyway, these men (the original two and some of their men as well) have become more than research resources, they’ve become friends. Sure it’s real nice to have them on IM (today’s version of speed dial) ready, willing and able to answer all my burning questions, but I’m even more grateful that I can call them friends. And because of my association with these men, the story of the everyday soldier–of mail calls and chow halls, of loneliness and fear, and of great bravery and sacrifice–gets to be told even if it is stuck in there between all the sex in my romance novels.

Cat

As a writer, I find this is true with readers as well. People who pick up one of my books and find it really isn’t for them, will be the first ones online leaving a reader review about exactly how much they hated it. This is especially true for a book that was on a free promotion for a limited time, which means people who never heard of me or may never read erotic romance will read it since it’s free.

The problem is, Amazon uses the star ratings and the reader reviews in their algorhythm to determine what books they recommend and promote, and potential readers who just skim ratings for purchasing decisions do too.

In a perfect world, everyone would take the time to leave feedback, both positive and negative, and even neutral.  But we all know we don’t live in a perfect world.

Anyway, here is my advice, for myself as well as all of you–try and take the time and effort. Click that star rating, take time to write a review, whether you loved it or hated it or even just felt ‘eh’ about it. Don’t let the haters have the only voice.

I’ve even noticed in my own books, every review I’ve received lately for my military romance series has called the guys SEALs. I’m grateful for every review and reader comment but I do want to clarify, my heros are not SEALs. Okay, correction–one out of the dozen or so military story heroes I’ve written is a Navy SEAL, but that’s because I based that on an actual MSNBC article I read about the military using SEALs to recruit exceptional civilians for SpecOps.

Anyway, back to my guys–I conceived Task Force Zeta and the Red, Hot & Blue series when the real life Task Force 145 took out al Zarqawi back in 2006. Just like with SEAL Team 6 recently, for the first time Task Force 145, who normally worked in shadows, was in the press. Though not a lot was revealed, there was enough for me to form a series of books around the concept. The real special task force, formed post 9/11 in 2003, recruited the best of the best culled from such groups as Delta Force, Rangers, British SAS and yes, the Navy’s SEALS.

Task Force 145 was the model for my heroes–a group of disparate men from different branches of service working together for a common often impossible to attain goal.

The accomplishment of SEAL Team 6 cannot be denied, but they are one group of men among many doing incredible things, from the boots on the ground to the BlackOps we’ll likely never hear about. We need to remember that.

So by all means talk about the guys in my books. Call them heroes, call them sexy, but please, don’t call them SEALs