Bronwyn Stuart's Blog

 
Well, what better for a blog revival than a Christmas blog! Thanks for dropping by!

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I meet so many people who don’t like Christmas. I’m sure their reasons are sound to them, but I love it! It’s without a doubt my favourite time of the year where all of our family come together on the banks of the Mighty Murray river and we eat, drink and be very merry.

My husband’s family are European and celebrate on Christmas Eve so it’s like an early present to kick things off a day before the rest of the country. Our table is set with hand-stitched runners, silver cutlery, the best crockery and little crystal glasses to hold home-made seafood sauce. We then dig into crayfish and prawns, roast meats for the not seafood inclined, herring salad, potato salad, the list goes on. Omi makes strawberry punch to cool everyone down and then the kids open presents until we’re all yawning and ready for bed. The next day we do it all again at my parent’s for dinner. By Boxing Day, belts are loosened, a near fatal food coma claims the hubby and the kids sit knee deep in toys and giggles. It’s magical! What’s not to love!

As much as I absolutely adore all of the above, we’ve had a very long winter here in the Adelaide Hills and I’ve been literally craving white sand and blue water. So much so that when my kids have beach volleyball, I slip my shoes off and dip my toes in the sand at the edge of the court rather than sit with the other mums.

It’s been said a few times that water feeds creativity. If your writing is blocked, you take a shower and reenergise. You could go for a walk in the rain, on the beach, go for a swim. I like to have long hot baths and read. It’s the only time I get (almost) total relaxation. Generally I find my difficult scene unlocks itself and I usually have to keep a notepad nearby so I can jot down ideas wrapped in a towel sitting on the edge of the tub.

When I was asked to be part of this great blog hop, I started thinking, none of my books are Christmas themed. I did start one once, a Regency that begins with a stolen Christmas tree to honour a long-standing tradition in a family down on their luck. One day I’ll finish it and get it out there.

The thread a lot of my books do seem to have is the water. Mixing Business with Pleasure takes a turn to the ocean after the heroine is injured by a loan shark and needs a break from it all. The Road to Ruin is a delicious romp with pirates so there’s water there too. I have an unpublished novel set on the Gold Coast and therefore, ocean, and a rooftop swimming pool. Bath scenes in historical novels always go down a treat and She’s the One is onset with filming of The Bachelor at the holiday destination that is Port Douglas in northern Queensland.

I guess water leeches into just about everything I do. Sometimes I run the warm water a little longer when I’m washing my hands I love it that much. Maybe I was a mermaid in a past life?

So my question to you is, what is your sign? What calls to you? Is it sinking your hands in the dirt, is it playing with fire (and not in a light-everything-on-fire-kind of way, more of a winter firelight kind of way) or is it the wind howling through the trees?

Make sure you hit the rafflecopter below for entries into the blog hop comp and feel free to take a look around while you’re here!
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Thanks for coming J  

One click my latest contemporary romance novel here -- She's The One
a Rafflecopter giveaway

It's nearly here! She's The One drops in around six days depending on where you are in the world and release day coincides with the ending of another Australian season of The Bachelorette.

I have to admit that I didn't watch this one. After Jo Jo's season in the US, I just couldn't handle another eight weeks of fakery from the guys and tears from the woman. Is it only me who would much rather watch a guy fall in love with all the women? Maybe it's the cattiness I enjoy? The bitch fights? I don't know. It could be that my husband was all done after the last season of The Bachelor or that we had loads of stuff on in the evenings lately. Life maybe just got in the way. If you're like me and you missed the season but have some downtime coming up over Christmas, then make sure you pick up your ecopy of She's The One. I'm getting great reviews that it's an easy, quick read and full of fun. Just the way you like it some days :)


Here are some links to make it easier. Please don't forget to pop back to your supplier and post a review (but ignore the ones on Amazon so far since they're for someone else's book). Even if it's just 'I loved it'. When Amazon receive 50 reviews on a book, they promote the hell out of it so that would be lovely. I'm on Goodreads too if we haven't hooked up there yet.

Escape Publishing
Amazon Au
Amazon USA
Amazon UK
Booktopia
Apple

I have a confession to make. My name is Bronwyn, and I am in love with reality TV shows like The Bachelor, Married at first Sight and Dating Naked. (Threw that one in to see if you're awake).

Call me stupid, romantic, tell me  I have no life, but the idea of love-on any stage-appeals to something inside of me that I will never switch off. Farmer Wants a Wife has had so many weddings and babies, I can't even remember the figures. Sure, some shows doom the couple from the start. They're not fair. But watching an actual love story unfold right in front of your eyes and having those awwww moments seriously affect me. I just melt into a little puddle. 

Then I started thinking, what if they sceptics were right? What if it's all set up for ratings? What if a show like... The Bachelor, was actually set up from the very beginning? How would the behind the scenes go, would the other women pick up on it? Probably not if the set-upee went and did something dumb like fall for the man.

Billionaire Banjo Grahams originally signed up for The Bachelor drunk as a skunk and willing to do anything to bed Australia’s most beautiful women but when he sobers up he realises he could lose his entire fortune and more of he goes through with it. Unable to back out of an ironclad contract, he makes a deal with the network boss to rig the show, picking the lucky bachelorette ahead of time and guiding the season to meet his own ends and keep the board happy.

But Eliza Peterson has other plans for the spoilt playboy. When her father tells her she isn’t going to produce The Bachelor but appear as a one of the girls, she is livid that he is still treating her like an intern. She wants his respect, or even his notice, and plans to go along with the show with her dignity intact to prove to her father that she is worth something, not only to the network, but to him.

She begins by steering Banjo in the direction of the other hopeful women but soon finds herself drawn to a side of him she never knew he had…

Sounds like fun doesn't it!! Pre-order links will be up soon and the book drops on November 5th! Stay tuned for links and a few sneaky teasers.
 
 

I'm so excited to bring you my latest offering! This one is a contemporary and it's hot, hot, hot. 

What's a girl to do when she finds herself naked except for her stilettos and backed up against a cold mirror, stuck between a rock and a very hard man?
Blurb: Alison Marcum loves her baby brother and would have done anything for him—until the day his loan sharks arrive on her doorstep and demand she pay them ten thousand dollars or else.

With no way to repay the money, and not wanting to find out what they’re capable of, Alison transforms herself from boring social worker to smoking hot model—but getting work isn’t going to be the hard part for a woman who’d promised herself never to step in front of a camera again.
Sam Mason is overseeing a jewellery advertising campaign, and after spending ten minutes in the boardroom with a nearly naked Alison, he decides he might actually enjoy the job. Strictly business, though. Sam’s been burned by a model before and no matter how attracted he is, there’s no way he’s getting involved.
As the lies begin to unravel and the loan sharks get impatient, will they both risk it all to be together or lose it all in a bid not to repeat the past?


You can meet Sam and Alison on the 5th April! The ebook will be available from Escape Publishing and where all great ebooks are sold.

I'm so excited to bring you my latest offering! This one is a contemporary and it's hot, hot, hot. 

What's a girl to do when she finds herself naked except for her stilettos and backed up against a cold mirror, stuck between a rock and a very hard man?
Blurb: Alison Marcum loves her baby brother and would have done anything for him—until the day his loan sharks arrive on her doorstep and demand she pay them ten thousand dollars or else.

With no way to repay the money, and not wanting to find out what they’re capable of, Alison transforms herself from boring social worker to smoking hot model—but getting work isn’t going to be the hard part for a woman who’d promised herself never to step in front of a camera again.
Sam Mason is overseeing a jewellery advertising campaign, and after spending ten minutes in the boardroom with a nearly naked Alison, he decides he might actually enjoy the job. Strictly business, though. Sam’s been burned by a model before and no matter how attracted he is, there’s no way he’s getting involved.
As the lies begin to unravel and the loan sharks get impatient, will they both risk it all to be together or lose it all in a bid not to repeat the past?


You can meet Sam and Alison on the 5th April! The ebook will be available from Escape Publishing and where all great ebooks are sold.

So if you’re a facebook junkie like I am, you probably would have seen the negativity surrounding being traditionally published by the top 5 world publishers. There’s been posts about authors getting crappy deals where the publisher takes advantage with low royalties. There’s been other posts about self-publishing being a much better option if you want to get paid.

My first piece of advice would be to look at what you are being paid for your writing right now. How many people have read your book so far? Old-school authors who've been in the game for thirty years can bemoan the loss of gross to net royalties. Did it bother me? Not really. Anything was more than the nothing I already had. It was all about me. It was all about what I wanted and where I was at. It still is.

In this business, you, and only you, first and foremost, can decide what’s good for you. I’ve seen authors fizzle and burn out because they attempted to get their whole body through the door in the first year that they put pen to paper. Has it been done? Yes. Some newer authors decide to go the indie route almost straight away and some have reportedly made a very comfortable living. That definitely wouldn’t be the majority case though and some of it is nothing more than lies and showboating (not all though).

Most of the books I’ve read by newer indie authors from Amazon have been poorly edited and not just for line errors but for structure. The amount of repetition has almost made me cry a few times. Are my books perfect every time? No. They’re often not. But I know I have the absolute best book I possibly can because it’s gone through at least two editors, an acquisitions team, a marketing department, a copy editor, a typesetter, and maybe more. The Road to Ruin was even read by the two most senior women in the HQN Sydney office. I knew I had a good book to release into the big wide world after it had been polished to a shine. My royalty rate isn’t stellar. It never is. My publisher is a business and so is the book and department store who on-sell my novels. Everyone makes some money. You have to decide if you want more than the nothing you probably have right now. You have to decide if your 10% or 15% of the net price of the print book is enough for you. The top 5 also have immediate distribution into bricks and mortar stores. Self-pubbing means driving your own marketing. It means doing all of the steps yourself or paying someone to do it for you (but make sure you are covering costs and not paying more than you'll earn). It also means not getting to writing the next book straight away unless you’re prolific or don’t have children, a husband or a life.

If you’re happy to drive your own machine the way you want it driven, then go ahead and jump right in, good luck to you. But if you have a dream to see your book on a shelf and in the hands of your readers, then stick with it. It might take years, traditional publishing is slow and sometimes heartbreaking, but it’s the right path for me right now. You also can be what is popularly termed a ‘hybrid’ where you can be traditional, e and indie published. I have a contemporary ebook coming out in April with Escape Publishing that I’m really excited about. Just remember that if a publisher wants to see your book sales and they’re not high, you might have less chance than if you’d never self-pubbed to start.  

In this day and publishing age, you get to decide. But, please, please don’t think there’s a pot of gold at the end of any of these rainbows. Every single different author and book will be received in different ways in different parts of the world. What works for one doesn’t work for all of us. Don’t be pressured into anything either. Until you’ve signed a contract, you are not bound. Once you’ve signed it, you are. Be careful. Watch for options clauses and rights returns based on sales units, not how long they get to have the book or in dollar values of sales. Try to keep your media rights like tv, movie, radio, etc. They don’t need them.  You might.

Eloisa James says, this is your business. It’s not your baby. Make business decisions with your head and you might pull through. Toss the negativity and propaganda aside and do what makes you happy, not what’s going to be the quickest way to earn a buck…  

So if you’re a facebook junkie like I am, you probably would have seen the negativity surrounding being traditionally published by the top 5 world publishers. There’s been posts about authors getting crappy deals where the publisher takes advantage with low royalties. There’s been other posts about self-publishing being a much better option if you want to get paid.

My first piece of advice would be to look at what you are being paid for your writing right now. How many people have read your book so far? Old-school authors who've been in the game for thirty years can bemoan the loss of gross to net royalties. Did it bother me? Not really. Anything was more than the nothing I already had. It was all about me. It was all about what I wanted and where I was at. It still is.

In this business, you, and only you, first and foremost, can decide what’s good for you. I’ve seen authors fizzle and burn out because they attempted to get their whole body through the door in the first year that they put pen to paper. Has it been done? Yes. Some newer authors decide to go the indie route almost straight away and some have reportedly made a very comfortable living. That definitely wouldn’t be the majority case though and some of it is nothing more than lies and showboating (not all though).

Most of the books I’ve read by newer indie authors from Amazon have been poorly edited and not just for line errors but for structure. The amount of repetition has almost made me cry a few times. Are my books perfect every time? No. They’re often not. But I know I have the absolute best book I possibly can because it’s gone through at least two editors, an acquisitions team, a marketing department, a copy editor, a typesetter, and maybe more. The Road to Ruin was even read by the two most senior women in the HQN Sydney office. I knew I had a good book to release into the big wide world after it had been polished to a shine. My royalty rate isn’t stellar. It never is. My publisher is a business and so is the book and department store who on-sell my novels. Everyone makes some money. You have to decide if you want more than the nothing you probably have right now. You have to decide if your 10% or 15% of the net price of the print book is enough for you. The top 5 also have immediate distribution into bricks and mortar stores. Self-pubbing means driving your own marketing. It means doing all of the steps yourself or paying someone to do it for you (but make sure you are covering costs and not paying more than you'll earn). It also means not getting to writing the next book straight away unless you’re prolific or don’t have children, a husband or a life.

If you’re happy to drive your own machine the way you want it driven, then go ahead and jump right in, good luck to you. But if you have a dream to see your book on a shelf and in the hands of your readers, then stick with it. It might take years, traditional publishing is slow and sometimes heartbreaking, but it’s the right path for me right now. You also can be what is popularly termed a ‘hybrid’ where you can be traditional, e and indie published. I have a contemporary ebook coming out in April with Escape Publishing that I’m really excited about. Just remember that if a publisher wants to see your book sales and they’re not high, you might have less chance than if you’d never self-pubbed to start.  

In this day and publishing age, you get to decide. But, please, please don’t think there’s a pot of gold at the end of any of these rainbows. Every single different author and book will be received in different ways in different parts of the world. What works for one doesn’t work for all of us. Don’t be pressured into anything either. Until you’ve signed a contract, you are not bound. Once you’ve signed it, you are. Be careful. Watch for options clauses and rights returns based on sales units, not how long they get to have the book or in dollar values of sales. Try to keep your media rights like tv, movie, radio, etc. They don’t need them.  You might.

Eloisa James says, this is your business. It’s not your baby. Make business decisions with your head and you might pull through. Toss the negativity and propaganda aside and do what makes you happy, not what’s going to be the quickest way to earn a buck…  

You know when something happens in the universe and all your planets align to bring about a huge piece of good news you know is going to change your world and offer opportunities through doors that were previously locked? No? Damn...lol..

Well I do! My planets got together and put on a show. But what really happened was that after a bit of gentle pushing from some great writer pals, I queried one of my dream agencies and got a response so quickly, my head was almost spinning. I sent a quite frankly too frank email to Sarah Younger outlining my tumultuous, but always fun and unpredictable, publishing history and where I wanted to go in the future. She wrote back that she actually had a copy of The Road to Ruin sitting on her desk since it was in a duo with the fabulous Stephanie Laurens this last month (thank you to HQN MIRA for that!!). The upside is that she loved the book and is just as excited about my almost pirates as I am!

I used the word serendipitous. She let me.

I am so happy, proud, honoured and thrilled to announce that I have signed with Sarah Younger at The Nancy Yost agency who represent some of the biggest names in Historical Romance in the world. I am beyond excited to see where we can go together in this big wide world of publishing. Watch this space. 

You know when something happens in the universe and all your planets align to bring about a huge piece of good news you know is going to change your world and offer opportunities through doors that were previously locked? No? Damn...lol..

Well I do! My planets got together and put on a show. But what really happened was that after a bit of gentle pushing from some great writer pals, I queried one of my dream agencies and got a response so quickly, my head was almost spinning. I sent a quite frankly too frank email to Sarah Younger outlining my tumultuous, but always fun and unpredictable, publishing history and where I wanted to go in the future. She wrote back that she actually had a copy of The Road to Ruin sitting on her desk since it was in a duo with the fabulous Stephanie Laurens this last month (thank you to HQN MIRA for that!!). The upside is that she loved the book and is just as excited about my almost pirates as I am!

I used the word serendipitous. She let me.

I am so happy, proud, honoured and thrilled to announce that I have signed with Sarah Younger at The Nancy Yost agency who represent some of the biggest names in Historical Romance in the world. I am beyond excited to see where we can go together in this big wide world of publishing. Watch this space.