Thanks so much for hosting me
on your blog today, Marie. Some of your
readers might know me as historical romance writer Vanessa Kelly. In fact, I do have a new historical coming
out in October, called His Mistletoe Bride. But I don’t want to talk about my historical
romances, but about the contemporary romances I write with my husband under the
pen name of VK Sykes.
Writing books with one’s hubby
is an interesting experience, but it’s worked out pretty well for us. Our first book, CaddyGirls, was released
by digital-first publisher Carina Press, but our subsequent books are
self-published. We’ve enjoyed diverging
from the traditional path. It’s given us
control over our work and allowed us to write the stories we wanted to
write—stories which don’t necessarily fit in the box of traditional publishing.
Plus, I get to pick out the
covers, which means looking at pictures of hot, partly naked men in a variety
of interesting poses. For some reason my
husband usually passes this particular chore on to me. Ah, well.
One must suffer for one’s art!
I’m very pleased to tell you
that hubby and I have recently released two new books. Both Fastball and Hot Number are sexy
contemporary romances. Fastball
is actually a prequel to our award-winning romance, Hardball,
which came out last year. As you might
surmise from the title, Fastball is a sports romance,
starring a very sexy major league baseball player as the hero. And when I say sexy, I mean sexy!
Hot Number is
also a fun and sexy romance, set in Las Vegas.
It features a brilliant but nerdy math professor who decides to have a
wild week in Vegas. Unfortunately, she
ends up getting busted for card counting by a casino chief of security. Fortunately, said security chief is also very
hot, and he’s definitely out to give our heroine a wild ride.
Releasing two new books is
certainly a cause to celebrate, but I’ve got other good news to share. Both Fastball
and Hot Number have been released under the branding of a new
author’s group called Rock*It Reads
(RIR, for short). All the members of RIR
are traditionally published authors committed to producing high quality,
self-published romances. We do that by ensuring that our self-published books
receive a strong editorial review, go through a solid copyediting process, and
are properly formatted for a multitude of popular eReaders.
The members of RIR are Monica
Burns, Pamela Clare, Lila DiPasqua, Cheryl Holt, Kris Kennedy, Margo Maguire,
Mia Marlowe, Elisabeth Naughton, Sharon Page, Joan Swan, and moi, writing as
both Vanessa Kelly and VK Sykes. Please
check out our beautiful new website for all the latest on RIR and our
self-published books: www.rockitreads.com. We’ve got lots going on, including a new
review column in collaboration with Barnes & Noble. Our B & N column, called Love Rocks, will be spotlighting the
best in self-published romances, unearthing those sometimes hidden gems that
you might miss. We’ll be putting out a
new column every two weeks at http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/. We hope you’ll join us!
Vanessa
Kelly writes Regency-set historical romance for Kensington Zebra and
contemporary romance with her husband under the pen name of VK Sykes. You can find her on the web at www.vanessakellyauthor.com or at www.vksykes.com. And be sure to visit her at www.rockitreads.com or follow her on her
blog:
