One of my favorite interview topics is “Tell us something most people don’t know about you.” Confiding secrets, I suppose, gives the performers a chance to appear likeable and to win our votes with their personalities in addition to their voices and singing styles.

So this is your chance, goddesses, to surprise your fellow inhabitants of Mt. Oly. I’ll start by confessing a few things most people don’t know about me:

– I earn my living as a romance writer now, but until my late 20’s, I never wrote a word of fiction except for a poem about the Easter Bunny in elementary school and a short story in high school (to which my mother added the final two sentences since I didn’t have an ending.)

– My great, great, great grandfather was a Principle Chief of the Cherokee Nation, but I’m only 1/16th Cherokee.

– When it comes to fashion – clothes, shoes, hair, etc. – I would much, much rather be comfortable than stylish. Sacrificing for beauty is not my idea of fun. But then if you’ve hung around Mt. Oly long enough, you probably already know that about me!

So, goddesses, tell us something we don’t know about you!

But when I went to Florida a few weeks ago, I found myself wishing I had a Kindle.  I wanted to read 3 books on vacation, but to make sure I had 3 books to read, I needed to bring 5 or 6, just in case one, or more, didn’t work out.  Several I really wanted to read I didn’t want to bring because they were trade or hardcover and where was I going to fit THOSE in my bag?  A reading device would have solved this problem handily.

As my out of print backlist reverted to me book by book, steadily growing to a list of nearly 20 books that would continue to be unavailable to readers unless I did something about it, I decided to do something about it.

So last week I became a seller of ebooks with the launch of A Writers Work (www.awriterswork.com)  a new e-book publisher owned and operated by multi-published authors. Right now three of my backlist titles (Mother of the Year, Dreams of an Eagle, When You Wish) are available there, with many more to follow as soon as I can get them ready.

How many of you have read an ebook?  Was it an original book or a reprint of a previously published book by a beloved author?  Do you read ebooks on a specific device (Sony reader, Kindle) or your computer or phone?  Do you like reading ebooks?  If you have tried one, will you continue to read ebooks?

I’m giving away an ARC (advanced reading copy) of my June release SHAKESPEARE UNDEAD.  Winner will be chosen at random from the posters on today’s blog.

(whispering) … happy fros! …

“A million dollars is a lot of money to pay for a whore,” were the last words of multimillionaire French banker Edouard Stern, according to his girlfriend, Cecile Brossard, who took offense (and was convicted of killing him in June in Geneva, Switzerland)

“Shoot me, shoot me, you ain’t got the –” were the last words (according to a police report) of Scott Riley, 25, who was arguing with the gun-wielding Joseph Jimenez, 24, about their game of Beer Pong in Bridgeport, Pa.

Reading those famous last words, I was reminded of a few of my own famous last words.

My famous last words:

Me at 16:”I’ll never shove a cookie in my kids’ faces just to shut them up.”
Me at 25 with three kids: “Here. Have a cookie and shut up.”

Me: “My son would never sneak out at night.”
BPD:“Mrs. Gibson, we have your son in custody on a curfew violation. He and three other juveniles were picked up toilet papering the neighborhood.”

Me: “My daughter would never get a dog. She’s a cat lover and hates dogs.”
Daughter #1: “Mom, I got a pit bull. His name is Cypress. Can you buy me a dog crate?”

Me: “My daughter would never flunk out of college. She knows I’ll kill her.”
Daughter #2: “Mom, it’s me. Hi, I flunked out of college. You’re not mad are you?”

Me: “My son would never sell drugs.”
BPD: “Mrs. Gibson, we have your eleven year old son in custody for selling cat nip to jr. high school kids.”

What are some of your famous last words?

1.  In your opinion, the most important thing that a website must have is:

a. easy navigation

b. updated content

c. a great look

d. all of these, none of these, you really missed the boat, Julia, and here’s how (fill in the blank).

2.  The sort of content I look for in a website is:

a. accolades, list placement, great reviews, latest news

b. stuff about the author’s books

c.  stuff about the author (including contests)

d. some of the above, none of the above, I don’t know, or, here’s a clue: (fill in the blank).

3.  I usually go to websites to:

a. get a printable booklist

b. read the news

c. search the backlist

d.  Oooh, you missed it again.  I usually go to websites to (fill in the blank)

4.  I would like:

a.  to see a message board on a website so I can hang out with the author and other like-minded people

b.  I don’t want a message board — that’s what Facebook is about!  I can hang out with her and my friends, too.

c.  I am not hanging out with the author at her website or Facebook.  That’s what great blogs like this are for.

d.  I don’t know what to say.

5.  In February, I visited author websites:

a. not even once

b. 1-2 times

c. 3 or more times

d.  Nope.  I visited authors on Facebook

e.  I have enough on my plate.  I didn’t visit authors anywhere.

6.  As a promotional tool, I think Twitter

a. is great!  It works for a quick update on books or author news.

b. I seriously don’t get Twitter

7.  If I could advise any author anything about their websites, it would be:

a. fill in the blank

Thanks, you guys!  Your input is very helpful to me in trying to redesign my website.  If you want to take a look and tell me if there is anything you’d like to see differently, more prominently, or not at all, go here!

Erica writes Regency-set historical romances, often with a touch of paranormal. Since becoming active in the writing community, all of her manuscripts have finaled in or won various RWA chapter contests. Erica is also the webmistress of her local writing chapter. Her first book, TOO WICKED TO KISS, debuted March 2, 2010.

When not reading or writing romances, Erica can be found riding camels in Africa, zip-lining through rainforests in Costa Rica, or getting hopelessly lost in the middle of Budapest.

Real Men Wear Starched Cravats

One of the most fun and most challenging things about being a romance author is writing scenes from the hero’s point of view. On the one hand, I want him to be equal parts strong and sexy and thoughtful and romantic and understanding and compassionate and witty and logical and intelligent and charming and objective. On the other hand, I want him to be realistic. (What? Choice A isn’t always realistic? LOL.)

Luckily for me, I have four brothers and a wealth of male friends from which to draw upon when trying to decide what a man would really say and how a man would really react. I am also dating someone who is a walking icon of the male/female divide and therefore a constant source of entertainment.

Last Christmas, while I was out of town, he and I had the following two phone conversations:

Boyfriend: Hey, I went to a huge party last night.

Erica: Cool! How was it?

Boyfriend: I don’t have time to tell you right now. I’ll explain later.

[4 hours go by]

Boyfriend: OK, now I have time to talk.

Erica: Great! So, how was the party?

Boyfriend: Fine.

That right there pretty much sums up the difference between men and women, does it not?

How about you? Have you experienced dissimilar man/woman expectations of what makes for satisfying conversations? When you’re reading a romance, do you prefer the hero to behave more realistically or more idealistically? Name a favorite hero from your keeper shelves!

Erica will be giving one lucky commentor a signed copy of Two Wicked To Kiss!

Visit Erica on the web at: Her website, her book bonus feature website, Facebook and Twitter.

A friend who knows I love animals forwards delightful e-mails about puppies and dolphins and piglets, etc. As usual, I eagerly open her e-mails and laugh and coo at the adorable pics. But then I quickly zap the next several from my in-box.

I respond to any business mail, to good friends, and to most family. But there are a lot that I don’t bother reading.

You know those chain mail thingies, where the sender promises your ears will fall off and you’ll have ten thousand years of bad luck if you don’t forward their precious message on to ten of your friends? Now why would I want to inflict that curse on my friends?

Dh gets tons of jokes from friends and relatives, but he knows better than to send them on to me unless they are really great. And my family darn well knows better than to send me political commentary, since we are 180 degrees out of sync. We just politely agree to disagree. If you don’t want me to reply with a tirade, just keep your contrary political opinions to yourself, thank you very much.

I zap a lot of e-mail without opening it. Along with the junk mail asking me if I want an implant to enlarge an organ I don’t even posses, or to inspire ecstasy in my woman lover, which I don’t have either, or to buy watches for a great price, I get repeated Facebook invitations from people I don’t even know. It irks me that because I don’t respond the first time, they automatically send me notices half a dozen more times.

I’ve made enemies of friends when I ask them to stop sending me jokes. To keep my friends, I’ve learned I have to gently train them in my preferences.

Part of my problem, I suppose, is that I actually have 5 e-mail addresses (which I use for entirely different purposes), so I have to check a lot of different places, which takes more time. And I keep most of my spam filters turned off so that I don’t accidently miss the e-mails I really want to read, which means I open myself up to junk mail.

It worries me that some folks don’t get my e-mails because they get zapped by spam filters. Especially readers who take the time out of their busy schedule to write me about my books. But I confess that reading fan mail is the second favorite part of my on-line day – next to checking out The Goddess Blogs, of course.

What’s your fave and least fave kind of e-mail? Do you feel obliged to respond or do you zap without remorse? Do you have your family and friends trained? And do you forward those chain mail thingies? If not, can you tell if you’ve incurred ten thousand years of bad luck?

I’m reading eight paranormal romances for the Romance Writers of America best book contest, known as the RITAs. I can’t talk about them, because, well, I’m judging them. I can say that I have Angel’s Blood by Nalini Singh sitting on my coffee table waiting for me to have a free moment or two. I keep hearing good things about it, so I decided to give it a try.

And I’m going through some of my still-in-their-original-package action figures and deciding which ones I want to get rid of. There comes a time, my fellow goddesses, when a lady needs to make a choice between selling off a few duplicate R2-D2’s or having to start parking her car on the driveway instead of inside the garage.

So what are you reading right now? Or if you haven’t had time to pick up a good book lately, what’s your latest project?

Hmmm, that’s an intriguing looking man. Let’s pull out the FROS checklist. Gorgeous come-hither profile … check. Potentially sexy smile … check. But that’s about all I can tell from this photo. I need another one.

After much searching, I found this:

Wow! Great smile and that hair — niiiice! But it’s still not enough. I need an even BETTER photo, one that shows off his (hopefully) sculpted abs. For all I know, he could have a pudgy middle and while that’s PERFECTLY ok for a Goddess, we require more of the men who wave our palm leaf fans.

Fortunately, I soon found this photo:

Definitely not pudgy and perfectly capable of some advanced palm fan handling.

But, I wondered, what would he look like on a date?

So off I went again, roaming the internets, looking for more photos of our subject and I found THIS:

Now we’re getting somewhere! He’s looking very good out of his uniform, isn’t he? He could definitely take me out on a date if he showed up at my house wearing this.

But . . . how would he look in my house?

This photo sort of answered that question:

That did it. I think our handsome Swedish hockey goalie, Mr. Henrik Lundqvist, is a PERFECT FROS candidate, don’t you?