Raine Balkera - Romance Author

Every Tuesday, members of  RWW  get together for a blog hop. We are a terrific support group for fellow Romance Authors and love to share our experiences, and we give/receive help with our writing dilemmas. HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIM HANDYSIDES ! I hope you arrived here after having visited with Veronica Forand .    This week, Tracey Gee poses the following: As we all know, authors put real people and situations into their books. Let's look at the times we've pushed through the pain by putting bad experiences or relationships into our works whether for therapy, or just as a way to close the door. The minute I read this week's question, it immediately struck me that yes, I do, in fact, inject bits and pieces of me into my characters! (long, silent pause in shamed reflection) (then laughs like an idiot at self)   = ) ) I do lean on my past horrors even when I don't want to -- injecting my own pain, suffering, and sadness into my charac...

Your comments, thoughts, suggestions, issues, and insight are always welcome. Please feel free to reply to any or all of my posts. The other day I came across an interesting post: No one appreciates more or adores the obscure like yours truly. However, it was the comments below this post that had me wondering about readership capabilities and the author's responsibility towards them. A few, like me, appreciate these handy tid-bits of information and would like to use them in their work while a majority of the respondents said nay, that if the word is obscure, then the reader will turn away. What got me riled up was a remark about not wanting to send their readers to a dictionary -- ever. As a child, I remember a 5th grade reader that had a glossary in the back. I poured over that thing like it was diamonds and rubies and pearls. Later, I would write down every word that I wasn't familiar with and then go home to open our family dictionary and look them up...

Your comments, thoughts, suggestions, remarks, and insight are always welcome. Please feel free to reply to any and all of my posts. Well, sales of my latest release, Love Over Time , are nice, so thank you to everyone who purchased! Reviews of my first publication, Sing to Me , are still on the nice/friendly/supportive side as well. Much obliged for the kindness shown! I won't say I'm in a slump or suffering with writer's block right now, but I also haven't written a single word of my 3rd novel yet, either. To be fair (to myself), this series has been in the works now for a few years. I have 3 stories that tie together, and two of them are through the rough-draft stage, so I'm not being a slacker or too worried about progress. Right now it is a mind game thing, with me recollecting, revising, and supplementing what I've already started, and there are quite a few changes going on inside my head, too. Namely, names. I don't know about ot...

Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal, Fantasy,  Romance Chapters: 35 Steam Level: 2/5 Release Date: July 7, 2015 Kindle: buy link ASIN: B0111355YK Other: buy link ISBN: 9781311019226 Blurb A chance encounter at the airport is innocent enough, but it sets in motion a chain of calamitous events that leave photographer, Kaisa Dalen, badly shaken and jet pilot, Perry Lindstrom, reluctantly determined to protect her at all cost. Overview She may be attractive, and she may have a heart, but when it comes to love, photographer Kaisa Dalen is doomed to suffer heartbreak and yes, even death were she to fall deeply in love. She believes in fate but is determined to break the spell of an ancient curse in order to experience true love without fear of dying as a result of that love. He may be attractive, with women lining up to get with him, and he may be lucky in career choice as the owner of a private jet fleet, but when it comes to love, pilot Perr...

It is with a sad heart that I must issue a delay in the Release Day (party) Announcement of my second novel, Love Over Time . It actually comes as no surprise that something of this nature would occur. If it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have none at all. Before I break out in country music song, however, let me just say that it isn't the end of the world; not even for me. Good news! When I uploaded the file to Amazon, it returned with only 3 possible errors -- two of which were formatting, but not because of me.  That paragraph symbol thing with the dot before it . . .  It was there in both instances, as was the dot to indicate a break in words, but in mobi format, the words ran together, so all I had to do was go back into the file and re-space them. The 3rd issue had to do with my use of the word ballzy . I chose to leave it as is. Of course, this didn't give me a swelled head in the 'thinking I'm the darndest smarty-pants grammarian alive...

My second Contemporary Romance Novel, Love Over Time, is mixed with paranormal and fantasy elements and will be released tomorrow, July 7th, 2015, on the usual eBook channels. Courtesy MarianneNoWicki / PremadeEbookCoverShop.com  Be on the lookout for the big release day tomorrow! Right here, on my FB page, Twitter , and on my Tumblr page as well. All the juicy details will be included. And, thanks, everyone, for your continued support!

Series: A More Perfect Union Book #: 1 Genre: Historical, romance, American, War for Independence, revolutionary war, spy Content Notes: Sweet Heat Level: 1 Print Length: 306 pages Publisher: ePublishing Works! Publication Date: October 4, 2014 ASIN: B00O7601NY ISBN: ebook: 978-1-61417-654-1; paperback: 978-1-61417-655-8 Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc. Price: $3.99 ebook; $14.30 paperback In 1782, the fight for independence becomes personal ... Blurb Emily Sullivan’s greatest fear is dying in childbirth, as did her twin sister and their mother. Then she’s thrown in a loyalist prison for her privateering father’s raids on the British, and her accuser -- a former beau -- promises to recant if she will marry him. Frank Thomson always loved Emily despite her refusal to return his affections. A patriot spy posing as a loyalist officer, when Frank learns of Emily’s plight, he challenges her accuser to a duel. Freed from prison, Emily ponders return...

Recently, we've been hearing more horror stories about changes to self-published works that are submitted/uploaded to Amazon for their Kindle. The latest issue is attached to their Unlimited program, where they've taken it upon themselves to pay the AUTHOR based on the number of pages read. Under the new payment method, the amount an author earns will be determined by their share of total pages read instead of their share of total qualified borrows. The author of a 200 page book that was borrowed 100 times but only read halfway through on average would earn $1,000 ($10 million multiplied by 10,000 pages for this author divided by 100,000,000 total pages). We will similarly change the way we pay KDP Select All-Star bonuses which will be awarded to authors and titles based on total KU and KOLL pages read. Not being a member of this Unlimited program, I might not have a right to voice an opinion on the topic, but these types of issues usually include a trickle-down...