Guest Post with Carolyn Brown & Contest

I have to thank Danielle at Sourcebooks for giving me the chance to have Carolyn Brown guest post on my blog today.

Thank you to Carolyn for taking the time out of your busy schedule to guest post for me.

If you haven’t read Lucky in Love yet then you really should its a good book.

Thank you for allowing me to join you as a guest today! It’s a delight to be here to discuss the difference between writing for the literary market and now taking things more main steam.

Lucky in Love, my second foray into the paper back world, has just hit the market and I’m so very excited about it. The first four books I sold were paperback books to Kensington for their Precious Gems line. When that line died I approached Avalon with a manuscript for the literary market. They bought it and that was ten years ago. The thirty fourth one was published last month. There are a few more still in the process so right now I’m still writing for both the literary and the main stream markets.

How do I keep them separate? Very easy! While I’m writing a main stream trilogy I focus on those characters and the qualities that make them who they are. When I’m writing literary, I do the same but under different guidelines. For instance, in the Lucky Series, I’ve got three strong women who’d fight a forest fire with a cup of water and expect to have enough left for a long cool drink afterwards. In the Black Swan series, I’ve got three sisters who are sassy and spunky but are not allowed to cuss out the local busy body next door.

My big four major differences are:

Length: The literary books I write are somewhere between 50-60,000 words which means the story must be told in a shorter form without losing any of the appeal. Main stream runs from 90-100,000 words and gives me more room to expand the main characters and work in all the quirky secondary characters my warped brain can come up with. Lucky in Love has approximately 350 pages as well as One Lucky Cowboy and Getting Lucky. My literary books run at least a hundred pages less than that.

Content: My literary market’s guidelines say no sex, no profanity and no drinking. It’s a wholesome family oriented market with a readers’ age base from thirteen to a hundred and ten. Sorry if I left out someone who is past that age. If you are still reading my books and you are over a hundred and ten, please leave a comment or visit my website and drop me a line. I’d love to hear all about your life. The main stream guidelines are more flexible and give me wiggle room with a brawling Texan’s temper in a bar fight or a heroine’s absolute rage when she finds out her man’s been cheating on her. If you are over a hundred and ten and like the new Lucky Series I’d really like to hear your comments and comparisons between it and the library’s hard back books.

Market: Literary markets rely mainly upon libraries for their sales so they do not publish the mass quantities that the main stream market produces. Plus literary market sells my books online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders, etc. Main stream will show up in book stores, Wal-Mart and Target and be available to purchase right off the shelf. My readers are very excited that they will be able to walk into a book store and buy a book right then without having to wait for it to arrive in the mail.

Cost: Hard back books are wonderful for libraries. They can be checked out and read time after time. But they are more expensive than paper back books. The literary books which can be ordered online are now over twenty dollars per book. Lucky in Love will sell for less than seven dollars.

Whatever I write, it’s with the hope that I touch someone’s heart. That they laugh so loud their neighbors call the cops to calm down the ruckus next door, that they use up half a box of tissues during a sad scene, and when they finish the last page they want one more page, one more chapter or at least the promise of another book that mention the characters to continue the story line.

Here’s hoping Lucky in Love gives the reader all those things. If you run out of tissue holler right loud and I’ll send you another box. If you really want the story to continue rest assured One Lucky Cowboy is coming in November and Getting Lucky in January. If you laugh so hard the neighbor calls the cops, you are on your own!

Isn’t the ability to touch emotions what sets a good book out in front of the others? What book has made you giggle, made you weep or sigh?

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Lucky in Love—in stores September!

When hunky rancher “Lucky Beau” Luckadeau accuses spitfire Milli Torres of stealing his prize bull, she promptly shoots at him, triggering a feud that only gets resolved when they discover they share a steamy hot memory from a night long ago…

It was a night of passion that has always haunted Lucky. The mysterious beauty he seduced at a cousin’s wedding disappeared. He’s always been lucky at cards, lucky

with cattle, and lucky with land, but he’s never been lucky in love.

Now Milli Torres has come to southern Oklahoma to help out on her grandfather’s ranch. A cut fence and a big, mean Angus bull in the pasture are bad enough, but then she looks up and sees Beau Luckadeau. Great God Almighty, how did he get from Louisiana to Ardmore, Oklahoma, and what in the hell is she going to do if he recognizes her?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carolyn Brown is an award-winning author who has published 36 historical and western romance novels for the library market, many of them bestsellers in that market. She was born in Texas and grew up in southern Oklahoma. She and her husband, Charles, a retired English teacher, now make their home in the town of Davis, Oklahoma.

Thanks to Danielle at Sourcebooks I have two copies of Lucky In Love to give to one Canadian resident and one US resident. Please note that you must have a valid mailing address.

To enter all you have to do is answer this:

Isn’t the ability to touch emotions what sets a good book out in front of the others? What book has made you giggle, made you weep or sigh?

Don’t forget to include you email address so that I can contact you should you be the winner.