Can You Promote Your Book Too Much?

February 26, 2012

Today I welcome author Brenda Williamson to Between the Keys. I met Brenda a few years back and she's quite a lady. Warm, friendly, outgoing, talented and tough, Brenda juggles a full schedule that includes an adult son, a writing career, a business, a charming southern estate, and a four-year old nephew!

So when does she have time to write and promote? Keep reading! - KC


Can You Promote Your Book Too Much?

Apparently you can. At least when it comes to some readers. I happened upon a post thread on an obscure forum where a disscussion took place about spam. We all know what that is -- unwanted, annoying email. As I scanned the page, one word captured my attention- WRITER.

I found myself reading more of the thread and discovered there are readers that don't appreciate constant updates from writers, and they go as far as to say the spam from some writer's has totally turned them off from wanting to read those writer's books.

Key points they were against:

     1. Getting numerous emails from an author just because they are in the author's address book. So authors, if you are guilty of sending emails to every person you've ever had contact with, you may be losing readers.

      2. Signed up to Newsletters without permission.

          Authors, make sure you don't add anyone's email address to your newsletter list that hasn't asked. Double opt-in is the best way to go with through email services. Otherwise, if you're doing the adding, be sure to send them an email, reminding them why they are being signed up, ie contest entry, book giveaway, etc.

      3. Repeated posts on the same topic.

          In other words, don't keep posting the same excerpts and the same news on the same group more than once a week, or every week for months. Readers find that boring, annoying and time comsuming.

And now for a little promoting of my book!

A Wicked Wolf

by Brenda Williamson

ISBN: 9781603105590

Available from Red Sage Publishing

Blurb

Real Estate agent Randi Brown works the rich crowd, selling high-priced homes. With her parents dead it’s up to her to financially support two teenage siblings and she wants to spread her wings by negotiating a billion dollar land deal. Only the landowner, a business mogul no one has seen in years isn’t interested in selling his mountain to a development corporation, and Randi sets out to change his mind any way possible, even if that means sleeping with the reclusive billionaire.

After two years, since his wife’s brutal murder, Nicholas "Nick" Wolfe prefers to mourn her than get involved in business. So he lives cut off from society on Wolfe Mountain. Through his attorney, he’s offered billions, but no one knows to what extent the value of the land is more than the inhabitants—the Lycans, human wolf-like animal shifters.

When Randi shows up on the mountain one rainy night, Nick tires to fight the desires of the wolf in him to take a mate. Unfortunately, nature has made it impossible to resist the animalistic urges strengthened by the influence of a full moon and the power of lust in this woman’s eyes. Can love know no bounds?

Randi has no idea of where this torrid affair can lead until she learns the gruesome details of a woman’s murder by a creature not quite human. Then she becomes the next target and she discovers how falling in love can lead to a fatal attack from a Lycan.

Excerpt

For minutes, he lavished her with kisses. His mouth moved firmer against hers, and his body rubbed hers faster, more insistently. When he stopped, she dared to open her eyes.

He was looking up. She did too.

From the open crossbeams, dried herbs dangled from tied silk ribbons. He let go of her wrist and reached up. She should have lowered her arm, but to move meant to chance breaking the spell.

She watched him tug one ribbon, untying a cluster that fell to the floor. The clean scent of lavender burst from the bouquet. She stared at the other bundles. Had he collected them? They couldn’t be for cooking since his refrigerator was bare.

When J.R. looped and tied the ribbon around her wrist, he jerked her thoughts from the idyllic illusion of everything going smoothly in her business acquisition and her sexual encounter.

“What are you doing?” Her words rattled free.

With the yellow silk strip snug, he drew her arm to the side and fastened the opposite end to the cabinet door knob. As much as she enjoyed aggressively passionate sex in all positions, she’d never been into real bondage.

“I’m not sure I like being restrained.” She tipped her head back and watched him retrieve another ribbon.

“You will.” He tied a blue strip of silk to her free wrist and fastened it to another cabinet knob.

Now was the time to protest and fight the binds, or surrender. He leaned against her, sniffing at her neck, then licking it. She felt its throbbing vein pulsing rapidly against the stimulation. He had more control than she normally allowed a guy. He caressed her jaw with the back of his hand. Did she want him to stop? What would she give up?

His stare into her eyes suggested she’d miss out the hottest sex of her life. The smoldering lust was more than she could resist. There was no turning back—no buckling under to convention. His hypnotizing brown eyes had command over her, and she waited, a captive audience.

His gaze didn’t leave hers as he raised her shirt. She breathed harder, feeling the light touch of his hands running up her sides and over her breasts. He fingered her nipples, rolling them around with his thumbs. They stiffened and ached from the repeated pawing. Then he stopped and stroked her sides. Intense warmth spread, prickling her skin. Goosebumps dotted her arms and shoulders.

His quiet intensity fascinated her. With one hand controlling her Tee shirt, his other took a more serious possession of her left breast. He turned his hand over and brushed his knuckles against the tip. Then grasping it between a finger and his thumb, he pinched it. The fiery sting zinged her to her core.

A moan escaped her.

She closed her eyes and tipped her head back.

“More,” she begged, loving the way the pleasurable pain jarred her nerves.

And yet he didn’t give her what she wanted. Instead, he took his hands away, and the soft cotton of the shirt she wore slid down over her inflamed nipples.

He raised his arm and his fingers neared her face. She sensed regret in his light touch to her jaw. Turning her cheek to his palm, she pleaded with him to continue. “Don’t stop.”

He looked at her strangely, as if what she asked was unusual and daring. His eyes were flickering with other colors, reflections from somewhere in the room kept her spellbound. There she hung, bound to the cabinet doors, and all she wanted to think about was could he make her want him more?

His other hand took a place on the opposite side of her neck. He petted lightly over her pulse, beating beneath the skin. The slow strokes lulled her senses, calming her all over. She closed her eyes, enjoying the caress that moved into a massage of her shoulders. It felt good, relaxing. And then he grabbed the Tee shirt's frayed collar and ripped it down the front, jerking her whole body forward.

Shocked out of her false tranquility, her lashes flew up as she gasped. Mild alarm made her tense as she bounced against the counter from J.R.’s jerking to tear the shirt completely open. Her heart rate quickened. She breathed heavier, stunned by his sudden aggression. A dark edginess fringed his expression as he looked hungrily at her breasts.

She glanced down at her nipples, ruby spiked points jutting in eagerness. J.R.’s long fingers folded around her swollen flesh. He lifted one breast higher then the other as if he weighed each to be sure he had the heavier, more deserving one.

He bent down and licked her taut nipple. She watched his tongue swish and cool the burning flesh. In a frenzy of ecstatic joy, she rolled her head from side to side against the cabinet with whispered moans for more. She arched, shoving her chest toward him. His bathing licks and suckling lips were the sweetest kind of torture. The coarseness of his tongue abraded her flesh, heating every sensitive nerve in her. The cut of his teeth when he nipped the tender tip of her breast came close to making her scream. His withdrawal left her unharmed. Then he did it all again. His mouth swung away sooner than she expected, faster than she wanted, and a frustrated whine slipped out of her. She wanted the moment to last forever.

His kisses journeyed along her collarbone and swept up the side of her neck. “You taste good.” His words whispered around her ear. “I want to devour every inch of you.”

“Yes.” She panted, encouraging him by repeating her total agreement. “Yes, every inch.”

He cupped her jaw and turned her head. His lips crept along. She twisted to catch his kiss on her mouth. Oddly, he avoided the place she desired to feel his tantalizing breath.

His hands left her body without warning. He pulled a red handkerchief from his back pocket and spun it several times folding it to a strip. She drew back as he lifted it to her eyes.

“Is that for me?” she asked, not sure how far she wanted to let him dominate her.

A wicked grin was his only answer.

This wasn’t a position she should be in with a stranger and she debated telling him. No, she didn’t want to play this game. The words stayed on the tip of her tongue as he leaned against her to tie the blindfold around her head. His hard body pressed hers, and she lost focus on her concerns. Her breasts flattened against him. She whimpered. Desire to have mind-blowing sex overpowered reason.

Then the blindfold went on. She wasn’t sure how to handle the unsettling mix of apprehension and anticipation, but she felt another burst of fear. He was a stranger and she was giving him total control.

________________

Brenda Williamson
~ Seductive in Any Era ~