Mer Sex… Really?

Okay, please. Someone. Tell me WHY you’re googling Mer Sex?

You know who you are. All of you. Every day.

Seriously. E-v-e-r-y day.

I read my site stats. Every day there is a search for Mer Sex and at least one person ends up on my blog. There are also searches for MerSex. and Sex Mer. And SexMer.

What could you possibly be looking for? I mean, I get when my first book came out, that was the big question: How do my Mer men have sex with Humans? I have to admit to being surprised by the question because, to me, it was a no brainer. (And, no, I’m not going to answer that; you’ll have to read the book.) But I seriously never saw that question coming. So, when it did, I admit to having some fun with it and that’s why I wrote the post: Everything You Wanted to Know About Mer Sex But Were Afraid to Ask. It was fun and it was funny.

But that was TWO years ago. Two YEARS. Who is searching mer sex these days? It’s certainly not to get to my books. My new series about genies is out. And just because Pirates of the Caribbean featured mermaids doesn’t mean that sex with Mers (notice: the search is not for sex with merMAIDS) is a hot search topic. So why? What are you possibly hoping to discover? What made you think of it in the first place? And what else are you finding when you google it?

If anyone can answer this, I’d be much obliged because it really is a head-scratcher for me. I know you can find out just about anything on the internet, but I have to wonder HOW someone even thinks to search Mer Sex.

We Have A Title!

 

As you may know, my editor emailed me saying they wanted a different title for Book 2 in the Mer series. Instead of Whale of a Tail, they wanted something more reflective of the series. So, I put the call out and you guys sent the submissions in fast and furious.

My editor needed the list yesterday of everyone’s submission. These were the top 10:

Going Off The Deep End

Going Overboard

Hooked On You

In Too Deep

Off The Hook

Out Of The Blue   

Splash And Burn

Swept Away

Tide up in Knots

Wild Blue Under

And the winner is………………..

Wild Blue Under                      

And, more importantly to you all I’m sure, the person who nominated Wild Blue Under and who will have a character named after her is Lisa Brackmann, otherwise known as Lisa, “Queen Wombat“!

Congrats, Lisa, and thanks to everyone for helping out! This book is due out next August.

The Blurb:

       Rod Tritone, heir to the throne of the undersea world, needs a queen capable of ruling the oldest kingdom on earth. Someone regal, learned and of noble birth. Problem is, the only eligible noble-born Mer princess is half-Human – and she doesn’t have a clue about the non-Human part.

       Valerie Dumere has screwed up her life at every turn. Trying to please her over-protective, single mom while searching for that special “something” in her life, she’s made more than a few bad decisions. But when her mother dies and leaves her the family business, Val realizes it’s up to her to buckle down and get her life on track. No more excuses.

       So when a guy shows up claiming to be her destiny, she scoffs. No way. She isn’t running away from her responsibilities ever again – no matter how good the guy looks without a shirt.

       But Rod isn’t going away. He can’t claim his inheritance without her – and Val will lose hers if she goes with him.

       It’s going to take one whale of a tale to get her to chuck it all and follow him off into the wild blue under…      

“The Call” story

FIRST OFFICIAL: Sale

So many people have asked for more details, so I’ll share them here.

My publisher is Sourcebooks and my editor is Deb Werksman. Deb and I met at the 2007 National Conference when she had been a Golden Heart judge and LOVED my friend Robin Kaye’s finalling manuscript, Romeo, Romeo. She offered Robin a contract AT National. Robin and I, not knowing a whole heck of a lot about Sourcebooks, went to their Spotlight and were blown away by Dominique Raccah’s (publisher) and Deb’s enthusiasm and publishing history. Robin was thrilled to accept the contract and I was thrilled for her!

What does Robin’s sale have to do with mine? Well, I’ll tell you. Deb hung out with us a lot during National. I got to know her; she got to know me. I had already submitted a time travel to her so that was sitting in her queue. She got to it a few weeks after National, sadly, rejecting it. But that was okay.

Flash forward to October 2007 at the New Jersey Conference. Deb was there. We chatted. She sat at my table for lunch and I proceeded to drag pitches from everyone at our table b/c I knew Deb wanted to hear them (this is why you need to work on that “elevator pitch”/high concept thing so you can do it at a lunch setting). I happened to mention that In Over Her Head was probably going to end up in the Top 5 of the Gather.com First Chapters Romance Contest. Deb wanted to know why I hadn’t submitted it to her and I said I couldn’t, according to the rules of the contest, but if it didn’t make it to the Top 5, I’d send it along. It made it to the Top 5.

Life got hectic when it was in the Top 5. I worked that final into agent interest, garnering multiple agent offers (the winner of the contest was guaranteed to be published), and accepting the offer from Jennifer Schober of Spencerhill Associates.

Something to note: one of the final judges for the contest was Sue Grimshaw, Romance Buyer for Borders. I introduced myself to her at a conference after the contest was over (and I hadn’t won) and Sue proceeded to give my story such praise that it stunned me into silence. (If you know me, you’ll know that this feat doesn’t happen all that often. Maybe twice before in my life. Seriously.) She gave me some advice to make the book marketable and I made the change.

I also saw Deb at the Long Island Luncheon where we, again, sat next to each other and I dragged pitches from everyone at the table for her. I also mentioned to someone at the table that I had two partials of the next two Mer stories ready and waiting. Deb jumped – “It’s a trilogy?”

Now, you know, we all hear to only pitch one book. Will an editor really take a chance on three books by a debut author? Here I had an editor asking me about all three when she already had book 1 in her queue. The books are stand-alones, but contain characters that you hear about in the other books, so I mentioned it. She wanted the partials.

My agent sent everything out, and Deb jumped. I remember her words to me were, “Frankly, I’m surprised this hadn’t sold yet.” That makes a writer feel good, let me tell you!

Deb called on Monday that she was taking it into Editorial on Tuesday. I got an email from her IN the Editorial meeting that they wanted it and to have my agent call her, my agent did her agenting thing where it was on submission elsewhere (thank God I had an agent!), and on Thursday, July 17, we accepted the offer.

However, the offer wasn’t just for In Over Her Head. Deb also wanted the rest of the trilogy AND gave me release dates that I only dreamed about.

Now I’m hard at work polishing those other two stories so they sparkle like In Over Her Head. Look for all three books next summer: June, August and October – the perfect beach read since they, ya know, take place at/in the ocean.

In Over Her Head

Whale of a Tail

Catch of a Lifetime