Lucynda Storey-Erotic Romance Writer

Romantic Times ended its convention today with some small gatherings.  Most people checked out yesterday and left after the book fair or are leaving today.  A hearty few are staying for the pschic programs that ran from about 1 to 6 pm.  Laura took off for Corpus Christi at o’dark thirty, and Lizzie and I meandered our way down to breakfast where the staff, still managing to smile took good care of us.

Our hotel bill was slightly complicated, but David at the lobby desk stayed patient throughout as he separated the different charges here and there.  The elevators were quite crowed each time we attempted to use it, but overall the guests had good attitudes and just went with the flow.  We ran into one of the Mr. Romance contestants, Fred, who was waiting for an elevator.  He got drafted to help someone and by the time we got back down, he was in the same position, waiting for an elevator.

Cynthianna Appel was at RT and she came back to our room Sunday morning for a box to pack up her plastic cover stands.  Postage this year at RT was outrages.  Several authors decided to pay the extra luggage weight at the airlines check in counter because it was cheaper than mailing!

Fred didn’t win the competion, but Jason Santiago from Akron, OH did.

Jason escorted me for my 2 second appearance before the television camera on my ill-fated Friday morning media event.  He was a very nice man.

Fred did win the audience favorite and he was quite personable and willing to help when and where he could.

Lizzie and I hung out in the bar area of the hotel once we wrestled our bags downstairs and finished our time at RT chatting with Tina Gerow and her friend, Isabella.  There we heard distrubing news regarding The Publisher Who Shall Not Be Named.  Several authors have had their checks bounce, and some of the authors that attended the book signing were snubbed.  Shame on you TPWSNBN!  Not a positive way to grow your business.  As last year, and the year before, authors who were promised books for the book signing did not have them.  This could be, to be fair, anyone’s fault..TPTSNBN, RT or the bookseller selected for the book fair.  It could even be the fault of the various printing facilities around the country, but in this case…our bets are on the first.  They have the house track record for promising and not delivering.

There are several, several dissatisfied authors from that company who put money into RT for promotional purposes and who were disappointed on at least one if not more levels.  Frankly, RT is far too expensive and the ROI (return on investment) is not easily determined.

There were still several people headed out from RT today and I wish them smooth winds and blue skies.

Lucynda Storey

As rotten as our Friday was at the Romantic Times convention, day 5 ended up a lot better.  First, authors actively sought Laura out to ask for her promotional items to put on their tables at the book signing.  This was especially important as Laura was specifically told on Friday to make sure she didn’t have any risque items on display.

We had a quick breakfast with Jeff Buick, then ran to our tables in the book fair.  Laura’s books didn’t show up (a coincidence???) but her table was filled with her very tastefully done postcards and mini-CD’s.  A bonus was that all those items ended up on about ten other tables spread throughout the room  giving her even more exposure.  The irony?  Romantic Times ran book trailers…and believe me several were very, very risque, far past the items we picked up on the promotional lane.

I autographed my very first book with the pen Jay Poupard gave me years and years ago and I got my picture taken with the lady, Tina, who purchased the book.  How cool is that???  It was also exciting to have people come up to me and say, “I have your book.”  Again, how cool is that?  About 60% of my books sold…yeah!  Lizzie sold all of her Midnight Showcase consignments and most of her copies of Struck by Lightning.

I checked on Laura and Lizzie a couple of times just to make sure they didn’t need anything, but between RT staff in the book room and Loose Id, they were pretty well covered.  Lizze sold out her Midnight Showcase anthology, but she had to hang around and wait after the book fair to check out because they were consignment books (books she’d brought in herself).  There were lots of awful stories about checking out and people just throwing their weight around.  Some authors had their bags checked for stolen books more than once, etc.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to go through that, but Jeff had brought in a bunch of books and I stopped by to see if he needed any help.  Chris Keeslar stopped by as well as Jeff is published with Dorchester.  Chris said I looked familiar and I reminded him of a time when he visited Denver and I drove him around town.  He thought I was funny…imagine that! and wanted to know if I wrote comedy.  Alas,  I still prefer killing people in my stories and I readily admit writing comedy is a difficult task that I have not mastered.  Chris is still looking for sexy romantic comedies.

After the fair, Loose Id presented us with a yummy dessert bar.  There were a lot of authors there, and the desserts were delicious!  I had the most unusual experience of my writing life when I introduced myself at a table.    Lacey Savage yelled, “Lucynda Storey! I loved Simply Irresistible!”  Lacey dear, you made my day, especially since Friday was sooo awful.

Laura decided to get a rental car later and we took a cab to Hobby airport to pick up the Kia.  We got a little lost because the highway exits are a bit different in Houston, but eventually made it back to the hotel.  She took Lizzie and I out to Benihana’s to celebrate a successful day for us.  It was very sweet of her and we enjoyed our dinner.

Afterwards we yakked in the bar a bit and then collapsed into bed.  Saturday was ever so much better than Friday.

If there could be a day from hell, this was it.

I got the Aspen Mountain Press release for the day out, an exciting science fiction mystery, New Tortuga: Monday’s Child, without any problems.  The day went downhill from there.

Laura and I got dressed in our costumes  and headed downstairs for some media coverage from Houston’s Channel 11 news.  Initially, an email went out a few days before the conference asking for 50 volunteers to come in costume to the media event.  When we got downstairs, there were just a few people.  A reporter asked where our books were.  I looked at Laura and then told her I would run back to the room to grab ours.  While I was gone, Laura chatted up the cameraman which worked out well for her.  She was the first one interviewed!

I came back with our books and a few more people were there.  The camera crew asked us to mill around and the reporter said she’d select people from the crowd to chat with.  Unfortunately, a NYT bestselling author pushed her way in front of me, as did another author.  I was stunned at the rudeness of both.  I know you should stand up for yourself, and that  you do need to be agressive, but I’m pretty sure that is not the way you want to do it.  Especially since the day before there was quite a furor over the historical workshop on surviving in today’s market where one of the well-known presenters absolutely said that historicals were dead and there was no market for them and flat out told another author she was wrong.  At any rate, I’ll choose my own way to stand out and it will not include shoving in front of people or embarassing others.

I went from that workshop down promotional row and noticed Laura’s things were missing.  I had to rush to the room to change into “normal” clothes so I could do the spotlight segment on Aspen Mountain Press. Unfortunately, the publisher in front of me ran long by fifteen minutes, and the publisher after came in to set up their things before my time was up.  My time was fairly squeezed out.  The crowds for the spotlights were pretty non-existant, most probably because the spotlights were relegated to the 4th floor, far from the traffic of the conference.  Several publishers were disappointed in the turnout.

Laura and I continued to search for her promotional material but couldn’t find it.  We spent some time at the Triskelion sponsored lunch.  We had a little time off and so I went back to the room to check on the pdf version of the e-Marketing sectional I was doing.  The information I submitted to the pdf wasn’t included!  Panicked, I called home to ask them to email me the information and it got to me about fifteen minutes before I had to get to the workshop.

I was with Adrianna Dane and Stephanie Kelsey and boy was our workshop lively.  There were tons and tons of ideas floating around the room and the hour went by at astonishing speed.

I spent some time chatting with the owners of MojoCastle and headed back out promotional row.  Laura’s stuff was still missing.  I walked into the publishers’ room, Club RT (another horrible story) and Laura’s baskets are sitting on the registration table.  I waited to speak to someone, but the woman at the desk was too busy talking about her lunch, so I picked up the baskets and walked out.  I saw Laura standing in front of another promo item desk and she’d found one of her baskets as well.  When I told her where I got the baskets, we went back into Club RT and Laura very pollitely asked why her items were removed.

The woman behind the desk got visibly nervous and started tripping over her tongue, I kid you not.  She could not string together a coherrent sentence.  At one point I heard her say the items were “too risque” and I turned and went back to promo row, gathering all the risquee postcards and other items I could find.  As I was doing this, I noticed Laura go into a smaller room with another woman.

I knew I had to go in and support Laura, plus give her the things I’d found, somewhere around twenty items just from the first run through.  I knocked,  Laura invited me in and I slid her the stuff.  Sharon Murphy was quick to emphasize that Romantic Times wasn’t responsible for pulling Laura’s items, even though it was Laura’s items that were specifically targeted. 

Eventually, the convention manager, Lance was called to the room and he refused to look Laura in the eye.  He said he requested her things be removed because they were sitting on top of boxes, he said that it was a decision of he and his peers to request the items be taken down…not moved.  He also made the decision to call her promo gear risque and when shown other items far more so said he was not backing down from his decision to have her things removed.  We found this ironic as the 400 Epic bags were left on the very same boxes he faulted Laura’s things for being on.  Bottom line was his story just didn’t wash.

Unfortunately for Lance, the news spread fast.  Authors and publishers came out of the woodwork to protest the prejuidicial attitude of this particular manager.  The fallout is still coming.

Lucynda Storey

Romantic Times day three proved to be interesting.  About 9, I headed down to the e-Fiesta in the Arboretum.  Pauline Baird was there with boxes and boxes of bags filled with swag for the convention.  I helped distribute the bags around the room.  There were 400 of them!

I was able to get my badge at the convention corrected but of course, the literature handed out, like the convention booklet was incorrect.  I ended up being listed in the published authors section as Sandra Hicks writing as Lucynda Storey. 

I bopped from that room shortly before 10 to help out my friend and colleague Lena Austin.  She’d been left at the last moment to do a workshop on her own and needed some moral support.  Lizzie T. Leaf and myself helped her present a workshop on self-editing.  It went over quite well and several people commented on how practical the sectional was.

I also popped into a couple of the sectionals set up for the booksellers.  This proved to be one of the most practical, infromational events I attended.  I received the cards of several independent book sellers and a few of them mentioned wanting to capitalize on the growth of e-Books.  It was reported that Sony has an exclusive deal with one of the larger box stores (Barnes and Noble or Borders) to sell their reader, which currently runs around $350.

Harlequin sponsored the lunch and most probably did all the e-Book publishers a huge favor by featuring their line of e-Books.  They worked to dispell several myths regarding e-Books and did an excellent job. 

We had an excellent lunch (a cobb salad), terrific service by the Hyatt-Regency Houston staff and I got to chat with an aquiring editor from Red Sage.

 Lena took Lizzie and I out to dinner at the Spindletop, a very nice restaurant at the top of the Hyatt Regency.  Once again, the food was delicious and the service outstanding.

The Faery Ball dinner and dance was quite nice although several members of the court weren’t there for various reasons.  My roommate Laura Baumbach was on the court amid some prior controversy that seemed to have gotten worked out.  Lizzie and I skipped the main course, but enjoyed the chocolate dessert, a chocolate tubular concoction filled with chocolate mouse and blueberries and raspberries.

Laura looked beautiful in the handmade medeval dress she created.  I also got to chat with another of the Faery Ball princesses, Ann Jacobs.  Near the end of dinner, those who wanted paraded in their costumes in front of the Faery Ball court and had their costumes judged.  At our table, number 25, a stunning woman in a white faery costume with a feather headress and a white ostrich feather train won our vote. 

The evening ended with us turning in a little earlier than usual (midnight).

Lucynda Storey

Day 2

The Romantic Times convention got off to a slow start, with the pre-registration that was supposed to happen last night being cancelled.  When I registered this morning, there was some confusion as to who I should be.  Unfortunately, Romantic Times never got it quite right, confusing my author persona with my editor persona.

There was a Tex-Mex gathering prior to the Ellora’s Cave fantasy ball, in a room much too small to accomodate the large number of people wanting to snack prior to the dinner.  The party itself was well attended, the problem always being having to shout over the music when the dancing starts.

Lucynda Storey

Lizzie T. Leaf and I arrived at the Romantic Times Convention in Houston, Tx mid afternoon yesterday after some fun times at both Denver International Airport and George Bush Airport.  DIA opened an extra 35 gates on the B concourse and we were located at gate 88.  After waiting to board the gate agent informed us that our plane was being “tested”.   A half hour later we were told we needed to move to gate 54.  Our plane was having difficulty with its de-icing function.  Finally, we were in the air and in for a rather bumpy ride.

As I was buckling in, a woman called out my name.  I looked up to see Anne K, the daughter of one of my former pastors and she ended up sitting right in front of me.  I also talked with a land developer working with a parcel of land from the former Lowry Air Force Base.  Eventually, I was able to sit next to Lizzie who had an open seat.  When we landed, the jetway wouldn’t meet up with the door and we deplaned down the stairs, and then back up the jetway!

By the time we got to the luggage carousel, they were already pulling luggage off and setting it aside.  One of my bags went to St. Louis, but was later delivered to the hotel.  The other piece of luggage had gotten soaked in the downpour we were having in Denver that later turned to snow.

The storm followed us into Houston and it rained a good part of the day.

I met Canadian author Jeff Buick.  He and his publicist, Dianne Young has lunch with Lizzie, Laura Baumbach and myself.  Laura and I attended a couple sessions of the booksellers breakouts finding much valuable information there.

Tonight, we’re headed to the Ellora’s Cave party.  Whatever happens in Houston may just end up on this blog. 

Welcome to my new blog at LucyndaStorey.com. Thank you for stopping by.

I am going to the Romantic Times Convention and there is usually a lot to blog about after one comes back.  I hope the adage, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” doesn’t apply.

I am finishing up a story for Loose-Id’s The Collector series.  It is titled “This Time Forever” and it’s a time travel pirate story.  I’ve been told by crit partners that the pirate aspects feel authentic.  We’ll see what the reviewers say I guess.  I mean, the real pirates were mainly hung by the yardarms when they were caught and not too many were literate enough to write down their true life adventures.  Some of my research has indicated Daniel Defoe wrote one of the major pirate references out there.  Of course, Daniel didn’t want to admit to being a pirate, so he didn’t use his literary name.

We’ve got some exciting romance stories coming out from Aspen Mountain Press.   We just released, “Jilted” which is the first time I’ve ever read a story about a transexual.  It was quite interesting and eye-opening.  Everyone needs love and friendship and that is really what this story is about.

Well, that’s about it for now.  I’ll try to do better…heh heh heh.