The Best Tow Truck Ride Ever

Today my car wouldn't start. A few days before my engine light went on so I was planning on taking my car into the shop regardless, I just didn't anticipate having to tow it in. Best laid plans and all that.

Anyway, a tow truck driver with AAA came to my rescue. His name's Joe. I'm not going to bother giving him an alias because Joe is such a perfect name for this and as for protecting his anonymity...well, I'm guessing there are other tow truck drivers in LA named Joe. Anyway, my mechanic is all the way on the other side of town so we had some time to talk. We started with the obvious topic, cars. He has a classic car which he baby's, particularly when he and his girlfriend (of five years) are having a fight. When tempers flare he just goes out to his car and starts washing and waxing and it calms him down.  "It drives my girlfriend crazy," he laughs. "She thinks I'm giving my car all the attention I should be giving her during those times but what she doesn't get is that I can listen to her better after I spend some time chilling with the car." Then he added, "Relationships are hard, man!"

And I agreed emphatically.

At that point he told me he had bought his girl a ring, but couldn't figure out how to give it to her. So we spent our time on the I-5 planning out his proposal. When he got to the 110 he started quizzing me about my relationship. "I'm a guy, and I'm good at giving advice on how to deal with guys," he insisted. "So what's the deal?  What's the good, what's the bad?"

So we spent our drive on the 110 and I-10 going over my relationship and he was right, he's good at giving advice. Then we pulled off the freeway and he said, "You look like a Starbucks girl, am I right?"

I looked at him with wide eyes and a sense of awe. Clearly this guy is, like, the next Nostradomus. "I am!" I exclaimed. "I am a Starbucks girl!"

"Tell you what," he said, "We'll drop your car off and then we'll find the nearest Starbucks and I'll drop you off there. You don't want to wait around at the shop, do you?"

"No! I'd so much rather be at Starbucks!"

And after dropping off the car we found a Starbucks.  On the way he demonstrated how tight the turning radius on his tow-truck is by doing U-turns in small intersections with his flatbed.

At that point I was thinking this is the best tow-truck ride I've ever had. This guy was like a psychic Dr. Phil, and fun chauffeur all rolled up into one! And it all came with my AAA membership! It almost makes up for my car being screwed up (almost).

Anyway, it was an unexpected pleasure in the middle of an unpleasant errand. Not sure if it qualifies as a silver lining but it definitely made me smile.

Kyra Davis
Bestselling Author of:
The Sophie Katz Murder Mystery Series, 
 SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING
And the upcoming J
UST ONE NIGHT erotic fiction trilogy!
Read the first few pages here!

I Heart Simon & Schuster/Pocket Star

Last spring an editor from Simon & Schuster contacted me and asked if I would be interested writing erotic fiction for their imprint Pocket Star. I was, in fact I had been considering it for quite some time, even before the whole Fifty Shades Of Grey thing.

So the question was not would I write erotica, it was would I write it for Simon & Schuster.

After talking/emailing back and forth with the editor for a little while I decided that no, I didn't want to do that. My last experience with traditional publishing had left a really bad taste in my mouth. My old publishing house hadn't promoted or marketed the last four books they published for me books and even when I asked them to support my own marketing efforts the response was lukewarm at best. They stopped their promotion efforts back when my sales were steady (not surprisingly, they didn't stay steady after that). Even then I knew it wasn't fair to completely blame my publisher. The market was changing. Chick Lit, that had been so big after Bridget Jones was no longer the hot trend. The market had been over-saturated and publishers wanted to direct their meager resources elsewhere. And like it or not, I had been branded a chick-lit author. No matter what I submitted to my old publisher it would have been seen through that lens. To me it felt like they were throwing out the baby with the bathwater. But maybe not, maybe it was just a good business decision on their part. Either way, I was screwed. It was a shock to me when they didn't offer me a contract for the next Sophie book.  But in retrospect, it shouldn't have been.

So I turned to self-publshing. It was an experiment on my part. Plus I had ended my last traditionally published book, Vows, Vendettas & A Little Black Dress with a cliffhanger. I felt I owed it to my readers to at least write one more book so they could find out what happened. A reader even volunteered to do the graphics for cover for me.

What I discovered is that when your publisher isn't investing in you, self-publishing is DEFINITELY the way to go. I've sold more copies of  Vanity, Vengeance & A Weekend In Vegas though self-publishing than my publisher sold of the last book I wrote for them within the same time period. But now, instead of getting somewhere between 6-10% royalties I'm getting 25-70% royalties.

So why go back to traditional publishing? The royalty percentage Simon & Schuster/Pocket was offering me was good but not 70% good. No publisher can offer that.

But this editor was persistent, even after I initially turned him down. He kept coming back to me, sweetening the pot a little, charming me a lot (my editor is quite the charmer) and I do so HATE trying to format my books to all the different ereaders, it's a serious chore. If I let Simon & Schuster publish my next work they would take care of all that. So eventually I said yes, even though I had definite reservations.

It was a good decision. My editor has been fantastic (although I've worked with him before so that wasn't a surprise). The art department has also been amazing! I mean, look at this cover!

But what has really impressed and surprised me is the publicity department. Pocket has gotten this book into the hands of some amazing bloggers with passionate followings. Today I actually had a phone meeting with one of Simon & Schuster's publicity managers. That's not a phone call most authors get to have anymore. This woman is totally fun to work with and most importantly things are being planned, media outlets are being contacted, this is good.

I have no idea how Just One Night: The Stranger will end up selling (although I hear that excitement has really been building after the review from Sinfully Sexy Books) but no matter what happens I'm grateful for the genuine effort and dedication of the people over at Pocket/Simon & Schuster).

I wasn't sure if I would ever go back to traditional publishing again but Pocket has washed the sour taste out of my mouth. This time around everything's sweet.

To read some of the early reviews check out:
Sinfully Sexy Books
Boekie's Book Reviews
New Books On My Shelves

Kyra Davis Bestselling Author of: The Sophie Katz Murder Mystery Series, 
SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING
And the upcoming
JUST ONE NIGHT erotic fiction trilogy!
Read the first few pages here!

A Love Letter To My Readers

I just got some recent sales figures from Audible.com for all the Sophie audio books (from Sex, Murder & A Double Latte to Vanity Vengeance & A Weekend In Vegas). I LOVE that so many people are still discovering Sophie for the first time after all these years and for those of you who met her way back in 2005 and continue to stay with her...well, "thank you," doesn't quite cover it.

Those who know me are aware that I'm frequently stressed about money. I'm a single mom of a truly brilliant, kind-hearted child who does have some special needs, I live in Los Angeles, I'm paying for an individual health insurance plan and...well all that is just crazy expensive. People in my situation are usually on welfare and/or living with their parents.

I'm not. And that's mostly because of you.

Without you Sophie wouldn't still be alive today, I wouldn't have gotten the contract to write the erotic fiction for Pocket Books (under their Pocket Star imprint), I wouldn't have been able to sell a TV script (didn't air but STILL) and I'd probably be living with my parents, crying into a glass of wine every night (wine that would have had to come out of a box because I wouldn't be able to afford the Trader Joe's $3.99 stuff) and buying Prozac in bulk from Canada.

In short, I owe you everything.

So from me and my son, thank you and Sophie sure as hell thanks you. You've saved her more times than Anatoly (and if you don't get that reference...well, I got a book I'd like to sell you).

Kyra Davis

Bestselling Author of:

The Sophie Katz Murder Mystery Series, 

SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING

And the upcoming

JUST ONE NIGHT erotic fiction trilogy

Read the first few pages here!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Hanukkah

Today the New York Times published an opinion piece about how Jews celebrate Hanukkah these days. Basically it says that in our effort to join in with the merriment and commercialism of the Christmas season we have forgotten the true meaning of the holiday.

The article made me literally giggle with delight because in publishing it the New York Times has just made Hanukkah more like Christmas than it ever has been before.

See, when I was a kid the argument you always heard about Christmas was that the holiday was becoming too commercialized. Children thought it was about Santa Claus and not Christ! People were more interested in decorating trees and giving gifts than worshiping! Where I lived a lot of people didn't even know what Hanukkah was. The only place you could buy a Hanukkah themed anything was at the synagogue. There was no risk of Hanukkah being commercialized, the fight was just to get the holiday acknowledged.

It took another fifteen years before the whole conversation was switched up. In the early years of this millennium Fox News declared there was a war on Christmas. NOT because the holiday was being commercialized but because it wasn't being commercialized enough! How dare companies like Walmart and Macy's not put the words "Merry Christmas" on their banners to attract their customers to their commercial goods! Everybody should be saying Merry Christmas no matter what you believe, because really, saying Merry Christmas is just a way of expressing the spirit of the holiday...which apparently has little to do with religion these days. A little over a week ago Bill O'Reilly went so far as to suggest that Christianity wasn't a religion at all, but simply a philosophy that doesn't even require you to believe that Jesus is the son of God. Therefore Christmas celebrations should be fully embraced by stores, schools and public parks, not in an attempt to spread the true meaning of Christmas but because apparently the true meaning of Christmas has completely changed. Yes, some might look at a nativity scene and see the birth of God but other's might just put up a nativity scene because we want to celebrate the birth of a really nice guy.

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And now, Hanukkah (always playing catch up) is having the argument that Christians were having about Christmas back in the 20th century. We're losing the meaning of the holiday! We're making it about gifts and joy and fun rather than military victories that led (briefly) to religious freedom!

Maybe that's true, maybe it's not. The thing is, even the most liberal and secular observances of Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah and Passover keep their main focus on the original meaning of the holiday. Even the non-religious Passover seders that proclaim a rejection of the idea that Exodus is the accounting of a real event STILL spend most of the seder talking about the symbolism of the story of Exodus. There is no Passover Bunny.  No one has asked Walmart to hang banners in September saying Happy Rosh Hashanah! Buy your Apple-And-Honey-themed products here! Hanukkah is the only holiday that the Jewish community has decided  to commercialize a little. And yes, it's undeniable that some of that has occurred in an effort to help our children value this Jewish holiday in the face of the Christmas onslaught.

But then again, maybe that doesn't signal as much of a change in the meaning of the holiday as some suppose. Because, to quote Cantor Ari Priven--

Hanukkah has always been a celebration of Judaism in the midst of pressure to let go of Jewish uniqueness. 

So if putting a forty foot menorah next to a ninety foot christmas tree does that then Dayenu, let that be enough for us. We've honored the holiday perfectly.

Hanny Hanukkah! However you choose to celebrate it, I hope you have a wonderful season of light!

Kyra Davis

Bestselling Author of:

The Sophie Katz Murder Mystery Series, 

SO MUCH FOR MY HAPPY ENDING

And the upcoming

JUST ONE NIGHT erotic fiction trilogy

Read the first few pages here!