Booksignings

Some of the members of the Happily Ever Authors group will be doing a Valentine's signing at Borders on 81st Street in Tulsa on February 12th from 2-4 p.m. The Assassin won't be available yet, so I won't be sitting at the tables with them, but I plan to hang around and stock up on new books (my husband jokes that I became a writer to support my reading habit). If you're within driving distance, drop by and say hello.

Now I will be signing in April. I have two set up, the first on April 2nd at Paul's Book Place in my hometown of Sapulpa, Oklahoma. The second will be April 16th at The Book Place in Broken Arrow. I'll post the times as they draw closer. The owners of both stores have been tremendously supportive of me, so I'm excited to be doing my first Assassin signings with them.
Rachel8:09 AM

ASSASSIN News!

The Assassin has been picked up in several other markets! Both it and Deep Cover have been bought by the German publisher, Blanvalet, and Assassin has been acquired by the Doubleday Book Club, the Mystery Guild, the Literary Guild, and the Doubleday Large-Print Book Club. All the book clubs will be hardcover, of course. I love hardcovers and would read everything in that format if I could, so I'm really excited about that!

Rachel10:05 AM

All About Me

Rachel Butler lives an incredbly fascinating and glamorous life, hobnobbing with the rich and famous, jetting around the world, and making others pea-green with envy . . .

Not!

My bio here pretty much says it all. I don't have any particular talents, though I think I'm a pretty damn good writer. I'm neither fascinating nor glamorous, the closest I get to the rich and famous is when I stand in line at a signing for Robert B. Parker or Janet Evanovich, and jetting around the world would make me pea-green. I get airsick. What can I say?

I do love great movies like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon but getting me into a movie theater takes some work most days. I'd really rather curl up with a good book -- especially when I've got the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on the stereo! Who ever thought that I -- whose idea of good music is blues, jazz, zydeco, or Ella Fitzgerald -- would fall in love with a group that's part heavy metal and part classical orchestra? But Christmas Eve is incredible, and that Liszt number on one of the other Christmas CDs knocks my socks off, and the entire Beethoven's Last Night . . . holy cow! My husband, Robert, and I went to see them in concert in Tulsa last November, and were absolutely blown away. The music is incredible, the voices are incredible, and the light show is . . . gee, shall I repeat myself? . . . incredible. If you ever get the chance to see them, do it. You won't be sorry. Trust me.

I love to travel -- especially by car! -- but don't get the chance to do it much these days. Writing and the critters who live with us keep us close to home. My idea of a great trip is New Orleans with Robert (don't be surprised to see the Big Easy show up in one of my books in the future) or anywhere with my best friends. Trashy Women, Trashy Divas, Twisted Sisters -- they answer to a variety of names (actually, there's not that much variety, is there? they're all variations on a theme), but I generally think of them as The People I Love Most Outside My Family or sisters in my heart. Whether we actually do something or just sit in a hotel room and talk, time with them is (let me get sappy and quote a commercial here)\"priceless.\"

Hmm . . . that's enough about me for now. Gotta get back to the fascination and glamor of trying to write while one of Oklahoma's gentle winter breezes huffs and puffs and tries to blow down my house . . . er, office. Rachel11:02 AM

Happily Ever Authors

I mentioned this in my first post yesterday, then realized that some of you may not have a clue what it is. HEA is a group of ten wonderfully talented authors, mostly of romance and mostly from Oklahoma, who have gotten together in a joint promotional venture. We write everything from straight romance to inspirational to really steamy erotica, from women's fiction to comedy to suspense. We have an email newsletter that goes out quarterly on Yahoo (there's a place on my homepage at the bottom to sign up) and we have a drawing every quarter and send out goodies.

Email us. Sign up. Discover fabulous authors and win prizes. Rachel7:17 AM

At last!

Those of you who are familiar with me from the Happily Ever Authors newsletter already know the most important thing about me: I'm a procratinator with a capital P. This blog's been sitting here waiting for me to say something for weeks, but it took me this long to get to it.

I've been on a break since finishing Deep Cover a few days before Christmas. That's the second book in the Selena series, and it was a hoot to write. Now I'm about to start revisions on it -- my least favorite part of this whole publishing biz. It took me waay longer to do the revisions on The Assassin than it did to actually write the darn thing. It was a real eye-opening experience. My goal for this year is to learn enough from this revision experience to cut it down to minimal stuff in the future. Yeah, right.

While I love the cover for The Assassin, the cover art for Deep Cover is to die for! The colors are blusih/purple and the model looks exactly like Selena (though with shorter hair). The moment I saw it, I loved it. As soon as I get the finalized copy, I'll be posting it here. Rachel10:01 AM