Here I am in Chicago! It’s very foggy here. Figured I’d post a rundown of what I’m doing and where to find me in case any of you need it:

SATURDAY May 14 at The Book Con

at the McCormick Place convention center, Chicago

1pm – 1:30 pm AUTOGRAPHING
at the Romance Writers of America (RWA) Booth 1716
I’ll be signing copies of TAKING THE LEAD, my latest kinky rock star romance.

1:45 – 2:45 pm AUTOGRAPHING (YES MORE AUTOGRAPHING)
at the Grand Central Publishing/Hachette booth 1716
with my fellow Forever Romance authors Elizabeth Hoyt and Debbie Mason!
I’ll again be signing and giving away TAKING THE LEAD

3:00 – 4:00 pm DIVERSITY IN ROMANCE PANEL
in Room W470
Very excited to be speaking on this panel on a subject very important to me, moderated by Joyce Lamb of USA Today’s “Happy Ever After” blog. Official description: The #WeNeedDiverseBooks initiative is being passionately embraced by readers of all genres – and authors of romantic fiction are absolutely passionate about the movement! Browse the selection at booksellers, and you will see ever-increasing title offerings that feature LGBTQ characters and couples; books that feature multi-ethnic perspective and give love to the silver fox set. In this panel, moderated by Joyce Lamb, curator of USA Today’s Happy Ever After blog, and featuring Cecilia Tan, Taking the Lead (Forever), Sona Charaipotra, Tiny Pretty Things (Epic Reads), Dhonielle Clayton, Tiny Pretty Things (Epic Reads), will frankly discuss meeting reader demand for Diverse Books in the romance genre; as well as propose tactics on how to support the growth of this market segment.

Sunday May 15 at the SFWA Nebulas Weekend

at the Palmer House Hilton

11am – 12pm Web Serial Toolbox
I’ll be teaching a crash course in everything you need to know to start your own web serial. If you can blog, you can publish a web serial! I’ll be talking about both creative and business reasons to serialize, as well as why *not* to serialize, and discuss what free & inexpensive tech tools are out there to keep your overhead costs non-existent to under $25.

Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

This is exciting! Something new! RT Book Reviews will be hosting me and Tara Sue Me (author of the Submissive series) in a live YouTube chat this Friday, Feb 5th at 12 noon to 1pm (Eastern US time). Her new book THE MASTER is out this week, and of course my TAKING THE LEAD just hit last week!

Want to leave a question for us to answer? Post it over at RT Book Reviews here: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/blog/87694/live-chat-cecilia-tan-and-tara-sue-me-friday-february-5-noon

Here’s the chat video stream window, embedded:

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Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

I’m pleased to offer up a tasty sample of my new book from Hachette/Grand Central Publishing/Forever which officially launches in six days! It’s already popped up in some bookstores, though!

On sale: Indiebound bookstores | Amazon|Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iTunes | Google Play

I originally shared this sex scene from TAKING THE LEAD with my newsletter readers back 14 months ago, shortly after I’d written the first draft. It has since passed through my beta readers, critique partners, and my editor at Hachette, and has more depth than that early draft. (Just as much sex, though…heh.)

This segment is from our heroine’s point of view. Ricki Hamilton is a young Hollywood heiress, fresh out of business school, while Axel Hawke is the lead singer of a rock band who are just hitting it big. It’s the night of the Grammy Awards, and at one point, as a publicity stunt, Axel is supposed to joke-kidnap a mutual friend of theirs out of the audience. But Axel, who has gotten interested in Ricki, ends up making off with her instead. Here’s what happens after they land in the “getaway limo.”

(Also after all the limo scenes in the Struck by Lightning series, especially the first few in Slow Surrender, I thought it would be fun to have very very very different limo sex this time around. Remember how James doesn’t even touch Karina at first? This time I think Axel has extra hands…!)

When Axel Hawke dove into the back of a limo with me and we sped off, I was lightheaded from being unable to breathe. The moment he had picked me up I had started to laugh, and then partway up the aisle he’d switched to carrying me over his shoulder like a pirate making off with a wench. His shoulder dug into my stomach, which made me laugh harder but also made it even harder to breathe.

Maybe it wasn’t the way he was carrying me that made me so breathless. My mind was awhirl—the tabloids! They were going to have a field day! But part of me didn’t care. My fantasies of him carrying me away came roaring back, and the giddy feeling only intensified as I realized that any of the blame for this stunt was going to fall squarely on Axel Hawke, not me. I was merely the innocent bystander dragged along for the ride. Literally.

I realized I still had my arms around his neck while I fought to catch my breath.

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Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

Yesterday was a holiday for a lot of people but social media never stops and I got wind that a review had appeared in Publishers Weekly for the book I have releasing next week, TAKING THE LEAD. I was a little afraid to go read it so I made my agent read it first.

See, the last time a book I wrote was reviewed in PW, bookselling and publishing’s trade magazine, was in 1998. In that review, they panned my HarperCollins erotic short story collection (Black Feathers) by saying my “sinless creations” were “for people who didn’t like sex.” I’d called up Susie Bright after that and cried.

She’d heard that attitude before, and patiently explained that the reviewer was almost certainly male and one of those throwback guys for whom if the sex wasn’t “dirty” or “illicit” then it was only meant for “prudes” and therefore wasn’t any fun. Put another way, because the book was written by a woman to satisfy a woman’s idea of what was sexy, he was angry it wasn’t for him. The fact that everyone in my book was actually enjoying all the consensual sex they were having was a turn-off for this dude.

After that I felt kind of sorry for the reviewer, because although he’d panned my book, he almost certainly had a miserable sex life. I would encounter his attitude sporadically, always from men, in the nineties, and then I guess those dinosaurs died off because I stopped hearing it. Or maybe my message and the message of the other sex-positive women writing and publishing in those days was finally getting through–Susie Bright, Carol Queen, Annie Sprinkle, etc.–if not to literary critics at least to the bookstores and the readers.

Of course romance wasn’t ready yet for my style of BDSM and consensual power exchange, or for the level of explicitness I brought to the table, so back then my work wouldn’t have fit there, either. Thankfully that’s no longer the case, and a book like TAKING THE LEAD has all the BDSM and character angst and negotiation and arrival at consensuality that turns ME on, and it seems like both the world of romance and Publishers Weekly are super-happy about it!

They gave it a “starred” review! And I quote, they say my new series is off to a “sultry start.” The moneyshot in the review: “With a satisfying plot and an engaging cast of characters, the only thing slowing readers down will be their refractory period.” Yessss!

Read the whole review here: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-4555-3363-3

On sale: Indiebound bookstores | Amazon|Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iTunes | Google Play

Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

My upcoming rock stars & BDSM erotic romance novel TAKING THE LEAD comes out officially in three weeks! Right now there are three ways to get your hands on a free advance copy!

1) Enter the Goodreads Giveaway contest
2) NetGalley
3) Ask me for a copy!

Details:

1) Enter the Goodreads Giveaway contest

Anyone with an account on Goodreads can enter the giveaway. My publisher is giving away 15 copies and it costs nothing to enter! Just click here to enter: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/167081-taking-the-lead

2) NetGalley

If you’re a NetGalley reviewer, my publisher doesn’t automatically approve all requests. So email me if you want to review it through NetGalley and I’ll forward your email to them. They’ll email you back the NetGalley widget! I’m at ctan.writer @ gmail.com

3) Ask me for a copy!

Will you promise to post a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads between January 26th and January 29th? If you’re in the USA or Canada I’ll mail you an advance reading copy of the book! No really, first 12 people to email me your shipping addresses and pledge to review it within 3 days of the book’s release, I’ll mail it to you! (You don’t have to promise to *like* it, just to give it an honest review. Of course I hope you will like it, though!)

Order the book: Indiebound bookstores | Amazon|Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iTunes | Google Play
Ricki Hamilton and her sister have just inherited a vast estate in the Hollywood hills. Unfortunately, with that legacy comes the most exclusive club in Hollywood history, a secret BDSM establishment where only the rich and the naughty come to play. Ricki wants nothing to do with BDSM and is trying to find ways to get out of having to run the club . . . until she meets Axel, a sexy and enigmatic rock star who makes her want to submit to needs she didn’t know she had.

Praised by Tara Sue Me, author of The Submissive series, and Christina Lauren, authors of the Beautiful series!

“Everyone knows Cecilia Tan is the queen of hot, but she’s also the queen of wit and angst and voice. Taking the Lead is a book that grabs you by the collar and gives you flirty-eyes. It will tell you, ‘Go sit, over there in the corner chair, and don’t get up until you’re done.’ You will do it-absolutely and happily-because Cecilia knows exactly what you want.”―Christina Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Bastard and Sweet Filthy Boy

“Cecilia Tan writes erotic romance the way it was meant to be written: full of emotion, intensity, and chemistry that’s so hot it burns the page. Taking the Lead is no exception; it’s deliciously sexy and utterly satisfying.”―Tara Sue Me, New York Times bestselling author

Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

I just noticed that TAKING THE LEAD is now up for pre-order most places! (In fact Amazon has the paperback at 25% off right now, which means B&N does, too.)

Pre-orders are important to authors especially at B&N and iTunes because all pre-orders count toward the FIRST DAY of sales in those stores, which can really help a book hit the bestseller lists in those stores! And sometimes getting onto one of those lists will help new readers find it which will then help keep those books on the list if they enjoy the book and tell their friends about it!

Note that you can use the IndieBound bookstore finder to find an independent bookstore near you where you can pre-order it: Taking the Lead at Indiebound

Amazon and B&N.com are happy to take order for either ebook OR paperback:

Amazon: paperback or ebook

And of course there are a bunch of ebook-only stores:

etc…

Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.

Cover reveal, and I do mean “reveal”! My next romance from Hachette/Forever is slated to release on January 26, 2016 in both paperback and ebook, and I have not one but TWO amazing cover designs to show you!

As you might expect given my track record, my books have a lot of sex in them. They’re very steamy. TAKING THE LEAD is no exception. It’s a rockstar romance and a BDSM “billionaire” book except this time SHE is the billionaire.

The brilliant thing my publisher has done is create two versions of the cover, a “tame” version (which is still pretty suggestive if you ask me), and a “wild” version. Feast your eyes below the fold:

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Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.