Nicki Elson's Not-So-Deep Thoughts

A couple weeks ago I told you that the authors of Omnific Publishing had their panties all twisty over an impending competition between our men. Well, the competition begins TODAY. The guys from our books will step off the pages to go head-to-head (-to-head in some cases) and YOU get to vote on which one makes you most giggly inside.  Love Between the Sheets is managing the whole shebang, but you can go directly to see (and vote for *ahem*) my boys as follows: David Want to see what this dreamy college co-ed looks like (sans shirt) and hear about his ideal woman and what's on his playlist...er, mix tape? You can find him at the fabulous  Obsession is a Book  blog. [Or you can vote direct here .]  Evan Got a thing for good boys? No one's better than this unwittingly delicious angel. You can meet him and learn what he likes least about himself and what his favorite curse words are at the marvelous Reading Past My Bedtime blog. [Or you can vote d...

I have three awesome tidbits for you today, plus a chance of prizes. Happy Birthday to The Guardian's Wildchild by Feather Stone To celebrate, Pure Jonel Book Reviews  is reviewing the book and hosting a giveaway in which you can win signed print copies, ebooks, bookmarks, a crystal, and a special surprise gift. You can meet  Feather Stone  at her blog, where she always has something interesting and entertaining to say. Also, digital versions of the book are only $2.99 until September 30. This book will carry us over to the Cephalopod Coffeehouse where I'm breaking the rules, just a little bit. I got sidetracked this month with preparing a novella for my very first venture into self-publishing (more on that in a bit), thus my reading time was crunched, so I hope you'll forgive that I'm going to go back to a different September 27th, exactly two years ago when I reviewed The Guardian's Wildchild.  Here's my Goodreads review of this story that st...

COVER REVEAL TOMORROW I'm rarely the first person to jump on any new trend. I like to let others test it, work out the kinks, and then if it not only sticks around but thrives, I figure there must be something to it and that's when I generally step on board. Well, self-publishing has just surpassed the Nicki threshold and I am in!  Er, I will be officially in on October 8th when I release a brand new novella through the Kindle Select program. I only made this decision a few weeks ago, but the theme of my story is peeerfect for Halloween reading, so I just dove right in without giving myself time to chicken out. Thus far, Amazon has provided great guidance for getting the publication formatted, so once I was comfortable that I could handle that part of the deal... I enlisted the services of Carol Oates of Custom Book Cover Designs ---she's the one who designed the divine Divine Temptation gif on my sidebar, which many of you had such nice things to say about during...

Congratulations to Jennifer Lane on the publication of the third book in her Con duct trilogy! On Best Behavior is now available in paperback, Kindle , and Nook .  If you haven't started on this Romantic Suspense series yet, I have fantastic news for you---the first book in the series, With Good Behavior is now on sale for only 99 cents! These books are a great mix of romance, suspense, humor and emotion, and it's all written by someone who understands the human mind very well---Jennifer is also a practicing psychologist. The series takes place in Chicago, a city near and dear to my heart, so to celebrate the completion of the series, I asked Jennifer about her Chicago favorites. Jennifer Lane's Chicago Favorites  Museum: Shedd Aquarium Pizza: Giordano's deep dish pizza, of course!  Place for lunch: Big Bowl (I love Asian food)  Piece of architecture: the Bean ( Cloud Gate )  Coffee shop: Starbucks is my favorite in ANY city ...

Today is the release of CassaStorm, the third and final installment of Alex J. Cavanaugh's best selling Sci-Fi series.  Congratulations, Alex! This week Alex is taking the world by storm and answering a unique question at each of the participting blogs. Here's mine: Me: What one song best captures the essence of the final book in the Cassa trilogy and why? Alex: Daft Punk’s Recognizer from the Tron: Legacy soundtrack. I normally don’t listen to instrumental soundtracks, but my wife likes this one, and occasionally it would be playing in the background when I wrote. Recognizer is very ominous in tone and it builds tension with its pacing. It fits the darker tones of CassaStorm. Me: To show how much I like and respect Alex, I will give you a link to the song  even though I've held a slight grudge against Tron: Legacy ever since it kicked Harry Potter out of IMAX before I could see it there. *hmph* But, um, I have to admit---it's a pretty cool tune. Darker tones...

As many of you know, I'm with a small publisher, and one of the very best benefits of that, at least at Omnific Publishing , is the camaraderie among the authors and our willingness to jump in and support one another. Since Omnific is a romance publisher, most of the authors are women, and up until a few days ago, I thought they were just about the nicest group of women I could ever meet. And then something happened... Men happened. They'd been there all along, of course, but we'd always confined them to between the pages of our novels. Sure, lots of the guys made their way onto book covers and into the trailers, a few even set up their own Twitter accounts, but they were contained within their own universes and never interfered with the relationships between the women who'd invented them. Until... Lisa Sanchez and Jennifer DeLucy dreamed up a group event in which we'd let our boys out to playay in a friendly little competition in which each guy is matc...

Wow. I can't believe the Insecure Writer's Support Group has already been going for two years! Not that I didn't expect it to last, I just can't believe that much time has passed since Alex J. Cavannaugh was asking if we thought it was a good idea. I hope you've seen by now, Ninja Master, that yes, it was a very good idea. Thanks for organizing it and keeping it lively. Can't wait to see what you've got in store for us for the future. On this monumental occasion, I have a most unmonumental insecurity, regarding which I would appreciate your unbridled honestly. If you look to your left, beneath the IWSG icon you'll see a moving gif that I happen to love. It was created for me by a friend because I asked her to make it. But here's what I want to know---honesty, remember---is it obnoxious? Do you find it annoying to have it blinking in your peripheral while you're reading this or any other post? Because if I'm being honest, if it wasn't...