This Author's 2015 Bucket List

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! from Rachel Blaufeld, author So, if I'm correct we're already two days into 2015. At least in my time zone.

And I'm yet to make a list of what the hell I want to accomplish this year––goals, trajectories, long-range plans. In other words, the ugly side of self-publishing.

 

So, without further ado, my 2015 Bucket List.

  1. Get dressed each and every day. Work as much as I can in my robe.

  2. Release THREE books and hopefully one novella.

  3. Go to bed on time, making sure to get my 8 hours every night.  Stay up late into the wee hours reading for fun, reviewing other indie's ARCS and editing my own.

  4. Give back. Send books to the troops and the women's shelter.

  5. Give up sugar and caffeine. Install a coffee maker in my office. Maybe a bat-phone to Dunkin Donuts too.

  6. Run a half-marathon or three to counteract the donuts and writing while sitting on my ass.

  7. Hide out in my office or coffee-shop. Hit the road and meet readers and other new authors.

  8. Lend support [and a shoulder to cry on] to other authors.

  9. Shove all my receipts into a drawer until April 14th. NOT! My accountant will shoot me.

  10. Answer every message, email, tweet, fb post, or as many as I can. Because without you––READERS––I am nothing.

 

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for a great year in advance...and making last year the absolute best debut year EVER!

RB

AND a very special thanks to Becca Manuel for this fan-made trailer.

Have you seen it?

 

 

 

 

Happy Holidays [and I'm not on tsu]

happyholidaystunnel  

Just yesterday it was the end of the summer and I was putting the finishing touches on Smoldered. Now––it is almost Christmas Eve, and I'm blown away how quickly the time went.

This has been one hell of a year. From releasing both Electrified and Smoldered to meeting many of you. Cliche', yet so true,

 

without readers, an author is nothing.

 

For the last nine days, I've been giving away books on Facebook––on my page––but I'm told that will not be a viable place to touch base after the new year. FB is apparently adding fees and further controls to make connecting more difficult.  Many authors and readers are jumping on tsu. I'm not there yet.

I barely have time to keep up with the social media channels I'm currently on let alone new ones––and keep putting out books.

I hope to stay connected on FB, but if that's not possible...I am prepping a new subscription form where you will be able to sign up and receive updates and fun, probably naughty, notes from me. Maybe even teasers?!?! Stay tuned for details.

I adore each and every one of you. Thank you so much for stopping in to say something exciting about the books or to ask me about upcoming releases on FB or here or by email or at a signing.

I wish all of you the most spectacular holiday season.

Love, RB

Thankful this Holiday Season + Giveaway

Electrified & Smoldered Black Friday Sale A number of you have emailed or messaged me asking "Where are YOU?"

I've literally been holed up in my office or Coffee Tree Roasters writing Redemption Lane (Feb, 2015 release).

Today as I wrap up the epilogue––I've been hesitant to do this because I love these characters so much, I don't want to say goodbye to them––I'm so grateful and thankful for all of you.

You are more than readers. You are friends...extended family.

Thank you for all of your support, and I wish all of you a quiet Thanksgiving full of family, food, and sensual reads. :)

I am also thrilled to partner with the following authors, Christy Pastore, Salem Archer, Susan Ward and Fabiola Francisco, to bring you spectacular deals on aforementioned sensual reads.

All these books are 99 cents thru Friday, November 28, 2014.

Black Friday Sale, 7 ebooks, 99 cents

 

....And Electrified (99 cents) &  Smoldered ($1.99) will be on sale through the weekend at Amazon Kindle, Nook, and iTunes.

AND for you, a GIVEAWAY!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Happy Thanksgiving! LOVE, RB

My Strip Club Confessional over at Romance at Random [uh-oh]

Smoldered by Rachel Blaufeld In case you missed it, my second book, Smoldered, is now LIVE. It is Asher Peterson’s story––Asher, the owner of the Electric Tunnel, the fictitious strip club of my mind and setting of the Electric Tunnel Series.

 

It may come as no surprise, but I am asked all the time about my personal experience with strip clubs. In fact, I had a chance to chat with Romance at Random about this topic specifically and here is what I said:

 

…The question I’m asked the most is, “Did you go to strip clubs before, during, or after writing this? Are you going today? Now? Tomorrow?”

Friends ask my husband, extended family members question my mother, readers are extremely curious if I have friends who are strippers, and most of my husband’s gang has offered join me in doing research. Okay, are you ready? Cue Drumroll.

Yes. The answer is yes. I have in fact been to a number of strip clubs before writing Electrified. While the Electric Tunnel doesn’t really exist and all the characters that work there are fictitious, I don’t think it would be wise to write a book about the adult entertainment world without researching it.

I’m not even going to take the fifth…I am here to tell all.

For the record, there were two crazy and wild nights I spent inside the dark and cavernous walls of a strip club long before writing a story about one…Way back when, I was young, carefree, legal, and having a blast at a dance club when someone from my group suggested we go to the latest “adult place” to open. We ended up leaving and going with a semi-famous sports coach, who was out with us, and subsequently we were given the VIP treatment, including secluded tables in the back and use of a limo.

This might have influenced a tiny bit of the adult entertainment culture in Electrified and Smoldered, but a separate visit definitely doesn’t make it into the book. This happened when I was six months pregnant with my first-born and went on a bachelorette weekend in Sin City and found myself hopped up on pregnancy hormones at the all-male strip club. Let’s say, I cut out early that evening; my feet were hurting.

Then, we finally get to the part where I decided to actually create my own adult entertainment empire and a bunch of complex characters residing full-time within its deep purple velour walls. The idea of writing a book was always seated deep within me, and there were a few attempts before Electrified that ended up stuck on some hard drive underneath a pile of junk in my closet. It was late one night, in the bathroom of a posh and exclusive Las Vegas Strip Club when I had my big moment. The brainstorm of the century and I was carrying a purse barely big enough to hold a lipstick, let alone a pen and paper. (I call these napkin––or toilet paper––moments.)

It was way past dark in Sin City; we’d been to dinner and a show before late night cocktails and an evening that never ended…I found myself at the aforementioned adult establishment. I had to pee, and so I went to the ladies room and for whatever reason, one of the dancers was in there, and to say I became fascinated was putting it lightly.

I watched from afar as she moved incredibly graceful through the women’s room, studied her while she studied herself in the mirror …and a story began to come to life in my head. This woman was such a complex creature. A standout on the stage. Sexy, sinful, silky smooth and radiant as she wrapped herself tight around the pole center stage or ran her body along someone during a lap dance in the dim haze of the club floor. But inside the bathroom she was a regular person: a wrinkle here, a scar there, a hair out of place, a tiny tube of lip balm in her hands just like mine. As I watched this stranger’s chest rise and fall with breath in the reflection in the mirror, she became a multi-dimensional being to me and not just a glorious body to envy.

The social worker in me began to wonder what her story was or is and how she came to do what she does. Did she have a family? One that she kept in contact with or saw with regularity? Was she running from something bad? The possibilities pummeled through my brain like a freight train before it became clear, I’d spent too long in the loo...

 

Head on over to Romance at Random to read more…

Smoldered NOW avail for preorder *sigh

nat teaser, Smoldered by Rachel Blaufeld  

October 16th is approaching FAST and I am jumping out of my skin (and eating so much candy) while waiting to share Asher's story.

Gritty, hard, tough – a roller coaster ride - this story is different from Sienna & Carson's in Electrified.

A first person account of two childhood friends who cannot find peace or happiness separate or together.

And it is now avail for preorder!

amazon

iBooks

 

What I learned this summer [about doing it on a couch]

So, I've been largely MIA for two weeks. No, I didn't go to Bora Bora.

No, I didn't quit doing what I do.

No, I wasn't captured by aliens.

 

Definitely, NO, I've Not been having 24/7 sex and unable to come up for air.

 

All that being said, I've been consumed with catching up with family and being a mom for the last 14 days.

Packing, unpacking, rinsing and repeating, and ending it all with a destination wedding.

 

Now, I'm back in the saddle (and ouch, it hurts after being gone for so long), but I am in it, thankfully.

Today, marked back to school for my kids, so I guess, summer is officially over in my house, and it is only appropriate that I share the top TEN pieces of shit I learned this summer:

 

1. Summer is no fun as a responsible adult. There are no midnight rides to nowhere or make out sessions on the 18th hole.

2. Two things come from hanging in a hammock in the garden of a posh hotel in South Florida with lights flickering above and the ocean crashing in the background: great ideas and bug bites.

 

what I learned this summer by Rachel Blaufeld, author

 

3. Indies write amazing freaking books with the freedom to create the best characters, and all of a sudden I lust cowboys like Mason in MoonDance in Red by Salem Archer and Grayson in Perfectly Imperfect by Fabiola Francisco.

4. Couch sex is so not what I remember...

5. My twenties were all they were damn well cracked up to be, and books like Fifteen Weekends by Christy Pastore remind me of just that...and, deep inside, I am an "Emily."

6. When the characters in your head star playing out a scene on a big extended family vacation, pretend you have to pee and go write that shit down.

7. There are advantages to being a morning person, such as getting to know people on the other side of the Atlantic.

8. Speaking of rockers, I fell head over heels with one over the summer. Alan Manzone from Girl on the Half Shell by Susan Ward.

9. I also happened to begin to carry a flame for moviestar playboy, Alex Tate in Perfect Plans by CJ Wells.

10. I love fall and being back in the saddle...

 

So, get ready to Smolder Soon.

 ~RB

 

 

Are you ready to Smolder? #Teaser 1, Smoldered

Over on FB, I've been promising & promising a tiny sneak peek of Smoldered - Book 2 in The Electric Tunnel Series. Releasing October, 2014 - Smoldered is Asher and Natalie's story. Its a bit grittier than Electrified, considering both the main characters' grew up on and around Vegas nightlife.

It was a gut-wrenching story to write, and I can't wait to share it with all of you...I will be somewhat sad to put it to print, though. Saying goodbye to Asher &Nat will be hard for me, but as they say: "All good things must come to an end." But, not really because there will be another book in the series, Mike's story.

So, here you go --> your first glimpse at Smoldered.

 

Natalie, Smoldered

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…Right before me was my boss, still wearing his dress pants from the night, his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, showing off a light smattering of blond chest hair and the very edge of his tattoo.

It was a dark navy blue electricity bolt over his chest for his one and only baby, the Electric Tunnel. But, it was a sight to see, and I did enjoy licking it from top to bottom.

In the privacy of his office.

His hair and goatee were equally mussed up from him running his hands through them. Sadly, a behavior I knew all too well, and there was nothing I wanted to do more than dive in and make it even messier.

And, he was wearing motorcycle boots with his suit pants. He was a hot mess of a man––nothing else remotely like him. Even with a layer of expensive, designer clothing on top, he was pure bad boy underneath. He’d never ditch his boots. They were as ingrained in him as his past, which is why I should have been high-tailing it right out of the place. Instead, I stood planted like a palm tree blowing in the wind, waiting for the storm to arrive, stuck in the ground as if there was nothing I could do to stop the blustery weather heading my way, threatening to topple me over.

The guy was a god, and I was nothing more than a stripper, who was smitten with him. Running my hands through my own long hair, I’d left it down with big waves running through it. I had set it in hot rollers on my break for a bachelor party I ran earlier. Yet, now it didn’t seem like enough for Asher. He should get more than the after-effects of my evening at work.

He deserved fresh curls and perfume not mixed with another man’s cologne.

I wanted to be more in his eyes. Hadn’t I always?

In my dreams, I was the prettiest, sexiest, and most darling of his girls. The one he would keep, but I knew that to be a fantasy, which is why I kept firm boundaries when it came to him. Most of the time, at least. This evening, not one of these occasions.

He approached with his usual control and command, wrapped his arm around my neck and pulled me tight against him. Running his nose along my collar, he breathed in my scent, and whispered, “Fuck, Nat, you smell real good. Look so damn beautiful. I want you. Never can get enough.”

 

©Rachel Blaufeld, Natalie & Asher, unedited teaser-subject to change-Smoldered

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