Yesterday marked the six month anniversary of Forged in Fire, the high-octane romantic thriller I self-published back in September of 2011. From the beginning, Forged did much better than I expected. Within four months it had sold 10,000 copies, which earned me enough money in royalties to quit my day job and write full time. Yesterday, six months after its release, it clocked in its 23,419th sale and 1758th borrow. (These figures do not include any of the free downloads it got towards the end of February) It also has a boatload of reviews, including 276 on Amazon alone where it’s been the top rated romantic suspense according to customer reviews for the past three months.

And the ride isn’t over!

In mid-January I was approached by an editor from Montlake Publishing. This editor had read Forged in Fire, loved it and felt the series worked perfectly for the romantic thriller line they were developing. For the past two months I’ve been in contract negotiations. The incomparable David Vandagriff, of Passive Voice fame, has been a Godsend during these negotiations and I’d like to publically thank him for his patience in explaining the meaning behind the various contract terminologies.

And now I’m pleased as punch to announce that the negotiations have been concluded, the contract signed and Montlake will be taking over the publication of the first four books in the Forged Series.

We have a tentative release schedule as follows:

Forged in Fire to be re-released by Montlake Publishing on July 1st of 2012.
Forged in Ice to be released December 1st of 2012
Forged in Fury to be released July 1st of 2013
Forged in Betrayal to be released December 1st of 2013

I thought long and hard before signing on with Montlake. Forged in Fire has done incredibly well with me at its helm. However, Montlake, with Amazon’s promoting and marketing muscle behind it, can reach thousands of readers I wouldn’t be able to reach on my own. They also understand the value of keeping their digital prices in the “Sweet Zone,” which means I won’t lose readers to jacked up e-book prices. Plus, they will be releasing the series in paper and audio formats, along with digital—so I will be tapping into markets I’ve been unable to reach on my own. While there is still some question as to where, exactly, the Montlake titles will be distributed, there is no question my books will be available in more formats and at more places than they are currently available.

This doesn’t mean I will be stepping out of the self-publishing arena. This just means I‘m diversifying. I still intend to self-publish various titles. I’ve put together a dynamite self-publishing team, including a new-to-me, and totally awesome, developmental editor. I’m currently revising my next self-published title off of this editor’s feedback. I also have two new series I intend to self-publish in the future.

In celebration of this new fork in my career path, I will be launching another Kindle Fire giveaway, so stay tuned. I’m still working out the details, but I think the drawing will be tied to the kickoff of my brand new newsletter.

In closing, I want to thank my readers. It’s your recommendations and reviews that have led to Forged in Fire’s success. Without you none of this would have been possible.

So my thanks to each and every one of you!

I want to thank Trish McCallan for inviting me into her cyber-world to meet her fans! Trish and I have swapped blogs today so when you’re done here, make sure you head over to http://www.lisamondello.blogspot.com to check out her post!

Also, I am giving away a copy of my book THE KNIGHT AND MAGGIE’S BABY. So leave a comment for a chance to win.

THE KNIGHT AND MAGGIE’S BABY is book 3 in my FATE WITH A HELPING HAND series. I’m getting ready to release a box set of all 3 books which includes ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU and THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT. So be on the lookout for that in the coming days!

I always love to talk about series because there are so many different kinds. Some series focus on families or teams. Some are set in a particular town. In those cases you can have fun and revisit characters from past books to see how they’re doing.

In my FATE series, I went a little broader. All of my stories for FATE are set in Massachusetts and all feature a romance where someone has done a little dealing to push the hero and heroine together. I love meddling characters and decided to use characters from 3 different generations.

In All I Want for Christmas is You, the heroine’s daughter asks Santa for a daddy for Christmas. When the hero, who just happens to be playing Santa, tells the heroine, an overworked single mother, she begins to feel guilty that all her efforts are still leaving a void in her child’s life.

In The Marriage Contract, I went with the classic meddling mom. But I just love the heroine’s mom! She works so hard to convince her 35 year old daughter that it’s time to get married…just not to her current boyfriend. When mom finds an old birthday card with a scribbled marriage proposal on the back, she goes to work trying to convince her daughter that the sexy lawyer she hasn’t seen in 17 years is The One! The Marriage Contract is a romantic comedy filled with quirky characters and I had loads of fun writing it.

The Knight and Maggie’s Baby has been one that has surprised some of my readers. Reading the first chapter they expected a comedy, like The Marriage Contract because the sexy English Knight who is left at altar and is in need of a wife FAST asks a total stranger to marry him because his grandfather will disinherit him otherwise. The hero has lived in wealth but had a cold childhood without love. He didn’t count on the coffee shop owner being pregnant or that he’d fall in love with the big-hearted woman and her baby. Both show him the meaning of love.

Did you ever get a song stuck in your head? Or part of one? How did you get it out? Did you avoid the song at all costs in the blind hope it would stop hammering you into submission? Or did you listen to the song over, and over, and over, until you were so obsessed that all you could think about was that delicious, devilish little laugh….er, what was I saying? (Right. Song stuck in my head. Ahh…I mean, your head.) Now, I know this has happened to every person reading this post, so I’m hoping you’ll relate to my little story here.

Let me give you some background. In October, I released Connected (Twists of Fate #1), and here’s a brief description of the story: A rock group’s rhythm guitarist, Rhys Alexander, dies and finds himself bound inside the body of a woman he’s never met. Can she help him move on to the other side, or will he end up finding the love of his life…after his has already ended?

For a time, I had this for free on Wattpad (where I posted as I wrote it). And several readers asked me how in the world I came up with the concept. The short answer was ‘By taking the longest route possible.’ The more involved answer is this…

It all started with a song—Imagine that, huh?—which began with a synthesized-sounding guitar and a sinful, maniacal laugh that made my gut quiver. (Yes, I do realize this may be an issue I need to fully address later.) It was Disturbed’s “Inside The Fire”. Add a little Framing Hanley (with that oh-so-sexy voice), and Tavion, lead singer of the band Persevere, was born. And what kind of woman would knock a strapping rock star to his knees? Why, a best-selling author, of course.

So here I had two people who worked in the entertainment industry, but were worlds apart. What could possibly bring them together? The answer seemed so simple, really: Fate.

Then my next though was “What if Fate was a living, sometimes-breathing, entity? What an interesting point-of-view that would be!” And it spiraled from there. I dug deep into the protag, Devan (the name of the girl in Disturbed’s song), and put pieces of me and my personality into the mix. Naturally, then I had to mock myself and my works along the way. (i.e., Suddenly Impending Reprisals became Devan’s masterpiece, and guess what…it made it all the way to the NYT Bestsellers list! Way to go, Devan!!)

Now, the question was ‘What inspired me to write Connected’, and so far, I’m telling you how I started writing Twisted (Book 2). Yeah, well, I’m getting there. (Remember how I said it was the longest route possible?)
So there I was, writing Twisted and having a hell of a time. And then the unthinkable happened (insert suspenseful music here)…I got writer’s block. I’m talking a stint of writer’s block that could only have originated from the deepest, most vile and sulfuric, bowels of Hell. And, man, was it stubborn! Over a year went by before I picked it up again, and even then it wasn’t because I came up with a grand master plan, or that my head was swimming with ideas. No. It was simply because I missed my characters. So I started to reread/revise/edit the 30K words I had written, hoping it would shake something loose. Enter: two new inspirations.

So there I was, writing Twisted and having a hell of a time. And then the unthinkable happened (insert suspenseful music here)…I got writer’s block. I’m talking a stint of writer’s block that could only have originated from the deepest, most vile and sulfuric, bowels of Hell. And, man, was it stubborn! Over a year went by before I picked it up again, and even then it wasn’t because I came up with a grand master plan, or that my head was swimming with ideas. No. It was simply because I missed my characters. So I started to reread/revise/edit the 30K words I had written, hoping it would shake something loose. Enter: two new inspirations.

The first was the Demonica series by Larissa Ione. In the series, paired up mates can sense each other’s emotions and I got to wondering “What would that be like?”

The next piece of inspiration came from Avenged Sevenfold (A7X). I was studying up on rock bands for Twisted (and can A7X ever ROCK!!), and checking out the band members (*drool*) and it inspired a new character—Rhys.

From Ione and A7X blossomed Connected (finally!) where Rhys’ spirit was stuck inside Addison (my protag), and they could sense each other’s emotions.


But I had one problem. I absolutely REFUSED to walk away from Twisted again. Soooo…how could I use this? Well, first of all, Rhys couldn’t be a lead singer since that’s what Tavion is. And secondly, I wanted this to be a fast-hitting novella used to compliment Twisted’s story. What I needed was a supporting member of the band… Hello, Rhys, my luscious rhythm guitarist!

But then I had another problem. (Because I needed more, right?) I couldn’t picture Rhys in Tavion’s band, Persevere, which is a more mature, established group. No, he belonged with some just-making-it-big band that wasn’t afraid to play with the formula, to take chances, and was just enjoying the ride and what life had to offer. He belonged with the guys of Black Codex.


Then problem #3: How did Black Codex and Persevere tie in to each other? I mean, if Connected leads into Twisted, they have to know each other somehow, right? Well, as luck would have it, they’re all friends. (Who knew?!) Eh, okay, so actually two members from Black Codex are brothers and they grew up with a guy from Persevere, so, by association, they became friends. (It’s all in the details, right?)

All right. Now what? I didn’t want to introduce Fate (my sassy, capricious entity) in Connected even though he’s definitely hard at work behind the scenes. It would’ve been too distracting from the plot, and I had plenty to maneuver already! (Hello…dead rock star stuck in some chicks head!!) So what I did was plot Connected so it all occurs during the same timeframe as the first half of Twisted. Perfect! Then when people read Twisted, they’ll get all the behind-the-scenes-extras that were going on in Connected that either 1) I didn’t have time for, or 2) I couldn’t smoothly transition in.

At the end of my long-ass journey, not only did I have Connected, but I shook myself loose on Twisted…aaand came up with storylines for the other eight band members. (I’ll spare you the details on those. LOL) Thusly, the Twists of Fate series was born.

So, let me ask you again: Did you ever get a song stuck in your head…?

You can find Jolyn at the following places!

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