Newsletter

Autumn 2008

*** Please feel free to forward this newsletter to friends and/or post at romance-friendly places such as bookstores and on the Internet. Thank you for your support! If you wish to subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://www.laurenroyal.com/3.0/contact/ml ***

Dear friends and family~

Have you missed me? Just kidding! :-) As we're all busy people, you may not have noticed that I've sent no newsletter since May. This was due to an unfortunate combination of Internet problems and server problems that kept me from updating my site and sending any newsletters for the past four months. In addition, my access to e-mail was sporadic at best and completely impossible for weeks on end. At one point, I had no Web access or e-mail for a solid month (oh, poor, poor pitiful me...).

If you've been with me for a while, you will probably recall that this is not the first time -- by a long shot! -- that I've had e-mail and computer problems. I have decided that I must be allergic to computers, or perhaps computers are allergic to me, or maybe I radiate lethal rays or something. Whatever the reason, computers seem to self-destruct in my vicinity. My webmaster/son (Brent) has told me that hackers (computer people) have a term for this: bogon, as in "particle of bogusness." A bogon is a particle that causes computers to malfunction and people to act stupid, and by all indications I am surrounded by them. :-P

Anyway, the good news is that except for the computer problems we had a really nice summer -- I hope you did, too! -- and we are all set up now with new Internet service and a new server. My mail service was finally restored reliably a few days ago, and I've spent the time since then answering all the mail we were able to recover. But there's a good chance some of it was lost forever, so if you e-mailed me and haven't heard back, please try again.

Also, Brent has told me that because of our problems, requests to subscribe or unsubscribe from the newsletter could very well have been ignored. If you tried to unsubscribe and got this newletter anyway, please accept our apologies and try again at http://www.laurenroyal.com/3.0/contact/ml. The process should work now.

Since we all survived without a monthly Lauren Royal Newsletter for a while -- and because we all get too much e-mail these days -- I've decided to spare everyone's inbox and make my newsletter quarterly for now. I don't really have enough news to justify a monthly newsletter anyway, at the moment. :-) When my next book comes out, I may or may not decide to increase the newsletter frequency again.

And since I've now mentioned my next book -- or rather, the lack of one -- I imagine your next questions might be: So where *IS* your next book, Lauren? You usually have a new book out this time of year...what's up?

What's up is that I am writing three new books at once, and in consequence, it is taking me much longer than writing one new book. The trilogy I'm writing now is so complicated, and the books have such intertwined plotlines, that I decided I needed to do it this way.

With my past trilogies, while writing Book 2 or Book 3 I have often found myself wishing I'd done things differently in Book 1 or Book 2 -- but I was stuck and had to deal with the "past history" I'd already created. A recent example of this was in my Sweet Temptations trilogy, where I had envisioned spreading Griffin and Rachael's story equally over the three books, but I couldn't make that work while writing the books one at at time. The trilogy I'm writing now is something I've wanted to write for a long time, and I really want to get it right. The books are set in the 17th century like my first six books, but they feature a whole new set of characters. Although it's a big project, I'm working hard to finish it as fast as I can. I'm very excited about it, and I hope you will all think it's worth the wait.

In the meantime, I will continue running my contest and sending quarterly newsletters to remind you all that I am still alive and writing. :-) Speaking of the contest, we've had four winners since my last newsletter. May's winner was Cynthia Anderson of Fairhaven, New Jersey; June's winner was Auriette Lindsey of Pensacola, Florida; July's winner was Elaine Carlini-Davis of Ormond Beach, Florida; and August's winner was Kathleen Gereg of Bradenton, Florida...hey, look at all those winners from Florida! If I didn't know any better, I'd think the computer that chooses them has a thing for the Sunshine State, but -- honest! -- the program picks a totally random entry each month.

There are four more opportunities to win the sterling silver claddagh necklace pictured on the back of THE ART OF TEMPTATION, so if you haven't entered the giveaway for September yet, visit http://www.LaurenRoyal.com and click where it says "Contest" on the menu. This month's question is "How old is Corinna?" and a few answers that have made me laugh so far are: "I don't care," "You never ask a female her age," "99," and "How would I know?"...but although they are amusing, none of those answers will win. The winning entry must have the correct answer, which can easily be found in the excerpt if people would just read it. ;-)

I won't be sending another newsletter until December, so don't forget to visit the site and enter in October and November, too. I'll be curious to see if there are any more winners from Florida!

Since Brent did a whole lot of work getting my Internet connection and mail up and running, as well as repairing my site and newsletter software -- not to mention recovering all the subscriber addresses and other data we've collected over the last decade -- I owe him big time. So I promised him a shameless plug. Between attending university and working on his mom's computer stuff, Brent has also managed to find the time to write a nifty iPhone application. It's called Converter, and he describes it like this:

"Converter helps you with the mess of units you encounter in your everyday life. Convert from feet to yards to meters to miles with only a few taps. Converter handles 72 measurement units of eight common types, including length, weight, temperature, speed, data, volume (including common cooking units like teaspoons), area, and time. It also includes 34 currencies, with exchange rates updated every day over the Internet. Converter is designed for easy, casual use, with big, beautiful displays that are usable in all light conditions and at arm's length. And it includes a four-function calculator for those times when you have twelve three-pound widgets and you need the kilogram equivalent."

If you have an iPhone and that sounds useful to you, please check it out at http://architechies.com/apps/converter/. He's selling it for (literally) the price of a song (99 cents in the U.S. on the iTunes Store -- price varies in other countries).

Well, that's it for now. I wish everyone a lovely autumn (with no more hurricanes!). Happy reading, beware of bogons, and thanks for your patience while waiting for my next book!

Hugs,
~Lauren
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fall in love with a historical romance by Lauren Royal
THE ART OF TEMPTATION ~ In stores now!
Win a claddagh necklace at www.LaurenRoyal.com
Friend me at www.myspace.com/laurenroyal and Facebook

Back to top links ↑

In Stores Now!