Jae Blog

New beginnings

May 3, 2023October 21, 2012

I had hoped to make the announcement that I am embarking on a new adventure with a lighter heart. Unfortunately, a lot has happened in the last few weeks. Six months ago, Roxanne Jones, CEO of L-Book ePublisher, and I planned on making this announcement together. But sadly, Roxanne passed away on September 26. As of October 2012, I will no longer be publishing with L-Book. My older novels will still be available from L-Book for now, but my new books, starting with Manhattan Moon (available now) and Something in the Wine (in November), will be published with Ylva Publishing, a German …

Sad news

May 3, 2023October 3, 2012

Most of you have probably heard that Roxanne Jones, the CEO of L-Book, my publisher, passed away on September 26. I’m a writer and a psychologist, so I work with words all day, but in situations like this, I don’t know what to say. When I first met Roxanne (almost to the day five years ago), I didn’t have much of a clue about the publishing business. Back then, L-Book wasn’t a traditional publisher but was “just” publishing computer-generated audio books. Over the course of the past five years, L-Book and I grew together. L-Book added e-books and then paperbacks. Roxanne was great with all the …

The setting of my lesbian romance Something in the Wine

May 3, 2023August 21, 2012

When I first started doing research for my newest novel, Something in the Wine, I decided to set it in Paso Robles, California. Once I decided on the location, I looked for a place within driving distance where one of the romantic key scenes could take place. When I stumbled across a website of Moonstone Beach, I knew I had found the perfect location. Two of my beta readers have visited Moonstone Beach and sent me photos (Thank you to RJ and Erin for letting me use a few of the photos for this blog post). Here’s a description …

Interview with Astrid Ohletz from Ylva Publishing

May 3, 2023May 30, 2012

A friend of mine founded a publishing company this year, and it was very interesting to witness every step along the way, e.g., the creation of the website, the first e-books being sold, etc. Since Ylva Publishing is a German publisher, I learned some interesting differences between the German and the US publishing industry. Here’s the link to the publisher’s website. Right now, they are selling their first two e-books (a novel and a novella) through Amazon. Continue reading for an interview that I did with the publisher. Don’t worry, I translated the interview for you. :-) Why did you …

Golden Crown Literary Society Awards

May 3, 2023June 7, 2010

The Golden Crown Literary Society (GCLS) held its annual conference last weekend, and the GCLS awards (“Goldies”) were presented on Saturday. I woke up to an inbox full of e-mails, telling me “congratulations,” but giving me no clue as to what I had won since three of my novels had been shortlisted. The GCLS hadn’t posted the award winners yet, so I clicked through all e-mails until I got to messages from Jeanine Hoffman, a fellow L-Book author who attended the conference. She e-mailed me on her iPhone during the award presentation, telling me Backwards to Oregon had just won …

Things I liked in lesbian fiction

May 3, 2023May 17, 2010

Yesterday, I blogged about the common mistakes I find in lesbian fiction. Since I don’t want you to think I’m seeing just the negative things, here’s a list of what I liked in the thirty-six lesfic novels I read in 2010. Fresh, beautiful language and vivid descriptions in “Barking at the Moon” by Nene Adams. Examples: superman blue pickup truck. Or: Hennaed hair teased as high as gravity and industrial-strength hairspray allowed. A psychologist who’s neither unethical nor incompetent in “Battle Scars” by Meghan O’Brien. The book also describes posttraumatic stress disorder in a realistic way. The …

common mistakes in lesbian fiction

May 3, 2023May 16, 2010

I’m participating in the 50-book challenge this year. I just finished reading lesbian romance number 36, and there are a few mistakes I see over and over again. I’m not saying that you’ll find these mistakes just in lesbian fiction. I’m also not saying that I never committed any of these mistakes (I wish!). But they’re what I most often notice in lesbian fiction and what pulls me out of the story for a moment, so they’re on my list of things to look for when I revise and edit my own novels. So here’s my list of annoying mistakes …