Pair of Jacks Wins! Leigh Ellwood's JACK OF DIAMONDS out now!

Win with a Pair of Jacks!

Jack of Diamonds by Leigh Ellwood now on sale!

Phaze, 1-59426-561-5, $2.00 eBook download

Book Two of The Cards Trilogy

Buy now!

Was it a Halloween trick...or a romantic treat? When Jack Thurmond realizes he is the reincarnation of an 18th-century heiress, he sets off to claim the vampire who loved her...the vampire Jack thought only existed as the passionate lover in his dreams.

Having accepted that his beloved Lila is now a 21st century man, Lars is ready to look past Jack's gender to see the gentle soul that kept his hopes alive for centuries. Their reunion is as electric as the storms raging through Paris, but will outside forces separate them once again...this time for good? One of the Phaze Surges, the only one with M/M romance!

Meet Jack and Lars from the very beginning!

Jack of Hearts, buy now!

For centuries, Lars has waited for the reincarnation of his beloved Lila, that he may make her his immortal bride and right the wrong done when she was tragically murdered. His search appears to come to an end on a contemporary Halloween, but is Lars in for a trick or a treat when he learns of Lila's newest incarnation - a gay man named Jack? Can the vampire's love for his lost beloved transcend time...and gender?

One of the Phaze Shivers, the only one with M/M romance!

Get a Pair of Jacks For Free When You Buy Truth or Dare!

Buy a copy of Truth or Dare from your local Borders, send a scan of the receipt to borders@leighellwood.com, and you can receive a two free eBook novellas from Leigh! Choose from Jack of Hearts, Jack of Diamonds, and more! See Leigh's website for more details.

It Seems Like Yesterday

I'm one of the original members of an organization named EPIC -- the Electronially Published Internet Connection -- which is for published authors and publishing professionals who are devoted to being published electronically. We do accept authors who have a signed contract with a publishing house, either print of e.

Now, this is hard to believe. Florence Moyer and I started this thing way back September of 1997. We had both been to RWA that year in Orlando, and had gotten interested in epublishing, but when we went back home (never knowlingly having crossed paths) we kept bumping into each other on the Net and also bumping into a couple of "publishers" who knew nothing about publishing -- that was obvious!

When she came up with the idea and emailed me, I said, "That sounds like a great idea, but how would you do it?" Well, three hours later, she had!

After am enthusiastic but sometimes rocky start, we go going, and how! At last count, we had about 510 members, and growing.

I'm proud to have served two years as President -- my second term ended this month. Next year, when we gather in March for our annual conference in Virginia Beach, we'll celebrate a Tenth Anniversary. Yeah, I know we'll be a little early, but it's never too early to have a party. And this is the most fun writing group I've ever been a part of!

EPIC's wonderful website with lots of interesting stuff

Progress

I'm a proud member of EPIC -- Electronically Published Internet Connection -- which is a group of authors and other industry professionals active in producing ebooks!

WOW! Have we seen growth this past year! First, a little history. Ebooks have been around only about ten years. Oh, yes, the instructions you might have printed off on an old computer qualifies in a way as being an electronic book, but we are speaking of primarily recreational reading. Unfortunately, none of us thought back then that we should keep track of how many ebooks were released in 1998 -- our loss.

But, this past year, electronic publishing was the ***only*** segment of publishing that actually increased receipts without raising the price of their units sold. And we are responsible for $1,100,000,000 in sales! 1.1 BBBBBillion dollars. Books, newspapers, magazine, texts are sliding in numbers of items sold.

How do we know that the ripple has become a groundswell? Well, there are several ways we can tell.

Fictionwise.com , the #1 distributor/seller of ebooks is showing more and more books first published by best-selling authors previously (in some cases waaay reviously) published in print. Because we're growing -- and they are saddled with much more overhead than we do, though we do have overhead.

Fictionwise, by the way, had grown in sales by something like 72% a year for about three years. Growth might be slowing somewhat, but the overall growth in our industry is 35%. Whew! That means that three years from now, we'll double yet again!

Those publishers and agents who have heretofore looked only to print authors for manuscripts and clients are looking for and signing electronically published authors to repackage their ebooks and provide them with new manuscripts.

The mushooming genres in ebooks are erotica, blended genres (ie, science fiction/fantasy, historical/suspense, etc.) and the print publishers are trying to catch up to us. This attests to the fact that the most creative, forward thinking writers are published electronically.

So, if you are reading ebooks, you are ahead of the curve! You are a groundbreaker just as we who write for electronic media have been.

Cheers!

My Enemy, My Love is Publisher's Pick for Writing Excellence

I hope everyone is doing well this first day of April. It feels like spring has finally arrived here in Maryland.

I am thrilled to share my news with you. My Civil War romance, MY ENEMY, MY LOVE, has acquired another honor. It has been chosen the April 2006 Publisher's Pick for Writing Excellence at http://www.whiskeycreekpress.com/. Visit the site to see what the publisher, Debra Womack, had to say about the book.

They are running a buy-one-get-one-free to draw people to buy my book. Pretty cool, huh? I like it!

Sincerely, Diane