Back matter management!  Every time you put out a major new title, you have to go through all your other books, and “restock” the Other Titles links in the back with info and links.  And you have to recreate all your EPUBs, MOBIs, PDFs, and then update them all on Amazon, AllRomanceEbooks, Google Play, BN.com, Smashwords… It’s a grind.  I wish Amazon would create a separate admin section where you could just update your back matter once, and it would update in all your books.  It’s a dream I have!

What is the most satisfying thing about being a writer?

Great reviews on Amazon or Goodreads.  Reading someone’s long, thoughtful take on my book.  I think the law in politics is that one person who writes a letter = 100 who feel the same way but not strongly enough to write about it.  The idea that my book moved someone enough to take the time to do that, means I’m doing something right.

Do your characters ever take over your writing and make the story go somewhere you didn’t originally have in mind?

Oh yeah, sometimes.  You can have an abstract plot laid out, but as you write the characters, you realize, no, he wouldn’t do that.  Or, it’s not time for them to get together yet after all, one or both of them isn’t “there yet.”  In “Apollo’s Curse,” I didn’t know that Jackson daVinci would have such a good sense of humor until I started writing him.

Tell us about your first book. What would readers find different about the first one and your most recent published work?

Well, setting aside my erotic short stories, my first book was a novella, “A Little Too Broken.”  I think all my books have come as reactions to trends, as I try and “get in on it,” but I guess my problem is that I always have to do that at my own weird, stubborn, angle.
When I wrote it, there were all these “New Adult” stories coming out, about two “young, beautiful and broken” people who fall in love.  Of course they were young and beautiful, so of course by the end the “broken” was fixed, and you got your young beautiful reward for sticking around and “fixing” the other person!  It made me roll my eyes.
Yeah, I thought grimly, well what if you had two people who were just a little too broken – who couldn’t get fixed by the end of a story?  But who fell in love and accepted the permanence of the other’s brokenness?  And so I ended up with Jamie, who’s HIV positive, and Tom, who lost his legs in Afghanistan.  I wanted to show what they had in common – fighting the health care system, dealing with phony compassion, living with a life long condition.  I think I did pretty well.  I realized when I finished, though, that I felt guilty profiting off Tom’s story – as if half the story really wasn’t mine.  So that’s why 50% of royalties goes to IAVA and/or Wounded Warrior Project (100% some months, when the news has me especially pissed off about the treatment of veterans).
Anyway 🙂  The difference in “Apollo’s Curse” is that I wasn’t even trying to follow a trend, I was bucking it completely.  I have a reputation for insanely hot sex scenes, and I wanted to write an old-school, Barbara Cartland they-kiss-on-the-last-page story.  Just to prove I could!  I think I’ve learned some patience, too – if I wrote ALTB now, it would probably have been longer.  I’ve learned not to mad-dash to the end of things now.  But I’m still totally defiant in refusing to follow the herd when it comes to what I write 🙂  I’d make more money if I did, but I wouldn’t have any fun.

What is a typical writing day like for you?

I get up very early!  Four o’clock is normal, because I have a day job, so most days my writing day ends at 6:30.  However, I’m going to have at least a month “off work” this summer – which of course only means that writing will be my F/T job!  I do all my writing when I’m fresh, then do marketing, reformatting, etc.  The writing is always the most important part.

and of course I think the last question should always be “what can we expect in the future “? 🙂

I’m working on a novel now called “A Great Prince” – you can read an excerpt on my blog here (http://bradvanceerotica.wordpress.com/2014/06/06/someday-my-prince-will-come-in-a-hot-new-novel-underway-now/).  Just like Dane in “Apollo,” I’m about to branch into “heteromance” myself, with a novel set on a Reno divorce ranch in the 30s.  Oh, and I’ll be restarting the “Colum’s Viking Captivity” series this summer!

Thank you Brad Vance!