ŷ������

Winners of signed copies of With This Bling !


Elizabeth~I need your email!
ticuv.yahoo.com
Haldis
Diane


Winners of How I Met Your Father Audio download!

ckcoyote
Helena~ I need your email!

Thank you everyone who participated. It's a crazy, crazy house with the new puppy, Daphne, college kids home, and my ever growing To Do list!

LB

Happy Holidays from everyone here at Chez Gregg!��

Only child in her Front Bottoms hat--has no clue her life is about to change.
We're expecting a puppy later today--honest to God. A little beagle boy rescued from Arkansas, about five months old (maybe six) and he's milky white and splattered in cayenne red. His name is Tommy, though I suspect something more fitting will stick to him over the next few days. I cannot wait to meet him!

Daphne's enthusiasm will be a work in progress.

News for me? Well, the big-ass blog tour is over! I have to thank Amelia at for keeping me on time; and Sarah Lyons for the moral support.

����has received some pretty nice reviews--including a from Dear Author and some year end favorites! I squeaked under the wire on that one. Most importantly, I'm delighted you all are enjoying the book. It means so much.

Naturally, I'm months behind on my next deadline. Post holiday season, I'll disappear into the writing cave and feverishly attend to my muse, but head's up: the next book will be delayed. One thing at a time. It's all I can do. In the meantime, check out t��from With This Bling��and my .

New in Christmas Audio:Get into the holiday spirit with ��and����now��on audio!







**GIVE AWAY**see rules below
In celebration of the fans who waited patiently (and some not so patiently I SEE YOU), I'm giving away��four signed copies of With This Bling, and two audiobook downloads of perennial favorite�� . You have until Monday December 21 to enter (midnight EST) and the contest is open to 18+. I'll pick at random (using one of those random number generators). All you have to do is leave a comment here and tell us what you're most looking forward to in the New Year. Easy Peasy. Leave your email addy as well!

I'll start: I'm most looking forward to finishing The Buck Stops Here. Ai yi yi.

Happy Holidays and thanks again for making 2015 a great year!

LB Gregg


**RULES**

�� No purchase is necessary �� this is a book giveaway.�� All eligible participants must be at least 18 years old and is void where prohibited.���� Each eligible participant will have his or her name entered into the random drawings by commenting on��this post��between now and noon EST Monday, December 21, 2015.�� Eligible winners will be considered ineligible for additional gifts. Each entrant will be allowed only one win during this giveaway.���� Gifts are not redeemable in whole or in part for cash and equivalent value gifts may not be substituted.������ There will be 6 lucky gift recipients chosen by 6 random drawings on December 22, 2015.���� Chosen gift recipients will have 48 hours to respond to email by LBG after winners are posted on December 22, 2015.�� The odds of selection are dependent on the total number of eligible entries received.��

It's that time: the��--��Pop over to Riptide for the full, updated list with fresh, shiny, .

I'm all over the place--as you can see-- but you won't want to miss over at Joyfully Jay this morning. There will be an adorable deleted scene coming soon (somewhere) as well.

If you'd like to enter the give away for an Amazon gift certificate and way cool Romano and Albright mug & swag--comment at any of the blog tour stops. Easy peasy.

Samhain is ��until Dec 11, just in case you LOST yours. **cough**

Finally--pop by Facebook --where later today I'll give away two signed copies of WTB later. Look for the post! And then comment. This contest will be open worldwide, 18+, open until midnight tomorrow (Wed Dec 9, EST) and winners will be selected through random number generator.

Okay. Time to write.

Thanks for all your well wishes and support!

LB

At long last Caesar Romano and Dan Albright return! ����--available December 7th from Riptide Publishing. **

No celebration of Ce & Dan is complete without a little excerpt!

Like clockwork, a knock rattled the back door.My ride, silhouetted in amber, filled the doorway. If I hadn’t expected him, his menacing shadow would have scared the crap out of me, particularly after this morning’s adventures. Sure, Poppy and I worked in a decent neighborhood, but New York was New York. And Dan enjoyed playing the part of sneaky bastard. His livelihood depended on stealth, and I swear he got a thrill every time I jumped.As it was, my pulse fluttered at the sight of him, but I didn’t let on. I unplugged my laptop. “You can come in. Don’t lurk on the stoop.”“I’m not lurking. I’m knocking. This is polite social behavior.”“You are now, and always have been, ever the gentleman.”“You better believe it, baby.�� He opened the door, and his smile faded. “Why isn’t this locked? Anyone could have walked right in.”“I just literally unlocked it.�� A half-truth. “You were expected.”“Expected,�� he grumbled and made a show of flipping the latch, which seemed excessive since we were leaving and only an idiot would break in with Dan’s strapping shoulders clogging the entrance. He wore his usual blue jeans and black T-shirt, but without the butch biker boots.��So, he’d taken the car and he planned a stakeout. No motorcycle. “Did you speak to the police?”He tucked his sunglasses away and watched me putter. “They were about as helpful as that kid this morning.”The summer sun had bronzed his cheek bones, and five-o’clock shadow covered his jaw, thick enough to be a beard by morning. He rested his butt against the gleaming stainless steel counter next to the sink, and stuffed his hand deep into the front pocket of his worn jeans, right next to his weighty package. Anyone else would have dug for a cell phone. Dan remained alert and ready for action, his eye on me.
My gaze drifted toward his crotch and hung there for a second.
“See something you like?”“Mmm. Maybe.�� I met his smile before returning to the scintillating task of coiling my power cord. “Exhibit A.�� I nodded toward the glass of Sprite as I stowed the cord into a zippered pouch. “Your cable guy is a jerk.”My fingers brushed across one of the numerous condoms I carried for emergencies. Poppy had thrown them inside my bag willy-nilly and all fifteen or more of them were clumped together. I frowned at the disarray, and when I looked back, Dan peeled his shirt over his head.I froze. “What are you doing?”“What does it look like?�� He tossed the shirt on the counter, and his chest rippled. Laid bare were the thin scars that intrigued me and terrified me and reminded me of all the things I hadn’t asked him but should.Dan folded his shirt, unhurried but determined, and I nervously followed the thin arrow of hair that disappeared into his waistband. “You do know the sign says, ‘No shirt, no service��?”“If I keep my shirt on, will you service me?”“I .��.��.”He smiled evilly, and I bit my lip. Servicing him here at work? We’d never. I mean, it was simply not done. Not here. Not by us. Not yet, anyway.Blood rushed south despite my lame protest. “I just cleaned the counter.”“Then we won’t use the counter.��
begins Monday!


���� **a little bird tells me With This Bling will be available on the Riptide website this weekend!**

Want to get a first peek at my upcoming Romano and Albright novel--With This Bling? Hop on over to Heroes and Heartbreakers for an .

Only a few more weeks! Dec 7th is the official release date. You can ��your��copy��at Riptide Publishing.

My holiday in Scotland revealed a few things:

Scotch is really the only hard drink worth a damn--and best in very small doses. Also whiskey with an 'e' reminds me of Adrien English. I like it.Nobody visits the Orkneys in October, making it the dream destination for me. So raw. So lovely.I can and will run anywhere.The Scottish sun burns bright and close. The moon as well.Cheese is my favorite food group.��I take a lot of photos of rocks.��A new Scottish novella is planned for December 2016, tentatively titled��The Pretender.If you're following me on, you've already seen some of these highlights. I'm including a few absolute favorite vacation photos here, because who doesn't love to see someone else's endless holiday snapshots? Am I right? I still have hundreds of pictures to sort through, many of them flowers, rocks, sunshine, my face, cups, and blurry landscapes taken from the bus window. It was just a brilliant time and I bought a bunch of travel books along the way. Naturally, I'm already planning my next tour--some day down the road a bit.

Cheese.
Standing Stones Orkney.
We chased the other tourists away with our hideously bad Scottish accents.Morning Run in Inverness.
Crossing from Orkney.
Inside a Clava Cairn.
Dizzy walk along the outer bailey at Stirling Castle.

Ploughman's. #saynotobeets

��Full moon. Church. Gravestones. Perfection.
Loch Ness, Urquhart Castle, and moi.
Kirkwall St. Magnus Cathedral at night.


Cheers.Happy October. It's good to be home again for a few weeks--Daphne is particularly thrilled. We're here. We're enjoying the foliage, and I'm working.




~LB

I started this post hours ago and I admit, I had to reach out to a wonderful, thoughtful friend ��for some guidance. Then, as I do, I went for a run to clear my head.

What began in this awful, ugly place in my heart, the one filled with rage and defensiveness (a very bad place to start) brought me to this new, interesting landscape filled with reflection and gratitude.

Because so many of you get that today is about her story. Not yours.

I’m not super involved in our writing community anymore. There are a wealth of reasons for that, but mental fatigue plays a huge part. People can be vexing. And getting overwrought is not what Mr. Darcy calls a value-added activity. So though I usually don’t keep up with the latest outrage or scandal or big to-dos, there is a parade of pitch -fork and torch carriers –the very same people who love to read and write and talk about love, forgiveness, and reconciliation�� climbing the porch steps of someone very dear to me.

��And then I read through some posts and comments from people in our community and I even received a few messages of support myself. Wow. Yay, people. Yay, you. How enormously gratifying to see so many (authors, readers, publishers, editors) offer the safe harbor of friendship, and exercise the inclusivity and love you write about, talk about, read about, and fly flags over.

Today was supposed to be my Happy����New Music Day (and still is because I’ve bought five flipping copies of that album)—and it turns out instead to be this amazing���� And it's important, because that's my best friend.

There are a lot of very good, very wonderful people out there in our converging circles. People who choose not only write about love, they also offer it. An unexpected phenomena in the face of so many unknowns for Josh, and my
surprisingly optimistic take away on this I Stand For Josh Friday.

I leave for Scotland in less than a week. I have my Wellies, my notebook, my playlist, my friends, my running shoes, and my hollow leg. I'll be back October 10th. You can find me on Facebook, as usual. And, if you haven't yet signed up for my bitching newsletter, please do.

Peace~

L.B.

Part of a three blog series today with my pal Josh Lanyon.

��Continuing our THIS IS NOT YOUR MOTHER’S PUBLISHING CAREER conversation over at


To recap we were talking about the issue of Discoverability, which leads us to:
Promotion
Orange you glad it's a Lanyon?L.B. - “I’m not good at promotion.�� I haven’t met an author who doesn’t speak those words at some point. I, personally, am really not good at promotion. I leave this up to Lanyon, who has a freaking Etsy store where people actually buy the stuff!��
Left to my own devices, I would not have much of anything. Thank God for readers (and that’s an upcoming bullet point).
I actually disagree that you’re not great at promotion, because though you don’t post a lot, you’re always real. Which I believe to be key. You give real peeks into a real life and it’s a life with more going on than your books. Also you’re very good at real life networking—which is HELLO, how we got together.
And by “together,�� I mean friends. But that leads me to some of the dubious things I see in promotion. Like authors talking mostly to other authors. Or depending too heavily on one’s gender or relationship status. Let’s be honest, being a guy in this genre can get you initial interest and attention. But that only takes you so far. Eventually, you gotta deliver the goods. Readers may adore you personally, but if the books aren’t all that, they just won’t keep buying them, however much they like your Facebook posts.
Here’s a fact. Six hundred likes on your FB posts does not automatically equal earning a living at writing fiction.
The hard truth is if you personally know all your readers, you’re in trouble. You need to be selling thousands of books on a consistent basis, your readership needs to expand way beyond the social media platforms you use. You need to be selling primarily to people who don’t know you from Adam. Or Eve. And don’t give a shit.
Exactly. Actually, I find that the more readers know about an author, the more likely they are to become disillusioned and not want to read/buy their books. That’s why I maintain the mystery. Not really. Also, promo is constant upkeep, and everyone is aiming to find the next hook to gain more readers. There are a few authors who do this exceptionally well (Tessa Dare comes to mind). Fresh, fun, inventive promo is a full time job. Authors could hire someone, but at that aforementioned 17-34K—who can afford it? This is where branding comes in handy. If you’re good at branding.
But if you’re spending all your time online, when do you find time to write?��
L.B. �� Well, you just have to chain yourself to your chair. Love the chair. Be one with the chair.
Do as I say and not as I do? ;-)
L.B.�� I decided years ago that I could not and would not chain myself to a chair. Which explains why I am not making a cushy living writing.
Reader interaction and involvement

This, I think, is one of the biggest differences from the old days. I think it’s both one of the very best developments in modern publishing—but also one of the most disconcerting.
Now days there is an expectation that authors will be accessible to readers. Even literary authors feel the pressure to get on social media and interact.
So we went from a profession with little or no contact with our audience, to a sometimes overwhelming amount of feedback. For example, look at ŷ������ where readers can vote on books that haven’t even been written yet! That can be pretty intimidating. In fact, in some ways, the reader is increasingly close to being part of the creative process.
L.B. - ŷ������ is the devil. I do not partake. I am a rock. I am an island. (As reflected in my sales.)
LB Gregg Wine Shop and Theme ParkOn the plus side, holy moly! Readers will set up your author store.
L.B. - Okay, that wouldbe nice. An L.B. Gregg store, which would look more like a wine shop than anything else.
��I want to shop at YOUR store.
Anyway, beyond offering the obvious support of regularly buying our books (which continues to be the single most important thing a reader can do to support an author), the contemporary reader also reviews. Sometimes casually on social media or sometimes more formally through blogs. This notion of the “citizen reviewer�� is a sea change in itself. Readers “buzz�� books they like through word of mouth, which is an informal equivalent of a bookstore hand-selling your work. It’s a huge development in the reader/author relationship.
But that’s only the first tier of modern reader engagement. In the second tier, we have readers serving as support staff, offering to “beta�� read or do research, creating covers, helping with translations, formatting…you name it! We have readers who are so engaged, so invested that they become what is referred to in the business as a “street team.�� At this level of engagement, readers will organize your launch parties, drive your social media, etc. They become partners in your success.
L.B.-- THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN TO ME. I am in awe of authors who cultivate a Street Team.
I don’t know how this happens either. I mean, it happened for me, yes. But I still don’t understand how or why. I know that I am very grateful, and that I can’t imagine my life—let alone my career—without these reader friends by my side.
And this doesn’t even take into account the readers who send gifts or contribute financially to various author-driven causes.
Ce and Dan Return!Which leads us to…well, no, it doesn’t but it’s our next point which we will continue to discuss and debate over


BIOS:

L.B. Gregg –When not working from her home in the rolling hills of Northwestern Connecticut, author L.B. Gregg can be spotted in coffee shops from Berlin to Singapore to Panama -- sipping lattes and writing sweet, hot, often funny, stories about men who love men. Buy her books here:
Josh Lanyon �� A distinct voice in gay fiction, JOSH LANYON is the multi-award-winning author of nearly seventy stories of male/male mystery, adventure and romance. Josh is the author of the critically acclaimed Adrien English series, including The Hell You Say, winner of the 2006 USABookNews award for GLBT Fiction. Josh is an Eppie Award winner, a four-time Lambda Literary Award finalist, and the first recipient of the ŷ������ M/M Romance group's Hall of Fame award. Learn more at

Back by popular demand and available as reprinted masterpieces--yes, I finally got my act together--it's�� and --The Cornwall Novellas.��These new covers are just gorgeous. Many thanks to the team of experts who made this happen, Keren, Janet, and L.C. Chase.

The plan is for new Cornwall novellas summer 2016 and winter 2017. Keeping my fingers crossed!



Simple Gifts~

A former ward of the state, Jason Ferris is fiercely protective of his carefully guarded private life. When he's felled by a rogue lawn ornament at a Christmas party, Jason finds himself in the care of his first and most devastating love-- dark, dangerous, and equally damaged Lt. Robb Sharpe. Newly returned from years away in the military, Robb's homecoming isn't exactly the stuff of fairytales. Now thrust together after a ten year hiatus, Jason and Robb discover that perhaps some things are worth waiting for.
Dudleytown~

College sophomore Alexander Strauss has one rule: no messing around with straight guys. Especially not his mouthwatering roommate, Shannon. When their ride share drives off the side of a mountain, the two young men find themselves deep in an uninhabited forest searching for their missing friend. Wandering the famously cursed grounds of Dudleytown, Alex figures something truly unholy must be at play, because only insanity could tempt him to break his cardinal rule.

Working. I swear.Just wanted to give a shout out to Joyfully Jay--! Please go check it out and enter to win a Riptide gift certificate.

Sometimes I feel like the George Martin of gay romance in that there are years and years between book releases in this much loved series. But I promise no major characters get gruesomely slaughtered. There's no incest. No dragons. No zombies. ��However, there IS plenty of sex, maybe a smidge of violence, ��a few laughs, and 70K of Caesar Romano and Dan Albright doing what they do best: driving each other crazy.
.

PS I promise you won't have to wait so long for the next book.