Teaser Tuesday - Big News & Giveaways

I totally missed posting yesterday. Not that you can set your clock or calendar by my posts but I've been trying hard to be more regular. I've been under the proverbial gun, though. Although we've been working hard on the planned upcoming releases - Genesis (Oct. 2011) and Devotion (Feb. 2012) - my publisher and I decided that just wasn't enough work for us or enough fun for you. So...

BIG News!

Promise and Purpose aren't just getting an outward makeover. Their insides are also getting reworked, too! At first, this meant adding quotes from reviewers to both books, teasers for following books and a few minor tweaks to the content. But since I'm already in there messing with the interior file, we thought, "Why not go all out?" What does that mean?

New content, lovelies! New. Content.

I'm going to tell you a secret. But first, a little explanation. With beta readers, critique partners, freelance editors and agent feedback PLUS all the books I read by "experts," Promise and Purpose went through numerous rounds of revisions, before and after the split (they were originally written as one book). And I mean NUMEROUS (I'm too embarrassed to say how many and I truly lost count after about, ahem, 20 rounds or so). Somewhere along the way, the "real" story got a little mixed up. The chain of events in Promise were changed - both their order and what actually happened. Parts of both books landed on the cutting room floor when they probably shouldn't have.

These changes were made in the interest of the story, to make it the best it could be. But here's my secret: I've always regretted some of those changes. I followed advice I probably shouldn't have and didn't follow advice I probably should have. And I didn't put enough faith in my own intuition.

I love both books, don't get me wrong. But I've always had the nagging feeling that they could have been better if I had left some things alone. Now I've been given the opportunity by my fabulous publishing team to make them right. To make them the way I intended. To tell the beginning of Promise as it really happened, the way Alexis had told it to me. To bring back parts that were originally deleted because they didn't seem important but they actually provide needed insight into the characters and their behavior.

Promise has more extensive changes than Purpose, with the sequence of events returned to the way they really happened and deleted parts - including an entire scene - put back in. The changes in Purpose clarify Alexis and Dorian's life until now and why Alexis behaves the way she does in the first third of the book. The real cause is not what readers seem to think it is. PLUS Purpose will now include an excerpt from Devotion at the back. (To get a sneak peek of your own, be sure to subscribe to my newsletter. Subscribers will get the Devotion excerpt first!)

Although this has added a lot of work to my already overflowing plate, I feel a sense of relief. And excitement. Because I can't wait for readers to read these stories as I'd originally intended.

We have all kinds of things planned to celebrate the re-releases of both books by the end of the month, including giveaways! But first, I've been dying to do a big giveaway to celebrate some significant milestones: reaching over 500 fans on my Facebook page (it's over 600 now), over 1,000 followers on Twitter and 350 blog followers. As you can see, I'm still short on the blog followers. But I'm out of patience.

So here's the deal: we're going to do the big giveaway anyway! Soul Savers Series swag and signed books plus other goodies up for grabs! So watch for the details later this week. And stay tuned for more about how we're celebrating the re-releases of Promise and Purpose.