Author Saturday Spotlight: Brad Vance #Interview #Giveaway

Brad Vance, author of Apollo's Curse, Would I Lie to You?, and many MANY other amazing books is my authors spotlight this Saturday. As always I have treats! We will take a look at some of Brad's work, do an interview, and wrap it up with a lovely giveaway!!! Let's begin.

All Dane Gale ever wanted was to be a successful writer. After a few sessions with his new friends Rose and Sherry at a romance book club, well, the more romances they read, the more they're convinced they can do better. And do they ever! They join their creative forces to become "Pamela Clarice," self-published romance novelist. When they look for a cover model for their first book, Dane sees the photos that will change his life.

Paul Musegetes is the world's most popular romance cover model, and the most secretive. Dane soon finds himself obsessed with this supernaturally handsome man, and when he meets Paul at the Romance Writers' Ball on the Summer Solstice, he and Paul connect for one night of passion...

After that night, Dane's a writing machine. He can't stop writing romances, and every story he touches turns to gold. But he also finds that he can't write anything but romances. And soon he's spending every waking moment of every day writing another after another...

Then Dane finds out that this Midas touch has a heavy price. When the year is over, he'll never write again. Not a romance, not a serious novel. Nothing. Not even a grocery list. And that leaves him with only one option - find Paul, and get him to break the curse. But before he can do that, he'll have to track down Paul's equally mysterious photographer, Jackson da Vinci... 

Peter Rabe's luck is about to change. Taking a co-worker's car into the shop nets him a desperately needed $100 tip...and the attentions of Matt Kensington, master mechanic. Peter can't believe that someone as hot as Matt could be interested in the young man his tormentors used to call "Peter Rabbit." But, incredibly enough, he is. And when the Quadrillions lottery jackpot is up to $700,000,000, wouldn't it be crazy of Peter not to buy a ticket on his lucky day? Matt doesn't think much of money, having grown up on New York's Upper East Side in the lap of luxury. He'd walked away from the professional drudgery his Harvard degree had qualified him for, to become a mechanic, to touch things that were real, to fix things that were broken. And a hot shy guy like Peter is another machine Matt wants to believe he can fix. But when Peter finds out he's won the lottery, it almost feels like his luck has run out. Especially when Cody Burrell, his emotionally abusive ex-boyfriend, mysteriously re-enters his life just before he cashes the ticket and reveals his good fortune to the world... Peter must wrestle with the pressures of wealth on someone who's grown up poor, the pressure of fame that comes with so much instant fortune, and most of all, with his own demons, the demons that Cody knows all too well how to manipulate.

Software billionaire Marc Julian’s orderly life is shattered one night by a cyber-intrusion into his company’s servers. He’s always surrounded himself with the best people, but finding the culprit behind this might require a real expert...and sometimes it takes a thief to catch a thief.Jesse Winchester and his team of “grey hat” hackers are suddenly available to Marc. Marc doesn’t know if he should trust Jesse with the keys to his company’s kingdom. After all, Jesse’s a convicted felon, sent to prison for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. A felon sentenced to thirty-five years in prison, who mysteriously served only three years before being released.
Marc’s first company, his whole life, was shattered because he trusted the wrong person. This time there’s even more at stake, but few other options. Especially when his evil enemies, the billionaire industrialist Krom brothers, are revealed to be the source of the intrusion.
Is Jesse there to help Marc, or does he have his own history with the Kroms, his own score to settle? As Jesse and Marc spend more time together, their growing intimacy is at war with their need to win their respective battles. Soon the game they start to play with each other, against each other, becomes more exciting, more exquisitely frustrating…and more dangerous.

 INTERVIEW

Hello, Brad. It’s truly wonderful to have you on my blog. It’s a first! SO that is even more exciting. I warn you, there is no rhyme or reason to my questions. They bounce, but they are fun… I think. Many people know you but there are always some in the genre meeting you for the first time. So, we will get to know you, ask some questions. You know the drill.

 What do you consider to be your best accomplishment?

Well, I’d have two answers to that. My best book is “Apollo’s Curse,” hands down. It’s about creativity, it’s about the romance business, it’s about…well, me. It’s the only book I’ve written that has no sex scenes in it. In that sense, it’s a tribute to the old school romance novels, that end with a kiss on the last page. When I’m dead and gone, that’s the book I hope people will remember me for.

But my best accomplishment has been the money I’ve raised for veterans’ organizations. I donate 50% of the gross royalties from “A Little Too Broken” to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and Puppies Behind Bars, which trains service dogs for vets. These two organizations are really effective, and highly rated by Charity Navigator. When I have a really good sales month on my other titles, I donate 100% of the royalties from “Broken.” So far I’ve been able to donate $4,225.

One of the two MCs in “Broken” is Tom, who’s lost his lower legs to an IED in Afghanistan and has to deal with PTSD as well. When I finished the book, I realized that I would feel like a war profiteer if I made money off a story line like that. I had this realization that “half this book isn’t mine,” and that led me to start donating half the proceeds.

And, my own father had some emotional problems stemming from his service in the Pacific in WWII. In those days, nobody talked about that stuff; if you had all your arms and legs you had nothing to “whine about.” So I have a strong personal interest in veterans’ health issues.

      You have faced some serious censorship issues via Amazon. They banned some of your books. Do you feel they were in the right? (I doubt you do) Tell us how this affects you and how it should be changed? 

The problem with Amazon’s censorship policy is that it’s inconsistent and deliberately vague. There is only one line about their censorship policy, which says that what they will block is “about what you’d expect.” About what who would expect? Some bluenose in Arkansas, or me and my fans? They keep it vague, of course, so they can change the guidelines at will, without explanation.

And when you get a title blocked, they won’t say, this has incest or this has an inappropriate cover – they just say, and I quote from the email I got on “Kyle’s New Stepbrother II,” that “During our review process, we found that your book contains content that is in violation of our content guidelines. Our content guidelines apply to the book interior, as well as cover image, title and/or product descriptions. As a result, we will not be offering this book for sale.” And that’s all they tell you. Which leaves you wondering if it’s the cover art, the title, the description, the content, any or all of those. I ended up making about seven changes (the cover, the description, adding characters’ ages to the story, etc.), and on the second try, it went through.

The other problem is that it isn’t consistent. The first story went through just fine, but the second one got blocked. You get one guy on a weekday who passes anything, but it’s common knowledge among writers that you should never submit erotica on a weekend, because that’s when the bluenoses are on shift. That’s just crazy.

And this was when a lot of stepbrother stories were coming out on Amazon, and writers were discovering that if you published stepfucking stories as Erotica, they got blocked…but hey presto select Romance as your category, and it’ll sail right through…again, maddening inconsistency.

To be honest, I’ve had worse problems with Kobo and Apple, who pretty much go into a rabid froth when they hear the E word (erotica). “A Little Too Broken” was blocked by Apple because I’d categorized it as erotica! When I took the Kyle series out of Kindle Unlimited as an experiment, I got blocked at Scribd, Kobo, Apple…so Amazon isn’t the worst bluenose in the bunch.

       How important are names to you in your books? Do you choose the names based on liking the way it sounds or the meaning? Do you have any name choosing resources you recommend? 

Yeah, I’ve got this bugbear about “soap opera” names – Chase and Chance and Cody and Trace and Tracker and Trey. When I hear them, I feel like I’m going into an unreal world where every guy has longish hair and fashion model looks, and I want my guys, my stories, to feel real. And honestly, I just find names like Sam and Tom and Brian to be really sexy. Those sound like “dude” names, you know? The funny thing is that every toddler now seems to be named Cody or Dakota, and twenty years from now, every young man really will have those names. My real legal name is “Orland Outland,” which I suppose made me jealous as a kid of other kids with names like Joe and Bob and Chris! Back then, a weird name wasn’t cool, it was just…weird.

      If you didn't like writing books, what would you do for a living? 

Wow, that’s a Catch-22, because anything else I would do would be literary in nature, and if I didn’t like writing books I wouldn’t like being an editor, or teaching creative writing. I’ve started narrating and publishing my own audiobooks at https://bradiobooks.myshopify.com/ so I could always find voiceover work! I really can’t imagine any job that didn’t have something to do with words.

       Is there a certain type of scene that's harder for you to write than others? 

Sure, anything that’s really emotional, and really plucks at some of my own issues. For my latest book, “Werewolves of Brooklyn,” I had a long passage about the Civil War, and the redemption that one of the MCs has at the end of that section. And it just fucking wrecked me, I cried so hard, and I couldn’t write for a week afterward – and I’m usually a word machine, nothing stops me. Next up I’m going to be doing a science fiction story, under my SF pen name, “Adam Vance.” All action, cerebral stuff, court intrigue, evil AIs, that kind of thing. No dealin’ with the feelin’ for a while! It’s going to be a nice break.

      Is there one subject you would never write about as an author? What is it?

Oh, never say never… I swore I’d never do a shifter story. I thought the genre was all derivative
“True Blood” imitations …and now I’ve gone and written “Werewolves of Brooklyn”! I don’t think I’d ever write a YA novel, but then, a few of my books have extensive flashbacks to my characters’ childhoods, so in a way I already have. It’s tough, because of Amazon’s guidelines about sexuality in books. So even though we all know teenagers have sex, I have to construct my scenes so that they don’t do it, at least onscreen, until they’re 18. Again, it’s an inconsistent policy, because if you just wrote that part as a standalone YA book and categorized it as such, you’d probably get away with it…

    Characters often find themselves in situations they aren't sure they can get themselves out of. When was the last time you found yourself in a situation that was hard to get out of and what did you do?

Me personally? Well, I’d say that situation was a day job! All my life I’ve wanted to be a full time writer, and I’ve had to work that as a second job until just this year. I’d end up working 50-55 hour weeks between my day job and my writing job, which meant no days off, since weekends were the only time I could write without having to stop and go to work. By the end I was just running on stress; I probably would have had a heart attack if I hadn’t managed to get a big hit with the stepbrother books and buy my way out of Cubicle City.

But I persevered, because I knew that while I might never make it as a full time writer, if I didn’t keep tryin,g then I’d always be working for someone else, doing what they wanted me to do (often something mind numbingly dull), at their location, on their schedule, for their pay rate… And sure enough, I’ve made it. It’s a high wire act, with an irregular income and an unpredictable future, but I’m happier now than I’ve been in decades.

     Do you attend any conferences? Are you doing any in the future? 

I haven’t. I’d love to go to a ComicCon type convention where I can meet my fans in person, but right now, relying on my unsteady writing income, I don’t have the funds for it.

      What are you currently working on?

I just finished “Werewolves of Brooklyn,” my paranormal romance. Before I become “Adam Vance” for the duration of a book, I’m going to record some more Bradiobooks!

   How can your readers follow your career? Website. Social media?

I’m everywhere!

BradVanceErotica@gmail.com

http://bradvanceerotica.wordpress.com

BradVanceErotica on Google+

@BradVanceAuthor on Twitter

facebook.com/brad.vance.10

Thank you, Brad, for doing this interview. We all look forward to your future work!

Thanks for having me!

  GIVEAWAY

Brad Vance has a sweet giveaway for 3 lucky people. He's giving away Would I Lie to You? 3 people will win this ebook! All you have to do is enter the rafflecopter below!

Contest will run until August 21st!

Good luck to you all. Thank you to Brad for being with us today, for sharing with us, and for your generosity. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway