←Return to Chapter 11: Keep on Keeping On
It was 2000, a year when I would have a total of five projects released, including my first "single title" romantic comedy mystery. In the last chapter I mentioned the first of those five projects—an interactive story called "A Funny Thing Happened on The Way to the Wedding" that I wrote for the Harlequin website, an innovative concept at the time. When I looked back through my archives, I found an article from Romantic Times Book Reviews magazine covering the launch of the Harlequin.com website—if memory serves, Harlequin was the first publisher to have a website—they were way ahead of their competitors! As was common at the time, Harlequin.com teamed up with another website, Women.com, for synergy. Although the two websites no longer collaborate, they're both still in business. Over the years Harlequin's website has morphed from rudimentary to high-tech, with its own shopping interface.
Romantic Times covers the launch of Harlequin.com and my interactive story, a first of its kind. That's me in the bottom left photo with Harlequin executive Isabel Swift.
My career was starting to pick up steam and I was getting a reputation for writing romantic comedies. A few months prior, my agent had received a request from an editor in the UK branch of Harlequin (Mills & Boon) asking me to submit a proposal for a "chaste" romcom for their sweeter romance line. I was eager to work for the line because it had a much larger readership. I pitched an idea I called Stop the Wedding about a man and a woman who join forces to stop their parents from marrying and fall in love themselves. The editor liked the idea, but said her boss wasn't sold on incorporating humor into the line, so I would have to submit a finished manuscript before they would offer me a contract. So in between everything else, I'd completed the manuscript on speculation and submitted it, and hoped the editors across the pond would like it. More on that project later!
In the previous chapter, I also mentioned my second project of 2000, a romantic comedy titled It Takes a Rebel, one of my most acclaimed books in terms of awards (and the sequel to About Last Night), which I've since updated and re-released:
It Takes a Rebel, newly updated and available in ebook, print, and audio
I was also busy writing how-to articles for my local newsletter for Georgia Romance Writers and for the Romance Writers Report, the monthly magazine for members of Romance Writers of America.
Article in the Feb 2000 issue of Romance Writers Report
I enjoyed writing how-to articles and teaching workshops, and I came to realize that both were good marketing tools for getting my name out among my peers. You might be wondering how I had time to write articles in between writing books… sometimes I wonder that myself when I look back! But switching from fiction to nonfiction is a bit like cleansing the palate—writing articles was a nice break between projects—they require different writing muscles. After writing an article, I could always go back to writing my stories with a clearer head and renewed energy.
And I needed my energy! For my next book in the Temptation line, I'd been asked to write a story for the wildly popular "Blaze" miniseries within Temptation. Books with the Blaze insignia were supposed to be more sensual with a sexy premise inherent to the plot line (versus a generic story with amped-up love scenes). I'd pitched what I hoped was a sexy premise to my editor Brenda Chin in four words: phone sex, wrong number. She loved it and I went away to come up with a story to wrap around the provocative premise. And I think I came up with something pretty decent for the story I titled Too Hot to Sleep:
A woman with a new boyfriend is frustrated with his lack of um, heat and decides to call him up and initiate phone sex in the hopes it takes their relationship to the next level. BUT she dials the wrong number and unknowingly has a steamy session with a stranger, who goes along with it thinking they'll never meet. When their paths cross unexpectedly, the man recognizes the woman's name and voice instantly, and she's everything he's ever wanted, but he can't tell her the truth or things will end before they get off the ground. The kicker is the woman has saved her boyfriend's number incorrectly in her phone and keeps calling the (right) wrong number!
Okay, friend, try to remember this was 2000. Almost twenty-five years ago. (How is that possible???) The latest in home phone technology in 2000 was a cordless landline phone—most people still had a phone with a curly cord (remember those?). If you did have a newfangled cordless phone with a tiny screen, Caller ID was an add-on luxury option, and you had to pay extra for the star-69 "call back" feature that allowed you to call the number that had last called you. So it was totally feasible that my heroine and her new-ish boyfriend weren't in touch every hour on the hour and because she's a nurse in the E.R., they wouldn't be talking during the day. Also, I had her boyfriend go out of town for business, which gives the hero a few days to keep up the ruse. And because in 2000, people still paid extra (and dearly) for long-distance phone calls (which now seems insane), it makes sense her boyfriend wouldn't call from across the country simply to chat. With all of those things in mind, my plot was completely believable. I had SO much fun writing the story! And Harlequin gave me a GREAT cover for Too Hot to Sleep (notice the red phone with the curly cord in the lower right corner):
Original cover for Too Hot to Sleep, a book headed for controversy! This is the proof sheet for the cover, which was used to print the entire cover which was then wrapped around the bound text.
The excitement over the Blaze miniseries was high and Harlequin was getting great publicity for it.
Romantic Times Book Reviews article I wrote regarding the popularity of the Temptation Blaze miniseries.
I was really excited about what reviewers and readers would think about the edgy romcom I'd written for the miniseries. And the reviews were… brutal! To be honest, most reviewers wouldn't touch my book because of the subject matter. Romantic Times Book Reviews magazine didn't give their reviewers the option not to review a category book—every category romance book got a review and a rating of from 1 to 4 stars. A "1" designated the book as "severely flawed" and basically was a warning to readers to NOT buy it or read it. It was so rare to give a book 1 star that the editor of the magazine instigated a policy where she would personally phone any author whose book received a 1 to prepare them (and their publisher) for the hit. And I got that call. Ack. I was stunned and my ego was bruised. The reviewer basically thought the premise of the book and the love scenes over the phone were objectionable. Luckily, my editor and the Harlequin staff didn't agree—they stood by the book. But I braced myself for low sales and to be pelted with rotten tomatoes!
Instead, the 1-star review created a backlash from readers who disagreed, and generated interest from curious readers wondering how naughty the book must be to be designated "objectionable." Too Hot to Sleep turned out to be one of my best selling category romances! It was my first book to make the Waldenbooks/Brentano's (remember them?) top ten bestselling category romance list, and it was reprinted several times over the next couple of decades. And honestly, when compared to the content of some books (including Young Adult books) and TV shows these days, my book is now considered simply "sensual" or "steamy." My, how things have changed.
Including phone technology! When I got the rights to Too Hot to Sleep back from my publisher a few months ago, I confess I wasn't looking forward to updating the book and bringing it into 2024. I would've had to unravel so much of the story, then build it back in a more convoluted way in order to sidestep the advances in phone technology and the way people communicate now. It would've ruined the spirit of the story. So I decided to go another way and make it a "story within a story" that allowed me to keep most of the original story intact (although I did update the writing itself). And I added a few chapter illustrations, like I've been experimenting with in most of my recent books to make the story more special. I really like the nostalgic feel of the book, back when malls were the place to hang out and voice messages on phone machines could make or break a person's day! I hope you like the way I handled the update of Too Hot to Sleep, now with a fresh new cover (featuring one of those curly-cord phones!). Too Hot to Sleep is available to pre-order now, for release Friday, December 6. The ebook will be available exclusively on Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited through the first week of March, then it'll be available on all the online retailers. The print version will be available by December 10.
Too Hot to Sleep, newly revamped for re-release December 6 with a "retro" cover—preorder the ebook now!
I still had two more books to release in 2000, but I'll save those for next time. Suffice to say I was spending nearly every waking moment writing proposals for new books, finishing contracted books, or marketing the books coming out. But I was having the time of my life, doing what I loved, and starting to feel like I was justified in leaving my good corporate job to become a freelance fiction writer.
But I was nervous, too, because my first single title book, a romantic murder mystery, would be released in a couple of months and I needed for it to be well received if I was going to grow my career, my readership, and my income. ~