Friday, November 6, 2015

Available for Pre Order NOW

Shifters in the Snow features FIFTEEN ALL NEW STORIES -- most of which are EXCLUSIVE to the bundle!

And I'm IN IT!

OOOOOOH! I am so excited.

Order your copy now!

Shifters in the Snow is a collection of stories from 15 great paranormal romance indie authors.

How the Bear Stole Christmas is my contribution to the anthology and it will NOT be available anywhere else!

For only 99 CENTS-- how can you go wrong?






Thursday, October 29, 2015

Hot Texan Billionaire TIGER SHIFTER!

Siberian Soul #3 is NOW AVAILABLE.

This wraps up Kerri and Evan's story in the first of the American Tigers series that Eva and I have been working on between other projects.

We plan on releasing a few more titles in the American Tigers theme, but along the way, I absolutely fell in love (or lust) with the sexy Russian Werewolves that Kerri stumbles upon in Siberian Soul #3-- so I'm excited that Eva and the other authors writing with us have agreed to lighten up on our original agreement for each of her co-authors to stick to one type of shifter.

Yup... sexy Russian Werewolves are now on the to-do list.

I like the sound of that!

Haven't started the Siberian Soul books yet?
Start here: Siberian Soul #1 then Siberian Soul #2

Monday, October 19, 2015

Something Appropriate for Halloween

Mrs. Bigsby's Bed & Breakfast might not have a hot man on the cover, but I assure you there's one in the story.

I'm pretty proud of this little novella and I'm thrilled to see that the reviewers like it too.

This is the first non-shifter story in my catalog, but it still has a paranormal element.


Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Making Words

eye candy to make up for short, boring post
There are some days when I am so immersed in a story that all I want is to sit at the computer and
WRITE ALL THE WORDS.

And then there are days when I stare at the blank page on the screen in front of me and I can't think of how to make the words, even though they already exist in my head.




Monday, September 28, 2015

NEW RELEASE! Lion in Wait: Sierra Moon Book Four

So what's the story with that mountain lion, anyway?

Well, the cougar from the first Sierra Moon books is finally telling his own story in this new release.

Lion in Wait is a complete story with NO cliff hanger ending! It can be read by itself but, of course, it'll make so much more sense if you're up to date with the first three books in the series.

GET IT ON AMAZON! 


And, like all the titles in the Sierra Moon Shifters series, Lion in Wait can be read for free by Kindle Unlimited subscribers! 


Book Description:

The injustice of the whole miserable circumstance hit him. The last thing he would ever want for Becka would be to pass this curse on to her.

Travis was looking forward to meeting that special someone. Settling down, raising a family, and living happily ever after. Some day.

A short fling before starting out on a late season hike leaves him with a nasty bite scar and some pretty vivid dreams. By the time he comes to terms with the fact that he's not dreaming, he's already made enemies of the only other shifters he knows about-- a pack of wolves secretly living in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

When he meets a friendly bear shifter who fills in some of the blanks on what's happening to him, Travis resigns himself to a life alone: Mountain Lions are notorious for their one night stand behavior and he's determined not to pass along his shifter curse.

Naturally this would be when he finds the one woman he sees himself spending his life with, a forest ranger exiled to a tiny cabin for a winter job of recording snow pack for the season.

He can't stay with her, can't give in to the new instincts within him that scream to Turn her and take her as his mate. Can't risk doing that to her knowing that the cougar roaring within him is bound by a nature that will only force him to move on once he's spread his seed. Leaving her to deal with this burden alone...

Like he'd been left to do.



Keeping in Touch

I love my mailing list! But have you "liked" me on Facebook yet? (hint-- it's over there in the sidebar.)

I cannot believe how many people have signed up to be included on my regular mailing list and ARC list! It's so exciting to hear from the actual people who are reading my books and get such great feedback on my work-- very encouraging.


I don't currently have the option of sending automated responses each time someone subscribes to the list. So I try to manually send out responses every other day or so.

Looks like upgrading my service will be getting moved up on my priorities list! My mailing list is growing daily and I'm starting to lose track. 

Which is great, really. I'm very excited about the success of the list.

Meanwhile-- I am terrible with Twitter. So if you follow me there, don't be surprised if I never re-Tweet, forget all my hashtags, and ignore direct messages. The place is a mystery to me.

Facebook, however, works just fine-- most of the time. I now have an official author page that needs likes. I don't check FB every day, but it's on my regular route that I make through the Internet when I'm procrastinating writing. Check it out.

Oh...and I have an author page on Goodreads too! Which I need to add to that list of places to waste time when I'm not writing.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Missing my Deadline

Travis's story is taking longer to tell than I'd expected.

I was looking forward to publishing Sierra Moon Book Four: Lion in Wait by the end of this week so I could get to finishing Siberian Soul...so I could work on SM#5... so I could work on....

The good news is that SM4 is the longest book I've written so far. The bad news is that it's only half way done.

I was on a schedule, dangit! And now I'm wasting time with a short blog update instead of making sure my heroine doesn't freeze to death!

Chelle will be making a cameo appearance in Sierra Moon Book 4

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Info Leak...


Remember the mountain lion?

Kitty's name is Travis.

Sierra Moon Book Three: Mated for Life

 Book Three is OUT!

Yes... this is the one that pretty much wraps up Lane and Tara's story-- at least, the beginning of their story.

The entire series got a cover update with this release... although it takes Amazon a few days to switch them out so, as of writing this, the covers don't match yet.

Give it time. They look so much better now. I think?

Also... book four is under way.

I wish I could write faster, I've been dying to get to this story!



Thursday, August 20, 2015

Working Hard on More Sierra Moon

Got a message that Amazon can't show tweets anymore-- at least for the time being. So thought I'd use the blog posts for updates.

I get more than 144 spaces this way too.

Sierra Moon Book Three (Mated for Life) is coming along nicely. Cross your fingers for a release date before the end of the month!

Join the mailing list for first notice when it goes live!

http://eepurl.com/bpRner

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

New Release! American Tigers

Siberian Soul Part 2

If you're following Evan and Kerri's story in the Siberian Soul serial from Claire Ryann(that's me) and Eva Wilder, here's the juicy new second book!

I'm pretty tickled with how this story is turning out. Part 2 has some action and some suspense and some drama.

I can't wait to finish it up in part 3-- but you know I'm on an every other book schedule between my solo series Sierra Moon and my collaborative projects with Eva.

Siberian Soul is currently planned on being the only serialized story in the American Tigers series. So you can look forward to future titles without those pesky cliffhangers...

Unless it just works better that way. (evil grin)

Monday, July 27, 2015

More Sierra Moon

Did I REALLY not make a big deal out of the new release?!

Sierra Moon Book Two: Return of the Pack came out what? like TWO WEEKS ago?

Geesh...

Return of the Pack is part 2 in the continuing story of Lane (Hunky pack Alpha) and Tara. It follows our alpha couple on their progress toward their future with Tara meeting the rest of the pack members and finding out more about what life will be like with them.

Now-- I get some feedback and hear a lot of questions about where this is all going.

I can't tell you that!

For starters-- that's why it's a series. So there will be more stories, more characters, more conflicts, more discoveries...and, of course, more sexiness.

For another thing-- it turns out I might not know myself.

It seems I am discovering that I am one of those writers who feels it's merely my job to transcribe my characters' stories. I do very little manipulating of those stories.

For instance... I had NO IDEA that Lane was going to get in that fight! I was actually pretty broken up about it and had to walk away from my writing for a minute because I was pretty worried.

Yeah. I realize that makes me sound a wee bit melodramatic. [shrug] What can I say? 

As for Kitty.... yes, you've guessed it. He'll be back. He's got a story to tell too.

If you're enjoying the Sierra Moon books so far, let me know. Join the mailing list. Follow me on Amazon or Goodreads (I'm still getting the hang of GR) or any of the other social media outlets that I'm trying to juggle between bouts of furious typing. And by all means-- share the books with your friends and friends of friends.

It's the best way to ensure more stories. :-)

Thanks!


Monday, July 6, 2015

The Procrastinating Game

Pictures from the Sierra: Because posts without pix are boring.
I am working very hard on Sierra Moon Book 2: Return of the Pack.

I promise.

But every so often, I need to stretch my legs-- even if in the metaphorical sense of wandering about the Internet.

I'm sure by now all the avid readers of ebooks-- at least on the Kindle Unlimited platform-- have heard at least a hint of the storm brewing in the indie author community?

Amazon ripped the rug out from under us.

So to speak.

A lot-- and I mean A LOT-- of people have found very satisfying work in the field of independent publishing: Kindle Unlimited (or any of the programs that allow you to borrow books from the Kindle Lending Library) opened a new world for indie publishing.

Of course, KU came with its own host of secret algorithms and clandestine policies that Amazon is fond of. Seriously-- getting into this business has been a helluvan eye-opener about the company. But that's not my point...

The KU program is about a year old now and Amazon apparently took all the data it's compiled over that time and decided to throw the program one big giant first birthday bash by changing everything.

Well. That's how it feels to the authors who've finally managed to figure out a pattern that allows them to make a living from writing.

From your (the reader) point of view, I suspect not much has changed.

Personally-- I think that's a good thing. That it isn't changing the reader's experience. After all, the reader is our customer and we very much want happy customers.

Essentially, and most importantly, Amazon announced that it is changing the way it pays authors for our works that are borrowed from the library.

We used to get paid per unit: As soon as someone had opened the book to or past the 10% point, it counted in our accounts as a "borrow" and we got paid one set rate.

Well...not really a "set" rate, because we never knew how much each borrowed unit was worth until mid-way through the following month when all the math had been done.

Amazon sets aside a chunk of money for paying KU authors. At the end of the month, they tally up how many qualifying borrows were made and then they split the pot evenly.

You can imagine how, after a year of doing it this way, the independent author community had managed to work out what they could expect as an average payout and decided whether or not it was worth signing a 3 month exclusivity contract with the 'Zon to put their titles into the program.

For a lot of us, it was. It really really was. Especially for those of us who prefer short story formats.

Of course, this amounted to essentially putting all one's eggs in the same basket: Amazon had our titles locked up in a tight lease for 3 months at a time. During that time, no portion of any of those titles can be up for sale elsewhere.

Well, we all got a fancy email from our benevolent overlord awhile back to let us know the exciting news!

We won't be getting paid per borrow anymore. We'll be getting paid per page read! Isn't that awesome?!

Uhhh.... errrrr.... ummmmm.....?????



Change is scary. Especially when you've just figured it out. And even more especially when it comes from the person who's paying you.

Anyone who's ever had a job anywhere probably knows that if the BOSS is excited about a new pay plan... the employees won't be.

Even though Amazon isn't technically our boss-- because 1099s and all that (we're independently contracted)-- it is still who collects the money and gets to decide how to divvy it out (btw: in many worker classification fields, these are key points the IRS takes into account in deciding if you're an indepent contractor or an employee...but Amazon is a big company with lots of accountants and lawyers, so I guess they totally qualify for different criteria than say... the average beauty salon.)

I digress.


No one knows what they're going to pay per page. It could be way better! But the pervasive feeling is that it's likely to be way worse.

Way, way, worse.

This means that a lot of us are having a hard time concentrating on our writing. A lot of us are pulling titles out of the Kindle Unlimited program at light speed in order to publish those same titles on mulitple platforms in hopes of making up the difference. And a lot of us are planning on switching up our writing style to novel length works-- which will have more pages, ergo, more paid page reads.

All of these strategies for being able to continue to make a living will likely impact many readers. You might not be able to find your favorite books and authors in the Kindle Lending Library any more. You may see increases on prices to purchase the same books that were prices very reasonably before (because the KU payments made up the difference.) You may have to wait a few months between releases, instead of only the week or two that many short form authors were able to keep their schedule to.

Mind you, no one will really know anything about how the changes affect us until August 15 when Amazon releases the payment notices for July.

I suspect that after that, the dust will settle and we'll all get used to a new routine.

Or. It could be bad. Really, really bad.

In the meantime... we're still writing!

Sierra Moon 2 should be up for sale-- and borrow-- by July 13th. If I'd stop shopping for new tents on the Internet.


If you've never been in the back country of the High Sierra; these pix are the setting for the Sierra Moon books.

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

TIGERS, Oh My!

Siberian Soul: Book One of America Tigers is now available on Amazon!

American Tigers is destined to be a series of Tiger Shifter stories that will follow several couples as they meet their mates-- all sexy tigers, of course!

This is my new collaborative project with Eva Wilder.

When we originally started writing together, Eva was writing tiger stories with another author. That author eventually decided to fly solo.

Her books are doing terrific and I wish her the best of luck.

I'm not clear on the details, but I do know Eva no longer has Tigers in her catalog-- which is probably good for me since no one thought my foxes made for good shifter romance.

Hopefully the tigers will be popular. I'm really enjoying working with Eva and her friends.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

YES! It IS a Series!

BTW: Have you been watching the reviews coming in for Quest of the Alpha

I am SO excited that people are loving it!

I realize I didn't really specify it on the cover, but yes, SIERRA MOON is my new series of shifter romance stories!

Bears are SO HOT right now (because they're HAWT, right?) and Sierra Moon is destined to have plenty of them, but I decided to start with traditional wolves.

I'm still working out cover designs for the series long term. Fellow writer and cover-designer extraordinaire Jacqueline Sweet helped put some new eyes on the project and came up with some suggestions-- what do YOU think?



I'm having hard time deciding-- but I'll definitely be adding the Sierra Moon Book to them all!

You Can Leave Comments!

I know I'm just getting started here, but I also know I have a handful of faithful followers already (Hi Mom!)

One of those followers hit me up the other day to let me know that she was going to comment on the blog but forgot her Google Plus log in info!

OOPS!

I thought I'd set it up so anyone could comment.

So got THAT crossed off the to-do list today! You can now leave comments whether you are signed into anything or not, and I didn't even make it so I had to approve your comments first!

This, of course, will mean that every so often someone will spam the posts with links both relevant and not to stuff that has nothing to do with me or my writing. And it also means that you have the option of just being plain mean spirited if you feel the need.

If it gets bad, I'll just take it down. So have at it!

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

THE WOLVES ARE BACK IN THE SIERRA!

Well there ya have it!

I've been plotting out my Sierra Moon shifter series for months now while working on other projects.

I just hit "publish" at Amazon for the debut story: Quest of the Alpha.

Designing the cover took a long time. I can't promise it won't
get changed down the line.

I have an entire Sierra Moon series planned starting with wolves. Future titles will include bear shifters, mountain lions, and who knows what else-- but all centered in California's High Sierra near Mt. Whitney.

I want to keep that high sierra motif with the feature animal shifter but... well. Let me know if the cover works for you or if you have any ideas for changes.

Meanwhile, be sure check it out on Amazon. Available for sale or for free if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited.




Tuesday, May 26, 2015

You Keep Talking About BOOKS, Claire-- Where are They?!

Well, you can certainly look me up on Amazon at this point.

If you do that right now (as of May 26, 2015) you'll see a small collection of shifter stories that are done in collaboration with Eva Wilder.

I currently have 15 titles published. But NOT as "Claire Ryann." Most of my cutting-my-teeth work has been done in collaboration with other authors and I'm either credited under a different pen name, or not at all.

It took a few months to figure out how the self publishing thing works, and just when I was getting ready to start building my own catalog of titles as Claire-- I met Eva.

Eva offered to collaborate with me (and a few other authors, as you can see) on a paranormal romance project. When we started talking about it, it was kinda just for fun-- the challenge was "anything goes, as long as it's billionaire alpha males."

So I chose foxes.

LOL!

Because if you know anything about foxes, you know that they are seriously THE most over the top Alpha-est alphas out there!

Vulpes Vulpes (Red foxes, as an example) are seriously territorial and competitive. If they were humans, they would make PERFECT alpha male characters for shifter romances.

The problem is, most people don't really think of foxes as sexy-- despite the term "Foxy" to describe someone attractive. Foxes are more like cute little dogs than super sexy predators.

I think we like wolves and bears and tigers for our shifter stories because we are drawn to animals that could eat us if we encountered them in the wild. Something about being drawn to dangerous men only to find that they are gentle and loving.

Total Beauty and the Beast thing goin' on.

Right?

Well.... I'm thrilled that the reviews are mostly positive regarding the quality of my writing, at least. Even if not everyone is lovin the foxes.

Don't worry, Eva and I have been talking and my future titles will be moving to some sexy big cats. Stay tuned in to Eva to for that.

Meanwhile-- don't think that's all Claire (me!) has in store for her catalog. I'm working on a good old fashioned were wolf book right now that I have high hopes for. With plans to follow that with BEARS, more WOLVES, and COUGARS-- big sexy man-cub type cougars, not horny women over 40.

As soon as my prior commitments to other authors has ended, I also have several contemporary romances waiting to get finished.

Yeah-- most of what I write will be BBW (big beautiful woman) or at least feature "real" women. (No, my Outfoxing heroine didn't fit that description, did she?)

So there ya have it... the books exist and soon there will be more. Keep checking!



Monday, May 25, 2015

WTF is up With the Blogger Site, Claire? Aren't you a SERIOUS Writer?!

Well. Sorta.

 So Blogger isn't taken so seriously by a lot of folks I've been rubbin' elbows with lately. It's free. It's
easy. It's owned by Google. There's constant threat looming over the bloggers of Blogger that Blogger will stop allowing adult content....

Somehow, having one's professional website reside on Blogger relegates one to a hack.

Meh. [shrug]

It's free. It's easy. It's attainable and accessible. I might not (probably won't) keep my site here long term, but it was a good place to get started.  

If you're going to decide not to read anything I write because of the web address, then it probably wasn't meant to be between us anyway.

"But, Claire! Don't your books have steamy smexy scenes in them? This site doesn't have an "adult" warning!"

Well. No. It doesn't. Thanks for noticing.

The point of having a website/blog is to have a place to hawk my books. I want a place where I can show off cover concepts; post teasers, trailers, blurbs, and excerpts; and link to my published work.

I don't need an adult warning for that. The site is destined to be pretty PG-13. If you want R or even a little NC-17, read the books. They're all pretty much contemporary romance and paranormal romance (ghost stories as well as sexy shape shifters) and pretty much all of them have at least one reasonably graphic love scene thrown in.




Just Holding a Place

So...uhhhh... Hi!

This isn't a real blog post. I'm just getting things set up.

In the future, I'll talk a lot about books that I write. Maybe some other stuff too. For the time being, I have to start somewhere.