@Sourcebooks Guest Post: Must Love Cowboys by Cheryl Brooks (@CherylCatMaster)

Must Love Cowboys

Cowboy Heaven, #2
Cheryl Brooks

Genre: Contemporary Western Romance
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Date of Publication: April 5, 2016
Number of pages: 386
Cover Artist: Rob Lang

Available at the following retailers:
Amazon     BN     Kobo     ARe

When you find yourself in Cowboy Heaven, things can get hot as hell...

SO MANY COWBOYS...
Shy computer specialist, dog lover, and amateur chef Tina Hayes has a thing for firefighters, but when she travels to the Circle Bar K ranch on family business, the ranch’s cowboys have no trouble persuading her to stay on as their cook. Especially not when she learns that brooding Wyatt McCabe—a man who makes her heart gallop like no one else can—is also a former firefighter.

HOW DOES SHE KNOW HE’S THE ONE?
Wyatt’s sizzling embraces leave Tina breathless. But being surrounded by a passel of smokin’ hot ranch hands can be complicated. With so many cowboys courting Tina all at once, Wyatt must prove to Tina that she belongs with him.

Guest Post: 

10 Things I Wish I’d Known Earlier 

About Being an Author 

By Cheryl Brooks

1. First and foremost, I wish I’d known how rewarding it would be to have readers tell me that reading my books helped them to cope during some of the worst times of their lives. When my sales numbers take a dive, those letters are a large part of what keeps me going.
2. That being said, I wish I’d known that I would never make the big time. Authors who write in niche genres don’t make millions. They have a group of dedicated readers and a few rabid fans, but they generally don’t have fat bank accounts.
3. I wish I’d known how hard it would be to get an agent. I spent several years querying agents to no avail. Back then, self-publishing as we know it today didn’t exist, leaving the “vanity publishers” as an author’s only alternative to traditional publishing. I had some money I felt I could afford to lose or I never would have gone that route. My royalties on that particular book amount to about $4 a year, making it highly unlikely that I’ll ever break even, let alone show a profit. :)
4. I wish I’d known that getting an agent is no guarantee that your books will ever be published. I’ve known several authors who spent an inordinate amount of time and effort securing an agent and those agents never sold a single book for them—at least, not to a publisher that wouldn’t have taken a submission directly from the author anyway.
5. I wish I’d known that subscription services would eventually end the self-publishing boom. Those services are great for readers—for a flat monthly fee, you can read as many books as you like and they won’t cost you another dime—but they spelled doom for many authors. I know of several authors who have given up writing because they no longer receive adequate compensation for the time and money they spend on their writing.
6. I wish I’d known that ebooks would be seen as having no value because they don’t require paper and ink. The fact is, they require just as much writing, editing, proofreading, and marketing as print books. Plus, they have to be formatted differently for each ebook platform.
7. I wish I’d known about the Reserve Against Returns clause that publishers insert into their contracts, which enables them to hold back payment to the author until a print book is actually sold to a person. The fact that it’s in a bookstore doesn’t count. For decades, the publishing industry has been placing books in bookstores on consignment, with the understanding that they can be returned if they don’t sell. That practice enabled bookstore owners to stock their stores with little or no risk to themselves, but it also forced publishers to focus on authors whose books were sure to sell.
8. I wish I’d known that being a good writer is no guarantee that your books will sell. Success in writing is mostly luck, and word of mouth is still the best form of advertising.
9. I wish I’d joined my local RWA chapter sooner. I didn’t know much about the business when I was first published. When I finally joined the Indiana RWA chapter, I learned the answers to most of the questions I’d been struggling with in a single meeting. I also learned that, unlike many other genres, romance writers are very helpful to one another, and RWA is one of the few organizations within the publishing industry where aspiring authors can learn directly from their more experienced associates.
10. That being said, I wish I’d known how much fun it would be to get to know other writers. I wrote in a virtual vacuum for years, never knowing that kind of fun and informative camaraderie existed, let alone where to find it!

Giveaway: 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Author Bio:

Cheryl Brooks is a former critical care nurse turned romance writer. Her Cat Star Chronicles series includes Slave, Warrior, Rogue, Outcast, Fugitive, Hero, Virgin, Stud, Wildcat, and Rebel. She is a member of RWA and IRWA and lives with her husband and sons near Bloomfield, Indiana.

To connect with the author online:

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