New Coordinator for our Upcoming Events Calendar

I want to thank Brigader Pippa Jay for stepping up to assume the role of Calendar Coordinator for the calendar on our SFR Brigade web site. Please join me in thanking her for contribution our membership. We couldn't continue to thrive as a community without the support of our volunteers.

You can check out the Calendar feature HERE.

Be sure to let Pippa know your upcoming SFR release titles and dates. (Sorry, we can only list Brigade members books, but we'd be glad to sign you up!) You can include publisher, a brief blurb and a sales link that will be added in the details. Workshops, conferences, submission calls, contests and other events of interest to SFR writers and authors are also welcome.

The calendar is an excellent resource to see what's coming up at a glance. The advantage to Brigaders? The web site posts the next four upcoming events on the sidebar so the information is automatically announced just prior to the date. Members or visitors can scan the calendar and click on the items to learn more. I've also reactivated the calendar link on the blog sidebar.

For authors, consider adding your releases to the SFR Brigade calendar as one very easy step in your book promotion campaign. 

Contact Pippa Jay via the SFR Brigade web site messaging system, by email -- pippajaygreen (at) gmail (dot) com or via Twitter @pippajaygreen

Last Stop in Jenna McCormick's NO LIMITS Blog Tour

Stop by Spacefreighters Lounge today for the last stop on Jenna McCormick's NO LIMITS blog tour, celebrating the release of her SFR from Kensington in A Win For Us All.

Jenna will be giving away a copy of NO LIMITS to one random commenter.

You can also support Jenna by clicking the link above to go to Amazon and tagging NO LIMITS as Science Fiction Romance (Sci-Fi Romance, SFR, SF Romance) and SFR Brigade.

Brigader Hits NY Times & USA Today Bestseller Lists

Please join me in extending congratulations and kudos to SFR Brigader Laurann Dohner for hitting the New York Times and USA Today bestsellers lists with her Erotica Paranormal Romance novel, BRAWN, published by Ellora's Cave, Twilight line.

According to the Redlines and Deadlines blog, this is the first book published by Ellora's Cave to hit these lists! BRAWN is the fifth book in the New Species series.

Fantastic achievement, Laurann!

~~~ * ~~~

Sales News: Jenna McCormick

This just in...

A big sale for Jenna McCormick, aka Brigader Jennifer L. Hart!

Jennifer reports:  "My Sci Fi Erotic Romance, No Limits has been sold to Kensington and will be published in their Aphrodisia line at the end of 2011! Since it's erotic romance it's listed under my penname, Jenna McCormick."

Congratulations, Jennifer (Jenna)!

See Jenna McCormick's blog for the full breaking story: http://authorjennamac.blogspot.com/

Do the Write Thing for Nashville

I don't live so far north that Nashville's floods swamped my house. But I've driven through the city (the traffic is terrible), and I don't ever like to see another human being suffer (unless they're a character, and then they're made to suffer).

Luckily for me, you, and all the nice people in Nashville currently canoeing to work, the writing community has put together a quick auction called Do the Write Thing for Nashville. You can bid on ARCs, phone calls with editors, critiques, t-shirts, and more.

Hustle on over before the flood waters recede, bid on some awesome books, and help buy the people of Nashville some nice new boats to live on. Or new carpets. Or maybe a bus ticket to anywhere under water. Whatever they happen to need. :o)

Incoming Transmissions...

A Nightmare in Nashville

Just received word that the Opryland Hotel and Convention Center in Nashville where RWA is schedule for late July has evacuated 1,500 guests due to a weakened levy.  Click here for a TEMA report.  The hotel is located on the banks of the Cumberland River.  According to the TEMA report, the Cumberland River is expected to crest at around 50 feet overnight.

Unsubstantiated reports are that the hotel is now under six feet of water due to the severe storms and flooding in the last day or two.  It is unknown at this time how long the hotel will be closed.  There is no notice yet posted on the RWA website regarding the status of the RWA National Conference.

UPDATE:  The Nashville Business Journal states the Opryland Hotel and Convention Center is expected to be closed "for several months" after sustaining "major damage" after the levy breeched.  Read the story here.

Incoming Transmissions...

If  you missed the *SOLD OUT* Coyote Con panel on SFR including Brigader Heather Massey, you can read the entire transcript here.  A very worthwhile read.  Great job, Heather!

New member and author Gini Koch has just joined the Twitter Squadron.  Welcome, Gini!  Gini has also been added as a SFR Ambassador to Comic Con in San Diego in July and Fantasy World Con in Columbus, Ohio in October.

Incoming Transmissions...

We have ignition...on the launch of a new companion web site!

http://www.sfrbrigade.webs.com/

This is definitely an experimental rocket, so please go to the site and run your system scans and diagnosis checks and take this sled for a spin.  If it passes muster, it can serve as our web site until such time that we can have a custom site designed.  Special thanks to Brigader Larriane Wills for the link!

It has quite a few fun features including:

• Main Page
• About Us
• Forum
• History
• Guestbook
• Photo Page
• Links Page
• Profile Information

...and more!

I'm just getting started adding content, so there'll be much more to come.

Oh, and if enough members are interested in joining the site [try out the application process], I'll upgrade it to a premium site (no annoying advertising and a few nifty added options).

Incoming Transmissions...

RT is underway!!! (That's common shorthand for "Romantic Times Booklovers Convention" which is being held in Columbus, Ohio this year.)

Mission accomplished!  Brigaders @ RT take note: We managed to get the late-arriving package of SFR Brigade buttons and info cards to Jess Granger via overnight express.  She's got 'em with her for distribution, so look her up.  She'll be at the Intergalactic Bar & Grille party (along with members Linnea Sinclair and Isabo Kelly) so if you don't see her sooner, maybe you can catch her there. 

Oh, and don't forget Jess's Beyond the Shadows book launch party and big book giveaway is going on all week on her Butterfly Blog. 

One of our members, Nathalie Gray, is reporting to The Galaxy Express on her RT experiences.  Seems she ran into another well known Brigader at RT and had a squee-fest.  Check out her report here.

If we have any Brigade members who'd like to file reports on the happenings, please feel free to fire at will!  We'd love to hear all about your adventures at RT.

One of our members, Barbara Elsborg, has a cover (not a SFR, unfortunately) up for CoverCafe's Best Contemporary Cover of 2009.  Barbara says:  "I wouldn't ask anyone to vote for my cover if they didn't think it was the best in its category - but if you do - I'd love you to vote. If by any fluke I won, it has to be good publicity - right??"  There's also SF/F covers, Historical covers, Two-Piece covers and even Worst Covers to vote on.  (You need to vote in at least three categories for your vote to be counted.)  It's fast, fun and easy, so if you'd like to support a fellow Brigader and see all the pretty--and er, not so pretty--covers, you can vote here. 

SFR Brigade Library Update

Hello, Earthlings!

I'm still trying to get the library up and running. I've seen posts this week for some fantastic new books, but I'm not getting the e-mails with the stats in. I can't add your title to the library if I don't have the following information:

The title, the name it's published under, the genre, and the heat level.

If you have a link to where Brigade members can buy the book, so much the better.

Recap:

Title by _________ Link (genre/ sensual - hot- erotic)

The more links I get, the more books get added to be TBR pile. :o)

Incoming Transmissions...

If you enjoyed Susan Grant's award wining Star trilogy: The Star King, The Star Prince and The Star Princess (or if, like me, you missed them the first time around) they've just been re-released today with new covers and a special price--$4.99 each.  Read Susan's announcement here.

SFR Brigade Library

Authors, we're working on getting the library up and running. The poll is HERE if you're interested in adding your vote.

We are currently looking at sorting the titles by genre (all SFR but SFR/military, SFR/comedy, ect) and by heat levels within the genres.

If you have a published SFR novel, e-book, or short story available to buy or read on the web and would like to display it on our virtual library shelf please send me an e-mail liana(dot)brooks1(at)gmail(dot)com.

Include the title, the name it's published under, the genre, and the heat level.

If you have a link that you can include, so much the better. If you don't, no worries. Right now we only want your SFR works, if you have other published pieces that are not SFR, we'll save that for an expanded library.

SFR Brigade Library

We'd like to put up a page to showcase all the SFR work of Brigade members. While ideally we will eventually have a searchable webpage where you can enter your mood, the heat level you want, and what authors you enjoy into a search engine that can spit out suggestions, that's several light-years ahead of where I can program a blog page just now.

In the meantime, we'd like to get these bookshelves up as fast as we can.

There will be a section for New Releases (anything released in the past month), and Upcoming Releases with launch party dates listed. The rest is up to the poll. How do you want the shelves sorted?

Check Your Links

Brigadiers! Everyone on deck!

We're getting ready to do the Tuesday Blog Tour, where we select several fabulous posts from SFR Brigade members in the past week and post, and we need you to double check the links.

Go find your name on the right hand column under Brigade Members, click your name, and see if the link takes you to your blog. If the link is broken, please report in the comments section. Make sure you include your blog address so we can fix the link.

The Tuesday Blog tour is a great way to generate traffic to your site, and introduce new readers to your work. But it doesn't work if our facilitators can't find your blog.

Thanks!

Deep Space Communication

UK astronomers have found an object in deep space sending out radio waves while moving at, it appears, superluminal speeds.

“The new object, which appeared in May 2009, has left us scratching our heads - we’ve never seen anything quite like this before,” said Dr Muxlow. “The object turned on very rapidly within a few days and shows no sign of decaying in brightness over the first few months of its existence. The new young supernova explosions that we were expecting to see in M82 brighten at radio wavelengths over several weeks and then decay over several months, so that explanation seems unlikely.”

The object is not quite in the middle of M82, where astronomers would expect to find the kind of supermassive central black hole that most other galaxies, including the Milky Way, have. Which leaves the possibility that it could be a smaller-scale "microquasar".

We won't know for sure what it is for years to come. But if we start getting reruns of an alien version of I Love Lucy I will be endlessly amused.

Incoming Transmissions...

From Publisher's Weekly, Bantam Dell merged with Ballantine.

Linnea Sinclair blogs at the FF&P site about an upcoming workshop, "Prune Your Prose: This Means You."

Thank you.  That is all.

Incoming Transmission

Online Surveys & Market Research

Incoming Transmissions...

I'm passing along a bit of intelligence that just came in on subspace frequencies for Brigaders planning to attend RWA Nationals this July. 

Message is as follows:

A large block of rooms may soon be available for RWA members at the hotel in Nashville.  If anyone tried to book a room recently and the rooms were sold out, you should check back.

Incoming Transmissions...

SFR Brigader Paula Baird Jones guest blogged at Star-Crossed Romance on April 5 where Paula talked about GIRL GONA NOVA and other things writerly.

If anyone is planning to attend the Emerald Coast Writing Conference in Ft. Walton Beach, FL, April 9-11. Lori Strongin will be giving her Query Letter Bootcamp presentation. The presentation covers what writers need to know to write a killer query.

I now have a special bonus for our first Buffy Award recipient (a SFR that wins a contest as noted on the sidebar.)  It's a fabulous Buffy the Vampire Slayer patch.  Here's a peek (close to actual size), but it looks even better in person.

*voice of Radar* Thank you. That is all.

Incoming Transmissions...

Love Has No Limits by Brigade member Donna S, Frelick, an article about inclusivity in SFR is up on Spacefreighters Lounge.