Tag: Confessions of a Podcast Goddess

I dreamed a dream…seeing my book on the shelf at Barnes & Noble

by Jina Bacarr

I’ve been making the rounds of the bookstores in So Cal signing copies of my latest Spice release, Cleopatra’s Perfume, and talking to booksellers. I always get that tingly feeling when I spot my book on the shelf in a bookstore. It’s like running into an old friend you haven’t seen for awhile.

By the time your book is on the shelf, an author hasn’t been “intimate” with her characters for awhile so your emotions run high when you see the finished product in a bookstore. Looking at my gorgeous Cleopatra’s Perfume cover, I couldn’t help but think about the long, winding road it took to get there.

I felt like a talent contest winner when I ran my fingers over the shiny cover and soft silky pages, remembering the endless nights at my computer creating these characters and bringing them to life. The writing process is a complex one. Sometimes it’s like inhaling an exotic perfume and letting the story flow with a richness and luminosity that takes on a life of its own

Other times, it’s a gut-wrenching assault on your senses, wondering if you’ll ever get there. In the end, it was that magical combination of craft and creativity in the pursuit of romance and the mystical that enabled me to tell my story about a woman with an insatiable appetite for sexual adventure in 1939 Europe. “One whiff and every man was her slave.”

Join me as I take you on a video podcast tour of the Barnes & Noble Fashion Island bookstore in beautiful Newport Beach, California, where I signed copies of my Spice release, “Cleopatra’s Perfume.”

Thankz.

Best,
Jina

PS: I’m writing a daily blog for the month of May about my heroine in Cleopatra’s Perfume, Lady Eve Marlowe, and her wild adventures in Berlin in 1928 (my novel opens in 1939).

It’s called: Hot Weimar Berlin: What you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jinabacarr

Jina Bacarr is also the author of The Blonde Geisha , Naughty Paris, Tokyo Rendezvous, a Spice Brief, and Spies, Lies & Naked Thighs, featuring an Indiana Jones in high heels.

Where have all the Podcasts gone?

by Jina Bacarr

Was it only three years ago I did my first podcast for OCC/RWA? Check out the press release I wrote back then about podcasting at OCC:

Romancing the O.C. with Podcasting

What I find interesting about the state of podcasting since then is that most authors seem to prefer making book trailers. Book trailers are the new basic black for authors, but YouTube isn’t the only site where you can upload your trailers. TubeMogul.com allows you to upload your trailer to several sites at once.

If you want someone else to put together the book trailer for you, Circle of Seven Productions is the “go to” company for book trailers. You can check out their award-winning trailers and get information about the different book trailer packages they offer.

What if you want to make your own trailer?

With companies like iStockphoto.com/ to license photos and a plethora of podsafe music sites like Shockwavesound.com along with the free software like Windows Movie Maker, we can all be directors and let our characters tell the story. But is that enough? Readers love to connect with the author, find out more about her. You can only do that by getting up close and personal with a video or audio podcast.

Romance Novel TV does a fabulous job with author video podcasts and authors Jill Monroe and Gena Showalter’s Author Talk is my favorite video site for fun and informative author podcasts.

Filmmaker Terry Kate with her Romance in the Back Seat author video podcasts is a new face on the horizon with her author interviews in the back seat of a car and, when possible, I interview our local OCC authors and guests at our local monthly OCC/RWA meeting.

All this makes me wonder: what is the future of podcasting for authors? That’s not an easy question to answer. With technology changing every day, I believe it will continue to evolve so more writers can take advantage of this great marketing tool.

I love shooting video and will continue to turn them into podcasts, but like all authors, the writing comes first. That doesn’t mean we can’t promote our work with podcasts, whether we use book trailers, upload video interviews or make slide shows of those great research photos we took in Ireland.

We can’t spend all our time in front of the computer, can we?

Best,
Jina

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jinabacarr

Jina Bacarr is the author of The Blonde Geisha , Naughty Paris, Tokyo Rendezvous, a Spice Brief, and Spies, Lies & Naked Thighs, featuring an Indiana Jones in high heels.

New: Cleopatra’s Perfume “One whiff and every man was her slave.”

Read Cleopatra’s Perfume: The Prequel

Weimar Girls Gone Wild: The Berlin Sex Diary of Lady Eve Marlowe

Cleopatra’s Perfume, my new Spice release, is mentioned in Candy’s Inside Books at FreshFiction.com)

“Romance in the Backseat” Video Project with Terry Kate: Part 2

Romance in the Backseat

by Jina Bacarr

Attention: published authors in the OC/LA area: Have you contacted Terry Kate about your chance to film an author interview in the backseat of a car?

You haven’t, why not?

Don’t be skittish–a friend or your better half can drive while Terry films. C’mon, go for it!! Terry is looking for pubbed authors who are willing to read an excerpt and talk about their books (she’s going for a PG-13 rating). Nothing HBO-ish here, just fun, romantic videos for your fans to enjoy.

On deadline? No excuse. I’m finishing “The Blonde Samurai” with one hand and writing this with the other, but Terry is scheduling my video when I’m deadline-free. She’s great to work with and has a real passion for what she does.

Terry has already filmed OCC authors Jackie Diamond Hyman and Linda Wisdom.

Why not you next?

According to her website, Terry says: “The video of the full interview will be on a website dedicated to the project, shorter teaser pieces (45 sec to 1 min) will be an opportunity to grab attention. Make it personal, fun, funny, and most importantly personal. I want this to be a forum where authors are allowed to express themselves more freely then a formal interview and have fun with the project. What often draws me to buying a new author is the excerpt at the back of a book. An option for the longer interview piece is to introduce the story, then read a few pages. Fans go to hear authors read all the time and new readers/viewers will be drawn in.”

Her site launches soon, don’t delay! You can get more info about her project here.
http://romanceinthebackseat.com/

I’m looking forward to filming my video, so don’t miss out.

Email Terry today at: Terrykate@Romanceinthebackseat.com

And now back to our regularly scheduled deadline…

Best,
Jina

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jinabacarr

Jina Bacarr is the author of The Blonde Geisha , Naughty Paris, Tokyo Rendezvous, a Spice Brief, and Spies, Lies & Naked Thighs, featuring an Indiana Jones in high heels.

Coming in April 2009:

Cleopatra’s Perfume

“One whiff and every man was her slave.”

“Romance in the Backseat” Video Project with Terry Kate

Romance in the Backseat

by Jina Bacarr

I spend a lot of time in the backseat of a car, that is, my characters do in my April Spice release, Cleopatra’s Perfume. Here’s a short excerpt with the hero and heroine that takes place in a car parked in the shadow of Egypt’s Sphinx in 1939:

“My voice became raspy from the guttural sounds emitting from my throat and carrying through the open roof over the empty arid desert. The dry air was unforgiving on my vocal chords, making me cough and choke, as if to punish me for indulging in so much pleasure. I shouldn’t have opened the roof on such a hot afternoon and allowed swirling sand to invade our refuge, a 1937 Flying Twenty Standard motorcar, black and no longer as shiny as a paladin’s boots and covered with a light blanket of sand, but I did.”

You can see why I’m excited about a new video project put together by documentary filmmaker Terry Kate called “Romance in the Backseat: A Series of Author Interviews in the Backseat of a Car.” I met Terry at the RWA Conference in Atlanta a coupla years ago and I never forgot her enthusiasm and commitment to her projects. A film school graduate, she’s an avid romance reader and is dedicated to helping out both authors and readers in the romance community.

(Check out her bio page at: http://romanceinthebackseat.com/page3.html )

Terry will launch her new website http://romanceinthebackseat.com/ soon and I’m pleased to say she’s asked me to do a video interview. I’ll be reading an excerpt from Cleopatra’s Perfume and oh what fun we’ll have.

I’ll keep you updated on Terry’s project with the scoop on which OCC members she’ll also be filming in the backseat and when and where those video interviews will be available for you to enjoy.

My question to you is this: What’s your dream car where you’d like to be interviewed in the backseat? Inquiring OCC minds want to know.

Start your engines, ladies, it’s going to be a sexy ride…

Stay tuned for more next month with Terry Kate’s “Romance in the Backseat!”

Best,
Jina

Jina Bacarr is the author of The Blonde Geisha , Naughty Paris, Tokyo Rendezvous, a Spice Brief, and Spies, Lies & Naked Thighs, featuring an Indiana Jones in high heels.

Coming in April 2009:

Cleopatra’s Perfume

“One whiff and every man was her slave.”

Jina’s Vision Board Podcast

by Jina Bacarr

Does it work for writers? I love it. As I’m writing this, I’m looking at a new picture I put up on my vision board of a character in my WIP and it stirs my imagination, revving me up to get back to work…I should add it’s a picture of a really sexy hunk.

How many of you have a vision board? I’d love to hear about your vision board!

Best,
Jina

Jina Bacarr is the author of The Blonde Geisha , Naughty Paris, Tokyo Rendezvous, a Spice Brief, and Spies, Lies & Naked Thighs, featuring a heroine who’s an Indiana Jones in high heels.

Coming in April 2009:

Cleopatra’s Perfume

“One whiff and every man was her slave.”