Fantasy Fest 2016

Sunday. My feet up on the couch, football on, my laptop in my lap. The channel changes, and my husband asks if I want to go to Fantasy Fest. 

When? I ask, half paying attention, my hands busy on my keyboard. 

This week. In Key West. 

I paused my typing. Key West isn't exactly close by. Thirteen hours by car, two connections by flight, it would be a pain to get to -- especially since we'd have to be back home by Friday. By then again ... it's FANTASY FEST. The ten-day non-stop party, where clothes are shed, inhibitions discarded, and all forms of debauchery are embraced. Technically, as an erotica author, I sort of NEEDED to go. It was almost a job requirement.

THE HARDEST BOOK TO WRITE...

I used to be so scornful of romance novels and their creation. How hard is it to smack together a female and male? He's handsome, she's orgasming ... game over, novel complete. Stuff in a Happily-Ever-After in the end and presto! You have yourself a book, one that will be gobbled up by scores of blissfully ignorant readers. 

I was wrong. I can't even go into all of the ways that I was wrong, it would suck up your entire Saturday. 

Sports, Romance, and New Releases....

Do you like sports romances? Here's an interesting fact... I don't. In fact, I think I've only ever read one -- HardBall, by CD Reiss. And that was only because I'll read anything she writes, regardless of the genre.  

But when I sat down to write my latest book, a sports romance is what came out. At first I fought it. I tried to put my characters in a different world, in different jobs. I was stubborn ... trying to fit them in molds that they didn't work in.

Finally, I gave up. I followed my initial inspiration and put them where they belonged: on a baseball field.

Amazon Keywords - What you should use?

Amazon keywords have always been a mystery to me. How do you pick the right ones? And what do keywords really DO anyway?

Turns out, using the right keywords can get your book listed in some of those random categories that you can't automatically select. Categories like Military Romance, or Love-Triangle Romance. 

These links give you a list of the keywords that will put you those important (and helpful) categories. Just click on the category(s) that you are aiming for. NOTE: These are only for the US store. 

Want to see Alessandra Torre at UtopiaCon 2016?

Check out the below list of events, where you can meet me!

Utopia Con is a week-long event for writers, readers, designers, agents, editors, filmmakers, photographers, formatters and more! Utopia Con is being held June 22 - 26th, 2016 in Nashville, at the amazing Millennium Maxwell House Hotel. Get your tickets, view the convention schedule, and more at http://www.utopiacon.com/.

Love Chloe is LIVE!

This week was my ninth wedding anniversary and I forgot it. When my husband pulled me onto his lap this morning and told me, I stared at him blankly. I asked him if he was sure. And I realized, somewhere between his chuckle and his kiss, that it was the most unromantic response ever.

But that's what release weeks are like. Love Chloe released this Monday, and everything in my life sort of stopped -- a pause in time that only I was aware of, the rest of the world ticking on, unaware of my frantic obsession at the birth of my latest baby.

Love Chloe is my twelfth novel. That seems crazy. Life was so much easier back in 2012, when I pressed 'publish' on Blindfolded Innocence and then squealed with joy when I had three sales. I want to go back to that time. I tell new authors all the time to not obsess over sales and then do exactly that

Romance ... is it easier in Paradise?

I've been married for nine years. During that time, our relationship has changed greatly. I look back - at how I felt as a newly-wed - and almost laugh. My love was so strong back then ... but it was so different. It didn't trust. It didn't understand, not everything about the man I was marrying. 

Now, we feel unbreakable, like two people whose hearts have fused. And still ... I think of what things will be like in ten more years, or twenty, or thirty. Will I look back at this version of us and laugh? 

Last week, we took our first vacation together - just the two of us - in over a year. It has been a strange year for us, with a lot of new struggles. And, with dreary February weather haunting us, a tropical vacation seemed like the perfect retreat.