F*R*E*E VIP Reader Goodies and a $25 Gift Card Giveaway

Happy Friday!

The year is winding down and everyone is busy shopping or preparing for the year ahead. I've been giving my VIP Readers a free sneak peek of Playing by the Rules, the Valentine's Day novella I'll be releasing...you guessed it...on Valentine's Day Weekend.

Playing by the Rules is the prequel novel to the Playing with Bad Boys series I'm launching in 2016. Each Friday through February I’m sharing a new installment with my VIP Readers, before the Valentine’s Day weekend release. Plus, I'm giving away a $25 Gift Card to your choice of Amazon, iTunes or Barnes & Noble as a thank you to one lucky VIP Reader for sharing meaningful feedback on the story. (Enter up to 12 times between now and February.)

To enter simply join my VIP Reader List. Each Friday that week's installment will be delivered to your inbox. You can catch up on past installments in my VIP Readers Lounge. (You'll get access when you join the list.)

About the Book

When Meredith “Merrie” Jane gets roped into attending her cousin Daphne’s naughty Valentine’s Day party for the decidedly unattached, she is shocked to find her ex’s elder brother Hunter in attendance. Stir in a few Valentine’s Day-themed cocktails and a very pushy relative, and they both discover that there is more than just friendship between them.

Hope to see you in the Lounge. Happy Reading!

Holy shit balls!

Hey, Kittens!

Whew! That's it. The "Kickin' It with Adrienne Kama and Bridget Midway" event is over. Wow! What a great time. It was a ton of work to pull off, but so worth it. I would love to do that again sometime...but not just yet. Like I said, it was A LOT of work to put the whole shebang together.

So what did I discover with this event? LOTS of things.

1. Readers are awesome! The readers that came out to the event did it with eyes and minds wide open. Here I was expecting them to be quiet and shy. Oh, no. They were asking questions left and right, getting involved, loving all the play.
2. Authors are awesome!  Not only did we receive a ton of great promo and books from authors, but also a ton of authors registered and came to the event as well, authors like Taisha DeMay, A.C. Arthur, Shara Azod, Eve Vaughn and the yet-to-be-published Nikki Hale and Denise Williams Cherry. It's great seeing authors wanting to learn more about a lifestyle to write it accurately. 
3. People in the Lifestyle are awesome! Preparing for this event, I was like a chicken with my head cut off. I was running around making sure the hotel was okay, that the food was order, and I had the bags and everything ready. Three days before the actual event, one of my BDSM demonstrators contacted me to say she couldn't be a part of the event. She was supposed to open the event, so this threw me for a loop. So I asked her and another demonstrator that if they could, find me a suitable replacement. Oh, they did. The amazing East Bound and his girl, toy, joined and did an amazing kinbaku scene, which opened the event. Also there was Master Stephen and his girl kris iris. And there was Sir Knotz, who did a great rope demonstration, Vanilla Facade, who filled in as his assistant, and, of course, my buddy into. Two years ago when he was at the "Wrapped Up" event, he was there with Mistress Dama de Noche as her slave. Since her passing, it was different for me to see him in a more dominating role even though I knew in his life before Dama, he was a Dom. 
4. Adrienne Kama is awesome! So I've known Adrienne for over ten years. She and I were at the same crappy publisher together. The reason I had asked her to do this event with me was because at the time, she was the only author of color that I knew doing interracial BDSM. I contacted her a year ago and asked if she wanted to be a part of this event and release her third book in the Stella Rice series. She happily agreed. She is a wonderful, calming spirit and a great partner in this event. 
5. The demand is high. As soon as I said, "Thank you! Good night!" readers and the people in the Lifestyle came up to me and said, "You need to do this again, and we'll come back." Here I thought I had totally screwed up the day. I wanted to do so much more that I couldn't. But, it's good to see that if I were to do it again -- and trust me, that's a big if -- that there would still be an audience. 

What made me proud was to release the third book in my Love series. Is This Love? is now released in ebook and print through Phaze Books. Considering I never thought I would write a sequel to Love My Way, I'm thrilled that I could come up with a 3rd book that will -- hopefully -- interest readers.

So now that all of that is done, I'm taking a bit of me time for the next couple of months. I'll do some plotting, but overall, I'm taking it easy until the new year. Then watch out. So much more is coming including book 2 in the Mama's Boys series under my real name, Crystal B. Bright. The second book is called Forget Me Not. It'll be out in ebook and print in February 2016 through Lyrical Press. This brother is an NFL quarterback with a green thumb. I can't wait for this one to come out.

Okay, time to relax. Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Stay sexy,
BridgeT
www.BridgetMidway.com

Real Love. . .Why I write

This past weekend, I was a part of my sister's vow renewal ceremony. She and my brother in law have been married for 25 years.

She was 19 when she said I do for the first time. And you know people say when folks get married that young they are bound to divorce. Thank goodness my sister is not a statistic.

What she is —is my relationship role model.

I'm not going to put all of her business out there, because she would kill me. But I've watched this couple go through ups and downs, raise two beautiful kids, beat the odds and still love each other.

Sounds like a romance novel, huh?

Watching her and my brother in law recommit to one another was beautiful and it got me thinking about the romance genre haters.

Oh, these books are so unrealistic, they say. Or call them bodice rippers, which is a term I hate more than pork. Then you see a real life love story play out in front of you.

After the ceremony was over, my niece said something that made my heart quake. When she was in high school, she was one of a few kids who lived with her mom and dad. A sobering fact.

Now, I tell people all the time that my sister introduced me to African American romance novels. I'm not saying that because she's an avid romance reader is why she is happily married, but seems like this is a life imitating art situation.

Marinate on that, haters.

Congratulations to my sister and her husband for 25 years of marriage.

Farrah Rochon is Coming to Raleigh to Talk About Diversity in Romance

Hi All,

Just peeking my head out of a crazy week of revisions and client work for this public announcement: author Farrah Rochon will be presenting a talk on "Diversity in Romance, and Why It Matters."

If you're fan of Farrah's (and seriously, who isn't?) and a writer, or aspiring writer, you'll want to join the Heart of Carolina Romance Writers for this presentation tomorrow in Raleigh at Glen Eden Pilot Park.

Visitors may attend up to two chapter meetings without joining. So we'd love to see you there at 1PM on Saturday, November 14th. Farrah will also be joining us for coffee at Cafe Carolina in Cameron Village following the meeting at approximately 3:30PM.

Haven't read Farrah's work yet? No worries. She's offering the first two books in her Moments in Maplesville novella series for FREE!

Just go here.

Contributing to the delinquency of book sales

Hi, kittens!

Just four days until the "Kickin' It with Adrienne Kama and Bridget Midway" event in Williamsburg. I have the printed books in hand. The swag bags are nearly packed. Adrienne is ready. My demonstrators are ready. I know readers are ready. I see the posts on Facebook. I've even checked out the hotel layout so I'll know how to have the room set up. I cannot wait to have the registrants see the demonstrators in action. I also can't wait until they have my book, Is This Love?, in their hot, little hands.

While my mind is on the event, I've been thinking about something else, something more crucial. Book sales. At a recent event, Yvette Hines had asked me if I noticed a difference in my royalty payments lately. I hadn't really. When I scanned my royalties spreadsheet, I did notice a trend, a downward trend.

As an author, I could chalk the dip in sales to a myriad of things. I didn't promote enough. I'm not writing what readers are interested in now. I'm not publishing enough. Notice how I keep the focus on me and not the readers or my publishers or even global warming. It's because there's no one to blame but me and my actions. I can't really complain about a problem that I, myself, have contributed to in the past.

Readers have been enjoying the wave of low-cost box sets that have been so prevalent within the last few years. They're able to get nine, ten, twelve, and I think I even saw one with fifteen stories, sometimes even full-length novels, for only $0.99! Why should readers pay full price for a novel when they can get several for a tenth of the cost? Even I participated in a box set a year ago.

For authors, it's a way to get to that best-seller status. For readers, it's a great way to learn about authors they may have never heard of or read before, and a way to get cheap fiction. It's the Wal-Mart of romance. No, better yet. It's the Costco or Sam's Club of romance. Big box superstore versus a specialty store.

Authors can't compete with the bargain, but we've become so shortsighted about the immediate result that we haven't considered the big picture. Or maybe we have, but we thought we would get a different outcome. Maybe authors, like myself, thought that if we got involved in a box set and new readers discovered us on top of making a best-seller list, that those new readers would buy our backlist titles. The only thing we managed to do is make readers even more ravenous for similarly packaged works.

So what am I to do? Keep doing box sets? No. For one, it's not as lucrative as one may think. Yes, there's a great chance to garner enough sales to make it to a best-seller list like New York Times or USA Today. Ultimately, you end up feeling like you've sold yourself short. Secondly, it can stifle creativity. It did for me. I discovered very quickly that I'm the kid who plays in the sandbox alone. That's okay. Self-awareness is a great thing.

Recently I saw a video on Facebook of Lady Gaga talking about how she almost quit the music business because she was forced to do things within it that she didn't like. I love Lady Gaga and I think she's a very talented woman, but I posted all the things she'd done wrong up to that point in her career that she said she hated. As I typed the words and reread them, I realized I was talking to myself.

In order for me to be a happy, productive writer, I have to love what I write. I want to give readers great fiction. Not rushed fiction. Not stereotypical fiction. Definitely not predictable fiction. I'm going to stand by my idea that if I continue to write strong romances with great plots and engaging characters that the readers will come.

So, in order to support that claim, I need to cut this post and get to writing.

Stay sexy,

BridgeT
www.BridgetMidway.com

Playing by the Rules Cover Reveal

Peeking my head out of my writing cave momentarily to give you a sneak peek of what's going on behind the scenes here in the bat cave.

Last month I told you about the surprise goody I've been working on. My prequel novella to the Playing with Bad Boys series will debut to my VIP Readers as a free serial novella before the complete work goes on sale Valentine's Day Weekend.

Last Friday I gave my VIP Readers the first peek at the cover for the novella. But I just couldn't resist giving Hot M.A.M.A. readers an early preview, too.

Playing by the Rules is the lead into my interracial romance, Playing It Safe, which will be released on March 1, 2016.

In Playing by the Rules we meet Meredith "Merrie" Jane and Hunter DeSeau.

Merrie Jane walked away from her longtime relationship with her ex because she was tired of playing games. She wants to be with a man who loves her madly and deeply. Enough to settle down and start a family. When she crosses paths with her ex's brother at a party a few months later, the last thing she expects is to discover that he's been harboring feelings for her and that she has feelings for him, too.

Hunter DeSeau adored Merrie long before his competitive younger brother asked her out. Unable to dismiss his feelings for her, he spent the past year distancing himself from them both. But now that their relationship is over and done, he's faced with the hardest decision of his life. Break the rules and pursue the woman he wants more than anything in the world or keep putting everyone else's happiness ahead of his own. 

Merrie has spent her entire life playing by other people's rules. As she examines her feelings for Hunter, she realizes a startling truth. She's been with the wrong brother all along. But choosing Hunter means exposing herself to gossip, rumors and hard feelings. In a society where perception is everything, is their love worth the risk?

Part I of the serial releases on Friday, November 6th. Get your pass to my VIP Reader Lounge today so it'll land in your inbox along with a chance to win my fourth quarter VIP Reader giveaway.

Happy reading!

I'm so excited!

Hi, Kittens,

I'm a month away from Adrienne Kama and my "Kickin' It" event, happening the weekend of November 6th and 7th in Williamsburg, Virginia. I cannot wait! If I could publish a million smiley faces in this post to show that, I would. So why am I so excited? Hmmm, let me count the ways.

First of all, I get to hang out with readers and authors for a couple of days. Not bad for the girl who never sat at the cool-kids' table. Next, I get to hang out with my BDSM lifestyle buddy, into. Since his mistress passed away, I haven't had an opportunity to see him. Seeing him again would be wonderful. Thirdly (is that a word?), I'll get to finally meet Adrienne Kama face-to-face. We've known each other for years online. But this event will allow me to put a face to the name.

What really makes me nervous is the release of the third book in the Love series, Is This Love?

Here's the blurb: Rocco Silva has zero interest in getting in front of the camera again. After being eliminated, not once, but twice when he competed on "Slave to Love," a reality TV show where a submissive looks for a Dominant, he's become the laughing stock in his BDSM and professional communities. He pours his full concentration on his work as the owner of a garbage company until a sexy woman walks into his life.

Gia Curtiss is tired of her work as a staff photographer in a discount store. After earning her filmmaking degree, she wants to put her education to use by doing a documentary. After a friend tells her of an opportunity to work as a production assistant for Ananda Morton, the producer of "Slave to Love," Gia decides to see the woman about a different proposition. She pitches the idea of doing a documentary on the twice-rejected contestant from her show. Ananda doesn't think the man will do it and challenges Gia to get him to agree. If he does, Ananda will hire her as a director.

Gia thinks she has it made until she runs into opposition with Rocco. He has no interest in making a fool of himself again unless Gia agrees to go on camera with him, allowing him to play with her. When Gia gets caught up with playing with Rocco, it's hard for her to discern what's real and what's just for show. Can she figure out her feelings before filming ends? Will he allow himself to be vulnerable for this special woman?

The book will available to the public on November 10th, but attendees of the "Kickin' It" event will get it early. I'm crossing fingers, toes, and eyes that readers will love the book.

Okay, I need to get back to planning this event.

Stay sexy,
BridgeT
www.BridgetMidway.com