Nikki Rae's Blog: June 2014

Okay, let's start this out right, with the cover for my newest work, The Donor (Part One) out July 14th:

And I guess I should give you a synopsis as well:

Casey Williams and her family are poor. Her parents work non-stop and so does she, just so they can keep the trailer roof from leaking.
They’re getting by fine enough when the headaches start. Then there’s the nosebleeds. And the inevitable doctor’s bills.
Fortunately for Casey, there’s MyTrueMatch.com: an exclusive, quick, and almost easy way to pay it all back before her parents even have to know.
All she has to do is give a man she’s never met whatever he wants from her body.
Inside or out.

So. What do you think?
I figured I would use all that knowledge I gathered at community college as a Fine Arts major and put it to good use. I'm proud to say that this is the first cover I've ever made myself and I'm happy with how it's turned out. I have a really specific vision for these little novellas (they're only about 30 pages each) and this one fits perfectly with the three ideas I have. This story started, like so many, in workshop class. I had a story due in a week and had written nothing because I was so busy with school.
Then, I was sitting in my Spanish class and I was writing in the margins of my notebook as we were learning animals en Español. I tried to find a picture of it (because I take pictures of shit like that), but I couldn't find one. I do remember the first line, just like I remember every first line that comes to me. The one for Sunshine was, "Love is a monster, you see." And this first line was, "'There are worst ways for girls like us to make money,' she said. And I remember thinking, were there?"

Anyway. I'm really excited about this little project and I hope others are as well. It's also scary because it's so new. I wanted to try something different by putting out short pieces that all go together and releasing them shorter apart from each other than my novels. I hope people appreciate that as well.

When I have to answer interview questions, one thing I'm asked time and again is something like, "How do you know if a book is ready to publish?" and I always answer in some elaborate way that means something like, "I don't know, it just is."
What I've come to realize is the more I publish, the more I want to publish. I don't mean I just slap anything I write up on Amazon. Trust me, there's tons of shit in my notebooks that never sees the light of day. I guess what I mean is that I write for myself, first and foremost--that's how it's always been and always will be--however, when I feel this overwhelming need to share the stories I write, that's when I'd say something is ready. I feel like this story is something new for new fans and something old for my Sunshine Series fans. I really, really can't wait to share.

Okay. Enough rambling. Here's the Blog Tour details!
*I'm still open to adding people to the tour on the same days or different ones, so if you're interested, just email me! (nikkiraeauthor@gmail.com)