Radish

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I have joined the Radish platform! (And will have NEW books on there!)

A few weeks ago, Radish came to me and wanted to put “The Billionaire Baby Arrangement” up on their platform. It's retitled as “The Billionaire CEO's Baby” on their platform. (Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is important!)

I am loving the response from readers there, so I'm putting up a bunch of books on their site.

There's even a couple of new books coming!

What is Radish?

Happy Radish Dance!

You download the app and then read books chapter by chapter! Many chapters are free or will be free after a short wait time. If you don't want to wait, you can purchase coins and buy that chapter now!

(Click here to go to Radish!)

What does this mean for readers?

Both the Stepbrother novels (Stepbrother's Gift and Stepbrother Hero) are already up on Radish! Since Amazon doesn't like “stepbrother” books, I wasn't able to keep them there. They are available on Radish, though!

In the next few weeks, I'll be publishing two NEW novels on Radish! I wrote them under a different pen name, but they fit the Radish model so nicely that I want to share them there as Krista instead! I will also be publishing them on Amazon, Apple, B&N, and Kobo.

What about Kindle Unlimited (KU)?

For now, the Kisses books, the Kinds of Love, and the Billionaire and Brides books are all staying in KU, though you should borrow them now if you want to be able to use your KU subscription to read them.

If you're reading on Radish, the titles may be different.

I'm so excited about being on a new platform and finding new readers! These two billionaire baby books are going to do great on their platform and I'm so excited to get them new readers!


Heroes

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I need a hero!

Since the reader will see themselves as the heroine, you have to make the hero someone the reader wants to be with.

The Physical

The hero should always be inwardly attractive. It helps if he's outwardly attractive too, but it's possible to have a scarred, deformed hero that we still love. (Jane Eyre for example, or even the Beast in Beauty and the Beast.) He doesn't have to be handsome on the outside, but he does have to have a heart of gold.

Most women still say the tall, dark, and handsome look is preferred. Taller tends to be more attractive.

Hair, skin color, race, eye color, and builds can vary. They need to take care of themselves, though. They don't have to be Mr. Universe, but they shouldn't be Homer Simpson either.

There is definitely a wish fulfillment aspect here. We want to be with the hot guy. We want to have the prince. So give your reader that if you can.

The Emotional

Your hero must be intelligent. Since this is a book, we only get a description of the physical but we get a play by play of what he says. He needs to have a brain or your reader will lose interest. If he's just a pretty face, why would our heroine (us) want to be with him? We'll be bored since we don't actually get to see those rippling muscles.

Intelligence, humor, and kindness will win the hearts of your readers.

The hero can be dark and brooding. He can be locked away inside himself with his emotions, or a bad boy with a dangerous past. He can be an assassin, a gangster, a soldier, a doctor, or a gigolo.

But he must be intelligent and have a good heart. Why would we fall in love with him if he didn't?



Love Under the Mistletoe

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Do you love Hallmark Christmas movies? Do you like mistletoe magic and falling in love?

Then Love Under the Mistletoe is just for you!

It's on sale for a limited time on Amazon, but also available for FREE in Kindle Unlimited. I hope it brings you Christmas spirit and joy!

 

Can a kiss under the mistletoe save Christmas?

Holly has always loved Christmas, but this year is different. As a school teacher, she's worried about her students, her dad, and her entire town. All of them are poised for a terrible Christmas, and there's nothing she can do about it. The only bright spot in her life is the mysterious man she meets at the holiday party.

Nathan has always hated Christmas, but this year is different. As a billionaire, he's excited about his new plans for his company, but as always, it's all about the money. When he meets the bubbly woman who doesn't care about his wealth, love blossoms under the mistletoe.

It almost seems like magic.

But their lives are more intertwined than either of them originally thought. It turns out that Nathan's plan for the future of his company is the very thing that's destroying Holly's community.

Holly begins to understand why everyone refers to Nathan as a Scrooge, and she thinks that the wonderful man she shared a passionate weekend with was nothing more than a lie. Will Nathan be able to prove that she saw the real him?

Will Christmas magic prevail, or will their love vanish like a kiss under the mistletoe?

NYT Bestseller Krista Lakes brings you this brand new heartwarming holiday romance. This standalone novel will convince you that love can make the magic of Christmas real.


Bad Boys and Babies are Coming this September!

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There is not just one book coming this month.

THERE ARE THREE!

These books have been so much fun to write. The bad boy and the baby? It's sexy and fun and heartwarming all at the same time!

Be sure to check them all out! (They're all on pre-order!)

Family Doctor's Baby: Coming Sept. 7th

The Billionaire's Baby Arrangement: Coming Sept. 11th

Crime Boss Baby: Coming Sept. 18th


I’m Leaving Kindle Unlimited.

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To my loyal Amazon readers, I am so sorry.

I'm leaving Kindle Unlimited (KU).

Why? Because Amazon isn't paying me fairly any more. They aren't paying any author in the program fairly anymore.

If you're unfamiliar with how KU works, readers purchase a subscription to the service for $9.99 a month and get unlimited reading of any book enrolled in the program. This is great for readers, and I love that people on a budget can get my books. As a reader, this is a great deal.

On the author side, it's not quite as exciting.

In order to be a part of KU, the author must only put their book on Amazon. They can't publish it anywhere else (like iBooks or Barnes and Noble). This is a missed opportunity for authors that we have to accept in order to participate. This was a tradeoff that I was willing to make.

The real issue comes with how authors are paid. Amazon pays us by the page read. There is no set page rate for how authors are paid. There is a monthly pool that authors all have to split. Amazon calculates how many pages the entire KU reader base read and then splits the pot between everyone.

Traditionally, the page rate has been around half a cent a page. That's not great, but it was workable. This month, the split came to $0.004 a page. Not 4 cents a page. Less than half a cent a page. This is the fourth month in a row that the rate has gone down, leading to a 20% decrease in pay over the past year.

How angry would you be if your boss decreased your pay by 20% while they made record sales?

For a book that is 250 pages long (which is where most of my books are) that means we earn about $1 if someone reads the entire book cover to cover. That is not anywhere near what is considered fair value.

In addition, Amazon has allowed scammers to take over their marketplace. If you go and look at the top 100 books in the store, you'll find several with the reviews saying that this book is nothing but jibberish. However, those scammers are taking their cut of the prize pool and getting the same .4 cents per page I am.

And Amazon doesn't even care.

It takes me 2-3 months to write a book. I take time away from my family to do this. I pour my heart into each novel, and with Amazon deciding to decrease my pay every month, it means that I either have to work faster and sacrifice quality, or make less money for my family.

Amazon is hurting authors. I'm actually really conflicted about this because I know this will hurt my KU readers, but Amazon is leaving me no other choice. I used to love being a part of KU, but Amazon has ruined it for me, and now my readers.

So, dear reader, unfortunately, I have to leave Kindle Unlimited.

I hate doing this to you. If you want me to come back, tell Amazon. Tell them that they are not providing a good customer experience. Tell them that you want authors to be paid fairly. Tell them to get a grip on their business and not let fake books take all the money from real authors.

Email Jeff Bezos himself. (jeff@amazon.com)

If you want to help me, tell a friend about my books. Tell them I'll be on iBooks now.

Here's a link to what's been going on in the Kindle Unlimited program. It's ripe for scam artists to steal the pot and Amazon is doing absolutely nothing about it.

Scammers Break The Kindle Store

*It will take some time for all the books to come out of the 90 exclusive period on Amazon. Yours Truly is already out of KU. The rest will be following as their contracts expire.

 



Happy Halloween!

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I hope you all had a fantastic and wonderful Halloween! (I know I did!)

We took my little guy Trick-or-Treating around the neighborhood and he freaking LOVED it. There is nothing more adorable than a 2-year-old going up to a house, knocking on the door and then proudly saying, “twick-o-tweat!”

 

astronaut

He made out like a bandit as people “awwed” over him (and the matching parent costumes of course!) and stuffed his little Thomas the Tank bucket full of candy. We were all dressed up as Astronauts (with orange jumpsuits) as he loves space. (You can see his space blanket here)

astronaut3

I promise he'll get to eat most of his candy. Just not the Almond Joys or Crackle bars. Those are Mom Tax.

(As he's already in the kitchen trying to climb up the fridge to get to it…)



Kisses From Jack

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KFJPromo

What did Jack think of his vacation?

When I wrote Saltwater Kisses, I had no idea that it would go to the Top 100 in the kindle store for a month. I mean, I hoped it would, but every book is kind of like a lottery ticket. The first day it hit the list, I sat on the computer hitting refresh every 5 minutes just to make sure it was real and not a glitch. Even then, I kept expecting an email from Amazon saying it was all a mistake. Well, over a year later and it's still going strong!

When I was writing Saltwater, I really, really wanted to add in some things from Jack's viewpoint, but I didn't want to “Head hop”. There are some authors that can switch characters so flawlessly that I don't have to even read the heading at the beginning of the chapter to know that the voice has changed, but I wasn't sure I was one of them. Plus, I wasn't sure that it was the right choice for Saltwater Kisses to have two voices. (I'm going to go ahead and say that Top 100 status means I made the right choice!) So, I kept the entire book in first person.

But Jack's thoughts kept popping out at me.

So, as a bonus to fans, I re-wrote the first half of Saltwater Kisses from Jack's point of view.
It has Brandy, the secretary that took the photos and forced Emma to move to NY. It has the party (which means I got to bring in Owen, Robbie, Noah, Logan, and Aiden!) Rachel and Dean got to get in on the fun. (Oh how I love the brother/sister/boss/assistant relationship those two have going on!) It was a BLAST to get to go through all the current Kisses books and bring it all together 🙂

Yes, in reading it, you will see a lot of repeats from other books. That's the danger of doing the same story from another point of view (all the dialogue and actions have to match!) but hopefully, I changed it up enough that it feels familiar rather than repeated.

I hope you all enjoy this short novella from Jack. Thank you for reading!

KissesFromJack

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