School starts a day early + Diary of an Author for realz

Happy Labor Day! If you’re in the U.S., I hope you’re having an awesome BBQ and lovely long weekend. My husband and daughter both return to school tomorrow, so it’s a happy, happy day! Oh, yeah — and something else happens tomorrow.

RIVETED WILL BE OUT!

Not that I’m looking forward to that, too, or anything. Haha, actually, I’m looking at all of the books releasing — Nalini Singh’s newest Guild Hunter, Moira Rogers, Ann Aguirre’s final book in her Jax series, Carolyn Jewel, Jo Goodman, Maggie Shayne, Bec McMaster’s new steampunk series, and Victoria Dahl … Okay, I should probably make a TBR post.

Until then, check out some of the survival courses the hero of Riveted, David Kentewess, had to take before heading off on his scientific expeditions … and enter to win a copy! It’s all at Literary Escapism’s awesome School’s In! event.

And for a funny — or a sad/pathetic, because it might be both, here’s the story of a writer who sounds as if he used Diary of An Author as a How-To Guide and anonymously wrote his own glowing reviews while talking trash about his rivals. (h/t to Ani Gonzalez on Twitter for the link)

My advice to all authors? Don’t do that. It’s one thing to keep an anonymous reader account somewhere (Amazon, Goodreads) but draw some hard, hard lines and rules for its use. The #1 rule should be: never EVER talk about your own work.