Blog Tour: BEING ME by LISA RENÉE JONES - Q&A + GIVEAWAY (US/Canada)

FROM STORAGE LOCKER TO

BESTSELLER LIST

LISA RENÉE JONES COLLABORATES WITH STORAGETREASURES.COM

- CO-FOUNDED BY A&E STORAGE WARS STARS DAN AND LAURA DOTSON -

TO PRESENT INSIDE OUT NOVELLA

Lisa Renée Jones's INSIDE OUT series debuted in the Amazon top 40 within the first 10 days of release. Who knew that a small, musty journal forgotten in a storage locker would be the inspiration for a bestselling series of books, TV buzz, and legions of fans counting the days until the next installment? Jones is a powerhouse literary entrepreneur. Her TALL, DARK & DEADLY series spent 10 weeks on the USA Today bestseller list and 8 weeks on the New York Times and sold 300,000 copies. Jones released IF I WERE YOU, the first book of INSIDE OUT series, herself for 10 days before Gallery/Simon & Schuster took it over. The reception by fans was overwhelming.

Now Jones is teaming up with StorageTreasures.com, co-founded by Dan and Laura Dotson, stars of the A&E's Storage Wars, to present the exclusive thrilling and chilling  serialized mystery BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: An Inside Out Novella. Each exciting installment will appear once a week through June and July 2013 on the storage and auction omnibus site and draw fans into the INSIDE OUT world.

The eagerly awaited second installment of the INSIDE OUT series, BEING ME, was released June 11, 2013 by Gallery Books. It's the continuing story of Sara McMillan, an ordinary school teacher with an uneventful life whose surprise acquisition of a storage unit key leads her to discover the journals of a woman she never met. Riveted by the journal writer's erotic adventures, Sara begins to obsess until she takes steps that lead her to living out the other woman's life. But the writer's path is dark and the men Sara meets are darker still - can she solve the riddle of what happened to the writer before she meets the same fate? 

NOW OPTIONED TO STARZ FOR TV!!! Check it out on Goodreads and Amazon 

Q&A With LISA RENÉE JONES 

1. Throughout your career so far, you’ve written a wide range of genres, from paranormal romance to erotic thrillers. Which has been your favorite to write and what inspires you to jump around?

I love suspense and it's where I started. Opportunity lead me other places but my heart is always in a good sexy mystery. 

2. Your latest series, The Inside Out Trilogy, begins with a character who discovers a woman’s “lost journals” in an old storage unit she purchases. How have your real-life experiences buying storage units inspired you to write this story?

My fiancée found a journal when we were buying and selling storage units and it inspired the idea. He got absorbed in the journal and insisted I write a sexy mystery involving a journal found in a storage unit. It took me years to listen to him but he never stopped pushing me. By the time I wrote INSIDE OUT  had been developing the idea so long, that it made the fictional world and characters felt very real to me. 

3. Before publishing your books, you owned your own staffing agency, which was named Entrepreneur Magazine’s #7 growing women-owned business (1998) and recognized by the Austin Business Journal and Dallas Women Magazine. How has your experience in the business world helped shape your female characters?

It helped me understand the dynamics of personalities and relationships. It also  exposed me to some of the good and bad sides of people and situations I do not think I would have known existed otherwise. 

4. In your opinion, what ingredients are needed to make up a good erotic thriller?

Well, great sex is a must. And not the same sex. And not sex just for sex. If I Were You didn't have a ton of sex because the characters weren't ready. I wasn't going to make them have sex to make sex scenes appear on pages. And a good mystery is a true mystery. It's woven into the story with subtle little clues. For me, it also has to be deeply rooted in something one or more characters have some emotional attachment to.

5. What’s up next for you and your writing career?

I have a new series Escaping Reality, another sexy mystery, out in July. A novella coming up with Random House and more books in the INSIDE OUT series. There will be 5 Inside Out books and a spinoff series. Books 4 and 5 are highly focused on the man who did not get Sara. And you will know what the spinoff series is by the end of Revealing Us. You will have no question.

ABOUT LISA LISA RENÉE JONES

The author of more than 30 best-selling novels, Jones has impressive roots in the business world as the owner and CEO of a multi-state staffing agency that was consistently recognized by the The Austin Business Journal and Dallas Women magazine and grossed up to $ 16 million in sales. In 1998  her company was listed seventh in a list of fastest growing women-owned businesses by Enterpreneur magazine. She has brought this aptitude to the business of marketing her novels to create a smashing success using social media. Her publishing career began in 2007 and has grown to encompass her successful self-publishing career as well as more than 30 books with Simon & Schuster, Avon, Kensington, Harlequin, NAL, Berkley and Elloras Cave. To know more about her, please visit her website.

GIVEAWAY!

Lisa is generously offering a copy of IF I WERE YOU  and BEING ME (book #1 and #2 in the INSIDE OUT series) to a lucky reader of this blog.  Leave a comment about Lisa's books or this interview for a chance to win. Open to US and Canada residents. Don't forget to add your email address at the end of your comment. Thank you and good luck!