Happy 3rd Bookiversary, Bax & Alex! ;)

Welp, here we are. Three years ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop a few blocks from my sister's house slurping down free refills of meh coffee, with my finger hovering over the publish button, pretty positive that if I published this kinky AF book that I really truly loved, that was what I wanted to read, I would somehow destroy my life and my career in one second flat. (Overthink much, Misha?)

Bax and Alex don't exactly follow the romantic hero guidelines, after all. They're both assholes, tbh. They hate emotions and do their best not to have any. They kind of treat each other like shit even when they're falling in love because they don't have much experience with the concept of being nice, and they don't actually have any idea they're falling for each other. And also, let's be honest here, because they both kinda like it. ;) It's not a relationship for everyone, but it works for them.

And oh yeah. *Ahem* The spanking. There's quite a lot of it in this book. Not exactly easy to expose your guts in a big ass novel when your sexuality is generally made out to be a joke or a deep dark secret you're not supposed to share, and you already live with daily anxiety dialed up to eleven thousand.

But, you know what? I pushed the button. It was one of the scariest things I'd ever done, and I survived. It didn't ruin my career or destroy my life. In fact, I'd say it re-started them both, though they're both still very much works in progress. ;)

In the three years since, my sister got married and moved, that coffee shop became a Mexican restaurant, but Old School Discipline is still around, and arguably still my most popular book! If you told me that morning that a filthy romance novel about a slacker and a bully spanking it up in a boarding school would resonate with so many people, I would have fallen out of my booth, lol.

But all this time later, I still get emails from people who want to know if they'll see Bax & Alex again (Yes!) or if other characters will ever get spin offs (Maybe!) or to let me know I'd written a book they needed to read. (Which is my favorite thing of all, because all the books I write are the ones I needed to read too-- as funny as that might seem to non-kinky people with no emotional issues, heh.)

Not to get too sappy, (I did warn you in the last post, lol) but writing and publishing this book really did change my life. Not only did it convince me there really was an audience of readers who wanted non-mainstream romances, it helped me start to find my place in the world and actually led to some of my closest friendships! So, yay! All from pushing a button! Who knew!

So, anyhow, to celebrate the third annual Bax & Alex Day (we can call it that, right?) OSD got a brand new cover! (And you guys, it's a super cool matching set of covers that fit together and I'm totally geeking out about it, so I guess all I have to do now is finish up the sequel so you can see it. Soon! Not quite yet, but soon. :) )

Also, Old School Discipline is on sale for 99c for a limited time! 107k of angry, angsty, spanky goodness for less than a buck! Hopefully it will end up in the hands of even more people searching for books like these. :)

Okay, so I did a Five Fun Facts thing for Working Out the Kinks when I had the BookBub back in February, which is a little goofy, I guess, but people seemed to like it, so let's try it again.

Five Fun (non-spoilery) Facts about Old School Discipline

1. I came thisclose to publishing this book under a secret penname because I was sure people wouldn't accept it. In fact, I still have the alternate cover!

2. When I randomly surprise-announced this book on twitter (some things don't change much, lol) someone sent me a very nice message to let me know I had a typo in my word count, lol. I'd only published short stories up to that point, and they thought it was supposed to say 10k, not 100k!

3. I'm a pantser, and I never have any idea where stories are going to go. (Although somehow the characters do. I just follow along and assume they know what they're doing.) The first thing I wrote for OSD was Chapter One (super weird, since I never write in order) and as soon as Alex started bullshitting about his unfair life, I knew something good was happening. I figured it was a short story. Clearly Alex had other ideas, lol. He's bad at shutting up. ;)

4. Until about Chapter 5, I kind of assumed Alex was just going to sleep his way through the whole school. Every type is kind of his type after all. ;) I think maybe he thought that too, tbh. Stupid feelings.

5. The moment in the book when Alex finally realizes he has *feelings*, he was so fucking stunned that it took me by surprise too, lol. Out of nowhere, I was suddenly crying so hard I had to stop writing. (Since I don't have any of those gross emotion-things, this is highly unusual.) I still cry when I reread that part. I'm crying right now, actually. Shut up.

Okay, humans, that's all for me today! Thanks again for making the last 3 years something really special. I'm glad we could celebrate Bax & Alex Day together. You keep reading, I'll keep writing! <3

Happy Bookiversary!

Misha