A Backward Glance - #NewYear #NewReleases #Giveaway

Image by dbderuiter from Pixabay

We’re only a few days from the start of a new year. Like many of us, I’m tempted to look back over 2019 and draw some conclusions. 

In my meat-space existence, the past year has been busy and productive. I did a lot of traveling and accomplished quite a few of my career goals.

Since I don’t write full time, there’s normally a trade-off between my real-world activities and my writing. Still, despite being so busy, I managed get more books out in 2019 than I have in years.

I started in January, with the release of Sin City Sweethearts, the third, and up to that point longest, volume in the Vegas Babes series.

I didn’t really expect to continue the series beyond that point, but with Valentine’s Day approaching, I felt the urge to put out a seasonally appropriate title. I wrote Valentine’s Visit: Four-Way Friend Swap in about a week. Although it’s part of the Vegas Babes series, it’s a bit more romance-y in tone and content, focusing as it does on two committed couples. 

 

Mid-year, I got the news that one of my publishers was shutting down and releasing the rights for the titles they’d published. I re-edited, expanded and re-titled my third novel as The Heart of the Deal. The re-branded novel has sold much better than the traditionally published version.

I also managed to get two shorts, The Last Amanuensis (speculative erotica) and Refuge (multi-cultural erotic romance) back onto the shelves.

During July and August, I took a long trip back to the U.S. to visit family and friends. To keep my blog readers occupied during the month I was gone, I organized a “Free Reading Fest”, with lots of stories and prizes. When I returned, I collected all those stories and published them as Crowd Pleaser: Erotic Shorts, which is 100% free on Smashwords.

Meanwhile, I was working on the next Vegas Babes book. Babes in Bondage came out just after Halloween, nearly 50K of wildly creative, over-the-top erotica.

I think that will be the last Babes book... but I’ve thought that before.

I didn’t really plan any more releases for 2019 – I was too busy – but then I got inspired by the upcoming winter holidays. I ended up publishing two very different holiday titles. Cherry Pie and Mistletoe is a sweet, hot erotic romance featuring characters who are over sixty. In contrast, Santa, Baby! is anything-goes holiday smut, with a mild femdom theme. I’m amazed to realize that despite end-of-year professional responsibilities, I managed to write and release 20K in about three weeks.

So what about next year? I’m not sure, but I do plan to put out another title in my Asian Adventures series, set in Vietnam. Then I’ll package those books into a boxed set. I’m also going to do a boxed set of Vegas Babes... unless I get inspired to write one more installment.

As for new efforts, I have a notion for a new steam punk erotica series called The Toy-Makers Guild, about an elite group of Victorian engineers and artists who excel at creating implements of pleasure. I also have a half-written vampire/shifter romance that I abandoned a few years ago. I hate to waste that effort; I may recast it as an urban fantasy.

But what would you like me to write next year?

Leave me a comment letting me know your preferences, and you could win a prize: your choice of any of the books I published in 2019. I’ll draw two winners, once we make it to 2020.

Meanwhile, Happy New Year to all of you! Wishing you love, joy, peace and prosperity in the new decade.

Looking Back - #FirstNovel #AmWriting #SelfPublishing

Twenty years ago last month, I published my first novel.

I’ve shared the story dozens of times, in my long bio and on various blogs—how in November 1998 I picked up a Black Lace novel from the book swap shelf at my Istanbul hotel, was hooked by the intense emotion and free-wheeling sexual variety I found within, then got the urge to write something in the same genre. I dashed off three chapters of Raw Silk and sent them (by postal mail, of course) to England, pretty much on a lark. I had no expectations. The form letter I received in response, thanking me for my submission but warning me that due to the size of the backlog I might not hear anything for several months, didn’t surprise me in the least.

On the other hand, when I got email from the Black Lace editor three days later, offering me a contract, I was stunned. Now I had to actually write the novel, a minimum of 80,000 words. The publisher wanted to know when it would be finished. Honestly, I didn’t have a clue.

In the two decades that have followed, Raw Silk has seen four different editions. Meanwhile, I’ve published ten other novels (if you define a novel as a work of 50K words or more). Not that impressive a history, I guess, especially compared to many of my colleagues. Of course, I’ve also produced dozens of shorter works, ranging from flashers to novellas. In addition, I’ve edited both multi-author and single-author erotica anthologies.

Although pretty much all my work falls into the general category of erotic fiction, I’m otherwise eclectic. I’ve played with a wide range of genres, including BDSM (my first love), erotic romance, paranormal, science fiction, suspense, steam punk, historical, gay and lesbian. My tales range from literary erotica to pure smut, with everything in-between. For many years I worked mostly with a romance publisher, and chafed against the constraints of that genre. The rise of self-publishing has freed me to write whatever inspires me—which usually means stories that would make some romance readers squirm.

Not long after the release of Raw Silk, I found the EroticaReaders & Writers Association. I was looking for a way to promote the book (a very different enterprise in 2000, before the rise of social media). ERWA wasn’t what I was seeking, but it turned out to be what I needed. Though I’d been writing for self-expression all my life, I’d never imagined a career, or even an avocation, as a published author. I knew next to nothing about either the erotica genre or the nuts and bolts of the publishing world. The community I found here, the acceptance, support, knowledge and creativity, have helped me to develop my skills, to nurture my erotic imagination, and to market and sell its products.

Many people have remarked that being an author is a lonely business. I think that’s even more true if you write a denigrated, socially sanctioned genre like erotica. ERWA offered a delightful antidote to that loneliness. Some of the people I care most about in this world are folks I’ve come to know in the online world of ERWA. A few of these dear friends I’ve met in meat-space, but I know many of them only through the warmth of their emails, the generosity of their critiques and the arousing and challenging fiction they share.

I was in my forties when I published my first erotica, reliving and embroidering on the sexual adventures of my twenties. My early tales were fueled by cherished recollections and personal fantasies. I penned that first novel in just a few months. Passion poured out of me, onto the page. I wrote whatever pushed my own buttons, with no censorship and little focus on craft.

Now that I’m in my sixties, my motivations have shifted, but not as much as you might think. I still write to turn myself on. If I’m not aroused, how can I expect that of my readers? These days, though, I have a bit more distance from my work. I feel far more in control. Like a sculptor, I start with the raw material of ideas and mold them into the shape I envision.

As I mentioned earlier, the decision to self-publish has given me new energy and self-confidence. Perhaps as a result, in the past few years, I’ve found myself conquering what I’d always thought were intrinsic limitations to my writing skill.

For instance, I used to complain that I suffered from “narrative inertia”. What I meant was that once I’d written a story, I found it very difficult to make significant changes. I felt as though the story had chosen its own form, had set itself in stone, permitting me no more than cosmetic modifications. Attempts to alter the structure, the plot or the ending left me dissatisfied and deeply uncomfortable.

Those feelings have mostly disappeared. I’ve taken old tales with ambiguous, even tragic, conclusions, and revised them to end happily. (The market far prefers happy conclusions.) I’ve taken short stories and expanded them into novellas. My words and ideas now seem far more malleable than they did in the past.

Then there's the fact that I always swore I couldn’t write a series. By the time I’d written “The End” on a novel, I really was done. I had little inclination to revisit the characters or their worlds. In a couple of cases, I had thoughts about follow-on books, and deliberately left threads to be followed, but somehow I couldn’t motivate myself to start on Book Two.

Then I wrote a book purely for fun, which turned out to be pretty popular (Hot Brides in Vegas). Almost as soon as it was published, I had more outrageous ideas about the characters, so I started a sequel. The Vegas Babes series is now up to four books, and I just started working on Book Five.

Nobody is more surprised by this than me.

Twenty years is a long time—nearly a third of my life on this planet. I’ve never made much money as an author. Given my other responsibilities, I’ve never been able to devote the sort of time necessary to publish regularly. Still, I do congratulate myself on my staying power. Through the ups and downs, I’ve continued to write and publish—and continued to participate in the erotica community.

I sometimes wonder whether I’ll still be here when I am in my eighties.

Stay tuned!