Lay Me Bare Update

Hey readers! I've got some exciting news for you. With a lot of soul searching and examining the book markets and so on, I've decided the best thing I can do with Lay Me Bare is publish it as a series of novellas. I don't necessarily want to break it up, but with how busy I've been there is no way I'll get it done, as a whole, until spring or later. If I concentrate on it in chunks I can have parts of it out, hopefully once a month, so people won't be waiting forever. I really hope to have part one out late this week or early next week. I'll post here when it has a cover. Hopefully you'll enjoy reading it and hopefully I can stick to my schedule.

Again, I'm really, really sorry for the delays on this book. Writing is hard!

Long Time No Blog

Sorry for such a long delay between blog posts, I've been really busy lately. Inspiration hit me hard and I've been writing almost nonstop the last week or so. It's awesome to be so productive, but things like editing Lay Me Bare and doing reviews for this blog have slowed because of it.

I am done the first edit of 2/3 of Lay me Bare though, and progress is being made. I've also finished half of the third installment of The Masquerade Affair! I am really hoping to have it out late this week or early next week, so keep your eyes open for it.

I'll try to get another review up this week, but I can't make any promises right now. When inspiration knocks you have to answer the door!

Instructed by an Officer - $2.99 on Amazon

Instructed by an Officer

 

New Book Announcement

Four days into January and I’m already wishing it was May. I’m not really much of a winter person. At least it’s been so cold that I cannot go outside. That means I’ve been writing a lot! Okay, that’s not entirely true. I’ve been editing a lot is more accurate.

First I’ve started editing Lay Me Bare in hopes of a mid-February release date! I’m halfway done the first pass through, but I expect it will be a few more before it’s time to really hunker down and do the proof reading part.

As a more surprising bit of news, next week will bring the release of Instructed by an Officer! I’ve been working on this short since late November and then shelved it to release the first two parts of The Masquerade Affair. I’ve always loved sexy cops in uniform, so why not write about them? It’s probably going to be about 8000-8500 words long, about 50/50 when it comes to story vs. sexy times. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. A cover reveal is planned for this weekend as long as my designer gets to work in good time.

Hope everyone has had an excellent start to their new year!

Merry (Belated) Christmas!

A quick update, folks. As always, the holiday season has been busy for the husband and I. He's off this week and we've been all over the province visiting family and friends. I know I'm behind on reviews and blogs, but next week I plan to get back at it. I've got quite a few books that look really interesting to check out, such as:

Spinning Heads - Forrest Young

The Anniversary - Amelia Moore

The Many Manipulations of Calvert Howard - Calvert Howard

Forcing the Issue - Zoe Miller

And of course, don't forget Awake My Soul, which Amazon has listed at $4.69 right now!

New Relase: The Masquerade Affair Volume Two: The Sinners' Ball

New release day is here and it's my last release for the year! The sequel to Welcome to the Black Room is on sale on Amazon for only $0.99 cents. Even better? Welcome to the Black Room is free today and tomorrow over on amazon!

The Masquerade Affair Volume Two: The Sinners' Ball

Henrietta has waited in fear and excitement for her duke to return. The night they shared hasn’t left her mind, but as the days turn into weeks she has lost hope that she will ever see the man again. In the heat of summer she finds herself called upon again, but this time her dark duke pushes her further than she could have ever imagined.

This follow up to The Masquerade Affair: Welcome to the Black Room takes Henrietta’s fantasies deeper and opens her to a world she never thought she’d desire.

The Sinners’ Ball is a 7100+ word historical erotic short that features bondage and heavy sexual content.

Updates on writing and news of a giveaway

I’m snowed in! Well, not completely, but there is a lot more snow outside than I would like. The good news is that I haven’t had any real desire to leave my house. If I’m stuck inside I might as well write. I thought about taking this week off, about relaxing and catching up on some Netflix. Nope, I just kept writing. I think I’m on the very last chapter of the first draft of Lay Me Bare! I’d love to get it done before I take a few days off at Christmas and then I can come back to it in January with fresh eyes to edit it and then it can be done and published in February.

I’m hoping to finish editing The Masquerade Affair Part Two this afternoon and then have it up on Amazon tomorrow. I’ll probably do a push to make the first one free for a day and update it to include a link to the second one. I’m hoping to release the third part in early January. All said and done I think the series will be six or seven books.

And of course I’m still working on reviews. Tomorrow I’ll be looking at a sexy short by Jamie Fuchs and even more exciting I’ll be doing a giveaway with Jamie! Not only will I be reviewing her latest work, but together we’re going to give away five copies. The contest will be on my and her twitter, so keep your eyes peeled and hopefully you’ll win.

First Snow of the Year

As it says in my author blurb, I'm from Ontario. Usually we get some snow before now, but this year has been cold and very dry. That said, we almost always get a huge snow storm right about now and yup, today is the day. It's the perfect day to curl up with a hot beverage, a hot man, and enjoy keeping warm.

My wonderful husband took a three day weekend so we could finish his Christmas shopping before the storm hit and before the malls got too busy. Today we're going to finally put up our tree. That being said, having him home means a lack of productivity on my part. 

I did finish the second part of The Masquerade Affair! I need to edit it and get said husband to do the cover, but it should be published mid-next week. After that's done I'm going to focus on more holiday stuff than work. I do want to get some baking done, I need to do my wrapping, and honestly I think I need to relax. Of course, I write to relax so I think I'll write for fun and if I crank out anything that is more than just 'fun' before the end of the year then I may end up publishing it, we'll see.

Speaking of publishing, it's been a week since my kdp free period and I've yet to see any real benefit to it. I think the real test is when the sequel comes out. I may do a single free day on book one and two at the same time in the new year to renew interest.

In regards to publishing, I've been wondering how I should feel about my overall sales so far, just in general. Then this morning I read something Dean Weasley Smith, a publisher and author, said that a mid-road author, so not a failure and not E.L. James, but in between, should expect to sell five books a month per book. I don't want to divulge any actual numbers at the moment, but I'm selling a lot more than that. Not enough to live off of alone, but that figure did certainly help my perspective. What it means is that I need to get more books out there though! I really want to have Lay Me Bare out by February and then I can focus more of my attention on Betray My Heart (the sequel to Awake My Soul), plus do some more shorts.

Why you should shop at Smashwords

Since discovering the site in my own research to self-publish this year, Smashwords has personally become my own go-to site for buying ebooks. Of course you may wonder why.

To my knowledge, most if not all of Smashwords is self-published work. This is a huge plus for me as a fellow self-publisher. What this means is, to an extent, more freedom of choice. Their page layout might not be modern, fancy, or pretty, but what you get is a pretty easily searchable site with tons of content in just about any genre. Self-published work doesn't get buried under E.L. James and Stephanie Meyer, it's right there on top!

Personally I own a kobo for my ereading. The main reason I got a kobo was it's the number one brand in my area. It's owned by Indigo and is the most easily found ereader in this market. I liked the features, the backlight, and the size. All good things. What I'm not liking is the censorship on kobo at the moment. I haven't browsed their site in months because I don't like the variety it's limiting me to.

So I use Smashwords. Smashwords let's me download a book in any file format I chose, in my case ePub. After downloading the most helpful software called Calibre (get it here) I can easily put the file on my ereader and I'm ready to go.

Something else I love is how Smashwords gives a much higher royalty rate to authors than other platforms. I know, I know, of course I love getting more money. What I also like is making sure most of the money I spend on my books is going to the authors who wrote them in the first place!

Right now Awake My Soul is in the top 10 of the Bestsellers list for Historical Romance and I'm really proud of that fact. It's certainly a site worth checking out if you're a fan of indie romances!

Smashwords and Distribution

When I published Awake My Soul I put it up on Smashwords and Amazon, mostly because those seemed like the best two options. For Amazon, it was a given. It makes up anywhere from the 50-75% range on ebook downloads.

Smashwords I went with because of the distribution. Through them they would upload to Nook, Kobo, Sony, Apple, and so on. Awake My Soul has been available for three weeks now and I'm just starting to see it on other sites through a TON of searching on google. I couldn't find my book simply by typing in my name or title on the sites. I had to google it to find anything, and even then I haven't had a ton of luck.

Amazon is by far the best seller, but I don't want to shut out people without a kindle. So as I find the links, I'll add them to my blog here. Hopefully that helps people wanting to buy Awake My Soul.

Nook/Barnes & Noble

Ebook Eros

Kindle Freebie is Almost Over

It's a Friday night and I am absolutely bagged! I've been staring at the computer all day and yet I'm forcing one more blog post for this week. I'm hoping to publish another short next week so I did some editing on that, followed by finishing up a chapter of Lay Me Bare, plus I finished an article I was working on for a freelance gig I have.

My eyes... they BURN. As much as I know I should keep writing over the weekend, I might take a break away from the computer. Heck, even my phone. Not that I don't have other things to do. This weekend marks my first Christmas party of the year and that means I better do some baking. I already made some chocolate biscotti and tomorrow my husband and I are making fresh cheddar bay biscuits!

For next week, as I said I'm hoping to publish another short. This one is a contemporary erotica featuring a hot cop and a damsel in distress, yum yum! I haven't settled on a title, but I might try the kindle exclusive again, or I might put it up on smashwords as well. It's a tough call!

Next week I also plan on doing an update about how the free period on Welcome to the Black Room did and if it affected sales at all.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Welcome to the Black Room is FREE until Friday December 6th!

That's right, The Masquerade Affair Volume One: Welcome to the Black Room, is up on Amazon for completely, 100% free right now! It's a 7000 word historic erotica short and I hope it gets your motor running. After Friday it will be only 99 cents, so it's still a great deal.

In non-book news, my new favourite (well, not so new) obsession is tea, especially from DavidsTea. If you aren't familiar with them, you should get acquainted! Yesterday they had a friends and family deal and my husband brought me home SIX bags of my favorite teas. What a sweetheart! Right now I'm sipping on some Lime Gelato. Plus he surprised me with a comic book. I love it all so much I of course had to take a picture.

First Month's Sales

Well, to be honest it's not a full month's report. Awake My Soul was on sale for eleven of the thirty days of November, but I'm pretty proud of how well my first book sold during its first month. Without stating actual numbers, I did sell between Amazon Smashwords almost 100 copies. That might seem low, but over eleven days for a self published novel, I'm pretty proud.

Though now is not the time for me to sit back and wait and see. I've been fairly productive this week, but I could have definitely done better! My husband has been off and we've been enjoying time together. That said, I did get a short finished.

This week I will be publishing Welcome to the Black Room, #1 in a series I'll be calling The Masquerade Affair. It's a historical erotic short with some light BDSM and F/F elements, though it's mostly M/F. After the cut is a preview of what I'm working with for the cover!

Erotica Shorts

Recently I've become fairly active in a reddit community called r/smutwriters. Essentially it's a community of people like myself, people who write erotic romance fiction. It's a private group; if you're a writer and interested in joining you need to be invited.

That said, one of the things I've taken from this group is the value of short stories. I've written shorts for years, but never realized they had a home outside of anthologies. Chalk it up to my own ignorance. Thankfully my time conversing with other writers has helped me see that there is certainly an audience for shorts, and they get a second life upon bundling.

Next week I'm hopefully going to be publishing a short I've been toying with for a while, and the way it shaped up I'm hoping to do a sequel at some point as well. It's an idea I've played with for some time, and it incorporates much of the same themes as Awake My Soul, essentially bdsm, erotica, and an historic setting, although this one is more Renaissance than Medieval. I'm inclined to title it something like 'Welcome to the Black Room' and make it part of a series I'm thinking of calling 'The Masquerade Affair'. Hopefully that gives you an idea of the setting.

With this short I'll be trying out the KDP Select option, which means that this short will be free, for a time, on Amazon. As it's a short I'll be pricing it at $0.99 as well. It's about 7000 words long, and I hope you, my readers, enjoy it!

Week One of Release

Awake My Soul officially launched at about 7pm EST on Amazon and so far between Amazon and Goodreads it's carrying a 4.5 our of 5 star review. So far sales have been pretty good and I'm proud that Awake My Soul cracked the top 20,000 kindle books for sale on Thursday. I know that isn't huge, but there are over 500,000 books for sale on kindle, probably more. To be that high was a bit thrilling to see, and my goal once more reviews come in (hopefully more come in!) is that I can crack the top 10,000. Again, it doesn't seem that great, but with so many books available that's a big push! I even made my first sale on Amazon.de today and that was a surprise. It's crazy that someone on the other side of the world will be reading my book.

For those who want links (and hopefully there are some of you), here is a full breakdown of where Awake My Soul is currently available!

Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.de
Amazon.fr
Amazon.es
Amazon.it
Amazon.co.jp
Amazon.in
Amazon.ca
Amazon.com.br
Amazon.com.mx
Amazon.com.au
Smashwords.com (let's you download whatever format you like)

And because I'm very proud of them, here are my reviews!

Short and sweet!

My Amazon link is up! For those waiting to pick up Awake My Soul for your kindle, here's the link! Hope you leave a review!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GR4BX86

Monday is the official launch of Awake My Soul!

How exciting is that?! I'm giving myself the weekend to pimp the book out and give away a few copies in hopes of reviews, but launch day is this coming Monday and I hope everyone has a chance to check out Awake My Soul!

In the mean time I'm working on a few things. I'm still working away at Lay Me Bare and I'm probably about 90% done! I've also started laying the ground work on a sequel to Awake My Soul, which I've tentatively titled Betray My Heart. Besides that I'm taking some time to work on some shorter pieces I've been playing with. I hope to have the first one, a modern short erotica piece, available come December. I might test the waters of KDP Select with that.

So go buy Awake My Soul come Monday! I'd love you for it if you did.

Release time is finally here (ish)

Awake My Soul is formatted, converted, and finally, mercifully ready to go. I plan on officially clicking the PUBLISH button on Amazon on Monday, November 18th. 

I guess what I'm announcing now is a semi-soft launch through Smashwords. Awake My Soul is available through them at the moment and with the coupon BG75G you can download the book for free for any ereader. Yes, 100% for free until the end of the month. It should work for any ereader. Through Smashwords it will become available through the rest of the online retailers (IE: Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Apple, and so on) hopefully in the next few days once Smashwords accepts it into the premium catalogue.

Again, the code is BG75G and the link to the book is here. Thank you for your patience! Now go download it for free!

So close I can taste it!

Time to bite the big one. It's time I finally buckled down and bought Word. The real Word. Not the fake one I've been using for years. Seems like the Works Word Processor just isn't going to cut it when it comes to the final touches of formatting. If I'm going to continue epublishing, it's a necessary step.

What does this have to do with anything? It's me saying I'm almost done! I've done all the formatting I can on Awake My Soul (which is everything save the table of contents and chapter headings!). With Word I can add those last touches and it's done.

Of course, my anxiety is finally starting to ebb away at my stomach. I'm so close to being done that it finally feels like it's really happening. With that comes the fear that I wont sell a single book. Or that if I do, people will hate it and then I never sell another book again.

There are so many historical romance novels out there, how can I even dream mine will stand out? I need to keep reminding myself is all I can do is work hard and do my best. If people buy it and like it, amazing. If not, at least I tried.

In a quick note of other news - I finally started writing more of Lay Me Bare! Added another 1000 words so far today. Since I'm stuck on Awake My Soul until Word gets installed, I might as well get some words on paper for Lay Me Bare!