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.

Review: Serving the Succubus by Haleigh Cookson Clark

From Amazon: Ethan Banks is a jaded graduate student desperately looking for a big break in his ongoing research of Colonial American history. He gets more than he bargains for, however, when he accidentally summons a succubus during a late-night examination of a curious old tome. No stranger to indulgence, will Ethan be able to keep up with her insatiable appetites and balance his schoolwork? More to the point, will she allow him to live to see the end of the week, much less the semester? Only time will tell. 

[mf, demon, femdom]

Serving the Succubus, book one in the Monsterland series, revolves around broke college student Ethan. The poor guy has no money, isn’t doing well in school, and is floundering. It’s just his luck that he would almost destroy something from his school’s archive, but of course that’s how he meets Missy. She’s the succubus who is going to take away all his problems, or at least distract him from them. 

This is a short erotica book that runs just over 9,000 words. The first couple pages set the scene and let the reader get to know Ethan. Haleigh Cookson Clark does a phenomenal job in introducing the reader to Ethan, letting us sympathise with him and understand him in a very short amount of time. As for Missy, well it seems the less known about her the better. Haleigh gives clues about the demon and what she wants, but only enough to keep you guessing and wanting more.

Clark maintains the passion and sexiness of Serving the Succubus for the entirety of the book, and that’s not an easy feat. Her eloquent prose let you feel every word and the book sucks you in in a way that many erotica stories miss. You get the passion and the story along with the sex and that makes the hot scenes that much hotter.

The book is polished, sharp, quick witted, and very passionate. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a new series to sink their teeth into!

My Rating: *****/*****

Where to find Serving the Succubus

Smashwords

Amazon

Goodreads

Connect with Haleigh Cookson Clark

Twitter

Tumblr

Blog

 

For Authors Looking For Reviews

I will be doing reviews as time allows. My hope is to do at least one review a week, so long as I have material to do so. Currently I'll be reviewing romance and erotica books of any length (short to epic).

What I Need From You

Please email me a copy of your book in ePub format. Include with that a summary of your book, the cover image of the book, links to where it can be purchased, your goodreads link (if applicable), plus all your social media links so I can share my review of your work.

What You Will Get From Me

At the moment I will read every book I receive, as time allows. I will email you my review and post it on my site and at the purchase links you provided. My reviews are honest, but I will only post reviews of books I have deemed three out of five stars or higher. Anything lower than that and I will email you as to why I've decided to not post the review, along with some ideas that may help you improve your work.

If You Want to Review My Work

I'm always happy to send out review copies to review sites and other authors. Please email me your request and the format you would need the file in. Please provide a link to your website in your email.

Possibly doing reviews on this blog

I wonder if it might be in my best interests to do some reviews on this blog. I'd love to help other indie romance authors get their work out there, plus I think it would be a great way to do some cross promotion.

On that note, I recently read an indie book I quite enjoyed entitled Bondage and Billionaires by Lola Diamond. I wrote a review on Smashwords and thought it might be worth sharing with you!

Bondage and Billionaires

Heather is not a whore. She's a call girl or an escort, but never a whore. Heather is in love with Leo, but billionaire Robbie Steele stands between them. After a shared kiss, Heather and Leo's lust and love for each other begs to be fulfilled, and the two lovers will go to any length to be together. Follow them as they try to flee the country and fulfill their destiny together.

 ***/*****

Billionaires and Bondage is a passionate novella that goes a whole new way with the Pretty Woman hooker with a heart of gold trope. It’s sexy, steamy, and romantic. The overall plot is really enjoyable, and I found myself racing through it to find out what happens next.
The only thing keeping it from scoring higher in my books is that I would have loved for the author to expand a little more. With added descriptions this could have been a full length novel, but at times I almost felt left out of what Heather was thinking or feeling. It’s still a really good read, just could have used a bit more to push it up to a 4 or 5 star review.

                                          

                             

That's just a short review I posted on the Smashwords site for the book, but in the future I'd like to do full reviews. If you're an author who has a book/short you'd like reviewed on here, let me know!

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!