Here’s a special invitation to erotica writers & artists looking for a bit of free exposure.

Frequently Felt is my playful little blog — “A lobcock of erotic trivialities, oddities, and miscellanea transcribed with jaundiced talent for naught but a boxing Jesuit indulgence by a disreputable posse mobilitatis” – where I’ve been posting this, that, and everything betwixt and between having to do with sex and erotica.  For friends I’m opening Frequently Felt to very short stories and artwork on a first-come-first-posted basis.  Here are the specifics:

• Literary pieces no longer than 1000 words.
• No underage characters, excessive violence, incest, homophobia, or bestiality
• Please include some form of contact information at the end (email, Web site, etc.) to be published with your piece
• I reserve the right to refuse to publish anything – it’s my blog, after all

Submit your work to mchristianzobop@gmail.com.  I do my best to post things every other day or so but things sometimes happen to disrupt that schedule…

I’m also interested in interviews, reviews, editorial pieces, artwork, blog posts and other fun things.  If you want to help out with that, just write me and we’ll chat about it.

M. Christian

www.mchristian.com

www.meinekleinefabrik.blogspot.com

www.frequentlyfelt.blogspot.com

In mid-2008 the four biggest distributors of our ebooks, the four who sold the most copies every month for us, each accounted for about 20% of our overall sales, while a misc. of smaller sites made up the remaining 20%. These four sites were:

* Distributor A (long established with one of the best and most reader friendly ebook sites),

* Our own website

* Kindle (then less than a year old)

* Distributor Z (who had until Kindle the best, if priciest, ereader)

Today things are dramatically different. One distributor now dominates the ebook business, and its rise has drained sales from most competitors, who experienced a sharp decline in sales. Here is the approximate percentage of our ebook sales which each of our current distributors accounts for:

*Kindle = grew to 70%

* B&N = grew to 18% (did not exist mid-2008)

* Distributor A= declined to 3%

* Our own website = declined to 4%

* Distributor Z = declined to 3%

* (Misc. small sites = declined to 2%)

What is the reason for this amazing redistribution of sales to a single ebook distributor? Not the Kindle itself. The original, and still basic black and white, Kindle was neither the best nor the cheapest of the ereaders.

What made the Kindle so special was one major sales innovation: 24/7 instant wireless delivery of your ebook to your Kindle, almost anywhere in the world you were. Amazon had it, and had deep enough pockets to afford to have purchased dedicated space on ATT three-sixty-five.

To download your ebooks from other sites after ordering them, you had to connect a USB cord to both your pc and your ebookreder, and then click on various icons, and then copy and paste the books from one folder to another, and then click “safely remove hardware,” and then uncouple the pc and reader, and finally turn on the reader and locate your new books, and only then were you, at last,ready to begin reading. Compare that to clicking the Buy button at Amazon and Bam! there’s the book in your reader. (B&N gave you instant wireless delivery, but only if you drove to the store and downloaded your ebooks there!!)

That’s how, from the moment it was out of the starting gate, Kindle left its competitors in the dust.

Over the next three and a half years they became THE market for ebooks. They were the 600 pound gorilla in the cage. They dictated terms and authors and publishers took it, because without them there weren’t enough sales to keep anyone afloat.

But last year Barnes & Noble, and the once laughable Kobo, acquired deep pockets and initiated their own 2/7 instant wireless ebook delivery systems, just in time for the holiday selling season. Meanwhile, Sony which had had deep enough pockets to afford to lease cell time three-sixty-five like Kindle, had been caught flatfooted by the idea of wireless delivery. They had to take the time to develop and test their own wireless ebookreader, losing more than two years in the process, which they also launched at the holiday season.

So for the first time the Kindle has rivals who also offer wireless delivery straight to your ereader, and could cut into Amazon’s ebook sales. A lot of people, including readers, have indicated their displeasure with Amazon over the years. They could lead an exodus.

On the other hand, it might be too late for Amazon’s rivals to catch much in the way of future ebook and ebookreader sales. After all, Amazon has already sold so many Kindles of so many types at such low prices that everyone interested in reading ebooks may already be said to own one. Why switch? Better yet, as far as Amazon is concerned, is the fact that they started as a bookstore, are still the web’s largest and most complete bookstore, and offer the convenience of one-stop purchasing for both paperbound and ebooks. That’s something Sony and Kobo will never be able to do. Only B&N seems to truly have a chance in this arena, and Amazon still has the lead, as they carry far more ebooks than B&N.

However, none of this factors in in the rest of the English speaking world and Europe, where Amazon is not as big as it is here and the ball is still in play. For instance, Kobo has already partnered with the W. H. Smith, the U.K.’s largest book chain, to provide content for and run Smith’s ebookstore, while Smith sells the Kobo in its stores as its branded ereader. Meanwhile, Sony is opening ebookstores with various partners throughout Europe.

I guess we will know the results when we have the next three quarter’s sales reports in hand.

In regards to the last of erotica’s sins, a well-known publisher of sexually explicit materials put it elegantly and succinctly: “Just don’t fuck anyone to death.” As with the rest of the potentially problematic themes I’ve discussed here, the bottom line is context and execution: you can almost anything if you do it well—and if not well, then don’t bother doing it at all.

Violence can be a very seductive element to add to any genre, let alone erotica, mainly because it’s just about everywhere around us. Face it, we live in a severely screwed up culture: cut someone’s head off and you get an R rating, but give someone head and it’s an X. It’s kind of natural that many people want to use some degree of violence in their erotica, more than likely because they’ve seen more people killed than loved on-screen. But violence, especially over-the-top kind of stuff (i.e. run of the mill for Hollywood), usually doesn’t fly in erotic writing. Part of that is because erotica editors and publishers know that even putting a little violence in an erotic story or anthology concept can open them up to criticism from all kinds of camps: the left, the right, and even folks who’d normally be fence-sitters—and give a distributor a reason not to carry the book.
One of the biggest risks that can happen with including violence in an erotic story is when the violence affects the sex. That sounds weird; especially since I’ve often said that including other factors are essential to a well-written erotic story. The problem is that when violence enters a story and has a direct impact on the sex acts or sexuality of the character, or characters, the story can easily come off as either manipulative or pro-violence. Balancing the repercussions of a violent act on a character is tricky, especially as the primary focus of the story. However, when violence is not central to the sexuality of the characters but can affect them in other ways it becomes less easy to finger point—such as in noir, horror, etc—where the violence is background, mood, plot, or similar without a direct and obvious impact on how the character views sex. That’s not to say it isn’t something to shoot for, but it remains one of the harder tricks to pull off.

Then there’s the issue of severity and gratuitousness. As in depicting the actual sex in sex writing, a little goes a long way: relishing in every little detail of any act can easily push sex, violence, or anything else into the realm of comedy, or at least bad taste. A story that reads like nothing but an excuse to wallow in blood—or other body fluids—can many times be a big turn-off to an editor or publisher. In other words, you don’t want to beat a reader senseless.

But the biggest problem with violence is when it has a direct sexual contact. In other words, rape. Personally, this is a big button-pusher, mainly because I’ve only read one or two stories that handled it … I can’t really say well because there’s nothing good about that reprehensible act, but there have been a few stories I’ve read that treat it with respect, depth, and complexity. The keyword in that is few: for every well-executed story dealing with sexual assault there are dozens and dozens that make me furious, at the very least. I still remember the pro-rape story I had the misfortune to read several years ago. To this day, I keep it in the back of my mind as an example of how awful a story can be.

Sometimes violence can slip into a story as a component of S/M play. You know: a person assaulted by a masked intruder who is really (ta-da!) the person’s partner indulging in a bit of harsh role-play. Aside from being old hat and thoroughly predicable, stories like this can also fall into the “all pain is good pain for a masochist” cliché, unless, as with all things, it’s handled with care and/or flair.

Summing up, there is nothing you cannot write about: even this erotic “sin” or the others I’ve mentioned. However, some subjects are simply problematic in regards to sales potential: themes and activities that are loaded with emotional booby traps have to be carefully handled if the story is going to be seen as anything other than a provocative device. The affective use of these subjects has always been dependant on the writer’s ability to treat them with respect. If you have any doubts about what that might be, just imagine being on the receiving end: extrapolate your feelings as if one of your own personal traumas or sexual issues was used as a cheap story device or plot point in a story. Empathy is always a very important facility for a writer to develop—especially when dealing with sensitive or provocative issues.

In short, if you don’t like being beaten up, then don’t do it to someone else, or if you do, then try and understand how much it hurts and why. Taking a few body blows for your characters might make you a bit black and blue emotionally, but the added dimension and sensitivity it gives can change an erotic sin, something normally just exploitive, to … well, if not a virtue, then at least a story with a respectful sinner as its author.

One of the things I’m hearing from authors is the waiting time between submission and the actual time for publication.  E-pubs are taking far longer than they used to and some authors, especially the newer ones or the ones with more of a following are having a hard time dealing with it.  Even in erotica, release dates can be up to six months long, as can acceptances of stories submitted.

The reason?  Let’s look at some numbers.

For a company like Sizzler Editions with 200+ authors, let’s assume 30% of those authors are regulars who contribute frequently, sub to us on a regular basis of once every few months.  Each book goes through the same process by a SMALL editing/approval team, starting with the initial submissions editor and finally leading up to the publisher for final approval.  Based on that figure, that’s 60 authors who write regularly, submitting stories ranging from 30k to 100k.  If I as an editor of the Intoxication line have a portion of those stories sent to me, say half, that’s roughly 30 stories over the course of a few months.  Not a large number BUT, editors aren’t just editors, they’re people.  They have to evaluate the stories, see if they can be worked with and molded, then forward the stories up the chain o command.  This can take a few minutes, a few hours or a day or more depending on backlog.

The editing itself on ONE book may range from simple mistakes to the  more complex.  I as an editor don’t edit for plot, unless the plot is majorly screwy and it’s going to prevent a good review.  At another publisher I write for, they have three editors, a line editor, a copy editor and a final line editor to catch as many mistakes as possible.  Right now, I do all that for my Sizzler Authors.

Imagine now piling up several books on one editor and then the continuous flow of creativity writers have, combined with the rest of the process.

Book gets edited, then there are the final edits and last minute changes/fixes, then there’s cover art design, formatting and finally turning the MS in to the publisher.

Even the larger e-publishers are still small in manpower, and at the end of the (usually long) work day, there is still much to do.  As e-publishing has grown, so have the demands on the people at the companies to churn out quality fiction.  Erotica is no different.

That by the way ignores the emails to authors, emails to publishers and oh yeah, did I mention I’m a writer first?

The BEST way to capture an editor’s attention in erotica is simply to write a damn good, clean, tight story.  The more stories that come across my desk requiring less work make it easier for all of us to do our job and release quality e-books to the voracious reading public.  Study the guidelines by each publisher and make sure you understand the sorts of stories they’re looking for before submitting.  If you don’t understand something, feel free to email us.  Yeah, it slows things down but we’d rather deal with an issue up front than have to slow down everything in the middle of the cycle.

Sizzler Intoxication Guidelines can be found here

In the end, we’ll both be happy, albeit the patience game sucks.  As relations develop with your editor, things can be moved around depending on a number of factors such as sales, enthusiasm for marketing the book, and of course, time spent editing.

Every Author has an idea of what their image should be. Some are so perfect and careful about it, they have no image for the fans to connect with. Others are rebellious and insist on shocking first then wondering what they have so few fans or followers. It’s kind of like that line in the film Bull Durham, where baseball catcher, Crash Davis, comments on the fact that his astoundingly talented minor league pitcher is basically …

“Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You’ll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy, you’ll be classy. If you win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back and the press’ll think you’re colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, however, it means you are a slob.”

Okay, authors, let’s talk about your image. Please.

No Facebook or Twitter avatars your mother would be embarrassed to see. No pictures of your dog or cat cleaning itself. No photos of you drunk at a club, whooping it up. You’re an author and should be aware of your image. This doesn’t require a professional photo session with an expensive photographer, just a nice picture of you, clean and neat. We don’t need to see you working hard at the computer or appearing overly serious. You can show your personality, smile, enjoy the moment. Just remember, literary agents, publishers, other authors and your prospective book buyers are looking at that avatar. Are you really proud of it?

If you prefer not to use a photo of yourself, your book cover is a good option. No book cover yet? Use an image that represents your book until you have one.

And one final suggestion, please don’t change your avatar picture more than once a year. It’s how your friends and followers recognize you. Don’t confuse us.

No matter what you write or who your audience is … YOU are a professional. You’re an author, be proud of it.

Next time we’ll cover Author Success Tool #7, Marketing.

Feel free to contact me at writerchef@sbcglobal.net with any questions or to share your success stories! If you’d like to know more, let me know and I’ll put you on the mailing list for online workshops and information about my book, Finding Author Success: Discovering and Uncovering the Hidden Power within you Manuscript, “Finding Author Success” available in print and ebook on Amazon, B&N, Apple and Sony

I’m wearing my editor hat for this post.

When an author starts to acquire publishing credits, the first thing an agent, new editor or someone with power will do is look for the author’s press kit.  We need to know what you’ve done, how you’ve done it and what that’s done for your career.  It m ay seem a little old fashioned, but the importance of an author press kit cannot be emphasized enough.

Let’s break down the press kit.

For any author, the following documents should be present:

• 1Page – the one page that you hand out at conventions and send to organizations you approach for teaching/speaking engagements
• Backlist – Your complete, up to date back list of publishing credits, books released
• A professional photo – No stupid shit poses please. You’re putting your best face forward
• Covers of last three releases
• 3rd person author bio

That’s it!  It should also be zipped in .zip or .rar format and easily found on your website.

Yes, social media and web 2.0 make it easier for any editor to google you and find your results but you’re not doing this for me, the editor.  Not entirely.  You’re doing this because even as a smut writer, you’re still a professional.  You’re still looking at this from a career standpoint and coming off as someone who takes their career seriously will differentiate you from the others in your field who don’t do these simple things.

The 1 Page and back list come in handy often when you’re doing promotions by the way.  The back list comes in handy when your readers ask what else you’ve done or where you’ve been published and.  Giving you a quick reference makes it easier to make a quick sale when you can pull up a file, copy and paste a link or send in an email.

The author bio is obvious, a short, 100 word or less bio of who you are that includes recent publishing credits and facts about you.  Mine is up at Sascha’s Secrets.

The 1Page is a document that shows overall accomplishments in your career.  WriteSEX contributor M. Christian and I use a dual column layout that details basics such as the facts.  I’m an author of X amount of stories (btw 39 for me!) and beneath it, editing credits, WriteSEX credits, teaching gigs, what I can do for you and finally, some reader accolades.

What if you’re lacking in credits? Look, really look, at your career and what you’ve done.  Have you freelance edited for someone else?  That counts.  Do you have anything in your author platform you can utilize? Put that down.

The Press Kit is the one staple that helps you more than you think.

Oceania will hopefully return soon to WriteSEX but in the meantime, we have exciting changes coming up on the blog. 

Sensuality is critical in erotica, but what does sensuality really mean? For most readers, when it comes to erotica, it means touch. I left off talking about touch until late in my series on “the senses” because it’s the sense that most people think about when thinking about erotic fiction.

It’s also the most difficult for me to write about, believe it or not. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to it.

All erotica is about people touching. Sometimes it might be about people touching themselves. Sometimes the touch might not be physical — for instance, an erotic story about a man watching a stripper onstage could be hugely erotic. You need look no further than the film Tom Jones to see a complete sexual activity involving nothing but eating. In some cases (say, chastity or tease-and-denial erotica) the refusal of the physical touch takes on an emotional-erotic meaning, but even when it’s not touching it’s still about touching.

So how does the erotic writer describe touch? I’ve always struggled with this. We’re a largely body-negative culture — while still being totally obsessed with the body. We have lots of language for visual stimuli, for sounds, even for smells. Body talk is a little bit taboo.

That means that describing physical experience within the body — as opposed to action or activity — can be more difficult than describing things experienced with other senses.

Let me back up here — because I think there’s an important point to be made before we talk about “how to do it.” Above, I’ve been talking in absolutes — I’ve been saying “how does the erotic writer describe touch” and “we have a visual language.” I’ve been talking in generalities — including the whole universe of humanity in my bold statements.

That’s probably because it’s easier to be God than to be a person — why else would anyone want to be a writer?

So maybe a better way to think about describing touch in my erotic writing is this: Why is it useful?

Describing touch is useful in my erotic writing for basically the same reason it’s useful in any of my other kinds of writing — horror, science fiction, crime:

• When I write about how something feels physically, I place myself mentally in the body of the character feeling it.
• When the reader reads about how something feels physically — if that writing works — then the reader is mentally in the body of the character feeling it.

When the reader is within the character’s experience as wholly as possible, they are getting what they came for.

I like to think about it this way — people don’t arrive at my writing because they want me to tell them a story. They don’t even — to use an old-school journalism dichotomy — want me to show them a story. They want to be in my story. They want to experience it. That’s why I write — not because I have something I want to say, but because I want to get the fuck out of my own head. How weird is it that I use something as brain-centric as writing to get myself in my body — or, more accurately, in someone else’s body? But that’s the way I experience most wholly — when I’m transported, utterly.

Joseph Campbell put it the best I’ve ever heard anyone put it. He wasn’t talking about writing, but religious experience. But it’s just as brilliant a statement on storytelling:

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That’s what it’s all finally about, and that’s what these clues help us to find within ourselves.”

–Joseph Campbell

I’d go so far as to say that if Campbell’s comment was on religious experience, which in its cheapest form (in my opinion) looks for a meaning for life, then it’s worth transferring the same observation to the context of writing: They say what people are looking for is the meaning of your book — what is it about — but but what they’re looking for in your book is the experience of being alive. What does it feel like to be there?

In erotica, more than in any other kind of fiction, the experience of being touched and of touching — things as well as people — is critical to that transformation of reader into experiencer.

Focusing on touch can be a fantastic way of bringing the reader into the moment. But I find my language for how bodies feel is too often insufficient. I struggle to find the words to describe the physical sensation of an erotic experience. I find myself using the same words over and over again…which is fine; if the words work, use them. But often I hit the thesaurus or go to wordlists and other peoples’ blog posts to find words for a physical-touch experience that I just can’t describe, even though I’ve imagined it concretely.

I’m trying to translate an imagined sensation into words so that it can be translated back into the same imagined sensation in a reader’s mind.

I mean…WTF? Is that bass-ackwards or what? And what is this “language is insufficient” shit? Who am I, Jodi Foster in Contact?

Nine times out of ten, I struggle to find that physical experience within myself to describe it. But then, maybe 10% of the time, it just comes rolling out — and then, the words are beautiful, the writing effortless. I wish it could be that way more often.

But for me, it’s worth writing 9 stories to find the one that really transforms me through physical experience.

If describing touch isn’t easy for me, my guess is it isn’t easy for you. And if it is easy for you — you’re a very lucky writer. I believe that firsthand physical experience is the primary thing readers of erotica are seeking. They may rarely get it, and may satisfy themselves with a lot of other things, which may be very satisfying. But I believe the most complete and intense reading experience comes from being completely in the moment within a story, an experience that can most effectively be brought about by depictions of touch.

One of the things I get asked as an editor is how do I effectively market and sell my book?  In other words, what’s the best use of my time as an author?  Unfortunately, this isn’t a short answer but it is an easy one.  From an editor’s perspective, we acquire books based on how good a story can be told, how well the writer’s skills are and lastly, how the story can make us (the publisher and author) money.

The easiest tool any author has in their arsenal is the excerpt.  Yup, you saw it.  It’s really that easy.  Once a story is polished and the author has seen their corrected galleys, they should feel free to chose an excerpt that meets the needs of their audience.  This being WriteSEX, and an erotica based audience, we want to see SEX!  Yes, adult content, sex, two (or more) bodies building up the anticipation of a climax we believe is going to happen.

In erotica – sex IS the plot.

In other erotic genres -sex FORWARDS the plot

That being said, we want to pull out a selection of text from our stories that sets the scene.  If the story is erotica, we want to see as much of the buildup to the sex scene as possible without giving away the climax.  Why?  Because looking at one handed readers and getting them off doesn’t equal a sale if you do it in the excerpt.  It’s like clip sites in pornography, you show me the money shot, why do I need to bother with the back story?  Or anything else for that matter?

Take fore example an upcoming release “Treasure’s Gift.”  It’s a FFM menage story for Decadent Publishing coming out soon. The blurb:

Treasure has always had a thing for Mark, her best friend.  When he drops in unannounced, she’s glad until she realizes his workload is keeping him occupied when the only thing on her mind is jumping him.   With the help of a very sexy friend, she uses the one thing designed to make Mark slow down and take notice.  What will he do at the temptation of two beautiful women?

Sounds pretty simple, right?

Well here’s the excerpt I used originally:

Mark looked at Treasure, wishing he could just fall asleep in beautiful pools of her eyes. Or swim naked with her. 

His cock hardened uncomfortably in his trousers.  Could Treasure feel his arousal?

Did she know the depths of wickedness he’d love to explore with her?

He fought a yawn from the overbearing heat and length of his flight.  Closing his eyes, he leaned back in the chair and let out a breath.  The hectic schedule his travel required of him would exhaust anyone. 

The fact that his property was in Kingwood, he had to fly into Houston Intercontinental and then drive all the way back to Sugarland where Treasure lived added to his building fatigue, but hell, he’d do anything to see her standing before him, looking at him with a hidden mischievous grin and her hands on her hips.  Nipples would ache for him and jut out proudly while her oh so kissable lips moved.

“I’ve got all sorts of ideas, babe.”

“I’m sure you do,” she nodded.  “Just come to bed when you’re done.”

She walked away, ass swaying from side to side with each step she took.  Hands reached for the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head before she disappeared, leaving him with a view of tanned skin, no bra and the need to slake his own primal needs tonight.

“Damnit!”  Mark knocked back the drink and slammed the glass on the table.  He certainly didn’t look forward to the next few weeks of very long Saturdays despite being so close to achieving his financial goals.  Not if Treasure intended to taunt him with hints at her naked flesh. 

He had to do something about his raging erection.  Maybe a cold shower.  Or maybe a long, hot shower featuring Treasure stepping into the large tub with him, setting her delectably round ass against his cock and coating his dick in her juices would… 

Sadly, Mark showered quickly, ignoring his hard on.  He dressed in pajama bottoms, a tank top that showed off his muscular arms and pale skin.  Bedtime included a nightcap, a large one designed to knock him out so he’d sleep without dreaming of Treasure’s body blanketing his while her pussy milked the life out of him. 

Mark slumped back in his chair, head hanging forward.  He took a sip of bourbon, let the liquid burn his throat before he took another longer swig.  Sitting up, he looked over the now neatly organized stack of papers

“Treasure?”

His lips curled upward. 

The bedroom door opened.  “Mark,” The soft lilting of her voice reignited the spark of arousal. 

Mark set his glass on the desk and waited.  “Yes dear?”

“It’s bedtime.  Come to bed.”

She sounded needy. Another man would have missed the subtlety of want in her voice.  “I have things to do before bed first.” 

“Then I’ll come to you.”  Her voice dripped with unmistakable husky lust. 

Mark arched a brow. 

A moment later, Treasure appeared before Mark wearing a black see through teddy that flowed out at the bottom with lace trimming and barely reached the top of her thighs.  A scrap of lace hid both nipples and obscured his view of her sex.  Dirty blonde hair fell around her shoulders in loose curls, bouncing with each step she took towards him.  Hands started at her shoulders, smoothed down her arms, over full breasts and down her round stomach until stopping at her hips. Treasure stuck one leg forward, took a tentative step closer to Mark and stopped mere inches from him. “Well?”

His jaw dropped.  He blinked several times to make sure he was seeing right before focusing on her expression. 

She frowned.  “You think I’m fat.  I knew it.”

“No!” He stood and took her hands in his.  His stomach tightened from the contact while his cock stirred against his pajamas.  Blood pumped faster down south and his mouth went bone dry.  “No, that’s not it. It’s just…just…wow Treasure.  I’ve dreamed of this for years.”

“What do you intend to do now?”  She tilted her head and her mouth curled into a wicked grin.

We’re left wondering if he’s really going to go forward with it like a man should, or if he’ll play an idiot and turn down his best friend.  I could have used a longer excerpt to show you but again, that’s not creating demand for the reader to want to know more.  Hopefully in the excerpt above I’ve convinced the reader to buy the story.

The excerpt should not only match the desired audience but should be LENGTHY depending on story size.  Treasure’s Gift is only 5k in length, whereas my previous 1NS release from Decadent was 11k, and my excerpt was almost 2k.  The rule of thumb is simple.  You want to create as much want in the audience for your story as possible by keeping them ENGROSSED in your world for as long as possible, then pull the plug, leaving them with only the desire to buy your book.

I’ll cover more next time on Excerpts.

‘Well, who’d want to hire a crappy writer’, I want to scream at these ads I read on freelancer.com or craigslist, on just about everywhere else. Like you I search the boards, get email updates for writing work, I am out and about hustling my freelancing ass to the far corners of the globe trying to find decent paying gigs (or even just gigs that pay) as I live the dream of being a writer. And I don’t care if you are penning SEO content (which I do a lot of the time) or writing anything else for hire, you want to be paid a decent wage, doncha?

But I see jobs for ridiculously low pay on highly respected writing boards all the time! And all anybody ever wants is to hire a good writer, someone well-versed in exactly the kind of writing an employer needs, but that employer is not willing to pay the right amount of money, they expect samples (and we all know what that means…they cull a bunch of free samples from a bunch of writers, gather all the content they need and never hire a writer) and they don’t understand why they have to keep posting!

Here’s my quick and easy take: You went and hired whomever you hired or at the very least took the time to create your website (and granted that can be done easily these days in wordpress and the like) but still it cost you time, effort and consideration, right? Why cheap-out and pay so little for a writer to create content (SEO or otherwise) that could literally make or break your website. And I double dog guarantee you if you do cheap-out you are going to get what you pay for as most writers worth anything know what they are worth (give or take) and will charge accordingly and will work with a client to bring in quality work for a budget. Our work is our resume after all and we want to do lots of it, well, but get paid a fair wage.

So, while you might be a good writer and clients might be looking for good writers beware….not so many are ready to pay a good price for good writing.

Like bestiality—and unlike underage sexuality—incest is a tough nut: it’s not something you might accidentally insert into an erotic story. Also like bestiality, it’s something that can definitely push—if not slam—the buttons of an editor or publisher. Yet, as with all of these “sins,” the rules are not as set in stone as you’d think. Hell, I even managed to not only write and sell an incest story (“Spike,” which is the lead story in Dirty Words) but it also ended up in Best Gay Erotica. The trick, and with any of these erotic button-pushers, is context. In the case of “Spike” I took a humorous, surreal take on brother/brother sexuality, depicting a pair of twin punks who share and share alike sexually, until their world is shattered (and expanded) by some rough S/M play.

As with any of the “sins,” a story that deals with incest in a thought- provoking or sideways humorous manner might not scream at an editor or publisher I’M AN INCEST STORY. Instead, it will come across as humorous or thought-provoking first, and as a tale dealing with incest second. Still, once it comes to light, there’s always a chance the story might still scream a bit, but if you’re a skilled writer telling an interesting story, there’s still a chance quality could win over the theme.

Unlike bestiality, incest has very, very few stretches (like aliens and myths with bestiality). It’s very hard to stumble into incest. In short, you’re related or you’re not. As far as degree of relationship, that depends on the story and the intent: immediate family relations are damned tough to deal with, but first cousins fooling around behind the barn are quite another.

Even though incest is pretty damned apparent in a story, that doesn’t mean the theme or the subtext can’t be touched on. Sometimes the forbidden or the unexpected lying under the surface can add depth to a story: a brother being protective of his attractive sister, a mother shopping for a date for a daughter, a father trying to steer his son’s sexuality, a daughter’s sexual explorations alarming (and enticing) a mother or father’s fantasies, and so forth. Technically, some of these dip into incest, if not the act then at least the territory, but if handled well they can add an interesting facet to an otherwise mundane story. It’s a theme that’s also been played with, successfully, for centuries. Even the myth of Pygmalion—a sculptor falling in love with his creation—can almost be considered a story of incest, as the artist was a parent, then a lover.

Conversely, incest can dull a situation when the emotions of the lovers involved become turned: as an example, where a person begins to feel more of a caregiver or mentor than a partner: the thought or even fantasies around sexuality with the person being cared-for or taught start to feel inappropriate. Conversely, someone might enjoy the forbidden spice of feeling sexual towards someone they’ve only thought of as a son or daughter, mother or father figure. This is also an old plaything for storytellers, the most common being a person looking for a partner to replace the strength and nurturing left behind when they grew up and moved out—or, from the new partner’s point of view, the shock in realizing they have been selected to fulfill that role.

As with any of these “sins,” fantasy can be a factor in being able to play with these themes. Having a character imagine making love to their mom (shudder) is in many editors or publishers eyes the same thing as actually doing it—but accepting and using the theme in, say, play-acting, where the reality is separated because the participants aren’t related in any way, is more acceptable. As with under-age play, S/M and dominance and submission games can also use incest as a spice or forbidden theme—especially in infantilism games, where one person pretends to be an abusive or nurturing parental figure. Once again, play versus reality (even imagined reality) can work where normally no one would dare tread.

The bottom line, of course, is whether or not the story is using this theme in an interesting or thought-provoking way, or just as a cheap shot. If you have any questions, either try and look at the story with a neutral eye, or ask a friend you respect for their opinion. But I wouldn’t ask your parents.