Our scavenger hunt runs from Sept 1 – Sept 30, 2010 and there are LOTS of way to win!

Besides the TWO KINDLE 3 READERS – the following prizes will also be given out:

• * $20 Amazon Gift Card (5 giveaways)
• * The ENTIRE Excessica Anthology Collection to Date (2 giveaways)
  
• * Excessica Anthologies, given individually (7 total giveaways)
  
• * A”habu” collection, including Rough Rides, Across the Threshold, Deal Closer, Hard Knocks U and Creampuffs (3 giveaways)
  
• * A Selena Kitt collection, including The Surrender of Persephone, Heidi and the Kaiser, Bluebeard’s Wife, Taken, Falling Down and Quickies (3 giveaways)
• * And don’t forget to come to the CHAT for even MORE chances to win prizes!

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At this moment I have the #1, #6 and #9 bestsellers in erotica on Amazon. That may change in the next moment. They move up and down. But I’ve been in the top ten for six months and I am making $10,000 a month on Amazon Kindle.

How did that happen?

When I started Excessica in March of 2008, the biggest ebook distributor on the block was a company called “Fictionwise.” In order to get into their storefront, you had to be a publisher with 10 or more authors and 25 available (not public domain) titles. I wasn’t a publisher, and I didn’t have 25 titles, but I did have a lot of online friends who were authors.

So I had an idea…

What if we all got together to form a sort of “co-op” of writers to publish our work on the big ebook distributors? At the time, that was Fictionwise, Mobi, and a newcomer, All Romance Ebooks. That was how Excessica was born, and basically how my career as a real paid writer began.

Granted, at that time, I’d already been “epublished” by a start-up ebook publisher, Stardust Press, who had gone out of business almost as soon as my book hit the virtual shelves. And I’d sort of fallen into that, having entered a contest they sponsored, hoping for the money prize. I didn’t win – but they offered me an epublishing contract.

I hesitated. I didn’t know anything about epublishing at the time (it’s amazing what you can learn in two years) and kind of turned my nose up at it. I didn’t want to be “epublished.” If I was going to be published at all, I wanted to be published “for real” – to feel the weight of my book in my hands, to see it on shelves in a brick and mortar store.

But as my husband pointed out – why not? A bird in the hand, as they say…

It was that brief foray into epublishing that whet my appetite for more, watching Stardust Press get our books to distributors like Fictionwise. I thought, if they can do it… why can’t I?

Nevermind that Stardust had just winked out into nothing in the vast constellation that was epublishing at the time. I wasn’t taking on any big time investment – just the cost of creating a domain name and putting in the work of setting up a site for our books. I’d already purchased a hosting package for my own author domain, so that wasn’t an issue.

It didn’t take long for the authors I knew to climb on board, and we were off and running, applying to Fictionwise, being accepted, and seeing our books find wide distribution. That was exciting, and proved to be lucrative for me personally. I started making enough money per quarter on my books to make it equal to a part time job, which was really my goal when I started: a supplemental income.

The ball rolled along nicely for about a year – and then one day in March 2009, all our titles (about a hundred and fifty of them by then) disappeared from Fictionwise. This was just after Barnes and Noble had acquired Fictionwise. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

As I look back on it now, in light of what’s happened since with self-publishing, it’s almost amusing, but at the time it was devastating. I panicked, emailing the site. I received the response that Fictionwise did not support “author co-ops” and that they were terminating our contract and pulling our books.

Come to find out, after a little digging and back and forth with Fictionwise president, Scott Pendergrast, that a few “support tickets” had been submitted about our “extreme content.” Excessica has always been about freedom of speech. We have some boundaries, but I try to let our authors push them as much as possible. We publish things like nonconsent and adult consensual incest – something other erotica publishers wouldn’t touch.

Of course, when I inquired about those support tickets, I was told we couldn’t get any details about them, even if stripped of identifying information. They wouldn’t even tell us the number of support tickets submitted! Finally, we had to give them a list of “possibly offensive titles” after which they would restore our books to the site, minus “the list” – and would only restore those upon review.

Basically, they used our self-publishing status to try to censor our books. Mr. Pendergrast scoffed at the idea of an author having total creative control over their work, creating their own covers, arranging for their own editing, and decided we weren’t “a publisher” because of our business model. So what if I was offering 100% payout to my authors? What business of it was his?

Luckily, the first amendment won out. After two months of lost sales, they finally restored the titles on “the list”, adding a new “taboo” category to their site.

Then another revolutionary thing happened. Smashwords opened their doors. They looked like another distributor, on the surface of things. The difference was they offered a huge cut to authors (something I was all for – because I didn’t take any percentage from Excessica authors’ works and only profited from my own). We got to keep 85% of our profits with Smashwords (All Romance Ebooks gave us 60%, Fictionwise gave us 50%, and Mobi gave us a piddly 35%) so I signed up with them immediately. Who knew that they would change the face of self-publishing inside of a year?

Of course, they couldn’t have done it without Amazon Kindle’s success.

It was like the perfect storm. Smashwords started reaching out and becoming a true distributor, offering individual authors the opportunity to get into places like Fictionwise (and hence Barnes and Noble) where they couldn’t tread before. More and more authors jumped on the bandwagon. Kindle themselves opened their own self-publishing platform (although we could, as a publisher, access them through Mobi before that). In places like Sony, and then much later, Apple, the doors were opened wide for individual authors.

Our little co-op had become unnecessary within six months. We didn’t need each other to publish books anymore – any single author could go onto Smashwords and reach the same distribution level we had. And they did. Joe Konrath blogged extensively about his success. I watched it all unfold, seeing my own numbers on Amazon start to match his. I was making $10,000 a month on Amazon alone.

Our little venture had, for me, gone far beyond a “supplemental income.”

Of course, I was still running Excessica. From the beginning, I’d done the lion’s share of the work, formatting everyone’s books, putting titles up at distributor sites, sending out royalties. It added a great deal of time to my schedule, but I figured, I was also receiving the lion’s share of the profits (even if it was just for my own work) so it seemed, somehow, fair. And I did have some amazing volunteers (the woman who offered to take over the accounting aspect for me saved my life!) But as our roster of authors reached 100+ and our distribution schedule hit four books a week, even I got overwhelmed. And the business model I’d created wasn’t quite as self-sustaining as I’d hoped.

I had come up with the idea of releasing quarterly anthologies with donated stories from Excessica authors to pay the basic costs of doing business (web site, postage, etc). But the anthologies weren’t coming out fast enough to keep up with costs. Finally, I decided to take 10% of Excessica’s proceeds – leaving Excessica authors with 90% profit. And I started “hiring” people to do the work I’d done previously, paying them, as a co-op might, with keeping their 10%, or with free advertising on our site.

So far, this system has worked quite well, and Excessica has kept on rolling. The only other thing I’ve done is close our doors to submissions from outside authors, except by referral or invitation. We will keep publishing our own authors’ work, of course, if they want to stay with us. (Our contracts allow them to leave at any time.)

I knew this was the right decision when My Bookstore and More (Samhain’s distribution site) stopped taking outside authors’ works. For a while there, ebook publisher storefronts like Ellora’s Cave, Samhain, and Bookstrand, opened their doors to not just their own published work, but to outside publishers as well. But as the success of Amazon/Kindle, Apple, Barnes and Noble and Kobo started to appear, they realized where the real money could be found and saw the futility in selling other publisher’s books from their own storefronts.

So that’s it. That’s how I started my journey toward making $10,000 a month on Amazon writing erotic fiction. I don’t know how long it will last, of course. This business has proven it can turn on a dime. It’s a whole new world in e-publishing. In just a few years, a total shift has taken place. My revolutionary idea has become obsolete. Authors like Joe Konrath can publish their work on their own. He never had to jump through the hoops I did back in 2008.

Makes you wonder what 2012 is going to look like, doesn’t it?

****

(Please post comments here!)

Check out the Whipped Cream Review contest/scavenger hunt!

It runs from August 2 – August 29.

Good luck!

Announcing the WINNER of a PRINT copy of Baumgartner Generations: Janie and a navy Lelo vibrator….

DRUM ROLL PLEASE…

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K. WADE!

Congratulations!
You win!
YAY!!!!!!!!!!!

Just contact me via this contact form:
http://selenakitt.com/index.php/contact/

And give me a name and address to ship to!

CONGRATS again K. Wade! Thank you, everyone, for entering!

And don’t forget to check for the new release of Baumgartner Generations: Henry on October 4, 2010 because there will be another contest for a print copy, and even a new and different toy featured in the book to win!

xoxo
Selena

It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it!

I spend a few hours Googling my name, checking out links to free file-sharing sites, and sending out cease and desist notices.

Usually, the links are removed within 24 hours. Yay me!

Yeah, right.

The truth is, I probably only catch about 1/4 to 1/3 of the links that are actually out there available to download in the first place. (Probably less!)

And of course, they’re back up 48-72 hours after that. The pirates all say ARGH! (I mean, they say: “Would you please re-up?”) and the link goes back on RapidShare or MegaUpload or Plunder…

And the whole thing starts all over.

It’s like putting a band-aid on an artery.

Granted, I’ll admit, piracy kind of pisses me off. I have taken it pretty personally. I mean, WTH? You’re taking my book and you didn’t even ask me? Dude! Hence all the Googling and letter writing and craziness I obsessively undertake every week.

But frankly, I’m exhausted.

And J.A Konrath gave me a good reason recently to give myself a much-needed break.

Konrath decided to give a book away for free, as a piracy experiment, to see if it would impact his book sales. He’s not the first to think of this. Lots of people have done it before him. Baen did it ten years ago. It’s basically a marketing gimmick. A good one, but still, a gimmick. It’s the classic “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!” philosophy.

Me, I don’t have to give books away free. I’m one of the most-pirated (living) erotic authors on the Internet. My books are being pirated all over the place. Go ahead, Google “Selena Kitt” and “Torrent”. I’ll wait. See?

I stem the tide a few times a week, but it doesn’t stop the deluge for long. It’s like trying to kill cockroaches with a Barbie shoe.

So while everyone is giving books away free to “prove” or “disprove” that piracy is “good” or “bad” – and trying to up their sales by doing so (come on, guys, I’m pretty generous in that department – I already give away a bunch of good free reads)…

Me, I’m just giving up.

That’s right – the pirates “win.” I’m putting away my sword. No more pirate hunts for me!

So that’s MY piracy experiment. Let’s see if doing NOTHING AT ALL will impact my sales numbers.

Babysitting the Baumgartners is the #2 bestseller in Amazon Erotica this week. All you’ll need to do is watch the ranking. Up or down? Hm, I wonder…

I heard Jason Mraz encourages his audience to bootleg his live performances. I love him. Especially his live performances. And I own several of them. Bootlegged. It’s true, I’m a pirate.

Maybe this video’s got it right after all?

I’m a little in shock!

HERE

About the “edgy” publishing company Excessica.

Edgy! How cool is that?

Would you like to win an autographed print copy of Baumgartner Generations: Janie – AND a brand new navy blue Lelo vibrator to play with while you read (or maybe to give to your best girl?

You can see the Lelo that Janie and Ronnie played with here.

LELO

That’s the very one you will have in your hot little hand if you win this contest – it’s the perfect accompaniment for this hot little book!

All you have to do is leave a comment HERE to win! Tell me if you liked the Kindle version of the book, or if you liked Babysitting the Baumgartners or A Baumgartner Reunion better, or heck, tell me anything, you don’t have to have read any of them, just post your comment in this discussion, and you will be entered to win!

ENTER HERE

WINNER will be announced on 6/30/2010 – and I will give you an email contact so you can tell me where to send your autographed print copy of Baumgartner Generations: Janie and your brand new Lelo vibrator!

GOOD LUCK!
xoxo
Selena Kitt

BAUMGARTNER GENERATIONS: JANIE

AVAILABLE NOW!

The Baumgartner series continues, this time exploring Janie’s world as she moves to New York to try to make it as a writer, all the while serving as part-time lover in a polyamorous relationship with Veronica and TJ and full-time nanny to their daughter, Beth. Janie’s life is already incredibly full when she—literally—runs into an agent one morning who sees great potential in her—and not just as a writer. As Janie’s relationship with Josh blooms and her career takes off, Ronnie’s happy surprise turns into a problem that even a vacation in a mountain cabin with the Baumgartners can’t fix, throwing everyone’s life off-kilter. Janie, especially, is spread thin, trying to please everyone while keeping Josh from finding out the true nature of her relationship with her benefactors. She knows she has to tell him eventually, but fear holds her back. Will she lose him? Will she be forced to make an impossible choice? Or will she, perhaps, find that the capacity for the human heart to love is, indeed, endless?

Warnings: This title contains graphic language and sex, ffm menage and ff sex.

Word Count: 56,356

EXCERPT:

“I think you might have the best job in the world,” Josh said as he opened my door for me.

“She’s a great kid,” I agreed. It was hard to think with him standing so close.

“Are you cold?” He looked down at the front of me. My white sundress had become suddenly see-through, my nipples standing straight up in the cold. “Do you want my coat?”

“I can think of better things to keep me warm.” I turned my eyes up to him, aching to be kissed. His eyes lingered on my mouth, but instead he smiled and stepped away, going over to the driver’s side.

I sighed, getting in beside him as he started the car and turned on the heater.

“So did you have a busy day today?” I asked as he backed out and shifted the car into gear.

“No more busy than usual,” he replied, turning into traffic.

“Oh.” I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering in spite of the heater. I slipped off my heels and tucked my feet under me.

“Why?” He glanced over at me, frowning.

I shrugged, not looking at him. “I just wondered why you hadn’t called…”

He was quiet for a moment, weaving through traffic. “Do you want to know the truth?”

I nodded, turning to look at him. His hair was wet, drops of water beading there. I resisted the urge to touch him.

“I didn’t trust myself,” he said as the Mustang snarled to life when he headed onto the freeway.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I want you too much, Janie.” He sighed. “Every time I look at you, every time I hear your voice, I just want to…”

I smiled, turning fully toward him now. “To what…?”

“To do very, very naughty things.” He glanced at me as I moved toward him.

“I do, too.” I leaned over the console to press fully against him, my breasts crushed against his arm.

“Do you?” His mouth was almost touching mine when he turned his head toward me, and I closed the gap, kissing him quickly.

“You have no idea,” I breathed.

He took a deep breath, turning his eyes back to the road. “So, right now, you’re thinking about it?”

“I’ve been thinking about it since dinner last night.” I slid my hand up the leg of his trousers, finding just what I was looking for, distended and rising fat and stiff under the material.

“Well, I can beat that.” He drew his breath in sharply when I massaged him, making delicious friction with my palm through his pants. “I’ve been thinking about it since I found you in my living room.”

“So what, exactly, have you been thinking?” I couldn’t help myself. His cock throbbed stubbornly against my hand, demanding attention. I couldn’t resist, slowly beginning to unzip him. I felt his whole body stiffen when I slipped my hand down to grasp him. Oh god, yes. He was solid in my hand.

“I’d rather show you.” His voice grew low as I began to stroke him, lazy, up and down.

“I know.” I leaned over the gearshift to take him into my mouth.

“Ahhhh Janie.” One hand moved in my hair as I swallowed his length, the other stayed on the wheel. The console dug into my hip as I turned and stretched across to suck him, but I didn’t care.

“Oh god.” He groaned as I licked the head, teasing, enjoying the taste and feel of him. “Baby, ohhh… I’m not sure this is the time…or place…”

“I want you,” I insisted as his hand moved over the front of my dress, manipulating my breast through the material, pawing at the hard pebble of my nipple. I grabbed his hand, guiding it down between my legs where I wanted it most, quickly pulling my dress up and my panties aside. His intake of breath was audible when he felt my cunt under his fingers, pure wet heat, as humid as a greenhouse, and I shifted against him. “You just concentrate on driving and don’t kill us,” I instructed before taking him into my mouth again.

“Okay,” he breathed, his fingers exploring my fleshy crease, my tongue making flat circles around the head of his cock. “Oh god, Janie, your mouth is so good…”

I made an eager noise in my throat as I sucked him, using both my mouth and hand now, washing him with my saliva. The sound of his breathing, harsh and heavy, filled the car.

“Put your fingers in me,” I begged, spreading my thighs wider for him. “Finger my pussy. Fuck me.”

He groaned and slid two fingers in, pumping his hand against my cunt. “Like that?”

“Mmmmm!” I responded around his cock, feeling the length of him swell as I fucked him back, thrusting his fingers in deep. “Hard! Harder!”

He got even more rough, his hand driving, relentless, making me go crazy on his cock. God I wanted to climb him like a tree and ride him, but what we were doing was dangerous enough. The car was barreling along the highway, thundering underneath me as I sucked him, his cock like velvet granite, tasting his pre-cum and slaving for more.

“Oh fuck, Janie, baby, if you don’t stop, I’m gonna come!”

Why in the world would I stop? There was no way—the meaty onslaught of his cock in my mouth made my pussy beg for release. His fingers curled inside me, his hips vaulting upward, and I sucked him, tight-fisted, gulping, faster, more. “Ahhhhhh!”

The sound he made when he came, like a snarl caught in his throat, was a sweet, staccato symphony to my ears as he flooded my mouth with cum. I swallowed all of it hungrily, wiggling over the console, trying to get even more of him. His cock grew fat with every fresh throb and I worked him with my fist, too, draining him dry.

“Oh damn,” he whispered as I sat up, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand and looking over at him with half-closed eyes. “That was…”

His eyes widened when he looked over at me, leaning back against the passenger door and putting one bare foot up on the console. My dress was pulled up to my hips, my panties tugged aside, my pussy exposed.

“Josh, the road,” I reminded him, noticing we were swerving into the next lane.

“Right.” His gaze shifted and he adjusted the vehicle, sighing as he glanced at me again. His fingers found his way to his mouth, sucking my juices as he watched me reach down and spread my red and swollen lips. “Now I just want to return the favor. You taste so fucking good.”

“Do I?” I dipped my fingers into my honey and brought them to my mouth.

He groaned. “Don’t make me pull this car over, young lady.”

“Promises, promises,” I teased.

He turned the wheel, heading for the shoulder of the road, and I laughed. “No! Don’t you dare!”

Sighing, he righted things, working the gearshift to send us rocketing even faster down the highway. “If you knew how much I wanted you…”

“Show me.” I reached for his hand, guiding it between my legs, sliding down to give him easier access.

I saw him swallow, but his eyes were on the road as his fingers began to explore, making me moan when he nudged my clit.

“Rub it for me,” I purred, working the buttons on my sundress from the top down. He did as I asked, stealing glances as he made circles with his thumb against my clit.

“Jesus, Janie,” he whispered as I pulled my bra down, exposing my breasts and playing with my nipples.

“The road,” I murmured, moaning as his fingers slipped inside, his thumb still working my clit.

“I can’t concentrate,” he groaned, turning his gaze half-back to the highway. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

“Don’t stop,” I begged, rocking against his hand, biting my lip. “Oh Josh, please, please, make me come.”

He sank his fingers into me, faster, harder, the wet sound of my pussy being fucked filling the car. I asked for more, more, and he fingered me, hammering my cunt until I wailed and careened against the seat, finally throwing my head back and howling as I came, knowing I was getting the leather upholstery soaked, saturating his hand with the sticky copious sap of my cunt. My pussy clamped down again and again as I keened and twisted, completely at the mercy of my climax, lost in the pure pleasure of my orgasm.

“Oh. My. God.” I opened my eyes, first seeing the sky, the color of gun metal, still raining down silver, and then catching the sight of the guy in the semi-truck driving next to us, staring down at me with wide eyes and a huge grin on his face. “Oh! God!”

SHORN

by Selena Kitt

Sam is the older woman, secretly dating a younger man. But she just can’t help herself. From those big hands on her body to the sexy sheen of his dark, shaved head, Del is simply irresistible. When the younger man suggests a private shaving session, Sam finds herself under his spell once again in this modern, sexy and delightfully reversed Samson and Delilah.

Warnings: This title contains graphic language and interracial sex.

Word Count: 5,180

Price: $1.99

CLICK HERE TO GET IT!

EXCERPT:

“Are you going to see her tomorrow?” I slanted him the question.

He hesitated, and I wondered if he was going to play dumb. He didn’t, but—as usual—he didn’t give me a straight answer either. “You have a beautiful cunt, you know that?” His eyes fell to the triangle between my legs.

“Thank you.” I smiled, knowing he was trying to distract me, and I let him. I put my feet up on the counter, opening my thighs, giving him a better view. “So, are you going to see her?”

“Samantha.” He said my name with a sigh. I didn’t reply but just watched him instead.

“I might.” He used the razor over the few spots he’d missed. I waited. “Probably.” I just gave him more silence as he wiped his face clean with a towel. “Yeah, I guess.”

“I figured.”

He put some shaving cream on the tip of his finger and touched my nose with it.

I rolled my eyes. “Jerk!” I wiped it off with my hand, dabbing it onto the tuft of my pubic hair with a grin.

His eyes lit up, and he reached over and opened the top drawer under where I was sitting, pulling out a pair of manicure scissors.

“I was kidding!” I grabbed his towel and wiped off the shaving cream.

“I’m not.” He snapped the scissors open and closed, his dark eyes flashing, his grin devious.

“I thought you liked it!” I cried. He had often said how much he liked that I was a natural blond, the hair between my legs just a shade darker than the strawberry-blonde hair on my head. Our physical differences, the natural contrast, the strawberry cream and black coffee of our skin together, only served to drive our passion to further heights.

“Mmm, I do.” He knelt on the floor so he was eye-level between my legs, leaning in and kissing all around my pubic hair. “But I’d love to lick your pussy when it was shaved.”

I touched the curly, wiry mass of hair. I had never trimmed or shaved there. “I wonder what it would feel like…”

“Want to find out?” He showed me the scissors again. Seeing him eyeing my bits with a sharp implement in his hands was quite a shock.

“I don’t know.” I bit my lip. “Do we have time?”

“Plenty.” His lips brushed my thigh as he breathed my scent. The sight of his dark, smooth, newly shaved head between my legs elicited an immediate response, and I felt myself opening to him. “Don’t you trust me?”

I sighed. “Should I?”

“Yes.” His fingers probed my slit, spreading it open. He kissed my clit, his lips soft against my flesh.

“Okay,” I breathed, leaning back against the mirror as his tongue moved through my wetness.

“I want to kiss her goodbye.” He eased his way through, making his tongue into a sharp little point to probe inside of me. I moaned when his fingers replaced his tongue, sliding deep into my flesh as his mouth moved over my clit. I was still surprised at how skilled he was at this, how attentive, how eager to please.