Alana Melos's Blog, page 14

I'm Done With You! (Fox Tales excerpt)

I thought I'd try something new! Instead of grousing about writing techniques or advertising, I thought I'd post one of the tales from the upcoming Fox Tales, Erotic Stories of the Kitsune and see if people dug it. This excerpt is uh obviously for mature audiences, and contains oral, anal, and vaginal sex. With that, enjoy!

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    Once upon a time there was a handsome young man, with a bright future ahead of him as a warrior. He lived in a village in the country, and rea...

I May Be a Bitch, but I'm Not Amazon's Bitch

... mostly. Yeah, there's still stuff of mine in KU. I'm not pulling them. I'm sticking to my plan as originally intended of letting them expire 'naturally', but as I was sitting here thinking writing fox smut, I thought, "What if I developed a series JUST for a specific distributor NOT Amazon?" The one that came to mind at first was Excitica, of course. I would really like to help indie distributors as well. I'm not saying I'm awesome and yeah, like totally everyone would come aboard, but it...

Amazon Categories are Sometimes WTF

So, I know a lot of authors will pad their keywords to get into as many categories as possible. I consider this a "black hat" tactic, as it misrepresents a book. I try to keep it to exactly what's IN the book so that people know what they're getting. Makes sense, yeah? Because, y'know, I'm sorry... if I want a horror book, and it's not horror, I'd get mad. If I want romance and it's not really romance, I'd get mad.

With Primal Urges, there's a menage scene in it that consists of our hero of th...

Orgasms! Only Three Bucks Apiece! Getcher Fresh Orgasms Right Here!

Talking about fantasies with another writer has spurred on this blog post. Fantasies are a big part of life. We use them every day. My husband talks about role-playing in the same way I do about fantasies... we all participate in it, even if it's just imagining winning the lottery and how much easier your life will be afterwards. Fantasy fans take it a step further, imagining living in another world, being another person, being the hero. Even Karl Marx had words to say about it, saying that r...

Primal Urges is Live on Amazon!

The third in the horrorotica anthology series Wantonly Wicked, Primal Urges is now live on Amazon! Yes, even with all the KU debate, I still put it up there and in KU--read my previous post if you don't understand why, but in short, still in the 'wait and see' category. So, I'm waiting and seeing.

I've actually had the cover for this one forever, but just hadn't gotten around to writing it. I have too many stories in my head! And from the Cheri experience, I know to go with what interests me....

Changes. Meh.

This post is going to be about the KDP changes and my opinion on them.

First off, let me say this straight out: my income does not depend on publishing. At most, I've made about 220$ a month, least much less than that (first month and all). It seems to be averaging around one to two hundred a month, which was nice. It was even more especially nice when I took a pay cut for switching jobs. However, this is not my livelihood. I'm a hobby writer. The extra cash is nice, but not necessary.

Second,...

All Access Pass: Backstage Uncensored is Live on Amazon!

If you wanted all three Cheri Hunt stories for one low price, or just for convenience's sake, now All Access Pass: Backstage Uncensored is live on Amazon! The trilogy is now over, so grab 'em in one place while you can!

Arrrgh! Here be Pirates!

LOL. Ok, so emboldened by running into that review on accident (gonna be on Cloud Nine for days and days), I did an active search for my stuff... and it's out there. On pirate sites. XD

Now, I know I've really made it.

No, seriously! That means that someone either borrowed or bought it, liked it so much or had requests for it that they put whatever books up on a pirate site. I ... ooh, I should check Pirate Bay! ... DAMN. Not on Pirate Bay. Oh well. But still!

What should I do about it? Fuck it....

Write What You Love or... HOLY SHIT I GOT A LEGIT REVIEW!

...not on Amazon or Goodreads though, and that's not to say that Reed's review of "The Shagging Tree" isn't legit (it was, I didn't ask for 5 stars, though I think he's probably generous to erotica writers... however going through his reviews he doesn't give out five often... also go read his other reviews. They are generally cool and fairly accurate from what I've seen!), but as I was tooling around the internet at work, I wanted to reread one of Alana's blog posts here, but strangely I coul...

ReTweet THIS!

Another blog post, so quickly? OMG PERISH THE THOUGHT!

This is a different aspect of what's going on in my publishing world, though, so bear with me.

Retweeting is a great tool for indie authors to get the word out. It is! It's awesome! I will not lie here; I've absolutely used it, and only rarely retweeted back. There's a couple reasons for this, which might portray me as being greedy or selfish, but whatever.


I've only a handful of followers... who follow all the same people I pretty much do a...