Shawna Hunter's Blog, page 9
August 29, 2016
A thing for muscle girls?
As I write my current work (centered around a lesbian relationship between a librarian turned physique competitor and her personal trainer) I realize that, following my amazonian Elizabeth character, the first type of person doubled up in my novels will be...muscle girls. Now the short answer to the expected question is yes, I like to see healthy natural muscle on a woman. I like firm, hard bodies with beefy arms, broad chests and asses you could bounce a quarter off of but it's not to the level of a fetish.
I want my works to have a variety of body types. From reasonably skinny Alyssa and lanky David to tall, strong Marcus. I want asians, latinas, blacks, whites, green (ok, maybe not green) and every healthy, sexy body type I can dream up but it needs to work with the story.
Another work I'm chugging along on will introduce a black cowboy-esque sheriff, a man in his sixties and a wheelchair bound woman. Why?
My goal isn't to fetishize any particular person nor am I out to serve some PC agenda. I simply want to help my readers develop an eye for the erotic. To see the sexual possibilities hiding in the mundane. There's something beautiful in most if not all body types and there's always someone, somewhere who wants you. I don't just write for those who already have a dirty mind but for those looking to obtain one
So expect the muscle chicks, expect the unusual as well as the blonde bombshell and square jawed hunk. Expect to find yourself aroused by people you might never have imagined and take this lesson to heart: EVERYONE can be sexy.
I want my works to have a variety of body types. From reasonably skinny Alyssa and lanky David to tall, strong Marcus. I want asians, latinas, blacks, whites, green (ok, maybe not green) and every healthy, sexy body type I can dream up but it needs to work with the story.
Another work I'm chugging along on will introduce a black cowboy-esque sheriff, a man in his sixties and a wheelchair bound woman. Why?
My goal isn't to fetishize any particular person nor am I out to serve some PC agenda. I simply want to help my readers develop an eye for the erotic. To see the sexual possibilities hiding in the mundane. There's something beautiful in most if not all body types and there's always someone, somewhere who wants you. I don't just write for those who already have a dirty mind but for those looking to obtain one
So expect the muscle chicks, expect the unusual as well as the blonde bombshell and square jawed hunk. Expect to find yourself aroused by people you might never have imagined and take this lesson to heart: EVERYONE can be sexy.
August 24, 2016
Erotica Author Anonymity
Is Shawna Hunter my real name? No, it's a pen name.
That's about the only tidbit I'll give you about the real me. We can chat, you can read my works, my naughty tweets, my facebook posts, etc and glean something about the type of person I am but I do not talk much (if at all) about who and what I am. What are my politics? What is my race? What is my gender? What is my stance on X,Y,Z social issue? Not telling.
There are a number of reasons for this and they aren't all as simple as one might think. As an erotica author anonymity has its uses. People who know me in real life may come to view me as a pervert or a degenerate if they read my works for example. I also have a pro-LGBT stance (oops, let a social issue slip) in my work and some people can be rather hostile to that.
But it's more than this. More than the simple desire to not have my friends know...uh, I mean THINK...that I'm constantly dreaming up dirty scenarios. You see there are two schools of thought in regards to creators in the philosophy of art. Hopefully you will allow me to be generous and call my humble erotica novels art. The two schools (sorry, I don't know the names) are as follows.
One says you can't truly understand the art if you don't understand the artist. Van Gouh's Scream is just a creepy picture if you don't know what he meant by it.
The other says that your views of the artist will color your views on the art. You can love a piece of music, for example, until you find out that the person who wrote it has a lot of twisted and evil views. I fall into this camp (oops there's another opinion). I do feel that an artist's work can give you insights into who they are but I feel that the work itself should be considered apart from the creator in order to be appreciated on its own merits.
For example: I love Nietzsche. His philosophy (if a product of its time in terms of sexism) is insightful and moving and I personally feel that the parable of the madman is perhaps the greatest single piece of writing ever put to paper. That said he also wrote some poetry and it sucks. It's over long with no rhyme scheme and its a convoluted mess. I do not believe that I should give his poetry a pass just because I think he was overall a great writer.
Perhaps, one day, I'll get famous enough to reveal my own name and face as A. N. Roquelaure did when she was revealed to be the incredible Anne Rice. Perhaps I'll always be an obscure someone who added a few more dirty books to the pile. That's up to hardwork and fate. For now, for the sake of my work, I feel it more important to keep my day to day self and my author self separate. I do hope my readers can understand and appreciate that and if not...well try guessing. I won't tell you if you get it right but It'll certainly be entertaining to see what you come up with ;)
That's about the only tidbit I'll give you about the real me. We can chat, you can read my works, my naughty tweets, my facebook posts, etc and glean something about the type of person I am but I do not talk much (if at all) about who and what I am. What are my politics? What is my race? What is my gender? What is my stance on X,Y,Z social issue? Not telling.
There are a number of reasons for this and they aren't all as simple as one might think. As an erotica author anonymity has its uses. People who know me in real life may come to view me as a pervert or a degenerate if they read my works for example. I also have a pro-LGBT stance (oops, let a social issue slip) in my work and some people can be rather hostile to that.
But it's more than this. More than the simple desire to not have my friends know...uh, I mean THINK...that I'm constantly dreaming up dirty scenarios. You see there are two schools of thought in regards to creators in the philosophy of art. Hopefully you will allow me to be generous and call my humble erotica novels art. The two schools (sorry, I don't know the names) are as follows.
One says you can't truly understand the art if you don't understand the artist. Van Gouh's Scream is just a creepy picture if you don't know what he meant by it.
The other says that your views of the artist will color your views on the art. You can love a piece of music, for example, until you find out that the person who wrote it has a lot of twisted and evil views. I fall into this camp (oops there's another opinion). I do feel that an artist's work can give you insights into who they are but I feel that the work itself should be considered apart from the creator in order to be appreciated on its own merits.
For example: I love Nietzsche. His philosophy (if a product of its time in terms of sexism) is insightful and moving and I personally feel that the parable of the madman is perhaps the greatest single piece of writing ever put to paper. That said he also wrote some poetry and it sucks. It's over long with no rhyme scheme and its a convoluted mess. I do not believe that I should give his poetry a pass just because I think he was overall a great writer.
Perhaps, one day, I'll get famous enough to reveal my own name and face as A. N. Roquelaure did when she was revealed to be the incredible Anne Rice. Perhaps I'll always be an obscure someone who added a few more dirty books to the pile. That's up to hardwork and fate. For now, for the sake of my work, I feel it more important to keep my day to day self and my author self separate. I do hope my readers can understand and appreciate that and if not...well try guessing. I won't tell you if you get it right but It'll certainly be entertaining to see what you come up with ;)
August 3, 2016
Audible Givaway
To celebrate the release of Submission Backstory on Audible I'm running a giveaway contest where you could win one of 8 codes for a free copy. This means you can not only listen to the book for free as many times as you want (because you'll own it) but you can also leave a review and help me out. I'm using a Facebook app to organize the giveaway (link below) and I'll be running it for about 2 weeks. At present I only have 4 entrants, however, so if I don't have at least 8 by the end of the 2 weeks I may extend it.
On the plus side that means odds of winning are absolutely fantastic!
https://apps.facebook.com/my-contests...
On the plus side that means odds of winning are absolutely fantastic!
https://apps.facebook.com/my-contests...
August 1, 2016
Audible Release
So Submission Backstory has been doing fantastic on Amazon. It's labeled as LGBT erotica but it's got a strong BDSM theme. With 5 star reviews across the board (well maybe a couple 4 stars on Goodreads) it's an important book for me because it sets up the town from which I'll draw my stories.
https://www.amazon.com/Submission-Bac...
The BEST News, however, is that it's getting released as an Audiobook as well. My publisher at Wordwooze believes strongly in Audiobooks for erotica and having heard a preview of this one I have to agree with him. Sierra Kline sounds amazing reading this story. She knows just when to be sly and when to have some fun. The book is showing in the search results on Audible and should be purchasable any minute now. I am so excited for this, it's a whole new avenue for my writing career.
http://www.audible.com/search/ref=a_h...
https://www.amazon.com/Submission-Bac...
The BEST News, however, is that it's getting released as an Audiobook as well. My publisher at Wordwooze believes strongly in Audiobooks for erotica and having heard a preview of this one I have to agree with him. Sierra Kline sounds amazing reading this story. She knows just when to be sly and when to have some fun. The book is showing in the search results on Audible and should be purchasable any minute now. I am so excited for this, it's a whole new avenue for my writing career.
http://www.audible.com/search/ref=a_h...
July 14, 2016
The impact of Gender
Let me pretend, for the sake of illustration, that I am an androgynous being. I am neither female nor male and I have neither reproductive organs nor secondary sexual characteristics. From such a position I decide to write an erotic or romance novel and present it to a publisher. What path would I be lead down? Let me draw on my experiences to tell you a story. We shall call this hypothetical androgen 'Andy.'
So Andy writes its book and somehow manages to create something relatable and entertaining. Andy decides to publish. Going to writing blogs Andy finds that a male email address is best so it decides to be a he when submitting. He sends his book out and gets a reply from a business minded publisher who wishes to work with him. This publisher does a lot of market research and really tailors work to their audience. This publisher suggests a female pen name for Andy because female pen names sell better in this genre than male pen names. So now Andy is a she.
Her book is published and she is now encouraged to market it as much as possible on social media. Here she finds that a male talking about erotica and romance is seen as a gross pervert while a woman is seen as a sex maniac or porn star. If Andy presents as a male Andy will lose female fans and if Andy presents as a female Andy will receive countless flirty messages from those who think that a woman who writes about sex must want it all the time from anyone.
So Andy decides on female. Better a lot of spam than no messages at all right? Yet as Andy's popularity grows so do the number of messages and the amount of time it takes to filter through them. Advice gets missed and real fans/colleagues feel ignored. Then Andy finds a sneaky little trick. If Andy writes as a lesbian woman the "how you doing?" messages start to die down. They still come in but less frequently as many are put off by the unavailability of a lesbian. This seems great, even if the messages that still come in are increasingly offensive and disrespectful.
Unfortunately publishing opportunities start to diminish. There being a smaller market for lesbian erotica than for general erotica. So now Andy has to go back to the male email to present their work but this turns off lesbian publishers.
Next Andy finds that dominant women are intimidating to those PM senders and that the flirty messages a dominant woman does get are more respectful. It also opens up a new avenue of BDSM erotica which is a growing field. Except that BDSM erotica is preferred from the submissive pov than the dominants. So now Andy has to be a dominant woman and a submissive woman at the same time.
So Andy, in its attempt to follow the current of the market to sell the books it crafted originally out of its own interests has now become a dominant lesbian hermaphrodite with a penis for business and boobs for promotion. A sort of mashed together chimera of male and female, sub and dom, savvy sex positive marketer and cold, flirt ignoring business mogul.
Yet all hope is not lost for Andy. Our androgen is now a layered onion of personas and presentations that can be peeled, segment by segment into new characters for the next work to drag Andy through the cycle all over again.
So Andy writes its book and somehow manages to create something relatable and entertaining. Andy decides to publish. Going to writing blogs Andy finds that a male email address is best so it decides to be a he when submitting. He sends his book out and gets a reply from a business minded publisher who wishes to work with him. This publisher does a lot of market research and really tailors work to their audience. This publisher suggests a female pen name for Andy because female pen names sell better in this genre than male pen names. So now Andy is a she.
Her book is published and she is now encouraged to market it as much as possible on social media. Here she finds that a male talking about erotica and romance is seen as a gross pervert while a woman is seen as a sex maniac or porn star. If Andy presents as a male Andy will lose female fans and if Andy presents as a female Andy will receive countless flirty messages from those who think that a woman who writes about sex must want it all the time from anyone.
So Andy decides on female. Better a lot of spam than no messages at all right? Yet as Andy's popularity grows so do the number of messages and the amount of time it takes to filter through them. Advice gets missed and real fans/colleagues feel ignored. Then Andy finds a sneaky little trick. If Andy writes as a lesbian woman the "how you doing?" messages start to die down. They still come in but less frequently as many are put off by the unavailability of a lesbian. This seems great, even if the messages that still come in are increasingly offensive and disrespectful.
Unfortunately publishing opportunities start to diminish. There being a smaller market for lesbian erotica than for general erotica. So now Andy has to go back to the male email to present their work but this turns off lesbian publishers.
Next Andy finds that dominant women are intimidating to those PM senders and that the flirty messages a dominant woman does get are more respectful. It also opens up a new avenue of BDSM erotica which is a growing field. Except that BDSM erotica is preferred from the submissive pov than the dominants. So now Andy has to be a dominant woman and a submissive woman at the same time.
So Andy, in its attempt to follow the current of the market to sell the books it crafted originally out of its own interests has now become a dominant lesbian hermaphrodite with a penis for business and boobs for promotion. A sort of mashed together chimera of male and female, sub and dom, savvy sex positive marketer and cold, flirt ignoring business mogul.
Yet all hope is not lost for Andy. Our androgen is now a layered onion of personas and presentations that can be peeled, segment by segment into new characters for the next work to drag Andy through the cycle all over again.
May 29, 2016
How to write a novel
1) Start. It doesn’t have to be good, you don’t need a full plan. Just start writing. Set up a scenario and play with it.
2) Keep going. Even if it’s just a sentence a day take a moment to add a bit.
3) Tell yourself the story. You don’t need all the details and twists planned ahead of time. Surprise yourself
4) Edit. Once the first draft is done then take a break, go back and read through the story. Now is the time to resolve plot holes and issues.
5) Do something else for a day or two
6) Go back and work through the story again. Now is the time to give it to a second set of eyes.
7) Read it out loud. You’ll figure out why.
8) Now you can start thinking about submitting to publishers
2) Keep going. Even if it’s just a sentence a day take a moment to add a bit.
3) Tell yourself the story. You don’t need all the details and twists planned ahead of time. Surprise yourself
4) Edit. Once the first draft is done then take a break, go back and read through the story. Now is the time to resolve plot holes and issues.
5) Do something else for a day or two
6) Go back and work through the story again. Now is the time to give it to a second set of eyes.
7) Read it out loud. You’ll figure out why.
8) Now you can start thinking about submitting to publishers
The Bad Reviews
I thought I’d take some time to address the bad review my book has received. These are, by far, the minority (especially when you factor in GoodReads and Kobo) but considering I have fewer than 10 over various sites they have an inordinate effect. As such it seems prudent to take a look at what they had to say (what LITTLE they had to say).
As I write BDSM erotica and my published work involves age-play, dubious consent (that is addressed in the story), pony play, anal sex, predicament bondage, M/F, M/F/F and F/F sex as well as a touch of behavior modification I fully accept that not everyone is going to like it.
BDSM in general and maledom in particular tends to draw the ire of certain readers but looking at my 1 and 2 star reviews I notice a few common themes.
From Barnes and Noble:
“Rude and Crude: no thanks”
From Amazon:
2 stars: “The book had 4261 locations on my kindle. The book was about a girl, named Elizabeth, aka Lizzy, a man, named Marcus and a woman, named Jessica. Lizzy was a 6 foot, 185 pound, toned and tanned, wild woman. She grew up, alone in a jungle, after her plane crashed. Marcus worked for a university. He found Lizzy and took her home. Jessica also worked at the university, and was Marcus’s on again, off again friends with benefits. The book contained a few spankings, lots of detailed, descriptive, sex, oral sex, anal sex, M/F, F/M/F, F/F sexual interactions. I did not like any of the characters. Marcus and Jessica were both selfish people. They both used Lizzy as their own personal sex toy and puppet. Lizzy was like an insatiable lap dog, falling at Marcus and Jessica’s feet, from the word go. I would have to say, when Marcus made Lizzy, perform oral sex and have sex with him on the first few pages, I was done.”
1 star: “Sry was totally bad, Gram always said if you can’t say anything nice keep your mouth shut”
The 2 star reviewer clearly missed the subtle manipulations of Lizzy’s character and the love Marcus and Jessica had for her (sighted in an unquoted 5 star review) but to each their own. With that (the only substantive criticism) out of the way, however, what is left? Rude? Too much sex? Mentioning your grandmother? I get an overall sense of sex negativity from these reviews. That’s really curious to me. The book is very clearly labeled as BDSM erotica so why are people who don’t want sex and power exchange buying it?
As I write BDSM erotica and my published work involves age-play, dubious consent (that is addressed in the story), pony play, anal sex, predicament bondage, M/F, M/F/F and F/F sex as well as a touch of behavior modification I fully accept that not everyone is going to like it.
BDSM in general and maledom in particular tends to draw the ire of certain readers but looking at my 1 and 2 star reviews I notice a few common themes.
From Barnes and Noble:
“Rude and Crude: no thanks”
From Amazon:
2 stars: “The book had 4261 locations on my kindle. The book was about a girl, named Elizabeth, aka Lizzy, a man, named Marcus and a woman, named Jessica. Lizzy was a 6 foot, 185 pound, toned and tanned, wild woman. She grew up, alone in a jungle, after her plane crashed. Marcus worked for a university. He found Lizzy and took her home. Jessica also worked at the university, and was Marcus’s on again, off again friends with benefits. The book contained a few spankings, lots of detailed, descriptive, sex, oral sex, anal sex, M/F, F/M/F, F/F sexual interactions. I did not like any of the characters. Marcus and Jessica were both selfish people. They both used Lizzy as their own personal sex toy and puppet. Lizzy was like an insatiable lap dog, falling at Marcus and Jessica’s feet, from the word go. I would have to say, when Marcus made Lizzy, perform oral sex and have sex with him on the first few pages, I was done.”
1 star: “Sry was totally bad, Gram always said if you can’t say anything nice keep your mouth shut”
The 2 star reviewer clearly missed the subtle manipulations of Lizzy’s character and the love Marcus and Jessica had for her (sighted in an unquoted 5 star review) but to each their own. With that (the only substantive criticism) out of the way, however, what is left? Rude? Too much sex? Mentioning your grandmother? I get an overall sense of sex negativity from these reviews. That’s really curious to me. The book is very clearly labeled as BDSM erotica so why are people who don’t want sex and power exchange buying it?
Expectation VS Reality
So my first novel did phenomenally well in its first 12 days. It got to the amazon top 100 (49 at it’s heights, currently at 98) and has thus far sold over 214 copies on Amazon alone (I only get daily updates from them so I’ve no idea how it’s doing on the other sites).
At first I was jumping up and down but the honeymoon phase doesn’t last. Now the realities of promoting, waiting for reviews, realizing that some people won’t like it and writing a sequel that lives up to the first are starting to dawn on me. Perhaps it’s my cold or my drive to always one up myself but it does get rather daunting.
With the first novel there was no expectation. I went at my own pace and was just happy that someone was willing to publish it. I simply wrote what I liked, changed it at the editors suggestion and was amazed to be able to say that I am a published author. Now, now I have have so many more concerns to deal with.
It’s not like it’s impossible, I wouldn’t dream of giving up but it is a major shift. I always knew this point would come. When the realities of living the dream would catch up to me I just figured it would come much later, if at all. Sure if I ever managed the next big dream of best sellers and real fame it’ll probably hit again and on that day I’ll look back at these concerns as paltry but for now its another mountain.
At first I was jumping up and down but the honeymoon phase doesn’t last. Now the realities of promoting, waiting for reviews, realizing that some people won’t like it and writing a sequel that lives up to the first are starting to dawn on me. Perhaps it’s my cold or my drive to always one up myself but it does get rather daunting.
With the first novel there was no expectation. I went at my own pace and was just happy that someone was willing to publish it. I simply wrote what I liked, changed it at the editors suggestion and was amazed to be able to say that I am a published author. Now, now I have have so many more concerns to deal with.
It’s not like it’s impossible, I wouldn’t dream of giving up but it is a major shift. I always knew this point would come. When the realities of living the dream would catch up to me I just figured it would come much later, if at all. Sure if I ever managed the next big dream of best sellers and real fame it’ll probably hit again and on that day I’ll look back at these concerns as paltry but for now its another mountain.
