A.D. Rowen's Blog

2018: Year in Review

As we’re coming to the end of another year, I thought I would look back at what, at least for my writing, has been a pretty memorable twelve months.

I started 2018 with the goal of self-publishing my first novel as an e-book. I’d never published a book before; the most productive thing I had done with my writing was sharing short stories on erotic fiction sites. Sharing stories on these sites is pretty straightforward; you write your story, think of a title and blurb, post it all into a web fo...

The 'death' of Tumblr

 Over the last few days, the social media and blogging platform Tumblr has announced that from 17 December 2018 they will no longer be allowing any 'NSFW' images to be posted by users.

This move is thought to have come about after Apple suspended the Tumblr app from availability in their App Store, because a large amount of child pornography had gotten through Tumblr's filter software and ended up on the platform.

However, others in the industry have posited that in fact this move has been...

Ten writing "rules"

My apologies for once again finding inspiration for a blog post from something that has been trending on Twitter! But over the past couple of days, fellow writers and others have been having a lot of fun with US novelist Jonathan Franzen's recent appearance in an article for LitHub, in which he offers his ten rules for aspiring authors.

As you would expect from someone who has been a successful and established literary author for some time, Franzen has a particular set of opinions which seem t...

Publishing Platforms for the Indie Writer

A post and conversation on Twitter the other day has inspired this blog post's topic; as a self-publishing indie writer of erotica, which do I think is the better option for an author to take - publishing an e-book via multiple platforms, or opting into Amazon's Kindle Unlimited service, which requires exclusive availability?

I should preface this by saying; I am no expert on self-publishing. I have two novels in the marketplace, both niche erotica. I have been doing this for less than a year....

'Best Friends...' or 'Brave Nude World'?

I recently noticed a trend in sales of my two books on Amazon. For the past few months, I have sold exactly twice as many copies of Best Friends With a Naked Girl as I have Brave Nude World.

That's something I find interesting, as my experience as a customer on Amazon tells me that people who read one book by any author are usually encouraged by the site's advertising and algorithms to at least be made aware of, if not actually purchase, books by the same author.

I've no complaint at the way my...

Paperback Writer

I've published my two novels to date as e-books, available on Amazon exclusively (I like being able to offer them via Kindle Unlimited, erotica I feel does well from that, and KU requires brand exclusivity) but I recently decided to investigate one of the other options Amazon offers to self-published authors; selling paperback copies.

If you are a self-published author, getting your book into print as a physical copy can be a burdensome task, and it is for this reason that the rise in populari...

Naturist

Naturism is the practice of going nude alone or socially for reasons of comfort and/or physical and mental health benefits. Naturists believe that social stigmas about nakedness as sexual when it is between men and women are unnecessary as to simply be naked is not by itself a sexual act. Most naturists also believe in the importance of self-identifying as naturist (as opposed to just enjoying nakedness namelessly without categorisation).

I’m a naturist myself and naturism (or nudism - in fict...

Public Nudity on the Big Screen

Regular readers of this blog and my fiction will note that I tend to stick to a few particular themes, and probably the dominant one of these is public nudity (especially where my female characters are involved). Whether they are naked in public accidentally or on purpose, whether they are embarrassed by it or love it, it happens a lot in my stories and (suffice to say) if you aren’t a fan of this trope, you’re probably not going to like my work.

I’m certainly not the only person to make use o...

Talking With My Readers

As an erotic author who is active on Twitter and has some followers who have read my books (as is the case with many erotic writers, the majority of my followers/mutuals are other writers!), I recently reached out to ask, who are the people who are reading my books, what made them choose to read them, what do they like about them – and what do they think they would like to see in the future?

I was interested because I think my two novels occupy a small but distinct niche in the world of erotic...

New Story! NIP - Nina In Public

After a long break (I was working on my next novel, and then I was laid low with seasonal allergies that left me with little energy for writing), I've returned to where I started, and posted a new short story on Literotica.com, where anyone can read it for free.

This time I've actually done so to enter a contest the site is running in honour of National Nude Day, which is apparently a real thing and takes place on July 14th.  The contest requires authors to submit a story which is themed...