Giselle Renarde's Blog, page 16

Younger Women Older Men Scandalous Erotica

The rumours are true: I've collaborated once more with Lexi Wood to produce a collection of classy-ass adultery stories (mine) and smutty smutty smut stories (Lexi's) involving younger women and older men.

What does she see in him? 

A girl might go after an older man because he’s got money or power or brains, but sometimes it’s simpler than that. Sometimes she’s just plain hot for his body! Older men know how to treat a girl right. They know exactly what to whisper, where to touch, and when to put a girl over his knee. 

In this collection of six salacious stories, savour the flavour of younger women as they take pleasure in the minds and bodies of older men. Even when it’s forbidden, they can’t resist rubbing up against an experienced older man!

In case you're not familiar with the work of Lexi Wood, I'm going to share with you an excerpt from her story Blueberry Brat, which appears in Younger Women, Older Men. Enjoy!


An excerpt from Blueberry Brat by Lexi Wood

The sign said OPEN, but the stand seemed closed. Then Karl spotted what he was looking for sunbathing on a lounger that must have been from the seventies. They didn’t make ‘em like that anymore.

But it wasn’t the chair he was interested in. It was the brat in the blue bikini, wearing sunglasses and chewing a licorice lace. He couldn’t believe the gall of this girl, lying out next to the road for every passerby to gawk at. Had she no shame?

No, of course she didn’t. That’s what brought him back to her.

Karl stood at the foot of the lounger, blocking her sun. She raised her glasses lazily, but she didn’t say a word. Just stared at him with those emerald eyes.

“Did your boyfriend buy that for you?” he asked, indicated the licorice lace.

She set her glasses back down and said, “Colin’s history. I bought this myself.”

“You sure get around.”

“I sure do.”

Karl watched the girl’s white stomach rise and fall with every breath. He wondered how she stayed so white when she worked in the sun, or at least lounged in the sun. He wondered why she wasn’t asking him what he wanted. Maybe it was obvious.

He hadn’t come back for the blueberries.

“Aren’t you afraid?” he asked. “Lying out here all alone, nearly naked?”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid of… anything, really.” Afraid of men, he meant, but he didn’t want her thinking she should be afraid of him in particular. She’d already called him a pervert once.

Once was enough.

He spent so long watching her breathe that his every inhale matched hers. She stopped chewing the lace and just sucked it. Her dark glasses reflected the brutal sun, so he couldn’t be sure whether she was looking at him or she had her eyes closed.

“You want more pie?” she asked.

He didn’t know how to answer that question.

Sighing, she slipped both feet over the side of her retro lounge chair and into a pink pair of flip-flops. She walked toward the whitewashed hut, swinging her narrow hips as she went. Flipping the latch on the door at the back, she turned to Karl and asked, “Your wife run off with another guy?”

“No.”

“Is she climbing Mount Kilimanjaro?”

“Hardly.”

“Is she dead?”

That question stopped Karl in his tracks, or would have done if he’d been walking.

“She’s dead?”

The way the girl said that word, so casual and yet so final, made him wonder who’d failed to teach her proper manners. “Yes, my wife has passed.”

“So your kids are orphans?”

“They’re not orphans. They have me.”

“So half-orphans.” She opened the plywood door. With the end of a licorice lace hanging out of her mouth, she said, “I’m a full orphan. Both my parents are dead.”

Karl felt strangely numbed by this admission, but he said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
With a shrug, she said, “It’s better this way. Now it’s just me and my grandma—and my grandma doesn’t drink.”

Karl’s stomach knotted.

She stepped inside the blueberry hut.

When he didn’t follow, she stuck her head out and asked, “What are you waiting for?”

He was waiting to wake up from this strange dream.

They’d covered quite a lot of heavy territory, which weighed Karl down immensely. This girl seemed to hop over tragedy like a jump rope.

As he approached the white hut, he asked, “How can you be so cavalier about losing your parents?”

“It was a long time ago,” she said from inside.

“Even so…”

“If you had the kind of parents I had, you wouldn’t have to ask.”

When Karl arrived at the open door, his mind drew a blank. He forgot their entire conversation. All that remained was the image before him, of a naked eighteen-year-old surrounded by baked goods.

“Come in,” she said. “Close the door behind you.”

He did as he was told, though he knew no good would come of it. He crossed the threshold and stepped inside, all the while staring at the girl’s small white breasts with their soft pink peaks.

Her pussy was shaved bare, which he would have guessed after seeing her in a bikini, but she stood there like it was nothing. Like she hung out naked in the blueberry hut all the time and why was he making such a big deal about it?

She hadn’t taken off her flip-flops, and she hadn’t taken off her necklaces. The beads and feathers and strips of leather danced against her chest as she made space on one of the low shelves. Karl’s heart clenched as she jumped up on it, because he was sure it would collapse beneath her, but either the shelf was stupendously well-constructed or the girl weighed next to nothing, because she sat easily upon it, not a trace of worry on her face.

“You haven’t fucked anyone since she died.” The girl leaned against the wall, which was painted the same glossy white as the rest of the hut. Then she added, “Your wife,” as if he wouldn’t know who she was talking about.

“That’s right,” he said. “I haven’t. Haven’t even thought about it, to be honest.”

She opened her legs. “Until now.”

He nodded. “Until now.”

Her pussy lips were the most perfect shade of pink. Though the closed hut had no windows, enough light came in through gaps in the loose slats to make her juices glitter like diamonds. He’d never seen anything so alluring.

“Lick it,” she said, kicking off her flip-flops.

When he didn’t move, she walked her bare feet up his chest and pressed down on his shoulders with her heels. He let her move him down to the ground, which was the same glossy white as everything else. Felt nice and cool against his knees.

She slid her feet down his back and said, “I hope you’re good at this. There’s nothing worse than a grown man who can’t eat a pussy.”

Karl wondered if she was speaking from experience, and how much experience, but put the question out of his mind. He inhaled deeply between her legs. All he could smell was blueberries and pastry. Probably because there was an open pie sitting beside the girl and she was idly picking away at the top crust, eating it while she waited for him to begin.

“How do you stay so slim when you eat sweets all day long?”

She flatly said, “I’m eighteen. That’s how.”

At least she knew it wouldn’t last. Most girls her age didn’t realize there was a best by date on their effortless figures.

Karl extended his tongue and lovingly fed on the sweetness of this stranger’s pussy. An eighteen-year-old pussy was like nothing else in this world—not that Karl had any recent experience with young women. He was around them all the time. Taught them. Evaluated them. But he didn’t see them as potential sex partners. He was too shaken up after his loss to see anything. And, prior to that, he’d been so happily married he forgot other women existed.

Sounds impossible, but that’s how much he loved his wife. While she was alive, there was only her. His whole world was her.

And now his face was buried between the legs of an eighteen-year-old blueberry vendor. He really ought to have some feeling about that, but he didn’t. All he felt was arousal.

Wicked arousal.

Wild arousal.

He still had all his clothes on, but he was already so hard it hurt.

“What, are you hourly?” asked the brat.

“Hmm?”

“Lick my fucking cunt,” she said, over-enunciating every syllable. “I’m trying to get off, here. This isn’t charity work.”

“Sorry,” he said, and licked her clit with focused intensity.

“Better,” she said in a tone that sounded undecided. “But still not great. Try sucking it.”

Karl wrapped his lips around her perfect pink clit and sucked, but the slippery thing kept escaping from his mouth.

“Were you ever any good at this?”

He pressed his face between her legs so his cheeks touched her inner thighs. Wrapping his mouth around her bare pussy lips, he slobbered and sucked. She wiggled around on the counter, like she was looking for a better position, which meant he wasn’t pleasing her.
Picking at her pie, she said, “Oh, this is going nowhere.”

Every jeer was a challenge. He worked harder, slurping her pussy lips, sucking her clit with ever more force. He’d wanted to start slow and build up steam, but this girl was obviously looking for a cold, hard fuck.

Or, more precisely, a hot, hard mouth-fuck.

He stuck his tongue in her pussy and reamed her in and out.

“That’s just pathetic,” she said. “Get up. Get off me.”

He didn’t, and she kicked him with both feet to drive the point home.

As he gazed up at her from the floor, she slid down from the counter. She moved the pie she’d been picking at to the spot on the counter that was wet with saliva and pussy juice. Then she jumped up and sat in it.

Karl watched in awe as this sulky teen with the perfect pink pussy wiggled her butt in a blueberry pie. He didn’t know what to do or what to say or what this was all about. “Would you like me to leave?” he asked.

She gave him a stunned look, then hopped down from the counter. “If you left, who would lick all this blueberry pie from my ass?”

When she peeled the pan away, the bottom crust went with it. All that remained on her perfect porcelain skin was a slick helping of pie filling.

She leaned against the counter with her butt facing him and said, “You might want to take off your clothes. This could get messy.”

You can read the rest of this story in ebook form but I highly recommend buying my latest release Younger Women, Older Men Scandalous Erotica, in which Blueberry Brat appears. 


Purchase Younger Women, Older Men in print from Amazon! 

Get the ebook from Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1138573?ref=GiselleRenardeErotica
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09W4868Y4?tag=dondes-20
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=_zZlEAAAQBAJ

Get the paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Younger-Women-Older-Men-Scandalous/dp/1546844597?tag=dondes-20

Giselle RenardeCanada just got hotter!

Only Angels: An Erotic Novella

When unhappily-married Helena accompanies her best friend to a top-secret cougar club, she figures it’s just one more underground hook-up joint for rich older women and the hot young guys they crave. No surprise to find the place populated with golden chests and gorgeous faces. No surprise to meet a sympathetic young man named Sandy. The surprise comes when Sandy exposes his huge pair… of stunning white wings! The posh club is called Only Angels. Here begins the adventure of Helena and her angel on earth.

ONLY ANGELS was previously published by Excessica. Now it's back with a new cover! 
Find ONLY ANGELS at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1137734?ref=GiselleRenardeErotica
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09VQ5P5L3?tag=dondes-20

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/only-angels-4
Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/only-angels-giselle-renarde/1023995029
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=9ZJkEAAAQBAJ

Indigo: https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/only-angels/9781005767723-item.html

Use the Universal Book Link to find even more retailers: http://books2read.com/OnlyAngelsGiselle RenardeCanada just got hotter!

In Fertile Ground #Virgin #Breeding #Erotica

"In Fertile Ground" is a dark tale I wrote for my anthology Fertile Girls. If you haven't read it yet, prepare yourself! This is seriously erotic stuff:

When did I find out my first time would be given to Our Leader? I’ve always known. It’s the same for every girl here. After we come of age, we submit to the one man who is more than man, more than human. He is our high priest, godly in stature. His seed must be spread among every young woman at the commune. Each of us will bear a babe for him, each wife in turn.

Today my time has come. Our wedding night awaits…

Read In Fertile Ground Today Giselle RenardeCanada just got hotter!

Flash in the Pen: 24 Extremely Short Erotic Stories

Got a minute? Read a quickie!

Flash in the Pen features two dozen tantalizing tales—one for every hour of the day, if you can wait that long to read them. Once you start, you might never want to stop! This book is erotic tapas. You get a delicious taste of everything from tantric energy exchanges to sudden stranger sex, from BDSM to butt plugs.
Girls acting like kitties and pretending to be puppies. Fisting. First times. Fantasies.Sexy surprises.
There’s a little something for everyone in this collection, so get ready for a frenzy of flashers!

Here's an excerpt from Flash in the Pen. This one's from a story called Two Girls Kissing. I wrote it as I watched two girls kissing in the park across the street:

I'm sitting by the window, gazing out at the park across the street, and what priceless display of wanton lust catches my eye?

Two girls kissing.

Two girls kissing... oh my GOD, it's two girls kissing. Am I seeing this right? Is it wishful thinking?

Nope, it's real. They're young and pretty, wearing short shorts and tight tops because even at eight in the evening it's still hot outside. Their long limbs are all tangled together. They're wrapped up in each other's smooth bodies. One is petting the other's bare thighs... and they're kissing.

They're kissing the way I used to kiss when I was young and in lust. They're kissing in a public park, right there for everyone to see. I used to do that, too, when I was young... and in lust... and in love.

There's something in the way they lunge at each other, devouring mouths, tongues, smashing their full lips and their tiny breasts together and running their hands through each other's hair that reminds me of my youth.

There are no subtle pecks, no flighty "because I have to" shows of pseudo-affection. These are unanticipated guerilla kisses. I can tell. It's like neither of these girls expects the kiss to happen until they're neck-deep in it.

Flash in the Pen is a steal. Grab your copy from:

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1136484?ref=GiselleRenardeErotica
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09V386YVS?tag=dondes-20

Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1613272990
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/flash-in-the-pen-24-extremely-short-erotic-stories-1
Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/flash-in-the-pen-giselle-renarde/1121921143

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=LPtiEAAAQBAJ

And here's the universal book link for additional retailers: http://books2read.com/FlashGiselle RenardeCanada just got hotter!

Sapphic Confessions: 24 Kinky Lesbian Sex Stories

Is your life lacking lesbians?  No?  Well, lucky you. Sheesh...

What I'm trying to say is that I've just re-published my book of lesbian letter-style erotica!  Sapphic Confessions: 24 Kinky Lesbian Sex Stories is just what it says on the box--two dozen tantalizing tales, available as a paperback, audiobook, hardcover and as an ebook!

I kissed a girl… and I didn’t stop there!

Twenty-four eye-opening lesbian tales so titillating you won’t be able to resist reading the next confession. Butches, femmes, chapstick lesbians, bisexual beauties, experienced older women and curious first-timers admit to their naughty deeds in this smoking-hot short story collection.

Bad girls get caught being naughty in church.
A bi femme gets spanked by a butch stranger in her pool’s sauna room.
An established couple hires a gorgeous girl for a first-time threesome.
A fiery motorcycle dyke makes a scene outside a lesbian nightclub.
An incorrigible house painter converts rich MILFs in their own homes.
Driving lessons get dirty on a dusty country road.

All this and so much more in Sapphic Confessions: 24 Kinky Lesbian Sex Stories!

From the story “Could Have Been Any Girl”:

“You gotta fuck me,” I growled, crawling from her arms.
Until she glanced at the group of dykes watching us kiss, I’d nearly forgotten we were on a city street.
“What, right here?” she asked. Her voice was squeaky and high, and she cleared her throat before saying, “We got an audience, babygirl.”
I didn’t care. I turned around, leaned against the brick wall, and spread my legs. “Fuck me. Hard.”
The dykes were all watching when my reluctant stranger shoved her hand between my thighs and shifted my thong out of the way. When the stiff night air kissed my cunt, I gasped. It felt so new to be exposed like this, out on the street before a group of gawking lesbians.
The stranger took her turn with me, and the moment those thick fingers slid inside my pussy I was a helpless.
“Yeah, fuck me,” I moaned, bucking back at her hand, making her fingers move hot and fast. “Harder!”

Get Sapphic Confessions now at...
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1135257?ref=GiselleRenardeErotica
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09TPLB8KH?tag=dondes-20

Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/x/id1612855251
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/sapphic-confessions-24-kinky-lesbian-sex-stories-3
Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940165799945

Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Sapphic-Confessions-Kinky-Lesbian-Stories/dp/1508881782/ref=dondes-20
Hardcover: https://www.amazon.com/Sapphic-Confessions-Kinky-Lesbian-Stories/dp/B097STDNKM

Audiobook also available! Look for it wherever you get your audiobooks!

Giselle RenardeCanada just got hotter!

ANAL ANGEL #Lesbian #Erotica has what you're looking for!

If you're like a lot of people, you found Donuts and Desires while doing a web search for lesbian ass-licking. It's always my most popular search term.

If you're here for butt-kissing lesbians, I've got great news for you: Anal Angel is my best lesbian anilingus story yet! Okay, I've only written three, but still...


Anal Angel: Lesbian Erotica by Giselle Renarde

Clarice has problems only Anal Angel can resolve. When she orders the tincture online, all she knows is that it’s gotten great reviews. She has no idea the product comes with an actual angel whose tongue can cure her most troubling ache.

Buy your copy today!

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1135031?ref=GiselleRenardeErotica

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09TRS7HMS?tag=dondes-20

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=aeZhEAAAQBAJ

BN: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/anal-angel-giselle-renarde/1141109359

Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1612751568

Look for my fun little sex story at your favourite ebook retailer! Note that you'll find this story titled "Licked by an Angel" at some online stores.Giselle RenardeCanada just got hotter!

The Price of a Good Cup of Coffee #Lesbian #Erotica #Romance #Audiobook

My cute little story The Price of a Good Cup of Coffee is now available as an audiobook. Enjoy!

How many girls fall in love with a pair of legs?

After a fleeting glimpse of Chaucer Girl’s woolly black tights, it takes linguistics major Evelina almost a year to track down their owner. How can she be sure Chaucer Girl is the same stunning young woman who works at the campus coffee shop? Maybe she’ll never know for sure, but when the doe-eyed barista offers her unspeakable delights across the coffee counter, how can she possibly say no?

A Short Lesbian Romance

Find it at Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/price-of-a-good-cup-of-coffee-the
Chirp: https://www.chirpbooks.com/audiobooks/the-price-of-a-good-cup-of-coffee-by-giselle-renarde
BingeBooks: https://bingebooks.com/book/the-price-of-a-good-cup-of-coffee
Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/559408578/The-Price-of-a-Good-Cup-of-Coffee-A-Short-Lesbian-Romance
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Giselle_Renarde_The_Price_of_a_Good_Cup_of_Coffee?id=AQAAAEB8HwFfbMGiselle RenardeCanada just got hotter!

Ondine la ballerine has returned!

My novella Ondine: A Tale of Art and Deception was originally published in 2008.  I mentioned the other day on Twitter that I remember shopping this book around for maybe a year or two, trying to sell it to any small press that would look at bisexual erotica.  

I can't tell you exactly how many times Ondine was rejected, but it felt like a lot--and it stung, because I was a new author.  

What I realize now, all these many year later, is how grateful I am to all the editors who rejected Ondine, because they helped me shape it into the much better novella it ultimately became.  My rejections were always accompanied by suggestions about how I could get the book to flow better, and how I could make it more satisfying for readers. I made a lot of changes before it became the book it was in its first edition.

And I've made even more changes since then. 

When I opened up the file to take what I thought would be an excruciating pass at it before republishing (the book was formerly published by Excessica), I realized I had actually done a pretty thorough overhaul a few years ago, before including it in a collection I was putting together.  This was a few years ago, but I'd completely forgotten all the work I'd done. So Ondine was actually in much better shape than I imagined.  

The editing process for this new edition was much easier and more enjoyable than I thought it would be. Ondine was the first thing I ever wrote that wasn't a short story, so I thought it would be terrible. It's not! It's a great little book, and the plot keeps you guessing.  

Ondine is back on the market, and I invite you to read it today! Available as an ebook and in print!

Novice painter Evelyn Fon gets more attention than she bargained for after receiving her first big commission with the brand new Drinkwater Hotel. Who would have guessed Gavin Drinkwater, heir to the family fortune, would take such a keen personal interest in her? 

But when Evelyn arrives at the hotel's elegant gala celebration, she soon discovers she's there as a date for Gavin Drinkwater Senior, her crush's elitist—albeit incredibly handsome—father!

In an attempt to escape the party, not to mention her embarrassment, Evelyn stumbles upon Gavin's mother, Imelda. Over a bottle of champagne, Imelda tells the tale of her torrid lesbian love affair with a young ballerina named Ondine. But, as Evelyn soon finds out from the Drinkwater patriarch, there's more deception to her love story than even Imelda is aware.

Can Evelyn uncover the truths buried in the past and reunite Gavin's estranged free-loving parents? And will her role in the drama earn her a place in the heart of the bashful heir?

A sensual journey through the worlds of ballet, art, and passionate liaisons, Ondine is a pansexual exploration wrapped in a boy-meets-girl tale of mix-ups and misunderstandings.

Ondine is available now from a number of ebook retailers, and coming soon to even more!
I always like to provide you with a few direct links, so here's where you can buy Ondine at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1134167?ref=GiselleRenardeErotica
and Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09T51YSVY?tag=dondes-20
and Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=7p5gEAAAQBAJ
and Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/ondine-16

and you can get the brand new HARDCOVER edition here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09T66C7MZ?tag=dondes-20 Giselle RenardeCanada just got hotter!

You're not going to screw yourself...

Note: This post was originally written in 2017.
A couple months ago, my mom bumped into a family friend she hadn't seen in a while. The friend asked, "What's Giselle up to these days?"

My mom proudly replied, "Giselle is a self-published author!"

When she told my sister and I this story, we burst out laughing.

My mom said, "What? Self-published--isn't that the good one?"

Classic Mom. My work has been published by imprints of Simon and Schuster, HarperCollins and even Oxford University Press, yet my mother goes around gleefully telling the world I'm a self-published author. "Isn't that the good one?"

Self-publishing has generally been more lucrative for me than placing my work with small presses. That's what my mom had latched onto, in conversation. My sister and I tried to explain the snobbery that still exists in the worlds of reading, writing, and publishing. If you go around saying you're a self-published author, most people hear "I suck and nobody's willing to publish my work."

I won't speculate as to whether I suck (my opinion of my writing varies with mood), but over the past 10 years my work has appeared in well over 100 print anthologies. That's in addition to ebooks placed at far too many small presses. I don't say any of this to brag, only to convey that I know for sure there are people out there who are willing to publish my work.

Or, there used to be.

So much has changed since I first started writing. Just today, I got word another anthology my short fiction was accepted for has been scrapped by the published. That's FIVE cancelled contracts this year.

As I've probably mentioned, I never set out to be a writer. I started writing on a dare. I'd just been laid off from my job in the big bad business world and was having a bit of a quarter-life crisis. I felt like I needed to pick a career and stick with it.

Ten years ago, I couldn't see this far into the future. I'd never have imagined I would self-publish my work. The erotica world seemed dominated by websites, magazines, smallish presses and largish presses. I wrote short stories to answer calls for submission. I'd never read an ebook, but I started writing them for small publishers. I'm not saying everything I wrote just magically got published. Trust me--I saw my share of rejection letters. My book Ondine was probably rejected by 6 different publishers. But it needed to be. I got great advice from some very caring editors and improved the book incrementally.

I'd only been writing a few years when author acquaintances started opening their own publishing houses catering to niche markets. I liked the idea of getting in on the ground floor (worked well for me with eXcessica), and I also wanted to support fellow authors who were beginning their own ventures. So I submitted a few works here, a few works there.

Pretty soon, I had ebooks (short stories/novels/novellas) placed with... oh, easily 20 different publishers.

That wasn't my first mistake, but it was probably my biggest.

I've never been an all-your-eggs-in-one-basket type, but Marge Simpson's got a good point when she says, "What would you have me do? One basket for each egg?"

There comes a point where the baskets themselves become too much to carry. In writing terms, how do you keep sending new work to 20 different publishers? If you slack, you're not going to satisfy fans at that publishing house. Putting out new stuff gets eyes on your backlist. Without those eyes, sales stagnate.

There was a point where I had a bunch of royalty cheques coming in for less than $10 each. And then less than $2 each. If I'd consolidated all those efforts with one publisher I really trusted, I think I'd have fared much better.

The trouble is, with the exception of a small handful of publishers, I wasn't working with people I had a lot of faith in. That's dangerous. Some publishers seemed to take their jobs less seriously than I took mine. That's extremely dangerous. That's when you get into publishers who don't bother to send you royalty reports. Or payments. Because they just don't feel like it or whatever.

One thing I've learned over the years is that you don't need to be good at business to run a business. Just because you've decided to become a publisher doesn't mean you're going to behave professionally. I've witnessed more than one publisher treat authors like shit behind the scenes. I had a reader email me one time to say they were having trouble downloading a book and when they wrote to the publisher, the response was basically, "Are you some kind of idiot? You're too stupid to figure out how to download a book?"

You think I'm exaggerating. I wish!

The real kicker was that this particular reader was also a well-respected book reviewer. Save me, Jebus.

When I first started out, I found publishers on the Erotica Readers and Writers Association website and then looked them up on Piers Anthony's site to find out all the dirt. Of course, I couldn't research the startups I hooked up with. They were too new. No data available.

I strongly encourage authors to do their research. Find out who you're getting into bed with. If you trust no one, get into bed with alone. Like Alison Tyler says: "You're not going to screw yourself." (that's not an exact quote, btw)

Wow, I sound really down on publishers. I'm not. I've found great success and incredible support with some. But not all. Most of the publishers I've worked with haven't been jerks. They've done their best, just like I've done mine, but the money wasn't there. Sales were crappy, so we parted ways. That's business.

I'm not sure what the takeaway is, here. Do your homework? Don't get into bed with acquaintances? Don't spread yourself too thin? I don't know. I still make too many mistakes to be giving anyone advice.

Giselle RenardeCanada just got hotter!

Handwritten Notes: Ondine

I'm in the process of republishing my billionaires and ballerinas book ONDINE, which was formerly published by Excessica.

Strangely enough, I just came across a few pieces of paper related to this book.

Here we have a first draft of the blurb I wrote in 2008, when ONDINE was originally published. 


And here are some notes I made while initially plotting ONDINE back in 2006. 

Ondine is currently available as an ebook from select retailers. In the next few days and weeks, you'll be able to find the ebook and print versions at a wide variety of retailers. Giselle RenardeCanada just got hotter!