Giselle Renarde's Blog, page 27

How To Get Out of Bed in the Morning

As you're probably aware, I am a very depressed person.

Last year, during all those Black Friday sales, I bought myself a tablet. I'm reluctantly dragging myself into the technology of today, I suppose.  Anyway, the only app I've installed so far is a mood tracker. It's been very useful in helping me check in with my emotions, but the reason I mention it is that after the first 14 days it was like "Hey, so... you're experiencing a severe depressive episode and you should contact a doctor and psychotherapist as soon as possible."

Funny, because my reaction was kind of like... you call THIS a severe depressive episode? Hang on to your hat, mood tracker!

Don't be too concerned about me--my mood has lifted significantly since then. And I'm going to tell you about one thing that's helped tremendously.

When I'm super-depressed, getting out of bed is a challenge. Big-time.  I wake up thinking "What's the point?"  And I often can't bring one to mind.

I recently read a book called UNCERTAINTY: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance. There were a few useful insights in there, most notably a description of something called Process Visualization.

With Process Visualization, instead of picturing yourself getting the thing you want (winning a race, landing that promotion, getting a million-dollar windfall), you envision yourself going through the steps it'll take get there toward a goal.

For me, the goal of every day is to get out of bed and do some work (writing during the day, recording audio at night, the business of being an author in between), so I visualize myself starting my day as follows:

I get out of bed, I brew a pot of tea, sit down with a cup and read for a while. After that, I go to my computer and work on my current book. When I've written a chapter, I reward myself by washing dishes (a bubble bath for your hands, as my old Girl Guides leader used to say).

You know what? The simple act of visualizing myself doing those tasks is enough to encourage me out of bed. Once I've pictured myself doing it, I have direction. I can get up because I know what I'm going to do.

If you have trouble getting out of bed, give Process Visualization a try. I hope it works for you as well as it has for me.Giselle Renarde
Canada just got hotter!

#Swinging and #Swapping #Erotica #Audiobook

Swinging and Swapping Erotica7 Explicit Sex Storiesby Giselle RenardeNarrated by Giselle Renarde
When one sex partner isn’t enough, it’s time to get swinging and swapping. In these seven stories, husbands share their wives with other men—and other women! Parties liven up when couples get wild. Bisexual roommates try a threesome. Anything can happen, and you’ll be amazed what does in Swinging and Swapping Erotica.

Included in this audiobook are the following short stories written and read by Giselle Renarde: The Couple with the Dragon Tattoo, Rainbow Night, Bisexual Roommate Butt Munch, One Wild Christmas Party, Separation Anxieties, Skyggen, and Wife Sandwich.

Mature Audiences Only.

Get the Swinging and Swapping Erotica audiobook from many online retailers, including iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/audiobook/swinging-and-swapping-erotica-7-explicit-sex-stories/id1449839310?mt=11&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Giselle_Renarde_Swinging_and_Swapping_Erotica?id=AQAAAEBMi0vLFM&hl=en

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/swinging-and-swapping-erotica

Audiobooks.com: https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/swinging-and-swapping-erotica-7-explicit-sex-stories/367908

This isn't an exhaustive list of links. The audiobook is also available from many other retailers and subscription services!Giselle Renarde
Canada just got hotter!

Smashwords Read an Ebook Week Sale! March 3, 2019 - March 9, 2019

It's that time of year! Stock up on all those books you've been coveting during the Smashwords Read an Ebook Week Sale, March 3, 2019 - March 9, 2019!

The vast majority of my books are 50% off this week, including classic works and newer ones such as:











Find more books from me and my little Lexi at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/GiselleRenardeErotica/authors#publishedGiselle Renarde
Canada just got hotter!

Mercy is Now an #Audiobook! #adultery #erotica

Mercy Sex with an Ex for Money by Giselle RenardeNarrated by Giselle Renarde
By twenty-three, Mercy had realized she wasn’t the only girl in the world to sleep with an older man—a married man. When she meets Simon by chance after they’ve parted ways, he’s still married. She’s engaged. He still wants her. She’s not so sure… until he offers her cold hard cash.

Join Mercy as she sells sex to an ex in five erotic stories by award-winning author Giselle Renarde.

This audiobook can be found at so many retailers it'll make your head spin.
Take your pick!

Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/B07N6PNNK4/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-141246&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_141246_rh_us

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/audiobook/mercy-sex-with-an-ex-for-money-unabridged/id1451376511?mt=11&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Giselle_Renarde_Mercy?id=AQAAAEBMOzN7bM&hl=en

Nook: https://www.nookaudiobooks.com/audiobook/1001680/mercy

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/mercy-101

Audiobooks.com: https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/mercy-sex-with-an-ex-for-money/368727

Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/397823458/Mercy-Sex-with-an-Ex-for-Money


Giselle Renarde
Canada just got hotter!

A Tragic Coolness Playlist

Music is my lifeline. That's one big reason I make playlists to accompany some of my books. I've done it for my novels In Shadow, Cherry, and now Tragic Coolness.

Tragic Coolness is a story about unrequited love. It's based on my favourite opera, Eugene Onegin.

A girl falls instantly in love with a guy, but she's horribly rejected by him. Years later he decides he can't live without her.  By then, she's married and she's got kids and she's happy... or, at least, she claims to be.

I had to listen to a lot of break-up albums to compile this playlist, so I hope you'll have a listen. It's intended to accompany the book, so I guess you'll need a copy.

Here are some places where you can buy Tragic Coolness.
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/901726?ref=GiselleRenardeErotica
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JHW2Q2V?tag=dondes-20
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=NNpyDwAAQBAJ
BN: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tragic-coolness-giselle-renarde/1129759465
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/tragic-coolness
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1439408697

Where can you find the Tragic Coolness playlist?Right here:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBo2GKvlzg5Kgx6xEbEIdDDAVdyKwoLV9
Music is very meaningful to me, and creating these playlists makes me feel closer to you. I do hope you'll enjoy the songs I've selected to accompany my book Tragic Coolness.Giselle Renarde
Canada just got hotter!

Skyggen, the Shadow Woman #Paranormal #Erotica #Audiobook

Skyggen, the Shadow Woman
A Paranormal Erotic Romance Story
Written and Read by Giselle Renarde

There's nothing like a holiday to escape urban anxieties. Little does Mirjam know she lost something essential during her stay at a rustic vacation villa--she lost her shadow. When she returns home without her shadow side, Mirjam can no longer cope with everyday pressures. Life becomes very shabby until a flamboyant woman crashes through the door. It's Skyggen, her lost shadow, now engaged to marry a very wealthy man. In Skyggen's presence, Mirjam rediscovers her capacity for jealousy and duplicitous behaviour. Perhaps she can even win back what is rightfully hers...

For Mature Audiences.

Get your ears on Skyggen now from Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Giselle_Renarde_Skyggen_the_Shadow_Woman?id=AQAAAEBMCGVIOM&hl=en
Nook: https://www.nookaudiobooks.com/audiobook/251846/skyggen-the-shadow-woman
Audiobooks.com: https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/skyggen-the-shadow-woman-a-paranormal-erotic-romance-story/358719
Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/390240285/Skyggen-the-Shadow-Woman-A-Paranormal-Erotic-Romance-StoryGiselle Renarde
Canada just got hotter!

New #Bisexual Fiction: Pie Girls and the Very Lonely Man

Feels like I haven't written a book in forever, even though I have. Tragic Coolness was released not too long ago. But that was an adaptation (of an opera) and it also wasn't erotica.

My new erotic novella Pie Girls and the Very Lonely Man feels... I don't know... bouncy and fresh?  Which is weird, because it describes a lot of death and cheating and loss.  Just in a fresh and bouncy way.

I also feel like I've gone back to my roots with this one. I just wrote it the way it came to me. I wasn't concerned about what anyone might think--of the characters, of their adultery, of a wife seducing a man she barely knows while her spouse is asleep in the next room.

I didn't care what anyone might think of me for writing this.

I was grieving very deeply when I wrote this book, and I didn't care about anything except listening to what my brain was telling me to write and getting it all down before the sweet essence of the book could slip away.

And there is a special sweetness at the core of PIE GIRLS. I can't call it a romance, since it involves so damn much adultery, but I will tell you that I find it romantic, especially when you consider that everyone ends up happy by the close of the book.

If you like my classic repertoire, I know you'll like PIE GIRLS.  This one takes me back to my early days of writing, when I had no awareness of "the market", when I was just writing what I wanted to write.

PIE GIRLS AND THE VERY LONELY MAN is bisexual fiction. It's erotica. It's a depressed-people comedy with a satisfying HEA for two girls and a guy. Who should read it? Anyone looking for a bit of a pick-me-up. It's fun (in my opinion), and it's got heart.

Pie Girls and the Very Lonely Man
Adult Fiction by Giselle Renarde

When Butler meets a retro rockabilly pie shop owner, the last thing he expects is that she’ll try to seduce him. No, scratch that. The last thing he expects is for the pie girl’s wife to walk in on them! When the pie girls invite him to stay at their house, a visit to a lonely small town grows into the kind of adventure Butler wouldn’t have dreamed up in his wildest fantasies. Can a lonely man live in a dream?

Buy the book from the retailer of your choosing, including...
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/920415?ref=GiselleRenardeErotica
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=l3-FDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N7BJ8PL?tag=dondes-20
BN: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pie-girls-and-the-very-lonely-man-giselle-renarde/1130417118
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/pie-girls-and-the-very-lonely-man
...and many other ebook stores!Giselle Renarde
Canada just got hotter!

Excitica has closed its doors and this sucks for everyone.

You know how everything is terrible? Well, here's more terrible to add to the list.

If you check out Excitica's storefront, here's what you'll see:

It is with great sadness that we have to announce that Excitica will be closing our doors, effective immediately.

Unfortunately, we are unable to continue providing you with the stories and books you love in the current climate due to strict payment processing standards holding us hostage. We have attempted to fight this form of censorship to no avail. We will be paying all publishers and authors royalties owed to them. We apologize for this lost opportunity and regret that we won’t be able to continue our relationship.

Readers, please download your purchases before Friday, February 8, 2019. Thank you all for your support through the years.

In case you're not familiar with Excitica, it was the erotica ebook store Selena Kitt created when other ebook retailers started removing tons of erotic stories and books from their shelves--particularly taboo erotica, dubcon, noncon, hardcore BDSM, and whatever else the retailer deemed offensive.



Selena created Excitica so independent authors/publishers like you(?) and me could get our work out into the world, like the internet gods intended.

I'm gutted that Selena's had to close Excitica's doors. I've been working with her for more than a decade and I love her like family. She has done so ridiculously much to help other authors, building co-ops and websites that would benefits erotica readers and writers alike. Trust me, she has been fighting the powers that be for years any time our books have come under fire. She's the one who's always gone to bat for all of us. I could never do what she's done, for myself much less for erotica authors as a whole.

Erotica's always had a bad rap, and it takes a strong leader to create spaces for readers who read it and writers to write it. Selena's been that leader for more than a decade. She's done her damnedest, and I can only thank her for her efforts.

I can't fault Selena for the closure of Excitica. I can only praise her for building it in the first place.

But Excitica's closure does not bode well for those of us who read and/or write erotica. It doesn't leave us many retailers to purchase from or publish at. The only ebook retailer (that springs to mind) that continues to allow taboo content is Smashwords, and I thank the many, many readers who continue to purchase my work and Lexi's from that source.Giselle Renarde
Canada just got hotter!

A Tale of Three #Taboo #Erotica #Anthologies, or Testing the KU Waters in 2019

In case you haven't heard about Lexi Wood, she's the sock puppet who lives in my apartment and writes taboo erotica for me to publish.

Two years ago, Lexi wrote 6 brand new, never-before-published stories about stepdaddies and stepdaughters doing the nasty. Usually I publish Lexi's stories individually, but since I had 6 in my possession that had not yet been published wide, I figured I'd bundle them together and introduce them to Kindle Unlimited for 90 days.

I'm not sure why I made the decision to put New Taboo Erotica in Kindle Unlimited. I almost never put anything in KU, seeing as I have a monstrous fear of commitment--so much so that being exclusive to one retailer even for 90 days makes me jittery.

But I made the decision, and, boy, was I glad!

As an author, as a business, as an author-business, I generally rely on a long tail of sales to earn my income. We're talking mediocre-to-poor sales spread out over years, even decades. That's how I operate. I view every book I write as a long-term investment.  I don't expect it to earn its keep within a week of being published, or even within the initial 90 days. If I had a baby (highly unlikely), I wouldn't expect it to walk and talk at 3 months. I view my books in the same way.  At 90 days, they're still infants.

That's how I operate. I don't have monumental expectations of anything I publish.

So when New Taboo Erotica brought home the bacon, I was blown away.  Truly.  I don't think any other book I've written has paid my rent in the first month of its existence. I know there are a lot of authors who rely on new release income spikes, but I'm not one of them.

New Taboo Erotica felt like a boon, and the results came as a big surprise.

Still, by the end of that 90 day exclusivity period, pagereads had trickled off, so I took the book out of KU and sent it out into the wilds of the big wide world.

The next year, I decided I would do it all over again.

I didn't see any reason why lightning wouldn't strike twice.

Except that Amazon's algorithms seem to change on almost a weekly basis, and you can never expect the same thing to work from month to month, much less year to year...

At any rate, I instructed Lexi to write 6 more brand new taboo erotica stories.  I bundled them together, called them New Taboo Smut, and published them into KU last winter.

It was a total flop.

I'd tried to replicate my initial success using the same steps, the same template, the same theme, the same author... and the result was utter and dismal failure.

What a let-down.

So why on earth would I try it again this year?

Well, I didn't actually plan this.  I'll start by saying that.

November was National Novel Writing Month. I planned to... you know... work on a novel. But then my grandmother died, and I was still reeling from the tragic death of my cousin last summer, and grief sent me spiraling.

Most unexpectedly, it was Lexi who saved me.  She took over, planting herself at my computer and spewing out story after nasty, taboo story.  She was uncontrollable! She'd finish one story and immediately start on the next.  She'd have two on the go simultaneously.  It was wild.

What we ended up with were 6 brand new taboo erotica stories. And these ones were themed: sex-with-an-ex. How can a stepfather and stepdaughter also be exes?  Well, you'll obviously have to read these six stories to find out.

With these 6 previously unpublished stories at my disposal, and at the same time of year I'd published New Taboo Erotica and New Taboo Smut, it seemed only natural to continue my KU experiment.  Well, it wasn't an experiment the first two times, but it is now.  As much as I distrust and dislike KU, curiosity got the best of me.  I NEED to find out what will happen in 2019, on my third attempt to publish a bundle of 6 new taboo erotica stories by Lexi Wood.

The book is called Taboo Sex with an Ex.  Will it be a huge success?  I doubt it.  Will it be a dismal failure?  Probably!  Don't you love my optimism?  Hey, I'm a realist.  Everything seems to be tanking these days.

But I'm giving Taboo Sex with an Ex the opportunity to succeed in its initial 90 days.  Lexi's stories are scorching, they really are.  She writes dirty stuff.

If you're into dirty stuff--especially dirty stuff with a daddy fetish and a focus on the tension that exists between ex-lovers--you're going to want to read this collection. And I don't just say that because I want your sweet, sweet KU pagereads... although that's definitely part of it. These stories deserve to be read. They're trash in the best sense of the word.  They're filthy, forbidden garbage stories that will get you off just like they got me through a period of intense grief.

They're just that good.

Am I skewing the results of my KU experiment by asking you to read Taboo Sex with an Ex? Maybe. But it doesn't matter. This isn't real science. It's just me and Lexi, earning a living with our sex writings.

Read it Taboo Sex with an Ex today:

Taboo Sex with an Ex
6 Explicit Erotica Stories
By Lexi Wood

These girls love taboo sex so much they just keep coming back for more… even though they know they shouldn’t… even though they said they wouldn’t! In this mouth-watering collection of sinful smut, six young women return to strictly forbidden men to fill their needs as only the man of the house can. They shouldn’t have done it in the first time. They shouldn’t come back for seconds. But here they are, pretty and purring and ready for more!

US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MLW8Z3F?tag=dondes-20
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07MLW8Z3F
CAN: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07MLW8Z3F
AUS: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07MLW8Z3FGiselle Renarde
Canada just got hotter!

One Wild Christmas Party #Swinging #Swapping #Erotica #Audiobook

Christmas is over for many of us, but for some of you excessively jolly folks, the festive season never ends.

If this is the case for you, or you just don't want to let go of the holidays quite yet, why not have a listen to the audio version of my story ONE WILD CHRISTMAS PARTY?

This story was originally published in a print anthology as HEAD TO MISTLETOE, but when I did the audio version I wanted a more in-your-face title, or at least one that was a bit more keyword-y.

Swinging, swapping, spankings and novelty undies! This year, Ravinia's Christmas party is the hottest ticket in town.

Listen to ONE WILD CHRISTMAS PARTY, written and read by me, by following one of these links or finding the audiobook at some other retailer or subscription service (you should be able to find this baby all over the damn place)...

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Giselle_Renarde_One_Wild_Christmas_Party?id=AQAAAEBM7HSsKM&hl=en
Nook: https://www.nookaudiobooks.com/audiobook/257509/one-wild-christmas-party
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/one-wild-christmas-party
Audiobooks.com: https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/one-wild-christmas-party-group-sex-erotica/361298
Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/392718825/One-Wild-Christmas-Party-Group-Sex-EroticaGiselle Renarde
Canada just got hotter!