Polly J. Adams's Blog, page 32

Where's your favourite erotica gone?

[View the story "Amazon's adult filter: erotica censorship by stealth?" on Storify]

Teaser: The Winner Takes It All, 1: Trading Down

Right now I'm working hard on the opener of a new erotic romance PJ Adams serial, and having great fun.

For the writers among you: you know those times when you craft a sentence and then you sit back and think that it's just perfect for those characters, for that story... that it sums up exactly what you're writing?

Here's one of those:

She leaned back, arching her spine, her head full of This is wrong... another mistake... you don’t know this guy but one of the few things you do know is that he’s trouble and the rest of her filled with I don’t care.

It may not make the final edit unscathed, but right now: this is the story I'm writing; this is the mood I'm writing.

All I want... more recommended new releases in erotica and erotic romance

Time for some more recommended new releases in erotica and erotic romance:
Bound to Him: The Billionaire's Beck and Call, Book 2 by Delilah Fawkes Amazon US - Amazon UKWho Killed Cole Custer in the Library with a Dildo? by Virginia Wade Amazon US - Amazon UKSunita and the Sharmas: seducing the Indian virgin babysitter by Rati Banerjee Amazon US - Amazon UKVirgin Sacrifice to the Minotaur by Raquel Rogue Amazon US - Amazon UK  Garage Gangbang (A Rough Reluctant Gangbang Sex Story) by Mercy Faulk Amazon US - Amazon UK  Cougar of the House by Cheri Verset Amazon US - Amazon UKAnything For Chocolate - A Billionaire's Deception (Bbw Bdsm Erotic Thriller) by Gretchen Lane Amazon US - Amazon UK  Traded at the Billionaires' Sex Club by Polly J Adams Amazon US - Amazon UKIsland Curves: a BBW romance by Virginia Wade Amazon US - Amazon UK  By Firelight by J Strickland Amazon US - Amazon UKFor more recommendations see the All I Want... erotica and erotic romance recommendations Facebook page - and don't forget to Like it, so we can spread the word!

Extract: The Other Woman (Tempted by a married man - an erotic romance by PJ Adams)

I never saw myself as the other woman. I always wanted to be the woman.The other woman made secret trips away. She arranged discreet rendezvous. She had seen the insides of far too many of those shabby little hotels in towns nobody would ever really want to visit, which is exactly why they were perfect. All too well, she knew those parties where they couldn’t be seen together, where all she could hope for was a glance across the room, maybe a discreet touch as they brushed past each other.My old friend Maggie Nolan’s book launch was the first time we’d been out together, fully in the public eye: me and Porter Swaine. The first time I had been the woman, and not just the other woman. It should have been more significant. It should have been a rite of passage. It should have felt as if I was growing up.But, if anything, it felt even more seedy than how things had been up until then.§Allow me to backtrack a little...Porter Swaine. Always the flash guy, the boy with the toys, the self-made man who liked to ruffle feathers. He was full of himself, distracted by his success, and when it came to women he had the willpower of a gnat. He was also – aren’t they always? – married.I knew all that before I’d even met him.He sounded like exactly my kind of man.§I didn’t set out to seduce him.But then I rarely do. Things just happen.Can I backtrack again? That makes me sound such a slut. But then, perhaps I am. In her eyes, at least. The wife. Mrs Rebecca Swaine.She must hate me, of course.She must have hated me even before she knew who I was, when I was still just a fragment of doubt in her mind; when I was no more than a few clues that finally gave substance to her fears.A blonde hair on the jacket (she’s blonde too, but more mousey, more drab).A smear of lipstick, perhaps; a trace of a scent she never used.A Porter-lie that didn’t quite tally with all the previous Porter-lies.Unexplained items on the credit card bill, or on the mobile phone bill (although Porter handled both of these online so there was no paper trail, no envelopes to open in his absence; he knew the ropes).Taken singly: none of these were conclusive.Taken together: me. Ellie Jordan. In my early twenties. Slim, blonde, perfect cheekbones, big blue eyes, perfect shape, legs to die for.I was Rebecca’s worst nightmare and her husband’s wet dream. Does that make me a slut?Oh well...(continues...)  
The third of four inter-locking tales of passion, risk and love: three women... one pivotal night... four temptations... Explicit erotic romance from the bestselling author of The Object of His Desire and The Wings of Desire.  

Note : it's fine to read the first three stories in this set in any order, but best to save the fourth until last.

Four Temptations 3: The Other Woman is available from:
Amazon US Amazon UK Barnes and Noble All Romance eBooks Smashwords

Calling it what it is (alpha male BDSM with anal, fellatio, gangbangs and virgin babysitters)

Well okay, this post isn't entirely about alpha male BDSM with anal, fellatio, gangbangs and virgin babysitters, so I'm breaking the first rule of the book-naming club: Call It What It Is.

More specifically, we're talking about finding the right title for erotic and erotic romance stories (although the principle that it's good if a title gives at least some indication of a book's contents does apply elsewhere). Erotic fiction (and, to a lesser extent, erotic romance) is different, when it comes to titles.

I've written here before about how difficult it can be to find your preferred flavour of adult reading, and one of the main reasons is that even though the genre is a big moneyspinner for ebook retailers, it's not one they like to brag about. So you get things like Amazon's very unevenly applied filtering, whereby some categories of erotica (apparently identified at random by monkeys sitting at computers and stabbing at the keys occasionally) get some of their books filtered, so that they won't show up in searches at all from the main part of the site. And then there's Barnes and Noble, who slap a thousand-rankings penalty on erotica titles that threaten to get too high in their charts. And Kobo who... oh, hang on a minute, Kobo's search sucks for all genres, not just erotica.

So while the retailers sell our stories, they try to make it so that readers have to seek them out. One of the long-standing complaints from erotica authors and readers is that most of the big retailers don't allow us to categorise beyond mere 'erotica' or 'erotic romance'. So books aimed at people who like to read about BDSM rub shoulders (or whatever) with gay cowboy stories, menage stories and just about every other kink you can imagine. It's like opening time at a jumble sale - not exactly designed to help you find what you want.

This is why the odd quirks of titling erotica have emerged.

Go to Amazon and search for "science fiction" and, at the time of writing, only one title in the first screen of results (16 books) has anything other than a conventional title (the title with maybe a subtitle, or a "book one in the X series"). The one exception on the list had made a rather half-hearted attempt at loading search-optimised keywords in its title: "Round Trip: A Contemporary Science Fiction Adventure (Sci Fi)" - the publisher has clearly tried to help this book show up in searches for "science fiction adventure", "science fiction" and "sci fi", but they're very competitive search terms, and the book's success probably has more to it than rather crude search engine optimisation.

In erotica we see something quite different. Search for anything a bit steamy and you start to see titles like "Veronica's Diaries 2 (Short Erotic Stories / Erotica / Bisexual / Lesbian / Oral Sex)" and "Hot For Teacher -- A BDSM Erotic Romance Story (Submission University #1)". The titles are long; they're often not really titles as we traditionally know them.

It's all about search engine optimisation. If the retailers won't help you find what you want, then it's down to you to find it yourself. Some people will only ever search for "sexy stories" and the like, and they'll find one Hell of a lot of sexy stories. Others have learned to refine their searches in order to find their particular flavour of erotica, and publishers have learned to seed their titles with juicy search bait. And so, readers looking for lesbian oral sex, or teacher BDSM will find results listings loaded with bloated titles containing exactly those words.

Some retailers' search engines are worse than others. Kobo, for instance, is not exactly a world leader when it comes to book searches, so you'll find some really convoluted titles there. They don't even allow publishers to attach search keywords to books behind the scenes, like you can at Amazon, so the title becomes one of the few ways to influence results. So a book of mine that is called, simply, "Three Times a Virgin" at Amazon, is called "Three Times a Virgin (an explicit adult story of double penetration)" at Kobo.

So what we're seeing is behaviour evolving to ensure that people can find what they really want to find, even when it's been hidden away.

Is this such a bad thing?

Well yes, I think it is. Yes, we can carry on playing tag with the retailers, but surely this unnecessary game is a clear indication that, when it comes down to it, customers' needs aren't being met?

In the age of Google-type intelligent search engines, publishers shouldn't have to play the kind of keyword-loading games websites played ten or fifteen years ago just to find their audiences.

And as a writer, I long for the day I can call a book something like New Tricks instead of Granny gets Gang-banged (senior sex, group sex, anal cream pie, toothless blowjob, at the University of Sluts). I really do.

Extract: Traded at the Billionaires' Sex Club (billionaire domination and submission erotica) by Polly J Adams

She's been recruited by a sex club for the super-wealthy; she's been used used, abused, chained and gagged; she's been put up for auction before some of the most powerful men in the world and bought by a Russian gangster who may just have a heart of gold...

Kate Vale didn't think the stakes could get any higher, but when when the world economy is threatened and billionaires risk losing everything: that's when she learns just how powerful love - and lust - can be.

Sequel to the popular Captive at the Billionaires' Sex Club and Bought and Sold at the Billionaires' Sex Club.


Extract:

Almost before I realized what was happening, the auction had been over and I was in a helicopter lifting away from that weatherboard mansion.

I sat up front with the Russian who, quite naturally, had taken the controls. Behind us, his two bodyguards, Andriy and Ruslan, sat impassively. There wasn’t much in the way of small talk, but I didn’t care, I just lost myself in the view as we flew down the length of Long Island to JFK.

I barely set foot on the ground when we reached the airport.

We landed, jumped out, walked a short distance across the tarmac and before I knew it I was settling into a luxurious seat in the Russian’s private eight-seater Learjet.

The Russian sat facing me and as the plane taxied, he leaned across the table between us, and took one of my hands between his. He had slender hands – I hadn’t noticed that before. Long, slim fingers and carefully manicured nails. “My dear Miss Vale,” he said, “Welcome to my world.” And with that, he dipped his head and kissed the back of my hand.

He’d done that the first time I met him, and it had distinguished him from all the other men at Stark’s club. A man who actually paid attention, a man with a sensitive side, a gentleman.

“When we have taken off,” he went on. “When it is safe for us to remove the safety belts... I would like to watch you with Andriy and Ruslan. I think they deserve a little treat, don’t you? I would like to watch you having a – what is it the English call it? – a ‘spit roast’. Yes, that is it, a spit roast with my two friends, yes?”

His tone was so kind and gentle.

“And after that we will eat, yes?”

§
As I say, I know I should have given some thought to what in Hell’s name I was doing somewhat sooner than I did, but hey, there was plenty of distraction.

Hard to think about anything much else when you’re on your hands and knees in the aisle of a small private jet, with your mouth stuffed full with the fattest cock you’ve ever encountered. A fist in my hair held my head steady while he thrust with a regular, metronomic precision. Each time he filled me throat-deep, my face came up against hard belly, a tangle of coarse black hair, and heavy balls that slapped against my chin. Each time he pulled away, I gasped for air, grinding the underside of that fat shaft with my tongue as it withdrew.

Hard to think any serious thoughts when, behind you, another guy is ramming hard into you, driving himself deep into your pussy, his grip like a metal vice around your waist. Each time he sunk himself as deep as he could go, he gave a soft grunt, his rhythm matching the thrusts of his partner into my throat.

Occasionally, as face-fucker withdrew, I caught glimpses of the Russian billionaire. He sat forward in his seat with his elbows on the table, his hands clasped as if in prayer. And he smiled. A strange smile, one that was impossible to read, and that was what – briefly – brought it home to me that these were foreigners, with strange ways and thoughts, and that I had somehow ended up in a very strange place indeed.

(continues...)

Available from:
Amazon USAmazon UKBarnes and Noble Kobo Smashwords

Extract: Words of Love (Tempted by an old flame - an erotic romance) - Four Temptations #2 by PJ Adams

I really should have known better. I’d be the first to admit that.

Doomed relationships? Volatile lovers who can never make things work together? So many fights the admittedly fantastic sex just isn’t enough in the end? Temptations that should really be ignored, because how could that particular relationship ever stand a chance?

Tell me about it.

I’ve been there, seen it all. Written the book and sold the movie.

And maybe that's the problem.

The second of four inter-locking tales of passion, risk and love: three women... one pivotal night... four temptations... Explicit erotic romance from the bestselling author of The Object of His Desire and The Wings of Desire. 

Note: it's fine to read the first three stories in this set in any order, but best to save the fourth until last.

Extract:

So... Brandon and his flirting. And he really was flirting.
“That scent,” he whispered in my ear as we chatted to another of Jimmy’s authors. “Didn’t I buy that for you?”
“It’s soap.”
It was actually Madame by John Paul Gaultier, and yes, Brandon had introduced me to it. Call me a heartless bitch, but I hadn’t seen any reason to dump the scent just because I’d dumped the man.
“It’s okay. I just needed an excuse to lean in close like this,” he said, leaning in close to whisper into my ear again, one hand resting briefly on the small of my back.
That was the moment...
Up until then I’d been vaguely amused by his behavior, but now... now I realized he might just be serious, and what’s more, I liked it.
Yes, I know, I should have known better than that. I write about this all the time: relationships that work and those that don’t. I think I’m a pretty good judge of this kind of thing, and Brandon and I was a thing that had had its chance and been found wanting.
But that touch, on the small of my back. The look in his eye when he met my surprised look. That leaning in to whisper in my ear thing.
God but that all worked for me!
It was the same old chemistry. It was why there had been a Brandon and me in the first place. It was–
They were talking, Brandon and the author whose name I suddenly didn’t care that I’d forgotten. Looking at me for a response. That was the second time this evening that I’d lost track of a conversation. So unlike me.
Brandon had taken his hand away and, more than anything else, I wanted his touch again. I needed it. There was no denying a feeling so strong, no amount of logic that would argue successfully against that kind of need.
He met my eye again, and it was clear that he knew it too.
He steered me away to one side of the room. “Maybe we should–”
“What?” I interrupted. “Slip away from here? Find somewhere private? Was it a knee-trembler or a quick blow-job you were after, Bran? You always were the big romantic.”
“You can be so cruel sometimes,” he said, a mock hurt look on his face. “I do love that about you.”
“You can be an incorrigible bastard,” I replied. “And I tell you, I’m not so in love with that about you.”
“That old chemistry, eh?”
“That’s one way to describe it.”
Funny how I could switch from feeling so hot for him that I really would have slipped away from the party to this: the kind of exchange that was stuck uncomfortably somewhere between joking and bickering. In our time together, that balance had steadily tipped until every exchange had at least an undertone of fight to it and now I was reminded of all that had been wrong about us.
The moment was gone.
It was stupid, and I knew it was stupid. Even to lapse for a minute and enjoy his attention. Stupid.

(continues...)

Four Temptations 2: Words of Love is available from:
Amazon US Amazon UK Barnes and Noble All Romance eBooks Smashwords

Too rude for iTunes? My bad...

So... three months ago I get this email:

Apple has rejected Captive at the Billionaires' Sex Club for the following reason:
--------------------
Objectionable Content
        Books must not present excessively objectionable or crude content.

This puzzled me. Yes, the book plays on fantasies of non-consensual sex. Hell, it has the word 'Captive' in the title, so it must be bad, right?

But the book had been published by all the other major distributors without problem, so why were Apple being so picky? Particularly when you see some of the titles that do get through (and no, I'm not going to name examples: good luck to the authors who get past the cock-blockers, as erotica writers have taken to calling these censors; I'm not going to risk blowing the whistle on anyone).

I discussed it with other authors, and identified what appeared to be the problem (Apple are notoriously unhelpful in explaining their decisions), and then wrote back:

I've spoken to a few fellow writers about this and our guess is that the problem is that the book description and one of the SEO key phrases refers to 'dubious consent'. This is a standard phrase used in many BDSM books and certainly isn't used in any way to try to justify non-consensual activities; it's just part of the fantasy - the stories in these two books are no more non-consensual than books like the Fifty Shades series.  

Yes, the book is very explicit, but I really don't think it's the kind of thing that warrants censorship. That was January. It took them three months to reply with the following message:


Objectionable Content
        Books must not present excessively objectionable or crude content.

 Apple has rejected Captive at the Billionaires' Sex Club for the following reason:
--------------------
Objectionable Content
        Books must not present excessively objectionable or crude content.

What was it I said about them being notoriously unhelpful in explaining their decisions? So here it is, banned by Apple, but available at all the other major ebook retailers:

Billionaires' Sex Club 1: Captive at the Billionaires' Sex Club

When Kate Vale decided to spend the summer as a waitress at parties for the super-rich, she knew she would be moving in circles she'd never encountered before - a completely different world.

It turned out to be a world she had never even dreamed about.

A world of depravity, of pure unbridled lust; a world of control and submission, of pleasure and pain, a world where the boundaries between the pleasure and the pain blurred, shifted, vanished.

That summer, she discovered a new Kate, one she’d never even known existed, one that would have shocked her rigid if she’d been aware of it before those few weeks working in the Hamptons.

That summer, she discovered the Billionaires’ Sex Club.

An explicit story of bondage, dubious consent, multiple partners and more from the bestselling author of Bad Again and Taken at the Club.

Read an extract.

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/captive-at-the-billionaires-sex-club-polly-j-adams/1112708157Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00938RJ3Q/ref=as_li_tf_tl?tag=pollyjadams-20Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00938RJ3Q/ref=nosim?tag=pollyjadams-21Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Captive-at-Billionaires-Sex-Club/book-FNb7QQ-6Okmy-Dm11XJzlQ/page1.html

Juicy erotic sentences: more sexy extractlets from novelines and samplesunday

For some time now, I've taken part in a couple of Twitter hashtag memes, #novelines and #samplesunday. The idea with both of these is that we tweet a teaser and a link to a book, in the hope that people will click through and maybe even buy the book.

It's actually quite a fun thing to do, spotting sentences that would work in this way. I've posted some of these before, and here are a few more.


"She woke with her head pounding, her mouth dry & a hard, twitching erection grinding against her."

"I like cock... is that bad?" Three Times a Virgin by @PollyJAdams

"...intensely aware that I was in a stranger's vast home, running from him, in high shoes and no panties"

"Penises come in many shapes and sizes, so I'd heard. That night, I think I saw them all."

"They tied me with silk scarves."

"Would anyone see if you reached down and squeezed yourself? Could you get away with that?"

"Do you think about me when you fuck Susannah?" - new erotic fiction from Polly J Adams

"Denial is no good when you're on your knees, his hands in your hair, holding you still..."

"Time has no meaning when you're in that position, when your body hurts from so much sex..."

"As my ex works Mel's clit with his tongue, I step into the room, close the door and approach."

"It was a nostalgia kiss. One that worked down my neck..."

"I was their captive. I was there for them to use and abuse."

"That summer, I discovered a new me... that summer, I discovered the Billionaires' Sex Club."

"...arms stretched above my head, cuffed to iron loops, my legs forced apart by a spreader bar..."

"It all started with a simple tweet: 'I need to be fucked.'" Flash Mob Gangbang by Polly J Adams

"It didn't seem at all incongruous that his trousers were open and his dick was in his hand"

Dogging Tales: real life dogging

I caught an episode of Channel 4's Dogging Tales on TV this week, and yes, I claimed it was 'research'.

I must say I was disappointed. I'd hoped for some decent analysis, some interesting interviews, some stories of real people that we could engage with.

Instead, it seemed that the whole thing had been composed and edited to make the doggers look like a bunch of sad, inarticulate losers, which is a shame. I wouldn't argue that dogging doesn't include its fair share of lonely, middle-aged men looking for a quick no-strings shag. Of course it does. And I wouldn't argue that dogging doesn't attract its fair share of people who are, not to put too fine a point on it, inadequate and desperate - if you can't pull when you go dogging you really do have problems.

But this series isn't going to show doggers in any other light. For starters, the show's producers very sensitively put the interviewees in half-face animal masks to protect their anonymity. Really? Are you seriously trying to tell me that these people wouldn't be instantly recognisable to anyone who even knew them in passing?

Being generous, perhaps this illusion of anonymity was there simply to allow the doggers to relax in front of the cameras, and not just to make them look stupid.

And, being generous, maybe the doggers really were all inarticulate and inadequate, and it wasn't the editing that made them look this way. Normally, when you edit an interview, you cut out all the hesitations, pauses and mumbled responses in order to boil the interview down to something shorter that gets the points across. So maybe all these long pauses and faltering responses really were the best bits of the raw interview footage, and weren't simply chosen to make the subjects look like they would struggle to find two brain cells to rub together.

And maybe I'm being unfair: maybe further episodes will show the intelligent, articulate, nice people who also live the swinging and dogging lifestyle.

Yeah. I did say I was being generous, didn't I? Which is one hell of a lot more than this shows producers were being.

Afterword:
I shouldn't grumble, really. If you search for 'dogging' on Amazon's books, my own Jenny Goes Dogging comes up at 5th in the US and 3rd in the UK, and sales have taken off in the UK. Maybe it's the Dogging Tales effect, who knows? But I can tell you one thing: not one of my characters is wearing a fucking owl mask!