Cecilia Tan's Blog, page 34

SLOW SURRENDER is now up to #61 on the Amazon Erotica bestseller list!

Eeeee! The book keeps climbing slowwwwly up the chart! Now up to number 61!

Slow Surrender on an Amazon bestseller list!

So if you’ve been following any of my social media, you probably know that about a month ago, my BDSM erotic romance novel, SLOW SURRENDER, was published by Hachette/Grand Central Publishing in ebook form (with paperback to follow in August).

Today I checked the book’s Amazon page for new reviews and noticed not only had the book’s overall Amazon ranking gone up, the book has climbed its way onto the Kindle Erotica bestsellers list! It was at #79 of the top 100 when I looked. If you’re curious, this is what that looks like: (you can’t hear me squeeeing very loudly, you can just look…)

I noticed it on the book’s page itself, right under where the rank number appears in the “Product Description”. The first book I had get onto one of these Top 100 lists was Daron’s Guitar Chronicles, but that one jumped up because it was being given away free, so it was on the Free side of the list (the righthand side of the list), whereas this is the first thing I’ve seen on the PAID side of the list for me! (The left.)

Here’s a screencap from the page, just cuz I’m that excited about it:

I have no idea if it will keep climbing or if it will drop off, but if you’ve been meaning to download the ebook anyway, now might be a great time to help it climb?

If anyone sees it go higher in either overall ranking or in the bestseller lists, please grab a screencap for me?

Finalists Announced for the 2012 NLA-I Writing Awards

As many of you know, I’ve been involved with the National Leather Association for decades, won their Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004, and my book The Prince’s Boy received honorary mention in the NLA:I Writing Awards in 2011.

The NLA:I Writing Awards recognize great writing about BDSM in five categories: short story, novel, non-fiction book, anthology, and non-fiction article. No, I’m not nominated for anything this year (though I’ll be sending them Slow Surrender for the next year!), but here is the list of nominees to celebrate! OMG so many great writers! Congrats to the finalists and good luck! (Announcement of the winners will be made at Tribal Fire, May 3-5.)

See complete press release under the cut!

FINALISTS ANNOUNCED FOR 2012 NLA-I WRITING AWARDS

(Columbus, OH) — National Leather Association: International (NLA-I), a leading organization for activists in the pansexual SM/leather/fetish community, announced today the finalists for its annual writing awards. Named after activists and writers Geoff Mains, John Preston, Pauline Reage, Cynthia Slater, and the groundbreaking organization Samois, they are awarded annually to recognize excellence in writing and publishing about Leather, SM, bondage and fetishes.

The finalists for the Cynthia Slater Non-fiction Article Award are:
“Civility Revisited” by Kassie (Leatherati.com)
“Rogue Leatherwomen” by Leland Carina (Leatherati.com)
“Stop, Drop and Role! Erotic Role Playing” by Mollena Williams (The Ultimate Guide to Kink: BDSM, Role Play and the Erotic Edge)
“Digging in the Dirt – The Lure of Taboo Role Play” by Mollena Williams (The Ultimate Guide to Kink: BDSM, Role Play and the Erotic Edge)
“On Collars And Closure and Owning Myself” by Mollena Williams (The Perverted Negress)

The finalists for the Geoff Mains Non-fiction Book Award are:
Twenty-Five Years of Living in Leather: The National Leather Association, 1986-2011 by Steve Stein (Adynaton Publishing)
The Ritual of Dominance & Submission: A Guide to High Protocol Dominance & Submission by David English
Playing Well With Others: Your Field Guide to Discovering, Exploring and Navigating the Kink, Leather and BDSM Communities by Lee Harrington and Mollena Williams (Greenery Press)
The Ultimate Guide to Kink by Tristan Taormino, ed. (Cleis Press)
Sexual Outsiders: Understanding BDSM Sexualities and Communities by David Ortmann, LCSW and Richard Sprott, PhD

The finalists for the Pauline Reage Novel Award are:
The Masters of Falcon’s Fantasies by Cassidy Browning & Reggie Alexander (Siren Publishing)
Power Exchange by A. J. Rose (Voodoo Lily Press)
The Portrait by L. M. Somerton (Total-E-Bound)
Eve Portrait of Submission by Steve Maser (Pink Flamingo Publications
Beyond the Edge by Elizabeth Lister (MLR Press)
A Forbidden Love by Lee Dorsey (Pink Flamingo Publications)

The finalists for the Samois Anthology Award are:
Bound by lust: Romantic stories of submission and sensuality, ed. Shanna Germaine (Cleis Press)
Cheeky spanking stories, ed. Rachel Kramer Bussel (Cleis Press)
Luscious: Stories of anal eroticism, ed. Alison Tyler (Cleis Press
Whatever Lola Wants (and Other Wicked Tales), ed. Wes Royal (FDC Publication
LIPSTICK LOVERS, ed. Elizabeth Coldwell (Xcite Books)

The finalists for the John Preston Short Story Award are:
“The Greener Grasses” by M. Christian, from “STROKE THE FIRE: The Best ManLove Fiction of M. Christian” (Renaissance E Books/Sizzler Editions)
“Christmas Comes to Otters’ Gap” by Jeff Mann, from “The Dirty Diner” (Bold Strokes Books)
“Wild Like Honey” by Angel Propps, from “Dangerous Curves” (Ravenous Romance
“Muriel” by Annie Cox (Pink Flamingo Press)
“’Aunt’ Grace” by I.G. Frederick & Patrick (Smashwords Edition)

The winners will be announced at the National Leather Association’s Annual General Meeting, which will be held during Tribal Fire on May 3-5, 2013 in Oklahoma City, OK. For more information on the AGM or Tribal Fire please go to http://www.tribalfireokc.com/

For more information about the awards, please contact the award committee chair, pyxy, at nlai.awards@gmail.com

Missed my BDSM romance chats? Watch the video archives!

Part One of my SLOW SURRENDER video chat from tonight is now on Youtube! (If you just want to see the erotica reading part, skip to 25:10 or so…)

After the first hour was done, we switched to uStream for Part Two. The erotic reading starts around 16:00. (I am getting an odd thing where sometimes I get the sound for this video, and sometimes it cuts out? It’s definitely there!)

Video streaming by Ustream

I will live chat Monday 8p-10p Eastern! On The Internetz!

SLOW SURRENDER Book Launch Chat!

Monday, March 11 8pm – 10pm Eastern

Join me to celebrate the launch of my latest erotic romance novel, Slow Surrender, which had its ebook release this past Tuesday! Slow Surrender is the first in a trilogy being published by Hachette Book Group/Grand Central Publishing in their Forever imprint. The ebook is out now, and a paperback is slated to follow on August 6.

For this online chat I will split it into two parts! From 8-9pm I will do it via Google Hangout, and then from 9-10pm we’ll stream on uStream! More details below the cut.

To participate in actually chatting with me live in the Google Hangout you must be on G+ (and be tech equipped with mic and camera), whereas on uStream comments and questions will be sent to me via the text chat window on the uStream site. My uStream channel is here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/cecilia... and my Google+ profile name is ctan.writer.

To submit a question to be asked during either of the chats, please comment with your question here or email it to me at ctan.writer @ gmail.com!

And if you can’t be in the chats but want to know more about the book, I’ve got a sample chapter and a half up on my website (http://blog.ceciliatan.com/?page_id=1173) and the ebook is on sale now at Amazon.com, B&N Nookstore, Google Play, pretty much everywhere ebooks are sold.

SLOW SURRENDER is my answer to 50 Shades of Grey. For all the people who read 50 Shades and were disappointed because the books actually aren’t very kinky and they get less so as they go on. In my books, the more in love the couple get, the kinkier and more intense the BDSM gets!

WHERE TO BUY

Hachette’s web site
Amazon.com
B&N Nookstore
Google Play
Ebooks.com

Slow Surrender: Video Tour of Manhattan at Night

In the free sample of Slow Surrender (my erotic romance novel just published by Hachette/GCP/Forever Yours) I posted to my website earlier, at one point our female main character, Karina Casper, is walking from the bar where she works and talking to our male main character on the phone.

Wait, you haven’t read the sample? It’s HERE so read it and then come back.

Okay, as I was saying, in the opening chapter, it is the night of a huge concert at Madison Square Garden and although the show is long since over, the area around the Garden is congested with crazed fans of Lord Lightning blocking the streets. I thought readers might enjoy seeing what that area is like in this video tour. (There’s also a photo slideshow below the cut for those of you who don’t do streaming video…)

From the book: “The Seventh Avenue sidewalk was crowded with concertgoers and roving packs of glam rockers, even though the concert was long over.”

Let’s see what that sidewalk looks like…

“Normally I’d go over to 34th to walk on the busier—and therefore safer—street, but right then I was too mad to care. I turned and stalked for half a block on 32nd Street, fuming.”

Continuing our tour in Karina’s footsteps, she goes up 32nd Street.

As she is walking, Karina calls her mystery man on the phone. And he asks:

“Your shift is over?”

“Very over,” I said with some vehemence. “I quit.”

“I see. Well, where are you now? Sounds like you’re outdoors.”

“I am. Thirty-Second Street, just west of Sixth.”

“The north side of the street?”

“Yeah, the mall side.”

This, of course, is just before the real fun begins!

When he directs her to continue:

“Walk around the block.”

“Which direction?”

“So that the car may follow you, of course. Go up to Sixth and turn left.”

I started to walk. I was wearing a stained shirt, black jeans, and my clunky black work shoes, but I felt like I was in stilettos and a miniskirt. I was completely slippery down below, and I could feel his eyes on me as I walked.

I turned the next corner heading back toward the Garden and could hear the engine hum as the car followed around the turn.

Suddenly his voice was sharp. “No, don’t.”

He is so entranced by her and she is so distracted by how aroused the kinky game they are playing has made her that they don’t realize until she turns the next corner that if they keep going, oops, they’ll run right into the roving hordes of fans. What to do, what to do? That’s when Karina gets into the car.

By the way, I couldn’t help but notice the following at the Manhattan Mall, the windows right where I was filming were a quite kink-fetish-BDSM-like display! Over the door of that entrance was a huge Victoria’s Secret sign, but the mannikins in the window of the store on that level (Express) were wearing leather-cuff style high heels, chain collars, and the like! Coincidence? Well, yes, and yet… check this out.

Hope you enjoyed this little tour of the real world my book takes place in!

WHERE TO BUY Slow Surrender

Hachette’s web site
Amazon.com
B&N Nookstore
Google Play
Ebooks.com

Released March 5, 2013 in ebook from Hachette/Grand Central Publishing/Forever. (Paperback forthcoming August 6, 2013.)

Streaming video chats: advice? ideas?

So, Slow Surrender is going live this coming week, and I’m trying to get my act together on an online chat. Should I do it with Google Hangouts, Livestream, uStream, or a service like Shindig?

Shindig is offering to host me, but my publicist says they’ve been disappointed so far with the technology not working as well as needed, and suggested Google Hangouts instead. I did a Google Hangout last year when the Daron Kickstarter was going, and only had a few people there “live” but a lot of people watched the video later. We’ve done a few for writers groups, though, and sometimes it’s very buggy. So I’m not sure on a Google hangout either.

Livestream and uStream both seem pretty reliable but for people to “chat” with me they’d have to type in their questions to an IM window rather than it being live video. OTOH, maybe for an erotic book that’s preferable? Thoughts? Ideas? Advice?

Come see me in NYC this Friday!

I’m coming to New York City Friday to read in the Between the Covers erotic romance reading series!

7pm – 10pm, at Happy Endings Lounge (302 Broome Street, NYC)

Admission is free and the cocktails are plentiful.

This particular reading night is for the release of ENTWINED, the “choose your own” erotic romance I was a part of published by Coliloquy. As you might have predicted, I wrote the male dom/female sub BDSM branch of the book, while my colleagues explored various other choices for the heroine! (In fact, if you want to write your OWN ending, Coliloquy has a fan site where you can do just that! www.entwinederotica.com)

We readers will each be giving away all kinds of goodies. As my contribution includes a scene in which the protagonists visit Ireland and sip tea while negotiating their way to a climactic erotic encounter, I’ll be contributing some Irish tea. :-)

I’ll also have samplers on CD of my upcoming erotic romance series, the Struck by Lightning series, the first book of which (SLOW SURRENDER) is being released in ebook NEXT WEEK! It goes live March 5. If you want to pre-order it in ebook or paperback, here are some useful links: Amazon, B&N Nookstore, Ebooks.com. (Paperback coming in August.)

New life for some classic 90s lesbian science fiction

Two anthologies I edited for Circlet Press in the nineties are getting new life in the world of ebooks. Instead of just doing ebook “replica” editions through circlet.com, on Stars Inside Her and Worlds of Women I licensed them to Riverdale Avenue Books/Magnus to be done as an omnibus.

More info is below, but the main thing is that I need help finding all the original authors. The book is out, which means by the end of the year I’ll have royalties to send to them. A number of them have lost touch, though. Has anyone seen Kitty Tsui in the past decade? If you’re in either book or know someone who is, please email me at ctan.writer AT gmail DOT com! Writing checks to writers is one of my favorite things ever.

Best-selling author Dorothy Allison said of WORLDS OF WOMEN:

“Circlet Press is where I go to find fresh, authentic women’s writing. Cecilia Tan puts together some of the most honest and genuinely provocative new work [with] erotica science fiction and fantasy. I strongly recommend you check out WORLDS OF WOMEN.”

More details under the cut:

Riverdale Avenue Books/Magnus is thrilled to be publishing THE CIRCLET TREASURY OF LESBIAN EROTIC SCIENCE FICTION, an outstanding collection of lesbian erotic science fiction and fantasy! (Kindle version $9.99 and book version $19.95.)

This new anthology, edited by Cecilia Tan (founder of Circlet Press), showcases the imaginations of women writers as they take their readers to faraway planets and erotic futures while immersing them in sensual fairy tales. These stories are celebrations of sexuality and each unique voice explores what it means to be a woman who loves women.

ABOUT CECILIA TAN AND CIRCLET:

Cecilia Tan founded Circlet Press in 1992 to publish erotic science fiction and fantasy because no other publisher would. Two decades later both Tan and Circlet are going strong in the world of passionate fiction. Tan is the author of numerous romance novels and books of erotica, and in 2010 was inducted into the Saints & Sinners GLBT Writers Hall of Fame. Circlet Press’s titles have been recipients of multiple Rainbow Awards and NLA Writing Awards, and have been multiple finalists in the Lambda Literary Awards and Independent Publisher Awards.

RAB publisher Lori Perkins says: “We are so pleased to be adding this collection of science fiction and fantasy lesbian stories to the Magnus/RAB list and showcasing the creativity of this genre in the LGBT world.”

Where to find the book:

Amazon.com

All Romance Ebooks

Riverdale Avenue Books site

And just about everywhere else ebooks are sold…

The Next Big Thing

So, I’m “interviewed” below as part of a blogroll going on among writers all over the Internet, wherein I have been “tagged” with these questions by the writer before me in the chain, Jason Rubis (read his Big Thing answers), who in turn was tagged by M. Christian (his Big Thing here), and on back through Lucy Taylor, John Everson, and on… (I’m not sure who actually started this thing…)

So, herewith, I talk about my “Next Big Thing,” i.e. the really big book that has been eating my brain and heart since last summer.

1) What is the working title of your book?



SLOW SURRENDER. It’s no longer a “working title” because the publisher (Grand Central Publishing, a part of Hachette) already has it up for pre-order, and I have the cover design, too! (Let’s see if I can get the image to appear here… at left…)

It’s the first book of a BDSM romance “trilogy” that will include 1: Slow Surrender, 2: Slow Seduction, and 3: Slow Satisfaction.

2)Where did the idea for the book come from?

I had been playing with some ideas in my head about dominant men and submissive women. I used to write that pairing often, but in recent years I’ve been writing so much more male/male, and so many lesbian and transgender characters that it had been a while since I wrote an actual heterosexual couple. One day my agent called and said “Did you see 50 Shades of Grey is in the New York Times?” She basically said: write that BDSM book and write it NOW. So I wrote three chapters that weekend and sent them to her with a plot synopsis and she sold a three book deal based on that!

3) What genre does it fall under?

I would call it the “BDSM billionaire” genre, also known as BDSM romance, also known as “If you liked 50 Shades of Grey, you might like this book.”

In my case, though, it’s more like “If you WANTED to like 50 Shades of Grey and found the writing too weak, the BDSM too rapey, and the moral too kink-negative, then YOU WILL LIKE THIS BOOK.”

4) Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Well, my basis for my male main character is a young David Bowie, but he’s too old to play this role now by far! A contemporary actor who could pull it off… maybe Cilian Murphy if you lightened his hair.

The female main character, Karina, who narrates the story, is a little trickier. I don’t describe her in great detail since the book is from her point of view and I want the reader to be able to see herself in Karina’s shoes. I picture her as a small woman. A good fit would be Nora Zehetner (she played Eden on Heroes and Dr. Reed Adamson on Grey’s Anatomy).

5) What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

Prince Charming does not walk into crowded New York bars, entice a harried waitress into playing an erotic game with him, and then walk out… does he?

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It has been bought by Grand Central Publishing, and was sold by my agent, Lori Perkins.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft?

I wrote that first three chapters in one weekend, but then didn’t do more until after I had heard that a publisher was interested. Thank god I did, since I had envisioned it originally as a single novel. When Hachette came back with a three-book deal, I had to get to work thinking about working up a plot with enough twists and turns to take the characters and the reader through three books. It was much slower going than I thought it would be, much slower than writing Magic University was. All total it took me almost six months to get a usable draft into my editor’s hands, and then the rewrite stage change it a lot, too, so add another month for that!

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Let’s see. I already invoked 50 Shades of Grey. This book has more in common with a book I just read more recently, though, which is Sylvia Day’s BARED TO YOU. I highly recommend BARED TO YOU to romance readers, but at least by the end of the book the characters still haven’t actually explored any BDSM. (They might in the sequel, which I just bought but havent’ had time to read yet! Don’t tell me: no spoilers!)

Anyway, among the similarities to Bared to You, both take place in New York City, both have ridiculously rich (and gorgeous) leading men, feisty heroines. Both have very hot scenes in limousines. I can’t say more without spoilers.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

My very first book, Telepaths Don’t Need Safewords, was about a male dom/female submissive couple and, as you might guess from the title, had a BDSM theme. Since then I’ve been all over the sexuality map, very rarely returning to that particular configuration. So as I said above, I’d been wanting to get back to it. It also helped that a leather dom from New Orleans took an interest in me. (sly grin)

10) What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest

My hope is that the “50 Shades” phenomenon has interested a lot of people in BDSM and they’ll be ready to read about a kinky relationship that gets MORE kinky the more in love the characters get, rather than less and less. I’m also hoping that folks in the BDSM and kink communities will enjoy reading it who don’t normally read the romance genre.

The misconception people have about romance is that it’s all instant gratification wish-fulfillment in which two perfect people get together, the end. That’d be as boring as… or porn films, for that matter. Yawn. What is more likely to happen in a romance is what happens in real life insofar as couples are always made of imperfect people, but who are somehow perfect for each other, who complete each other. Exploring BDSM means exploring the dark corners and twisted places in the heart and mind, but not as if there is something wrong with those places. It takes a brave and special lover to go there with you. To me, that’s romantic. Karina and James are both very flawed individuals, each one broken in their own way, but each one with the ability to help put the pieces together in the other.

That and unbelievable hot sex in limousines, high class restaurants, Rockefeller Center, the New York Public library, parts of the NYU campus, Battery Park, et cetera… Yeah, I hope that will interest some people. :-)

* * * *

And now on to The Next Big Thing! I’m tagging the following authors!

• I. G. Frederick, author of DommeMemoir, Shattered, and more

• Debra Hyde, author of The Story of L

• Laura Antoniou, author of The Marketplace, and The Killer Wore Leather

• Beth Wylde, author of Girls Gone Wylde and Sapphic Planet

• Rian Darcy, author of Simulacrum