Liz Everly's Blog, page 99
January 29, 2015
It’s All Part of My Rock N Roll Fantasy
TOP SEVEN REASONS WHY YOU’D BOINK A ROCK STAR:
Why read rock-n-roll romances? Because of the hero of course! There are so many fantabulous rock star traits that make for a perfect romance hero. Let me count the ways…
1) ROCKERS LIKE DIRTY SEX — as in ‘no holds barred sex’. As in other-people-are-watching-and-you-don’t-even-care sex. Rockers have a reputation for no-rules mayhem when it comes to nookie. This is what fans of rock-n-roll romances crave. Shari Slade and Amber Lin deliver that kind of finger lickin’ fun in THREE NIGHTS WITH A ROCK STAR and ONE KISS WITH A ROCK STAR.
Click on photo to buy!
While the girl who’s ‘with the band’ might be up for anything, romance lovers still want a modicum of rules–a veneer of consent to the orgy of sensation about to begin. Robin Covington sets out the rules in an informal way in her latest PLAYING WITH THE DRUMMER. Her hero/heroine frenemies agree: seven days with all the uninhibited sex you can handle, and then walk away. Sounds good to me!
Slade and Lin go super-formal with signed contracts by both parties stating if/how/and when the rocker can have his wicked way. Also included in the contract is a non-disclosure statement. It’s a kind of one night stand pre-nup, ensuring mutual discretion or there’ll be hell to pay.
2) ROCKERS ARE GLAM –A rock star’s charisma weaves the magic spell, making him Mr. Popular. He’s got riches, fame, glory–and on top of that, hair for days. His muscled arms are well-defined from plucking at his, er, guitar all day long. Oh, and did I mention he’s got massive trust issues?
Click on book cover photo to buy!
Covington makes her hero an illusive target, and thus, a challenge. Let’s face it–in this day and age, contemporary romance has to search high and low for great challenges and barriers that build romantic tension.
3) ROCKERS ARE SEXY AS ALL GIT–I’m not talking cucumbers or sausages in tight jeans here. I’m talking unshakeable confidence and a certain kind of masculine magic. He’s singing right to you–all 50,000 of you. But it feels like it’s just you. Wait, did he just wink at you?
4) YOU DIG A SKINNY ROCKER MAN-CHILD–It was interesting to note that Robin Covington’s Drummer guy is strapping and tall. Slade and Lin’s guys are more lithe and lean. So many rockers have a certain sort of skinny thing going on. Androgyny combined with a glorious sensitive face proves too much for women of every decade. Somewhere in the rock n roll bible Donny Osmond begat David Cassidy who begat Andy Gibb who begat the Hansons who begat the Beeb-meister. The skinny man-child rules in our hearts forever and on the pages of a great rock n roll romance.
5) ROCKERS HAVE WOUNDED SOULS–Sid Vicious. Jimi Hendrix. Kurt Cobain…these sensitive types have demons. They reek of vulnerability and thus women want to mate with them. Constantly. Because…
6) ROCKER POETS MAKE YOU SWOON —
You missed two classes and no homework
But your teacher preaches class like you’re some kind of jerk
You gotta fight for your right to party
— Beastie Boys
Click it to buy!
There’s something about a powerful rock anthem that turns you inside out despite yourself. Galvanizing lyrics create insta-rebellions in the your heart. Suddenly, you’re not the good girl you thought you once were. You realize that, dude, you gotta fight. For your right. To paaaaaaaar-tay!
The other side of rocker poets spawning a million hellion-in-waiting tweeners are those quieter lyrics. Ballads that hit ya right between the eyes. Like a kitten snorting catnip, these lyrics will make ya melt.
There’s popcorn for dinner/Last night it was cheesecake/A little sleepy-time tea/spiked with another heart-ache…–Paul Westerberg, The Replacements:
At one point all I craved in life was to spike some poor guy’s tea with heartache. Y’know? Kurt Cobain lyrics were even more wrenching. Who couldn’t listen to his thoughts on drinking pennyroyal tea and not want to cradle his grungy blonde head right into the girls?
7) THAT VOICE IS TO DIE –whether it’s Robert Palmer, Bono, or Jim Morrison–your rock n roll fantasy has a voice that vibrates inside you right down to your knees. “You shook me allllllllllll night looooooooooooong!” Indeed, Mr. Palmer!
Want more? Click on the book cover photos above, and kick off your own rock n roll romance obsession. Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Meanwhile, follow us at LadySmut.com–cause we will rock you!
Want mo, mo, mo? Here’s what Shari Slade has to say about her rock n roll fantasy:
Joan asks where are the girl rock star romances???
“I’ve always been fascinated by rock stars. The “hair bands” of the 80s, Guns and Roses, Cinderella, Skid Row. Big metal bands like Metallica and Tool. Industrial rockers like Nine Inch Nails. Early 90s grunge like Pearl Jam and Nirvana. More contemporary bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Imagine Dragons and AWOLNation. None of the guys from Half-Life are based on any one rocker, but they’re all informed by that long standing love affair with the music. It’s loud and aggressive, but also emotional and often romantic. In fiction, I find rock stars compelling because they’re both glitzy and gritty. Even if they’re in a band that is still struggling, there’s an element of celebrity and fantasy. But then there’s the under-belly, the “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll” of it all. It sets the stage (with pyrotechnics, of course) for lots of conflict and tension and leaves room for plenty of juicy bad decisions.”
Here’s where you can find more of Robin Covington and Shari Slade goodness—check them out! You won’t be disappointed. :)
Shari’s here:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorsharislade
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShariSlade
Robin and her man candy here:
Pinterest Board: http://bit.ly/1wE7hHm
Website: http://bit.ly/1lewhMg
Facebook Profile: http://on.fb.me/YSW9n3
Twitter: @RobinCovington
Pinterest: http://bit.ly/1c1Tm5u
January 27, 2015
For F**k’s Sake: Ground Rules For Sex Buddies
No feelings, please. We’re just having sex.
I got some happy news recently when my publisher offered a contract for a story I wrote awhile ago and have really, really wanted to get published. It’s called Desire Rising and is a historical erotic romance novella about a young woman stuck in an arranged marriage to a total jerk whom she actually tried to love. One night the a-hole comes home drunk and tries to rape her, and plucky heroine decides she’s had enough. A struggle ensues and jerk hubby accidentally gets killed. Oops.
Our heroine knows she’s gonna get blamed and possibly hung for that little mishap so she high-tails it outta there in the middle of the night, moves to another city far, far away, and completely reinvents herself into an urbane, polished woman who enjoys the physical pleasures of love but keeps her heart guarded and away from the pesky business on the emotional side. She’d tried emotional love once before – and look how that turned out! – so she’s having none of it. But, naturally, this being a romance novel, she meets an awesome guy and falls in love again. Before that all happens, however, my heroine is essentially living the life of single gal with sex buddies.
In order to make the situation work for her, my trend setting heroine establishes firm boundaries of what’s acceptable and what’s not. I realized, as I was looking through the story the other day, that essentially she’s laying down the modern-day equivalent of ground rules for sex buddies. Or f**k buddies. Pleasure partners. Whatever term you fancy, entering into one of these situations can be fraught with landmines you dare not step on lest everything explodes into heartbreaking smithereens. And therein lies the rub.
Sex buddies are not people with whom you want to become emotionally attached. ‘Cause that ruins the whole point, yo! A relationship is an entirely different matter. If you’re just wanting some good sex, keep it at that – a situation where both parties are only in it for the bump and grind.
As I spoke with friends and read advice others have given, rule #1 on the sex buddy hit parade is that very thing: Don’t Become Emotionally Attached. If you find yourself thinking about baking your sex buddy’s favorite pie, you no longer just have a sex buddy.
Women consistently doled out the same advice when it came to establishing sex buddy rules. In addition to the irrefutable avoiding emotional attachment rule, there were variations on the theme: no cuddling after sex, no discussing your hopes and dreams, no sharing of personal info. These are all things you do with the one you love, not with the one you only f**k.
Other rules from the female perspective included: Keep it simple, keep it fun, no dating, don’t mix friends, don’t ask. That last point goes with the requirement to make it crystal clear from the onset that you’re not looking for commitment. Neither is he. But since that’s the case, you have to accept that you or he could have others. And if you’re not cool with that, you’re not cool with having a sex buddy.
A male friend added additional sage advice: no social events/parties, use phone calls and texts strictly for hooking up, no hickeys, bite marks, or impossible to wash out cologne/perfume, no sharing details with friends. Be discreet.
It would seem to me that having a sex buddy relationship would be more difficult for women than men. We gals tend to get our hearts involved earlier than the guys, and many women don’t want anything physical unless there’s also some sort of emotional tie. Yet there are blogs a’plenty written by women for women doling out advice on maintaining a sex buddy relationship.
What do you think? Have you had a sex buddy? Did you like it? Sound off in the comments below. And follow us at Lady Smut. We’re happy to be your buddy, and we love talking about sex. :-)
January 26, 2015
Fifty Shades of Sexy Success
By Liz Everly
I was on a road trip with Madeline Iva and we were JUST talking about Fifty Shades of Grey, the movie. I wondered out loud about my small-town Southern community. We happen to have a wonderful movie theater—new, comfy, and huge. Folks travel from nearby towns just to come to this theater. I wondered if they would dare to run the movie. When I got home that night, I had a message in my Facebook personal messages folder from a group of middle-aged moms in my town. The theater is going to run the movie one night—and one night only—and do I want to go?
Do I want to go?
Hell yes.
If for no other reason, then just to satisfy my curiosity. How is this movie going to play out? It should be fascinating.
For the record, I’m not a big FSOG fan. I read it, thought it was interesting, but not written well. I didn’t like the female lead at all. And while I did didn’t “like” Grey, I found his story compelling. Frankly, it’s what kept me reading. I do appreciate what the book has done for erotic romance fiction. And I am a complete champion for any writer who manages to do so well. I read the other books in the series and the writing does get a bit better with each book. But I don’t think she will ever write as well as Sylvia Day. Just my opinion.
Given all of the astounding success of the book series, can this movie fail?
I wonder.
I think that it will definitely be a financial success. If for no other reason than people want to see what all the fuss is about. People are curious about it. But I wonder if it will succeed in other ways. Could the movie, perhaps, be done better than the books?
It’s possible that the movie could get at the heart of the story better than the book did, without the clunkiness of that prose. I really don’t know the actors’ or director’s work, so I have no expectations there. So yes, I suppose the POSSIBILITY of the movie being very good. It might play well over film.
The trailer offers me very little hope, though. I mean, it just seems very so-so and meh. I am left shrugging my shoulders.
Right now, I think the most interesting thing about this movie is my little town and the reaction to it. We get to see it one night. And one night only. You have to buy the tickets in advance. I’m also wondering if this kind of marketing of the movie will be the way many small towns deal are handling it. And that FB group conversation I was added to? Many people “left” it in droves…Which ignites my curiosity even further. I’ll be looking for those folks at the theater that night. Wink.
What do you think? Are you going to watch the movie? Do think it will succeed? Fail? Lady smut wants to know. While you’re at it, subscribe to our blog so that you don’t miss anything from our crew.
While you’re pondering, just to let you know, installment #5 in my EIGHT LAYS AROUND THE WORLD Series is now out. This one is set in Mexico and involves food play.
Trade Me by Courtney Milan
by Kiersten Hallie Krum
Look, I’m going to get this review very, very wrong. This is solely due to my own inadequacies because there’s no way, absolutely no way, I can do proper justice to Trade Me.
Trade Me is, in a word, fearless.
But first, a blurb:
Tina Chen just wants a degree and a job, so her parents never have to worry about making rent again. She has no time for Blake Reynolds, the sexy billionaire who stands to inherit Cyclone Systems. But when he makes an offhand comment about what it means to be poor, she loses her cool and tells him he couldn’t last a month living her life.
To her shock, Blake offers her a trade: She’ll get his income, his house, his car. In exchange, he’ll work her hours and send money home to her family. No expectations; no future obligations.
But before long, they’re trading not just lives, but secrets, kisses, and heated nights together. No expectations might break Tina’s heart…but Blake’s secrets could ruin her life.
Tina is struggling to put herself through college on a nearly non-existent budget. She deeply loves and resents her family to whom she sends all the money she can spare and sometimes money she can’t. She lives in a converted garage that isn’t really so converted. And she has plans. Plans that don’t include falling for a privilege son of a Silicon Valley wunderkind.
Click on the image to buy!
“Money may not buy love, but it buys something like it. Not having any money makes love complicated…I don’t want a lot out of life. I just want enough money to love without being tangled up about it.”
Blake’s entire life has been mapped out as part of the story of his father’s business. Recent events have shaken his personal life up but good, so much so that he’s decamped from his privileged life to go to college and figure out how to deal with the fact that he no longer fits that story.
“If I run hard enough, I tell myself, maybe one day I can run myself into someone else. Deep down, I know it doesn’t matter how fast I run. Deep down, I know I have to get out. But I don’t know which direction is out any longer. I wish I could outrun myself. I wish I could trade this stupid problem for anything else.”
Blake notices Tina months before they’re brought together in a class discussion of poverty, where Tina expertly puts Blake in his place. When she accuses him of not being able to live her life for a day, he gets the idea to trade lives for the rest of the semester. After a lot of negotiating, including that Tina will pretend to be Blake’s girlfriend for the sake of his father, Tina agrees but she makes it clear from the get out that this will not end in a relationship. When the semester ends, they go their separate ways. For Tina, falling for Blake is a risk she can’t take. She clearly sees the fantasy he could give her, a fantasy she’s self-aware enough to know she desires, but she believes the fallout would break her.
Trade Me takes an unflinching look at money and how it can affect a relationship. It pulls no punches without demonizing wealth or the wealthy nor does it shame or pity the poor. It also examines how we relate to our parents and what happens when the child becomes the parent, even if temporarily, and how that shift can negatively warp our perspective. Tina and Blake are wonderfully complex characters who build a responsible relationship, one that values both their agencies. They’re very into each other and when their relationship becomes physical, it’s incredibly sexy. I was deeply moved by this book. At times, it struck far too close to home for comfort. It’s brilliantly constructed and rolls seamlessly between the two points-of-view. Trade Me is raw and real. It’s sweet and funny. It’s poignant and painful. It is not to be missed.
Follow Lady Smut. We’ll trade you anytime.
January 25, 2015
Waiting For It: Are Erotic Romances Rushing to Sex?
Hold on, buddy. Can we not wait another few pages?
By Alexa Day
Last week, I got to hang out with a colleague of mine for burgers and beer. After the Pro Bowl ended and before we started talking about whether Tom Brady’s balls were indeed perfect, we chatted for a moment about our writing.
Okay. Mostly, she indulged me as I complained about one of my pet peeves: erotic romances where the hero and heroine have sex too soon. Way too soon. Like within the first 15 pages. This is not the awkward near-miss that might have been sex or mere sexual thoughts or something like that. This is the hero and heroine having sex before I’ve really gotten comfortable with them.
It’s not so much that I object to sex between strangers in my romances. I’m a firm believer in the “slutcelebratory” romance, after all. I guess my issue with sex so soon is that I don’t know the hero and heroine yet. I don’t care enough about them to be invested in the sex. They just seem like two lucky people who fell into bed, and how nice for them, and I wonder what’s on TV right now.
My colleague and I wondered if sex so soon was just part of the genre and its tendency to test romance’s boundaries. I wasn’t so sure, but the thought bothered me a little. Erotic romance leans pretty heavily on both the frequency and intensity of sexual encounters, but how much emotion could anyone muster up within the first few pages? How much anticipation? How much tension? Where can these two people go from here? Is it possible to accomplish more than titillation that early?
Is titillation so awful?
I think Debbie Ford wrote in The Dark Side of the Light Chasers that the stuff that irritates us the most is also within ourselves, and I wondered aloud how long it took to get to naked fun time in my first book, Illicit Impulse. So I went home and checked my paper copy. The first page with actual story on it is page 7. Grace, the heroine, has sex for the first time eleven pages later.
Yep! Pot, this is Kettle. Kettle, meet Pot.
In fact, my latest story, “1-800,” opens with the hero and heroine having sex. Like on page 1. Now, to be fair, it’s a short story, so there’s not a whole lot of time to get to the sex, but still, it’s right away.
I had to scramble for excuses. Debbie Ford or no Debbie Ford.
Click to buy.
Sure, Grace gets it on right at the start of Chapter Two. She isn’t with John, who’s the hero. She does have to share every detail of her encounters with John — you know, for science — and they have a pretty difficult time working through all that. But Grace does get an early start on donating her orgasms to the advancement of neuroscience.
I don’t really have an excuse for starting “1-800″ in bed. I knew the most important thing in the story was that the hero, Jason, was deeply in love with his fiancee, Kate. I guess I thought this was the hottest way to go about proving it. And it was kind of fun. I gave Jason a hard time after that. So there.
One of my favorite things about writing erotica and erotic romance is having the freedom to use sex for any number of plot and character development reasons. I think we have the most latitude to write angry sex, random sex, fearful sex, experimental sex, and this-won’t-go-beyond-tonight sex. I love that because I think we real people are having real sex in the real world for any number of reasons, many of which have little to do with romance.
So should I be more okay with the sex right at the beginning of the book?
I’ll try. I really will.
But if there’s a happy ending that close to the beginning, I’m going to need to see a much happier ending at the end. Know what I mean?
Do you think the sex is getting too close to page 1? Is that necessarily a problem? Let me know what you think and where you see it being done well.
And follow Lady Smut. We won’t make you wait for it.
January 24, 2015
Sexy Saturday Round Up
By Liz Everly and the Lady Smut Bloggers
Hello Sexy! Hope you are having a fabulous Saturday. Check out all of the fascinating blog posts we’ve found for you this week.
From Liz:
How to Write a Book Review
The Sexiest Words
From C. Margery Kempe:
2nd HarperCollins Virtual Romance Festival!
From Madeline Iva:
Does he feel your pain? Maybe you’re feeling it for the both of you. Call the Midwife — in Hindi!
How people in India are learning about childbirth for the first time from a TV show.
24 Ways You’re Already Acting Like An Old Lady. In case you were wondering, yes, tea is my jam.
From Alexa:
This account of “A Day at the Porn Convention” raised a surprising number of the same questions I face every day as a writer. Check it out. A man with a foot fetish shares what he likes … down there.
Ruth Wilson explains that we won’t see sexual equality on TV until the men start catching up.
January 23, 2015
Winter Slips
If you don’t keep your wits about you in this icy time of year, you end up wearing one of these. At least it’s basic black, eh? So as I’m down to one-handed typing (hey, none of those jokes!). While I figure out working around life with a dislocated clavicle (who knew you could do that?) here’s the round up of tis week’s tour stops.
Don’t forget to sign up for the second Romance Festival! We’ll be there.
Romance Festival 2015
Events team from HarperCollins and Harlequin Mills & Boon
Saturday, 7 February 2015 at 14:00 – Sunday, 8 February 2015 at 20:00 (GMT)
This week’s tour stops for the Lady Smut crew:
19th January: http://www.confessionsofabookwhore.org/
20th January: http://houstonhavens.wordpress.com/
21st January: http://eroticaforall.co.uk
22nd January: http://sslyblog.wordpress.com/
23rd January: http://www.reviewedthebook.co.uk/
January 22, 2015
Hungry Like the Wolf: Sexy Paranormal Rec’s
Dragon! Dra–gon! Dragon!
By Madeline Iva
Don’t you love talking with other readers about paranormal romance? I do. It’s like raw honey. Part of it’s goodness is that it’s straight from the source. This one reader-friend I met at the Washington Loves Romance Reader’s Luncheon gave me the nitty gritty on shifter romances.
You see, I drift towards vampires–and I don’t think we give enough love to the wolf here on LadySmut, so this post is an attempt to help rectify that. (Let us not forget Kiersten Hallie Krum’s excellent pro-wolf post HERE.) So if you’ve been looking for some great paranormal romance, here’s what my favorite reader-friend ‘Donna’ recommends–both her recent reads and some past recommendations.
“Looking back at my reading the past few months I’m surprised that more of the paranormal reads aren’t shifters which will help make this a little easier to come up with just a few.
GA Aiken’s Light My Fire (dragon kin #7)
Who knew gargoyles could be sexy?
I’ve mentioned before that I love her books because she writes strong & smart characters. I love the interactions between all of the characters—the teasing, harassing & whatnot that often occurs between relatives & close friends. You can also see the love & support that underlies those relationships. In this one the hero is a dragon who is able to take human form when he wants/needs to (rather than a human who turns into a dragon or has an “inner dragon” , these are always dragons even if they happen to be in human form, they’re still a dragon in their head) gotta love dragons ,
Next there’s Christine Warren’s Stone Cold Lover (Gargoyles #2)
Who knew Gargoyles could be cool & sexy?
Bianca D’Arc’s String of Fate books 3 & 4
Jacob’s Ladder & Her Warriors respectively (book 4 is mfm)
This series while centered around big cats also includes other types of shifters including foxes & seals. There’s lots of action that happens because of the back story arc of good vs. evil (which she actually manages to run & interweave btwn all her shifter books). Also while it sticks with the fated mate there’s also period of are they/aren’t they that they have to work thru rather than “insta-love”.
Last but not least would be Remembered by Moonlight (moonlight #9) by Nancy Gideon. Wolf shifters in New Orleans.)
Max & Cee-Cee sittin’ in a tree…can true love withstand total memory loss?
In this book she returns to her original hero/heroine (Max & CeeCee-books 1-4 of the series. Other books in the series have their own heroes/heroines that are in Max & CeeCee’s world.)
A couple books earlier, a situation occurred that resulted in Max losing all his memories including of his mate. So this book is him rebuilding his life, her learning to accept that he may never remember their past but instead be a “new Max” and the two of them finding love together again. All the while dealing with clan/society politics, outside & inside threats to all they hold dear & that their friends care about.
She did a great balance so that the book was enjoyable if you had read all the prior books, but also if you’d only the past few books or were completely new to the series. You weren’t over or underwhelmed by the series history either way.
So there you go, some of the good shifter books that I’ve read the past few months & would recommend. Guess one thing they have in common is that they all have something unique to them–especially with the world building that makes it interesting–but manages not to go so far out there that it loses the appeal of the base trope.”
I asked ‘Donna’ about the heat level in these stories. Paranormal has a reputation for some of the hot, hotter, hottest sex out there in Romance-landia. Here’s what she had to say:
Here kitty-kitty!
“As for sexy times in stories, I’m fairly flexible as to how much is enough or too much (if I’m not in the mood to read it, I’ll just skim through that part). I can’t say that I’ve ever really thought a good book that I really enjoyed had too much or too little. What is important more than the how much (either in detail or frequency) is does it make sense to the story & characters? If a sex scene feels as if it’s been added to make a book “more sexy” or expounded so “it reads hot” that’s when I have a problem.
Part of why I don’t read much straight erotica is because I want a story that happens to also be sexy, not sex that happens have some story. Maybe since I’m older now I’ve come to appreciate the “Quality over Quantity” argument. Sometimes I miss the sexual tension build up that always use to occur. Why all the “insta-love, you’re the only one for me, gotta f*ck now” that a lot of shifter (& other paranormal) books have? It can get a little boring.
I guess us readers can make it hard on authors since when we find something we like we demand more & more of it, but then suddenly we’re over it because we’ve read so much of that it becomes the same old same old and we’re looking for that next new something different.
Meanwhile more books are being put out & the publishing folks are like ‘hey, you said you wanted this so here it is.” Perhaps that’s where the wisdom lies in not writing for the what the reader wants now but rather the story you want to tell. Hopefully that’s the story that will hold just the right uniqueness to keep the reader coming back for more.”
Hopefully! Are you new to shifters? Here are some other rec’s by ‘Donna’. Enjoy!
Dana Marie Bell
Bianca D’Arc
Shelly Laurenston/GA Aiken (a little snarky/rough-edged but she makes me laugh out loud)
Thea Harrison (her Elder series is very good & popular, includes a variety of supernatural beings)
Eve Langlais (sexy humor)
Shannon K. Butcher (Sentinal Wars which is more serious with a variety of series plotlines crossing through the books.)
Do you enjoy smexy romance and like writing reviews on Goodreads? Say hello in the comments section. As we launch into 2015, Lady Smut might be looking for a few good woman who know what they like.
Meanwhile–come visit us as we Roam Around the World — or at least the UK and parts of the U.S. unknown….If you like paranormal you’ll j’dore our anthology THE LADY SMUT BOOK OF DARK DESIRES. We’ve got goblins, gods, techno-vampires and a succubus from hellllllllllll. Buy it, consume it, lurv it!
16th January: http://www.pinkypollock.blogspot.com
19th January: http://www.confessionsofabookwhore.org/
20th January: http://houstonhavens.wordpress.com/
21st January: http://eroticaforall.co.uk
22nd January: http://sslyblog.wordpress.com/
23rd January: http://www.reviewedthebook.co.uk/
January 20, 2015
Cookies And Cowboys: My Weird Obsession With The Pioneer Woman
Oh Ree, how I love thee
Even though I spent my childhood in the suburbs, as an adult I’m a fully converted city girl. Everything I could ever want is at my fingertips. Yes, I know, in NYC we have rats, roaches, rude people, sky high rent, too many honking cars, and gazillions of tourists, but that’s OK. We also have every variety of ethnic restaurant on the planet, we have theater and arts and culture and music and sports and on and on and on. While some people get panicked by the thought of being jam-packed like sardines on a subway, I take comfort in crowds. Isolation, on the other hand, freaks me out. All that space! No stores, no services. No people! Where do I get my mani/pedi? My lip wax? What the heck do I do about my dry cleaning? Where are all the Starbucks?
These concerns and more are easily addressed in the city. But in the country – egad! You gotta fend for yourself. So it’s quite unexpected that I’ve recently developed a weird crazy obsession with Ree Drummond, a.k.a, The Pioneer Woman. Do y’all know Ree? She lives on a remote cattle ranch in Oklahoma with her husband, Ladd, and their four kids. She cooks and bakes (a lot!), she blogs, she gardens, she’s a photographer, she homeschools her kids, and she has a cooking show on The Food Network. She lives in the middle of nowhere. We have virtually nothing in common. So why do I find myself not only watching her show, but making sure my DVR is set to record every episode? No really. I’m not kidding. Every episode.
As I try analyzing what’s behind this fixation of mine, I realize it’s probably because Ree does a whole lotta things right when it comes to her own career. She can be, and should be, a source of inspiration for us writers because there’s a lot to learn from her, specifically as it relates to her blogs and her website. They’re awesome.
A friend who’s an expert in website communications and publicity told me that one of the most important attention grabbers on a website is high-quality imagery. A page with pictures versus one with just text gets clicked on 94% more. Ree – who happens to be an amateur photographer – has tons of photos on her site. There are pix of where she lives, of her family, her vacation. But where she really shines is her recipes. With each one on the site there’s a step-by-step series of photos showing how everything is supposed to look as you’re preparing it so you can pretty much tell if you’re doing OK or royally screwing it up. And, of course, there are photos of how it all should all look once you’re done.
Photo courtesy of Ree Drummond
Take a peek at the recipe and photos for chocolate chunk cookies to see what I mean. Absolutely divine.
She refreshes the pages on her website all the time. I know when I go there I’m not going to be stuck with broken links and content that was uploaded last spring. To be fair, she may nowadays have helpers to keep up with all this stuff, but that hasn’t always been the case. She had to build her career just as we need to build ours, bit by bit, and she’s now one of the top three female bloggers on the web. Over the years she’s learned a thing or two about blogging and has got some great advice. Her words of wisdom about blogging are here.
Another thing about her site that keeps me coming back are the sprinkles of humor throughout her writing. Her sense of self-deprecation is often laugh-out-loud funny. To see what I mean, check out her hilarious post,”All I Wanted Was A Doughtnut.”
Ladd Drummond.
Photo Courtesy of Ree Drummond
As for her show, her house is beautiful, her man’s a stud and her kids are extraordinarily well behaved. In front of the camera, anyway. Seems it would be easy to hate the woman, yet you just don’t. Her blog is read by thousands every day across the globe, and another thing that keeps ‘em coming back are her giveaways. Really good ones, drawing tons of readers. Just recently she gave away three beautiful dutch ovens. All you had to do to win was leave a comment about what you had planned for the weekend. That giveaway alone drew over 126,000 comments. As fellow blogger Alexa Day would say, heyo!
So cowboy hats off to the “accidental country girl” Ree Drummond and her words of blogging and career inspiration. Maybe one day she can teach me how to make those cookies of hers.
And although we Lady Smutters might not be talking about cookies, we bake in words of wisdom of our own each and every day. Be sure to follow us do you don’t miss a thing.
We’re on our blog tour for the Lady Smut anthology — visit us this week! :)
16th January: http://www.pinkypollock.blogspot.com
19th January: http://www.confessionsofabookwhore.org/
20th January: http://houstonhavens.wordpress.com/
21st January: http://eroticaforall.co.uk
22nd January: http://sslyblog.wordpress.com/
23rd January: http://www.reviewedthebook.co.uk/
January 19, 2015
Geneva DeCroix: Erotica, Reinvention, and Living the Dream
By Liz Everly
At Lady Smut, we love smart women who write what they want to write. With the way the publishing industry is set up, often that means taking on several different names—which is more complicated than it sounds with all of the social media venues these days and so on. It’s hard to keep up with all the names and personaes. But it also gives us a chance to play.
Enter Geneva DeCroix, a writer who has reinvented herself more than a few times. And has done very well. She started out as a erotica writer, was very successful (under another name), then wrote a more traditional kind of series. Now she’s back to erotica. I don’t think she’d mind my telling you that she is one of the few writers I personally know who actually makes a damned fine living. So listen up, friends. It’s my pleasure to introduce Geneva DeCroix.
Q: I’ve known you for a long time and been through several of your pen names with you. I met you when you were writing erotica and erotic romance and doing quite well with it. Then you were inspired to go in another direction and used another name. How important is it that erotica writers use pen names while they are writing in another genre? What are some of the reasons for it and doesn’t it make it more difficult to find your platform?
A: For me, I wanted a clear line drawn between my erotica and my mainstream work. My mainstream work doesn’t even have sex scenes in it! So a pen name only makes sense, because there probably wouldn’t be any crossover in fan bases.
I would do the same if I wrote two very different genres like epic fantasy and westerns.
As far as finding my platform, well, I’ve really just started working to build my erotica platform. Before, I focused my marketing efforts on my mainstream work, whereas erotica was something I wrote for fun when I was feeling inspired in that direction.
Building an erotica platform (aka social media connections) can be a bit more difficult. So many people are reluctant to review erotica stories. For a lot of people, erotica is something they enjoy privately but maybe don’t want to post where their mom can see it on Facebook! I totally understand that. So I have my brand new Facebook page for those who want to contact me, but I am not worried about it if people don’t feel comfortable with it.
Q: You’ve been very successful in writing in the newer genre. Why are you going back to erotica?
I’ve wanted to for some time, but always felt like I had more projects on the go than I had hours in the day and the erotica fell by the wayside. But recently, I’ve been working with someone who has taken on both the editing and formatting of all my work. That helps immensely!
Also, the rise of Kindle Unlimited inspired me to take a second look. It occurred to me that subscription services are perfect for erotica readers. There’s so much out there on Amazon, but how can you know if a particular story is going to fill the bill?
There’s a lot of free stuff out there, but let’s face it, some of the stories we’ve all seen going are, well, terrible. There’s others that might be well written, but they just don’t scratch my particular itch, if you know what I mean. Using a subscription service means I can try anything I want, download as much as I like, and there’s no risk! If I don’t like something, I just delete it and find something else.
I’ve recently been having all my collections broken up into single stories and adding some new bite-sized nibbles as well. Last week, I added six stories to Kindle Unlimited (with about twenty more to come over the month as I continue the process.) Since I did that, all of my downloads have been through Kindle Unlimited! I expected them to do well, but I didn’t expect that! Seeing that success has been exciting and inspirational!
Q: Could you just write in one genre your whole life? I know I couldn’t. I’d get bored writing one kind of story. What about you?
A: I totally agree. I don’t like to read only one genre either. Sometimes I’m in the mood for a good murder, other times I want something sexy, still others I want fantasy, magic, adventure. Sure, bits of each can creep in and cross over.
For example, my story The Dealership is a futuristic story about a woman who goes into a sex toy dealership to purchase a new model. Despite being shown “The William”, “The Sven” and “The Dante”, she sets her heart on “The Alex,” a most unusual prototype. FREE TODAY FOR LADY SMUT READERS! (Click on the book covers to go directly to Amazon.)
Even in my sexy stories, I explore different types. Some is F/M, like A Reminder For Him, some explores spanking and anal sex, like The Gangster, and my latest story, The Bodyguard (just published this weekend) has no explicit sex at all, despite being (if I do say so myself) one of the hottest stories I’ve written (it’s got explicit language, nudity, and touching, but no sex happens on the page)
Q: You are an Indie publishing proponent, yet I know you started to be traditionally published. Would you care to share your reasons for Indie publishing?
A: My first ever paid publication was an erotic short story. Then I signed a contract for a paranormal romance (which I published under another name). I was delighted to be accepted into this profession I’d aspired to for so long, but I found quickly that my publisher wasn’t my friend. I was naive, I suppose, but what new writer isn’t? I got assigned book covers that I hated, was forced to make edits I didn’t agree with, and on top of that, my books were priced so high that sales weren’t great.
After a time, I asked for my rights back, and because sales weren’t fantastic, my publisher agreed. (They weren’t happy, necessarily, but they we did come to an agreement, which is a relief. I know not all authors under contract are so lucky.) I put my own covers on the books (I have a background in graphic design) and gave the books what I felt were reasonable prices, uploaded them to Amazon and sales took off.
I love being in control of my own career. It’s scary sometimes, because I’m the one to blame if things don’t go well, but at the same time, unlike a large publisher, I have the flexibility to make changes on the fly if something isn’t working. I can respond quickly to reader demand, which is what it’s all about.
Q: It seems to me that you are one of those rare writers who has a balance between left and right brain. You are very tech savvy and have used it to your advantage. Can you peer into your crystal ball and make any publishing predictions based on what you’ve seen and what you know?
I think subscription based models are here to stay. Just look at the entertainment industry as a whole and how Netflix and Spotify have changed the way people seek out what they want to watch or listen to. But I don’t think that means buying individual books is dead. In fact, Russ Grandinetti, Amazon’s VP in charge of Kindle, told a Book Seller’s Conference recently that “if you look at a customer’s buying patterns 60 days before KU and 60 days after, these customers are spending more money on books after enrolling—25% more on average.”
So book-library subscribers actually buy more books after subscribing than they did before! That’s good news for authors who fear that the subscription model will mean the end of people being willing to pay for books a la carte.
Publishing is changing rapidly. It has been since the ebook revolution began several years ago. It will continue to change, and authors have to be prepared to adapt. Remember that when we say it’s “market forces” driving the changes, it sounds like there’s some unknowable monster out there making our lives difficult, throwing up obstacles just when we got comfortable with something that worked. That metaphor couldn’t be further from the truth. All “changing market forces” means is that readers have new choices, and they’re loving it. We authors need to adapt to give them what they want.
Q: What some of the most important lessons you’ve learned in your publishing and writing career?
A:
Living a dream takes hard work, but it’s worth every moment
Readers are the only critical part of the publishing chain
The only thing constant is change.
Thank you so much for hosting me today! It’s been a real pleasure.
Thank YOU, Geneva!
Question for Lady Smut readers from Geneva: Have you ever tried a subscription service for reading? Do you plan to in the future?”
