Cameron D. James's Blog, page 28

NEW RELEASE: Men In The Hot Room: The Complete Series

This omnibus edition combines the entire bestselling gay erotica short story series, Men In The Hot Room, into one book! ��Also included is the first volume of the Go-Go Boys of Club 21, the bestselling Bump and Grind!

If you haven’t tried Men In The Hot Room yet, or you’ve only read the first story, then definitely pick up this ebook to make your ereader melt!

A wall of heat rolls through the hot room and sweat beads on Simon���s hard nipples. He contorts his body in all the right ways, intent on seducing his instructor, Brad. And Brad, a man twice Simon���s age, is unable to resist, no matter what the consequences might be. This simple act of seduction soon leads to weeks of scorching hot sex as Men In The Hot Room raises the mercury.

Originally released as separate stories, the bestselling Men In The Hot Room series is now available in one delicious book. Follow the steamy encounters of Simon and Brad that begin in Go Deep, continue with a hot threesome in Go Deeper, and reach a light BDSM climax in Going All The Way.

This collection will have you gasping for breath and reaching for a cold glass of water���or some tissues.

BONUS FEATURE:��

Bump and Grind, the start of the Go-Go Boys of Club 21, featuring the exploits of horny young men in New York City���s coolest gay club.

There are THREE bestsellers in this ONE book! ��Go Deep was on Amazon’s Top 100 Free Gay Erotica list for well over a year, peaking at #44; Going All The Way was a bestseller on All Romance eBooks, and Bump and Grind was also a bestseller on All Romance eBooks.

Click here to find out more or to buy your copy!

(Are you into paperback books? ��Men In The Hot Room will have a paperback release in about a month!)

NEW RELEASE: Sins of Lust

Sins of Lust, the fourth (and second-last) entry in the Go-Go Boys of Club 21 series, is now available!

Liam leaves New York City and Club 21 behind to take on a new adventure in Los Angeles as a porn star, with his new boyfriend Ryan at his side.�� While Liam is happy to finally be living the life he’s always dreamed of, he can’t help but wonder if he’s gotten into something over his head.�� Sure, Ryan’s house is huge and his new job promises lots of money and fame, but he still can’t shake the feeling that something’s not quite right.

Back in New York, Lance and Ken embark on another wild night at Club 21 with Zack, the club owner���s son, and the hot new dancer to replace Liam.�� Zack is sexy, mischievous, and disarmingly innocent, but has a wild side that rivals Ken’s. And he has eyes for Lance. The go-go boys are in for a weekend of sinful heat that promises to bring them all together, but will Lance take the leap he failed to take with Liam and seize his new opportunity?

Click here to read a blurb or to buy your copy!

Stop Me Falling: Cale Fallon

Stop Me Falling

Cale Fallon

An erotic short story of about 8000 words.

Paul is a man resigned to being one of those men who sleeps around and never falls in love. Then he meets David, who’s training for the next Olympics, and things change.

WARNING – Contains graphic scenes of sex between two men.

This was a hot short story, but in many ways it was about much more than the sex. ��Paul and David are��two lonely and hurting men who meet in a bar and quickly fall in lust with each other. ��Their hot hookup turns into a sort of intimate confessional, in which we learn about the hurts and self-revelations each man has had to face in leading up to this moment, this shared time and space.

Fallon writes in a very easy and flowing style, making the story a quick and satisfying read. ��He does a good job of weaving together emotions, backstory, and sex. ��I always find sex much hotter when the writer gives the reader a reason to care about the characters and for the characters to grow through sex (and not just in the dirty double-entendre way). ��Sex can and should be used in fiction as an element of character development — something that Fallon very capably and carefully does.

While Stop Me Falling is a short story and a quick read, it’s a very satisfying one. ��Fallon has used these 8,000 words to craft a complete story — including characters who grow and develop and a relationship that flourishes (and hits a few rocky patches) — and he does it without rushing the story. ��It’s very well written.

You can find Stop Me Falling on Amazon by clicking here. ��(And for Kindle Unlimited subscribers, you can read this one for free!)

Unleashed by Quil McKay

Greetings blog-lovers!

Today I’m thrilled to have Quil McKay as my special guest. ��Quil’s new book, Unleashed, was released��on April 16th and it’s already in the top 100 gay erotica list on Amazon! ��(Currently, it’s at #44!)

Here’s the blurb for Unleashed:

Hunkered deep in the closet, Austin struggles between internalized homophobia and lust for the perfect boy next door.

Will he confront his demons or stay hidden?

I snagged an interview with Quil, so let’s get to know him a little better:

Tell us a little bit about yourself, Quil.

My name is Quil McKay. I���ve written since I was 7 years old as a hobby. This year I was able to become a full time writer. Unleashed is my second published novel.

Tell us a��little bit about Unleashed.

This novel came from combining part of my childhood with a friend���s. The loneliness and pressure Austin feels is something I���ve gone through. Trying to keep it together in public is nearly impossible with you���re going through so much trauma at home. Sadly, I can relate to the struggle with poverty and his wish to hide it.

My first novel dealt with social taboo and in this book I wanted to focus on inner turmoil.

Tell us about your main character and his world.

My main character in Unleashed is Austin Green. While does Austin suffers from internalized homophobia and that creates a lot of drama, the main source of his problem is self-loathing on almost every level. He doesn���t always deal with his circumstances positively. He comments that life has him by the balls, and I have often felt that way. This was fairly easy to write.

Which of your characters would you most like to meet?

I would love to meet any or all of my characters and take them out for drinks. I have put them through some serious shit.

What was the hardest or most difficult scene to write in Unleashed?

For some reason these sex scenes weren���t difficult. I���m not sure why, maybe I identified enough with these characters that it felt completely natural. I have written difficult scenes before but none in this novel.

I’ve always found sex scenes have a different feel to them and that can sometimes make them difficult to write. ��Surely there were some difficulties in the sex scenes, right?

Being creative with sex scenes is the hardest part for me. What have I not done before in any of my other scenes? What���s a new and interested element I can bring to this scene?

But sex scenes aren’t all hard work. ��What’s your favourite part about writing a sex scene?

My favorite part is when my readers comment that the scene was steamy. I am always nervous when something is sent to the beta readers. I freak out until I hear back.

What made you decide to write in this genre?

I wanted to write this genre because I couldn���t find very many full length novels. Some people seem to write this genre in short stories (ex. I���ve seen 30 pages before). While there are a few full length novels, it���s not like other genres. I thought I would try and see if people liked it.

Now that Unleashed is out (and on the top 100 gay erotica list), do you have another project in the works?

I���m currently working on a new novel called The Bartender. This novel deals with the religious and someone who is gay. I was raised in a strict religious home with no tolerance for LGBT matters. This not a book about religion. The main character was raised in a very religious environment and part of the book shows his interaction with family members who have never changed their belief system.

Hmm… sounds interesting — I’m looking forward to The Bartender!

But while we all wait for The Bartender, you should definitely check out Unleashed! ��Click here to find the book on Amazon. ��(And if you’re a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, you can get the book for free!)

And if you’d like to learn more about Quil, you can follow him on Twitter.

Passive Voice with Editor John Robin – Sex For Money Post #4

Sex For Money is a semi-regular blog series about my experiences in writing, publishing, and marketing gay erotica and M/M erotic romance. ��All of this information is from my own experience, so your experience may differ. ��It���s hoped that sharing this information might be helpful to new and aspiring erotica and erotic romance authors, as I see a lot of questions and a lot of misinformation out there. ��To read more Sex For Money posts,��click here.

Today I have the great pleasure of hosting my editor, John Robin, for a quick Q&A on passive voice in writing. ��John is a freelance editor over at Story Perfect Editing Services and has worked with me on all my self-published works. ��(And I don’t think he’s blushed once, no matter how filthy my sex scenes get!) ��John is also hard at work on his epic fantasy novel, Blood Dawn.

So, without further ado, welcome to the blog, John!

What is passive voice?

Passive voice can be thought of in many ways. Usually writers who have done their research will get to know about passive voice in its simplest form: where emphasis is placed on the object having an action done on it.

Passive voice comes about because of transitive verbs. Transitive verbs are verbs that have a subject (doer) and an object (recipient). For example, I opened the door. Here, opened is a transitive verb. I am the subject. I am doing an action (opening) on the door. If I want to write that sentence passively, I would say “The door was opened by me.” I could also just say, “the door was opened.”

The problem with this is that it hides the doer, who is often a point of view character, or a character who is being seen by your point of view character. We don’t care about the door. In a story, we care about the person going through the door.

Passive voice is one component of a broader editorial consideration, passive writing. In general, passive writing flattens a story and slows your reader down. Great writing makes use of strong verbs in their proper form and for complex actions, the doer is still clearly visible. But passive writing is its own topic and that can be for another time.

What are some tips for identifying passive voice in writing?

If you look at the passive example above with the door, notice that the “by me” is optional. This is one sneaky way that the passive voice can hide in your sentences. It is the source of the little “by zombies” trick. Some of you might be familiar with this: if you can add “by zombies” to a sentence, then it is passive. For example, “Conversations were had” (by zombies).

One other cheat is to search for “were” and “was”. Often you will find verbs in the following for: was [verb]ed, or were [verb]ed. For example, “The passage was opened”. Notice that the by zombies rule works here too, but it’s hard to search for parts of your manuscript by using this rule, whereas typing “were” and “was” in your search box in Word, then taking a tour of your manuscript that way allows you to focus on the sentence where these words are to see if these sentences are passive.

A related point, since I’ve touched on passive writing: sentences where you can find “was [verb]ing” or “were [verb]ing” can also be passive. For example, “She was running down the street.” In this case, this is NOT passive voice, but it is passive writing, because third person limited point of view should use simple past tenses to feel active. In this case, I’d correct such a sentence to read: “She ran down the street.” Ran is simple past of the verb “to run”. Was running is the progressive past. Effectively, this puts the present action you are conveying for your reader further in the past, creating a sense of distance between what’s happening in the story and the reader. This is considered passive because it weakens the narrative strength and the immediacy of the prose.

So put those in your tool bag. Simply searching “were” and “was” can be a powerful aid, even though you will have to be patient in doing so because these words will be found hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times in your manuscript.

A caveat, of course, is that you should never use such a search to just eliminate all these words. Instead, utilize this as an opportunity to zoom in to candidate spots where you might find passive voice or passive writing. For example, you might find, “The sun was setting in the west when they arrived in the valley.” Here, you want to keep that was. Why? Because it’s not passive. Here the important action is in the verb “arrive”. Why’s that? Because the characters are arriving. The sun is not the character. So when we say “the sun was setting”, we’re setting up a progressive action that frames the important action done by “them” (your characters). On the other hand, if the sentence read, “The sun was setting in the west when��they were arriving in the valley,” then there’s a passive form that needs to be corrected. Do you see the difference between this sentence and the previous one and how it has the effect of “blurring” the camera lens of your story? It’s really hard to focus on that phrase “they were arriving in the valley” because we can’t pin our characters down to a concrete moment in time. Whereas “they arrived in the valley” has a sense of immediacy to it.

The take home point to this caveat is this: eliminating passive writing is not a simple find/replace tactic, but is a very deep, thoughtful process, requiring you to think about exactly how you are describing actions to your reader.

How can we get rid of passive voice?

Although it is tedious work, if you want to eliminate the passive voice, then you need to think about every verb you write. With practice, you will think differently about verbs. In fact, I often challenge writers I work with to think of better verbs. There are so many, but in practice we use so few of them. Instead of saying, “He spoke with great force,” why not say, “He shouted”? Getting in the habit of asking with every sentence you write what action you are trying to convey will help you realize the wide scope of verbs you have available and ways to describe it. Do you want, “She stamped her feet, shouted, pounded her fist on the table with red-cheeked fury”, or do you want, “She raged”? That depends on how much you want to zoom the camera in on your characters.

Being more verb conscious is one sure way to kill not only passive voice usage, thus making your fiction more active and pulling your reading along relentlessly (because it feels like the movie camera is on), but this also allows you to kill passive writing, or at least aspects of it. As I said, there are more issues involved with passive writing which go deeper than verb usage, so for now let’s just think about verbs, and as a writer if you can start trying to think about verbs and improving how you use them, you’ll be off to a great start.

Any last comments or tips for us?

Active writing is one thing that gives fiction a professional edge. Tackling issues of passive writing is a sure way to make your fiction stand out above fiction which might have just been quickly edited to fix grammar and typos. Active writing is strong and not only gives your story a professional punch, but also seizes hold of your reader, regardless of the content. It’s not magic, there is no special charm, it’s simply mastery of sentences, more precisely, mastery of how to use verbs.

One way I have come to appreciate the conversion process of making passive writing active, is in a metaphor. Imagine the manuscript you wrote as a garden full of weeds. There are beautiful things in that garden, but under all the passive sentences and descriptions, your beautiful images and emotions will hide. Meticulously hunting for passive writing and activating these spots is like pulling out all those weeds and ensuring every part of your garden is pristine. In the case of your story, activating your writing will ensure that your reader is pulled into your narrative with every sentence. Active writing does not give your reader the option to skim because it is so sharp it demands to be read. And if you write books that demand to be read, you’ll not only please your readers, but will have them eager to read more.

Thanks for joining us on the blog today, John! ��For readers who enjoyed this post, keep an eye on my blog because John will return periodically for these Sex For Money posts.

And if you’d like to learn more about John, you can find out more about his editing services over at Story Perfect Editing Services, and you can learn more about his epic fantasy novel, Blood Dawn, on his blog. ��(He is crowdfunding the publication of Blood Dawn through Inkshares – a new publishing model that combines the control of self-publishing and the power of traditional publishing – and could use your help. ��Click here to find out more!)

When to Create an Author Platform – Sex For Money Post #3

Sex For Money is a semi-regular blog series about my experiences in writing, publishing, and marketing gay erotica and M/M erotic romance. ��All of this information is from my own experience, so your experience may differ. ��It���s hoped that sharing this information might be helpful to new and aspiring erotica and erotic romance authors, as I see a lot of questions and a lot of misinformation out there. ��To read more Sex For Money posts, click here.

The biggest task for any writer, beyond writing and publishing a book, is generating readership and creating an author platform. ��For a first time author, the big question is “When should I start generating a platform?”

When I first started, I decided to create an author identity and presence before my first book had even been picked up for publication. ��To be honest, I felt a little silly doing so — why on earth would I go about telling people I’m an author when I have��nothing to show for it? ��Wouldn’t it make far more sense to generate a readership��after I’ve published something?

I certainly understand that point of view. ��For every published author, there are probably a thousand people who claim to be authors but have nothing published. ��And in this day and age of self-publishing, there are a lot of authors who have put out a dozen or more books and are sorely in need of an editor and a reality check.

To go blazing into social media claiming to be an author before you’ve been published can feel like putting the cart before the horse. ��And, if you’re like me, it can be an embarrassing prospect.

However, let’s step back a bit.

Back before indie publishing and back before ebooks, there were only print books. ��I used to work in a bookstore, so I remember the “good old days” (*sarcastic eye roll*). ��A print book would be on the shelves for, at most, three months. ��If it wasn’t a big seller, it was sent back to the publisher and was only available by special order. ��And if your book received poor sales across the board, it was taken out of publication and, once stock ran out, unavailable. ��Back in those days, it was crucial to generate a readership��before a book was released, as you only had one shot at it. ��If you didn’t have big sales in those first few months, you ran the risk of not being picked up for your next book.

Ebooks revolutionized the market. ��Ebooks are available, at no cost to the publisher, for eternity. ��(Well, not quite eternity, but definitely far longer than in the old days.) ��Ebooks don’t need that instant rush of sales, as sales can trickle in over the years… so much so that you might have far more sales than in the old days, but you just don’t have the rush. ��So, in other words, you might have an ebook that is far more profitable than a print book in the old days, but your sales pattern are such that your book would have been discontinued before reaching those sales numbers.

So, if ebooks have revolutionized book buying, then why bother with generating a pre-publication readership so that you start with a bang? ��After all, books can have a resurgence and a sales boom can happen at any time. ��My launch of my first novel,��Autumn Fire, went decently. ��After about a year, I decided to go on a blog tour to promote it some more (which is a tactic that would have been uncommon in the old days as the book would have been off the shelves by then).

There are several reasons why a pre-publication platform and following is important:

Start with a bang! While book-buying patterns are different now, publishers still like it when a book launches to great sales numbers. ��For your career, it will mean increased chances your publisher will take your next book and, if your publisher gives advances, it may mean a higher advance. ��For self-published authors, it can be a��necessary ego boost. ��Imagine self-publishing your first book and you sell one copy in the first month. ��Would you even bother with the second book? ��What if you sold 500 in the first month? ��You’d jump right into writing the sequel.
Bestseller status. ��There’s no denying that if your book hits a bestseller list, it increases your visibility, and thus increases sales. ��To get on the bestseller list of a website, you��need a glut of sales. ��You might have 5000 sales over the course of a couple years, but if you don’t have a surge in a short period of time, you won’t get on any bestseller lists. ��I have three titles that have achieved bestseller status on All Romance eBooks — and that site puts a permanent badge on your book page to signify this. ��When a potential customer views my book listing on ARe, they see three bestseller badges on my list of ten works. ��You better believe this encourages them to give me a chance.
Community. ��Writing is a lonely endeavour. ��By generating a platform and collecting readers (or having other authors connect with you), you are part of a larger book community. ��This can offer you encouragement and support and motivation.
Instant promo help. ��By connecting with authors and readers on social networks, you increase the chances of free promo when your first book is released. ��Authors you’ve connected with will retweet you to their followers. ��Readers will comment on Facebook about the great new book by the great new author. ��This takes a heck of a lot of work off your shoulders. ��Your fan network and author buddies will help you get the word out.

So, the big question… how do you launch your platform?

Figure out which social networks you want to engage with. ��(I will blog about these various networks in upcoming posts.)
See what other authors are doing. ��Figure out what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong. ��Take the stuff you like and figure out how to work it into your own social media platform.
Figure out how to word your profile bio. ��To avoid the stigma of “this person’s an author but they have nothing to show for it,” I would advise being honest in your bio. ��I had something like, “Cameron D. James is an M/M erotic romance author hard at work on his first novel.” ��I wasn’t touting myself as a published professional, but I wasn’t downplaying what I was doing, either. ��I was also specific about what I’m working on. ��If I had just said I’m an “aspiring writer,” then I’d be ignored with the thousands of other “aspiring writers” out there.
Connect with authors. ��Eventually, readers will connect with you, too. ��(And in future posts, I’ll talk about what to share on the various networks so that you appear professional, approachable, social, and real.)
Somewhere along the way, make sure you create a website, too. ��Social networks cannot replace an author website. ��(Again, this is something I’ll blog about in the future.)

So, we’re back to the question of��when you should start generating your platform.

The answer?

Now.

Advertising Erotica on Twitter – Sex For Money Post #2

Sex For Money is a semi-regular blog series about my experiences in writing, publishing, and marketing gay erotica and M/M erotic romance. ��All of this information is from my own experience, so your experience may differ. ��It���s hoped that sharing this information might be helpful to new and aspiring erotica and erotic romance authors, as I see a lot of questions and a lot of misinformation out there.

Marketing ebooks on Twitter, particularly erotica ebooks, can be one of the most depressing experiences an author can have. ��For all the work an author might put into promoting their ebooks, sales are usually dismal.

Then along comes a promotional package offered by a marketing company. ��They promise to promote your book on their Twitter accounts, sending the tweets out to thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of Twitter followers, opening the possibilities of massive sales.

It can be tempting to hand over the money — after all, they’re the professionals, right?

That would probably be a mistake.

Here’s why they can’t guarantee success:

Twitter has perhaps the shortest “shelf life” of all the social media platforms. ��If your tweet isn’t seen in the first few minutes, then it’s probably not seen at all. ��(Whereas with Facebook, it can appear in people’s newsfeeds for days.) ��So, while a promo company may have fifty thousand followers, only a fraction of them will be online at any one time, and only a fraction of those people will see the tweet, and only a fraction of those people will click on the link, and only a fraction of those people will buy the book. ��The numbers get pretty small, pretty quick.
Most of these ebook marketing accounts on Twitter follow authors, in order to make a connection with them. ��And because it’s general practice on Twitter, these authors then follow the marketing account back. ��So, this means that most of their thousands of followers are other authors who are on Twitter for the same reason you are — to sell books. ��Yes, other authors read. ��However, authors are not your target audience. ��Your target audience are the voracious readers who are searching for their next read. ��Yes, some of these people will follow the ebook marketing account, but the ratio of readers to authors is quite low.

So does this mean Twitter is a dead end for marketing? ��Absolutely not!

Here’s how to market yourself on Twitter:

Do more than marketing. ��I once followed a Twitter account that promoted a certain book every fifteen minutes. ��I am not exaggerating. ��It was every fifteen minutes, twenty-four hours a day. ��I quickly unfollowed that account. ��In general, I unfollow or ignore accounts that are��constantly��marketing to me. ��If a Twitter is run by a real person and you get glimpses of that real person from time to time, then I am more open to receiving marketing from those authors and would be more likely to check out a link or two. ��(I’m not a natural Twitterer, so I sync my Tumblog to Twitter so that I get some automatic daily content on Twitter, and I then intersperse some marketing tweets throughout the day.)
Make connections. ��Follow-back the people that follow you and go and follow people that you find interesting. ��Twitter will often suggest accounts you might like to follow — and I find they’re generally good suggestions. ��DO NOT follow ten thousand people, wait for several thousand to follow back, and then unfollow them all. ��Some people do this to look popular, so that they have massive numbers of followers, but they’re hardly following anybody. ��People who do this might follow twelve people, but have thirty-seven thousand followers. ��(Super big name celebrities often have numbers like this, but that’s the nature of being a celebrity.) ��Unless you’re a big name celebrity, you come across as a shady person just fishing for followers.
Make your marketing tweets interesting. ��Sadly, I see a lot of people sending��wholly uninteresting tweets to market their books. ��These take a few��forms: just the title and a link (so this tell us nothing); a one sentence excerpt and a link (one sentence out of context, no matter how dirty, is boring); or a generic “check out my book” followed by a link (*snore*). ��So how do you make it interesting? ��Can you give us the premise in one sentence? ��Can you tell us what’s unique about your book? ��Is it a bestseller? ��All of these are interesting tidbits.
Use hashtags. ��Hashtags are the words that come after the #. ��They’re sort of like tags or a filing system. ��There are some pretty popular hashtags for books. ��I’ve found success with these: #freeread (if you’ve got a free book), #newrelease, #erotica, #gayerotica, #BYNR (which stands for “book your next read”), #gaysex, #IARTG (which stands for “indie author retweet group”), and #EARTG (which stands for “erotica author retweet group”). ��The catch with IARTG and EARTG is that if you are sending tweets out with those tags, you should also retweet other people’s tweets that use that hashtag. ��I utilize Tweetdeck to tweet, so I’ve set up a column to give me the feed of tweets with that hashtag so that I’ve always got them in front of me. ��When I see an interesting tweet, I retweet it.
Support others. ��Marketing on Twitter is not a cutthroat game. ��It’s not you versus the world. ��You should retweet others (whether or not they use the retweet hashtags) and help them promote their work. ��Your work should always come first, but by promoting other people, you are building good author karma. ��These other authors will often return the favour and retweet some of your tweets, sending the info out to their followers.

To get a glimpse of how I market on Twitter, feel free to check out my Twitter account. ��To make it easy on myself, I’ve got about thirty tweets saved in a text document that I just copy and paste into Tweetdeck and then schedule it to send out at a certain time. ��Setting up a day’s worth of tweets takes but a few minutes. ��And because I don’t want to be all Tumblr photos and marketing tweets, I do, from time to time, send out a tweet about whatever it is I’m doing.

I presently have 700-some-odd Twitter followers, but by following the rules of Twitter (retweeting for author karma, not being an ass, and smart use of hashtags), my tweets are often retweeted and have the potential of being seen by thousands and thousands of Twitter users. ��Does this result in thousands and thousands of sales? ��I wish. ��But it��does result in some sales. ��I’ve seen an increase in sales since I started marketing on Twitter and that increase has been consistent.

Marketing on Twitter means you must be open to new ideas, new strategies, and experimenting with new techniques.

For example, I’ve noticed that some erotica authors send tweets out with photos attached — the photos are steamy and often have a dirty excerpt printed over them. ��To attempt to replicate this, I’ve created a series of graphics that feature a book cover and a dirty excerpt. ��I have these prepared and will start tweeting them soon.

As well, I discovered a list of useful Twitter hashtags over on Dalia Daudelin’s site (way down at the bottom). ��I’ll be giving some of these hashtags a try soon.

I’ll follow-up in a future Sex For Money post in a few weeks to update y’all on how the photo tweets and new hashtags are working.

For now, give Twitter a try. ��It won’t bite. ��:)

Giving Up Control – Sex For Money Post #1

Sex For Money is a semi-regular blog series about my experiences in writing, publishing, and marketing gay erotica and M/M erotic romance. ��This is the first post! ��All of this information is from my own experience, so your experience may differ. ��It’s hoped that sharing this information might be helpful to new and aspiring erotica and erotic romance authors, as I see a lot of questions and a lot of misinformation out there.

I just spent the morning updating��all of my ebooks on all of the sites I sell through. ��I realized that I had completely forgotten to include the copyright information on the stock photos I used for the covers. ��So I spent all last evening updating all of my various book files (I upload Word documents to Amazon and Smashwords; ePub, PDF, and mobi to All Romance eBooks and Selz; and ePub to Google Play), and then this morning uploading all of those files to the appropriate websites.

When uploading to these sites, it’s a good idea to view the uploaded file, just to verify they are working properly. ��(This really just applies to Amazon and Smashwords, where I upload Word files. ��For the other sites, I upload actual ebook files that I’ve created and verified previously.) ��Amazon has a Kindle Previewer as part of the upload process and Smashwords lets you view the file after it’s been posted to their website.

I noticed today that these systems require the author to give up a fair��bit of control. ��This is not the place for a perfectionist. ��Yes, the text of the file should be perfect and yes you should do the best possible job you can in formatting your file for upload. ��But what I came to realize is that these sites (and ereaders) have their own styles that will override how you’ve formatted your book.

Specifically…

With Amazon:

For all the discussion I read about whether it’s more professional to justify the text of your ebook (so that the right hand edge of the text is a smooth straight line) or if you should leave it as left-aligned / ragged right, it seems Kindle automatically justifies the text. ��(I think the older Kindles will leave the text how you format it, though.) ��All of my ebooks are left-aligned, as I dislike justified text for ebooks — yet on the Kindle previewer, part of the upload process, all of my ebooks appear as justified text.
When you insert a page break, the first line is automatically left-aligned with no indent. I believe this is because it’s “proper” book format for a new chapter to start on the first line without an indent. ��(I’ll pause so you can go look in a few print books — you’ll find it in most of them.) ��While automating professionalism is an interesting idea, it creates havoc for formatting. ��If you start a new chapter using a page break, the first line is formatted to this standard. ��So… at the end of the book, when I insert a page break and write “About Cameron D. James”, something that should be centred, it appears all the way on the left and looks woefully unprofessional. ��This can usually��be defeated by inserting a blank line as the first line on a new page after a page break.

With Smashwords:

Oddly, when viewing my ebook online in HTML, the title and copyright pages are in Arial, while the rest of the book is in Times New Roman. ��(The file I uploaded is entirely in Times New Roman.) ��However, I guess because of how I inserted a legal disclaimer on a few books, there are three lines in��the middle of the copyright page that are in Times New Roman, while the rest is Arial.
When I noticed this, I downloaded an ePub version of my book so see what it’s like in there. ��Inside the ePub, my text is all in Times New Roman, so there’s no odd font-switching. ��However, the very first line, which is usually your title, is on it’s own page. ��The rest of your title page follows on the next page. ��(And then your copyright info, provided you inserted a page break, is on the page after that.) ��Normally, this is not an issue as the first line of your file is usually your title. ��But this comes across as really odd for my Boys In Heat story, as it’s originally formatted as (and the / indicates a new line): “Go-Go Boys of Club 21 / Part Three / Boys in Heat / Cameron D. James”. ��So with Smashwords’s automatic formatting, “Go-Go Boys of Club 21,”��the series title��appears as the book title on the first page. It’s not until the reader goes to the second page that they actually see��the book title. ��If I want the book title to appear on the first page, I would have to reformat it as “Boys in Heat / Go-Go Boys of Club 21 / Part Three / Cameron D. James”.

If I were an absolute perfectionist, I would have freaked out today. ��I would have reformatted all of my books from scratch and uploaded/tested them to see how they appear, then reformatted again. ��However, I took a step back and looked at the end result.

The reader gets an ebook that is grammatically and structurally correct — that’s where I feel perfectionism is important — and the formatting of the actual story text is mostly untouched (except for the few minor Kindle/Amazon changes). ��The imperfections appear primarily on the copyright page and some of the back matter pages… AKA the pages that the reader is most likely to just skip over.

Being an indie author, where you do all of the work yourself, sometimes means you need to decide what’s important and what’s not. ��To me, an engrossing story is important. ��To me, whether or not “About Cameron D. James” is centred or left-aligned is not important. ��I can deal with a little bit of imperfection in one of the least important components of the ebook, especially when it’s something the reader might not even notice.

Book Review: Long Slow Burn

Long Slow Burn

Grant Foster

Grant Foster, one of gay erotica’s most prolific and talented creators, presents a collection of his best, hottest, most guaranteed-to-make-your-mouth-water stories. Whether your fantasy is married men getting it on or younger men feeling the first fires of lust, Foster has a story to stir your imagination. Passionate, humorous, forbidden…the words of Grant Foster will light your fire and never put it out.

I don’t have my copy of Long Slow Burn by my side right now, but I’m pretty sure my copy says “Masterful Gay Erotica” somewhere on it. ��And, wow, Foster is excellent at gay erotica. ��The book does get better as it goes on, so the earlier stories are weaker (but not weak) than the later stories.

This book inspired many boners for this reader. ;)

Foster has a way of drawing the reader in and not letting go. ��I find a lot of erotica pulls the reader in well enough, but the tension is not sustained throughout or there is a phrase or scene that can throw the reader out — but not so with Foster. ��His stories are carefully worded to keep the reader rapt. He also has a good way with the “Is he straight? Is he gay?” tension without overdoing it. ��When a seemingly straight guy goes for gay sex, the narrator doesn’t stand back astonished — no, he gets right in there and starts with the sexy.

This book was a great find — easily one of the best erotica anthologies I’ve read in quite a while.

Book Review: Star Trek: Enterprise: Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures

Star Trek: Enterprise: Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures

Christopher L. Bennett

A new nation has arisen from the ashes of the Romulan War: the United Federation of Planets, an unprecedented union of diverse species cooperating for the good of all. Admiral Jonathan Archer���the former captain of the Earth starship��Enterprise, whose efforts made this union possible���envisions a vibrant Federation promoting galactic peace and a multispecies Starfleet dedicated to exploring strange new worlds. Archer���s former crewmates, including Captain T���Pol of the��U.S.S. Endeavour��and Captain Malcolm Reed of the��U.S.S. Pioneer, work with him to secure that bright future. Yet others within the Federation see its purpose as chiefly military, a united defense against a dangerous galaxy, while some of its neighbors view that military might with suspicion and fear. And getting the member nations, their space fleets, and even their technologies to work together as a unified whole is an ongoing challenge.

When a new threat emerges from a force so alien and hostile that negotiation seems impossible, a group of unaligned worlds asks Starfleet to come to its defense, and the Federation���s leaders seize the opportunity to build their reputation as an interstellar power. But Archer fears the conflict is building toward an unnecessary war, potentially taking the young nation down a path it was never meant to follow. Archer and his allies strive to find a better solution . . . but old foes are working secretly to sabotage their efforts and ensure that the great experiment called the Federation comes to a quick and bloody end.

I’m a little late in catching up with my Enterprise books, as this one was released in 2013. ��While I don’t dislike Enterprise, it’s certainly not my most favourite of Star Treks, so that was probably why I held off for so long. ��And… as I discovered… I read the books a little out of order. ��The last Enterprise book I read was the first half of the Romulan War duology — I haven’t read the second half yet.

All that being said, this was quite a good book. ��This takes place after the Romulan War and after the founding of the Federation. ��(In the final episode of Enterprise, they flashed forward a few years to show the founding of the Federation — so this takes places a few years after that. ��I think in all it’s around eight years after the Enterprise series, not counting the timeline of the final episode.) ��A Choice of Futures ably handles a very large and complex cast of characters spread across multiple ships and planets; a task that many writers would struggle with. ��Bennett follows all of the various Enterprise cast members, even though they no longer all serve together and even though the Enterprise ship itself is no longer in service.

I presume the rest of the Rise of the Federation novels (I’ve got book two in my to-read pile and I just bought the newly-released book three) will follow the successes and failures of establishing the United Federation of Planets. ��So far, Bennett is the only writer of this series — and he’s doing a good job from what I’ve seen. ��A Choice of Futures captures the struggles of mixing together different races who are not used to working with outsiders, while mashing together their respective technologies when they were never designed to work this way.

While not the strongest Star Trek book by Christopher L. Bennett, A Choice of Futures lays out a lot of fodder for him to seize upon and strive forward with in future novels. ��Having read other Star Trek books by Bennett before, I know that he can work with this material and create excellent books down the line.