Cameron D. James's Blog, page 35

Erotic Voices: Joey Jameson

For this edition of Erotic Voices, I’m thrilled to present Joey Jameson, author of the new gay erotic thriller, Twisted!

Check out the interview below to learn more about Joey and his great new book!

 

Tell us about your latest release.

My latest release is called “Twisted” and it’s probably my favourite piece that I’ve written to date. Since as long as I can remember, I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of twins. And not just any twins, but identical ones. It probably stems from the fact that I’m an only child I suppose! Anyways, the idea of two people looking exactly alike; mirror images of the other, has always intrigued me.

When the idea started to fester in my head, I started to think about ‘gay identical twins’ and the likelihood that they exist or if they’re something of a ‘gay urban legend.’ But after doing some research I found that it’s more likely for both twins to be gay than it is for just one.

And that’s how Twisted was born!

I wanted to take this idea of two people looking so alike, but polar opposites of each other on the inside and really explore what that would mean for them growing up. How would they cope? What trouble would they get themselves into? How would they approach social situations? That’s what this story is about. The two main characters, Everly and Hadley couldn’t be more different. One’s a hedonistic-loose-cannon-party-animal, and the other is definitely the quiet-studious-never-gets-his-hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar kind of guy. The fun in the story happens when both twins meet this guy who they fall head over heals for. The problem, which becomes clear to the reader quite early on, is that you don’t want to make these twins angry…

Let’s just say it breathes new life into the idea of a Good and Evil twin…

 

What’s the most difficult part of writing a sex scene?

The tricky thing about writing good sex scene, is not getting so excited writing it that you end up coming in the process! (I’m only half-serious!) No, in all honesty the ‘hard’ part of writing a sex scene is that you have to be in the mood to do a really hot one. Sometimes a good sex scene will take me all day to write; I need to begin and end the writing session with describing the sex and then pick up the story again the next day…It’s that exhausting! I also need to be surrounded with sexy images while writing and I won’t deny that I’ve scrolled through the odd porn site to get inspired, let’s say! To me, it’s got to flow to be believable, which is why I like to write it all at once. If too much time has passed then I lose the momentum and it falls apart. But I suppose I’ll leave that up to you and your readers to judge how well I manage!

 

What’s your favourite part about writing a sex scene?

My favourite part of writing a sex scene is the feeling I get while writing it. It’s hard to explain, but there’s a little bit of a personal fantasy that goes into every good sex scene I write. Whether it’s from personal experience, or simply something out of the deepest, darkest reaches of my mind. They all have a little bit of ‘me’ in them. And that is the most liberating feeling I have ever felt. I’m a bit of an exhibitionist, and being able to share and describe my nitty-gritty fantasies with the world in the utmost of detail is so freeing! I literally can’t get enough. I also love the idea that when I’m writing, no one can judge me. I can be as filthy as I want to be, and describe things that no author has ever described before…and no one can stop me! I won’t give too much away, but there is one scene in “Twisted” that even I felt I may have gone overboard with…But once again, I’ll let your audience be the judge…

 

Tell us about the characters in the book.

As I said previously, Everly and Hadley are so alike yet so different as well. They are identical looking, but represent both sides of a coin; one’s blonde and cute and funny and smart, the other has black hair, does drugs, parties way too hard and can’t hold down a proper job. Anyone who knows me will be able to spot parts of me and my personality in both the twins. Really, they represent both the light and dark of life; the yin and the yang, the sweet and the salty. I love that idea that both are so different yet balance each other so perfectly. They seem like they’d be mortal enemies to the other, being that they’re so different, but they couldn’t be any closer! It’s this bond between brothers that I wanted to really explore in this book, but then turn it on its head and really make the reader wonder who’s turning tricks in the book and is each one really who and what they pretend to be…Let’s just say that things get a bit ‘twisted’ as the story progresses. It’s a story of intrigue and obsession and of the power behind the brotherly bond, and just how far you can stretch it before it breaks.

 

What’s your most favorite book you’ve written and why?

It may sound contrite that I say this one, being that I’m trying to promote it, but I loved writing “Twisted” more than any of my previous pieces. It’s the one that I really took the time with the most and put 100% of my mind, body and soul into. The idea came to me over a year and a half ago and it took me that long to perfect it. The story jumps between the different perspectives of the twins and is told from both their different points of view, giving the reader a feeling of slight schizophrenia as they read. I love messing with my reader and twisting their perspectives on things. I guess you could say I had the most fun writing this book because I got to really show both sides to my own personality (in a slightly narcissistic manner) and really get down and dirty with the story line. It’s shocking, mysterious, surprising, naughty and utterly perverse. You’ll walk away a different person after reading this book, and probably never look at twins the same way again…

 

Hmm… That sounds super interesting, Joey!  I’ve just started reading Twisted — it’s off to a great start.  I haven’t hit a sex scene yet, but now you’ve got me really intrigued…

If you’d like to connect with Joey to learn more or to purchase your copy of Twisted, you can…

Find Joey on Facebook
Follow Joey on Twitter (@joeyjameson)
Visit Joey’s author page at Chances Press
Email Joey: misterjoeyjameson(at)gmail(dot)com

  

Is “Free” Killing the Indie Publishing Industry?

Since I use Amazon’s KDP platform to self-publish on Amazon, I have access to the KDP forums. I sometimes poke my nose in there and peek at what folks are chatting about, but don’t actually participate, since I’m not a forum-loving person.

While there are some very knowledgeable and helpful people on those forums, I find it discouraging how much bad information and advice floats around and people take it as golden truth. However, I don’t claim to be an all-knowing source of knowledge and fully recognize my own opinions are just that — opinions… so again, I stay out.

Lately, though, there have been a LOT of complaints about all of the authors who publish free books. Many forum users believe that these authors are ruining the self-publishing industry, cutting into their sales, and casting a shadow on the indie reputation.

With that, I completely disagree.

Yes, there are a LOT of terribly-written free books out there. However, there are also a LOT of terribly-written books that cost .99, 1.99, 2.99, etc.

However, there are also some very well-written free books. And some very well-written books that cost money.

Free is a marketing tactic, even a book that is permanently free. It gets interest, it gets downloads, and if readers enjoy it, hopefully they will check if the author has more. I utilize that strategy. Go Deep is free — and in my opinion, should always be free.  It lets readers access a full sample of my work without laying down some cash.

I believe Go Deep is well-written (and well-edited), but I realize I’m biased in saying that. However, perhaps the ten reviews on Amazon, averaging 4.5 stars, are a more objective demonstration that Go Deep is written well.

Yes, I could easily charge .99 for it, like I do for the rest of my short stories, but Go Deep was always intended to be 100% free. I wouldn’t feel right charging .99 for it.

If I’m interpreting the forum users correctly, when they wish Amazon would banish the ability to make books permanently free, they are hoping that all of these authors with free books will simply disappear. That’s a fallacy. If the absolute minimum people can sell their books for is .99, then all of these free books will simply be sold for .99… not disappear.

The self-published authors who do not take the time to carefully craft their stories and undergo an objective editing process, but then publish a shoddy work for free, will not go away if it’s impossible to “sell” for free. They’ll just all be .99 authors.

If these forum users are concerned about the reputation and respectability of self-publishing, then they need to realize that these authors they dislike will always be selling alongside them. If these forum users believe that “free” is a marker of absolute trash, then by removing the free option and having these authors sell at .99, then these forum users would then believe .99 is a marker of absolute trash.

The self-publishing industry is in the midst of a revolution.

With the mega-corporations losing their strangle-hold on the industry, publishing is now seen as attainable by the average person — as it very well should be. I believe the best mix for the industry as a whole is a combination of big presses, medium and small presses, micro presses, and self-publishing. However, with that comes the stuff these forum users complain about. To somehow forbid these “bad writers” from publishing implies there needs to be some oversight to the industry… like a big company… It seems these forum users want to self-publish, but long for the reputation from the days when the big houses controlled everything.

Here’s the secret to success and the secret to standing out in the crowd…

Ready for it…?

Write a good book. Edit it. Publish it. Write another. Edit it. Publish it. Repeat.

The key to success and respectability in the industry is NOT to get rid of those you disagree with or those whom you believe are bringing a bad reputation to the industry. The key to success is to be so damn good that people flock to you.

If these forum users want the free books to disappear (and I’m sure they actually mean the poorly-written free books), then the best strategy is to ignore them. Poor writers will get poor reviews and their downloads will eventually dwindle. As well, there’s really only so long a poor writer offering only free books can continue with this hobby. (It’s not a business if you’re not trying to make money, so these people are writing as a hobby.) They will eventually fade into the woodwork. They will be replaced by other poorly-written free books, yes, but they, too, will fade. What will remain over time are the well-written books — both for free and for money. An impressive backlist with glowing reviews will ensure success, and no amount of poorly-written free books will impact you.

Changes to my Book Review Policy

As many of you have noticed, I do book reviews here on my site.

I basically review everything I read.  And this is starting to be a problem, I think.  My most popular post of all time is a review of Peter and Wendy (aka Peter Pan).  I highly suspect that I’m getting hits from kids googling for help on their book reports for Peter and Wendy… and then they come to the blog of a gay erotica author.  Seriously, I get about five hits a week.

So, I’ve deleted that book review and will no longer review YA books, which is a bit of a shame because I’m reading the Gone series by Michael Grant and it’s abso-fricking-mazing.  I’ll probably have a round up every once in a while of books I read but didn’t review, just in case some of y’all are curious.

As I said above, I review what I read.  So, I’m not a professional book reviewer.

However, every once in a while, I do receive a request from an author, asking if I can read and review their books.  I thought it was about time to have a policy about that.

So here it is:

I will consider review requests on a case-by-case basis.  Part of the consideration is genre/content, and this is the ranking I currently have:

Gay erotic fiction
LGBTQ erotic fiction
Straight erotic fiction
Anything else


I’ll probably say “no” if your ebook file is full of inconsistent formatting.  There are some pretty terribly formatted books that get sent my way. You have to appear professional if you want me to read your book.
I can’t guarantee any sort of time line.  I’ve got a full time day job and my evenings and weekends are filled with writing and editing.  So my reading time is growing smaller and, well, I already have a list of things I really want to read.
For information’s sake: So far, I’ve received six read/review requests and I’ve turned down two of them.  I’m probably going to be stricter in the future as most of those requests were back when I had more time.
You can find my contact information on my website — www.camerondjames.com

So, there ya go.  If you think you might have something of interest to me, you can send me an email.

Or… you can also do the easier thing and request to be an Erotic Voices guest author…

Too Much Butt Crack

Like many self-published authors, I use a few platforms to get my works out to as many vendors as possible. I use KDP to get my stuff in Amazon, I deal directly with redvark.com, will likely soon get my stuff up on All Romance, and I use Smashwords to reach a whole bunch more.

When an ebook is uploaded on Smashwords, it’s immediately available for sale on their site. Ebooks are then screened for suitability in Smashwords’s Premium Catalogue. Once a book achieves premium status, it’s then shipped out to other vendors like Kobo, iTunes, and Barnes and Noble.

It’s really very easy to obtain premium status. You basically follow a checklist. Even then, the occasional flag is raised that needs addressing. (For instance, Gaymer was originally rejected because while I wrote the characters as 18+, Smashwords felt their ages were ambiguous. So, I added an author’s note stating all characters are 18+, resubmitted it, and cruised through the premium process.)

As I prepare for the release of Bathhouse Nights this past week, I went through these steps with all the vendors again. Bathhouse Nights was quickly approved and on sale on Amazon and is already up on Redvark.

Smashwords, though, raised a flag. So, while the book is currently available on Smashwords, it won’t be distributed to 3rd party sites until I address the concern.

Apparently, the cover model is showing a little too much ass.

I completely disagree.

However, I’m not complaining and I’m not upset.

Smashwords raised this flag because they want my ebook to be accepted into 3rd party sites with no issues. And these 3rd party sites are subject to the opinions of their customers. So it’s not truly Smashwords or the 3rd party vendors who have a problem with the amount of ass on my cover… it’s the general buying public. (On a related note, I’ve noticed Amazon hides my items from search results and the customer needs to explicitly click on a link that says they want to see adult content — but that’s another issue, and a very minor issue, as far as I’m concerned, as my books are still easily found and easily bought.)

So here’s the “clean” version of the cover I altered for Smashwords:

I just logged into my Smashwords account and see that it was approved and will be shipped to 3rd party sites soon.

As I set about designing an alternate cover for use with Smashwords and their 3rd party sites, I wondered what this process says about the general public.

Firstly, this is an entirely subjective criticism. For Smashwords’s Premium Catalogue, butt crack (along with a few other things) are a no-no.  Bathhouse Nights shows about an inch of the top of a guy’s ass. Yet, Go Deep, another short story of mine, shows the whole side profile of a guy’s ass, and it was accepted no problem. As well, a story I recently bought and read off of iTunes, I Am A Faggot by Sir Hunter (which was very good and very hot), shows approximately the same amount of butt crack as Bathhouse Nights, except the top of his model isn’t as naked as mine (but it’s not the top that’s the problem, it’s the ass).

   

Secondly, when covers featuring as much or more nudity of women are available on these 3rd party sites, such as the ones below (which I found all on Kobo, one of Smashwords’s 3rd party partners, by searching “erotica”), what does this say about society’s acceptance of female nudity versus male nudity? Society seems to have no trouble sexualizing and objectifying women, but has real problems when it comes to sexualizing and objectifying men. (For a quick thought experiment: For fans of the TV show Game of Thrones — how many penises have you seen versus breasts or vaginas?) And what does this difference say about the value society places on women versus men?

      

Hey!  I found one male butt crack!

And, thirdly, if this were a straight erotica story, would the censors (and by extension, the public) have the same problem? The romance and erotica stories marketed at women can be rather explicit, so it makes me wonder if this cover featured a woman and a man, rather than two men, would that amount of ass be okay? From my own experience, and this really doesn’t take a ton of thought, the general public is largely accepting and affirming of gay love and gay relationships, but the thought of gay sex can make many of those same people squeamish. (And that’s totally not a criticism or complaint of any kind — we are socialized to think of sex in one way, more or less, and gay sex is the opposite of what we are socialized to accept, so it’s a bit of a hurdle for people to get over.) As I look at the cover of Bathhouse Nights, I see a guy’s ass and then the shadow of another guy behind him — does this perhaps induce uncomfortable thoughts of gay sexual acts?

Compare that slight suggestion to the quite explicit sex acts on these heterosexual erotica covers, which I again found on Kobo by searching “erotica”:

      

So these are all just some thoughts I had in reaction to this request for a cover alteration from Smashwords. I’m happy to do the alteration — I understand where Smashwords and their partners are coming from and I want to maintain positive working relationships with them. I don’t interpret this as censorship, but rather as sensitivity (even if I don’t totally agree with it).

If you’d like to purchase a copy of Bathhouse Nights, I encourage you to do so from your regular ebook store — whether it be iTunes, Smashwords, Amazon, or somewhere else. It might take a while to show up on some of those sites, but it’ll get there soon.

However, if you’re a fan of the full cover and want to own a copy of it, you can get a Kindle file at Amazon or a PDF at Redvark. (And if you’re one of those people that likes to support small business, then I encourage you to check out Redvark, as it is a one-man operation and run by a really great guy.)  All the buy links can be found here on my website, and this page will be updated when it pops up in the various stores.

Thank you for your support as a reader. I look forward to many more sexy adventures with you all.

Bathhouse Nights — Out Now!!

Bathhouse Nights is now live on Amazon, Smashwords, and Redvark!  If you’re a B&N, iTunes, or Kobo faithful — it’ll be on those platforms soon!

After you check out that ass, check out this blurb:

In the bathhouse, anything is possible, especially at night when all the studs come out to play.

For cheerleader Daniel, his dream-come-true is a football jock named Justin, but no one in the bathhouse measures up, no matter how hard he tries to play pretend.

Justin is straight, of course. Aren’t they all? There’s no reason for Daniel to expect he’ll score with him…until the night he spots him in the hot tub.

Click here to visit the Bathhouse Nights page on my website, where you’ll find a steamy excerpt and all the buy links!

Book Review: Home Again

Home Again

Cardeno C.

Noah Forman wakes up in a hospital and can’t remember how he got there. He holds it together, taking comfort in the fact that the man he has loved since childhood, his partner, Clark Lehman, is on his way. But when Clark finally arrives, Noah is horrified to discover that he doesn’t remember anything from the past three years, and he simply can’t understand why. It will take some painful confrontations if Noah’s going to figure out why he’s lost all memories of his recent past… and secure the future he’s dreamed of having with Clark.

I loved this book.

Home Again takes an alternating past/present approach to tell two story lines — how Noah and Clark met and became a couple (past sections) and Noah waking up in the hospital with no memory of the past three years and an exploration into what he can’t remember (present sections).  These two sections were beautifully interwoven, with the present told from Noah’s POV and the past from Clark’s.

I felt the relationship was real and the love was true.  I’ve found this can be a hard thing to do in M/M fiction, as there are many romantic pairings that I just don’t buy 100%, but with Noah and Clark, there’s no doubt that they are meant to be together forever.  I found their intimate scenes to be steamy and they contained a nice variety so that each sex scene had it’s own energy and urgency.

I loved the character development of Noah and Clark, as well as some of the minor characters.  All of it was tastefully and excellently done.  The only minor hitch in the entire thing was a scene in which Noah and Clark go out for an evening with friends — it was just a few too many people all at once and it stood out as being different from the rest of the book.  (This is common in a lot of books that kick off series, I’ve found, where there are scenes with extra characters that don’t do much for this present book, but introduce readers to characters who will be integral to future books — indeed, after reading a few of the reviews online, the characters introduced in that scene are later main characters in future entries to the series.)  Though I didn’t really enjoy that scene, it did not detract from my overall enjoyment of the book.

As I mentioned above, I took a look at some of the other reviews on Goodreads and I was surprised by what I found there.  I rated this book 5/5 because I loved it so much, but there are a handful of 1-star reviews.  Some readers found it confusing — whereas I totally did not.  Some readers found the chemistry between the characters lacking — whereas I totally did not.  Some readers found the sex unrealistic — whereas I totally did not.  I understand that different readers have different reactions to books — hell, I’ve got a range from 1-star to 5-stars on my own stuff — but I found it surprising that a book I thought was damn-near perfect could be so disliked by other readers.

For me, I loved getting to know the characters, seeing how they fell in love, uncovering the emotional pain that is the source of Noah’s missing memory, and going along with them as they try to heal from that pain and move forward in life.  I loved reading their sex scenes, the variety of them, the urgency, the lust, and overpowering ecstasy of release.  And I loved the duality, the story of how they met and the story of how they repair their relationship, the past and present, Noah and Clark.

To each their own, I guess.  Me, though?  I freaking loved Home Again.

Erotic Voices: A.L. Wilson

Welcome to the first post of the new Erotic Voices series, in which we meet an author of erotic romance or erotica.  Today’s guest is A.L. Wilson!

A.L. Wilson is an author of M/M erotic romance with some super interesting book available and soon to be released!  Check it out!

Tell us about your latest release.
Currently I am in the final stages of a book called ‘Isle of Illusions.’  It’s set in 1954 and the main characters are those from my first full-length, ‘Phoenix Heart.’  In ‘Isle of Illusions’ Cyrus and Lorenz are living and working with the aftermath of World War II fresh on their minds.  They’re a new couple with all that that entails.  They both suffer from combat PTSD and Lorenz’ alcoholism is starting to worsen.

The plot itself is just one paranormal case that the two of them work, but it’s a big one and a very significant one…especially for Lorenz.  It takes him to a dark place and really digs deeply into his psyche for better and for worse.  You see the beginnings of his dissociation and learn a lot about his past that is not in my first book.

This book is gritty, emotional, and I hope a little bit scary.  They travel to what locals claim is a ‘haunted’ island and have no idea who or what to trust.

What was the hardest or most difficult scene to write?

There are some ‘gory’ scenes in this book and while I do not describe the blood and such in detail, the reactions from the characters are somewhat overwhelming.  I remember stopping and starting a few times because of how upset Lorenz was getting.  This is very emotional for him.

You get see the tough military man from my first book in a different light.  He’s not this emotionless husk anymore.  It was difficult for me to dig deep and wrench out his pain.  It’s very raw and I teared up every time he cried.

What kind of research went into this book?

The book is set in a real place called ‘Poveglia’ which is famed as the ‘Most Haunted Place on Earth.’  I did a lot of poking around about the story of Poveglia.  It has a gruesome history.  The ghost stories about Poveglia are even worse than what I describe.  I tried to stay true to the tales about mass graves, a ghostly tolling Bell Tower, and of course the creepy asylum, where a lot of the action in ‘Isle of Illusions’ takes place.

I really wish I could visit.  Maybe I will be able to one day and see if the way I describe the heavy foreboding feeling is accurate.

In addition, I reference a battle from WWII that is also quite real.  Lorenz and Cyrus met during the Battle of Anzio.  This took place in Italy between January 22nd, 1944 and June 5th, 1944.  I chose this particular battle, both because of the location and because of the nature of the battle.  This was a very long and bloody battle that the United States did eventually end up ‘winning.’  A huge volume of soldiers met on Italian soil and the Allied Troops worked their way Northward eventually recapturing Rome.

I decided that if there was an actual lab meant to study supernatural creatures, it would have made sense that it was located near Rome.  In addition, during the Battle of Anzio, thousands of German soldiers were killed, but an even greater number simply went missing.  This was a great opportunity for Lorenz to slip away from a place that was never supposed to exist during a battle that history recounts as chaotic and scattered.

What was your most favorite scene to write?

Sticking with this book, there is a scene where Lorenz finds himself locked inside an illusion.  It’s a very powerful illusion for him because he’s drowning.

I don’t want to give away too many spoilers, but if you read his journal that I post for free; Lorenz drowned when he was a child.  Despite that traumatic event he remains fascinated by water and the sea.  In ‘Isle of Illusions’ that hasn’t changed and so here he is with water everywhere and it’s so strong and oppressive—I just found it breathtaking to write.  No pun intended.

Are you writing anything now?  Can you tell us about it?

I recently made the decision to push back the release of ‘Isle of Illusions’ just a bit, but it’s still coming soon.  It will drop August 25th.  This marks the official announcement of the release date.  Woohoo!

In addition I’ve already begun the next book in this series.  The series is called ‘The Haunted Case Files’ and it follows Cyrus aka Shorty and his lover Dr. Lorenz Meissnerbefore the End-of-the-World scenario in my book ‘Phoenix Heart.’

The second book of ‘The Haunted Case Files’ is called ‘Summoning Doll’ and involves a rash of murdered of witches.  When Cyrus and Lorenz catch up with the killers they are given a doll by a dying witch and told to flee with it.  This spirals into a much larger case than just a few dead witches and a band of supernatural creatures has to consider the possibility that a militant group of humans is taking up arms with intent to destroy anything ‘inhuman.’  But then here’s this doll.  Clearly it is significant and our heroes have to figure out why.

Awesome!  Thanks for being my guest today, A.L.!

You can find out more about A.L. and her books by checking her out at some of these links:

A.L.’s Website
A.L.’s Facebook
A.L.’s Twitter
Dr. Lorenz Meissner’s FREE Journal
Phoenix Heart on Amazon
Phoenix Heart and Fate Trail (Free eBook) on All Romance
Fate Trail on Smashwords
Phoenix Heart on Smashwords

Erotic Voices (AKA Sexy Saturday)

My Sexy Saturday blog posts are almost here again!  Only, they have a new name now…

Sexy Saturday, in which I interviewed an author of gay erotica or gay erotic romance, has been on hiatus for a few months now.  It’ll soon be back, now known as Erotic Voices, but on a somewhat looser schedule.  (So, rather than every Saturday, it’ll be when I have an interview ready to go.)  The questions will be changed up a bit, but the general idea is still the same.

If you are an author of gay erotica, gay erotic romance, m/m erotic romance, or any other genre that features plenty of hot sex between hot men, and you’d like to be a guest author on Sexy Saturday, please drop be a line at camerondjames(at)hotmail(dot)com.

Book Review: Author Marketing 101

Author Marketing 101

C. Morgan Kennedy & Therese Patrick

As an author, you need to get the word out about your book and get it selling. “Author Marketing 101 Guide and Journal” is the book that will help you do just that. Using a strategic marketing plan through interactive exercises and case studies, both new and established authors will learn to develop a professional author persona, identify and target your audience, develop a detailed marketing plan, enhance your website, and use your persona to interact with your readers. This step by step guide lays out the building blocks to help you jump-start and hone your marketing skills and build your book’s readership.

This book should be required reading for all writers, particularly self-published writers like myself.  Book marketing is something that many people seem to have little concrete knowledge of.  Pimping out your works on social media sounds like the answer to so many writers — but the reality is that constant self-promotion is bad for sales.  I know I’ve unfollowed a few authors on Twitter who do nothing but pimp their books.  (I used to follow one author who sent out over 100 tweets a day about his/her book.)

This book takes actual marketing concepts and applies them to the life of the writer.  It’s a very refreshing look at marketing.  Everyone is told that social media is where it’s at — but as I’ve described in the above paragraph, many people don’t know what that means.  There are a variety of guidelines that should be followed for creating and maintaining an effective author persona on social media.

The authors of this book not only explain different marketing concepts, but also when and where to apply them.  Whereas on social media you only want to market 10% of the time, you should be doing it pretty much 100% on your personal website.  They even delve into email signatures — you know how authors (or businesses in general) will have links to products and websites in their email signature?  Turns out there’s a certain number of links that is effective — any more than that number and you’re just turning off readers.

Having read through this, I can tell which authors on Twitter are effective at marketing themselves and which are not.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t always equate to sales figures.  (I wish!)  Some of the authors that break all the rules have high sales and others who follow these rules precisely do dismal.  While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to marketing, this book is effective in reaching the reader and helping them craft an actual marketing plan that is unique to the individual author.

In my own writing life, this book has helped me identify areas of weakness that I didn’t even know were problems!  I have a short list of tasks to undertake in the coming weeks, little tweaks to my platform.  I have a feeling that this will be one of the very few books that I actually go back and read a second time.  I think it would be worthwhile to read this again in a year to reassess where I am and where I need to go.

This book, truly, should be a must-read for authors.

Book Review: Fire on the Mountain

Fire on the Mountain

P.D. Singer

The Mountains

2nd Edition

Take a break from academics, enjoy the Colorado Rockies, fight a fire now and then. That’s all Jake Landon expected when he signed up to be a ranger. He’ll partner with some crusty old mountain man; they’ll patrol the wilderness in a tanker, speak three words a day, and Old Crusty won’t be alluring at all. A national forest is big enough to be Jake’s closet–he’ll spend his free time fishing.

Except Old Crusty turns out to be Kurt Carlson: confident, competent, and experienced. He’s also young, hot, friendly, and considers clothing optional when it’s just two guys in the wilderness. Sharing a small cabin with this walking temptation is stressing Jake’s sanity–is he sending signals, or just being Kurt? And how would Kurt react if he found out his new partner wants to start a fire of a different kind? Jake’s terrified–they have to live together for five months no matter what.

Enough sparks fly between the rangers to set the trees alight, but it takes a raging inferno to make Jake and Kurt admit to the heat between them.

First Electronic Edition published by Torquere Press (2009).

Bonus Short Story: Into the Mountains

Long before he met Jake, Kurt Carlson climbed Yosemite with his best friend, Benji. But after a storm traps them halfway up the face of El Capitan, Kurt has to accept that their friendship isn’t what he thought.

Fire on the Mountain was a hot read!  I’ve found over the last several months, my enjoyment of M/M erotic romance novels has risen and fallen and risen and fallen as I’ve read a number of meh book and a few great books.  Fire on the Mountain was one of the fantastic ones.

I have to admit that for the first half of the book (or maybe the first two-thirds), I was enjoying it, but wasn’t entirely sold on it.  The friendship between Jake and Kurt was fun and Jake’s attempts at suppressing his horniness for Kurt were enjoyable.  There’s a nice amount of tension to keep the story going… and then the forest catches fire.  And, like the trees, the smouldering lust building up between Jake and Kurt explodes into a roaring ball of flame.  The moment of first sex was so perfectly timed and written — it could have easily felt out of place amidst a forest fire, but Singer expertly writes the scene such that I can totally see two guys going at it while the world burns not more than twenty feet away.  All of the scenes that follow the explosion of love, which could have been so corny now that the love was out and clear to everyone, were also very well written and enjoyable to read.  The relationship between Jake and Kurt felt very real.

And on more technical matters — I found the writing in Fire on the Mountain to be very well done.  Singer writes with a clarity and strength that was refreshing.  And of particular note are all of the scenes covering the technical side of forest fighting.  While it would have been easy to make it feel out of place and laborious — like she was trying to prove to the reader she can do research — Singer instead weaves the facts into the story so well that I never once felt I was being lectured to as a reader, or that Singer was out to prove her research capability.  She writes with an understanding of the subject such that I wouldn’t be surprised if she spent time herself as a forest fire fighter.

The bonus short story at the end (Into the Mountains), while interesting in that it shows how Kurt ends up as a forest fire fighter, was, I think, a little out of place.  After finishing the final chapter in Fire on the Mountain, the reader is on a high having just experienced the joyous love and scorching sex between Jake and Kurt… and then we get a short story that features Kurt with another guy a few years earlier… and it doesn’t go so great…

That being said, it’s really just the placement of the story that I find iffy.  The story itself was a fantastic read, too.  Whereas in Fire on the Mountain, Singer wrote with expertise on forest fire fighting, in Into the Mountains, Singer writes about rock climbing with similar expertise.  The tension that builds (both sexual and otherwise) was well done and the fall-out afterward, while disappointing for the characters, was an entrancing read.

Fire on the Mountain is an excellent novel and one of the better M/M erotic romance books I’ve come across in quite a while.