Unit Tri3Ax's Blog, page 12

New Stories – 07/27/2013

I was going to hold off on this for a bit, but I’ve gotten two things out from the last release, so what they hey.  There will be a “real” post following this one as well

I’ve put out two stories, one was a completely new plot-line, and one is a continuation

New Story Line:

Recruitment Drive – Involuntary Volunteer Amazon / Smashwords

Recruitment drive is, honestly, the first of what will probably be a long line of stories set in the world of “Dr. Goodman’s Practice.”  I realized that my stories had fallen too much into a pattern of protagonists who were nice guys to a fault.  While they often used their control to get sex, they were ultimately caring guys, who get romantically involved with their conquests.  So I decided that Dr. Goodman would be a bit more evil (although he’s still not monstrous, I really only ever intend to have monstrous controllers in Proteus).  However, I expect some fun things as this story unfolds, and am planning on releasing more really soon.

Existing Story Line

Partner Programming – Gremlins  Amazon / Smashwords

For this who aren’t familiar, in the world of programming, a gremlin refers to some unusual behavior within a computer program that just can’t be traced to any real source.  Of course, eventually, you can find it, but at first glance it makes no sense and is almost behaving intelligently to resist chances to extricate it.  That’s how this chapter of Partner Programming is supposed to feel, and I hope it won’t disappoint.

New Stories – 07/22/2013

So.. I made it exactly one post from saying I won’t announce new stuff here.. to announcing new stuff here.  Ah well.  the problem was that I was using my deviant art page for releases, which is a pretty poor place for it (since me and art don’t really mix…) and doing them here only makes sense, especially since I’d like to talk about the new stories and what I’m going for with them.  I still intend to keep up my rants as well, so hopefully this won’t get too spammy.  I’ll try and focus more on talking ABOUT the stories than just posting the summaries.

Anyway, as always, plans change.  Heck, even what I released wasn’t what I was expecting.  Since I was on vacation (at the beach no less) last week, I had some ideas.  Unfortunately, the environment sucked for writing (too many people, not enough space) so all I really got were some ideas and a couple stories, but that does mean you can expect some fresh new stuff.

Anyway, This Week’s Erotic Mind Control Releases:

New Story Lines:

Hot Summer Nights – Beach Makeover  Smashwords / Amazon

HSN was something that I’d “planned” to write, mostly because it’s the kind of thing you’re supposed to do (seasonal content.)  I wasn’t sure exactly how it was going to take shape.  Unlike a lot of my stuff, I decided I wanted this one to be a loose series, without a real strong overall plot, although the main characters will show up, but the plot points will be self-contained.

Eventually, I decided to settle on the idea of having this little shop on the boardwalk, that people in the know in this vacation town would know about, and would refer people to.  From there, we got this story, and there should be more to come.

Raw Deal – Striking a Bargain  Smashwords / Amazon

This was another of the ideas that I got on vacation, and it was mostly motivated out my desire to write more heavy handed brainwashing stories.  I have a soft spot for them, although a lot of what I write is more subtle, I do enjoy the occasional completely brain overhaul.  I was originally thinking of keeping the story pretty tight and quick, and only having it be a single chapter, but as usual it expanded during my design/story boarding, and is not looking like it’ll be at least a trilogy.

Existing Story Lines:

On Call – Cloned Number  Amazon

I’m having a lot of fun with On Call, since it’s neat to have a story where things are so overtly sexual, but are still fun and playful.  The characters are also starting to really show their differences, especially with this latest part, since Shawna has entered the scene.  I’m actually really looking forward to writing the next parts, because now that Matt has basically sealed the deal with each of his lovely ladies, he can start having some real fun.

Stay tuned for more of On Call, because it should be a fun and hot ride from here on.

My Style – Covers

Morning All,

So, I’m going to try and avoid turning the blog into an ad-stream, and won’t be posting my release information directly to this place.  If you really want to be told about new releases as they happen, either sign up for Amazon notifications, or send me an email at tri3ax@gmail.com and I’ll be starting a mailing list once I get a few people.

Now, on to the meat of the post:

It’s nowhere near the first time that I’ve mentioned that my sales have exceeded my wildest dreams.  I’m honestly new to the whole writing thing (up to about 7-8 weeks, honestly) but people have taken to my stuff pretty well, and I’m always enough of an analyst to try and figure out why.

Then, of course, I realize that there’s no way I’ll ever know WHY people like what I write, and I’ll instead try and analyze WHAT I’ve been writing, to at least know what it is that people like (for reasons unkennable).

So the topic for today’s ramble will be covers:

When I was first starting out, I spent a lot of time debating, with myself and a couple other authors who were helping me out, on the topic of covers.  I took a look at the covers that were available on the many books on amazon, smashwords, and elsewhere, and found that they had a few things in common.

1) Almost every cover has a picture of some scantily clad female, who was mind-blowingly hot, often sweaty, and frequently has her mouth open and is sucking on her finger or showing her tongue

2) Almost every cover has said female in front of a scene, like a kitchen etc.

Now, it would probably not be THAT hard to have done the same, but taking a look at the stock photography, there was only so much available, and I was worried I might not have enough options without repeating pictures others had used.

But then I realized something.  At the time, my books were things like the first Proteus, Essence, and Deepening desires.  None of these stories features a female lead who’ll walk into any room and start licking her lips, or sucking on her finger.  Nothing I’ve ever written since features women like that either.  It’s not my style to write stories about hot temptresses.

Instead, I thought about the kind of girls and stories I write.  Most of the girls in my stories wear “normal” ish clothes (although I will admit I have more private school girls than normal, but meh).  Also, most of the girls are supposed to BE normal.

Then it hit me.  Rather than putting some ultra-hot glamazon on the title of my books, why not put pictures of girls who are like the girls in my stories.  They’re cute, pretty, sometimes a little hot if they put some effort into it.  The girls in my stories flirt, smile, and often act sweet, because I write softer stories.

Also, there’s millions of stock photos of pretty girls who are looking at the camera with just a little flirty smile.  It’s pretty much stock photo girl 101.

I want the girls on the covers of my books to be the kind of girls that could be sitting next to the reader as they’re reading.  My stories are about things like controlling a coworker, so why not have the cover girl be somebody who could be the reader’s coworker.  Or the reader’s classmate.  Or the reader’s friend.

And that’s where I got my cover style from.  I wanted something recognizable, so I started putting simple color backgrounds behind the girl I’d chosen to look like the character in the story.  Now, when I log in to amazon and look at a book and see recommendations, I can immediately recognize my own books, because while everybody else has a kitchen, or a bathroom, or something else as the background, I have a bright, colorful indicator.  I’ve even gone so far as to try and keep the same colors in the same series, although that’s getting harder, so I might have to start to re-use.

Ok, this has gotten a bit longer than anticipated, but I think it covers my point.

Until next time

Tri3Ax

25 Books

So, Yesterday, my 25th title went live.  According to Amazon, My first went live on 5/22, and while that one was already written, and three of the others are just the chopped up parts of Proteus, this still means that since then, I’ve managed to put together 21 books in 45 days, or about 1 every 2.

All told, I’d say that’s pretty good.  Now If i could just get people to tell me WHAT about the stories they actually like.

Deepening Desires, my flagship series, is about a small group of college students experimenting with hypnosis.  There’s not a whole lot of heat (just that naturally brought about by the subject matter) but there’s a lot of character development and a lot of emotional elements.  I honestly think that’s probably where most of the popularity comes from, because people reading feel as invested in the characters as I do.  As always, I’d love to know more.

My second best had been My Sister’s Brainwash, although On Call is really pushing to dethrone.  Given that MSB has 3 books, and OC only 2, that’s pretty impressive.  I plan to continue both, if people are curious.

That’s another question I have for the universe at large, do people want me to stop releasing new storylines, and just push forward with the existing ones, or do they actually like having the wide breadth to choose from.

Always so many questions.  Ah well, I have some writing for today, and we’ll deal with tomorrow when it comes.  Overall, I just wanted to say thank you to every customer who’s been willing to give me a shot, because there’s frankly more of you than I ever really expected.

New Beginning

So, I’ve been writing for about six weeks now, and I’ve decided that I should probably start a blog or something.  I had been using a deviantart page, and probably will continue to do so, but I’ll try and put my main thrust of my ramblings here.

Probably one of the biggest reasons I want to start having a bit more of a presence is a desire to be able to run polls etc.  I’d like to know more about what people want to read, and why they like the things they like.  My most successful stories, the deepening desires series, is wholly counter intuitive in that it’s doing really well, and yet it has no sex at all.  I’m curious what about it it is that people like.

Hopefully, I can get some people to follow this thing, and maybe start participating in my polls.  I’ll also start posting my releases, as well as current projects, because I’m hoping people are curious about what’s coming up.  Plus, people could always post requests etc.