Friday, January 16, 2015

Say hello to Captain Enik, my hero from the series Witch Slave

This is actually model and marathon runner Marius Hordijk.  isn't he handsome.  Its his looks that I used when creating Enik in Witch Slave.  The only thing different is his eyes.  Enik's eyes are silver.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

eBook Conversion Rate

I wanted to show everyone this because this is a really high conversion rate, it boosts my confidence, motivates me to keep writing, and makes me pretty darn proud. This is Smashwords, not Amazon. Amazon doesn't show me how many people have downloaded the sample. I was told to expect 1000 sample downloads to a sale so this is pretty awesome.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Another one for the Dream File

I'm not sure how I ended up there, but I was at a strip club run by a motorcycle club.  I watched the girls dance through the windows from a distance and there's a sense of not being attached to anything.  I don't have a job or bills to pay or anywhere anyone expects me to be.  I'm simply wandering wherever the road and my feet take me.  I watch the women through the windows of a place that I think may have been a church at one point, but is now a strip club.  I watch the way the m
en seem to worship the women spinning on the poles and I want to be like them so I go inside.  I talk to the boss.  I tell him I'm hungry and he feeds me.  He asks me where I live and I tell him I don't live anywhere and that I want to dance around the poles like those women do so he has me strip down to my underwear and turn around for me.  There are bruises on my back and on my thighs and he says I can't dance with the other girls until those are gone, but I can work as a waitress and they will give me food and a place to sleep and later I can dance with the other girls if I still want too.  I agree, it’s not as if I'm doing anything else.  
  Time passes and I do what’s expected of me. I don't have any concept of time or shifts.  I just work until I’m told its time to stop.  The bikers seem to feel sorry for me, but I don't know why.  I have no desire to be anywhere else or do anything else and I'm not worried about the past or the future.  I exist only in the present.  It’s a liberating feeling. 
  One of the bikers takes an interest in me.  He's not like the others, but I can't really put my finger on hat that is.  He has a neat black car with neon lights on it and he likes to take me driving in it. 
  One night the president of the club does something stupid to the wrong person and is murdered.  A short time later the strip club in burned to the ground by whomever it was he pissed off.  I'm standing outside of it looking at what’s left and the man with the black car walks up to me and says "Well, I’m done here, are you going to come with me?"
  I go with him for no particular reason.  I like being with him, but I don't make a conscious decision to actually leave with him, I just kind of go.  
  He turns out to be a lot more different than I originally thought he was.  His car can crash and fly into a whole bunch of little pieces and then go back together again.  He has a place to live that you can't see until you step into it.  It looks a lot like an RV on the inside. 

  There are other women with us.  Some of them came from the strip club and some came from other places.  The women like to put on shows and come up with something they can do going from town to town.  I'm not a part of the show, but I watch.  The man and I are going to leave the group of women in his black car and let them have the RV we've been traveling in.  I don't know where were going and I don't really care, I'm just letting myself be led until I feel like it’s time to not be led, and then I'll leave this person, but I don't have any sense of when that might be. Then I woke up.

Friday, January 9, 2015

Struggles with my new Cover


Since publishing "Be Careful What you Wish For" I've been working on a 3 book series called "Witch Slave".  The fist part of the series is ready to publish but I'm struggling with the cover.  I've found part of the cover I want which is the silhouette of a naked woman against a fiery orange background but I need a blue or blue violet fantasy background with a ragged, scary looking, ship with massive sails, and a jupiter type planet in a starry sky.  I can't find the second half I'm looking for.  On tip of that I'm also have a hard time getting those two pictures to blend together.  I want the orange photo with the naked woman's silhouette on the bottom and I want it to fade into the blue violet picture of a haunted ship and a fantasy sky on the top.

Thursday, January 8, 2015

I sold a book on Smashwords!! Woot Woot

   Its not the first time I've sold a book since I published "Be Careful What You Wish For", but its the first time I've sold a copy on Smashwords.  As far as I can tell I still haven't been listed on the other sites like Barns and Noble or Goodreads.  Everyone who has read it told me they liked it, but if they hated it they probably wouldn't tell me anyway.  In total since I published "Be Careful What You Wish For" I've made about 3 dollars which is perfectly fine with me.  Its my first book and I have no fan base and I'm just learning how to advertise it so I'm happy with the starting amount of 3 dollars.  I didn't expect overnight success.



Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Je Suis Charlie and the issue of censorship



Censorship is something that's been on my mind lately knowing someone whose book was banned from Amazon for having a rape scene in it and then today's events regarding censorship.  Don't make the mistake of thinking that I think rape is OK or a woman's fault because I don't but it is a real thing, it happens all of the time.  According to research I've done a woman can become aroused during rape, experience lubrication, and even orgasm.  The book in question did not glorify rape in any way.  This is of particular concern to me because I have three eBooks in the works that have rape scenes in them.  according to what I researched on the Amazon publishing forums Amazon has issues with incest, sex with or among minors, sex with animals (aliens and creatures of myth don't count as animals), sex with dead people (although the "un"-dead are usually ok), rape, scat, breath play, and blood sports.  The issue here is rape.   The thing is as disgusting as some of these things are they still happen and banning any book that contains them is still censorship. 


Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Banned Books

Emily Goodwins book "Stay" is back up.  She made some changed to the content and left the cover page.  Some people have told her she needs to change the cover image to a woman without bound hands.  That would be hard for me to do knowing how much kidnapping and being forced into the slave trade is apart of the book.  Its very very wrong that Amazon is censoring writers like this.  Its not as is there's pedophilia in the book.  You can still purchase the banned version at Goodreads.com

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Alien Erotica and Banned Books.

One of my favorite Authors got a book banned on Amazon today.  She was very upset about it and understandably so.  The book did so well it allowed her to quit her day job and write full time so for it to get banned was an emotional and financial blow for her.
  The book is about the actual slave trade and there's a rape scene in the book.  My book, Witch Slave also has a rape scene in it.  It wasn't something I planned and I've gone back and forth on including it but hearing today that her book got banned for its rape scene (which honestly wasn't all that brutal has me wondering if I should include it.
  It also really pisses me off.  Part of what I liked about Indie writing is the creative freedom but if  book is going to get banned for something like that . . . . 
  The rape in my book is not brutal either.  She's raped during a medical exam and a man she thought she could trust holds her down during the rape.  She gets arouse during the rape and even has an orgasm, but feels horribly guilty after and has to be drugged so that she doesn't feel upset about it anymore.  I've read some sexually brutal fiction on Amazon.  One of them includes an extremely brutal female circumcision and that book is still there.
  Erotic is not easy for me to write but it would really upset me to have one of the first few books I've written banned from Amazon, especially since this is my first attempt at erotica.  Its new to me and its not easy.  But I this series is Alien romance and people that read alien romance have expectations.