Stevie MacFarlane's Heart-Shaped Honeymoon Disaster

Welcome, Stevie MacFarlane.  You've just written a new time-travel Western In This Lifetime, Morgan's Journey and I'm dying to hear all about it.

But first -Valentine's Day is coming up soon, Stevie.  Although we both write erotic romances about people who have just met THE ONE, you and I have been happily married for a long time.  Oops...wait.  That didn't come out quite right.  Married to OTHER people!  Anyway, we both know not every sex night measures up to the ones in our books.  Do you have a story you'd like to share that would never happen to one of your heroines?

Stevie:  My husband and I never had a real honeymoon.  Every time we planned to go away something happened.  He broke his hand, I broke my foot and was on crutches, well it just never worked out for us.  Finally one time we took a trip to Niagara Falls, Canada.  We got a room in this motel with a fancy red heart-shaped Jacuzzi tub. This was a new experience for us, so we walked downtown and bought some bubble bath.  It seemed like a pretty big tub and I guess we used way to much.
     I was sitting in the tub enjoying the bubbles and he was getting ready to get in so I told him to hit the switch on the wall. Big mistake on my part, huge!  Suddenly I was in what seemed like a giant blender.  I’m pretty short, my feet didn’t reach the end of the tub and my arms couldn’t grab the sides. Bubbles were climbing out of the tub, spilling onto the carpet and going up the mirrored walls.  I really thought I was going to drown.  Here I am screaming my head off, soap in my mouth and being bounced all over the place and he was laughing and taking pictures, standing there in his underwear.  
     Of course the photos reflected off the mirror, so he looked pretty stupid too, standing there nearly naked, so it wasn’t a total loss.  He wanted me to get back in with him, swore he wouldn’t touch the switch, but having bubbles up my nose and my eyes spoiled the mood for me. I never went near it again.

Kallista: (still laughing) I think that definitely belongs in one of your books! Tell us a little about your new release.

Stevie:  It's called In This Lifetime, Morgan’s Journey.  Follow me to the old west, where a time traveling former Marine, meets a spunky saloon keeper. The gun-toting troublesome female tests his patience and Morgan finds he's not as politically correct as he thought.  How can he be when there's nothing he wants more than to turn the little brat over his knee?  Watch the sparks fly!

Kallista:  Here's a sexy little snippet Stevie is sharing with us for the first time -

“Spread your legs,” he ordered quietly after removing his leg from hers.  Her wide luminous gray eyes stared into his, but she didn’t move.
           “Come on, Miss Sassy-Pants; do as I say.  I thought you weren’t afraid of me,” he challenged with a grin.
            “I’m not,” she insisted.  “I’m afraid of the big, hard thing poking my hip.”
            Morgan laughed.  “You don’t know it yet, but he’s about to become your best friend and favorite playmate.”
            Callie Mae snorted, letting her legs fall slightly apart.
            “I guess some people don’t believe anything you tell them,” he said sadly, his hand moving lower.  “The Show Me state is across the border.”
            “Huh?”
            “Never mind, baby, you’ll just have to trust me on this one.  Oh, honey, that’s so nice,” he cooed sliding his finger between her lips.  “I love how wet you are for me.”
            “What?”
            “This,” he said as he slipped lower.  “It’s your body getting ready for me.  You’re excited.  Do you feel this little bump right here?” he asked as he gently circled it.
            Callie Mae nodded, worried her heart was about to jump right out of her chest.
            “Well this tiny little nubbin belongs to me now.  I get to play with it whenever I want.  There’s another spot inside you that’s similar and that’s mine too.  Understand?” he asked firmly.
            “Yes,” she groaned out, arching her back.  Her head was swirling.  How could he make her feel this way with one finger, touching one tiny spot?  It was all so confusing and why was he saying it belonged to him?  Surely her body was her own.
            Morgan smiled.  What a wonderful time in history to live.  Callie Mae knew nothing about masturbating or dildos.  He would never have to compete with the latest vibrator, no groups of twittering females drinking wine and discussing who did what, with what and to whom.  No, he’d been given a golden opportunity here.  A beautiful, virginal woman he could satisfy the way God intended, with his body and his love.  He would give her as much pleasure as she could handle and in ways only a modern man could conceive of.

In This Lifetime, Morgan's Journey

     Former Marine, Morgan Whittaker is but a shadow of the man he once was.  Plagued by personal tragedy, his marriage in shambles; it’s no shock to him when he’s wounded while serving his last tour of duty. The only surprise is that he’s alive at all.  Now he just wants to be left alone.
     Despite knowing their marriage is over, Cara Whittaker finds it painful and annoying to see what her husband has become.  As a last resort at helping him, along with increasing her status at the top secret government agency she works for, she offers him a once in a lifetime chance to travel back in time.
     What he finds there is more than he ever dreamed.  A new life, a family and love in the form of a spunky little saloon keeper in desperate need of discipline.  Can he take the risk of remaining in 1880?  He’s been warned not to tamper with the fragile fabric of the future, but he knows danger is coming.  Can he stop it and change his destiny or will he run out of time?
     Will he once again follow the rules or will he throw caution to the wind and step up to be the man he’s meant to be?

Here's the buy link for my new book on Amazon:  http://amzn.to/1COzMUM

It's not on B&N yet, but it is on Kobo:  http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/in-this-lifetime-morgan-s-journey

Stevie MacFarlane lives in upstate New York with her husband of many years. She currently has 11 books out, including her very popular series about an Irish-American family, The O’Malley’s. To explain her writing preference she used a quote from her Amazon Author’s Page. “All of my books are romances. I like a lot of conversation, a bit of humor, some fairly hot sex and spanking. If you're into whips and chains, these probably aren't for you. However, if you've ever watched a movie where the leading lady is being a perfect bitch and you feel like yelling at the leading man, "Oh my God, spank her you fool!" these might be right up your alley.”

You can find Stevie at: Amazon Author’s Page http://www.amazon.com/Stevie-MacFarlane/e/B00AJD34BU/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1422383716&sr=8-1 Website: http://steviemacfarlane.weebly.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stevie.macfarlane.7 Twitter: @steviemac1175 Email: steviemacfarlane@aol.com

 

Sex Sells - Renee Rose's Four Tips Guarantee You'll Make Money Writing Erotica

Wondering if you can REALLY pay the bills selling what you write?  Are you struggling just to make enough to cover the cost of the endless cups of coffee you consume while sitting at the computer?  Today,  Renee Rose spills the beans on how much she makes as an award-winning author of erotica.

Renee, how did you get started writing erotica? 

  

Renee:  When I fell into writing spanking romance, I got lucky. It just so happened that the thing I wanted to write most in the world also happened to be a niche in which it’s easy to make a solid living. Within six months I was making enough each month to pay the mortgage and in a year I was making what I consider a full-time living. I read a figure (which I’m sorry, I can’t seem to dig up the reference now) that only seven percent of authors make it to five figures a year.  Really? I’m in the top seven percent?  Am I that good?  Nope. Not at all.

I cringe over some of my earlier works–overly wordy with too much passive voice, overused words like “that” and beating the reader over the head with the character’s emotions. But I always think how lucky I was to be able to hone my craft while still making money. I didn’t spend the last two years working on one perfect novel. I wrote 20 novellas, which provide a passive income stream while I work on new books.

Here are Renee's Top Four Tips ( from her guest post on Write Sex Right )

1.  Be a Big Fish in a Small Sea – Find your Niche
The trick, I think to making a living writing erotica, is to find that targeted niche. Spanking romance is one of them. We learned at Eroticon 2014 from Josephine Myles and Anna Martin that M/M Erotic Romance is another highly lucrative niche... There are many ready-made markets out there to small, targeted niches...I think it was quite easy for me to get noticed and gather a following in this smaller pool.

2.  Shame Sells
Another reason spanking romance makes for quick sales there is more shame associated with it. I think people who are into BDSM, have probably admitted it to themselves and their partner, while people with spanking fantasies are often in the closet. I believe where there’s more shame and therefore less self-actualization with the sexual kink/orientation, sales are higher. Readers are looking for an outlet/expression of their kink because they may not be asking for it at home.

There are many other kinks like this. Age play, diaper play, lactation, pony play, monster erotica, anything considered taboo. There are a few targeted publishers that serve these genres, and therefore have a ready made audience.  With spanking romance, there are two major publishers, and if you publish with them, you are practically guaranteed decent sales, even as a brand new author.

3.  Know Your Audience
There are by far, more female readers than male, so in spanking fiction, femme dom books are not the big sell.  M/f are.  Josephine Myles and Anna Martin explained the same thing for the M/M romance– most of their readers are hetero women.  If you don’t write to that audience, it’s fine, I’m not suggesting you “sell out” but just consider how to target your audience.

4.  Keep Writing
Back when I was in my twenties, a therapist gave me an article on perfectionism. In it, the author described how limiting it can be to our success– you never publish that book because you are waiting to get it just right. As I mentioned above, I guess I might have one kick ass book if I’d spent the past two years refining it to submit to a top five publisher (who of course wouldn’t take spanking romance!) but instead I made  money while improving with each book I wrote. One of the major tricks to making a living writing is to keep your output up.  Your new books sell your back list and keep your name out there.  If you think you don’t have enough time to produce books at the rate of one every couple months, try a productivity tool like the Write or Die web app (it’s free, you don’t have to download it, just use the one on the screen). You’ll be amazed at how many words you can write in 30 minutes a day!  Certainly enough to publish a novella every two months!

About Renee Rose

Renee Rose has published over twenty erotic romance titles, all centered around her favorite kink: spanking. Named Eroticon USA's Next Top Erotic Author in 2013, she is also a contemporary dance teacher, Feldenkrais Practitioner(R), energy worker and mama.  She also writes under the name Darling Adams.

Check out Mob Mistress, her new release on Amazon

Don't miss the other posts in this series:

Deduct Your Dildo - Sex Sells Tax Tips For Erotic Authors

Sex Sells - Why Write Erotica? Here Are 10,000 Reasons

Sex Sells - A Sneak Peek at the Last Taboo

   

The Key To Annie's Heart (Hint - It's Not A Naked Selfie! )

Today I'm hosting an author who is new to me.  Welcome, Keriann McKenna and congratulations on your new release The Key to Annie's Heart, written with Stevie MacFarlane.  Before we get into your book, tell us a little about yourself.  How did you get started as a writer?

Keriann: I’ve been writing for most of my life.  My first love was music and lyrics and my first song was a dreadfully simple little tune about a boy I was madly in love with at fourteen.  I’m certain I drove my grandmother to distraction as I wailed this boy’s name from the piano in the living room at every opportunity…romance was in my heart even at a young age.

Later in life I developed my craft as a poet and published work in anthologies.  I still write poetry but am dipping my toes in the waters of romance, both sweet and steamy.

Kallista: I admire poets. I can't even come up with the words for a dirty limerick! Your book is set on a ranch. Are you a country girl?

Keriann: I was born in a small community in Upstate New York, but left as soon as I bought a decent car that didn’t require more oil than gas…I’m not kidding.  I used to pull into a service station, hand the attendant five bucks for gas and tell him to fill it up with drain oil.

I lived in Canada and the Midwest for several years before settling in the Seattle area with the love of my life. I now live in the foothills of the beautiful Rocky Mountains.

Kallista: What did you do before you started writing steamy romances?  

Keriann: I’m retired from the counseling field although I still work crisis intervention two nights a week.  I consult with and edit for other authors into the wee hours of the night, and I rescue senior dogs and give them a forever home.

Kallista: Senior dogs?  It's nice to know someone is looking out for them. We recently lost our black Lab rescue dog to old age after ten years with us and I still find myself saving treats from my dinner for her. 

And now for a peek at The Key to Annie's Heart -

"Oh my God!” Annie gasped, her mouth falling open as she glanced at the pictures in her email. She quickly slammed the lid of her laptop down until curiosity got the better of her and she had to look again.

Internet dating was new to Annie Campbell. Only a couple of men caught her eye; the first never responded to her message. The second man responded immediately asking for her private email address. Novice that she was, she gave it to him. She was shocked when, within ten minutes, he began sending her photos of himself standing in front of what appeared to be an enormous marble fireplace. He was totally naked from the waist down and holding his huge cock. 

Some of his captions were “You’re so hot, baby! I want you to lick me all over” and “This would feel great deep inside you, call me.” The freak even included his phone number.

She wasn’t a prude; she was looking for a gentleman, not a one night stand with a man overly-impressed with his own rod. Embarrassed that she looked at all five pictures, she had to admit he had some nice equipment—too bad his ego was bigger than his dick and possibly his brain. Perhaps, under the different circumstances, she would have considered meeting him without ever knowing he was inclined to send such pictures; the thought was scary. 

Shaking her head, she deleted the photos and resigned herself to the fact that he was a low-life with nothing better to do. They can’t possibly all be like this, she thought, as she blocked future emails from him.

Annie began to think this internet dating thing was truly a waste of her time, possibly even dangerous.

About the book:
To live a rancher's life in the Rocky Mountains had always been Mac's dream.  He loved his place on Fall River.  He was a success by anyone's measure, except his own.  He failed to keep his wife content to be at home, although "home" was a dream put to architectural drawings.  Too many nights she preferred to stay in town with friends rather than make the trip up the mountain.  She liked to party, and winding mountain roads coupled with too much to drink ended her life.  Could Mac ever forgive himself for his wife’s death?

In all his ways Mac was basic, even when it came to sex. He was a standard missionary position kind of guy with an occasional variation. That would have to change; he wanted a wife and a family—a second chance.
Annie Campbell was a busy event planner at a five star hotel in the city. Fiercely independent, she wouldn't consider herself sexually savvy; she certainly was open to new experiences. It had been six lonely years since her husband died. It was time to move on and setting her fears aside, she joined an Internet dating site. After reading what she considered to be a damn near perfect profile, she sent Mac a brief note and waited. He had no idea just how independent she was. She had no idea how over-protective he was—but they were about to find out.
Could Mac pull it off? Could a country guy woo a city gal, stop researching how to please a woman, and put it into practice…and what about Annie? Could she surrender some of her independence and learn to submit to him? Read their story!
A contemporary western romance, The Key to Annie’s Heart is the first novel in the Fall River Ranch series. MacDermot’s Bride, Book 2, is scheduled to be released by March, 2015, and will be followed by a prequel, The MacDermot’s of Scotland. Each is a stand-alone novel intended for mature readers.

Find Keriann at -

Webpage: http://keriannmckenna.com Blog: http://keriannmckenna.weebly.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/keriann.mckenna Twitter: https://twitter.com/KeriannMcKenna

Deduct Your Dildo - Sex Sells Tax Tips for Erotic Authors

Today's topic always gets me hot.  MONEY!
                                    
This month we'll all be getting 1099's from our publishers.  If you're a brand new author - Congratulations!  You now fall into the category of a small business for tax purposes.

If you're new to earning 1099 income, you're also going to get a nasty shock.  Every dime you earn isn't just subject to income tax. If you made over $400 as an author, you're also facing a bill for self-employment tax - 15.3% of your net income.

That means if you were successful enough to make it into the top 5% of all authors and earned $10,000 or more, you owe Uncle Sam at least $1,530 extra!

But if you've kept good records, every dime you spent on a deductible expense will lower that amount.  That means if you treated yourself to a new Kindle for about a hundred bucks in 2014, you can probably deduct it. It may not sound like much but the $15.30 you save pays for takeout pizza next time you're trying to meet a deadline and don't have time to cook.

Besides being a self-employed author, I've owned four other small businesses, from a real estate company to a food concession at Miami Arena.  Over the years, I've learned a lot about how to take advantage of every single deduction available.

Here's where I issue my disclaimer:  I am NOT an accountant or a tax attorney.  The following information is gleaned from years of personal experience.  If you have any questions about specific deductions, talk to an accountant.  If you don't have one, feel free to use my personal rule of thumb for picking a good accountant.  He or she has to save me MORE than I'm paying to have the return prepared!

Here's a list of basic deductions a small business can claim:

1.  Business Equipment
This includes computers, printers, copy machines and printers.  Here's a useful quote on what constitutes business equipment from Jeremy Slaughter at Demand Media:

"Businesses may also require specialized equipment such as tools, manufacturing equipment or heavy machinery. For tax purposes, you can deduct all of this equipment along with any other equipment used in the operation of a business. They key is determining how to deduct each type of equipment.
Small businesses can expense any equipment with a useful life of less than one year. Common examples include electronics not considered to last more than a year and hand tools such as shovels and rakes. Business owners typically deduct equipment like this as “small tools and equipment” on an income tax return."

Okay - specialized equipment, electronics not considered to last more than a year and HAND TOOLS? Sounds like vibrators and dildos to me!  ( Assuming you find a way to use said equipment in a scene in one of your books)

2.  Travel Expenses
Did you attend a writer's conference workshop, convention?  Did you visit a new location for one of your books? Airfare, gas, tolls, hotels, meals, cab fare - all of those can be deductible expenses.  Keep receipts from everything.

3.  Supplies
Here are a few examples - yellow pads, ink cartridges, printer paper, business cards

4.  Other deductions
Advertising, including giveaway prizes and ads in on-line trade publications
Books
Internet access
And if you're doing really well, you can set up a self-employed retirement account and deduct every dime you're saving so you don't have to write porn when you get old!

Don't miss my other posts in this series:
     Why Write Erotica - Here Are 10,000 Reasons
   

 

Sex Sells - Why Write Erotica ? Here Are 10,000 Reasons

Want to make $10,000 a month as a writer?  The Huffington Post  ran an article about a woman who is doing just that self-publishing her erotic novels.

Romance/erotica is the best-selling genre in the book business.  Sales totaled a whopping $1.4 billion in 2013, nearly double that of #2 on the list, the crime/mystery books.  The numbers for 2014 aren't out yet, but there's no reason to believe that trend is going to change any time in the near future.

Like many other writers making big bucks in this genre, the woman quoted in the article above uses a few simple tricks to generate that kind of money, one of which I'll examine below.  (The rest of her secrets, along with those of other best-selling erotic romance writers will be detailed in later posts.)  She declined to give her pen name in the interview, which always makes me question just how real her numbers are.  But statistics show that most published authors make less than that in a full year.  So even if she exaggerated and doubled or quadrupled her actual income, she's still doing better than 90% of us.

One trick she uses is to keep her books around 10,000 words.  Personally, I'd find it hard to call something smaller than the instruction flyer that comes with a piece of Ikea furniture a book, but apparently the formula works for her.

Another author who says she's pulling down around the same amount is Kathryn LeVeque.  Her books fall into the historical and medieval sub-genre of romance, rather than erotica.  In an interview a few days ago by the New York Times, she says she's recently put her books on Kindle Unlimited, dropped her prices to .99 on many of them, and is selling more than ever.  In the article, she admits that not everyone can go that route.  Like a big-box discount store, she's making up for the low prices with big numbers of sales. But she's able to do that because she has years and years of finished work behind her.

“I am able to drop prices and, by sheer volume of sales, increase my income,” she said. “Most authors can’t do that because most of them don’t have 50 novels for sale."

Le Veque's romances are sweeping sagas, running to hundreds and hundreds of pages.  She confesses that she feels pressured to keep up the output, sometimes writing 12,000 words a day.  Just thinking about that has me reaching for the nearest piece of chocolate!

But don't panic.  You don't have to choose between cutting out minor details like plot or character development and being chained to your computer.  According to the latest statistics from Amazon, there is a sweet spot most of us can use as a guideline. That's 20,000-40,000 words.  Books of that length appeal to our need for instant gratification. They can be read (and written) relatively quickly and priced to sell for around the cost of a Starbucks latte.

Join me Jan.14 for Five Tips on Writing Erotica And One NO NO

Read My Top Ten Reasons To Write Erotica

    

Sex Sells - A Sneak Peek At The Last Taboo

We’ve written about hot Doms in their dungeons, double penetration by well-endowed aliens, menages with twin cowboys, rectal exams by stern doctors, dressing up as little girls and getting our bare bottoms spanked - in short, doing kinky sexual things to every conceivable bodily part with a variety of partners and playthings. But there's one topic that up till now has been off-limits in most blogs about erotic romance.

                              Money.  There.  I've said it and I feel so much better.

This year I'm kicking off a new weekly series about the business we're all in - the business of writing erotic romance novels.  If you don't consider the hours you spend hunched over a keyboard as running your own business, it's time to rethink what you're doing.

You may say you write for fun, or for self-gratification, or because you just "have to put all those stories in your head on paper."  Okay.  Then send me your royalties and advance checks and I'll believe you.  Otherwise admit that the money you make is important.  Even if it's only a pittance, it's YOUR pittance. That first check for a new book is a cause for celebration, whether it buys you a Porche or a pizza.

But as someone who has owned and operated five small businesses before I began writing full time, I'm going to tell you one simple secret  - it's not just how much you make, it's how much you keep.

Of course, if you don't make much right now, that may not sound like a shocking revelation.  We're all financial virgins when we start out.  But I got very good at figuring out how to keep as much as possible of what I earned when I married a successful salesman and we started our first business together.  We had an accountant who took care of us.  At least that's what I thought.  When he presented me with a tax bill bigger than my total income the year before I got married, well...that's when Uncle Sam popped my fiscal cherry!

Every Wednesday we'll explore a new topic.  Together with guest bloggers I'll share ideas that will drive your sales higher, hot new trends in the market, which social media platforms REALLY work - and how to keep more of those Benjamins in your pocket.  He may not look very hot in that picture, but he sure can bring you a lot of satisfaction!  

Here are some upcoming posts:

Longer Isn’t Always Better  - Get your mind out of the gutter!  It's about book length 

Have You Hit the Dirty Thirty Yet? - Is there a "secret formula" for success? 

It’s All About That Base - How to build a team of super fans

            

Self-Gratification – Is it time to consider indie publishing?

Never Kill A Puppy - Writing rules and when to break them

       

How Much Money Do Romance Writers REALLY Make -Oooh, this one gets me hot!

I hope you'll join me January 7th for the kickoff.