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Taking the Erotica Leap

Rainy_TX

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I have dabbled in writing since I was little girl and have had a couple short stories published in a local newspaper a while back. So, when I found this forum on writing here, I dove in!

So far, I have:
*finished book 'one' of my first story, "Confessions of a Curvy Girl"
*created the cover for "Confessions of a Curvy Girl"
*started the first book of my second series, "Thicker than Blood"
*created the cover for "Thicker than Blood"
*created profiles on a couple of erotica sites, linking to my author page on Amazon

Things to do:
*find a copy editor that does erotica
*upload the first book of each series to the erotica sites
*publish the first book of each series to Amazon, offering them for free

Will update more progress as I go along. :)

Here are my covers:
Thickersm.jpg

Confessionssm.jpg



If anyone could recommend a good copy editor, I'd appreciate it!
 
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Lauryn

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I love the cover skills.

Can you share more about your background? Clearly you know how to design.
Regarding offering them for free, how long are they? Will the entire first book be free? Or is this a condensed novella version for free?
 

Rainy_TX

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Hello Lauryn and thanks for the compliments. :) I've been a professional graphic designer for over 15 years now, and I love design. However, we recently moved to Houston and I have switched over to freelance, which affords me time to write as well. :)

My first books in my series will be roughly 10k words long. My plan is to make them an intro or hook into the series and capture readers with the freebie. The books after that will be priced.

I have a YA novel that I wrote of roughly 75k words that I recently finished the edits I received back from my editor. While he love the story himself and has told me to seek out a publisher immediately, I have been sitting on it. (He told me he thought it was like a The Road, Walking Dead and Twilight all rolled into one.) The story is my baby, full of... well, me. lol It started with a dream I had and couldn't get out of my mind. I based characters and setting on childhood memories and where I grew up. I guess I'm not sure if I'm ready to share that with people, even though I've spent so much time and effort on it. Weird, I know.

On a side note, I've been reading your posts and you have quite a game plan! :D You've provided some fantastic information and I wish you much success!
 

AubreyRose

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My first books in my series will be roughly 10k words long. My plan is to make them an intro or hook into the series and capture readers with the freebie. The books after that will be priced.
!
Don't publish a permafreebie without a backlist - there's no point. Wait until your entire series is out, then permafree the first one. IMO.
Congrats on making the leap - your covers look awesome! If you're really just doing erotica, no need to worry overmuch about copy editing. If you write as well as you do here with only a few errors, that's fine for erotic shorts. Or trade reads with another author to find any egregious errors.

Or are you writing erotic romance? your covers look more erommy, especially the first one.
 
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Rainy_TX

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Aubrey - Thank you for the kudos on the covers and the advice! What you are saying does make sense, and I appreciate it.

The stories I am writing are romance/erotica. Curvy Girl is the story of the woman that had the husband who cheated on her, they divorced and she meets a hot, younger guy and can't believe he likes her (what's so special about me). Thicker than Blood is about a nurse that finds out the new cardiologist is actually a vampire (sort of a grown-up Twilight, if you will.)
 

AubreyRose

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The stories I am writing are romance/erotica. Curvy Girl is the story of the woman that had the husband who cheated on her, they divorced and she meets a hot, younger guy and can't believe he likes her (what's so special about me). Thicker than Blood is about a nurse that finds out the new cardiologist is actually a vampire (sort of a grown-up Twilight, if you will.)
Cool, I am working on a vampire romance for next year! I would say if you're writing longer stuff that's mostly plot-driven with some erotic stuff put in, categorize it as romance instead of erotica. Bigger audience, less chance of getting hit with the adult filter on amazon. And I just put up a post about getting started with erotica, how coincidental (http://pubyourself.com/interesting-post-on-self-publishing-erotica/)
Let me know once it's done and I'll help promote it, I'm sure my readers would like that kind of thing!
 

MJ DeMarco

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Thanks for posting your books, it's not often around here our authors "come out of the closet" as everyone prefers to stay incognito. Not saying one way or the other is wrong, just refreshing to see some actual covers ... and they're quite good as well, especially if your target market is young men, lol. Like the pen-name as well.:writing:
 
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Rainy_TX

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especially if your target market is young men, lol.

Ha ha, very funny and thank you!

And I just put up a post about getting started with erotica, how coincidental (http://pubyourself.com/interesting-post-on-self-publishing-erotica/)
Let me know once it's done and I'll help promote it, I'm sure my readers would like that kind of thing!

Thank you, Aubrey! So very kind of you! I'm super excited by all of the help everyone has been offering. Fantastic forum!
 

Lauryn

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Hello Lauryn and thanks for the compliments. I've been a professional graphic designer for over 15 years now, and I love design. However, we recently moved to Houston and I have switched over to freelance, which affords me time to write as well.

My first books in my series will be roughly 10k words long. My plan is to make them an intro or hook into the series and capture readers with the freebie. The books after that will be priced.

I have a YA novel that I wrote of roughly 75k words that I recently finished the edits I received back from my editor. While he love the story himself and has told me to seek out a publisher immediately, I have been sitting on it. (He told me he thought it was like a The Road, Walking Dead and Twilight all rolled into one.) The story is my baby, full of... well, me. lol It started with a dream I had and couldn't get out of my mind. I based characters and setting on childhood memories and where I grew up. I guess I'm not sure if I'm ready to share that with people, even though I've spent so much time and effort on it. Weird, I know.

On a side note, I've been reading your posts and you have quite a game plan! You've provided some fantastic information and I wish you much success!

That series sounds interesting. Welcome to the community and let's see what happens! :)
My book was born out of a vision I had too... "What if I really did whatever I wanted... and things really did turn out exactly NOT as planned... then what?"
 

Rainy_TX

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Thanks Lauryn! (Love the spelling of your name, btw)

I'm curious as to your thought process of "and things really did turn out exactly NOT as planned... then what?" That makes for an interesting twist to writing... or how did you meld that to your book?

I've set a few goals for today:
- Complete two covers I'm doing for freelance; one fiction, the other non. (Something has to help fund my ventures in writing...lol)
- Finish the first book of Thicker than Blood and see about getting it off to an editor.
- Start work on the second installment of TTB

I'm following the writing techniques I read about in a thread here, about writing in thirty-minute increments. During that time, I'm not going back and re-reading what I wrote - this is strictly brain flow to paper. I have time to polish it up at the end of the day, I just want to get my thoughts down.

Hope everyone is having a great Tuesday! :D
 
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Rainy_TX

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Hi Britni and thanks! I do freelance covers for other authors, I'm doing a couple today. :) Thanks again and have a great day!

(If anyone needs great cover art, hit me up via PM) :)
 
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Rainy_TX

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I hope everyone had a productive day! I managed to locate an editor for my rom-rotica and a couple of beta readers. In trying to finish up "Thicker than Blood", one of my characters made me stray from my outline. It made me wonder if other writers have that happen to them? You go along writing until you reach a certain point and then you just can't seem to write what you had in mind, as if the character was telling you it's not what they'd do. I've had it happen a couple of times before and each time, it made the story/plot work better than I had originally planned. Go figure. :p
 
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joanna

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It made me wonder if other writers have that happen to them? You go along writing until you reach a certain point and then you just can't seem to write what you had in mind, as if the character was telling you it's not what they'd do. I've had it happen a couple of times before and each time, it made the story/plot work better than I had originally planned. Go figure. :p

Uhm... yeah. Current WIP:

This will be a nice little short story, might need to work hard to stretch it to 5k, so it makes sense for publishing...

Uhm, OK, this is starting to look like 6k easy. Nice.

Well, this character seems lonely, and needs someone to talk to. Less navel gazing, and oops... suddenly I'm at 27k and counting.

... and this one actually had an outline to begin with.

So yes, derailing by characters I would say is quite common ;)
 

Mr. Icy

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Congrats to you on taking action. A lot of people talk but you are actually doing it. I am in sales and a lot of women are reading 50 shades of grey, what do you think of this book?
 

Rainy_TX

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Congrats to you on taking action. A lot of people talk but you are actually doing it. I am in sales and a lot of women are reading 50 shades of grey, what do you think of this book?

Thank you, and yes, I am doing my best to get my stories out there. :)

As far as Fifty Shades go... I really didn't like it. To be honest, I had a hard time not just tossing it out. Characters lacked depth and the writing was mediocre, imho. I think the reason this book is so popular is because of it's BDSM content. It was shocking, like Madonna in the 80s. "Oh my GOD, did you read FSOG? It's so naughty! Tee hee!" People wanted to read it because their friends aunt, their co-worker, their so-and-so read it... and "omfg, you just have to read it!" :) And... like everyone else, I read it because it was recommended. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. lol Word of mouth is fantastic marketing. We could all be so lucky to have hordes of loyal readers telling their friends about our books...

Sorry to get off on a tangent, just actually read something about FSOG movie just now, so my thoughts were fresh. :D
 
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Mr. Icy

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Thank you, and yes, I am doing my best to get my stories out there. :)

As far as Fifty Shades go... I really didn't like it. To be honest, I had a hard time not just tossing it out. Characters lacked depth and the writing was mediocre, imho. I think the reason this book is so popular is because of it's BDSM content. It was shocking, like Madonna in the 80s. "Oh my GOD, did you read FSOG? It's so naughty! Tee hee!" People wanted to read it because their friends aunt, their co-worker, their so-and-so read it... and "omfg, you just have to read it!" :) And... like everyone else, I read it because it was recommended. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. lol Word of mouth is fantastic marketing. We could all be so lucky to have hordes of loyal readers telling their friends about our books...

Sorry to get off on a tangent, just actually read something about FSOG movie just now, so my thoughts were fresh. :D

Yes I agree, FSOG spread like wildfire because of word of mouth. Better than any money you can spend on marketing.
 

Mr. Icy

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Speaking of, did you read it? :)

No pun intended but I actually own the book. I got it from a used book sale for like a quarter lol. I read a little of it, but I felt like I should read the business books I have first so I can implement the ideologies it into my business. I watched a video on youtube about how men should read the FSOG book because there are a lot of takeaways within it. Who knows I might pick it up one of these days. A women today was actually telling me how there is a FSOG movie coming out soon.

So back to your books, do you typically write about alpha males in your novels?
 

Lauryn

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Thanks Lauryn! (Love the spelling of your name, btw)
I'm curious as to your thought process of "and things really did turn out exactly NOT as planned... then what?" That makes for an interesting twist to writing... or how did you meld that to your book?
I've set a few goals for today:
- Complete two covers I'm doing for freelance; one fiction, the other non. (Something has to help fund my ventures in writing...lol)
- Finish the first book of Thicker than Blood and see about getting it off to an editor.
- Start work on the second installment of TTB
I'm following the writing techniques I read about in a thread here, about writing in thirty-minute increments. During that time, I'm not going back and re-reading what I wrote - this is strictly brain flow to paper. I have time to polish it up at the end of the day, I just want to get my thoughts down.
Hope everyone is having a great Tuesday!

Well my character is so based on me.. that it's so hard. On one hand I want her to be the filthy McNasty I never got to be... so I want to take real events and exaggerate them. On the other hand, I keep mixing the truth up all over. If things turn out exactly NOT as planned, then it really emulates more of my true story... unless I twist things in a positive way.

In my head, the book has at least one follow up title. But I just don't know until I start writing!

I'm new to fiction - has this ever happened to you?

Great workflow going!
 

Rainy_TX

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So back to your books, do you typically write about alpha males in your novels?

Alphas... no... I mean I think I have a good mix of strong men and strong women. If I write the same characters, or same type, it gets to be monotonous, you know? :)
 
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Rainy_TX

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Well my character is so based on me.. that it's so hard. On one hand I want her to be the filthy McNasty I never got to be... so I want to take real events and exaggerate them. On the other hand, I keep mixing the truth up all over. If things turn out exactly NOT as planned, then it really emulates more of my true story... unless I twist things in a positive way.

I totally understand! I tend to do this with most FMC I write about... they are me, but as a few things are different in their lives, the might react differently than I would. (Total nurture over nature here, but it helps).

In my head, the book has at least one follow up title. But I just don't know until I start writing!
I'm new to fiction - has this ever happened to you?

Of course! I think it's always fun to just write and see how things play out. I try to develop a personal relationship with my characters, as weird as it might sound, and they normally lead the story the way it SHOULD go, the way that sounds more real and natural.
 

Rainy_TX

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wooo hoo! Just had my first beta reader give me input on "Thicker than Blood":

"I found no problems at all with the flow of the story. I cracked up when the nurses were talking about the hand size. I could just see them gathered around the nurses station gossiping like that! You've got me drawn fully into this storyline and I would be greatly honored to read the rest of it! I am dying to know why Matt got so angry and stormed off when he learned who the doctor was!!"

I guess my time working at a hospital as a unit clerk is paying off. LOL
 

jimr

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Of course! I think it's always fun to just write and see how things play out.

Totally agree. Whilst I do plan out each of my chapters I normally find that, once I get into a flow state, things take on a life of their own. Then, before I know it, I have written way more than I intended and, from my perspective, built a more enticing storyline than I would of if I'd stuck to the plan.
 
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Rainy_TX

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Which is exactly what happened today when I started writing my third book and 'accidentally' wrote nearly 5,000 words!

Holy crap! Good job! You totally blew my writing efforts out of the water! If you don't mind my asking, what is your story about?

I managed to write a synopsis of the first book for Thicker than Blood:

Thick and Curvy nurse, Kenna Miller, had an average life and average job... until the mysterious and handsome new Cardiologist, Dr. Alex Amante, starts seeing patients at the hospital. Kenna's life suddenly takes an exciting and frightening turn after one shocking and passionate kiss with Alex. Why was her friend warning her against Dr. Amante? Why did it seem supernatural elements were at play? What was Kenna really getting herself into?
 
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jimr

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Holy crap! Good job! You totally blew my writing efforts out of the water! If you don't mind my asking, what is your story about?

I managed to write a synopsis of the first book for Thicker than Blood:
Thick and Curvy nurse, McKenna “Kenna” Miller, had an average life and average job... until the mysterious and handsome new Cardiologist, Dr. Alex Amante, starts taking patients at the hospital. Kenna's life suddenly takes an exciting and frightening turn after one shocking and passionate kiss with Alex. Why was her friend warning her against Dr. Amante? Why did it seem supernatural elements were at play? What was Kenna really getting herself into?

Ah, you see, that's the problem: I don't know! Because only the first two chapters were planned out, I don't have a clue what is going to happen!

Seriously though, it's a story of a woman's reawakening. Basic storyline: forty nine year old woman, husband dies in car crash, meets young librarian with some very unbookworm-like desires and urges. Family horrified, etc. Now, that really is all I have so far. Back to the planning gig tomorrow :).
 

Rainy_TX

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The hot... male, librarian? lol, now there's a twist. :) I can't imagine writing without having a general idea of where I wanted the story to go. I like to write an outline and then let the characters decide how they get there. The events in the outline give me something to look forward to writing. I like to think of it as a cruise - I know the ports-of-call and I cannot change them, but what happens in the journey to them remains unwritten. :)
 

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