We recently found a cool “erotica writer’s manifesto” by J. Lea Lopez.

“You may not think it’s a big deal to stand up and announce yourself as an erotica writer, but you’d be surprised at some of the reactions. Sometimes I think people want to ask me why I write erotica (as if the answer would be anything different than one they’d get from someone who writes SF/F).”

Read more at From The Write Angle

E-publishing is pushing the erotica market even further.  But are e-books real books?

Says Kate Duffy, editorial director at Kensington, “For years I thought of e-publishing as something people did because they couldn’t publish with us. But then we started seeing all of these stellar talents that had first been e-published. It wasn’t that the books were in any way inferior—that was my prejudice. It was a different way of accessing consumers, and it would behoove me to investigate.”

Read The New E- in Erotica – Digital delivery helps boost the readership and sales at Publishers Weekly.

Writers In The Storm featured “lifelong writer of serious non-fiction” Tara Lain.  Tara, an award-winning author, is a pro when it comes to blogging and promotion.

Says Tara, “Every hour you spend in promo is an hour you aren’t writing. But the fact remains that there’s not much point in writing if there is no one to read your books.”

The fact remains, if you want your books to sell, you’re going to have to promote them, and blogging is one of the best ways to do that.  However, it’s work, and bloggers must be willing to do what it takes to succeed.

Get tips from Tara Lain on how to be a successful blogger at Writers In The Storm.

The Guided Tour

The Guided Tour

By Maggie Brooke
Published by Logical-Lust Publications
PRICES $12.99 (US/AU) / £8.99 (UK/EU) /$3.99 (ebook)
ISBN 9781905091607 (print)/ 9781905091614 (ebook)
© Maggie Brooke
232 pages / 77,000 words
Release Date: March 1, 2012
Genre(s):    interracial erotic romance

No wimps allowed.

Wealthy socialite Louisa “Lou” Mayflower Smith is a twenty-three-year-old Australian who has it all: a home on Sydney’s North Shore, an attractive professor as a fiancé, a new degree in engineering, and three lucrative job offers to choose from.

But when Lou takes a solo journey to the Northern Territory and gets arrested, she can’t charm—or buy—her way out of it. Upon hearing the news, her daddy cuts off her credit cards!

Stranded, Lou must work off a Community Service Order and take responsibility for her actions—and the actions of ten juvenile offenders—on a guided tour of the Outback designed to teach respect for the territory and its people. For Lou, the punishment is extreme. To make matters worse, she’s attracted to Warren George, their uptight, moral, but absolutely gorgeous Aboriginal tour guide.

But this is no pleasure trip. Lives are at stake. Will Lou rise to the occasion, or is she really “another rich, snooty, white bitch” Warren accuses her of being?

***

“An enjoyable read I didn’t want it to end.  Capturing the beauty of Australia’s Outback landscape this is more than an erotic romance novel.  It is a great story about struggles faced by troubled youth, race, class, desire, and healing, with the added bonus of unashamed sexuality.”
—Fiona Bishop
Community Development Worker / Sonic Artist

***

About the Author:

Maggie Brooke was born in Kansas but has lived in Oz (aka “Australia” to the uninitiated) since 1982 when she immigrated as a single mum with two children, one white and one black who are now grown and successful. She is the proud grandmother of two grandchildren and indulges in them and in her love for writing. With her writing often described as “gritty,” she is not conventional with her writing—or her sense of humour.

Ms Brooke has worked as a nurse practitioner in hospitals, public health, prisons, schools, institutions, remote Australian Aboriginal communities, in Liberia with Médecins Sans Frontières, and All Points East. Through her writing Maggie hopes to share the knowledge she has gained from living in this marvellous world and meeting its very varied, yet amazingly similar people.

The Guided Tour will be available in print and several ebook formats including Kindle and NOOK and can be found at many online retailers. Visit the The Guided Tour page at Logical-Lust Publications.

Logical-Lust Publications is an independent publisher based in Scotland specializing in erotica and erotic romance titles in both print and ebook formats since 2003.

Contact:  Jolie du Pre, joliedupre@ll-publications.com

Precious Monster’s first I Love Horror/Paranormal Novellas Blog Hop is designed to spread horror/paranormal novella love around.  Authors and readers will have the chance to blog about horror topics as well as horror/paranormal novellas.  The blog hop is open to authors AND readers of horror/paranormal novellas.

Visit Precious Monsters

As the Marketing Coordinator for LL-Publications and Logical-Lust, I’m always on the look-out for articles that benefit authors (and readers.) Sometimes I run across some excellent ones!  (I love my job!)

Here is an article I found written by Sevastian Winters.  Sev is one of my Facebook buddies.  He’s actively participating in the #AtoZChallenge, and he’s an author, writer, blogger and writing instructor.  Sev’s book How I are Becomed a Very Much Gooder Author  is a recommended read.

In “H is for How to Write a Sex Scene — April #AtoZChallenge,” Sev writes:

“If you want to know what an author is made of, read one of their sex scenes. No more primal experience in the human condition comes with as many nuances, variations and implications…”

As an erotica author, I completely agree.

Read H is for How to Write a Sex Scene — April #AtoZChallenge at Sevastian Winters

I am, as my mother would say, “a busy little beaver.” While writing my most recent novel, I was working full-time, going to school at UCLA and training for a 50 kilometer footrace. I also slept, ate, saw friends, posted on Twitter and Facebook, blogged, belonged to a book club and watched a number of “Mythbusters” episodes.  (Read the rest at Writer’s Digest.)

FINALISTS ANNOUNCED FOR NLA-I WRITING AWARDS

(Columbus, OH) — National Leather Association–International (NLA-I), a leading organization for activists in the pansexual SM/leather/fetish community, announced today the finalists for its annual writing awards for works published in 2011. Named after activists and writers Geoff Mains, John Preston, Pauline Reage, Cynthia Slater, and the groundbreaking organization Samois, they are awarded annually to recognize excellence in writing and publishing about leather, SM, bondage and fetishes.

The finalists for the Cynthia Slater Non-fiction Article Award are:
Jack Fritscher, “Leather’s Burning Man: The History of the Folsom Street Fair” (Bay Area Reporter)
Mollena Williams, “Tables Briefly Turned” (from her blog at: http://www.mollena.com/)

The finalists for the Geoff Mains Non-fiction Book Award are:
Tracy Bain and Owen Keehnen, Leatherman: The Legend of Chuck Renslow (CreateSpace)
Gayle Rubin, Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader (Duke University Press)
Jim Stewart, Folsom Street Blues: A Memoir of 1970s SoMa and Leatherfolk in Gay San Francisco (Palm Drive)

The finalists for the Pauline Reage Novel Award are:
Lauren Gallagher, Reconstructing Meredith (Carnal Passions)
Jeff Mann, Fog: A Novel of Desire and Reprisal (Bear Bones Books)
Cherise Sinclair, To Command and Collar (Loose Id)
Cecilia Tan, The Prince’s Boy: Volumes 1 & 2 (Circlet)

The finalists for the John Preston Short Fiction Award are:
Kissiah Aiken, “Transformative,” which appeared in Nobilis Reed (ed.), “Coming Together in Flux” (CreateSpace)
Laura Antoniou, ” The Man with the Phoenix Tattoo,” which appeared in Tristan Taormino (ed.), Take Me There.
Jeff Mann, ” Jeff and Sam: After the Concert,” which appeared in Shane Allison (ed.), Brief Encounters: 69 Hot Gay Shorts.
M. Svairini, “Mouth,” which appeared in Lauren P. Burka (ed.), Up for Grabs 2: Exploring More Worlds of Gender (Circlet)
Xan West, “It’s My Job,” which appeared in Richard Labonte (ed.), Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (Cleis)

The finalists for the Samois Anthology Award are:
Rachel Kramer Bussel, Surrender: Erotic Tales of Female Pleasure and Submission (Cleis)
Rachel Kramer Bussel, Best Bondage Erotic 2012 (Cleis)
Alison Tyler, Slave to Love (Cleis)

The winners will be announced at the National Leather Association’s Annual General Meeting, which will be held during Tribal Fire (4-6 May 2012) in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Please contact the award committee chair, Steve Vakesh, for more information about the awards at stevevakesh@gmail.com. For more information about Tribal Fire or the National Leather Association, see: http://www.tribalfireokc.com/ and http://www.nla-i.com <http://www.nla-i.com/> .

Sometimes we can’t help but wonder if those tech geeks sit around and create terms just to be naughty in their own nerdy kind of way. After all, how else do you account for some of the names they’ve given us for common technical terms? Don’t believe us? Try these on for size – 10 technical terms that sound dirty (but really aren’t): (READ THE REST AT ISP)

“We know that blogging can be fun and what fun we can have merrily blogging together with a common purpose–something where we can keep up with each other’s work and share in a common experience.” Blogging from A to Z April Challenge

There’s still time to enter the 2012 Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. It’s a fantastic way to introduce your blog to the world and to get acquainted with other blogs. Sign up closes Monday night on April 2.

Logical-Lust author Jolie du Pre will be participating.  Follow her blog at Precious Monsters.

Go HERE for more info on Blogging from A to Z.)