Gift bag

This post is a mixed bag that starts with a gripe which turns into a cheer, and after that it's all uphill into EMC fetish nirvana.

So, okay, if you don't have an adult blog on Blogger yourself, you might not be aware that earlier this week Google sent a mass email to all us pervs saying we were officially no longer welcome and had until mid-March to vacate the premises. Well, you can imagine how pissed off I was. I fully expected to make this weekend's blog entry a combination gripe session and plea for advice about where to move my blog. Fortunately, I instead get the chance to say, "Suck it, Google!" My fellow pervs (who obviously have more sense than I do) didn't wait till the weekend to complain - and they complained very loudly and to the right people. Because of them, Google was forced to retract its words and pretend it didn't mean them the way it really did mean them. And as for me, I avoid the hassle of moving all my shit. So again I say (because I can), "Suck it, Google!"

Now onward and upward. Earlier today I found a Facebook group dedicated to Hajime Sorayama, joined it, and immediately found myself presented with images like the one you see at right. Yes, some blessedly twisted souls decided to stage one of my favorite statufication pieces with actual live women. I am in heaven. There's lots more great art in that Facebook group (although sadly, nothing quite this elaborately staged), so if you have an FB account, jump on in; the water's fine.

Moving on again, I'm still working on my heavily revised, much hotter, and retitled "Sucker Punch" (now to be called "The Final Adventure of Doctor Theodore Steele and His Intrepid Assistant Franny"). In last week's post I said the story had turned out to be much shorter than I remembered, and that I thought I'd better combine it in an anthology with "If Wishes Were Horses" and "What to Expect from Your Alien Brainwashing." Well, since then I've been seeking advice from other indie erotica writers (some in the EMC crowd, some in a Facebook group) about how to combine and price the triad. I think you'll like their suggestions as much as I do. My plan now is to release "The Final Adventure" first, alone, and price it at $0.99. A month later I'll release "If Wishes Were Horses" alone for $0.99. Then, a month after that, I'll publish the two together along with "What to Expect" as an anthology (new working title "Dark Spaces") and sell that for $0.99. All this seems counter-intuitive to me, but I've never had a head for business; and the people who do have a head for business say this is the way to go.

Are you happy yet? Well, let me see if I can make you even happier.

1. Again, on the advice of one of these business mavens, I've repriced almost all the existing books in my Amazon catalog from $2.99 to $0.99 (and Sleepwalkers from $3.99 to $2.99).

2. It works out even better for you and for me if you have a Kindle Unlimited membership and  borrow the books instead of buying them (Just read the whole books, okay? The magic doesn't work unless you read at least most of the way through.). Yes, this is even more counter-intuitive than what I said above, but it's true - and in fact, it's true for every Kindle ebook that sells for $1.99 or less. I won't bore you with an explanation unless you ask for it; but I will tell you that the best way to support your favorite indie authors on Kindle is to borrow rather than buy - again, if the price is $1.99 or less, and if you at least flip through all the pages to the end. Otherwise, buy. And review. Reviews mean a lot to sales.

3. I'll need some beta readers for my upcoming stories, and I'll also need some people willing to actually review the books on Amazon; so when the time gets closer, I'm going to offer a few Advance Reader Copies. I haven't figured out the fine details yet, but this is the gist of it. I'll choose the ARC recipients in my usual way, by asking people to volunteer in the comments section. The winners will get to beta-read Word versions of one, two, or three stories on the condition that they post reviews once the stories go live on Amazon. Once their reviews go up, I'll give the winners free actual ebooks of the stories they beta read and reviewed.

Well, I'm certainly in a good mood now that I've shared all this...and I hope you're in a good mood now that you've read it.

Sweet dreams.