Coming Valentines Day 2017

Meet V O N.

He is an Alien Researcher on his way back to his home planet. He is not coming to Earth to find love, unless you are referring to his love of human flesh, then you would be right.
Von, comes from a species where humans are a rare treat and since he is nearby, he is taking a few home with him. Although his journey seems to be a fairly easy one, his encounter with Mireya, a human, may give him indigestion.
Mireya, being an overweight and feisty female, doesn't like the idea of being a takeout order. She is hoping she can change his mind before he decides to nibble on the meal while traveling.
Filled with suspense, drama and a lot of bad mouthing. Traveling through space may take a whole new meaning when dealing with Von.

Writing a book Part Three

Congratulations, you made it this far as a writer. You are an elephant. Not that you don't forget things, and believe me during the process of being a writer there are many things you will want to forget, but its because you have thick enough skin to handle the downsides of being a writer. Of course by now you are wondering how is it I know so much about writing. Well, it may not look like it, but I am a writer. A contemporary erotic author and newly discovered erotic Sci-Fi writer. By the way, those titles are called genres. Not sure which category you fall in, well there are a lot of them but I found mine from research. Contemporary means its written in current time. Paranormal are of course about those with extraordinary powers, shape shifters. Faeries, then Vampires and the like. There is a longer list I'm sure.
So now that you have decided to take on the manacle of writer, the question now is how much do you read? I was once a non reader. Didn't like to pick up a book because it made me sleepy to read past the first chapter. Then one day, I could read for hours, if the print is of a good size. When writing I use 11.5. Times New Roman, by which is the standard of all books written, is a good clear type. the 11.5 with 1.5 spacing is a big enough size to not strain the eyes when reading. Not sure of the difference, most best sellers are using a 11 or smaller which also makes the book thicker.
Becoming an author means you have a responsibility to your following to read, as much if not as often, as you write. You want people to follow you, well you in turn may need to read another's work. This is just good business. Of course you will find, not everyone views business the same way. You will read another's book, leave a review and your book has been shelved. They don't have time and next thing you know 6 years have passed. You cant be worried about those that haven't read your book because you read theirs, move on to new readers and your following will grow.
Not every author, blogger, beta, reviewer, cover artist, or web designer is your friend. I'm not saying this to be mean to anyone, this is just common knowledge. You will discover in social media exactly what I am referring to when you see in your timeline how one individual blasted another and its been shared over a hundred times and commented like crazy. Of course all of it could have been handled without the world having to know but then where would the fun be in that. Some people are petty and like to spread their misery. Some chose to make others aware of one who wronged them, alerting others who may be considering working with them. So there are good and bad sides to blasting people online, still there is a better and more professional way to do such things. If you have a problem with another, just talk to them, if they chose to become petty and loud and blow things out of proportion, just make sure you cover yourself and walk away.
Do you know how to make Swag? Swag is material you give out to readers and followers for their support. This can be in the form of book marks, either made by you or bought from a website. There are people on social media who do all kinds of arts and crafts projects with book covers on them. Stock up on a bunch and as you do a giveaway, or have a contest, send out a few. You will need a little black book to contain the mailing list and email addresses of those who follow you so when you have a new release, they will be first to know. Now when I say mailing list, this doesn't just mean for the continental U.S. Those you meet online, may not always be in the states. I have met people and worked with those living in Bosnia, Afghanistan, England, Australia, and  New Zealand. So when you gain a friend or two, sending packages overseas is going to cost a bit more than local mail and a different form will need to be filled out at the post office.
So back to you reading. I know most feel they don't like what everyone writes, but as an author you shouldn't limit yourself to reading just one type of genre. You will never know the interest of the reader base just reading one genre. Society has a habit of blowing up a new thing for about a month, or less and then its gone. To stand out, you want to be the one coming up with the new thing. Although this is still a hard process. Yes you are writing fiction but there still are rules. I said that before let me clarify.
By rules I mean when you make up a character, be it Paranormal, faerie, or an average person, they have to be believable. You cannot have an average man lifting cars to rescue the damsel unless he is some type of nonhuman. With powers, there has to be a weakness, not just the opposite sex. Think of Superman. He is an all powerful alien, but his weakness is kryptonite, which also when you make up a word, you will need to define it so readers understand the word better, and a red sun. 
If you make a character with a new ability, such as the character in Underworld where he was part Lycan and part Vampire, again you will need to spell it out to make such a character believable.
While working on those, there is the matter of learning to format your book. Learning about Page breaks so your chapters don't overlap one another, indenting the beginning of a conversation .5 throughout the book, and inserting cute little symbols to separate your chapters. This is all done through lots of practice and plenty of research.
The more you read, the more you will understand and the more your vocabulary grows.
When using your Microsoft word, or whichever software you are writing with, you will need to set up a search for words you use too often, or repetitive words and phrases. I found out using such words as 'Something, Look, That, Turn, -ly, and even said', can get pretty boring to see a lot of. Become familiar with your thesaurus, if need be, purchase a separate one and keep it handy.
There is a quote by Gary Provost, This sentence has five words. It gives you an idea how to evoke emotion in a reader with just five words. Its an amazing piece and replicating it is not an easy task. It cant be the same throughout the book but finding the one place to use it, and it gives off the emotion you want the reader to feel, may send your readers into a frenzy wanting to share it with others.
Your laptop may have a thesaurus, the amount of word available on it is limited.  Being a writer I am also learning, having more than one screen is helpful. I can have my book on one and be able to do research on another while having my thesaurus on a third. Another expenditure you will need to understand. The constant writing on a laptop and the ability to find one that can handle all you do to it. Will you take it everywhere or will it just sit on a desk until you return? How much memory space will you need? How big of a screen?
Finding the time to write. Will you need a quite space, will you have to share the dining room and listen to the family watching television in the next space? Will you listen to music, or prefer total silence. Keeping a notebook handy will help in those moments you have a thought and need to write it down. You can email yourself to copy and paste the rest later.

You want to write a book. Part Two

You have taken the plunge. You have written a story you feel is different than what is currently out. Great.
So your story is different than the mating of mortals with Demigods, Paranormals, Aliens, and Faeries? (I'm sure there are more, I can't recall them all)
Awesome.
It doesn't involve some weird chance meeting, an accident, and that moment of instant love caught between the glances then they realize they cant be together or one of them knows they shouldn't but they do any way?
Amazing.
So along with the new, never before read, story you now have to spend a majority of your time on social media advertising your greatness to get the attention it deserves. Of course you will have to realize, without a current following of people you have teased with small clips of your story for a year or two, your voice is the smallest blip on the radar of over a hundred thousand others doing the same thing. Wanting to be heard. More often than not you are shouting to other authors and not many readers. Those that read don't want you advertising on their page, its tacky. You have to find other sites to do so along with your own and again, where you are advertising is a place where thousand of other authors are posting. Within seconds of planting your ad, a hundred more will pop up.
Still feel brave enough to handle the masses that came out before you?
What if you don't enjoy having to post everyday on social media?
What if making teasers is not your thing? You can't find that quirky line, phrase or picture that will intrigue people to read your tale. What if all you wanted to do was to write a book, publish it and simply say, 'I did what others haven't, or thought that I couldn't' well, congratulations on your success.
A small step is better than no step at all.
But in reality you want more, you want to be a bigger success, a bigger sensation, you want people to see your name and go, 'She got another book out! I have to tell my friends' and just incase you didn't know, women read more than men. There are male authors out there, but not many male readers.
In order to get to the 'gotta have her book' stage, it takes a lot of effort on your part. Alone. Yes, you have to do the work yourself until you have amassed so many you can recruit help. Which you may or may not have to pay for. Some will help you because its something that comes easy to them and in exchange, you make an effort to post, make teasers and advertise snippets.
Still feel like you can make it?
Are you ready to hand out thousands of copies of your book every month hoping to get reviews for each of them?
Yes, you read that correctly. You will have to send out thousands of copies of your work by either, contests, giveaways, or advertising. Just like anyone seeing a post for FREE, you will download it then forget you have it. Very rarely people will read a book once they download it and it doesn't mean they will leave a review. Wondering why not? Well, its not a rush, not an important issue and someone else can leave one if you don't have any. Who wants to be the first one to leave a review? Speaking of, prepare yourself for the downwind of insults, negative remarks and down right ugly tones people will say about your work. Let it not be edited properly and there will be judgment. Don't perform proper research, saying you need a passport to travel from Boston to California, and it will get talked about. Lose track of your characters names, have a character dead in one scene but alive four chapters later and they aren't an immortal, paranormal or alien. Granted what you are writing is complete fiction, but there are still rules to follow and if you break any of them, it will be all over social media. Granted, you will gain the attention you wanted, just not in the way you wanted it.
Still not backing down? Still feel you are able to be on the top of the writers mound?
Great.
So you wrote one book, your characters were well thought out and the story came to an end. You are awakened at 2am by another voice and you don't want to leave the comfort of your bed. You go back to sleep, ignoring the voice telling yourself you will remember it later. You wake up an hour before work and the thought that came to you is gone, your voice has gone to sleep and you know what you heard was really great. Cant understand what happened? You rattled your brain to remember but cant? You may want to take a second to remember who is in charge. Your voice. Not you, your voice or voices. The voices of your characters are your boss and you have to do what they say. So if getting up at the wee hours of the morning is not your thing, you might want to have a recorder handy to keep track. If staying up well past your normal bedtime messes up your internal clock, you might want to bust it up now and get it over with. As an author, you are no longer in control of your thoughts, your schedule or your free time. When a story wants to be written, you need to write it.
How do you think I am sitting here now writing this? Wasn't my idea I assure you.

 

So you want to write a book.

Congratulations on taking the first major step in knowing what you want to do with your life. Now prepare yourself for the long tumble down the flight of stairs leading to signing with a major publishing company.
There will be pain, plenty of it, along with anger, frustration and the feeling no one really likes what you wrote. You have friends and family that have told you 'this is great, a wonderful story, you should publish this' until you meet an editor that rips every word, sentence and phase apart making you question if what you wrote was really so bad or did someone lie to you to keep from hurting your feelings. In either case, the editor, who hopefully gave you some important tips on how to correct what they pointed out being wrong, would be the one to tell you the truth.
You will need to have a following. A throng of people on the edge of their seats waiting for the next line, excerpt or post of when your next idea will come out. Don't have one yet? Don't fret, you have time to build on it. There are many social networking sites you can build a fan base with. Tease a few with a sample, and go from there. Post without care if anyone reads it, you may come across the one that does.
Your success will not happen overnight, in a week or in a month, don't expect it to. You have to work hard and steady to get to where you want to be. This means posting on all social sites, keeping a blog, a fan page and you still have to find the time to write. All posts need to be uplifting, inspiring, and able to catch the attention of current and hopefully new readers. You will need teasers, trailers, possibly a mini movie, this is the latest addition to social media. Making a you tube trailer. Finding a cover that will knock people off their socks is also important. Granted, there just cant be enough half naked men showing their abs, or some sexy woman in an erotic pose or a bit of both, you still need to come up with an attractive piece. There are several hundred or so of people that do covers for a reasonable price.
Speaking of price. You may spent anywhere from a couple of hundred, to a couple of thousand for your book to have a decent cover, be properly edited, software to format if your editor doesn't do it for you and to market your newfound article before you even sold the first book. Which is why many authors do a preorder a few weeks before the release. Sounds crazy right? You have to pay the editor this huge amount, either per word, per page but definitely per book and don't know if the book will sell enough to make the money you spent back and the same goes for the cover. So now you're thinking you are in the wrong profession when it's easier to be an editor or a cover artist. No, not as easy. To be a really good editor, you have to catch the things others wouldn't or point out what really sells a book. A cover artist needs to have a great software to make covers seamless. Merging layers of photos takes years of experience. And still you will need a following to get your books out to people.
Haven't been deterred yet? Well there's more.
You will need to find a group of trustworthy beta readers (people who will read your work and give you feedback) who get your book for free. You will need to find some that will get back to you in a timely fashion, nothing like asking a person and you ready to publish tomorrow but its been two months and they have you on a TBR list. There is the worry of one of the betas being an author who may take your idea, twist it a bit and market it. Don't panic, its been going on for years, but it does upset one just a bit.
Still want to get that book out?
If you know nothing about making a web page, blog page, teaser, trailer, synopsis, cover or formatting a book this would be a good time to learn. Everything you do is all about grabbing the attention of potential readers, once you have them established you wont have to work as hard at it, but until then you will need to have some stunning site for people to see what you are up to next. This means getting a domain name, again having to shell out money you are not sure people will visit daily or leave a comment. Not sure if you want to use your name, a pen name or come up with a combination of both to make yourself stand out? In either situation, you will need to know how to set up your webpage, pay a monthly or yearly fee to keep it going and update it often. There are others out there you may come across willing to help you set it up, be careful, some people are out there just to get your money.
Speaking of which, there are people who claim to be publishers. They are on social media just as much if not more than you and will see what you are doing, willing to sign you to a contract and some where down the line, you get screwed over. Granted it may not be every one you come across, but when blended together, its hard to know who will and who wont. This is where the most important part of your newfound skill comes in. Research.
Look into all cover artist, editors, self proclaimed publishers, beta readers, and web designers. Follow them if you want to work with them, see other samples of their work, talk to people who have worked with them before. Don't be afraid to do some digging, its the only way you will find out what you need to make you run or stay. Before signing with anyone, give a try at doing it yourself first, see what the task involves before agreeing to the terms. You Tube is filled with millions of videos to show you how to make covers, create a web page and publish your book. Its like how mechanics used to get over on women because many didn't know the true ins and outs of a car.
Don't get blindsided by a bunch of fancy words, do your research and understand the meaning behind them. If you are still ready to get that book out. Self publishing has always been one of the best options. But still, do your research. Find an author you like and ask if they will help mentor you. Granted they will be just as busy, but you may find one that doesn't mind the occasional question and who knows, it may be the cushion you need to steady your fall.
Good Luck.

NEW EROTIC READ

Having an obsession…is a dangerous thing. Whether its sports, cars, or money—people have a wanton desire to obtain a sense of normality with an obsession.
Claude is no different.
Somewhere in the walls of his home, is an idea that could make him millions, if only he could find it. For years, he has been searching his ocean of data for the file, only to come up empty handed. Believing the data to be long deleted and frustrated by his futile efforts, he steps out for a breather. In his endeavor to relax, he stumbles across an intriguing woman. Morgan.
Although their first meeting wasn’t a most agreeable one, he makes an effort to see more of her and for a moment, his mind is cleared of the file he has lost. He finds greater pleasure in the activities him and Morgan share. He longs for the attention she gives him, the special touches and the kind words, even when he senses there is more to her than what she reveals.
https://www.amazon.com/Measuring-Claude-Obsessive-Obsession-Collection-ebook/dp/B01MRS069F/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481714830&sr=1-7&keywords=tracy+gilmore