Staight up too busy for a proper Monday Update...

So instead, here is a word from our sponsors...

Oh wait.

That's me too.

Meh.

Male authors in romance and erotica.

Some unique opportunities have come my way lately. I am about to, in the next few weeks, embark on a co-written project with Jeffrey Cook, but before I could get there, I ran smack into another co-writing project with Thomas Stone. So, as of yesterday, along with Thomas, I put about 5,000 words to the page for a new paranormal erotica.

I started chatting amicably with another writer friend of ours about it and she does cover art and was idly messing around with some covers she had in a stock folder that had been rejected but with some new font and colors for the title would work for us and she asked me, "What name is he going to be writing under?" and I told her, "Thomas Stone."

Let me tell you folks, you could hear the needle scraping across the vinyl clear as day followed by a weighted silence...

Now I love this bitch with all my black little heart, but what she said next really, and I do mean really pissed me off. (Easy to do, I know.) She says to me, that it will never work. That no one wants to read romance/erotica written by a dude and he needs to pick a female pen name. Her reasoning? She believed, and she's not wrong, that when readers saw dude's name on the cover they would skip the book completely with the preconceived notion that the sex scenes in it were going to be goofy or juvenile.

This made me, as she so often puts it, 'a little ragey' and the reason? For years, women were laughed at if they tried to write something like, oh, say, a thriller or mystery or something of that nature and women had to claw their way through these old traditional publishing houses to achieve any sort of recognition, let alone greatness. Never mind that when they did manage to achieve either of those things it was usually years after they'd freaking died. So why then, is it okay, for us women to apply the same backwards thinking to men when it comes to the genre of romance or erotica?

Not okay in my book, especially considering this: Since when has it ever been okay to judge a book by it's cover? Which is exactly what someone would be doing in this particular scenario. They would be looking at our cover, see Thomas' name on there and be like - "Written with a dude? Um, Nope!"

You guys know me. Do you honestly think I would pair up with someone, and go to print with them if their stuff was below my standards or shit?

No.

So I love my writing BFF, but Thomas' name is his name, this story it kicking all kinds of ass, I'm writing the heroine he's writing the hero and I have to say, all kinds of magic is happening here and I really, really hope we can finish this bitch because it. is. awesome!

So when you see our work, tentatively entitled "I Am The Alpha" hit the Kindle store or Paperback, I really hope you'll fly in the face of convention and pick up a copy for yourself because it's turning out phenomenal, and you know the sex is going to be good, it's part of why you guys read me isn't it?

I say give male authors in this genre a chance, if you're reading along and aren't digging it or feeling it, there isn't anything that says you can't return the book, or just stop reading. You tried, you don't like it? Put it aside and move on. You can do that, you don't have to feel guilty about it either. You don't like something you don't like it. It's like broccoli, some people love it, some people hate it, you get it in your meal at a restaurant, you pick it out and set it aside. Same with books and authors, seriously.

Questions in reviews...

Got my drink on last night, the dust is settling from T&T's release, a lot of people are done with it already which makes me go O_O but I guess I really shouldn't be so surprised about that.
I read every single one of my reviews and I see questions come up in them quite a bit. The question / hope this morning was that Dragon would find someone...


Here's the thing about Dragon. I asked him about it and the answer to the question was a big fat resounding 'NO'. He's not going ...to move on from Tilly, period. While he's okay with me telling his and Tilly's story. He is not okay, and never will be okay with any kind of unsettling notion of 'moving on' from her. She was his end all of be all's and there is nothing and no one who will ever compare to her. According to him:

"I may fuck a stripper every now and again to take care of my physical needs, but there's no taking care of my heart. Only reason I'm still standing is my boy and my club. Some day soon, maybe because my daughter-in-law and some grand kids. That is, if my idiot son would get his head out of his ass and put a ring on that girl's finger already."


So no. Dragon won't be getting his own book any time soon. Not for any new kind of love. "My heart died the moment my wife's stopped. Now that's the end of it."


I hear you Dragon, I hear you loud and clear. Some pain is forever and Tilly Draven is his cross to bear. His illegal dealings got her killed, almost got his boy killed and he really doesn't want to talk about it or relive it any time soon. That is what it is. Dragon is the SHMC's eternal tragedy and he is okay with that. Now I'm going to pass him the tequila and let him get his dick sucked by a stripper from Sugar's and hopefully, the hurt will die down some for him. (I feel bad I had to drag it up for him now. :( )

I'll try and give answers to these when I come across them, and you can always feel free to leave any questions you have about the series either here or on my author page or, if you find it, my FB fan group... Never thought I'd ever have one of those.

 

So much to do... so little time...

So, book four of the SHMC series, Tattered & Torn launches tomorrow. *Yay!*

 

Sending one of these suckers out into the world is and always will be fairly difficult. It's not just for me but for any author really. You send your bouncing baby book out into the world and hope against hope you won't end up screaming that a dingo ate it. (I'm looking at you Goodreads!)

 

 

I always send these out fairly confident, the first few days roll by and the reviews are fairly positive and then BAM! It hits you, that one star review out of left field that leaves you feeling like the dude in the painting 'the scream'. You know the one I'm talking about... then you get all depressed for days, a few more rough reviews roll through, or they don't, and the good reviews pile up a bit more and you get back up and over it and start working on the next big thing... Which in my case is done, and so is the one after that and I'm almost done with the one after that.

 

What does that mean?

 

It means I am damned busy with edits is what that also means is these characters are beating on the gates in my brain and I can't stop writing or I'm afraid I will lose their magic... It means I am one very tired author with no end in sight but the writing and refining and editing and tinkering... That's the fun part! I don't mind that part, like at all and I wish I could do more of it.

 

Good thing I have finally reached a place where I have some really incredible people in my corner who are helping me out, I could not do any of this without my PA and Street Team, you can actually find them in the dedication to this book.

 

So Tattered & Torn launches tomorrow... I get a lot of people that want me to be more excited when I launch a book and I have moments where it is exciting but mostly, I just want a nap. A lot more exciting things are coming in the near future, some will be announced tomorrow some will just appear but yeah. I've got so many plates spinning I'm surprised I've only had one crash so far but it was a good one to have crash.

 

I'm babbling when I need to get back to book writing so I am going to cut this here. Much love, keep on keepin' on, and I hope you guys enjoy the book!

 

 

A.J. 

I quit!

I quit!

I'm walking away, I want to throw in the towel, curl up in a corner and cry.

It's been one of those days that has been absolutely draining. For. Reals. You know it's bad when even the characters you write are in the back of your head looking on in sympathy.

I'm just so stressed out and there's no real end in sight for me.

I'm trying to finish one book, launch another one, edit two more, prep for take overs, prep for signing and selling events and I am just plain drowning and need some help. Lucky for me, my street team has stepped up in a big way to try and plug the leaky holes in my ship before it goes down like the Titanic.

They might just be the thing that keeps me going.

I am at the point where I will be glad when this series is over. I mean, its over, I've finished writing it, I just mean when it's all released and done and in reader's hands... which should be September if I keep releasing every three months like I have been.

I want to go back to when this whole writing thing was fun. When I didn't have to deal with all of the promotional stuff. Can I do that? Please?

Hot Button Series - Issue 2 - Prima Donna Retardation

Maybe it's just me, maybe all the romance authors are PMSing at once, I don't know... but yesterday as I lay, surfing my couch wallowing in the misery that was Seattle's non-stop dump of it's special brand of liquid sunshine, I read a bunch of shit on Facebook, a bunch of shit that had me steaming mad by the end of reading it and left me wanting to fire back.

I didn't go off half cocked. I stewed over it and vowed that if I were still pissed off about it this morning I would do something about it.

Guess what?

I'm still pissed off about it this morning so here we go!

Issue #2 - Prima Donna Douchebag Authors

So you've finally 'made it' as an author. You're published, people actually like your shit and buy it in droves. You are making enough money to live comfortably, maybe do some travel... You've landed on some bestseller's list somewhere or are considered at the top of your genre. Congratulations! You worked hard to get there and you deserve what you've earned...

What you haven't earned? That puffed out chest and extreme sense of entitlement you're carrying around showing everybody who looks your direction.

What got me started on this? Two things actually. First, and the only one worth really mentioning, was the author/book critic who went on a massive rant/tear on her Facebook page about how there is absolutely nothing good out there to read that all these newbie authors are doing it wrong and how she's sick of  "shitty books" with no conflict, wandering plot lines, insipid characters... Then proceeded to round out her rant ordering all new would-be authors to find a copy editor before they even think about having a go at publishing.

Whoa, whoa, whoa...

Fuck you.

That's right...

Fuck you.

Who the fuck do you think you are pissing on people's dreams? I bet you dollars to doughnuts no one said anything of that sort to you the first time you hit the self-publish button. And if you were traditionally published? Well that's great, not all of us are so lucky to be picked up by a traditional publisher, that doesn't mean that we don't deserve to self-publish, that doesn't mean that our work doesn't deserve to be seen by anybody either.

I'm sorry that when I first started out that my first book was more than a little rough around the edges for your discerning and oh so refined tastes... I'm also sorry that when I first started I was barely making ends meet working my day job and every last red cent of my paycheck was going to things like, rent, electricity, water, sewer, garbage, clothes to put on my back, food to go into my stomach and for some of us? Medication so we don't die! Because you know, with all of those things, $700.00+ for a professional editing job from a true professional editor? Piece of cake! I'll fork that right over.

You bitched about characters that were "Too Stupid To Live" well maybe, just maybe, there comes a point when you're too stupid to internet. Yeah you may have passed that point back there somewhere.

We're authors. Each and every one of us are writers, independent, traditionally published, self published, it doesn't matter... we all have some things in common. We write stories, we want to entertain people with those stories, we're passionate and the big one here? We don't need any more negative bullshit than is already out there.

TL;DR for this point? If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.


Now does anything I just said mean that I think someone should type up their story and just slap it on Amazon? No.

Do I think you should go over it, go over it again, have your mom, best friend, husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, purple people eater from Mars go over your book or story and make suggestions before you go over it one more time and if you can afford it pay an editor to definitely make sure there are no typos, spelling errors, major punctuation fails and then... only then... give it a go?

Yes.

If you want to be good at what you do then there is some due diligence involved, but what I don't want you to do, is when you make it... your work gets a following, you start selling a bunch of copies, don't you dare get some kind of inflated sense of ego and think that you are the end all of be all's of the literary world. You wrote a book. People liked your book. Look around you. A lot of people have written books, a lot of people have had their books liked and have sold thousands or even millions of them.

That does not make them any kind of literary authority figure. That makes them some dude, or some bitch that managed to put a bunch of words on paper in an order that was pleasing to a bunch of people.

That's it.

Now. I really hate bitching about shit and not having any solutions/without being a part of a solution. So if you are a just starting out author, want some advice, are looking for some good resources, you can contact me. Message me through here, on Facebook, whatever. I'll do what I can to help and if I can't help I know people who can and who will.

With the exception of the broad who set me off, the indie community is a pretty great and supportive place. You'd be amazed at what's what out there. So when you're manuscript is all finished, all the way up to 'The End' take a deep breath because it's time for phase two which can be and usually is just as labor intensive as phase 1, which was writing the book in the first place... just not as fun.

Supportive people who believe in you and who want to help you rather than just bash you/make fun of you/tear you down are out here. Where there is a will there is a way and there are a lot of ways to go about this that you can put out a quality product without having to take out a loan to get there. If I could do it, so can you.

Hot Button Series - Issue 1 - Newbie Authors Pay Attention!

So I've been writing a new book but that doesn't keep me from lurking and I've seen a few of the great debates and even a new one come up the last few days causing a bit of a dust up. Nothing major. Still, I figured it was high time for one of my opinionated posts and let's face it... I haven't sat down and done a proper post or Monday update in a while so here goes...

#1 Imagery authors use to promote their books / copyright laws...

We've all seen it. We all look for it. Those little tastes, those tiny snippets of your favorite author's book about to come out. They're all over facebook, twitter, tumblr and yes. Even I have one very loyal and extremely creative street team who make them.

I mean check this out:

They're a great marketing tool and we all love them but then it happens... Someone posts one and oh look... their hero looks suspiciously like Justin Bieber or like that one dude from that one show... heeeeeey, it is that guy!

Not. Cool.

So you're telling me, weeks later when you're having a melt down over your book being pirated that you don't feel like that might just be just a little bit of karma in action? I mean it was okay when you were using stolen or pirated images to promote your book, but now that it's your shit being ripped off, it's a problem?

Yeah. Don't think so cupcake.

But I don't know where to find...

Ah! Nope! Nope! Nope! Stop right there!

www.dollarphotoclub.com
www.bigstockphoto.com (They have photos and video for you to use!)
www.shutterstock.com

Wait, what's that song playing on that trailer? Oh. You stole that too... how nice...

www.facebook.com/caballeromusicltd

But this all costs money!

Yes. Yes it does. The first thing I learned about this whole writing books independently thing is that you have to spend money to make money. My first book I dropped around $200 into to get it into any kind of shape to be seen, cover art, some editing (not very good at $50 - 100 bucks mind you) and when I got my first royalty check I was already further into the hole with putting out my second book.

You have to spend money to make money doing this.

Cover art, Editing, and yes, even promoting because if you don't want people laughing at you for having stolen Sons of Anarchy footage in your book trailer, then I suggest you shell out and do it right/have it done right.

Bottom line, I'm sure you've noticed that this post is coming out quite a bit snarky. There is a reason for that. I hate hypocritical assholes. Now I know it's totally a newbie mistake, I made it my self in the beginning, but when someone, and that someone is me, tells you about it and you tell me you understand and two or three weeks later there is a fresh batch of stolen images promoting your book... Well that tends to piss me off. Especially when those images are clearly of a famous actor from a notable television show.

No I'm not naming names, don't even bother to PM me about it.

Seriously. Do it right the first time and you never have to do it again... It's true and I'm here to help if anyone needs more resources or ideas. There are a lot of free trials on these stock sites that you can take advantage of and load up on images for your book or series if you would just put in a little time and effort before taking the plunge.

Patience.
Due diligence.

These are things a budding author needs in spades. There is no reason to rip off another artist or artists to get a handhold in this industry. We are all indie and we all make the indie world go 'round. Let's keep it beautiful and keep it honest and for the love of God, legal, please?

Finally!!!

Somebody put this grammar shit into terms I can relate to...

My editor thanks you, whoever you are, HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYBODY!!!!

Pssst... Hey guys! It's Monday Update!

So FYI, I've been down for the count most of this week... but that doesn't mean I've been completely out.

I see Bibi Rizer was here and kept you company while I was gone! Excellent! What Bibi forgot to tell you was that you reeeeeeeaaaaaaallly want to buy Objectify Me because it ties directly in with my current work in progress. More on that in a minute...

First off, the cover for Tattered & Torn will be revealed come Tuesday for your viewing pleasure and as you all know, pre-order availability for titles come along with that. Are you excited? I know I'm excited!

The entire SHMC series is completed, along with all their covers at this point so they're just waiting in the wings. Book Five, Fractured & Formidable is undergoing edits right now and Book Six, Damaged & Dangerous and the conclusion to this first SHMC story arc is waiting in it's rough state to slide into the editing phase.

Hey! Stop that! No fretting allowed! While those are waiting to go into editing and I am waiting to embark on this urban fantasy joint project with Jeffrey Cook, I am about half way through what just about every fan has been talking/swooning/screaming and demanding I write since Cracked & Crushed... Want a hint? Check out the image below...

Confused? Excellent! My work there is done, but still, a little more on that... You're really going to want to pick up Bibi Rizer's Novella Objectify Me, pictured here, before you get your hands on my current work in progress.

Seriously, only us two bitches are crazy enough to directly tie our two worlds together and the result is going to be awesome.


So, the TL;DR version is as follows:

Cover reveal for Tattered & Torn is March 10th, release of Tattered & Torn is March 24th.
Look for the cover of Fractured & Formidable The Sacred Hearts MC Book V sometime in April and the release sometime in July.

Damaged & Dangerous is still TBD then it's good bye SHMC for a while because new stuff.

New stuff is directly tied in with Bibi Rizer's latest release Objectify Me so go buy it and read it and have your mind boggled, one because Bibi is an awesome writer and two because how!? Wait, what? What!?

Finally, speaking of new stuff, I am going to get back in it. I love you lots!

A.J.