Time to Vote

[Selena_Kitt]

No, not for those guys... for your fellow Litsters!

VOTE HERE!

English Lady and I have managed to make it to round 3 of ARE's "One Bite" contest - and we're still not head to head, so you can vote for both of us!

AND we're giving away prizes, too. Gotta love that! EL's giving away two free short stories and is having a drawing for a free paperback antho that's she in if her total makes it to 300. Just PM her that you voted!

If my vote total in Round 3 reaches 400 I will be giving away one of two collections: The Taboo Collection: (Naughty Bits, Back to the Garden and Under Mr. Nolans' Bed) or The Mythology Collection: (Blind Date, Surrender of Persephone, Song of Orpheus)

Once you have voted, just fill out this form with your vote number, letting me know you voted and which collection you'd like to receive!

 

[lloyd_5]

No, not for those guys... for your fellow Litsters!

VOTE HERE!

English Lady and I have managed to make it to round 3 of ARE's "One Bite" contest - and we're still not head to head, so you can vote for both of us!

AND we're giving away prizes, too. Gotta love that! EL's giving away two free short stories and is having a drawing for a free paperback antho that's she in if her total makes it to 300. Just PM her that you voted!

If my vote total in Round 3 reaches 400 I will be giving away one of two collections: The Taboo Collection: (Naughty Bits, Back to the Garden and Under Mr. Nolans' Bed) or The Mythology Collection: (Blind Date, Surrender of Persephone, Song of Orpheus)

Once you have voted, just fill out this form with your vote number, letting me know you voted and which collection you'd like to receive!

You betray Lit.

You take your stories down, you never appear here unless with a begging bowl. WTF do we owe you? You have treated the Lit community like a bunch of bozos.

You only appear when you want something, you have no conception ofgive-and-take.

Your selfishness is sickening and against the credo of Laurel and Manu. I hope you're ashamed, especially after recent events.

 

[sr71plt]

Recent events? What have I missed?

I will say that I find campaigning for votes on a contest of story quality distasteful--and I can't but wonder if someone who wins on this basis doesn't realize that they are a fool for thinking their success is based on their writing prowess.

(Not that both of these authors aren't good writers. I'm just sorry that they don't let their writing speak for itself.)

 

[Selena_Kitt]

You betray Lit.

You take your stories down, you never appear here unless with a begging bowl. WTF do we owe you? You have treated the Lit community like a bunch of bozos.

You only appear when you want something, you have no conception ofgive-and-take.

Your selfishness is sickening and against the credo of Laurel and Manu. I hope you're ashamed, especially after recent events.

Please. I continue to offer stories here for free, participate in contests, and also the community as well. Check out my last post before this thread. Or the one before that. And there are PLENTY of authors who have gone on to publishing their own work from Lit who have left some or portions of their work (quite generously I might add) up for readers.

As for giving back - dude, I've spent two years of my life helping Lit authors get published and PAID for their work. I don't see Laurel and Manu offering to pay anyone here, do you? (Except maybe the delusional).

And if Laurel and Manu had a problem with it, I imagine I wouldn't be able to post here at all and my stories would all be gone, don't ya think?

Don't cry to me because you don't want to pay for what you once so selfishly got for free. I'm not your bitch.

 

[sr71plt]

Tilt. I've seen Selena commenting on the boards--and more constructively--than I've seen Lloyd_5 do it. And her 264 stories posted here, the most recent being in the middle of June of this year, stack up pretty well to Lloyd_5's zero stories posted record (as far as I can see in the listings).

 

[Kev H]

You betray Lit.

You take your stories down, you never appear here unless with a begging bowl. WTF do we owe you? You have treated the Lit community like a bunch of bozos.

You only appear when you want something, you have no conception ofgive-and-take.

Your selfishness is sickening and against the credo of Laurel and Manu. I hope you're ashamed, especially after recent events.

Yikes, man. You have an ignoble way of slamming someone. Or is it what-have-you-done-for-me-lately blinders you wear?

I know from long experience that Selena has a healthy mix of generosity and business. And I know from experience that getting readers' attention in this age of information overload is a daunting task. So, I have empathy for vote requests and always cut them slack, regardless of what I'd personally do. Please, take some deep breaths, gain a broader perspective, and (if you value yourself) apologize for being so harsh. Of course, you can keep on being unrepentant and abusive, and I'll keep feeling bad for you.

So, now that I'm less sickened by lloyd's reaction, anyone want to discuss tips for reaching the right groups of readers? This place obviously isn't it. It'd be dreamy to find clusters of like-minded readers hanging about, waiting to buy the latest stories, but that fantasy doesn't seem to have much reality, according to my sources. Let's say you have an epic dark erotic Halloween story coming out; how would you reach the right paranormal/BDSM crowd? Or any crowd, for that matter.

I've seen plenty of self-publishing guides, but it's rarely applicable to e-published stuff, and advertising rarely seems to get your money back. Many epublishers rely on name-recognition and fishing. Fishing, however, is an impatience-building exercise without the right bait and the right fishing spot. Thoughts?

 

[Selena_Kitt]

I've seen plenty of self-publishing guides, but it's rarely applicable to e-published stuff, and advertising rarely seems to get your money back. Many epublishers rely on name-recognition and fishing. Fishing, however, is an impatience-building exercise without the right bait and the right fishing spot. Thoughts?

Have you checked out Konrath's blog (Newbie's Guide to Publishing), Kev? Lots of good advice there about epublishing, especially self-publishing.

I don't know the secret, Kev. I wish I did. I'd say it's good writing, but that isn't necessarily it (look at Twilight!) It's not marketing, per se, either, although that can be important. A presence is important. Really, it's about building a brand. And that's tricky. There isn't a patented formula. If there was, I'd share it!

 

[sr71plt]

Reviews (whether favorable or not--it doesn't seem to matter) at sites appropriate to the targeted audience of the ebook seem to be the most helpful.

Availability at as many distribution points as possible.

Regular launching of new works in the same genre. New offerings on new lists help sell the backlist.

Killer cover designs.

Stay on new/best-seller lists as long as possible, which often means forcing titles into the lesser-used categories at distribution sites, so they get to the best-seller list for that category and the cover stays up front.

For e-booking, although it's underhanded, I think you probably could relaunch (and maybe recover) works every two or three years and would be reaching a whole new audience that wouldn't find the books otherwise.

One thing not to do is to come on a discussion board such as this to make "friends and buyers" and start ranting divisively that shows you to be a crazy and cuts your prospective audience in at least half just on your posting political views alone.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

For e-booking, although it's underhanded, I think you probably could relaunch (and maybe recover) works every two or three years and would be reaching a whole new audience that wouldn't find the books otherwise.

I don't think it's underhanded. They do this in print all the time. Why not in E?

 

[Kev H]

All great points, even the snide one.

Konrath's blog is quite amusing, and he comes off as an evangelist (and we're certainly his choir)--thanks for the link, Selena. I hope the grassroots shift is as monumental as he thinks it is; if so, I see a return of indie-driven capitalism in this arena, and that thought gives me a cerebral orgasm. Lists of reliable editors, lists of talented cover artists, lists of high-traffic review sites--and all that effort funneled into the competing distributors by the authors. A lovely thought (and I believe related to your original idea with eXcessica, Selena).

In all that blog, however, I see no more practical advice than what Sr mentioned in his concise/loaded post (#8). One key is genre-appropriate reviewers. I know from experience that some publishers blast review copies out to "their list" of reviewers regardless of the genre match; surely that won't cut it for the individual author. Anyone know who publishes lists of erotica-friendly review sites (like a P&E-style for reviewers)? TheWritersSite has a small selection, and The Complete Review seems to be mostly mainstream sites, but neither of these list the 10 or 12 I know of (including the popular Manic Readers, though Romance Junkies was listed on one).

 

[Selena_Kitt]

This is our list of reviewers we send to:
Alternative-Read.com
Beautiful Reads
Blackraven Reviews
BookWenches
Bound to Review
CataRomance
Cocktail Reviews
Coffee Time Romance
Dark Diva Reviews
Erotica Revealed
Examiner.Com
Fallen Angel Reviews
HEA Reviews
Joyfully Reviewed
Long and Short Reviews
Literary Nymphs
Love Romances Book Club
Manic Readers Reviews
Naughty Editions Reviews
Night Owl Romance
Novelspot
Paranormal Romance Reviews
Rainbow Reviews
Rites of Romance Reviews
Romance Junkies
Seriously Reviewed
Siren Book Reviews
Sizzling Hot Books
The Romance Studio
Three Dollar Bill Reviews
Two Lips Reviews
Whipped Cream Reviews
You Gotta Read Reviews

 

[sr71plt]

I don't think it's underhanded. They do this in print all the time. Why not in E?

Not quite the same. They don't market it as a new book. The e-book distribution (as yet) doesn't have a mechanism for identifying a book as a reissue--the print mainstream most definitely has that mechanism and requires that it be used--and prominently displayed in any new marketing.

 

[sr71plt]

That list would be gold, here, Selena, if you were able to tag genres reviewed to it.

 

[English Lady]

Whoa, this is an interesting can of worms!

Thanks for the mention Selena, you're awesome.

And I have some stories up here, yes, I confess I've not written anything new for lit in a long, long time. One of these days I'll stop procrastinating and actually give myself a little time between deadlines. I miss submitting to lit, actually.

And I've been pottering about, I don't like just popping up and going 'vote for me' when I've not posted in forever. This place is my author home, I always return here and I like to keep folks up to date with what I'm doing.

I know neither Selena or I are just around for votes. We're here because of and for friendships.

 

[Kev H]

Yeah, EL, there's perhaps only one person on this board who thinks that way, and he's already given his input.

That's a great list, Selena; can I accurately infer from it that there is no P&E-style list out there already? It might be a golden (as SR named it) idea to collect them, along with their preferred genres (though they often have multiple reviewers with their own favorites, which becomes too complicated to track), and maybe even some site traffic information (though that's probably a closely guarded secret). Most of the ones I have are on your list, but I could add a few, and I'm sure others could as well, then we could each take a handful and "research" their basic preferences. I'd bet the site owners would be happy to give us a sticky for it, since the information would be so helpful to all authors. It's not an undertaking anyone should do alone, but we've built teams here before. Thoughts?

 

[sr71plt]

A problem with putting such lists on this site is that the site owners don't permit URLs. I would have written more on the essay I posted here on e-publishing but I couldn't include URLs in it. I'm also not so sure they would promote having a list on a sticky here, as it's publishing beyond this Web site--not that they are into publishing themselves (which I don't quite understand. There's money in it and they could easily get author permission to put out "winners" and "E" anthologies I would think).

I am putting together a list of what e-publishers publish--but that's for a mainstream publishing consulting Web site and I won't be dwelling on erotica.

It may appear on P&E, as Dave and I have discussed the possibility.

 

[Kev H]

A problem with putting such lists on this site is that the site owners don't permit URLs. I would have written more on the essay I posted here on e-publishing but I couldn't include URLs in it. I'm also not so sure they would promote having a list on a sticky here, as it's publishing beyond this Web site--not that they are into publishing themselves (which I don't quite understand. There's money in it and they could easily get author permission to put out "winners" and "E" anthologies I would think).

I am putting together a list of what e-publishers publish--but that's for a mainstream publishing consulting Web site and I won't be dwelling on erotica.

It may appear on P&E, as Dave and I have discussed the possibility.

It'd be a natural fit for P&E, and an all-round helpful/noble idea. Please let me know what comes of it, Sr.

Back to the OP, what Selena forgot to mention is there's 6 free shorts at that link, which are, at the least, decently edited and heavily romance-oriented. I'd consider them light erotica, but they should be entertaining to all who like the paranormal romance genre.

 

[manyeyedhydra]

Ooh. Which of those do I get to scare next week?

Did you try out any horror specialists with 'Shivers'? I've been looking, but I'm still fairly clueless as to who does what at the moment.

This is our list of reviewers we send to:
Alternative-Read.com
Beautiful Reads
Blackraven Reviews
BookWenches
Bound to Review
CataRomance
Cocktail Reviews
Coffee Time Romance
Dark Diva Reviews
Erotica Revealed
Examiner.Com
Fallen Angel Reviews
HEA Reviews
Joyfully Reviewed
Long and Short Reviews
Literary Nymphs
Love Romances Book Club
Manic Readers Reviews
Naughty Editions Reviews
Night Owl Romance
Novelspot
Paranormal Romance Reviews
Rainbow Reviews
Rites of Romance Reviews
Romance Junkies
Seriously Reviewed
Siren Book Reviews
Sizzling Hot Books
The Romance Studio
Three Dollar Bill Reviews
Two Lips Reviews
Whipped Cream Reviews
You Gotta Read Reviews

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Ooh. Which of those do I get to scare next week?

Did you try out any horror specialists with 'Shivers'? I've been looking, but I'm still fairly clueless as to who does what at the moment.

There are several paranormal review sites (like Dark Divas). But often they're looking for romance. :x


Hey everyone, I'm selfishly asking for votes again! EL and I are still not head-to-head so you can vote for both of us HERE. Muchas gracias.

 

[secretme]

consider it done...

 

[English Lady]

I'm scarily behind in my pair this time. I haz a sad.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

I'm scarily behind in my pair this time. I haz a sad.

You're catching up, Missy!