My fellow AbsoluteWrite author Erin Lark has a new M/M romance out today from Entangled Publishing: Swan Prince. A confession: I’ve read the first two chapters, and I heard about it while it was being written. I’m pushing myself to read more paranormal romance and erotic romance shapeshifter novels, especially those from writers I know.…
Read More Swan Prince, by Erin Lark…as evidenced by the success of the latest Marvel Studio’s movie Guardians of the Galaxy. I saw it on opening day. It was great, a proper mix of irreverent humor, solid fight and battle scenes, decent worldbuilding a la Marvel’s comics universe, and unexpectedly deep character moments. A worthy and wonderful change from the Disneyfied, focus-grouped…
Read More Space operas rockThere I was this morning, with ten paragraphs of what I hoped would be an insightful, well-documented, though controversial blog post about ‘(X) affiliation being used as an excuse for predatory/bad practices and substandard work in genre publishing’. It would have been about one facet of certain substandard small presses, vanity publishers, predatory and/or incompetent…
Read More Self-censorship is a bitch…or at least, I can claim the woozy, satisfied sleep of someone who has managed another 3500 words today, on a 70K book. Even better, I’ve figured out how to pull off a major plot twist. I think. I’m slightly sleep-deprived, so I may not know what I’m talking about.
Read More The sleep of the justI’ve been asked to cite some of my favorite M/M and M/F* fanfiction writers and stories. Why do I read them? They’re brilliant. Some of the authors are moonlighting professional authors, some easily could be. They can give me grinding Plot-What-Plot erotica, deep angst, high comedy, and breathless romance – often within the same story.…
Read More Fanfiction Recommendations (adult content advisory)This week has been about recalibration for me. One writing project is on hiatus while the beta-readers savage it. I’m looking forward to their criticisms more than their praise – harsh reviews have always motivated my spirit of competition, and the work ultimately merits the best I can do. I’m pushing through a major middle-of-the-book…
Read More Back in the saddleI’ve had an on-again, off-again fling with the idea of self-publishing a fantasy novella. At each stage in the game, the beast grows a little bigger. From the original 6.5K or so short story I started years ago, Singer in Rhunshan is now over 33K. (As of 7-20-2014, it’s now at 35.5K. I think it’s…
Read More Adventures in novella writingAt this point in my life, I’ve realized that everything I say might offend *somebody*. Silence is the only way to avoid that. Sometimes, silence is the worst possible answer. Author’s note: No matter what I might write about fictional 18+ adults doing to or with each other, I don’t like to write about young children as…
Read More The MZB scandals (adult content, trigger warnings)…in her Top Ten M/M Fantasy and Science Fiction list, in early April 2014, over at Scorching Reviews. Which I learned about only last night, via a friend’s email. I’m a little slow on the self-Googling, apparently. If I’d known about the list when the post and accompanying giveaway was live, I’d have happily contributed a…
Read More Megan Derr reviews Moro’s PriceZoe X. Rider has graciously agreed to cede her win back to the pool, so we have a new drawing today. As before, each comment equals one entry, and I’ll give the winner until 7-22-2014 to get back to me – or we do this all over again! The new comment list is: 1. Erika…
Read More the gods of Random have spoken againI waited through the 11th just to be fair, since I did promise that each comment got one entry chance. Then I drew up this quick list of comment posters on the Blue Night blog between 6-23-2014 and 7-11-2014. 1. Erika Lindsen, one entry 2. Lorna Elsewint, one entry 3. Lorna Elsewint, one entry 4. Lorna Elsewint,…
Read More The gods of Random have spokenIf it is in your power, do something nice for a fellow human being.
Something *they’d* think is nice, not an imposition you force on them out of your own moral or social code. This might require actually paying attention or even – gasp! – asking them how you can really help.
Do that thing.
Then don’t talk about it.
You’ll know. They might know. The rest of the world probably doesn’t need to.
Last day! We hope you’ve enjoyed our blog hop. We certainly have. Since it’s been a slightly different mix of authors and publishers this time, I’ve seen some great new books to add to my to-be-read list. Dee Tass rounds out the roster by interviewing Azalea Moone here. *** Housekeeping: to make up for some…
Read More 2014 AbsoluteWrite Erotica Writers blog hop Day 15One more day to go! Today, Evelyn Aster interviews author Dee Tass, who is writing some sparkling, steampunk-style F/F romance. What’s that? You thought I was only into M/M? Puhleeeeeze, people. I’m a grown-up. Love is love. I come from the SFF side of things where, to quote Douglas Adams: “In those days spirits were…
Read More 2014 AbsoluteWrite Erotica Writers blog hop Day 14Circa 2016: Sales Rank Express is not longer active because of changes to Amazon’s core programming.
Sales ranks can now be found only for individual novels or by publisher, but they are still a fairly good barometer for estimating sales and rates of sales.
Before querying or submitting work to an unknown publisher, consider checking out how well they’re selling on Amazon. Amazon isn’t the only online vendor, but they are one of the biggest. If a book isn’t selling there, it better be selling like crazy on the publisher’s or author’s website. *
Here’s an easy way to get ballpark figures of current Amazon sales ranks: go here to www.salesrankexpress.com and enter the publisher’s name into the ‘Publisher’ field. Hit search. You’ll see sales ranks for that publisher’s books listed on Amazon. They’re not exact, and are known to be inaccurate for strongly selling books. But those figures seem to be scarily accurate for low-selling books, especially those with estimated single-digit or double-digit Amazon sales per year.
Hint: sales ranks on Amazon are shown in ascending order, ranking all books currently in Amazon’s catalog. The best seller will be #1, the worst way down in the tens of millions.
Why should you check? A publisher with a lot of books ranked over 500,000 simply isn’t selling that well on Amazon, so they might not be good at selling your work there, too.
* There are ways to see how popular a publisher’s site is on the internet, too, if they claim to be selling more from their own site. I’ll cover that in a later aside, or you can go here to learn more. ∞
Ana J. Phoenix interviews Evelyn Aster today: stop by for their chat on crowd-influenced romance, tropes they love or hate, and a chance to win Ana’s debut novel and some incredible European chocolate. *** Housekeeping update: be sure to stop by the other bloggers on our master list, before or after their scheduled posts. There’s…
Read More 2014 AbsoluteWrite Erotica Writers blog hop Day 13Once upon a time, three inspirations came together: Baltic and Russian red amber artifacts, the Tassili cave art of the northern Sahara, and the Rush song ‘Dreamline’. Out of that mash-up, I wrote a fantasy short story set in a Paleolithic world. It wasn’t a great story. I trunked it and forgot about it for…
Read More ‘Red Amber’ excerptFor American readers, Happy Fourth of July! Today, old hand Tara Quan interviews new author Ana J. Phoenix here. Ana’s debut novel ‘Lab Rat’ s Love’ was published by Loose Id just a few days ago, so she’s another LI newbie like me. Stroll over to Tara’s blog for a great discussion on cover art,…
Read More 2014 AbsoluteWrite Erotica Writers blog hop Day 12The hop is chugging right along. Today Ravon Silvius interviews the talented Tara Quan here. *** For readers familiar with or interested in M/M romance, here’s an interesting blog post and follow-up commentary from writers and readers. As a SFF writer dipping my toes into the erotic romance pool, I find the discussions amusing,…
Read More 2014 AbsoluteWrite Erotica Writers blog hop Day 11Day 10. Wow. ‘Herding cats’ is nothing on keeping track of a bunch of writers. But we’ve made it this far. Today, Kimber Vale hosts author Ravon Silvius here. Check out their interview for another in-depth look at creativity, storytelling, M/M steampunk mysteries, and great giveaways from both authors. *** As a side note, I’m…
Read More 2014 AbsoluteWrite Erotica Writers blog hop Day 10