Catching up with myself

First Day at Work - new cover

I haven't been on here for a few weeks, because life doesn't only happen online. Among other things I've had to do a lot of running around on behalf of a relative who's not particularly well. I've also been earning money writing stuff that isn't remotely erotic, because since Amazon messed with their tags, search settings and ranking algorithm earlier this year, stuff hasn't sold as well as it used to - and a lot of other erotica authors have found the same thing. If you're interested in reading erotica, you probably need to get more creative about how you search for it. And those of us who write it increasingly need to see it as a hobby rather than a livelihood. Such is life...

However, while I've been gone, Xcite have won a prize: ETO Best Erotic Book Brand 2013. The ETO is Erotic Trade Only, the UK's magazine and annual exhibition/event for all erotic trades. They award prizes at their annual event, and the complete list is here.

Vampire's New Plaything - new cover

In recognition of this (or something like that - I'm making assumptions here) Xcite have been redesigning some of their book covers. So my First Day at Work and Vampire's New Plaything short stories, and the Tricks For Kicks collection that has my story 'Filthy White Dress' in it all now look like the pics in this post (the other links to these scattered around this blog that show the old covers also still work, of course).

Meanwhile, I've managed to do a short story - it's a bit longer than flash fiction at a shade under 1500 words - that I've posted on my other blog, deliciouslydeviant.wordpress.com. It's inspired in part by reading some stuff on narratology - don't laugh, it's a proper academic subject that's part of a wider cultural studies subject area, and I do take the craft of writing seriously enough to read academic papers on things like literary structure.

Tricks for Kicks new cover

The story is a rough cut of a couple of ideas about ageing and sex - the character is in her sixties and remembering her hippie youth - and about how it's possible to interpret a list of a character's reactions to something as telling a story. Or alternatively, to tell a story in the format of an apparently stream-of-consciousness set of reactions to a single event in the narrative present.

It's also, I guess, an acknowledgement that the 1960s were culturally and socially an important period in England, and probably most other countries: it was the beginning of the hippie period, the sexual revolution that began with the contraceptive pill, a widespread drug culture, and of course a range of other things the story doesn't reference. And those who were young at that time have become the new generation of retired and elderly people.

Have a read of the story on the other blog, see what you think. I may revisit the theme and indeed that story, rewrite it, and maybe include it in a collection of 60s-inspired erotica at some point later in the year.

Tricks for Kicks published

Tricks For Kicks: Sex with Rewards - a new Xcite collection edited by Elizabeth Coldwell and with contributions from Veronica Wilde, Mary Borsellino, Fulani, Victoria Blisse, Maxim Jakubowski, Catelyn Cash, Landon Dixon, Tabitha Rayne, Heidi Champa, Dominic Santi, Kay Jaybee, Kathleen Tudor, Marleen Yong, Giselle Renarde, Cecilia Duvalle, Alanna Appleton, Cynthia Lucas, Sommer Marsden, Scarlett Blue and Elizabeth Coldwell.

Twenty stories in all, available in paperback (224 pages, £7.99) or electronically (£6.49).


Ever had the urge to pay for your thrills? The characters in this collection have, but it’s not just money that changes hands when these lovers go all the way. Pimps and prostitutes, gigolos and gold-diggers are all to be found enjoying Tricks For Kicks. And let’s not forget the boys and girls of the vice squad, whose intentions are often just as dishonourable as the hookers they’re arresting.

From girls who’ll do anything for that special piece of jewellery to the confessions of the woman running the best little whorehouse in town, here are twenty tales of sex for money – and other benefits.

My own story, 'Filthy White Dress', is a foray into a world in which an actress is paid for her encounters with a guy who wants her to act out his fetishes. And yes, they're sexual fetishes - but probably not in any conventional sense of the words 'sexual' or 'fetish'.


As a disclaimer I should point out my piece also appears in the smaller five-story ebook-only Making Her Pay, which also contains the stories by Veronica Wilde, Mary Borsellino,Victoria Blisse and Maxim Jakubowski and is available at a very reasonable £2.99. Xcite do this with quite a few collections now, to give the choice of 20 stories in one book or four smaller 5-story publications.

In other news - the Erotica Romance Ebooks site that Xcite ran alongside its own website, and that enabled some authors to sell directly to the public, currently redirects to the main Xcite.com website. And no, I don't know if that's a temporary thing or not. More news as I get it.

Unusual excitement

Yes, I've been unusually excited today.

A novella of mine - The Vampire Skye, which I blogged about recently - has been nominated by The Romance Reviews reviewers for Best Book of 2011 in the GLBT Paranormal Romance category.

It's up against a strong field with stiff competition, and it's the first time I've been nominated for anything so I'll be very interested to see how it does.

Voting takes place on The Romance Reviews website (voters have to be logged in to The Romance Reviews) between 16 and 31 March, with results announced on 2 April.

If you'd like to read the novella before voting, just to make sure it's the one you want to vote for, it's available as an ebook from theAmazon.co.uk Kindle shop, the Amazon.com Kindle shop, the
Barnes & Noble Nook website and direct from the publishers, Xcite Books.

Just by way of a short description - it's a BDSM-themed lesbian vampire menage story set in a more-or-less present-day world in which the sovereign debt crisis has created public disorder and imposed cutbacks on the agency that manages the vampire situation and tries to keep their existence secret.

I was going to do a whole other blog on the social significance of erotica but it'll have to wait a day or two...

Lust Bites reviewed - and another quote

The Xcite 'Lust Bites' collection, with one of my stories, has been reviewed over at Coffeetime Romance.

My story is, 'Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know', of which the reviewer says:

Sasha is surprised when the stranger comes up to her and tells her he likes her poetry. Somehow she ends up following Byron home and gets to know the real man himself very intimately.

This is a sexy read. I did feel as if it were a little stranger than what I like, but it really seemed to add to the overall element of the story. Fulani makes vampirism seem elegant and wordy and bold and romantic.

Only a little stranger? I must have been slipping... I thought strange was my specialty.

Here's a direct link to the book at the Xcite website.

Meanwhile the reviewer had kind things to say about another story in the same collection by my partner, Velvet Tripp, and another review of another of her stories is also out elsewhere. Rather than copy/paste all the stuff, read what they said over at our joint blog, DeliciouslyDeviant.

Meanwhile, this may entertain you. We were at a fetish club the other evening. Overheard as we were leaving: 'Hey, I gave you my all in that scene! I've got scabs on my nipples and a sore pussy. This sub's broken. If you don't let the sub rest and heal you'll wear her out and have to get another one...'

Out now - Velvet Tripp's 'Go Find Yourself'

This blog isn't all about me. If you've read this blog for any length of time you'll have worked out I'm in a relationship with Velvet Tripp, who's also a writer of erotica (among many other thing).

I'm pleased to say her short story, 'Go Find Yourself,' has just been published in not one but two Xcite Books collections.







It's in Wanton Women, a 20-story collection of lesbian fiction.

It's also in the shorter, five-story collection Submission in Silk, which contains stories by Giselle Renarde,  Velvet Tripp, Olivia London, Helen Dring and Alyssa Turner.

'Go Find Yourself' is story about a divorced woman who re-evaluate her life and begins to explore long-held but unrealised fantasies about sex with another woman. She attends a gay and lesbian organisation's annual camp where she meets Ross, who captivates her and ultimately seduces her.

Congratulations, Velvet!

Free read at Xcite!

I've just noticed my story 'The Incubus Candle' is currently a free read at Xcite Books - OK it's intended to promote the Spirit Lovers collection of 5 paranormal erotic stories for Halloween. But it is a 3000 word story, by me and for free. Not sure how often they switch these over but it will be time-limited.

Teaser: The candle was a large and faithful representation of a phallus. It wasn’t the kind of thing Lauren would normally buy, but it would be a talking point for the girly evening she’d planned. The shop assistant told her to be careful when she lit it. ‘These things work really well,’ she said with a knowing smile. Lauren snorted, thinking the comment was flippant, and rose to the bait. She bought two. And lit them both at the same time. That was when the real fun began…

Xcite global domination

I've just had an email from Xcite - because I write for them - announcing they've developed new North American and UK/Europe websites. The old .com site is now for North America and there's a new .co.uk site for UK and Europe.

As far as I can see the offerings on both sites are the same - the main difference is the default currency for pricing, though both sites appear to accept seven different currencies.

Feeling accomplished...

New story now out with Xcite as an individual e-book: 'First Day at Work'.

The blurb goes like this: Linzi’s first day at work isn’t quite what she expected. For one thing, part of the warehouse stock is sex toys. For another, the other woman in the office has a very intimate relationship with the manager and the warehouse man. When it turns out they’ll be staying on to receive a late delivery, Linzi finds out that much more than work goes on in her new workplace. And that means she’ll fit right in… 5000 words or thereabouts.

As always, using the link on the right, which is an affiliate link, puts some fraction of a penny in my bank account if you do actually buy anything...

Currently working on a couple of projects, one a series of half a dozen linked stories with the same characters in each one; another a slightly science-fictionish erotic novella or novel (not sure which yet) that's involving me in trying to find out some technical stuff about fabric design, e.g. the development of electronic circuits that can be made to fit in a single strand of fibre - my understanding is this is now technically feasible but some way off commercial production. Watch this space!

Oh, and I've been looking again at books like BS Johnson's 'Albert Angelo' - a surrealist novel - with an eye to whether surrealist erotica might be a possibility! I probably also need to find my copies of old Alfred Jarry and Boris Vian novels to remind myself what they did.

New story out, another accepted

The people at Xcite don't hang about. The story I mentioned last week is now out - 'The Incubus Candle', in the Spirit Lovers ebook anthology edited by Miranda Forbes. Five great stories in the collection as a whole.
As always if you connect to Xcite via the link on the right of this page (and then buy stuff!) it helps my income flow very marginally.
Meanwhile, I spent most of Tuesday evening and yesterday writing another story and the folks at Xcite have set what may be a world record for turnaround. I emailed it to them in the early hours, so they'd have seen it about 9 this morning and the acceptance was back with me by midday.
The just-accepted story is a departure for me in that it's a lesbian one. Hopefully it shows my lesbian and female bi friends that I've been paying attention and do pick up on little details of technique, emotion and vocabulary!

New stuff

Two pieces out soonish. A short story about an incubus, in an e-publication anthology from e-Xcite that will be out soon - no, I don't know exactly when 'soon' is, I've only just seen the proofs. And a short piece in the next Erotic Review, which should be out in the next couple of weeks.
Links on the right hand side of this page - and with Xcite, you're doing me a favour if you link through from here cos it's an affiliate link.
I'll post again with more details when things are actually out in print, or with the appropriate electrons appropriately arranged so they can come down wires to you.

I write for Xcite...

One of my stories is just out in the e-Xcite (electronic publications) book 'Red Hot Reads 2' - as you might expect from the story title, A Question of Control, it has a power-exchange theme. Look in the ebooks part of their site and you'll see it there as a downloadable PDF.
Another story will be out in a paranormal collection sometime soon.
If you use the link on the right of this page you'll be doing me a favour as I'm now signed up to their affiliate programme.
I'll sort out banners and stuff sometime soon...