Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Twitter Hastags To Connect With Authors and Readers.

It's been a few days since my last blog. I've been busy working on the next novella in my BDSM Erotic Romance trilogy. I'm finding out pretty quickly that Twitter is an amazing tool for authors to use to find readers. I'm still learning how to find my way around the Twitterverse 'cause I'm still a newbie at tweeting but I'm getting there.

Here are 205 author hashtags you can use to connect with other authors and/or readers that I'm finding pretty useful .



Connect With Other Authors
  • #AmWriting
  • #AmEditing
  • #AmRevising
  • #Author
  • #Authors
  • #AuthorLife
  • #BookMarket (Thursday’s at 4 pm ET)
  • #CopyWriting
  • #EditGoal
  • #Editing
  • #ePubChat
  • #IndieAuthors
  • #LitChat (every M/W/F)
  • #MemoirChat (every other Wednesday at 8 pm ET)
  • #NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month is held every November)
  • #PBLitChat (picture books only)
  • #PoetTues
  • #ScriptChat
  • #TenQueries
  • #WANA (We are Not Alone community)
  • #WordCount
  • #WriteGoodNews
  • #Writer
  • #Writers
  • #WriteChat
  • #WriterWednesday (or #WW or ##WW)
  • #WritersLife
  • #WritersRoad
  • #Writing
  • #WritingBlitz
  • #WritingParty
  • #WroteToday
  • #YALitChat
  • #ZineChat
Connect By Book Genre
  • #Biopic
  • #Book
  • #Comedy
  • #Cookbooks
  • #Cooking
  • #Crime
  • #DarkFantasy
  • #Dystopian
  • #Erotica
  • #KidLitChat
  • #FanFic
  • #Fiction
  • #FlashFic
  • #Food
  • #Historical
  • #History
  • #HistFic
  • #HistNovel
  • #Horror
  • #KidLit
  • #Literature
  • #LitFic
  • #MGLit (Middle Grade Lit)
  • #MemoirChat
  • #Mystery
  • #NonFiction
  • #Novel
  • #Paperbacks
  • #Paranormal
  • #Recipes
  • #RomanceWriter
  • #Romance
  • #Romantic
  • #RomanticSuspense
  • #RWA (Romance Writers of America)
  • #SCBWI (Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators)
  • #Science #Fiction
  • #ScienceFiction
  • #SciFi
  • #SciFiChat
  • #Short
  • #ShortStories
  • #Short #Stories
  • #ShortReads
  • #ShortStory
  • #SteamPunk
  • #Suspense
  • #TrueStories
  • #UrbanFantasy
  • #WomensFiction
  • #YA
Get Industry Information
  • #AskAgent
  • #AskAuthor
  • #AskEditor
  • #BookMarketing
  • #EBooks
  • #ePub
  • #ePublishing
  • #GetPublished
  • #HowTo
  • #IAN or #IAN1 (Independent Author Networking)
  • #Indie
  • #IndieAuthor
  • #IndiePub (or #IndiePublishing)
  • #PromoTip
  • #Publishing
  • #Pubtip
  • #PubWrite
  • #SelfPub
  • #SelfPublishing
  • #VSS (very short story)
  • #WebFic
  • #WebLit
  • #WritingTip
  • #WriteTip
Get Your Creative Juices Flowing
  • #1K1H or #1K1HR (write one thousand words in one hour)
  • #140Poem
  • #Creativity
  • #StoryStarter
  • #WIP (work in progress)
  • #WordAThon
  • #WriteGoal
  • #WriteMotivation
  • #WritersBlock
  • #WritingPrompt
  • #WritingSprint
Connect With Readers
  • #99c
  • #99cents
  • #Amazon
  • #AmazonKindle
  • #AmazonLikes
  • #AmazonPrime
  • #AmReading
  • #BestRead
  • #BookBuzz
  • #BookBuzzr
  • #BookGiveaway
  • #BookMarketing
  • #BookReview
  • #Books
  • #BookWorm
  • #Borrow
  • #eBook
  • #eReaders
  • #ff (Friday Follow)
  • #fRead0 (that’s a zero at the end – not a lower case oh)
  • #Free
  • #Freebie
  • #FreeBook
  • #FreeDownload
  • #FictionFriday
  • #FictionFridays
  • #FridayFlash
  • #FridayReads
  • #GoodReads
  • #GreatRead
  • #IndieThursday
  • #IndieTuesday
  • #iPad
  • #KDP
  • #KDPSelect
  • #Kindle
  • #KindleBargain
  • #KindleBooks
  • #KindleeBooks
  • #KindleFire
  • #KindleTouch
  • #KindleTweet
  • #Kobo
  • #LendingLibrary
  • #LitChat
  • #MustRead
  • #MyWANA (Writer’s community created by Kirsten Lamb)
  • #New
  • #Nook
  • #Novel
  • #Novelines
  • #Novelists
  • #Novels
  • #Paperbacks
  • #Poetry
  • #PoetryMonth
  • #Pubit
  • #Read
  • #Reader
  • #Readers
  • #Reading
  • #Reviews
  • #SampleSunday
  • #ShortReads
  • #Smashwords
  • #Sony
  • #Special
  • #StoryFriday
  • #StoryTelling
  • #TeaserTuesday or #TeaserTues
  • #GreatReads
  • #WhatToRead
  • #WriteQuote
  • #WeekendReader
Promotion, Marketing & Networking
  • #AuthorRT
  • #FollowFriday
  • #FreebieFriday
  • #FreeReads
  • #RT
  • #Share




Friday, December 6, 2013

Is Erotica Right For You?

I’m sure you’ve heard of erotica, “romantic” and of erotica authors making fabulous amounts of money. If you haven’t, you must be so new to popular fiction you don’t know dick about it.


Did “don’t know dick about it” make you blink a little? Yes, that was intended to shock you. Erotica is shocking, if you’re new to it. But if you think it’s just pornography with a pretty tag, think again. The quote I just used and others like it are found in erotica, but that’s a tiny glimpse of the big picture. Read on and discover the rest of it, for erotica is different.

A clear definition is difficult. Erotica has tentacles in a dozen genres. It’s also a genre of its own. It’s not sufficient to say erotica is a story with explicit sex. Nor is erotica only about sex, unlike its gutter-cousin, pornography. At its purest, the new erotic novel is a brilliantly-written story with super-nova sex that compliments the caliber of the writing, and is fundamental to the plot and characters. In other words, if you remove the sex, the story can’t be told.

“Romantica” is used for romance + erotica, a huge category. But you’ll be hard-pressed to find traditional romance there. Erotica authors inherently don’t like boundaries — they’ll throw suspense, mystery, fantasy, science fiction, or paranormal into the mix. Some of the most popular romantica out there feature vampires, shape-shifters and elves.

You can head to the other end of the spectrum and find “big-scale novels in which the women and men are larger-than-life, the stakes are high, the stories are layered, and the sexual heat is a few degrees less than the surface of the sun.” (Donald Maass, Writing the Breakout Novel, Writers Digest Books.)


Unlike pure romances, erotica doesn’t use poetic euphemisms. The story is laced with sexual imagery and language. Sex acts considered taboo in romance can be a feature. The novel is charged with sexual tension.

However, even erotica has a vast range of explicitness, types of sex, and even quantity of sex. Erotica publishers such as Ellora’s Cave , who offer primarily romantica, rank their books according to the amount and type of sex, and the language used.

Similarly, print books (e.g.: the Brava imprint by Kensington Books) offer degrees of sexuality, but not all rank their books. As these lines are new and still experimenting, you may be surprised by what you find …er… between the covers.

How successful is the erotica genre? Enough so that Ellora’s Cave, an e-publisher of romantic, has gained recognition by the Romance Writers of America as a legitimate publisher (which makes them one of the first e-publishers to meet RWA’s stringent requirements). Dozens of Ellora’s Cave regular writers have moved to full time fiction writing. A Brava author netted the first one-million dollar advance in romance writing. Many erotica authors are achieving break-out status with their novels — they’re reaching very large general audiences who read the book for story and for whom the sensuality enhances the reading.

Erotica, to further differentiate it from pornography, is primarily a woman’s market, and unlike romance, there’s a bigger percentage of men writing and reading erotica, and male writers can write under their own names.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Cool New Site For Authors

What's Up Gang,

I wanted to share a cool new site I found and recently joined called AUTHORSdB. They're motto is "Great Readers Find Great Authors" which, over time,  I tend to believe is true.
 
AUTHORSdB allows authors to list themselves FOR FREE and their literary masterpieces with a clean and easy registration process. This cool site features all kinds of goodies for authors like contests, site awards for authors and even some really cool author services such as a virtual assistant.

They have an excellent global Alexa rank and it's even higher in the U.S! If you're an author and have been looking for a great promotional site with all sorts of great info and a great author community to talk and share about writing then I'd highly suggest joining AUTHORSdB Today! 

S.Brandon King


Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Planting My Flag

What's Up Guys,

Well, well, well. First post on my new blog. Never done this before so I'm excited. This blog has been done for a week or so but I just haven't had the time to write anything until now.

Not a whole lot to say really on this first post but stay tuned. I am working on the second novella in the Code series and hopefully (fingers crossed) I can deliver it soon. I'll do my best to drop a few lines or some chapters here along the way and maybe do some other cool stuff.

From now on, I'll be announcing the tentative, then the official, release dates in the near future here, on Twitter, and on Facebook. You can find the links to follow me on this site. Also, you can sign up via email to be notified of any new blog posts from me here.
Thanks goes out to all of you who support this writing journey of mine. It's not easy to be a male author writing stories read by women but I'll do all I can to make sure this reading experience is as amazing and memorable as possible, so thank you all for giving me the opportunity to work on it a bit more. 

S.Brandon King