Published to a Pulp by Jacqueline George

 

Now I Understand…

I was recently invited to a regional writers’ festival up here in Cairns, Queensland. A nice lady rang up and asked me to join a romance writing panel. She had stumbled across my website and been impressed with the number of books (and their pretty covers).

I accepted, of course. My ego would not let me do anything else. I drove the 330 km south to do my bit. In fact, interacting with so many readers was fun. They tended to be ladies of a certain age and looked very serious about their reading.

That was fun, and I would do it again. But what interested me most was the chance to talk to the other authors. Two were respectable contributors to well-known romance mills and the other was more like me – a bit of a bottom feeder in the book world. I made friends with Helene Young, ex-airline pilot and yachtie, who should be in Cooktown any day now. She has had some books taken by (I think) Avon and explained to me how things go.

Firstly, any books need to conform to house rules, and these are very restrictive. Once you have got a book past that hurdle and it has been accepted, you are slotted into a production schedule. The book is professionally edited and the cover taken care of – in fact, you don’t have to worry about anything.

The fun starts when the book comes out. She says she has 3 months of official promotion and sales from the publisher, and that is it. End of story. The book now belongs in the archives. Unsold copies are remaindered and pulped, never to be seen again. If any of the romance fans remember her name amongst the thousands of similar authors, they can presumably find her books online, but there are no more hard copy sales. Her only hope of continuing to be an author is to write another book.

Thinking about it, this is completely logical from a publisher’s point of view. They find a novel, publish it and take the first flush of sales. Space on the bookshop shelves or the supermarket racks is limited and has to be paid for, so the publisher constantly needs new titles to fill them up. Old titles can’t pay their way and are dropped down a hole.

I can’t believe I have been scratching around for years and had not really taken on board that publishers work to a project based business plan. They consume books (and their authors), and then dump them. That’s business.

Not good for me and my writer friends. We write books we want to live for more than 3 months, although we have no idea how to keep them alive. I know my list includes good titles that hardly ever move. How can I sell them?

At present I live in a world where I sell perhaps one book a day – as an ebook or more profitable hard copy. Think about it; a dollar or two per day. That won’t keep me in beer, although it might just cover a coffee.

So – how do we go forward? First of all – dump the publishers, although I suppose most of us have done that already. Secondly… I don’t know. I have a web site that is so little known it may as well be a CIA secret. Come to think about it, if it was a CIA secret perhaps that nice Mr Snowden could give it more publicity than I can manage.

I really, really need a proper marketeer to take hold of my website and turn it viral. Can you think of anyone? I’d happily hand over 50% of the profits…

Jacqueline lives in Far North Queensland, on the shore of the Coral Sea. She keeps herself busy with her cats and garden, and by writing books - some of which are far too naughty for her own good. You can find out more about Jacqueline and her books at www.jacquelinegeorgewriter.com

Kiss the Reaper By Blak Rayne

New release now available at Amazon!

As a prostitute, Z has no one trustworthy he can rely on in his life until he meets Brody, a kind and mysterious man who seems to be the answer to all his problems.

‘Wherever depravity knocks, he will answer. Whenever Z knocks, he will kill.’

For Z, prostitution is a way of life, but it’s also become his prison. Desperate to forget his ugly existence, even if it’s only once a week, he confides in a john—a mysterious but kind man named Brody. Every Friday night they talk until the early morning hours. Brody is altruistic, giving him the attention he craves and, in time, they cultivate a unique bond.

For Brody, he’s found something special in Z—an innate charm and pure view of the world—qualities he can appreciate. He’s grown fond of Z and comfortable with their routine, but he knows it will soon come to an end.

Fueled by curiosity, Z follows Brody through the city to a dance club. He wants to learn all he can about his unusual client. However, he discovers more than he bargained for—a dark unsettling secret is hidden in a back room, a secret he can never share.

Excerpt:

The elevator slid shut at the far end of the hallway and I caught a glimpse of Brody inside. I raced past it and down three levels of a concrete stairwell to catch him. Once on the street, he walked like he had a purpose, cutting straight through anyone in his path. I followed him for several blocks, where he entered an abandoned warehouse in an industrial park. I kept close to the walls and shadows, careful not to disturb anything.

On the fifth floor, in what had once been a spacious office, sat the basics in furniture—a liquor cabinet and kitchenette, bathroom, and a bed—it wasn’t how I expected him to live. A meticulous man, he seemed the type who would rent a West End condo.

Brody began to remove his clothes, and I ducked behind a rusted filing cabinet. He wasn’t huge or burly, but lean, an unbreakable man, and I felt an even stronger attraction to him. In certain respects we were one in the same—a pair of freakish oddballs—mutually needy. I wanted his attention and it seemed he wanted my approval. But what about love? And what about sex?

His cock was long and lean like him, his nakedness beautiful. My stomach fluttered and I bottled my breath, quickly looking away to stay calm. He deserved privacy and my respect. But my thoughts were far from respectful.

Water ran, and I waited, rubbing nervously at my sweaty upper lip. The bathroom door opened, and Brody emerged in a cloud of steam, waist wrapped in a towel. In minutes, he was dressed and adjusting his tie in front of the large window. Then he slid the holsters over his shoulders, buckled the chest strap, and put on his blazer.

Once again, he was on the move, myself in pursuit. But somehow within a block of the warehouse, his trail had gone cold.

“Shit,” I gasped, my breath misting in the air. Light from a neon sign nearby glistened on the damp pavement. No other business in the immediate area was open. I had a hunch and pulled on the blackened entrance door.

Loud music hit like a brick, rattling my chest. People drank, danced and made out—the club was a den of wickedness. And I soon became disoriented in the chaos, temporarily absorbed like water into a sponge by the hypnotic pulse of lights. I shoved against the suffocating mass of bodies and scanned the sea of bobbing heads. At the rear of the club, I noticed a hallway emitting a red glow and, for some inexplicable reason, I felt drawn to it and moved in that direction.

When I reached it, a man brushed past, bumping my arm. The unnatural light obscured his head and shoulders. I paused and glanced back, but he’d vanished. Our interaction was so brief, only his stature had registered. There were three doors to my left and the middle one stood partly open. I gave it a cautious push and it crept inwards. The red glow from the corridor gradually spread across the floor.

I gagged.

In the center of the room was a dead man, seated on a chair in front of a boarded window, his mouth gaping, a quarter-sized hole in his forehead. He stared with vacant eyes, those deprived of a soul. Blood trickled past the bridge of his nose and had spattered the plywood in the window, like someone had flicked paint from his or her fingertips.

For the first few seconds, I was too traumatized to be scared, but had enough sense to get out of there. Murder was still illegal. Turning on my heels, I blew from the room, heart hammering. I tried to act normal, but failed, wading at an urgent pace across the dance floor, propelling people out of my way. A yard ahead was the silhouette of a tall figure, a man engulfed in the epileptic beat of strobe lights. I don’t know why, but the back of his head and shoulders, and his sturdy purposeful gait seemed all too familiar. He had to be the man who’d passed me minutes before.

He exited the building and I did the same, dashing outside into the drizzly night. Gulping at the cold air, I looked in every direction. The street was desolate, not a human in sight—the man had, yet again, vanished into thin air. I turned east for home, an alley sandwiched between the club and neighboring building, and someone materialized from the shadows.

“W-who are you?” I demanded, limbs shaking.

Tags: Gay, Gayromlit, Romance, MMromance, Drama, Dark, Twisted, Killers, Assassins, Murder, Orphan, Prostitution, Futuristic, City Setting, Sex, Adult Fiction, and Must Read.

Purchase Links:

Kiss the Reaper is available at these distributors.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F7RHMSI

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/633533

Xin Xii: http://www.xinxii.com/en/kiss-the-reaper-p-369947.html

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/blak+rayne?_requestid=1227856

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/author?id=Blak%20Rayne&hl=en

  https://www.instafreebie.com/free/O2iBn

OUT NOW: FOUR LETTER WORDS by Charlotte Howard

@Shy_Tiger

#FourLetterWords #Erotica #Contemporary #Romance

Four Letter Words Blurb:

Paige Holmes has made her choice. But as she begins to get her life back on track, she also starts to question her decision.

Then, the letters arrive. When Paige finds herself in trouble once again, she must decide who she can trust.

Will she go back to the one she denied, or will she stand by her choice?

Love and lust are, after all, both Four Letter Words.

BUY LINK: http://www.tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/Howard_Charlotte/four-letter-words.htm

Excerpt from Chapter One:

Laying my head back against the black leather seats of the Jag and gazing ahead, I lifted a finger and touched my lips that were swollen from his kiss. The weariness of the past few weeks was beginning to take over, weighing on my eyelids as they began to droop. I should have been reassured by the man sitting next to me.

I shifted in my seat so I could watch him as he drove on. He was a force that even nature had no hold over. There was an urge to reach out and cling to his broad bicep, a need to feel the security of his physical strength, aching somewhere deep inside of me.

We didn’t speak as he pressed all his weight onto the accelerator, urging the car until it was over the speed limit. I half expected the shine of blue lights to fill the inside of the car, with sirens blaring around us. But they didn’t. Of course they didn’t. Even if a marked car was to pass, I doubted Vance Ellery would slow down, and I had even less that the police would attempt to pull him over. I suspected that the personal phone number of every single high-ranking officer in the country, was tucked away in a neat Rolodex on Vance’s desk or even stored in the memory bank of his mobile phone for easy access.

The silence should have been soothing. I should have been able to let my lashes flutter against my cheeks, and slip into a relaxing slumber. Instead the lack of conversation added to the tension that built behind my eyes. I closed them, hoping that soon I would drift off into a deep sleep, where I would be surrounded by falling flowers, rainbows, and sunlight. Ha! If only I was deserving of such luck. There were no pleasant dreams awaiting me after the sandman visited. Only nightmares wanted to be part of my night. They tormented me, bringing memories that I’d tried to bury and forget. They hounded the darkness, giving me nothing but misery and pain and suffering. It was as though all my sins from a previous life had been rolled over into this one.

If the visions of his face, the sound of his voice had been the only elements of my slumber, then I might have been willing to slip away and let the desperation of rest take me to the shadowed places I dreaded. My soul was destined for torture though. I was to be punished for his crime.

The mere suggestion of sleep forced my blood to pulsate until it was the only thing I could hear, throbbing in my temples. The searing pain of anxiety and panic stabbed at my chest, pins pricking my skin, as I let my eyelids fall. A shudder fell down my spine, waking me from the light doze I’d stumbled into.

Breathe in, breathe out. In with the good, out with the bad. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Breathe in, breathe out. A mantra, taught to me by a yoga instructor years before hell had entered my life, repeated over and over in my mind. I inhaled the cool air through my nasal passages, allowing it to slip down into my pain-filled lungs, exhaling all the bad out of my mouth in a gigantic whoosh.

Ahead, the roads were empty, weaving out of the village and headed towards Richart Courts, the hotel that was to be my sanctuary for the next couple of days before I had to face the next challenge. New York City.

How anyone could expect me to go back there was beyond belief. The only logical explanation for their plans for my future was that facing New York was the lesser of the two evils that haunted me, threatening to rip away the seams that had begun to fray around my already tattered edges.

Four Letter Words is the second, and final, part to Paige’s story. To celebrate its re-release, the first part of the Words Duet has been reduced to 99p / 99c!

Seven Dirty Words Blurb:

Paige Holmes hides herself in a masculine world in a desperate attempt to remain safe.

Just as she is ready to face her fears and her past, she finds herself torn between Matt Jackson and Vance Ellery: handsome, rich, and safe – or handsome, rich, and dangerous?

Which will she choose?

The one who appears to be the most perfect, or the one who makes her use all Seven Dirty Words?

BUY LINK: http://www.tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/Howard_Charlotte/seven-dirty-words.htm

Author bio:

British author, Charlotte Howard, was born in Oman and spent much of the first part of her life flitting between Oman, Scotland, and England. Now settled in Somerset, Charlotte lives with her husband, two children, and growing menagerie of pets.

Her career as a writer began at an early age, with a poem being featured in an anthology for the East Midlands. Since then Charlotte has written many short stories and poems, and finally wrote her first full-length piece of fiction in 2010.

During what little spare time she has, Charlotte enjoys reading and writing (of course), spending time with her family, and watching action movies whilst eating curry and drinking tea.

Charlotte is an active member of Yeovil Creative Writers Group.

Social Media links:

Website
Facebook
Twitter
Blog

Sanguine Shadows: A Curse Workers Novella by Erzabet Bishop

Vampire Bites Box Set

Only available in the Vampire Bites Box Set!

Blurb:

Sanguine Shadows

A Curse Workers Novella

Ball gowns and bite marks…

Mari Di Bartolo was a witch coming back to her roots in Salem. Juggling work and school, she is a woman on a mission until she is attacked one night after work and left for dead. When Mari is about to step through the veil, she is given a choice-become a vampire or fade away. She chooses life. Nevertheless, it’s not her new Sire that holds Mari’s attention, but the strange and enigmatic Fae with the golden green eyes. Full of mischief and mayhem, the night of the Vampire Ball is upon her and all that glitters may just be her teeth in the moonlight.

Darkness lurks in the shadows…

Fenris is the Captain of the Guard for the Queen of the Dark Court. For centuries he’s secured the barrier between the human world and Faery, part of a Protectorate that keeps humans blissfully ignorant of the beings hidden in their midst. But when another rogue wolf attack brings him to a crime scene, he remembers another girl with long dark hair and eyes that spoke to his soul. On a night filled with wild magic, there will be blood and some of it might just be given willingly.

Nook:  http://goo.gl/gpKF39

iBooks:   https://goo.gl/W5ygGn

Amazon US: https://goo.gl/PuHVcE

Amazon UK: https://goo.gl/YYnGQc

Amazon CAN: https://goo.gl/guhNER

Amazon AUS: https://goo.gl/i1cgpW

Kobo:   https://goo.gl/NaQry6

ARe: https://goo.gl/M9miZ6

NNP: http://goo.gl/XIyQ0W

Smashwords: https://goo.gl/VvNNpE

Goodreads: https://goo.gl/fWA1we  

AMAZON SMART URL:  http://hyperurl.co/VampBites1

Excerpt:

Her eyes widened and her lips parted and he caught a glimpse of fang. “I…didn’t know you cared.”

“If I didn’t, why would I have convinced Roark to turn you?” He tugged her closer, the push of her breasts against his chest making it hard to concentrate on mere words. He’d known she was meant for him from the first second he’d seen her but he had to let Roark take her or risk her dying.

“You don’t know me. I was just a girl on the street. A human not worth your consideration.”

Fenris didn’t miss the hurt in her eyes. Perhaps he had been wrong leaving her alone. He’d been convinced he was right letting her assimilate unhindered into her new life. He also couldn’t fault her reasoning. She was right. They had no claim on one another, only an attraction that blazed to life in the most untenable of situations.

But she was wrong on one account. He had noticed her before-just not in a way he might have acted upon. Human and supernatural interaction was forbidden but he was unable to let her die. Not like that.

 He wasn’t able to stop thinking about her and hadn’t since that night.

“I did notice you, witchling. How could I not?” He lifted a finger and traced the side of her face, his cock hardening at the moan that slipped unbidden from her lips. “You burn inside of me. Only I couldn’t act. Not until then. But I had to save you. To do anything else…” He let his voice trail off and watched her reaction.

Mari blinked and reached forward, pressing her lips to his. “It’s like a fire, isn’t it? A fire in the blood.”

“Oh Gods, yes.”

                                  About the author:

Erzabet Bishop is an award winning and bestselling author who loves to write naughty stories. She is the author of Lipstick, Crave, Snow, Malediction (upcoming), Sanguine Shadows (upcoming), The Science of Lust, Wicked for You, Heart’s Protector, Red Hot (upcoming), Hedging Her Bets (Alpha Fever Box Set), Cat’s Got Her Tongue (Alpha Heat Box Set), Arcane Imaginarium: Spirit Board, Holidays in Hell, Mallory’s Mark (upcoming),The Devil’s Due (upcoming), Charity Benshaw’s Enchanted Paddle Emporium (upcoming), Sigil Fire, Glitter Lust (upcoming), Written on Skin, Club Beam, Pomegranate, A Red Dress for Christmas, The Black Magic Café, Fantasies in Red, Sweet Seductions, Holiday Cruise, Fetish Fair, Temptation Resorts: Jess, Temptation Resorts: Marnie, Taming the Beast, The Erotic Pagans Series: Beltane Fires, Samhain Shadows and Yuletide Temptation along with being a contributor to many anthologies. She lives in Texas with her husband, furry children and can often be found lurking in local bookstores. She loves to bake, make naughty crochet projects and watch monster movies.

 

Follow her on Twitter @erzabetbishop.

Links:

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The Romance Reviews: http://www.theromancereviews.com/100004193823883

Website: http://erzabetwrites.wix.com/erzabetbishop

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Facebook “like” page: https://www.facebook.com/erzabetbishopauthor

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