Guest Post

I wrote a guest post for Dr. Ann Nyland at Indie Book Writing about the Paypal censorship of erotica.  Have a peek!

~Jolene

Moo

Not too long ago I put a short erotica story, Fire, up on Barnes and Noble.com for free as an ongoing promotion.  This has been fairly successful as my sales on Barnes and Noble have increased a bit, which is what a free promotion is for of course.

Every self-published writer I know reads their reviews and probably takes them too seriously.  The new guys might as well wear screaming neon suits, they're always devastated by a one star review, always looking for a reason to give up because writers may seem like egomaniacs, but in the end we're all children looking for a pat on the head from Mommy, or Daddy, or fat Uncle Brian.  Whenever I get a poor review, if I find it particularly cutting, I cheer myself up by scanning the good reviews for the same title because if someone hated it, someone else almost always loved it.  If that doesn't work I go look at Selena Kitt's reviews and remind myself that it doesn't take five stars to tell a good story or sell well.  Different work resonates with different people, especially in a genre like erotica, which can involve very specific kinks and fetishes.

So I noticed right away when Fire began to garner some odd customer reviews on Barnes and Noble.  On December 24th, 2011 I discovered a five star review titled Flameestar to auquaclan (sic).  The text of the review reads, "Greetings, im leader of blazeclan (flamecolored shecat with long fur asnd sky blue eyes) i want to welcome u to the f9reest. My camp is the first result for 'narnia'. If ur clan needs help settling in, ask f9r flamestar. Starclan guide u."


Since it was a five star review, unsolicited, I let it be.  Hey, I've had a two star review left by someone who said in the review they didn't read my story because they don't read stuff like this.  I figured turnabout was fair play.  Ok internet crazies, I'll take your five stars as payback.

Then I had another review on the 24th titled Deputy, "My name is aquastar may i be deputy"

Then three more the next day, then seven more in the next four days.  I'm up to a total of sixteen reviews ranging from one to five stars that seem to be from people pretending to be some type of cat clan who communicate with each other in the review sections of Barnes and Noble's Nook books.

Do a search for Earth, you'll see Earth by David Brin.  His review section has ten messages from RPers.  You'll also see Earth-Born Lord by Brenna Lyons, also riddled with messages about things such as seeking mates, other search terms to use in order to find more cat clan members, and calls to arms over pretend assassination attempts and imaginary cat wars.

Here are a few more titles I found riddled with clan reviews: Aqua Erotica by Agor Singh, The Cyber Mermaid by Jane Air, Dracula Refanged by Brandy Stoker, and the grand master gathering place seems to be Tartarus by Edward M. Grant, nineteen out of the twenty reviews on the first page alone are these RPers playing their game on the back of someone else's hard work.  They seem to be targeting indie titles, and seem somewhat attracted to erotica as a genre, perhaps because of the high percentage of indie versus traditionally published titles.  I didn't follow all the suggested searches to find other titles affected (they instruct each other how to find other places to message) but it seems like a relatively new phenomenon on B&N's site.

After it became a nuisance, I marked the offending reviews on my title as not helpful, and sent Pubit an email. Pubit informed me they no longer address customer review issues, that I would have to contact customer service.  An email to customer service gained me the following email:

Dear Valued Customer:
Thanks for contacting us. We are experiencing unusually high email
volume, and want to assure you that your concerns are always very
important to us.

If you have a question about the status of your order, please check the
information we provide on your online account. You can check order
status, modify orders, and manage many other aspects of your
BarnesandNoble.com account in this area.

Just follow this link to access your account:
https://cart2.barnesandnoble.com/account/op.asp

If you have more urgent questions, you invite you to chat with one of
our agents by clicking on this link:
http://www.bn.com/chatwithus

The best time to join us is Sunday through Saturday 1:00PM-4:00PM ET.

Thanks again for your patience and loyalty during this busy time.

-- The Customer Service Team at BarnesandNoble.com


An email that actually says they're too busy performing customer service to help me with my customer service request.  At my request a friend and fellow author also submitted an email for me, reported the offending reviews, and went into the suggested chat, where they found a bot auto-responding with FAQ topics.  Unhelpful, to say the least.

This entire situation only adds to the impression of self-publishing as hackneyed, thrown-together crap hurried onto any site that will have it without a thought to professionalism or presentation.  It makes my work look bad.  It makes Barnes and Noble's site look bad.  Their lack of attention to the problem makes it seem as though they don't care what happens to the indie erotica authors once their work goes up as long as the dollars keep rolling in.  Erotica is a cash cow for all the big (and some not so big) ebook publishers, but it seems like no matter how much we bring in, they're more likely to treat us like factory farm animals than working professionals.

Unacceptable.

Too much!

Why do I still have to pay 12.99 for a Kindle release?  Who pays that much for ones and zeros?  I know people are paying it because the book I'm looking at--Charlaine Harris's latest--is #26 in Kindle.  If it were in hardcover I'd wait for the paperback to come out, or I'd buy a trade because they look nice on my shelf.  I hope the big publishers get on board with an ebook business model that isn't all about screwing the readers and authors.  Kindles have shown that if getting your hands on books is cheaper and easier, more people will read, and people will read more.  Which means that a lower price point will earn them a higher volume.  I'm officially not buying any ebook that costs more than $9.99, no matter how much I love the author or the story.

If It Was Well Done Why Didn't You Buy It, or, Why I Went Indie

Erotica isn't my first genre, it wasn't my first love and it likely won't be my last in the world of words.  It's my current passion and the first time I've had any real success as an author thanks to Amazon and indie publishing.  I've slogged through different genres in the last sixteen years or so since I started including a SASE in with my double-spaced, Courier font-ed heart's work and mailing it off to editors around the globe.  My first submission at a tender age was a second read and was rejected with a handwritten note, 'well done!'.  Huh, I thought, if it was well done, why didn't you buy it?  Little did I know that thought would define my entire career in traditional publishing.

I spent the next *ahem* many years trying to crack every professional market I came across.  Second reads, 'you almost had us', almost always personalized rejections.  I readjusted my expectations--something I excel at--and began hitting the semi-professional-but-still-respectable markets and lo!  A sale!  Ten dollars for a fairly short story.  Then a year later, holy crap!  Another sale!  A hundred dollars this time, and they paid on time and the check didn't bounce, and the editor said my story gave her shivers.  I was riding high.  I'd made it!  This was going to be the turning point and I was soon about to be the darling of the writing world, a shining star at every convention, someone they spoke of when they talked of up-and-comers and rising talent.

That was something like seven years ago.  The magazine was online only and was gone shortly after my story went up.  I had another story accepted by a semi-pro across the pond, but it folded before they could print me.  Then it happened again on my home turf.  Then a good friend edited an anthology for pro rates and I sent him my best piece, and even he rejected me, although later he said he wished he'd put me in, that his partner didn't think my story fit.  Then I submitted to another across-the-pond professional magazine and after a six-month-wait they responded with a request for a rewrite.  Score!  I rewrote the story to their specs and sat on my hands for the next year while they took their sweet fucking time getting back to me to let me know I was accepted, I would be in the next issue.  I don't think I breathed for the next three months while I waited for the quarterly magazine to come out.  Then it did and I wasn't in it.  I wrote to the editor, always polite, me, always begging please sir, may I have some more?  She informed me that my story was a filler piece for when she needed something to fill in space and she was just going to hold onto it until an issue appeared where she needed it.  Naturally this was a pay-upon-publication market, as most of them are. Also naturally, they folded after one more issue, making my wait from submission to market disappearing more than two years with no check.

Six months ago or so I submitted a very short piece online to a respectable editor, in an online forum that allowed everyone to see all the submissions.  I read all the other submissions and ten percent of them were better than mine, much better.  Lucky for me they needed fifteen or eighteen percent of the pieces, so I felt like I was a shoo-in.  Naturally.  Naturally.

Pieces weren't accepted based on any standard of quality I could suss out, they were merely hit and miss, this one for its weirdness, this one for a unique subject.  I said fuck this, finally and completely, fuck this I'm done. I began to work on a novel because I can't not write, the idea of quitting entirely gives me the wiggins, to quote my favorite Slayer, but the writing was the important part now, I'll have a dozen finished novels in a drawer when I die but I'll have written them because I said I would.  Try try again, but books this time.

Then I read an article about indie writing, something I've always been against because I felt that without quality control the written word in the form of story is devalued, which in retrospect is hilarious, because none of those editors wrote to tell me what a shitty job I'd done.  I write very well.  Some of my stories are quite good.  They get rejected for minor things, because twenty of us submitters wrote good stories that month and were put ahead of the hundred poorly-written pieces, but we didn't get in because the top two were unbelievably good stories and three were great stories and they only needed five that month, or because someone in the slush knew the editor, or because the editor had a theme in mind and our pieces didn't fit, or because they needed something with a thousand extra words, or they don't like stories with cars.  Some editors will argue this isn't the case, but I've been on that end of it too, and it absolutely is.  I've had friends on that side of it and OF COURSE it absolutely is.  There are a lot of people in the world, and some of them use their advantages to get ahead, and you would too if you had an in, we all would.  Sometimes that advantage is crazy good talent, sometimes it's other things.

I have a toolbox, just like Stephen King said I did.  I open it and root around for the best tools, and I better myself by working hard and writing something of a higher quality than what I wrote last week.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not a genius writer, but I'm a solid writer, a good writer.  I can put together a moving story to entertain my readers, and it will be better than a lot of what they read elsewhere, and it won't be as good as a few, but I'm ok with that.  Because thanks to a change of heart with regard to indie publishing, now it'll be read.  People will buy it and most will like it, and some won't, but I won't be wasting any more words on themed anthologies with vague-but-rude guidelines expecting me to work my ass off without getting paid so they can tell me no thanks six months down the road.  I'm done with please, sir, can I have some more of your rejection slips with half-thought-out notes about how to improve a story that was fine as it was.

I don't have to ask, If it was well done why didn't you buy it? anymore.  Because now I've given them the opportunity to buy it, they do.

~JK

My bucket list

In no particular order...

1. Be an extra in a movie.  Preferably some kind of zombie or monster, or possibly just a dead body.  Loads of blood would be awesome.

2. Go diving with sharks.

3. Climb a mountain.  Not Everest or anything, a small mountain would be good, I don't want frostbite or elevation sickness.

4. Publish a novel through a traditional publisher.  I know, I'm an indie, but it's been a long-term goal for so long I can't give it up.  It doesn't have to sell well, and I don't have to have a million dollar multiple-book contract, just the one so long as it's print and through a real publisher.

5. Finally take a yoga class.

6. Have sex in a coat-check during business hours.

7. Stand under a blooming sakura tree in Japan.

8. Paint something worthy of fine gallery space.  (I've had a show, but not in a fine gallery)

9. Make a good friend on every continent.

10. Sell a million ebooks.

Anyone else?

Fire #SampleSunday

It's time for #SampleSunday, which I'll try to participate in every week.  If you enjoy, please Retweet~

An excerpt from Fire, an erotic fantasy short in my new collection out soon.

My older sister daubed her finger in the bowl of doe blood and then painted a warm red stripe across my forehead, down my nose, across my cheeks. Her face was drawn, angry, but it was to mask her worry for me, I knew. Her experience two years before had been unpleasant, although mother says it’s not always so. I was a pleasant experience, but Brigid was not. Perhaps it was a curse passed down thus, and so I had no need to fear, but Brigid had scolded me and called me a stupid goose when I suggested it to her last night. Then she cried herself to sleep.

I drew my deerskin robe closer to my body, as though it could protect me from the night and the traditions of my people. It was barely thick enough to protect me from the drafts which blew like a gale across the floor of our hut. Brigid had spent weeks staining the robe with a white paste and sewing on beads in patterns of the blessed, but I thought it all a waste of time. I’d snuck out to watch last year, and no one so much as glanced at the robes, which were in a pile on the ground before the sunlight had completely faded. The robes were for the sisters, and the mothers and the gods. No one at the fire cared for robes.

My heart hammered in my chest. It was my Fire this year, mine and three other girls from the village, and of course all the men who’d come of age. Their rite was different, secret.

The daylight dimmed and my mouth went dry. The scent of wood smoke invaded the hut. Brigid froze, her eyes wide with panic. I leaned forward to place a reassuring hand on her leg, not because I felt calm and unafraid, but because my sister needed me to act calm and unafraid.

“Your Fire is over, sister,” I said. “They cannot hurt you further.”

She nodded, her eyes locked on mine. Her lips trembled as though she wished to speak but feared she would only weep if she opened her mouth.

“I’m not frightened,” I lied, and stood to go. Brigid clung to the hem of my white robe.

“I don’t want you to be hurt,” she said, and began to weep.

“No one will hurt me. The gods won’t allow it,” I said. She held onto the hem of my robe a moment longer, but then I pulled free and ducked outside quickly so she would not have more chances to object.

Outside the sunset dwindled to a rosy glow beyond the mountains. Inside our valley the darkness had invaded the village so the shadows blended together beyond the reach of torchlight and campfire. On the hills to the east the forest had turned into a dark smudge. My eyes avoided the hills to the north. I wasn’t ready to see it yet.

My mother and a group of women whose Fires had long since passed stood outside our hut to escort me to the northern hill. They wore robes dyed red and embroidered with black beads and feathers. One of them carried a knife which shone ominously in the last of the daylight, and another carried a wooden bowl. The rest bore torches. None of them looked me in the eye except my mother.

“You have always been my brave one,” she began. I held up a hand, shook my head. I couldn’t listen to her explain to me how awful the night was going to be, not after Brigid.

“Lead on,” I said simply, and after a confused moment she did so.

The smell of smoke in the air was intoxicating, but I kept my eyes on my feet as we walked in line through the village and up the trail which wound its way through the northern hills.

Rewards

So, I'm sitting here with a candy bar unopened on my desk, obsessively checking my sales numbers.  My first milestone looms but is painfully, agonizingly still just one click away.

When I began this little adventure into the self-publishing world I set four goals for myself.  When I sold a hundred publications I'd reward myself with a candy bar, at a thousand I'd get a new tattoo, and at a hundred thousand something with diamonds, loads of diamonds.

I never really expected this to work.  I expected to get a few sales, garner a few bad reviews, and then get so discouraged I gave up.  My entire life I've been very industrious and this was just the latest bit of industry, and I expected it to go the way of everything else, a lack of interest on everyone else's part which inevitably leads to a lack of interest on mine.  Give up, go away, find something else to do with my time.

This time, the interest was immediate, the results tangible and gratifying.  I have good reviews on the various selling sites, I have people who support me, I'm making new friends all over the place.  It's beginning to look like this new attempt to make a difference in my life, with my art and industry, is going to be the one that sticks.

Click!  There now.  I'm about to eat my candy bar and enjoy every bite.  Come back and help me celebrate my new tattoo, sooner rather than later, I hope.