A Community of Readers (#amreading #marketing #socialmedia)

By Lisabet Sarai

Want to know what I’m reading? Check out my bookshelf on Goodreads!

I can’t remember why I joined Goodreads, but my profile tells me it was more than seven years ago. Probably someone suggested that the site could provide another social marketing tool. For the most part, I haven’t really used it that way. I haven’t joined many groups (which I’ve been told is the way to reach readers) or engaged in much chitchat via the messaging facilities. As is the case with all my other social media, I have very little time to devote to such activities.

Of course I set up a profile as an author, to “gather” my books in one place (40, according to my last check). I also linked my blog feed to my page on the site. There are a few people who “like” every single post—even though for some reason Goodreads (or possibly Blogger) royally screws up the formatting!

I have 189 “friends”, mostly though not exclusively fellow authors I know from other contexts. Once a week (frequency customizable) I receive an email with notifications about what my friends have been doing, including the full text of some of their reviews.

Despite being ridiculously busy, I almost always read that email, because some of my Goodreads friends write truly remarkable reviews. The email includes a button next to each entry which takes you directly to Goodreads and adds that book to your “Want to read” bookshelf. I really like this feature. Before Goodreads, I kept scattered notes on interesting books I encountered, in a highly disorganized fashion. As we prepared for our ritual pilgrimage to the Strand Bookstore in New York, during each trip to the U.S., my DH and I would try to compile all those titles into a single list. A real pain!

Now I just go to the site, select the “want to read” shelf, set the number per page to 100 (there are currently 93 titles on my list) and print!

Indeed, I’ve started to use Goodreads to keep track of titles I find elsewhere (for instance, some of the amazing books mentioned by my fellow members of the Grip). It takes no more than a minute or two to bring up the site, search for a book, and add it.

Of course, another reason to read that email is occasionally someone has actually reviewed one of my books....! In addition, Goodreads lets me go to any of my titles to see 1) how many people have read it; 2) how many people have reviewed it; 3) the average rating (top is 5 stars). For instance, Raw Silk has 36 ratings, 8 reviews and an average rating of 3.97. (Those numbers are actually a bit depressing, considering how many years the book has been available!)

Because I’m an author and I know how much it means, I rate every book I read, and write at least a short review of as many as I can. A few months ago I got an email from Goodreads congratulating me for being such a frequent reviewer, within the top 10% on the site. Yeah, that made me feel good, until I realized that there are very likely millions of members who never post a single review!

I also “like” other people’s reviews, and occasionally leave comments. However, I have not tried in any sort of systematic way to increase my “reach” or draw readers into my circle. Although Goodreads has all sorts of marketing tools for authors, I’ve hardly used any of them. The site is now owned by Amazon (though it was originally independent), so of course it offers advertising, organizes giveaways, and so on. Although I personally approach Goodreads primarily as a community of readers, I know the real focus is on profit. People can buy books (surprise, surprise!) directly from the listing. There’s a big button for Amazon, plus a dropdown list labeled “Online Stores” for everyone else...

I’m sure I could leverage Goodreads to increase my sales. Certainly, as a social network, it makes much more sense to me than Facebook. I mean, if I’m looking to let people know about my books, what better place to do this than a site where the members are self-selected book lovers?

Like all the other marketing stuff I don’t do, Goodreads might make a difference in my sales. Or it might not. Meanwhile, I enjoy the interactions I have with my friends on the site. Though I have a small network, it includes many people whose opinions I respect. It would be more fun, of course, if we could get together in person, drink wine, and compare notes on our reading. Still, Goodreads offers a satisfying (and convenient) alternative.

And by the way, right now I’m reading three books: Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord, by Louis de Bernières; Travels in Siam, Cambodia, Laos, and Annan, by Henri Mouhot; The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 11, edited by Maxim Jakubowski. When I get on the plane to the US in a few days, I’ll crack open A Feast for Crows, the fourth book in the Game of Thrones series, which I’ve been saving for the twenty-odd hour journey.

Drop by Goodreads in a few weeks if you want to know what I thought about these books!

Control! (#selfpublishing #kdp #smashwords)

By Lisabet Sarai

I published a book this afternoon, on Smashwords and Amazon KDP.

The process took about three hours, including creating a cover and wrestling with Word formatting. Oh, there was also some time consumed by a power outage that killed off our router for a while.

Of course, this volume—Divided We Fall—is just a 7500 word short story. A novel would have taken me longer, simply to get the formatting right. Nevertheless, self-publishing is definitely the way to go if you’re the type who likes instant gratification.

That’s not the main reason I’ve embraced the process, though. The most desirable aspect of self-publishing is the way it gives you almost total control.

You have control over the price. I’m convinced that many of my romance novels would sell much better if my main romance publisher didn’t charge so much (six or seven bucks for an ebook novel!), but there’s nothing I can do about that. My contracts state quite clearly that the publisher has final say over the selling price.

In addition, for a self-pubbed book, you can change the price when you want, if that suits your marketing strategy. Especially with Smashwords, it’s extremely easy to set up a discounted price for a limited period of time, or even make the book free for purposes of promotion. Amazon requires a bit more time and work to modify prices, and is rather hostile to free stories, but I gather even that can be arranged if you can document that the book is free on other platforms.

When you self-publish, you have control over the cover. Granted, this is a mixed blessing when you have only basic graphic arts skills, like me, but at least I don’t have to put up with covers that I hate. (If I have to look at another waxed, muscular male torso, I might vomit.) Most of my self-published books have simple covers based on a single stock photo. However, at least they don’t look like every other book that’s out there. Furthermore, if I decided it might be worth it, I could always pay to have a professional cover designed. And it would be exactly the way I wanted it. I wouldn’t have to negotiate with the art department, or accept a bland cover just because it matches the style of an imprint.

Finally, the most important kind of control, for me, is control over content. When I’m working on a book that I intend to self-publish, I don’t have to please anyone but myself. I can break genre rules right and left, if that suits me. I can use any sort of sexual terminology and portray any sort of erotic activity, without either being censored or accused of being coy. I don’t have to satisfy an editor or convince anyone that my book “fits” the publisher’s image or supposed readers.

I truly love the freedom of self-publishing. I should say that I consider publishing with Excessica to be self-publishing as well. Their cooperative model means that authors have full control over, and responsibility for, content, price, cover, editing and release date. Excessica handles the final formatting and submission to different publishers, plus adds the book to their own on-line store, and takes a 10% cut in return. I appreciate having someone more skilled handling these tasks, and am happy to pay for that.

So what’s the down side of self-publishing? It’s often claimed that self-published work sells more poorly than books released by publishing houses. Maybe that’s true for some people. As for me, all my books sell poorly. I think the titles I have with Excessica are probably my most popular right now—not counting Raw Silk, which continues to find new readers eighteen years after its first publication.

Obviously you’ve got to put in more effort editing your self-pubbed books. If you’re not confident about your own grammar and spelling, you need someone else to help. However, I’ve read (and reviewed) plenty of traditionally published works that suffered from inadequate editing. Signing a publishing contract does not guarantee that you’ll get great editing—nor does it free you from the ultimate responsibility for your words.

Self-pubbed books used to get less respect, but it’s not clear to me that this is still true. Many authors with stellar reputations are going the self-pub route for at least some of their work. I recently read a wonderful self-published title by K.D. Grace, for instance.

If you think that a publisher is going to be much help with marketing—sorry, but you’re deluding yourself. Publishers may have their own branded channels—web site, Facebook page, Twitter account and so on—but honestly, they are as clueless as the rest of us regarding the magic formula for selling books. You’ll have to market a traditionally published book as actively as a self-pubbed one, without having some of the same tools.

I could go on, but I’ve got three other blog posts to write today, so I’ll let my fellow Grip people expound further. (I’m especially interested to read what Cameron has to say, given that he has just started a publishing company.)

However, I’d like to share the blurb for my new book with you, because it’s a charity volume in response to the recent U.S. Election.

All proceeds from the book sales will go to Planned Parenthood. Right now they need all the help they can get!

Divided We Fall by Lisabet Sarai

Multiracial erotic romance, 7500 words

Hate takes too high a toll

Linh’s three year old brother has wandered out of Viet Village into Niggertown. Despite the danger, she has no choice but to go looking for him in hostile territory. She manages to convince the rifle-toting guard at the entrance to the black ghetto to help her search, using a mixture of bribery and bravado. As they comb the desolate streets of Niggertown, seeking any trace of Duy, Linh discovers that the barrio’s inhabitants aren’t necessarily the violent, drug-addled brutes she’s been taught to hate, and by the time Linh and Steel have rescued the injured toddler and spent a long night hiding in a derelict building, she has come to understand who are their real enemies.

Get your copy at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/699997

How To Overcome Professional Jealousy Without Really Trying

by Giselle Renarde

Last year I had a friendly disagreement with a fellow author about the meaning of success. No, I take that back--it wasn't friendly.

I was finally starting to make ends meet month after month, which is huge for someone who's been living out of a savings account for *mumble-mumble* years. I was also coming off a bout of depression, and my heart felt all gushy with gratitude for this ability to live life on my own terms--conduct my business on my own terms.

To me, that spelled success.

The aforementioned author tore a strip off me. She told me I had no right to be satisfied with my wretchedly low "making ends meet" income. Why didn't I aspire to be a big earner? I was just a lazy so-and-so.

If you're satisfied, you're stagnating.

Well, first off, don't tell someone with chronic depression they shouldn't be satisfied with what they have. It's kinda... ummm... counterproductive?

Also, I just plain disagree.

But I disagree as a self-professed lazy so-and-so.

I know authors who feel like failures if they don't earn $100k in a year. That's fine for them, although you won't find me beating myself up about it. I have zero aspirations to become a self-publishing millionaire. If that happens, by some unlikely stroke of luck, it's because I unknowingly captured some zeitgeist I didn't realize existed.

If I get rich, it won't be because of my business acumen and winning personality. Or even the quality of my writing. It'll be pure luck.

Does that mean my rich writer friends are just getting lucky? (heh--phrasing)

Nope. They're working their asses off. They're spending money like it's going out of style, baby. *raises Ray-Ban sunglasses. winks. takes a sip of Crystal Pepsi*

They are masters of Facebook advertising. They get BookBubs. They spend more on marketing than I pay in rent. That's not an overstatement. Easily double or triple what I pay in rent every month.

And they reap the rewards. Their books sell.  They make money.

All in all, I'm glad I had that little falling out with a colleague. From that day forward, I was better able to articulate why I felt professional jealousies (when I felt professional jealousies), and once that happened, they dissipated. Well, that's not true. But I had the tools to easily resolve them.

I used to hear other authors bragging about their successful book launches and think, "Dag nabbit, that woulda coulda shoulda been me!" I was full of ze, how you say, sour grapes, no? Why was everyone else reaping rewards and not me?

Then I started looking at things logically. When I heard about someone's successful book, instead of dwelling on that initial visceral sour grapes sensation, I delved into the makings of their success. I ended up with a kind of jealousy-repelling checklist.

Now I ask myself:

Does this book belong to a hot, in-demand genre?

Yes.

Would I be willing to write in that genre?

Pretty much always, the answer is NO.

I have a friend whose book took off recently. It was a footsketbaseball romance. Footsketbaseball--that's a sport, right? Okay, anyway, it was a SPORTS romance.

And I said to her: "Eww sports!" And she said to me: "Eww I know! Sports are the worst! Took me three days to write the playing-field-surface-rink scene."

But she did her research. She knew sports romance was an up-and-coming subgenre. She put in the hours and wrote a book she wasn't interested in because she knew it would be a big earner. Her work paid off.

I don't begrudge authors writing to market. I totally get it. This is a JOB. But there are certain things I have zero desire to write about even for big money and you can't make me, nyah-nyah!

Okay, so let's pretend I saw a book doing well in my home genre. Say some heartfelt trans lesbian literary erotica tops the charts (HA!). Am I jealous yet?

Well, no. I might have a twinge of jealousy since this is a genre I've been writing in from personal experience for more than 8 years, but then I have to think to myself:

Is this author spending a shitload of money on advertising?

Yes.

Am I willing to spend a shitload of money on advertising?

Nah, I'm too cheap.

Okay, say they're not spending a dime.

Is this author spending a shitload of TIME advertising the book?

Yes! Blog hops and marketing doodads and podcasting thingamaboppers... I'm just making up words now.

Am I willing to spend a shitload of time advertising my books?

Honestly? I'm way too lazy.

And the be-all and end-all question:

Would the benefits of achieving sales success with a similar title outweigh the cost in time, energy and money?

That's always up to each individual author to answer. I can't answer it for you and you can't answer it for me. And when we try to measure success for each other--that's when we get into trouble.

Defining Success

By Lisabet Sarai

A couple of weeks ago, I received my royalty report from Excessica for the first quarter of 2016. I opened it right away, very eager to see the sales numbers for my latest novel, The Gazillionaire and the Virgin (which by the way is currently half off at Smashwords).

The book came out at the very end of January. I invested a huge amount of energy and some significant money in promoting the new release. Among other activities, I organized a fifteen stop blog tour, with unique posts for each day and a $50 first prize. I sent out media kits to at least fifty author colleagues who sometimes post promo material for me. I booked (and paid for) features in two newsletters that highlight free or cheap books (after asking Excessica to do special price deals for a couple of weeks). Almost every day, I sent out one or two come-on quotes from the book via Twitter. I also contacted lots of sites to solicit reviews.

Reactions to the book were really enthusiastic. The book currently has a five star rating on Amazon. Readers wrote things like:

“This book is one of the top five hottest books I have read. These were two of my most favorite lovers.”

Or:

“I was completely drawn into this relationship, and the relationship IS the story.”

Or:

"Do I recommend this one? Oh hell yeah. Realistic D/s with hot as hell kinky sex? Yes, please!"

Obviously I was delighted by this reception. Maybe I’d figured out at last how to write a romance that could please the masses! Perhaps, after sixteen years, I’d finally written something that I could honestly label a best seller.

The royalty report poured some cold water on my hopes. In Q1 of 2016 (only two months, given the book’s release date), people bought 103 copies of the novel. Many of those copies were discounted or free.

I’d be lying if I claimed I wasn’t disappointed.

I’m sure the book will continue to sell—a few copies per month, considering the thirty-day cliff. So, given the current topic, I have to ask myself: Is this book a success? Am I?

It’s all relative. This is more copies than I’ve sold of any book since my first (which actually earned out its advance). I guess that should make me happy. It’s more copies than some of my author friends sell in a year, I know. Am I looking a gift horse in the mouth?

But I deserved to sell more, my bitter side whines. People who write the same book again and again sell thousands of copies—of each volume! And readers liked my book, that’s clear. All I need is more readers...

I don’t want to make myself miserable, though. I have to let it go. I value my peace of mind more than the money or the fame I’d imagined this book might bring me.

And it occurs to me, that the real definition of success just might be continuing to tell my stories, even if I’m not a best seller.

Or is that just plain stupidity and a waste of my scarce time?

Paralyzed by Indecision

By Lisabet Sarai

This past January I published my most recent novel, The Gazillionaire and the Virgin. The creative seeds for this genre-busting BDSM erotic romance were planted right here at the Grip, in a conversation involving Annabeth Leong and our frequent guest Fiona McGier (who is responsible for the title). The book takes the currently fashionable tropes of the billionaire alpha-male Dom and the too-innocent-to-believe virginal submissive and turns them on their heads.

In my book, the heroine is the billionaire. Rachel’s an MIT graduate, founder and CEO of an enormously successful high tech company, bossy as hell in her career, but secretly a sexual submissive who tries to satisfy her needs through anonymous encounters at kink clubs. The hero is the virgin—and the dominant. Theo’s a brilliant computer scientist, but shy, neurotic and socially maladjusted. He has a wealth of knowledge about BDSM from Internet research, but zero practical experience.

As you might guess, I had great fun with these characters. I took every opportunity to shred the stereotypes made so popular by the Trilogy-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Although I realized that I might turn some romance fans off, I was writing for people out there who were like me—people who’d appreciate a fresh take on a tired plot. I was deeply gratified to discover that my readers seemed to love the book. I can’t say anything yet about sales, since the publisher pays royalties on a quarterly basis, but G&V has received more positive reviews than anything else I’ve ever written, including praise from bloggers active in the BDSM lifestyle.

I hardly wrote anything other than promo material for the first months after the release. When the flurry of marketing died down a bit, though, I started to consider what to write next.

And found myself paralyzed.

Let me explain that due to the demands of my real world work, I have very little time for writing these days. I try to set Sundays aside to let Lisabet come out and play. Even then, I often find my time consumed by writing blog posts or by other marketing activities. I can write 2-4K per day when I’m in the groove, but it took me nine months to write G&;V, which is about 62K words. So a decision to commit myself to a new novel means that (if I stick with my plans), I’m pretty much letting go of other ideas for at least half a year.

My notebook is full of story concepts I’ve put on the back burner. I want to write a steampunk series about a guild of engineers who construct custom sex toys. I literally dreamed a tragic sci fi romance about a genetically engineered male sex bot programmed to “die” after five years in order to prevent him from becoming too powerful or self-aware. He falls in love with a human woman and tries to escape his fate. There’s the BDSM romance featuring the quadriplegic Dom I’ve talked about previously here at the Grip. I’d love to write more lesbian fiction. For instance, I have an outline for a book about a female journalist in Bangkok and the bar girl she thinks she’s rescuing. Then there are possibilities of sequels to my earlier books. Although I generally don’t write series (or at least, haven’t), some of the worlds I’ve created have been nagging at my imagination, urging me to make a return visit.

When I looked at the (relative) success of G&V, though, I began thinking about a second book that smashed stereotypes. For instance, how about a ménage entitled The Werewolf and the Vampire, that wreaks havoc with the tropes from the Twilight Saga (and its imitators)? I even had a couple of relevant characters from a short story, who wanted more space to expand. My mind began to churn with all the possible ways I might twist the accepted standards for the vampire/werewolf genre.

I might finally have hit on a brand—books that break the genre rules.

That set me thinking about the style of W&V. Should it parallel G&V, first person present, alternating characters with each chapter? Wouldn’t that be tough with three main characters? The story I wanted to use as a starting point was third person, but if I was trying for some sort of consistent branding, did I have to change that...?

All at once, I saw the paradox. If I began a series of books predicated on the notion of upending tropes, the strategy would almost immediately lose its impact. I’d no longer be generating surprise and delight by violating readers’ expectations.

Once again, I was stuck. You know how it is. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Mired in indecision, I didn’t write anything, except a story for an anthology, for a couple of months. I was disgusted with myself.

Just do it. Do something!

So, finally, I sat down to work on W&V. But I decided to treat it as a standalone novel, not some kind of follow-up to G&V. It’s a very different story, with different characters. I know if I try to force it into some preconceived mold, I’ll snuff the life out of it.

Thus far I’ve written about 6K. It’s Sunday, so after I post this to the blog, I hope to write more.

Hey, it’s a start. And hopefully, those other ideas will keep.

The Tools of Twitter

Like pretty much every present-day author, I market my books through social media.  And, like many erotica authors, I have multiple pen names.  I currently have three pen names and for marketing I have one Facebook page, one Mailchimp newsletter, one Pinterest account, three Tumblr accounts, and three Twitter accounts (plus two more Twitter accounts for other things).  It’s gotten to be a bit much and is overtaking my writing time.

To be 100% honest, I actually have an assistant I hire once a week to do some of these things for me. Primarily, I have him going through my Tumblr accounts and finding smutty pictures to reblog, and then I let him go crazy on my Pinterest account.  I used to have him also manage my Twitter accounts, but it was becoming unwieldy for him.

So… here are the tools I use for Twitter. Some are free and some cost money, so some may be of use to people reading this and others might not be applicable.

Tweetdeck

This is my main go-to for Twitter management.  Tweetdeck is made by Twitter, so it’s an official app and it’s free and safe to use.  From this, I can create columns for all the things I want to track — my newsfeed, notifications, direct messages, lists, my pen name’s Twitter feed, and various hashtags — allowing me to see everything all at once.  (Whereas on Twitter this requires clicking through to different pages to see everything.)  You can also install multiple accounts on Tweetdeck, allowing me to manage everything in one place.

What I like most about Tweetdeck is that I can schedule tweets to appear at a certain day and time.  So, what I was originally doing was having my assistant take all my promo tweets and scheduling them to appear at certain times throughout the week.  Peak times tend to be before work, after work, and late evening.  This requires a lot of effort, but in setting it up, I can then not worry about Twitter for the rest of the week.  (I used to do this on a day-to-day basis, logging in first thing in the morning and setting up tweets for the day.)

It doesn’t allow you to schedule identical tweets, though.  So if you’ve got a new release and you want to tweet about it several times on your release day, each tweet needs to be slightly different or it will reject all the repeated tweets.  (And “different” can simply be changing a hashtag or a punctuation mark — changes that don’t take much thinking.)

Tweet Jukebox

This is one of my newer Twitter toys.  When having my assistant schedule tweets became unwieldy, I investigated apps that would take care of Tweets for me.  With Tweet Jukebox — which has a free plan with limited ability (but I find it does exactly what I need) — I throw all my promotional tweets in a “jukebox,” and then at pre-determined times, Tweet Jukebox posts a random tweet.  When it’s cycled through all of the tweets, it starts over again.

Unfortunately, you can’t set it to tweet at truly random times.  The scheduling option allows you to set tweets to appear at certain intervals during certain times on certain days.  So, for the most part, I have tweets appearing roughly every three hours between before-work-time and midnight-ish.  By making each day's start time different and making it roughly, but not exactly, three hours between tweets, the timing appears somewhat random, rather than being at, say, 8:00, 11:00, 2:00, 5:00, 8:00, and 11:00 every day.

Crowdfire

This is, admittedly, one of those apps that people dislike being on the receiving end of.  After someone follows you, Crowdfire sends them a direct message (DM) within a day.  You can set this DM to say whatever you want, and you can have multiple DMs set up and it will send a random one.

These automated DMs can direct new followers to your latest release, your catalogue on Amazon, your website, your Facebook page, your newsletter, or anywhere else you want your fans to go.  For one pen name, I direct them to my newsletter, and for another pen name, I direct them to my latest release on Amazon.  (In the picture attached to the TweetDeck section, you can see the direct messages that Crowdfire sent out to point people toward my newsletter.)

Automated DMs from Crowdfire are like pop-up ads on websites — everyone hates them, but they work.  I’ve had an increase in newsletter subscribers since I started using Crowdfire, and for the other pen name I’ve had people reply and tell me they’ve bought the book or they're checking out my website.

Tweepi

This is my newest tool, and I only use it for one pen name (not this one).  With that pen name, I’m experimenting on getting aggressive in following people, in the hopes that they will follow back.  This tool has a small cost associated with it, but one I’m willing to shell out.

Tweepi allows you to put in someone’s Twitter handle and it will show you a list of their followers.  From there, you’re able to sort the list using a ton of handy tools and filters.

I filter the results so that they have a followback ratio of 60% to 140% — this is a number that rates their likeliness of following you back.  (It’s just a calculation of their following divided by their followers, I think.)  I also filter out anyone who follows more than 1,000 people, with the reasoning that someone following thousands upon thousands of people will not see my tweets, as they’ll be buried amongst all the others.  And, finally, I filter out anyone that hasn’t tweeted in the last seven days, with the reasoning that if they’re tweeting, they’re online and active and likely to see my tweets.

Tweepi lets you follow 950 people every twenty-four hours — so I max it out every day.  I later follow it up with unfollowing anyone who hasn’t followed me back after seven days — and Tweepi lets you unfollow 500 people per day.  There are other limits imposed by Twitter, like you can’t follow more than 5,000 people unless your number of followers is within 10% of the number of people you’re following.  And Twitter may ask you to change your password when you start using a tool like this, as it assumes that a sudden change in your Twitter behaviour means you’ve been hacked.

I’ve been using Tweepi for a little over a week and have more than doubled the number of people following that account. Have I seen a huge increase in sales?  Not yet, but I have had some new followers tell me they’re going to check out my stuff or say that they just went and bought my newest book.

Marketing through social media is one of those things that everyone says is necessary and successful, but in reality, it's difficult to do it effectively.  It's been a process of a few years to figure out my Twitter strategy, and while it hasn't led to a stellar increase in sales, it has absolutely led to somewhat of an increase and has led to wider engagement with and following from readers.

Building a Brand

By Lisabet Sarai

If you want to be successful in the highly competitive game of publishing (I'm told), you need to do more than just write good books and get someone to sell them for you. You need to “build a brand”. What does this mean? Here's a simple definition from Dummies.com:

When people hear your name, they conjure up a set of impressions that influence how they think and buy. Those thoughts define your brand.

For an author, having a “brand” means, first, that readers recognize your name and second, they have a clear and hopefully positive understanding of what you write that leads them to purchase your books. Popular authors like James Patterson or Stephen King have legions of readers who will buy anything they publish, sight unseen. Readers know what to expect from these authors. They'll pre-order a book before it's even released. The power of the author's brand trumps the quality of the actual writing.

In the erotic romance world, brands rule. Authors typically produce a multitude of titles in one or two clearly defined genres. Carol Lynne writes M/M contemporary erotica romance, often with a Western setting. Sabrina York creates rock-hard, flint-hearted military heroes, emotionally scarred SEALs or Special Forces guys who struggle against the weakness of loving a special woman. Cerise De Land pens Regencies populated by disgraced dukes and feisty, independent ladies.

In the realm of erotica, I consider Rachel Kramer Bussel an example of effective brand-building. Pretty much anyone who reads erotica will be familiar with the dozens of anthologies she has edited, many focused on kink or fetishes. Rachel builds her brand not only through her publications but also through readings, parties and an amazingly active presences in the blogosphere. Just say “cupcake” or “spanking” to any erotica reader and Rachel's name is likely to come to mind.

Alison Tyler provides another instance. Alison’s brand is even more focused than Rachel’s—she writes dark, transgressive BDSM, mostly M/f, significantly less playful and exploratory than Rachel. Her characters are driven by need, not just erotic curiosity. Alison’s not as “out in the world” as Rachel. She characterizes herself as “a shy girl with a dirty mind”. Still, I suspect there are few readers of erotica who wouldn’t recognize her name. Having recently joined Twitter, I’ve discovered she’s a true expert at this medium, with the ability to make almost any snippet of prose sound fascinating (and naughty). I’ve been studying her technique, but so far I can’t come close.

So how does a poor aspiring author like me go about building a brand? The authorities I've consulted highlight three major issues:

Distinctiveness – Both your name and your work need to be sufficiently unusual to stand out from the crowd.

Value – You need to offer your readers good value for their money. You can't fake your way into effective branding, at least not for long. Especially when you're building your brand, every title you produce has to satisfy your target readers.

Consistency – Your brand controls readers' expectations. People who purchase Carol Lynne's books expect explicit M/M erotic romance. Readers who buy Rachel's anthologies expect playfully transgressive, sex-positive stories in which pleasure trumps more serious issues. For a writer, brand consistency encompasses both genre and style. If a book doesn't fulfill readers' expectations, your brand will suffer.

And there's the rub, for me. Consistency. I write all sorts of genres and heat levels. I write both erotica and romance. BDSM fiction was my first love but I've deliberately diversified. I've written contemporary, paranormal, historical, suspense and science fiction; heterosexual, gay, lesbian, and ménage; dark, playful and comic. When a reader comes across my name, he or she isn't likely to have immediate expectations about content or tone. About the only thing that a reader can assume is that my work is likely to contain a lot of sex―but even that isn't guaranteed.

Distinctiveness isn't a problem. I happened to choose a pen name that appears to be unique. (I was trying for something that sounded foreign and exotic, to go with the exotic setting of my first novel.) Google my name and you'll find pages and pages of references to me and my books. It appears that in cyberspace, at least, there's only one Lisabet Sarai.

I'd like to believe that I'm set as far as value is concerned as well. I produce quality work, or at least I try, with original premises and engaging characters. Most of my work has received very positive reviews.

If consistency is required in order to have an effective brand, though, I may never succeed. I'm easily bored. I don't want to write the same sort of book over and over. I'm contemplating sequels to several of my novels and I'll be honest―I'm not sure that I want to return to the same worlds and characters for the duration of another book. I'd rather try something different―to stretch my abilities.

Obviously there are common threads that run through my work. I tend to write stories that have a strong sense of place and I frequently use foreign settings. My characters tend to think a lot―they're not usually action-hero types. In my stories, sexual identity tends to be fluid; it's common for a straight character to discover homoerotic yearnings or vice versa. Sex in my tales is often a revelation as opposed to just recreation. This is particularly true of sex that involves dominance and submission. Finally, I think it's fair to say that my style is more literary than popular (though I'm trying to diversify in this area as well.)

These kind of abstract commonalities aren't enough, I suspect, to bolster a brand identity. I'd be really interested to know what readers think when they hear the name “Lisabet Sarai”. Most probably, it depends on what (if anything) they've read. The trouble is that any particular book they've picked up will likely give them mistaken expectations for the next one of my books that they read.

I really don't know how seriously I should take this dilemma. Should I channel my writing energies into just one or two genres? If my goal were to support myself with my writing, I'd probably have to do just that. But really―I hate that notion!

So where does that leave me? Can I be a moderate success without building a brand? Can I attract a community of readers who appreciate diversity and don't mind having their expectations violated? I don't know. To be honest, I’ve all but given up on the whole notion of branding.

I’m a writer. Period. Pick up one or two of my books and read them to discover what I do. Sorry but I can’t offer you any shortcuts.

Passive Consent by Giselle Renarde

It feels wrong to rant on Christmas, but I'll have a go for those of you who aren't big on holiday cheer.

Maybe this has happened to you:

You get a newsletter from a fellow author (assuming you're an author, I guess) and you ask yourself, "Did I sign up for this person's mailing list? Nope. I didn't even know they had one. I'm 100% certain I didn't."

And yet I'm getting this marketing email. Why?

Because this person is someone I know. A friend or acquaintance, maybe someone I was in contact with about something or other, an author I helped or swapped blogs with or offered a guest spot at Donuts and Desires.

And they signed me up for their mailing list. Without my consent. So now I'm receiving this email about "yay my new book is out and you should buy it, blah blah blah."

I'm not complaining about newsletters. I send out a newsletter... to the 19 people who have elected to receive it. Nobody else. Just those people. I never have and never will add a business contact's address to my marketing mailing list, and to be perfectly honest, I lose A LOT of professional respect for those who do this to me.

And it's a lot of people! Enough that I'm ranting about it on Christmas.

If you've been into the eggnog, you're probably going, "Who cares? Just unsubscribe and get on with your life." And I do unsubscribe, but the point is that I shouldn't have to. I don't subscribe to ANY mailing lists with my professional email account (I have other accounts for that) because it clutters things up.  If I haven't elected to receive your emails, you're spamming me. Dirty word, but there it is.

This probably sounds especially cruel when some of the people I'm talking about are people I regard(ed) in a friendly/professional/acquaintancey way. I feel like I've placed my trust in them and they've betrayed me.

Same goes for whoever gave/sold my email address to an LGBT PR mailing list.

Yes, I'm queer. Yes, I'm an author with a blog. But I'm not a blogger nor am I a media outlet. Do I want to receive press releases about every goddamn sissy weekend in the Poconos? No!

(I'm not saying that flippantly or picking on sissies--I really do get these press releases. Every one of them!)

What's worse, PR mailing lists get sold off to whoever has the money to buy them and the PR people sending me PR emails don't use programs that allow the receiver to unsubscribe.  The only way I can *hopefully* get them to stop emailing me is to contact them directly and say "please take my address off your list" and risk looking like a dirtbag. I cross my fingers and hope they'll actually do it, but not ONE PR person has ever replied.

There's another angle to this whole passive consent thing I want to cover really quickly (let's hope--we'll see) and that has to do with television and advertising. This is something I encounter a lot, living in a big city, and I don't like it.

When the Oprah Network (OWN) was gearing up to enter the Canadian marketplace, they set up a couch in the square outside Toronto's City Hall.  I think they were trying to create some CanCon (Canadian Content), and there was a film crew with an interviewer trying to draw passersby into a conversation for whatever show they were producing.

I know this because I happened to be walking through the square when this was going on.  It's not unusual to encounter film crews in Toronto, but usually if you cut through their shot they yell at you. This was different. There was a sign that read something to the effect of "by entering this area you consent to being broadcast on television."

Ummm... NO.

By walking to CITY HALL on CITY PROPERTY, I consent to appearing on your show? No. If you ask me, "Do you want to be interviewed?" and I say, "NO," my words are moot because I've already provided passive consent simply by walking by.

This is where passive consent gets scary, to me: when some entity tells me that by the time I've read your consent form, I've already given my consent.

I encountered this sort of thing again at the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition, a big fair that takes place every summer): there was a food truck alley going on, and one of the food trucks belonged to Hellman's. They were giving out something, I think for free, I think fries--I don't know. I didn't go anywhere near the truck BECAUSE there was a sign (easily missed in a crowd, I might add) that stated by approaching the truck you are consenting to potentially appearing in their advertising campaign.

No. No, your free fries are not payment enough to appear in your TV and YouTube spots.

If you're going to complain about anything on Christmas, it might as well be this. I'm really tired of the assumptions professionals and organizations are making about what constitutes consent. Consent is saying YES. Passive consent is no consent at all.

And if you're really bummed out by this post, I put up a short story at Donuts and Desires as a little "Merry Christmas" to readers. It's called Bad Bad Naughty Bad Santa: A True Lesbian Sex Story.