What a writer's gotta do...

Like others have mentioned I long for the day when I can turn to a professional publicist and say, "Fine. You handle it." Of course I also feel the same way about cleaning my house. Turning either of those chores over to a professional isn't happening anytime soon, so like most other e-book/small press authors, I'm forced to handle it myself.

What works? Got me. My sales numbers don't give me much of a handle on that. I've tried ads in the big magazines, blogging, guest blogging, chats, myspace, promo giveaways, contests, you name it. Each time I think I'm onto something big, my sales stay steady. So I'm left shaking my head. Yes, I've had people win a copy of one book and then go buy the others in that series. Yes, I've had people leave comments on blogs and go buy the books. I've had booksignings where I sold three and others where I sold thirty. Honestly? I can't figure out any trend or pattern. And that's using my scientific analysis background. The best I can tell you is that all of it works--sometimes.

In the two years since I made my first sale, I have noticed a couple of things. Chats aren't as well attended as they once were. From an author's point of view, that's a disappointment. Even if hundreds or thousands are reading the excerpts later on digest, it's hard to keep a chat going if you have three readers show up. And if you do run a free download contest, you honestly don't want to give free books to the same reader time after time.

Like many authors, my promotions budget is essentially zero. I can afford to chip in on the occasional big prize or mail out the occasional goodie. I bought magnets for RT and have another hundred or so to pass out. I do not have a software program to produce cool flashy banners or other graphics, and therefore what I do end up investing is time. And every hour I spend promoting is an hour I don't write. I do have my dragon logo. At one point I was told that he was too juvenile for the romance/erotic romance market, so his image has gotten an overhaul (above). He's still Cedric and he still shows up on my emails, but it's now in his grown-up persona.

So what works, what doesn't? Don't ask me. I'm just plugging away at it like everyone else. Of the two publishers I'm with, I will say that the one I do more promo for, I'm one of their lower sellers, while the one where I mostly let the books sell themselves, I'm sitting at #1 on their bestseller list. Go figure.

As the US inches deeper into recession, we're competing harder for what small amount of money is left for luxuries. I know a number of authors are sending promo to the Australian romance conference this winter in hopes of expanding their readership overseas, where the economy is stronger. I will probably do likewise and hope they like dragon magnets too.

Oh, and one cool note? One of our recent Saturday guests here on the grip had an email from her publisher the day of her guest appearance asking what she'd done for promo, and to please keep doing it. Thought that was a very cool testament to the whole blogging thing, and to the Grip in particular.

Anyway, promo is a part of the job description and it's not going away. We do what we can, what we have to, and what we can afford to get the word out. Why? Because there's not much cooler than having someone come up to you and say,. "Oh, I love your books!"

One last thing... Last Saturday, Lisabet Sarai offered a free download of Rough Caress to one lucky commenter. Jeanine if you would please contact Lisabet at lisabet@lisabetsarai.com to claim your free copy?

I Am NOT a HO

That is, I am NOT a Promo Ho. Many are. They are completely awesome at getting their names out and pushing their books but I am sooooo not one of them. Maybe it's because I'm new to all of this but I have learned something...you CAN teach an old dog and some of it's sticking.

When sold my first book, I thought....hmm, okay this is it. I'll go on to my next work in progress and the book will just fly off the shelves all by itself. No one will have to teach my little baby to fly, either. It'll just git-up-and-Go. SNORT. Yeah, right! Boy, did I ever have a lot to learn. Fortunately, I'm a quick study and I'm finally figuring out what works and what doesn't. At least for me.

Chats are an interesting thing. Some believe they do little good, especially if they aren't well attended and smallish loops to begin with. Others love them and are constantly chatting up their newest releases. For me, the jury is still out. I'm coming to the realization that too many chats, too close together not only make me seriously nuts, they might be overkill. Lately, I'm trying to space my chats a bit and only attend those that have a reputation for being well attended. I actually love chatting. It's a fun way to become familiar with the works of other writers and learn a bit about our customers and what they like. Right now, though I'm limiting to two (maybe three) chats each month. And NO, I don't like having a chat with just myself as the only author. Groups of authors getting together is far more fun. I tried going it alone once and quickly learned that I play with others far better than I play with myself. (Oh MY...did I really just SAY that? LOL)

I also belong to a number of groups. Some are better than others but it's a really good way to learn which kind of promo will help me sell a book. Authors are generous people, as a rule, and love to trade information. It's all a learning deal and I try to pick up and yes, share, things I think might be valuable.

Lately, I'm trying something new. Like Anny with her beautiful piks, I'm putting on my creative hat these days and trying to come up with promo items for an upcoming convention in Australia. I just ordered cheap but pretty business cards and I'm looking into buying either pens, sticky notes, or magnets. I've heard that most stuff is tossed in the trash by conference attendees so it's best to stick with things folks can actually use. I'm playing with some unique ideas that will set me apart...I hope, I hope. Surely something super creative will strike before I have to send this stuff off.

Kelly mentioned name recognition, branding, so I've added my Avatar. These days I pretty much put it everywhere I can. I use it for all my blogs and believe me, I'm doing plenty of those. I have a personal blog and do three group blogs. It is super time-consumming and I have no clue if it works or not but I'm giving it a try. Right now, I believe what I do is trial and error. Most is error and I'm normally quick to recognize and toss away if something isn't working.

The biggest problem with promotion is TIME. It takes a great deal of time and effort to promote and it seriously cuts into moments I could spend writing. Lately, I really resent it too. Still, it is a necessary evil. My first little baby never did learn to fly but others have since had my assistance and have done better. After all, who wants to write a book that no one will read? Promotion may leave a writer feeling completely out of his/her element but it's something we all have to think about if we hope to achieve any measure of success.

Doing it your way

Wasn't Anny's post pretty? She's a woman of incredible talent both for her writing and her creativity in crafts. I've seen these hairpiks and the longer, fancier versions. She makes chinka boxes too any fabric, button, and yarn crafts you can come up with. She's just that good.

I'm less creative with the crafts and lean pretty heavily on internet promo. I've been studying Anny and Cindy for a year now, watching how they handle chats and how they interact with their reader audiences. I confess I'm not as adventurous as they are... yet. I'm working on it at a snail's pace. I'm also up against some professional changes in my life and have slowed down my promo until I have it all worked out. My first milestone is to host a chat. I haven't yet and I'd like to.

Promo comes down to one thing: Getting people to recognize your brand. What's a brand? It's how people recognize your work, your name, your image in the general market place. Yes, a simplistic explanation but a valid description. Your brand is everything from your genre to they way your name appears on your blog/website. If your brand is inconsistent, it confuses the reader and takes them longer to remember who you are and what you write.

People require ten mentions before your name is remembered. If you have your name coinciding with an image, it strengthens the recognition factor. For example, Regina's avatar, the sexy little blonde cartoon from Three Wicked Writers she uses or the eyes avatar on my blog. Those are things that even when seen without my name or her name attached, will become recognized for their association.

Do you have a brand? You might without even realizing it. What do people associate with your work? Wicked humor? Damaged alpha werewolves? Klutzy heroines? Do your stories have compatible themes? Do you write in one or more genres? It's all part of how your reader will recognize you. If you haven't thought of it, now is the time.

Another aspect of branding is getting your name out there. It goes without saying that if you don't put your brand out there, no one will ever know your work unless by chance. So get out there. Drum up the sales and extend yourself. It doesn't matter if you chat, do contests, give things away, or flash your pearly whites. Whatever it is you do and makes you comfortable, go for it!

~Kelly~

Getting the word out--Promo!

One of the first things I discovered when I was offered a contract for that first book was the reality of my responsibility for promotion. It's a very simple truth--No one will buy a book if they don't know it's for sale. That might seem simple, but in e-books especially, the author has to spend time introducing their name and product. No one is going to accidentally mosey by our books on a rack in WalMart and pluck us off the shelf. The best we can hope for is a few sales generated because they're browsing our publisher's website.

But way before our book reaches that all important release date, it's our job to bring it to the attention of as many people as possible. Many writers choose to use promotional items in this quest. There is an ongoing search for unusual, inexpensive (let's be frank--most of us can't afford to spend big bucks) promo items. There are the usual suspects: book marks, business cards, magnets, pens, lip gloss, keychains, mini-cds, and the list goes on.

My observations led me to eliminate the paper goods. Inevitably, they end up in the trash. So what makes a promo item a success? It needs to be something that the individual would hesitate to throw away. Preferably it is something that they handle frequently or something that their eyes will fall on often. For that reason I would suspect that a pen is probably the number one candidate. There is a second reason that pens work so wonderfully in my opinion... pens travel. How many times have you ended up with a pen in your possession with no idea where it came from? How many times have you taken a pen from your pocket or purse to sign something and then accidentally left it behind? See? Pens travel.

In a secondary level, I would say magnets and lip glosses would work well. Magnets seldom get thrown out. Say your magnet ends up on someone's refrigerator. The secret to promotion is repeated exposure. How many times do people open their refrigerators? How many times does a person use their lip gloss/chapstick?

But suppose that those things just don't speak to you? Suppose you want something more individual and personal... something unique. Then perhaps you might want to devise something that reflects your stories while advertising your books. To that end, I decided on the hair piks in the photos.
In my Mystic Valley series, the valley inhabitants have very long hair and they use hair piks (both short and long) to adorn their hair. So I devised two types of hair piks to give away as promo items. The short piks I hand out anywhere and everywhere. My website is printed on the side of the pik. And people hesitate to throw out something hand crafted. The long piks are used as prizes in contests. I have to say that they are a popular item. Even when people haven't read my books and are totally unfamiliar with Mystic Valley, their curiosity about the piks leads them to find out what the piks are all about. And that, after all, is the whole point of the exercise.

So... anyone want a pik? E-mail me at annycook67@yahoo.com with "hair pik" in the subject line. Don't forget your snail mail addy. One pik per person!

Anny

More Than Words. Out NOW!!

More Than Words (Historical Romance/Fantasy) Released August 4, 2008 from ResplendencePublishing.com

Kylie Dobson is a romance author with a problem. As a seat-of-the-pants writer, she depends on the strength of the characters to drive her plot. But when her hero, Milo, Lord Gafton refuses to chase after the prescribed heroine, everything goes wonky. Kylie is inexplicably sucked into her work of fiction, transported from a contemporary venue to a fictional Regency setting. What's worse is, nothing she does is affecting the plot and she can't get out.

Set into motion by her own creative process is a winter storm which seals the Regency party goers in on a country estate. If that wasn't bad enough, a murderer is on the loose and he's picking off one guest at a time. The more time she spends with Milo the more she comes to depend on him. She's convinced that his character sketch will kick in at any moment and he'll fall for her heroine. But will it happen before she loses her heart to him? And what happens when the plot draws to the end? Will the killer have his way and will Kylie solve the case only to be returned to her reality without the man she's fallen for?

EXCERPT 1:
The next morning, Kylie sat in front of her laptop trying to recreate the solarium scene in her mind. A soft flutter tickled along the side of her neck. Her eyes sealed shut, Kylie batted it away. Seconds later, the wispy flutter returned. She swiped at it, returning her fingers to rub clumsily over the spot which insisted on distracting her from her visualization exercise. Determined to work through the problem with her novel, she wasn’t about to let the irritation of a mosquito pull her from the scene she needed to write.
The problem was with Milo, she decided. Miss Sutterfield was blameless. Kylie had made Milo too demanding. She’d have to go back and rework his character. Maybe make him weak-kneed for Miss Sutterfield. But try as she might, she couldn’t play the image of Milo being anything less than he was for the lovely Miss Sutterfield.
Kylie grunted her irritation. A low throaty chuckle drifted to her moments before something flitted over her earlobe. Leaping to her feet, she grabbed madly for her laptop only to find it missing. “What the—?”
“Were you quite finished? I would have allowed you more time but your furrowed brow proved too fetching to resist.” Milo sat on the settee, arms draped along the back and legs crossed, his negligent pose was at odds with the light dancing in his dark brown eyes. He twirled a feather between his fingers closest to where she had been sitting.
She blinked, rubbed a knuckle over her tired eye and blinked again. “Great, I’m seeing things.”
Milo cocked an eyebrow. His smile broadened. “Are you?”
“Yes, I are,” she snapped. “Get back in my head. We have work to do. You nearly messed up the plot by refusing to compromise Miss Sutterfield.” Kylie muttered to herself. She went through the solarium scene in her mind. She had actually managed to talk herself through the initial door opening, where Milo first saw Miss Sutterfield nervously standing across the room, when Kylie froze.
Milo hadn’t faded. She could still see his booted foot in her line of vision where she stared at the floor, trying to reason out the hang up. Her gaze traveled up his boot to the form fitting buff breeches, over his crossed knees. The muscular flex of his thighs was not hidden by the clinging material, nor was the line of his lean hips, visible through his parted coat. Her face heated and she had the distinct urge to fan herself. If a man were standing and had something going on in those pants, it would be really difficult to hide. She’d have to keep that in mind for a future scene.
Kylie studied the deep navy coat with its large brass buttons, the black piped edging and the way his lapels only seemed to widen his already broad shoulders. Milo’s cravat, a cascade of folded, tucked, and knotted fabric should have seemed frilly, effeminate, but it had the completely opposite effect. The abundance of white deepened the warm tones of his skin, framed his jaw and made the visible tendons steely by comparison.
Her mouth went dry. “You’re still here,” she croaked.
“As are you.”
Her gaze lingered over the cut line of jaw, the prominent chin with a small indent perfectly centered below full, smooth lips. Kissing lips. She remembered thinking that when she created his character, imagining lips which had pouty thickness without losing the fine hard line of formation. His nose was long and straight, his dark eyes engaging and seductive beneath the straight, dark slash of his brows. Chestnut locks waved back from his high forehead and skimmed the back of his cravat. “Damn, I did a great job on you.”
His mouth curled, taking on a lopsided tilt. “So glad you approve.”

EXCERPT 2:
Wheeling her around, he backed her to the wall where he had been standing. His mouth crashed down on hers. Where before she had dominated the exchange, now Milo seared her lips with his. He commanded her, held her captive under the seductive onslaught of his kiss. Kylie clutched his shoulders, hanging on when her body wanted nothing more than to dissolve within the sensations he crafted. Her head spun, her insides did summersaults, her ears rang happily. Through it all, her body awoke with a long, shuddering sigh, blissful and no longer willing to remain complacent.
Kylie rocked her hips to his, rejoicing in his obvious arousal. Milo’s hands clinched repeatedly on her waist, clearly wanting to touch her but not allowing himself to take the liberty. Deciding to show her Regency man a little real world experience, she reached between them, stroking over his length. He muttered something into her mouth which sounded like a half-crazed oath. Her sentiments exactly. The man was huge. She’d written that part of him well, too.
The realization poured over her like a bucket of ice water. What the hell was she doing? Feeling up her fictitious hero? Hello, Kylie, get a grip. Oh, she’d love to get a grip. Oh wait, no, she shouldn’t. Kylie shoved him, then shoved him again when she wasn’t immediately successful in pushing him away. “Quit doing that.”
Milo’s breath rasped with the same harsh grating as hers. He swore viciously under his breath. It sounded nothing like the previous one meant to call upon the power of God. No, this oath was pissed.
“I admit I got carried away the first time, but you can’t just grab me and kiss me.”
“The first time, Kylie? What of the second time? And if the second was my doing, why did you grasp the front of my breeches?”
“Fine. I got carried away both times. It can’t happen again.”
“It will happen again.”
“No, it won’t. You’ll go on your merry way lusting after Miss Sutterfield and I will work out the bugs in my plot. We’ll all live happily ever after. End of story,” she snapped.
“Is that the promise of a novelist? Hmm? Happily ever after? Because you are correct about it being the end of the story in such circumstances. But it would be your happily ever, not mine. I may have been formed by your mind and creative effort, but I choose my own direction.”
“That’s not what I meant. In real time, end of story is a figure of speech. Though, I want to figure out the ending and get back to some semblance of normalcy.”
“You’re meant for me, Kylie. You don’t see it yet, but you are as drawn to me as I am to you.”
“You’re drawn for Miss Sutterfield. At some point your true nature will come out, you’ll realize your mistake and make a bee-line for her. Then I’m left in the dust. No thanks. I’m not about to get burned by the embodiment of my hero. I’ve done it in real life and I’m not doing it for the plot development of this book.”

Guest Blogger: Author Lisabet Sarai

The crew at Oh Get a Grip welcomes guest blogger, author Lisabet Sarai!

Candlelight, Wine and a Whip: Why BDSM is Romantic

Let me begin by saying that every individual has different preferences, desires and limits. That is, in fact, one of the first tenets of BDSM. The picture of the pierced self-corset posted a few days squicked me, too. However, I do believe that many people get hung up on the externals, the paraphernalia and the physical acts popularly associated with dominance and submission, and miss the main point. At the fundamental level, BDSM is about the relationship between the dominant and the submissive – a relationship that at its best is as intimate, intense and fulfilling as anything portrayed in vanilla romance.

BDSM not about one person controlling another. It’s not about cruelty or ego or weakness or low self-esteem or inequality. Serious practitioners (and I guess I must count myself in that number, though my current relationship is vanilla) will tell you that the essence of dominance and submission is an exchange of power. The submissive freely offers the dominant power over her body. (For now I'll assume a female submissive. I've written both male- and female-dominant tales, as well as some lesbian D/s, but it gets awkward to keep using multiple pronouns!) The dominant accepts responsibility for the submissive’s well-being, which includes her pleasure.

The sub surrenders herself to the dom, in devotion and trust. The dom can do whatever he wants with the sub; she has, after all, given her consent (although in the real world, there are always limits, agreed or intuited). He has the intoxicating knowledge that by taking what he desires, he will also give his sub what she most craves: the satisfaction of pleasing her master and the freedom to experience her secret, forbidden fantasies of ravishment and abuse.
Some threads in BDSM literature portray non-consensual dominance, where the submissive is coerced, humiliated and literally abused. I exclude these from consideration. Some people are turned on by such stories, and that’s okay, but I can’t see anything romantic in these scenarios.

My BDSM work focuses on individuals, often in a committed relationship, who share mutually complementary desires and explore them together. Whether the tale involves bondage, or spanking, or electrical stimulation, or some other challenge posed by the dominant for the submissive to experience, the real point is the psychic bond that develops between the participants in a BDSM scene. I know that it probably sounds absurd if you haven’t experienced it, but the dom beats the submissive out of love for her.

I had intended to share an excerpt from Raw Silk. This novel traces the journey of an intelligent, independent woman coming to accept her submissive desires and to love the man who intuits and fulfills them. At the same time, he recognizes his need for her. However, I decided instead to give you something a bit more light-hearted, a selection from Rough Caress, my collection of BDSM short stories. “Wednesday Night at Rocky’s Ace Hardware” is not a true story – but it might well have been. It captures the spirit of my own experiences with D/s, and demonstrates, much better than my halting efforts above, how BDSM can be wonderfully romantic.

Thanks Lisabet! And now a little about one of her fabulous romances. Click on the cover for more information:

X-rated Excerpt from “Wednesday Night at Rocky’s Ace Hardware” From Rough Caress :

We pass a display of galvanized steel fittings. I stop, fascinated. Sturdy eyebolts and swivel bolts, hooks and pulleys, interlocking rings and brackets, all sensuously curved and shining a dull silver. I can't take my eyes away, imagining spread limbs and stretched muscles. Hardware stores always bring out my creative side.

He laughs at my intensity. "You know that we can't attach anything to the walls, Sarah. It's in the resident's agreement."

"Well... what about out on the deck?" Our top-floor condo has a lovely patio built out on the flat part of the roof. From there we have a fabulous view of the city, from Twin Peaks to the Golden Gate.

"You want me to bind you out in the open, where anyone uphill can see you?" He rolls his eyes heavenward, pretending annoyance. "And you say that I'm perverted!"

He steers me onward. Reluctantly, I leave the suggestive display of fittings, only to be transfixed by the rolls of self-service chain at the other end of the aisle.

"Chain is completely impractical," he reminds me with a grin.

"But it's so decorative, so evocative," I counter. "Whips and chains, you know."

"Whatever you want, dear," he says, bowing low. I make a choice and he cuts me a four-foot length of the pretty, brass-finished stuff with half-inch links. He dumps it into our basket. It gives a satisfying clink whenever we move.

My nipples go taut at the sound. He notices, of course, and leans down to tweak one, hard. Another wave of lubrication gushes from my cunt. His nostrils flare as my scent fills the aisle.

"My turn," he says. "Let's go check out the dowels." His thumb and forefinger are still grasping my swollen tit. He leads me toward the back of the store.

I look around nervously, but there are few customers at eight PM on a Wednesday evening. Despite my comments about the deck, I'm actually terrified of public exposure. To be more accurate, public restraint or punishment is still beyond my limits, something I'm not ready to admit that I want. He knows that perfectly well.

He halts in front of a rack holding wooden rods of varying diameters and lengths. I have small hands; I could not get my thumb and forefinger around one of the thickest. The thinnest are perhaps a quarter-inch in diameter, like the sticks used to mount children's balloons.

When he releases his hold on my nipple, I still feel the echo of his fingers on my throbbing flesh. "Bend over," he orders. Trembling with fearful excitement, I bend at the waist. I rest my hands on my thighs for support, but he can see that I am not comfortable. He flips my skirt up, baring my buttocks. "Don't move," he cautions, and then disappears, leaving me alone in this awkward and obscene position.

He is gone for what feels like forever. Slight currents of air brush my exposed ass like ghostly fingers. My engorged pudenda ache for his touch, and the scent of my lust is stronger than ever. Sweat trickles down my neck, dampening my hair. My heart sounds so loudly in my ears, I do not even hear him when he returns. He has a folding stepladder, which he assembles and places in front of me. "Hold on to this."

The position is more stable and places far less strain on my back. "Thank you, Master," I whisper, once again marveling at how finely tuned he is to my needs.

He slips a casual finger into my soaking cunt and wriggles it around. "You certainly are wet, Sarah." My pelvis churns at his touch. Without thought, I grind myself against his hand. I am rewarded by a sharp slap on my butt cheek.

"Be still!" he says softly. "I did not give you permission to move."

He continues to explore my well-lubricated folds. Meanwhile I press my lips together and tighten all my muscles, struggling to obey his directive of immobility.

"What are you thinking, little slut?" he whispers in my ear. "Tell me."

I can hardly speak, aroused and taut as I am. "That I'm yours," I gasp, finally. "That I would do anything for you."

"Really? Well, we'll see about that, won't we?" His voice holds that familiar hint of mockery, but I can tell he is pleased. He pulls his hand abruptly from my sex, and I almost cry out in disappointment. "Now, let me think about this..."

I can hear him rummaging among the dowels. My mind paints pictures of what he will do, what he will choose. I see him easing the fattest rod into my cunt. My sex spasms at the thought, and an electric thrill seizes my clit. But then, why would I think he'd prefer my cunt to my rear hole? He's told me, often, that taking me anally is the purest form of domination. What if he forces a dowel into my ass, presented so conveniently to him here in the aisle of this hardware store, where anyone could watch and observe my total degradation?

I almost come with that thought. But as usual, he surprises me. Just as I am getting control of myself, I hear a swooshing sound, and something burns a fiery track across my left buttock. Before I can recover, my right cheek is symmetrically assaulted. Tears rise and spill down my face at the sudden, spectacular pain.

I tense, expecting more blows, but instead there is the blessed relief of his palm, delicately stroking my inflamed skin. "Yes," he says, "this should do quite nicely, seeing as birch switches are fairly hard to come by in the city..." He circles me, raises me up, and deposits a gentle kiss on my grateful lips. "Don't you think that this will work well, Sarah?"

I nod, still dazed by the pleasure and pain surging in my lower parts. He smoothes my dress over the rosy streaks that I know mark my skin.

I am barely decent when a bespectacled clerk in a blue-striped vest rounds the corner and almost bumps into us. "Oh, excuse me," he says, flustered. "Can I help you with anything?"

My Master looks down at me, pondering a moment. "Let's see, we have plenty of rope... which way to the plumbing supplies?"

BDSM work by Lisabet Sarai

Rough Caress (short stories) ISBN 978-0-980-4739-7-1
from Eternal Press

Ruby’s Rules (erotic romance novel) ISBN 978-1-897559-24-6
from Eternal Press

Raw Silk (erotic romance novel)
Incognito (erotic romance novel)
Rendezvous (romantic novella)
from Total-E-Bound

Holy Cat O' Nine Tails, Batman...

Well, some of you may find this shocking, but I had no idea where to begin with this week’s topic. So, I deferred to the web. From Wikipedia:

BDSM is a blanket term referring to the practice of a wide spectrum of activities and forms of interpersonal relationships. While not always overtly sexual in nature, the activities and relationships within a BDSM context are almost always eroticized by the participants in some fashion. Many of these practices fall outside of commonly held social norms regarding sexuality and human relationships.

The term BDSM itself is a complex acronym derived from the terms bondage and discipline (B&D), dominance and submission (D&S, D/S, or Ds), sadism and masochism (S&M or SM).

Many activities can be found under the umbrella of BDSM, which include - but are not limited to - forms of dominance, submission, discipline, punishment, bondage, sexual roleplaying, sexual fetishism, sadomasochism, and power exchange, as well as the full spectrum of mainstream personal and sexual interactions.


Ah, so perhaps I knew more about it than I realized and under the wide umbrella of the definition I’ve participated in activities that would be considered BDSM. Which is odd, I thought my wife bought me the latex suit because she like the way it showed off my physique. Add to that the fact she makes me shout, “Here I come to save the day!” and dive onto the bed several nights a week and all of the fur-lined cuffs, hair-pulling, nipple tweaking (and often nibbling), occasional use of candle wax, and light to aggressive spanking (varied instantly upon request) during sex and well… perhaps I’ve been leading the BDSM lifestyle without even realizing it.

Ok, so the above account was mostly facetious, but my point is that the term BDSM carries with it such a powerful connotation, many people may indulge in activities that fall within the definition without ever realizing it.