Wednesday 29 February 2012

Wednesday writing

I wrote back in the Autumn of the importance of milestones and am pleased to announce I have now sold 500 books!

That is to say 500 via the publisher’s website – I won’t know how many have been sold through third party sellers like Amazon until the end of this quarter as you get royalties for these sellers a quarter in arrears so I have no idea how many I have sold through them yet – estimates are anywhere between 150-400 so I may be reporting soon that I have reached the next milestone of 1,000 books…..

Jen

Monday 27 February 2012

Inspirational Mondays - Eroticon

Mon 27 Feb – inspirational Mondays




As you will know if you read one of my blogs last week, I am off to a writing conference on Saturday – Eroticon. Billed as the UK’s first erotic writers’ conference.

I am really looking forward to it and will tell you more about it in next week’s blog but to give you a taster sessions include how to write sex scenes when you are a different gender or sexuality, how the media represents sex, the power of collaborating with sex practitioners, a discussion on identity and ethics.

It's super that we have a conference like this in this country and I am looking forward to meeting lots of fellow writers.

Jen

Friday 24 February 2012

Friday funnies

A woman came home, screeching her car into the driveway, and ran into the house.  She slammed the door and shouted at the top of her lungs, "Honey, pack  your bags.  I won the lottery!" The husband said, "Oh my God!  What should I pack, beach stuff or mountain stuff?" "Doesn't matter," she said. "Just get out."

Have a nice weekend.

Jen

Thursday 23 February 2012

Eroticon - UK's first Erotic Writers' Conference

I am doing this additional blog because I am off to Eroticon on Saturday 3 March – the UK’s first erotic writers' conference! I’ll tell you more about it in the next few weeks but this is to introduce myself to the other delegates.

Jen

·   Name: Jennifer Denys
·   Twitter: n/a
·   Facebook: n/a
·   Height: 5ft 3in
·   Eyes: Grey-green
·   Hair: My current colour is dark brown!
·   Describe yourself in three words: Generous, faithful (makes me sounds like a dog!) with a wicked sense of humour (sorry couldn’t cut that down to one word!)
·   What are you looking forward to at Eroticon?  Meeting people and learning more about an industry I am still very new to.
·   What’s on your Lovehoney wishlist? No idea at this stage! 
·   What song would you add to the Eroticon playlist? I’ve never met you yet by Michael Buble.



Meeting other eroticon delegates

Wednesday 22 February 2012

Wednesday writing - news

Two bits of news:

Firstly - Friendly Seduction is now on http://www.amazon.com/ and http://www.amazon.co.uk/ . As previously mentioned sales did not do particularly well on the publisher’s website so we’ll see if it does better on Amazon!


Secondly – the last in the Doms series The Sub Who Switched has just been accepted by Siren for release in late May! I am so pleased because that completes both interlocking sets of series – the Friends’ and the Doms’. In some ways it feels rather sad – the ‘baby has left home’ syndrome; having spent all that time creating these characters (the main characters appeared as secondary characters in the other stories in each series). I do have plans to do a ‘ten years on’ type story to bring together all six couples where life (and their sex lives) has not necessarily gone as they planned and it is about how they all recreate the magic that made them fall in love in the first place. So watch this space for that one – I have other stories I am writing in the meantime so it won’t be the next one out.

Jen

Wednesday 15 February 2012

Wednesday writing - Submissive Training release day

Submissive Training has now been released for sale -  http://www.bookstrand.com/submissive-training - and as promised here is an extract:


Deciding to stir them up, he suddenly flicked the crop in his hand so it cut across the quiet with a crack. Pretty much everyone jumped and then laughed in embarrassment.
“This, in case you have forgotten, is a crop. The sub restrained here is Erica, who has been very naughty according to her Dom, Master Gary over there, as she keeps ‘coming’ without permission. He has therefore authorized twenty strikes.”
There was a gasp as the crowd took this in. Clearly they thought this was excessive. He glanced at Kat’s face. She was biting her bottom lip, but her eyes looked bright and excited.
“Hands up, how many of you think twenty is too many?” He waited patiently for about half the class to raise their hands. He noted with surprise that Kat wasn’t one of them. “And what about you, Erica, do you think twenty is too many?”
The restrained woman chuckled. “No, Sir. Not nearly enough.”
“In that case, what do you think, Master Gary? Should we raise the total, say to twenty-five?”
“I suspect you are playing into her hands,” was the wry answer as Gary clearly thought she had said that to get more erotic punishment. “But by all means, give her the extra.”
As everyone was looking toward Master Gary, they were all startled when Ben suddenly whipped the crop at Erica’s buttocks, forcing a cry from her which was echoed around the room as the attention of the students was brought back to him, just as he had intended.

* * * *

Kat had jumped when he hit Erica but stifled an exclamation, unlike Ellie next to her who had also grabbed Kat’s arm startling her as she did.
As Ben continued with four more hits to Erica’s buttocks, followed by five to the backs of her thighs, Kat was hard-pressed not to flinch with every hit. She looked closely at Erica’s face. She might be crying out with every hit—which were a hell of a lot harder than the flogging given to Celia earlier, much to Kat’s surprise—but her face seemed to show pleasure not pain.
Ben came around to the front of the frame. He took a moment to remove his jacket and roll up his sleeves.
“It isn’t advisable to give a sub all their strokes in one go. A good Dom will take his time giving the sub a moment to recover from the first lot before continuing. That is the real reason I have taken this opportunity to remove my jacket and roll up my sleeves. Another way might be to turn away to talk to someone, take a sip of water, check on bindings, and so on. At the same time as letting the sub recover, it also gives time for their arousal to build, their tension to increase.”
At that moment he raised the crop and hit her on the front of her thighs this time, another five. He stopped again.
Wondering which parts of her body Erica preferred being hit, Kat watched closely.
“Tell me, Erica,” asked Ben. “Which area hurts the most so far?”
Kat started. It was almost as if he had read her mind.


Jen

Monday 13 February 2012

Inspirational Mondays

Since I don't have a husband or boyfriend the inspiration for my heroes has to come from those I see in TV or films. George Clooney gets several mentions! But if I was to have an identikit ideal man this is something of what he would look like:

Face - George Clooney (naturally)
Eyes - if not George's then Paul Newman's
Smile - that of Robert Redford
Voice - Richard Burton
Height - Rock Hudson
Chest - Sean Connery (in his heyday as Bond)
Legs - Brad Pitt's (when he was in Troy)
Hips - Patrick Swayze (when in Dirty Dancing)
Bum - Dolph Lungren (didn't we see this in Universal Soldier?)
Dick - I'll come back to that
Sexual magnetism - you can't beat Richard Gere
Kisses - not that I have been subject to any but I love the way Tom Cruise kisses in films
Okay, the Dick - Hm, well, since full frontal nudity isn't allowed in films (or rarely) I can't say I've seen this part of any of the above. Ask me again when I have....

Jen

Friday 10 February 2012

Friday funnies

Some ‘bloopers’ from church bulletins:

The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind.  They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.

This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church.   Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church.   So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale.   It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don't forget your husbands.

The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM.   The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.

Have a nice weekend

Jen

Wednesday 8 February 2012

Wednesday writing - Submissive Training is now out

Submissive Training is now available for pre-order as an e-book (release date 15 February) from http://www.bookstrand.com/submissive-training . This is the second book in the Doms & Acquaintances series and we follow the fortunes of Kat (the sister of Rebecca who was the heroine in the first book in this series, The Submission Challenge).



Despairing of Dominant Ben showing an interest in her Kat is persuaded by a friend to attend a beginners’ submissive and BDSM training conference in the hope of finding out how to attract him but is shocked to find he is one of the trainers. Meanwhile, Ben doesn’t think she is submissive enough for him and conceives increasingly intimate tasks to prove he is right, despite admiring her courage in staying.
As the conference progresses Kat is fascinated by what she learns and completes each task hoping all the while to convince him of her submissiveness, although some tasks she finds more difficult than others.
Confused by his growing feelings for her, Ben keeps pushing her away until her tenacity finally wears him down and he insists on her taking a final exam to prove herself. Is this a step too far for Kat? 

I will post an extract next week but I will say this was the most intense of the books I have written and the easiest to write – it just flowed out of me! Maybe that tells you something of my interest in BDSM!

Jen


Monday 6 February 2012

Inspirational Mondays - getting ideas for stories


The inspiration today comes from Star Trek (yes I am a Trekkie!). I am going to paraphrase the opening words from this show and compare it to writing:

Writing - the final frontier. These are the voyages of the author, Jennifer. Her continuing mission to explore strange new worlds (stories including aliens, werewolves and dragons!). To seek out new life (creating new characters) and new civilizations (building your world whether it be that of wolves, aliens or just to settings for contemporary books), to boldly go where she’s never been before (in other words come up with new story ideas!)

And that is the crux of today’s question. Where do you get the new story ideas from? And I can’t give a definitive answer. I can be daydreaming as I walk down the street and something will come to me, or I might be reading someone else’s story and my mind will go off on a tangent and come up with a story different to the one I am reading (or even watching something on the TV might spark my imagination). And it might be real life experiences that I want to merge into the story (like when I had nude photos taken which I have included in my latest book about to be submitted to the publisher!), or it could just come to me as I am typing away on my laptop.

Wherever your story idea comes from keep a notepad handy (particularly by your bed for those middle of the night ideas).

Jen

Wednesday 1 February 2012

Wednesday writing - sales

The sales of my books have proved an interesting study. In the first one (Just Good Friends) I emphasised in the blurb that there is light BDSM including spanking and sex toys, despite it being more of a romantic comedy, and sales were not bad for a first book.

The second book (The Submission Challenge - the first in the Doms series) was a study of someone discovering BDSM and the words bondage, whipping and sex toys were used in the blurb, and as such sales were double that of the first book. Of course it could just have been that my readership was starting to grow.

I now know this was not necessarily the case because the third book was back to the Friends series and a romantic comedy (Friendly Seduction) and I very much emphasised the comedic qualities in the story, despite it having some light BDSM again and the words whipping and sex toys were included and sales have been pathetic, about a third down on what even the first one took.

In some ways this is sad because this was my favourite one to write! But people don’t read the genre of erotic romances because they want comedy. So hopefully the next book (Submissive Training) which is out in two weeks (available for pre-order very shortly) will see the sales doing better as it is the next one in the Doms series and the most intense one I have written.

(But I am not holding out hope for the last in the Friends series - Friend or Foe - out in May because that is back to the romantic comedies. I will just have to be careful how I write the blurb!).

Jen