Wednesday Writing - Erotic Writers' Lunch

Last Saturday I travelled down to Cambridge (England!) to visit some fellow writers who also publish with Evernight Publishing. I had met Morgan King before (see, also, her interview on my blog on Monday), but it was great to meet her again along with Michaela Rhua and Doris O’Connor.

Now, we probably scandalised those sitting near us in the wine bar as we talked about our books …. And sex (naturally!), but Michaela said that we, “Educated them”!!!!

Having just had a spa/sauna day at Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest I told them how magnificent it was and we are seriously considering the next meeting in the Suffolk Center Parcs.

Our writing discussions included talking about writing for different publishers (which can be a minefield. My two, Evernight and Siren, are great). Also about getting books rejected and having to revise and resubmit, sometimes to another publisher. But it is great there are so many independent publishers around these days. The disadvantage of working for different publishers is that they have different methods and requirements, eg, how you do your dialogue tags, when and how often you get paid or find out book sales, etc.

Another line of conversation was about ‘how to get that elusive bestseller’ and how much promotion you have to do yourself. So writing lots and building up a fan base is what writers usually say and once you have that fan base they pass on recommendations via word of mouth. Having a good title is always helpful – my book ‘Submissive Training’ remains my bestselling one and I have always put that down to the title! What you write is important, eg, BDSM sells well as does ménage stories or MM stories (congrats to Morgan having written her first MM which she says she thoroughly enjoyed – I tried one MM short story and didn’t enjoy it. Clearly not my thing!)

I should also point out that these three have all contributed to an anthology, Her Type  of Guy, just out. So I wish you every success, Ladies!

The problem with doing any promotion is that it takes you away from your precious writing time, particularly if, like all us, one has a job and/or a family (in Doris’s case a brood of nine kids!! She says she writes at night and is always pleased when the school holidays come because she doesn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to get them off to school).

The fact that Doris has three books coming out in August, Michaela and Morgan have just had booked accepted and if I remember our conversations correctly also have books coming out makes me feel very guilty that I haven’t worked on my writing for months.

So time to leave my blog and go back to the computer……

Thanks for a great lunch, ladies.

Jen