Tag Archive | writing erotic shorts

New Ancient Roman Erotic Short: For The Women Of Rome 2

It is finally here. I am very proud to release my new erotic short, For The Women of Rome 2. The story continues with Cornelia and Marcus. Cornelia either has to learn to share or figure a way to keep Marcus to herself. But when a new slave is purchased on the blocks, will it end their new found happiness?

I am happy to be back in the saddle after a year hiatus from writing erotic shorts. I’ve done some intense thinking over the last year. With all the changes of recategorize and blocking erotica and erotic romances from being advertised on Amazon, I had to rethink my business plan and go wide with my catalog. I pulled all of my titles out of KU over a 3 month period during the Spring, and I am slowly releasing them wide. They are becoming available on iTunes, Kobo and Barnes and Noble one series at a time. I am trying to do this month by month, with one of my popular series of shorts releasing once a month.

The reason, it takes time to put all the shorts into the new formatting. So, just bare with me. It will all be available within 6 months. Meanwhile, ALL of my erotic shorts are still available on Amazon. I have reduced the cost to $0.99 each. Plus, there are some series in Omnibus and printed editions. The print editions have always been available wide. So, thank you for your understanding and patience. As an author and manager of my writing business, I have to make tough choices to stay in the business of writing. Since Kindle Unlimited wasn’t working anymore for me for visibility or for sales, I moved onto the next step to insure I could still continue what I love to do: write.

Which of course brings me to the next step: writing new erotic shorts. I have been trying to write longer shorts to keep me competitive with the page read payouts of KU. But it just wasn’t working creatively. Drawing out the stories just seemed like to be adding fillers. Some of the stories I did enjoy being longer, but I am a pantser. I like to let the story flow and evolve. Some are longer than others. So, making them all longer just wasn’t working creatively. It stunted my projects and made many turn into dead-ends.

So, returning back to writing my shorts, it means many stories are going to return to 3k-5k range or even the 5k-7k range. Some series have longer lengths, like the whole On Call series lended itself to be longer each story. Others are shorter like the Scottish Erotic Tales and the Roman Erotic Tales. With the $0.99 price for all my erotic shorts now, I’m hoping more people will enjoy them and take a ride to the dirty dark side with me. 😉

So, with the release of the next Roman Erotic Tale, For The Women Of Rome 2, I embark on this new chapter of my writing journey. I am excited to take you along, and promise many surprises for 2019. I will finish the Roman Erotic Tales with For The Women Of Rome 3, and release a whole new series called, The Queens of Andromeda. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy along the veins of Marion Zimmer Bradley and Anne McCaffrey, two of my favorite Sci-Fi writers. I will give more clues and sneak peek hints as I get closer to its release for next year.

Meanwhile, have a fantastic Holiday Season! Best wishes for the New Year! And look for a Thanksgiving Erotica Deals promo that will be starting next week. -Lynda

For The Women of Rome 2 Buy Links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Women-Rome-Roman-Erotic-Tales-ebook/dp/B07KKHN1Y8

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/for-the-women-of-rome-2-lynda-belle/1129900889

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/for-the-women-of-rome-2

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1442572665

Erotica and Erotic Romance Getting Shadow-Banned on Amazon

sexywriting So, being the Indie erotica and erotic romance writer, I’ve been on top of a development that started on March 22, just before the weekend. I went to a steampunk conference over the weekend, and missed the first initial hoopla and worry from what was going on. And then it all hit me in the face on Monday, March 26–Amazon was changing the rankings on erotica and re-categorizing some spicy and erotic romances into erotica.

When ever the Zon starts messing with things like this, it means something drastic is about to happen. Last time, it was KU2. That sucked to no end for people that wrote short stories, me included, where everyone started to get paid by the page instead of by single unit download. Now, they are starting to “shadow-ban” titles, spicy romance and erotic romance too, that has an “adult theme”.

The Low Down of What is Going On

There are a lot of rumors and speculation about why this is happening. In clearly the Zon’s fashion, there are no real answers when sending emails or messages to the powers that be at Amazon. Just answers to the point that titles are being reassigned to the erotica category because your book has “adult themes”. This is not only affecting regular erotica, but a lot of the steamy and erotic romance that clearly follow a romance plot line and isn’t all about the sex. Is it censorship?

Well, you have to look at why it might be happening. There is apparently a law that passed in US congress on March 21 that is supposed to help stop online sex trafficking. FOSTA or the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act is supposed to help stop online sex trafficking, but it is having a much wider affect because it holds the websites accountable, retroactively. So, many websites, including Craigslist’s personal ads, are shutting down and purging of sexual explicit content. In essence, the new administration is cracking down on sexually charged content, and it’s leading to a purge on many sites like Apple, Reddit, and Amazon.

What Does This Mean To You As A Reader?

What does it mean to romance readers of adult romances (formerly new adult), spicy romance, erotic romances and erotica? It means you are going to have a harder time finding what you like to read. You can still find erotic romances and erotica on Amazon, but not in a general search. And since the general store ranking is gone, there will be less “customer also bought” suggestions for titles.

There are still erotica categories, but they are harder to find. I’m sure other websites may follow suit. I haven’t heard anything from Kobo yet, but they are in Canada. So, that might be the saving grace for them. ANY US COMPANIES will most likely be reacting to this law. But then, I expected something like this from this administration. I knew the suppression would begin, but wasn’t sure how.

So, what could be next? Well, it’s come to the time where I will need to, and many other authors, will have to consider KU2 a mute point now. The promos haven’t been as productive lately for me, and going WIDE, which means taking my titles to other retailers, will be the only way to get new readers and help me meet my bottom line. So, in all likely hood, as an erotic romance or erotica reader, you may not find titles you want to read in KU anymore. They will still be on Amazon, but harder to find, and you’ll have to pay more for them since it won’t be profitable for them to stay in KU any longer.

Plus, I am going to try to continue my promotional bimonthly lists. It will still be a way for you to find fabulous erotica and erotic romances from good authors. But as far as the deals, there might be less freebies and more just $0.99 discounted titles.

So, yes, bottom line, you will most likely start paying more for these erotic romances and it will be harder to find them. But looks like I’ll keep up my promotions as long as I can. I’m also going to check with the other authors to see if they are planning to stay in KU. Not sure how this will all turn out, but like with most changes like this, adaptation is sometimes the only option. And to stay in business, sometimes, it’s the only choice for an author.

What Next?

Through all the things I go through as a self-published author, I’m going to keep writing. I have some ideas for stories I haven’t finished yet, and will keep going. I’ve had to recently go back to work, and not write full time. That has been a set back too. But whatever happens, I hope you stick with me as I wade through yet another obstacle in the road for an erotica and erotic romance writer.

I hope you understand also, because not only do I write it, I read this genre too. So, I’m going to feel your pain. I am considering maybe ending my KU membership too. If enough writers and readers pull out, maybe Amazon will get a hint that this kind of censorship is just not what the customers want. But then, I’m just one little author in a much larger pond. But then, it’s all I have.

UPDATE:

The ranking for the erotica titles for both indie and traditional published titles have come back on Amazon. It is possible that things either have been reworked and categorized, or more likely, it was some cliche that went on for more than a week.

An email from a Kboarder, Nate Hoffelder, is quoted as saying:

“A recent Kindle Store change inadvertently affected the display of sales rank for some titles. We have corrected this issue.”

Whether all the erotica being given new categories was due to a cliche, or something else, it is unclear. Some people still have had their titles recategorized, but the sales ranking has been added back on to many erotica titles that were missing them. So, I’ll keep updating as more happens with this.

Other blog posts about this subject:

The Digital Reader:

https://the-digital-reader.com/2018/03/29/amazon-has-shadow-banned-romance-titles-from-the-kindle-store/

The Motherboard:

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjpjn4/amazon-erotica-best-seller-rankings-removed

The Tech Crunch:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/29/new-federal-rules-blamed-in-disappearance-of-kindle-erotica-titles/

Kboards Thread on subject:

https://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,261904.msg3642901.html

Forbes Media Article:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamrowe1/2018/03/31/amazon-deranked-romance-titles-week-restoring

I Am Working Hard For Your Reading Pleasure. I promise!

sexywriting Greetings everyone! I’ve noticed some feedback about where my new releases might be lately. I have slowed down in my writing lately, and I wanted to explain why.

I started this pen name to start writing erotica and erotic romance when I was very ill and wanted to live my dream, to write full time. I have been doing that for almost 2 years now.

But sadly, bills must be paid. So, I’ve had to start working again, now that I can, part time. So, it has slowed down my writing process, but I still have writing projects in the works. In fact, I’m trying to finish some of my other series before releasing new stories. I finished my “On Call series” and have created an Omnibus of the whole series available on Amazon. The last book in the series is called “The Perfect Fling”. For those that didn’t get a chance to look it over, here’s the link:

I’m also in the middle of finishing my exhibitionist series with the last installment. It will be a last couple finding their way to the exhibitionist club. Hopefully, this will be ready for release by the end of summer. I’m also working on a sci-fi erotic romance that may be out by next year. Plus, I have a steampunk series that I’ve been working on.

So, basically, I’ve been working on new, exciting fantasies for you to get involved in, but they are tending to be MUCH longer than previous stories. This makes the writing process longer since it involves more editing and writing time. This is due to some of my natural writing development and A LOT to do with Amazon switching to page reads for their Kindle Unlimited program. So, in order to make money, I have to write longer stories. This, of course, takes longer. So a lot of things have created a snowball effect making my process of getting a story out to you longer as well.

So, please hang with me. I promise more sensual and erotic stories to come your way. If you’d like to support me, please consider writing a review for any of the books you’ve read on Goodreads or Amazon. That is probably the best way to support and help your favorite author. Spreading the word about what you read and think about an author is probably the best way to help. I do make my living writing and pay my bills with what I make. So, any support is appreciated. Thank you!

To all my followers and fans, thank you for your continued support. Have a fabulous summer! Keep checking back for updates and more monthly erotic deals. If you want to stay on top of all of my releases, please join my mailing list/newsletter.

Salut!

-Lynda