So I had an idea for a very short story that could get right to, more or less, the messing around. While of course it is amazing I didn't feel like it really compared lengthwise to my other books, so although it's silly I felt like I shouldn't charge my regular price. And then I thought, "You know, lots of authors have free books that let people get a taste of their style and see if they like it."
So I wrote up the story and put it up for free!
It's called His Lucky Break and you can find it here:
It's also available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, but since I won't put it in the KDP Select program I had to charge the minimum, 99 cents on those two outlets. It's a pretty tight little story for 99 cents, if you ask me, and even that's a pretty good deal. But you can read it for free (right from your web browser if you've a mind) on Smashwords. Just my way of saying, "Thanks! And hey, buy some more!"
Because while I am grateful that people buy my books and I'm glad to give them a little something extra, "The first one's free!" has always been good marketing advice.
Heh.
Heh.
Heh.
The blog of Marc Cabot, author of the Dreams of Control erotic mind control series. Topics: Writing, e-publishing, hypnosis, hypnoerotica, erotic mind control, sex, general geekery.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
The Praise of the Praiseworthy is Above All Rewards.
The inimitable Pat Powers, master of Bondage Erotica at, well, http://www.bondagerotica.com, also maintains a must-read, nigh-daily update blog called Politically Sexy. He was kind enough to post an extensive review of my book Awakening. Even if you don't read my books, you should be reading his blog, because if you even FOUND my blog, you'll like his. Probably better. :)
Here's a direct link to the review: http://politicallysexy.blogspot.com/2012/07/dreams-of-control-awakening-book-review.html
Here's a direct link to the review: http://politicallysexy.blogspot.com/2012/07/dreams-of-control-awakening-book-review.html
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Unspeakable Publications: My Media Empire Groweth
Just a quick update - my first Premium catalog approval, for The Ultimate Icebreaker, has just gone through and another one, for The Shape of Her Desires, is pending. So soon they should be available on the iTunes Bookstore (or the iBooks store, or whatever it's called) as well as Kobo, Sony, and several others. According to the inimitable Delilah Fawkes, people with iPads love them some porn, and there aren't that many EMC books up on Apple's store yet, so here's hoping. :) I mean, I know I love me some porn, and I do have an iPad, but I've learned that in a lot of ways, you just can't go by me. :)
My other three books are in KDP Select lockout until mid-September. I haven't gotten a lot of extra boost from the KOLL, so they'll be moving to Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, and other fine etailers as soon as the lockout period expires. They will, of course, stay on Amazon as well, they just won't be exclusive there anymore.
Edited to add: The Shape of Her Desires just went Premium. :)
All of my new books will be non-KDP exclusive and will, hopefully, become Premium after review and distributed to all of the Premium retailers.
My other three books are in KDP Select lockout until mid-September. I haven't gotten a lot of extra boost from the KOLL, so they'll be moving to Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, and other fine etailers as soon as the lockout period expires. They will, of course, stay on Amazon as well, they just won't be exclusive there anymore.
Edited to add: The Shape of Her Desires just went Premium. :)
All of my new books will be non-KDP exclusive and will, hopefully, become Premium after review and distributed to all of the Premium retailers.
Monday, July 23, 2012
I'm On A Roll...
The second "Dreams of Control" short* is now available for purchase at Smashwords.com! The Shape of Her Desires has the hot and slightly kinky sex you know and love in my works, but really emphasizes, especially given how fast the story moves, the method of control and the feeling of scary, helpless realization the people involved feel when they realized what's happened. (Although as usual in my books, nobody gets hurt. Who doesn't want to be. A little.) It's that building anticipation that really makes this story fun for me and I hope you like it too. Click the picture or the link below to get it. And if you act before the end of July, you'll get to take advantage of the "Summer/Winter Sale" at Smashwords. You can't afford not to buy this book now!
*Technically it's a short story although it's fifty percent longer than the first one... at NO EXTRA CHARGE!
*Technically it's a short story although it's fifty percent longer than the first one... at NO EXTRA CHARGE!
Sunday, July 22, 2012
A Note On Blogs I Follow
If you see a blog on my bloglist, it means one or both of two things:
1) The author of the blog writes interesting posts which are worth reading.
2) The author of the blog writes BDSM or Erotic Mind Control Erotica that I think people who read my blog might be interested in.
Hopefully it means both, but not always. And if it's #2, it doesn't necessarily mean it's erotica that I like. It's not an endorsement, just a "Hey, you might want to take a look at this." I'm a lot fussier than most people about what I'll read, but I know that that is true, so my link recommendations are somewhat less fussy. It'd be a funny old world if we were all the same, eh?
1) The author of the blog writes interesting posts which are worth reading.
2) The author of the blog writes BDSM or Erotic Mind Control Erotica that I think people who read my blog might be interested in.
Hopefully it means both, but not always. And if it's #2, it doesn't necessarily mean it's erotica that I like. It's not an endorsement, just a "Hey, you might want to take a look at this." I'm a lot fussier than most people about what I'll read, but I know that that is true, so my link recommendations are somewhat less fussy. It'd be a funny old world if we were all the same, eh?
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Back To Work...
This weekend I hope to finish the second Dreams of Control short, The Shape of Her Desires. The intro is already written... now I just have to write the good parts. :) Actually, that's the hardest part. As most writers would agree, I think, it's not too hard to come up with a story idea. The hard part is making the story.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Well, The Brotherhood Is All Well and Good, But...
Far, far be it from me to slam the work of another smutslinger.
However, that doesn't mean I didn't laugh uproariously at this review of the Fifty Shades trilogy by this other person.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11477648-fifty-shades-of-grey
It's hysterical. And the .gifs are amazing.
However, that doesn't mean I didn't laugh uproariously at this review of the Fifty Shades trilogy by this other person.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11477648-fifty-shades-of-grey
It's hysterical. And the .gifs are amazing.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
New Book, Discount Price!
My new erotic mind-control story The Ultimate Icebreaker is now available on Smashwords.com. Link:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/205240
And from now until the end of July I'm participating in the Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale, so by using coupon code SSW25 you get an additional 25% off the already low, low price of $2.99!
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/205240
And from now until the end of July I'm participating in the Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale, so by using coupon code SSW25 you get an additional 25% off the already low, low price of $2.99!
About The Book: Awakening
And now, my first "about the book" post.
This is Awakening, the first of the Dreams of Control stories...
This is Awakening, the first of the Dreams of Control stories...
(You can click on the picture to go to the Amazon page for the book.) Awakening was originally called This Is Not A Dream, which is a pretty good example of a spoiler-y title, since the main character spends about half the book convinced that he's dreaming. It started out, like all my books do, as an erotic fantasy of mine, and I wrote it just to get it out of my head and make it clearer and sharper. It was the first piece of "serious" erotica I ever wrote - although I was writing stories about people using supernatural powers to get sex by the time I was a sophomore in high school. Obviously I was always going to end up in the gutter. I'd blame my mother, but she's a saint, and I'm sure she often wonders what went wrong. :)
When I decided to try actually publishing my work, Awakening was the longest, best-edited piece I had. I reworked it to make the sex scenes a little more visual and graphic - I'm not the raunchiest writer in the world, and the stuff I write just for me tends to be as much symbolic as descriptive. I think it struck a nice balance as everyone I used as a test reader said that the sex was, and I quote, "hot." (Trivia note: Awakening has more sex scenes, relative to the length of the book, than any other story I've written so far. Maestro has more, but it's twice as long.)
One of the hardest things was deciding what to put on the cover. I have an "Internet friend" who's a fabulous photographer (His name's Marc, too - small world. See his work at http://www.unspeakabledreams.com/. And yes, I shamelessly stole the name of my publishing company from him. In my defense, he stole it from Shel Silverstein.) We bumped into each other on a forum for fans of erotic mind control and I asked him if he had any good pictures I could use. The main character of the book likes his helpless victims smiling and happy, and when I saw the photo of the smiling girl pulling her top off and looking at the viewer, I said, "That's it. That's exactly what they look like." So sometimes things just fall in your lap. As I like to say, "When you're a nice guy, nice things happen to you."
Awakening was published in August of 2011 (wow, it's almost been a year already.) Although you can't tell from the number of reviews*, it's sold pretty well. Now if I could just get it linked to 50 Shades somehow... Alas, probably won't happen. But according to a very detailed thread I ran across the other day, sales increase geometrically with the number of books you have available. Since I only have a few (and only had two for several months) I'm pleased with how well it's done so far. I plan to write more this year and hopefully will start seeing that multiplier effect soon!
Comments and questions about Awakening, how I decided to publish my work, and how I went about it are welcome. I'll be going into more detail about that as I go along, although it's ground that has been exhaustively covered so I doubt I'll do any full-scale "How To" pieces. Unless somebody asks nice. :)
___
*Reviewers wanted - free copy of one of my books if you'll promise to leave one! Some conditions apply, email marc@dreamsofcontrol.com for details. :)
Monday, July 16, 2012
Welcome To My Unspeakable Dreams...
I'm Marc Cabot, author of the Dreams of Control series of erotic mind control stories, as well as The Reunion, a tale of erotic discovery. Information on Dreams of Control can be found at my website, dreamsofcontrol.com, and you can see all my books on Amazon at Marc Cabot's Author Page.
I have a really interesting day job which unfortunately I can't talk about. :) But I've been writing for a long time: the stories get into my head, and they won't let me rest until they get out. I never thought anybody else would be all that interested in them, but after showing one to a friend, she urged me to publish them because other people would like them too. I've never been so happy to be wrong - people aren't just interested, they pay to read them! As the great Robert Heinlein said after selling his first story, "How long has this racket been going on, and why didn't anybody tell me about it sooner?"
Over the next few days, I'll publish short discussion posts about each of my books, and then start talking about what I'd like to do next. I always love to hear from people who've read my work or who are interested in the kind of stuff I write, so please feel free to leave comments or send me email at marc@dreamsofcontrol.com. Thanks for reading!
I have a really interesting day job which unfortunately I can't talk about. :) But I've been writing for a long time: the stories get into my head, and they won't let me rest until they get out. I never thought anybody else would be all that interested in them, but after showing one to a friend, she urged me to publish them because other people would like them too. I've never been so happy to be wrong - people aren't just interested, they pay to read them! As the great Robert Heinlein said after selling his first story, "How long has this racket been going on, and why didn't anybody tell me about it sooner?"
Over the next few days, I'll publish short discussion posts about each of my books, and then start talking about what I'd like to do next. I always love to hear from people who've read my work or who are interested in the kind of stuff I write, so please feel free to leave comments or send me email at marc@dreamsofcontrol.com. Thanks for reading!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)