I'm getting around doing a book tour!

One of the biggest tools authors need to utilize is the blog. Not just their own as I've advised many of my authors to do but to make guest appearances on other authors blogs.  The more traffic, the better.

But balancing that act with writing can be tough, no doubt.  Not only should you come up with new content for each blog but you should weigh your options of doing a giveaway or not.  One blog I visited this past week had very little in the way of comments, but I don't know about the traffic  To see the posts, head on over to Tonya Kinzer's blog to see what I did.  Granted, these posts are almost all recycled content from 2009, that doesn't mean that Tonya's readers have seen them.  Click here for the last link.

Having a pool of authors who write for me makes a big difference in not just their marketing but mine too.  Some of my authors, like Margie Church are dialed into a different group of readers that I'd like to be connected with.  So popping over to her site once in a blue moon (can't give her too much of an ego boost...) helps her and me since our audiences are similiar.

The SEO on that sort of stuff is great too but ultimately a writer should be looking to step outside their normal reader group and constantly expand their brand name and readership base. 

Higher traffic blogs for well known publishing houses that allow guest spots also make a HUGE difference but remember, you're opening yourself up to new readers so first impressions count.  This I kept in mind when I talked to the folks at Romance at Random about being the bad boy of romance.  I didn't talk much from an editor's standpoint but more from an author's.  But I did share my passion about this genre though.

Remember, In romance, readers want an escape with the characters they can relate to..

In Erotica, readers want a sexual escape that stimulates the mind and doesn't screw too badly with their emotions. In Erotic Romance I want to be taken on a longer, harder, deeper ride outside of myself.

Publishers that capture the true hears and bodies and minds of their audiences stay in business and do well. Their authors have potential to do very well also.

New Call for Submissions

CALL FOR ANTHOLOGY SUBMISSIONS

BOUND FOR LOVE

Sizzler Editions/Intoxication, our premium imprint for erotic romance, is seeking romantic BDSM stories for our upcoming anthology, Bound for Love.

Throughout history love and sex as submission and love and sex as pain have been linked. For example, this link is revealed in commonly used phrases like "the bonds of love," "the chains of love," "the ties that bind," "prisoner of love," "captive heart," "love hurts," "love is pain,"

Stories should reflect this connection be between B&D and romance. What after all could be sweeter than a bottom's submission to a top? In some ways love between leather folks, slaves and master/mistresses, is the most honest straightforward love there is. In short, we want stories that capture the romance in bondage and the bondage in romance made explicit.

Stories for Bound for Love should be 4-9k in length with a focus on the relationship development. Each needs to have a strong focus on both BDSM with a classic romance type of plot and a HEA ending. If either can be removed, the story is not for this anthology.

We seek unpublished submissions though we will consider reprints.

Deadline: December 15th 2011

The advance payment against a prorated share of the royalties will be $25 for stories under 5000 words and $35 for stories over 5000.

Publisher acquires World English language rights only for the use of story in the above anthology for a term of seven years; however one year after the story first appears as an ebook, author may publish said story in other anthologies. Author retain all other rights including the right to reprint said story in collections of the author's own work beginning six months after the appearance of said story in the above title anthology.

Submit to wolfprinceeditor@gmail.com in MS WORD format, 14 point, single spaced, Times New Roman. .3 indentation on each paragraph. Make sure to put Bound for Love Anthology submission in the subject line of your email.

Sizzler Editions (www.sizzlereditions.com) is a pioneer ebook publisher, issuing its first titles in 1998 and becoming known from the start for releasing quality erotic fiction by many of the hottest authors in the world.

Sascha Illyvich is an established erotica/erotic romance author with over twenty titles published. Successful anthologies he has edited include "Riding the Rocket," "My Sexy Valentine" and "Bound for Romance" He teaches workshops on writing from the Male POV and BDSM for Romance writers and believes strongly in helping the new author as well as the experienced one wade through the publishing industry to attain success.

The Correct Point of View

Do you know which POV your story is told in?  Do you know the correct Point of View your story SHOULD be written from?  If you answer first or third person POV, you’re obviously being a smart ass.  Let’s rephrase the question, shall we? 

What character’s point of view should my story be told in? 

There, this defines the question better.  And the answer is simple.  The main character’s POV.  But what if you have two characters?  Presumably a Hero and a Heroine, since this is Romance I’m mainly covering, let’s stick with that assumption.  What if you have a villain?  Do we tell any part of the story from that character’s perspective?

Many writers assume that during major scene changes, the perspective should change.  They’re half correct.  A lot of writers suggest that we need to know about the villain if there is one, and that character should get a say too.  Again, they’re half right.

The truth is, POV is simple.  Tell the story from the Point of View of the character that has the most to lose. 

What do I mean by that?  Let’s break it down.  In a typical romance novel, we have the hero and heroine and a plot that runs something like this:

Hero meets Heroine (hey you’re hot)

Hero and Heroine end up in bed (light cigar/cigarette)

Argument separates the two (God he’s a jerk/she’s a bitch)

And in the end, something happens that is greater than both the Hero and Heroine’s issues that makes them examine their beliefs and realize they need the other.

Let’s figure this out (I need you/I love you)

HEA/Happily for Now

Throw in a villain and that character’s appearance should be before or during the cigar in the above example.  Considering that much of today’s erotic romance is paranormal or urban fantasy, there is a bad guy waiting to kill off both Hero/Heroine.

So what determines whose point of view the story is told from? This is also easy.  For the story to flow without head hopping, let’s use a simple rule of thumb (courtesy of Morgan Hawke www.darkerotica.net)

IF the story is under 20k, you simply need ONE character where the event happens to THEM and ONLY them. 

IF the story is under 40k, then we have an event that affects two characters. 

IF the story is under 100k, we have three characters who get a say, usually because the villain is the one doing shit to the world/universe—including the H/H. 

Now that we’ve narrowed that down and fixed the potential to head hop all over the place, thus eliminating characters that are central but not integral for POV purposes, we’re left with the one question: 

Who gets to talk?

Readers get attached to characters they care about and have built relationships with, just as in reality.  Kill off a favorite character from your reader base and you’d better believe you’re going to hear about it!  Alter that character’s world somehow and again, you’ll get feedback.  But what if the hero and heroine both have something to lose?  Then what do you do?

Refer back to length of the story.  Who has the greatest loss, and the greatest gain?  Write from THAT one character’s POV and ONLY change scenes if word length allows for it and only if that character’s journey makes us feel something universal. 

I recently read a story where head hopping occurred so much because the writer thought to write scenes like we see in TV.  Take Burn Notice for example:  We have Michael Westin, (The hero) Fiona (Heroine) and all the side characters, most notably Sam, the drunk former CIA op who we get to see frequently.  POV switches don’t really occur much because the story is narrated by Michael Westin, but when we do get those changes, Westin is still narrating. That works because people need to see a lot of visuals and TV/movies allow for those shifts to occur. The average attention span is not that long. 

But FICTION writing doesn’t.  You’ll end up with unsmooth transitions, annoying head hopping issues that make the reader THROW YOUR BOOK THE FUCK AWAY! 

In FICTION, you do two things.  You show the reader what YOU want them to see; otherwise they’ll see something else.  And you make the story smooth.  By sticking to word limit/reason for changes, you’ll eliminate guesswork in your plotting.

Some writers can get away with multiple POV changes.  Sherrylin Kenyon for example can, she has a built in audience that somehow doesn’t care about the change from the H/H to Ash or Stryker.  So does Laurel K. Hamilton, but because she writes in First Person POV, she doesn’t have that ability.  But if she wrote in third person, she could afford to change because she’s ESTABLISHED.  Chances are that you’re not them. (And if you are, thanks for reading my article!)

Christine Feehan does an excellent job of keeping the POV between her hero and heroine.  So does Richelle Mead. And Rebecca York.  Those authors are authors who don’t write what I do, but I learn from them because they’re where I hope to be someday. 

To reinforce the key points, I’ll leave with my two rules for simplification.

1. Tell the story from the character’s POV that has the MOST to lose
2. Use word length 20k = 1 character.  40k, 2 characters.  60k-100k+=3 and ONLY three. 

That should simplify things in your stories.  Happy writing!

Teaching Male POV course through Orange County RWA

Hey Folks,

I'll be teaching Male POV for Writers and Creating Better Heroes August 15th-28th online. The outline follows:

In this workshop, we’ll break down the eight archetypes a little, give a bit of background on the male mindset and psychology behind it and delved deeper into the wonderful yet confusing male mind.

We’ll explore how his issues affect your plot, why what those issues are is important and how we make him come across. We’ll discuss cross gender writing and author bias, tearing bias down so we can give you new insight into the male mind.

Having already hosted this workshop several times, I have had success with it but looking back on doing it a third time for Collette’s group, I wanted to add more depth, cover more information and add more value to your writing. Due to the increase in romance novels being published AND the increase in m/m romances, I’ve added two new sections to the workshop that will be more beneficial to all authors.

“What Men Really Care about” and “The Gay Male Lifestyle” will explore this POV deeper in hopes that I can assist you in writing more convincing gay males. I’ll cover my bias about the stories I’ve read so far later but just know we have more content for you 

What you’ll learn from this class
• Male Archetypes and how they affect our characters
• How (il)logical men think and why they act the way they do
• How to take any male character from any movie/story and modify him to fit your story
• How to get your man to express his true “self”
• What men REALLY care about and how to work with that for your characters*
• A man’s self view*
• The GAY MALE Viewpoint*
• The Male Cycle of Emotions and how it compares to the female cycle of emotions
• A man’s journey in life
• What men really think

Using character creations sheets (don’t groan!) that have all the relevant information you’ll need, you’ll be able to craft male characters that are just as deep as your female characters. Getting inside the heads of your male characters is the most important aspect of “how to write” them.

Cross gender writing can make or break an author’s career if they cannot portray the opposite gender clearly and accurately. With the growing popularity of M/M romances, it’s becoming increasingly important for males to be portrayed in the proper light! We’ll cover all that here and a lot more!

What People are saying about Sascha Illyvich’s Male POV Class:

“Thank you so much to our workshop presenter, Sascha Illyvich, for the
wonderful insight into writing male characters! We have lots of great
information to consider for our heroes now ” – Karla from Hearts through History RWA Chapter

“Thank you Sascha for a most informative class” Joan Maze, Erotic Romance Author

“Thanks for the POV class, and I’ll definitely be here for the undies class.
” Jacquie Rogers- Erotic Romance Author

“The information you provided as well as what the other class
members said was really helpful. I’m sure both my hero and my villain
will be improved by what I learned even though I was unable to do the
exercises except for the first one.” – Carol Jo, Erotic Romance Author

“This has been a very informative, excellently crafted and helpful class” – Barbara Karmazin, Erotic Romance Author

“Sascha, thank you so much for this class. After taking this class, I
realized that I know my male characters better than I thought but now
I can keep them consistent and on task to reach their ultimate goal.

Thank you so much for your help. I can’t believe the week went by
sooo fast!” Laura Major, SableLitReviews.com

To sign up go to Orange County RWA Website

Bound for Romance Cover!

Four hot authors give us delectable BDSM.  Out soon.  Here's some cover art...

Tips for Publicataion in the Romance Genre

Tips for learning the romance writing business include having an understanding of the publishing model, both the outdated NY one and the currently changing e-book model.


Make some friends. You’ll need the support system for things like going to Romantic Times, Romance Writers of America Nationals, RomCon, and other large industry conferences. Plus that support system will keep you together when you’re ready to throw away your career, no matter HOW long or short it is. Did you all see what happened to Judy Mays when someone outed her as an erotic romance author? The fans of hers rallied and supported her to the tune of 5,000 likes on her newly fan established Facebook page. In less than four hours.

Social Media – Learn it. Use it. Master it. It’s that simple. You have NO choice nowadays but to be on social media. If you're a shy person, quit writing and expecting money to roll in.

Read editor blogs like mine and Guide to Literary Agents. The information there is jam packed with tips outside of my experiences. Also, don’t forget WriteSEX

Take classes on craft, marketing and education. This advice hails from the importance of learning and expanding your ability to write about various genres, cross genre write and refine your voice. Unlike investing and “Get rich quick” classes, the real profits belong to both the instructor AND the students. FYI, I teach two classes and that information can be found here

Pick up the following authors and devour their work:

Angela Knight, Morgan Hawke, Christine Feehan, Laurel K. Hamilton (not exactly traditional erotic romance) Julie Templeton, Kate Douglas, Candace Havens, Dakota Cassidy, Joey W. Hill, Lori Foster, Diane Whiteside, Lora Leigh, Christina Dodd. Don't bother with Dodd's historicals (this is a bias against historical romance novels on my part) but her contemporary and paranormal stuff is excellent. That's just print stuff. For E-books, Lora Leigh, Joey W. Hill, Marianne LaCroix, Kiernan Kelly (We just put out her second collection of m/m erotic romance stories) Stephanie Burke, Treva Harte (writer and owner of Loose ID) Marty Rayne (one of my students)Joanna Wilde, Celia Kyle, Alexandria Rayne, Em Petrova, (hell, go pick up any of the Secrets Anthologies out from Red Sage) Sascha Illyvich, Cherise Sinclair (another student of mine) Brenda Williamson, Brenna Lyons, Belinda McBride, Barbara Karmazin (RIP) Marie Harte, MaryJanice Davidson (over at Loose-ID) Suzanne Rock, Cheyenne McCray. That should get you started learning about Erotic Romance. Most of those authors mentioned I've either mentored, grown up with (sort of) taught in my classes or read their work, interviewed for the radio show and they are dynamite writers. At the local library, hit up the print stuff and find yourself in the romance section. You want to go no "less" hot than Harlequin BLAZE. That's their "attempt" at erotic romance and they are the gold standard in publishing, with numerous authors who go onto bigger, better and more lucrative careers.

Join the Romance Writers of America. If you're a male romance author, attend meetings, regularly and get over any nervousness that may occur because the chapter members are predominantly female and many are where you want to be already. And many of them are gracious enough and kind enough to pay back as well as forward. Be warned RWA is still jumping (slowly) on the ebook bandwagon but that's a national issue, not a local chapter issue. The local chapters are very supportive of their members and share a TON of information. If you can afford it join Passionate Ink, the erotic/spicy chapter of RWA. Next year I plan to be speaking at their annual club meeting at RWA Nationals since it'll be in Anaheim CA.

Find and follow Deborah Riley Magnus on Twitter and Facebook. That's my publicist. She'll help you (via her blog) with marketing tips, tricks etc. She isn't geared towards this genre but she IS geared towards the trends in publishing and collecting information that is geared to help the author become a better success. After all, she IS the Author Success Coach

Continue to write and grow. Reading other romance authors gives you something which to work from, now it’s up to you to use your imagination and go forward into the wild blue yonder!

New Release from Author Emma Paul

Out NOW


This was one of the first submissions I received and I have to be honest, it's probably one of the closets things to what I'm looking for as the co-editor at Sizzler Intoxications.  We've been a little behind on our release schedule due to personal issues but now those issues are past and we can focus on bringing the hottest in erotic romance back to the forefront.

Romiel is a gargoyle, an offspring of a Demon father and Vampire mother. Cursed by a powerful human wizard, Romiel and all Gargoyles are imprisoned in stone. And only the touch of his true Soulmate can free him.

The moment that Joyce touches Romiel, she knows there is a strong bond between them. Although she tries to justify why loving a Gargoyle is wrong, her heart, soul and body refuse to listen.

Together she and Romiel face an uncertain future, as evil forces are unleashed on the unsuspecting humans. In the midst of an ancient war, Romiel must unite with an old enemy in order to protect the human race against certain annihilation. As their love for each other grows stronger, Joy and Romiel must face evil head on to save humanity and the Gods themselves.