Thursday, January 31, 2019

Excitica has closed its doors and this sucks for everyone.

You know how everything is terrible? Well, here's more terrible to add to the list.

If you check out Excitica's storefront, here's what you'll see:

It is with great sadness that we have to announce that Excitica will be closing our doors, effective immediately.

Unfortunately, we are unable to continue providing you with the stories and books you love in the current climate due to strict payment processing standards holding us hostage. We have attempted to fight this form of censorship to no avail. We will be paying all publishers and authors royalties owed to them. We apologize for this lost opportunity and regret that we won’t be able to continue our relationship.

Readers, please download your purchases before Friday, February 8, 2019. Thank you all for your support through the years.

In case you're not familiar with Excitica, it was the erotica ebook store Selena Kitt created when other ebook retailers started removing tons of erotic stories and books from their shelves--particularly taboo erotica, dubcon, noncon, hardcore BDSM, and whatever else the retailer deemed offensive.



Selena created Excitica so independent authors/publishers like you(?) and me could get our work out into the world, like the internet gods intended.

I'm gutted that Selena's had to close Excitica's doors. I've been working with her for more than a decade and I love her like family. She has done so ridiculously much to help other authors, building co-ops and websites that would benefits erotica readers and writers alike. Trust me, she has been fighting the powers that be for years any time our books have come under fire. She's the one who's always gone to bat for all of us. I could never do what she's done, for myself much less for erotica authors as a whole.

Erotica's always had a bad rap, and it takes a strong leader to create spaces for readers who read it and writers to write it. Selena's been that leader for more than a decade. She's done her damnedest, and I can only thank her for her efforts.

I can't fault Selena for the closure of Excitica. I can only praise her for building it in the first place.

But Excitica's closure does not bode well for those of us who read and/or write erotica. It doesn't leave us many retailers to purchase from or publish at. The only ebook retailer (that springs to mind) that continues to allow taboo content is Smashwords, and I thank the many, many readers who continue to purchase my work and Lexi's from that source.

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

A Tale of Three #Taboo #Erotica #Anthologies, or Testing the KU Waters in 2019

In case you haven't heard about Lexi Wood, she's the sock puppet who lives in my apartment and writes taboo erotica for me to publish.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B3C3492?tag=lexiwood-20
Two years ago, Lexi wrote 6 brand new, never-before-published stories about stepdaddies and stepdaughters doing the nasty. Usually I publish Lexi's stories individually, but since I had 6 in my possession that had not yet been published wide, I figured I'd bundle them together and introduce them to Kindle Unlimited for 90 days.

I'm not sure why I made the decision to put New Taboo Erotica in Kindle Unlimited. I almost never put anything in KU, seeing as I have a monstrous fear of commitment--so much so that being exclusive to one retailer even for 90 days makes me jittery.

But I made the decision, and, boy, was I glad!

As an author, as a business, as an author-business, I generally rely on a long tail of sales to earn my income. We're talking mediocre-to-poor sales spread out over years, even decades. That's how I operate. I view every book I write as a long-term investment.  I don't expect it to earn its keep within a week of being published, or even within the initial 90 days. If I had a baby (highly unlikely), I wouldn't expect it to walk and talk at 3 months. I view my books in the same way.  At 90 days, they're still infants.

That's how I operate. I don't have monumental expectations of anything I publish.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B3C3492?tag=lexiwood-20
So when New Taboo Erotica brought home the bacon, I was blown away.  Truly.  I don't think any other book I've written has paid my rent in the first month of its existence. I know there are a lot of authors who rely on new release income spikes, but I'm not one of them.

New Taboo Erotica felt like a boon, and the results came as a big surprise.

Still, by the end of that 90 day exclusivity period, pagereads had trickled off, so I took the book out of KU and sent it out into the wilds of the big wide world.

The next year, I decided I would do it all over again.

I didn't see any reason why lightning wouldn't strike twice.

Except that Amazon's algorithms seem to change on almost a weekly basis, and you can never expect the same thing to work from month to month, much less year to year...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071CVP5MY?tag=dondes-20
At any rate, I instructed Lexi to write 6 more brand new taboo erotica stories.  I bundled them together, called them New Taboo Smut, and published them into KU last winter.

It was a total flop.

I'd tried to replicate my initial success using the same steps, the same template, the same theme, the same author... and the result was utter and dismal failure.

What a let-down.

So why on earth would I try it again this year?

Well, I didn't actually plan this.  I'll start by saying that.

November was National Novel Writing Month. I planned to... you know... work on a novel. But then my grandmother died, and I was still reeling from the tragic death of my cousin last summer, and grief sent me spiraling.

Most unexpectedly, it was Lexi who saved me.  She took over, planting herself at my computer and spewing out story after nasty, taboo story.  She was uncontrollable! She'd finish one story and immediately start on the next.  She'd have two on the go simultaneously.  It was wild.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MLW8Z3F?tag=dondes-20
What we ended up with were 6 brand new taboo erotica stories. And these ones were themed: sex-with-an-ex. How can a stepfather and stepdaughter also be exes?  Well, you'll obviously have to read these six stories to find out.

With these 6 previously unpublished stories at my disposal, and at the same time of year I'd published New Taboo Erotica and New Taboo Smut, it seemed only natural to continue my KU experiment.  Well, it wasn't an experiment the first two times, but it is now.  As much as I distrust and dislike KU, curiosity got the best of me.  I NEED to find out what will happen in 2019, on my third attempt to publish a bundle of 6 new taboo erotica stories by Lexi Wood.

The book is called Taboo Sex with an Ex.  Will it be a huge success?  I doubt it.  Will it be a dismal failure?  Probably!  Don't you love my optimism?  Hey, I'm a realist.  Everything seems to be tanking these days.

But I'm giving Taboo Sex with an Ex the opportunity to succeed in its initial 90 days.  Lexi's stories are scorching, they really are.  She writes dirty stuff.

If you're into dirty stuff--especially dirty stuff with a daddy fetish and a focus on the tension that exists between ex-lovers--you're going to want to read this collection. And I don't just say that because I want your sweet, sweet KU pagereads... although that's definitely part of it. These stories deserve to be read. They're trash in the best sense of the word.  They're filthy, forbidden garbage stories that will get you off just like they got me through a period of intense grief.

They're just that good.

Am I skewing the results of my KU experiment by asking you to read Taboo Sex with an Ex? Maybe. But it doesn't matter. This isn't real science. It's just me and Lexi, earning a living with our sex writings.

Read it Taboo Sex with an Ex today:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MLW8Z3F?tag=dondes-20
Taboo Sex with an Ex
6 Explicit Erotica Stories
By Lexi Wood

These girls love taboo sex so much they just keep coming back for more… even though they know they shouldn’t… even though they said they wouldn’t! In this mouth-watering collection of sinful smut, six young women return to strictly forbidden men to fill their needs as only the man of the house can. They shouldn’t have done it in the first time. They shouldn’t come back for seconds. But here they are, pretty and purring and ready for more!

US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MLW8Z3F?tag=dondes-20
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07MLW8Z3F
CAN: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07MLW8Z3F
AUS: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07MLW8Z3F

Monday, January 7, 2019

One Wild Christmas Party #Swinging #Swapping #Erotica #Audiobook

https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Giselle_Renarde_One_Wild_Christmas_Party?id=AQAAAEBM7HSsKM&hl=en
Christmas is over for many of us, but for some of you excessively jolly folks, the festive season never ends.

If this is the case for you, or you just don't want to let go of the holidays quite yet, why not have a listen to the audio version of my story ONE WILD CHRISTMAS PARTY?

This story was originally published in a print anthology as HEAD TO MISTLETOE, but when I did the audio version I wanted a more in-your-face title, or at least one that was a bit more keyword-y.

Swinging, swapping, spankings and novelty undies! This year, Ravinia's Christmas party is the hottest ticket in town.

Listen to ONE WILD CHRISTMAS PARTY, written and read by me, by following one of these links or finding the audiobook at some other retailer or subscription service (you should be able to find this baby all over the damn place)...

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Giselle_Renarde_One_Wild_Christmas_Party?id=AQAAAEBM7HSsKM&hl=en
Nook: https://www.nookaudiobooks.com/audiobook/257509/one-wild-christmas-party
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/one-wild-christmas-party
Audiobooks.com: https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/one-wild-christmas-party-group-sex-erotica/361298
Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/392718825/One-Wild-Christmas-Party-Group-Sex-Erotica

https://www.patreon.com/audioerotica
If you can't get enough audio erotica, become my patron for erotic stories every Friday, written and narrated by me!