Erica's Black Friday

All of my College Fun and Gays books will be available at 40% discount at All Romance eBooks - the anthologies as well. The sale will start today and end tomorrow. Grab whatever you can while you can!

Black Hurricane: Category Bestseller and top 50 Overall

Black Hurricane received its Bestseller star on All Romance eBooks today ^.^ This means that Black Hurricane has become a category bestseller Romance > GLBT > Gay Romance. Thank you, thank you, everyone who's bought a copy.

Furthermore, Black Hurricane is still on the Bestseller overall top 50 list, now in 22nd place (yesterday 37th) and still selling well on Amazon.

New Release: Cold Hands (Gay, College, Bullying)

Finally! You've been waiting so long and so have I. Cold Hands is the sequel to Hot Hands and contains a BIG spoiler if read first. To make it easier on people, I've made Hot Hands FREE. 

Cold Hands:

“Hot-Hands” and Casper have been dating for a month, but their relationship is about as smooth as shattered glass. It doesn't help that Hot-Hands is racked with guilt over his high school bullying of Casper, or that Casper darts away whenever his boyfriend gets a little too frisky.

Desperate to hang onto Casper, Hot-Hands tries to earn back the trust he destroyed years ago, so they can face their disastrous past and have a chance at a happy future. 

Cold Hands focuses on high school bullying for being gay. 

$1.99 on Amazon and All Romance eBooks.

Re-Release: Little Stalker (College, Gay, Internal Homophobia)

Little Stalker has been re-released :)

It's even up on Amazon already. All Romance eBooks as well. $1.99

Blurb:

College student Coby is being stalked by a young guy and has no idea why until someone suggests that the stalker may have a crush on him. The idea both excites and terrifies Coby, who is so deep in the closet he can barely manage to think the word “gay” without freaking out.

Little Stalker focuses on the deep, dark closet.

Re-Release: The Walls Have Ears (Gay, College, New Adult)

Here's the next one :) Only two more to go and then I can focus on other things ^.^ Little Stalker will be out tomorrow and Cold Hands the day after, if nothing goes wrong. Again, edited by Douglas Black and cover by Zathyn Priest.

$1.99 on All Romance eBooks and Amazon.

Blurb:

Short and scrawny college student Harley Santos has a strange relationship with the guy on the other side of his bedroom wall. For weeks, the two have been masturbating to each other’s voices, but they have never met in person. In fact, he doesn't know a single thing about his wall-mate except that he looks and sounds incredibly hot. 

When Harley’s roommate, Ryan, is asked on a date by one of his neighbors, Harley is devastated that his wall-mate mistook not-hot Harley for super-hot Ryan. Helping Harley through his heartache is Tasha Novokov, the other neighbor, who is tall, dark, and impossibly handsome. 

Re-Release: Grade-A-Sex Deal - Crazy Hot Cover!

Don't you just want to lick the both of them? Droooooool. Again, cover by Zathyn Priest and edits by Douglas Black. 

$0.99 on All Romance eBooks and Amazon (soon).

Blurb:

When College professor Daniel Corrigan was brutally kicked out of his home after revealing his true sexuality to his wife, he had to make a whole new life for himself. For the first time in two years Daniel’s main heartache isn't the none-existent relationship with his two kids, but the fact that the grade-A-sex deal with his student Troy Anderson is about to expire. After a whole semester of office fun, Troy has managed to squeeze his way into the core of Daniel’s soul. Daniel, however, is positive he’s nothing more to Troy but a teacher who can modify a grade.

Re-relase: Welcome, Brother (M/M, College, Fraternity)

And now they come rolling in ^.^ I've already formatted two other CFaG stories and they'll be out over the next couple of days. Hopefully, they'll all be out of my hands by the beginning of next week - Cold Hands included - so I can focus on other things.

Welcome, Brother had a different cover as this is the second edition. It's been edited by Douglas Black and the cover is by Zathyn Priest at Scarlet Tie Designs.

Blurb:

When arts student Kyler Morris applies for membership to The Nova Britannia Brotherhood, he's immediately floored by their intimidating leader, Hunter Kingsley. Fellow arts student Hunter, however, isn't the bad-ass he's made out to be and takes Kyler under his wing.

While Kyler struggles to keep his crush under control and his sexuality hidden from the Brothers, Hunter battles daemons of his own in the form of two Brothers who aren't playing by the rules.

Welcome Brother focuses on acceptance in college and gay bashing.

$1.99 on All Romance eBooks and Amazon 

Re-release: Hot Hands (free)

I finally got Hot Hands out again and I'm working on the others. I decided to go the shelf-publishing route because I've been wanting to try it for a while. My editor for the College Fun and Gays series is Douglas Black and Zathyn Priest made the jaw-dropping covers.

The series can be read in any order, except for Hot Hands and Cold Hands (huge spoiler if you read Cold Hands first). Hot Hands will be free of charge, but I'll ask $0.99-$1.99 for the others, depending on length. 

You can download the new version of Hot Hands on All Romance eBooks. Hot Hands is up on Amazon, but it's going to take forever and a day for it to be free there, so if I make any money there for any of my free stories the money will go to an LGBT-related charity. If you have time, please help try to make it free :)

Here are the steps to make Hot Hands free on Amazon:

1. Click this link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DU26GSK

2. Scroll to Product Details

3  Click on "tell us about a lower price"

4. Choose "Website"

5. Put in this url: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-hothands-1228391-340.html

6. Put 0 in the price

7. Put 0 in shipping cost

8. Press the "Submit feedback" button

Thank you :)

ARe Best Seller

Oh wow! I just learned today that A Life Without You was at some point an All Romance Ebooks Best Seller. I have no idea when this happened, but this is huge for me (probably just normal for other, more seasoned authors, but huge for me!). Thanks so much for everyone who's bought a copy (from there or just anywhere).

Anyway, I won't come here bragging every time (if this happens again), just wanted to share it this first time ^.^

Tomorrow I'm posting the second part of my last Thursday's post: Men are Not Emotional, so stay tuned :) *Buckles seat belts and fastens flame helmet*

Oops! Forgot to add that my guest post is up on Chicks and Dicks today: Gay Late Bloomers.

Erotic Censorship and a Home for the Homeless Books

Most of you have probably heard about what's happening with Bookstrand*, ARe*, and Smashwords* (who are likely the first of many to come). They're being bullied and threatened by PayPal to remove "incest, bestiality, rape, and underage erotica" from their lists or their accounts with PayPal will be frozen and their money confiscated (!!). Admittedly, I would never read three of those four subjects, but I have been known to enjoy brotherly love (Lee Brazil's excellent Telling the Truth, for one). I have spent the entire day reading up on this and weeding out fact from fiction.

PayPal is using their market dominance to push distributors (and probably publishers soon - they use PayPal to pay their authors) to censor out material that "could be considered obscene". I ask, who decides what is obscene and what isn't? Is bestiality, rape, incest, and underage erotica obscene? Yes, I'd say so, but this isn't about what's obscene and what isn't. A guy running naked through a park can also be considered obscene, but that's not even an issue here. Neither is Lolita, a classic book about a relationship between a pedophile and a child (tell me if that's going to be pulled off shelves? I think not). This is about censorship.

But it's not only PayPal. In a way I feel sorry for the distributors who have had to react without notice to PayPal's brutal demands. They've had to make snap decisions and there's been no time to find an alternate way of payments, because PayPal basically says "do this or you won't get the money in your accounts". However, the distributors mentioned above are taking things further for various and unnecessary reasons. They're also pulling down titles with "barely legal" content and "pseudo incest". What the hell??

-- Barely legal means 18 and 19 years old. People that age are legally allowed to have sex, so why would anyone restrict that? So far these distributors are only focusing on "barely legal" girls, so I'm safe (because mine are guys), but they're knocking on the door right next to mine and I don't like it. 

-- "Pseudo incest" means sexual relations between (in this case) grown step/foster children and step/foster fathers/mothers or step/foster siblings (this last one is popular). Again, "pseudo incest" isn't illegal - Woody Allen anyone? Besides, if we're going for things that are illegal but still written in books, then how about murder, theft, and plots to distribute a virus? If PayPal believes that writing about incest will encourage incest, then shouldn't writing about murder (like the Dexter books) also encourage murder? That would pull off a whole lot of books and make a mass of people angry.

In short, distributors are pulling off their shelves perfectly "legal" material!

I think it's right to mention here that the only fiction that has ever been judged as illegal is erotic content that depicts children in a sexual manner for titillation. None - and I mean NONE - other illegal content has or can be judged illegal because it's fiction (killing a man in a book can not land you in jail). Why the pedophile fiction? Because when children are involved, it's a whole different ballgame.

Content that "can be considered obscene" is a very broad term. What's next? Well these things are considered obscene by a lot of people: GLBT literature, gay marriage, BDSM, public display of affection between same-sex couples, trinogamy's (mmm), strip clubs, sex in public bathrooms, sex outside of wedlock, prostitution, anal play/sex. Those are just a few examples of many. Those are things I read and write. Do you?

There's a petition running to appeal to Paypal. Please, please sign this if you value freedom of speech, press, and personal choice. Banks and other financial institutions shouldn't dictate what we choose to write and read (or even buy, as long as it's legal). Where do they even come off trying to? It may not affect your genre NOW, but if we let this go, your content might be next. This also affects readers because PayPal is telling them what they can an cannot read (yes, "can" - not "may" - because people will have a harder time getting access to what they want to read).

Although Bookstrand, ARe and Smashwords have - at least for the moment - caved under pressure, others are fighting. No Boundaries Press is working on offering these new homeless books with "questionable" content a home on their sale site. The authors won't have to sign a publishing deal with them. They won't have to drop their current publisher and they won't have to stop self-publishing these specific titles. NBP's just offering a way to sell these books that are under attack and will charge no more sales fee than any of the above distributors. They're very adamant about fighting this censorship and they've found a different way to handle payments. They're not just offering this to authors, but publishers as well (and self-publishers, in case I didn't make that clear). Check out their blog if you're interested and please spread the word if you know someone who's been a victim of this witch hunt.

Lastly, if you're interested in reading more about this subject, I recommend Selena Kitt's blog. It's very thorough but in no way a dry read on the matter. According to her, she'll have to remove said subjects from her store AND any book that contains BDSM (and most of her books do). I haven't heard BDSM content mentioned by anyone else, but she was told she had to when she asked PayPal directly.

Here are more links on this topic:

Two Legs Bad: An Open Letter to Mark Coker (owner of Smashwords) - Mark himself even replied to this one.

Putting the World According to PayPal In Perspective - This is just hilarious. A fun way to learn about what's happening.

Erotica Book Banning Round Up - with more links!

Censorship and Paypal: UnConstitutional and WRONG - Wayne has listed emails to where people can send their complaints to PayPal. I'm quoting a bit from his blog:

"A while back, I spoke on this blog about my frustration and anger with PayPal. The issue at the time was that they unilaterally froze my account because I bought $6 worth of novellas from Astraea Press in aid of a charity drive. I later reviewed these books, only to learn to my chagrin that PayPal had denied the payment and frozen my account.

After this disagreeable incident, I finally decided I’d had quite enough of PayPal and their unreasonably restrictive clauses. After all, no one has the right to view my purchases and tell me which ones are acceptable and which are not. I’m an adult male in the United States of America, and as such I enjoy all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

Or do I?

PayPal doesn’t seem to think so." (Author J.S. Wayne)

* These are links to where you can see the letters from these distributors. Here are the credits: Author Cat Johnson has Bookstrand letter, The Self Publishing Revolution has the All Romance eBooks letter, The Digital Reader has the Smashwords letter.

Header image credit

Hot Hands Purchase Links

Hot Hands has been out for about a week and things are doing well :) I was very excited to see a four star review on Goodreads, and then a five star review (!)...that wasn't written by me. Super exciting for a new author, fresh out of her packaging ^.^

I wanted to list the Hot Hands purchase sites in one blog post, so I won't spam my own blog. No one likes spam, though these promo posts are beginning to feel a little spammy. I need to get my butt in gear and post other things here too!

No Boundaries Press (publisher)

All Romance e-Books

Amazon.com

Barnes & Noble

Bookstrand

I'm told there will be more :)

Just one more thing. I'm not dissuading anyone from buying from Amazon.com, but many international countries are charged extra $2.50 per e-book and sometimes even more (for me in Iceland, my short story costs $5.34 - which is just ridiculous). If international buyers want to avoid these costs but still get a Kindle version, buying from someone like All Romance e-books, Bookstrand, or from the publisher's store is a good option. Most sales sites have Kindle compatible formats for download (.mobi and .prc). The only difference is that you'll have to download the book (one click), and then manually transfer it to your Kindle (drag and drop into the "documents" folder on the Kindle). It's easy and less expensive. You're not doing the author harm by buying the book for less in this instance - we don't see a dime from that extra cost.