Hey, kids, this month’s contest is a weeedle different. As readers of this blog know, I have a release from Samhain on August 17 called Skin to Skin. Here is the blurb:

What Leilani wants, Leilani gets. That is, until she meets the enigmatic Oliver Clayton, her new neighbor. For some reason, Oliver seems to be intent on avoiding her even though he’s obviously interested. Leilani has tried to everything to get his attention, from wearing skimpy little outfits to walking a neighbor’s dog six times in front of his yard. Leilani wants Oliver…and she always gets her man.

In the heat of the summer, the temperature’s not only thing rising. Luckily, Oliver has that pool in his backyard and Leilani knows just how to cool off…

I bet you’re wondering what you gotta do to earn that fifty dollar Amazon GC (oh, and a free download of StS!), eh? Well, here’s what I want you to do: FANFICTION! As BFF Ann and BFF Shuzluva attest to, I lurve my fanfic. When I’m not working or translating Latin texts, I spend my days reading Supernatural slash (yes, yes, I’m sick. I need help). Now I want my own fanfic. That is, fanfic based on MY characters. Check out this excerpt and in 200 words or less, I want you to whip up a fic based on my characters. Get buck-wild. Do whatever you want. GO NUTS! Everyone is welcome to jump in!

Deadline is Friday, August 10th at 10pm PST. I’ll post the three best entries that night, we’ll vote on them, and I’ll announce the winner on Tuesday, August 14th. Oh, and watch this site for additional contests tied into Skin to Skin’s release. Y’all, it’s gonna be one hot summer.

Miss Shiloh Walker has asked me to guest-blog for Vamps and Scamps on August 20th in order to help me promote the release of Skin to Skin. Too bad I’m totally horrible at coming up with stuff to blog about (no joke). I asked Shiloh to help me and she suggested I ask you guys to come up with interview questions for me. Is there anything about me you’ve always wanted to know but were afraid to ask? Heh. Help me out and post them in the comments section. When my post comes up on Vamps and Scamps, stop by for a chance to win a $15 GC to Amazon and a free download of Skin to Skin. It’ll be good times, I promise.

Oh, and keep it PG, kids. I will not answer any questions like what I would do to Jensen Ackles if I were to come home and found him tied up and gagged on my bed. Or what kind of ice-cream I would want to lick off from Jared Padalecki’s abs. Or what I would say if Justin Hartley asked me to have a threesome with him and Tom Welling.

Emily’s Disclaimer: if you disagree with my advice it is very easy to research me as well. Some people look at my online presence and urge people to take my advice as I am a “successful writer”. This is a very dubious claim and easy to check as all my books and much about my earnings can be found online. If I am a successful ebook writer the industry is in even more trouble than I thought!

I understand why so many people love e-publishing. It provides any easy way to get hold of previously neglected genres like erotic romance and gay romance, and an avenue of publication for thousands of writers. But I am disturbed when the love of an e-publisher by its authors becomes unconditional and uncritical. The final straw for me was when I saw an author on a forum crowing about “very good first month’s sales” from a press I knew to be under-performing. She also said that another multi-published author had told her these sales were high for a first book. I contacted the author by email and the “very good” first month sales proved to be ten copies. Ten. And she was actively recommending this publisher to other writers. Many writers, it seems, are not great sources of unbiased information. We are so pleased anyone with accept our work and prone to go out of our way to prop up the publisher’s legitimacy in return. New e-presses open and are soon surrounded by newly accepted author-cheerleaders.

We are inclined to overlook the fact that most e-publishers invest very little effort in an e-book; they will make a profit from a book even if it sells just a few hundred copies. The less effort they make, the fewer copies they need to sell to make a profit. The e-publishing business model, even at its best, is to sell fewer copies of more books. Obviously the individual writer does not benefit from this economy of scale—nor readers from the potentially diminished selectivity and editorial input. But readers know what to do. There is absolutely no mistaking the fact that romance e-book readers shop largely by e-publisher. They have identified which houses select better quality books and edit and present them well. And it seems to me that if readers know this, writers should pay attention too. We should not be swayed by praise, high acceptance rates, sparkly new
websites and enthusiastic but vague online endorsements from our peers. We should follow the readers; the readers buy the books and in they end their attitude about the publisher is really the only one that counts.

That is why I started the EREC (Erotic Romance E-publisher Comparison) site to collect and share information. It quickly became apparent the erotic romance publishing is a volatile and crowded market where hype is common and data is rare. I invite writers to send me any sales figures they have: first month, first year, end of contract or total to date. Incomplete data is welcome and the information is kept confidential. What I have found so far is that the average e-book sells 150 copies in the first month, 350 in the first year and diminishing numbers from then on. But these figures are biased by a few very high selling houses. First month figures go as high as 5000 copies, and as low as 2 and only five e-publishers that I have data for routinely sell over 100 copies of each title in the first month (when most sales occur): Ellora’s Cave, Loose Id, Samhain, Whiskey Creek Press and Liquid Silver Books. By far the largest factor determining sales is the publisher of the book—even when considering books in the same genre and by the same author. All the promotional activities in the world will not sell a small press’ books at Ellora’s Cave levels.

These publisher-specific sales levels show that readers have learned to detect and select the best presses and once they find them, they tend to stick with them. It is well past time that writers took the same approach.

My advice for new writers would be this:

1) Decide on your goals in advance rather than just letting them sink to whatever your publisher can provide. Make sure your goals really represent your aspirations, make them realistic and specific such as actual sales numbers. If you have other goals like quick publication or availability with specific distributors, that’s fine too, but spell them out so you will know whether you have met them.

2) Take the time to find a publisher that can meet those goals. A book can take months or years to write. Researching publishers will take a few days at least. The only real way to know what a publisher can achieve, is to see what it has achieved– i.e. actual sales figures. Look for specifics relating to your goals and check multiple publishers. Submit to the best first.

3) If a publisher does not meet your goals consider, what needs changing: the goals or the publisher? There is nothing wrong with sending your next book to a press that might do better. Each contract is between the publisher and the book–not the publisher and the writer.

Hey, Jaime, COME ON DOWN!

… you get a signed copy of The Summerland AND The Brotherhood. How lucky are you? Hella lucky, dude.

Please email me and we’ll get you all squared out. Spanks all around.

And now I’m gonna go to bed ’cause I haven’t slept in two days.

Well, goddamn. I’ve never looked at a Silhouette hero and thought, “Uh! Uh! Yeah! Yeah! Give it to me, Papi! Punch it!” I could just be hormonal right now on account of Aunt Flo being in town and all, but there’s something about this cover that made my girly parts tingle something fierce. I wonder if it’s because homeboy looks eerily James Franco, whose male essence I want to take deeply into my body, so that I may carry his child in my lonely, empty womb. Drool… just look at those shoulders. I love how he looks at the woman like, “Man, bitch, I hate you… I really do. You disgust me. But I wouldn’t hate it if you got down on your knees and told me you loved me. With your tongue. No teeth, though.”

Anyway, the date on the bottom says Aug 2007 (I think), but why is our intrepid heroine dressed like a a chick from the… I don’t know, fifties or something? Oh, hey, it’s a wedding dress. She’s got little pearly things in her hair and stuff. She’s even got gloves! I can’t figure out the expression on her face. Is it trepidation? Is it a “Ooh, boy, I landed a James Franco look-alike who’s a gazillionaire and now I can lose my virginity!” kind of hope? Look, she’s happily signing away her soul to him and shit! That’s awesome. Five will get you ten she’s marrying this guy to save her family’s company and he’s marrying her ’cause he needs a “fake wife” as a permanent escort to corporate events and stuff. What’s a marriage of convenience when they inconveniently fall in love?