Diremption

Wow, it's been a long time since my last blog post, but at least I'm able to happily announce the release of my new story "Diremption", which is the latest installment in my Army Boy series. There's lots of sexy goodness in there, so if you like the m/m variety of erotica, please have a look and spend a minute or two sampling. Thank you! :-)

"Diremption" on Amazon

"Thaw of the Firedancer" FREE today!

Folks, I just have a short message today: "Firedancer" is free today in all Amazon Kindle shops, so please go and get a copy while you can. I'm looking forward to many downloads and your opinions :-)

Get "Thaw of the Firedancer" for FREE today ^_^

Thaw of the Firedancer

After long months of writing and editing, my novella "Thaw of the Firedancer" (or "Firedancer" for short) is now available on Amazon. There's not much going on in the way of smut and I do apologize for that, but since the story is several years old already, I hope you'll bear with me regardless and give my boys a chance. :-)

Blurb: Something's not right with fallen angel Beau Leavold, as evidenced by his seductive yet strange dreams of fragrant fire that offer peace and quiet in a world that has become far too demanding. The shock of nearly losing his son to two psychopathic humans has never dulled, making every moment into his personal perdition. These quiet hours at night are all he has to convince himself that God hasn't Judged him yet, that he is still alive enough to hope. To hope for what, he doesn't know.

His doctor is worried, as is his best friend Maurice, but Beau simply doesn't find it in him to care any longer. He's tired of feeling apathetic and disconnected, and sick of dealing with his callous wife. In his eyes it doesn't seem unreasonable to want to end it, rather than drag himself through another year. To simply go to sleep, dance in the fire for a while, and never wake up again.

Only the fire doesn't want him dead. Instead it leads him to a human circus of all things, and to celebrity firedancer Charlie Dawne, who, ironically, is the young man who couldn't save his son from madness all those years ago. Beau realizes soon that seeking forgiveness from God is one thing, seeking it from a fragile, frozen soul in this world quite another. It is up to Beau now to accept the gift Fate has given him and build a better life for himself and Charlie, and right the wrongs in both their lives.

Are you curious yet? :) In that case please follow the link below and check out the sample.

"Firedancer" on Amazon

And if you're feeling particularly generous, please let me know what you think. This is my first longer story in English and I'd love to hear from you.

All the best,

Maria

A Little Teaser

I'm currently working on the next installment in my "Army Boys" series and thought I'd post a little something to amuse you. The so-called 77 prompt originally reached me via Facebook, so here are 7 sentences from page 7 of my current project :-)

Finally getting his hands on a pack of baby wipes, Ty turned around and absently began to rub his chest with one of the tissues. “And now?”
McLendon shrugged. “There’s not much to do except wait out the rain.” As if on cue, heavy drops of water drummed against the tent, growing in intensity in a matter of seconds until the single drums merged into a steady, rushing sound. “Pity that the pony girl didn’t put out, huh?”
Ty stilled in his rubbing. “Why?”

Alright, so it's actually 8 sentences, but I don't believe in cutting off direct speech paragraphs *g*. Wish me luck; this story is taking me forever although it's gonna be really sexy and fun. And I also should draw more, do a couple of sketches. Feel free to boot me in the right direction!

Wolves' Dance

The title of this post says all; this is about my gay romance novel "Wolves' Dance". Unfortunately it's nowhere near finished as of yet, but obviously that didn't keep me from doing a little doodle. :-)

Evan is the main character and, as the title already suggests, a werewolf. Yes, he's a pretty boy, that's where the greatest part of his troubles stem from, after all.

I don't want to reveal too much at this point, but in a way my book is a "coming of age" story, only with a slightly animalistic twist. ;-) I hope to draw more pictures soon, and if you want to comment, encourage or scold me in the meantime, be my guest. I need all the booty calls I can get!

I Am Flashed!

Although this blog is still empty, with no visitors to speak of, I'd very much like to thank the people who gave my story "Dynamics" a chance and gifted me with the most pleasant surprise of my "commercial" writing life yet. From yesterday night to tomorrow morning over 100 people downloaded "Dynamics" and catapulted me into the Top 1000 Free in Kindle Store. So here it is, a Thank You! with capital letters. I really, really appreciate it and couldn't be happier than I am right now. :-)

I'm especially glad because I decided a few days ago to give Ty and his army friends another story, perhaps a Christmas shorty, fitting for the season. Now that the surprise has worn off a bit, I'm looking forward to the first review ... and perhaps to solid sales as well ;-)

Thanks again, and good luck to all who wander this path also. You see, it is possible, even if you don't advertise at all. As a freebie, this one sure made me happy today :-)

The Many Pitfalls Of Self-Publishing

There's no doubt, these times are scary and wildly exciting for writers, especially those who want to self-publish. Young authors rethink the necessity of obtaining a "legacy" contract with a traditional publisher at all, while midlisters flee their publishing houses in droves to publish their books on their own with much better conditions and full control of their rights. If someone hasn't followed the so-called revolution I strongly recommend visiting Joe Konrath's blog A Newbie's Guide to Publishing and reading the older posts.

It's not the revolution I find so astonishing; as an author I'm very grateful for the possibilities Amazon, Smashwords, Apple at al offer. No, it's the way traditional publishers deal with the new empowerment of writers that gets under my skin. Joe Konrath blogged about it day before yesterday and warned hapless writers to sign with Penguin's Book Country. To read the full blog post klick here.

Get that: Someone warns against signing with Penguin.

Now where does that leave us? There's a known and (formerly) respected publisher trying to scam (even more) money from young, hopeful writers. Sounds like a bad joke, right? Upon reading Joe's post I thought "That can't be true. That's their answer to writers' demand for fairer conditions?"

Unfortunately it is, just go and have a look at their page. They're trying to tie authors down with not only a completely audacious fee for formatting and getting their book to the known, free retailers (Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, Smashwords etc), they're also trying to grab royalties for this completely pointless service. Worse than that, the author would sign away certain rights to their work, most likely for a long time, if not ever.

"What's new?" you might ask, and rightly so. It's true that there have always been many companies and publishers trying to scam money from us but never this blatantly. With traditional vanity press one at least got a print book for the money. But paying someone for getting self-formattet and proofed e-books up? To platforms that allow me to upload content for free?

Yeah, thought so.

Writer beware, this is the Wild West and if you're not careful you'll pay money for something that you could easily do yourself or, if you can't, find good people to do your formatting, editing and cover for a flat fee. Don't be afraid to put a bit time and money into your work. Don't rush into things, take your time to learn and compare. That book is yours, and it's worth keeping it that way. Think thrice before signing anything!

For me, this development was the last straw. No big publishing house will ever see a query letter from me, not with things being as they currently are. Let's see how many publishers will follow this perfectly awful example to try and save themselves. And before you rail against me, I'm aware that not every publisher is that bad. I wish those who offer decent deals and work well with their authors all the best and continued success. But if I said "Writer beware!" earlier, I'm now saying "Publishing houses beware!"

We are watching you.

And we see everything.