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The Shard-o-verse

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julie_slink
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Quote by Verbal
Her thinking--and I agree--is that the stories are all about contrast: loving vs. brutal, dirty vs. sweet, love vs. lust, objectified vs. connected. That the sex is wild but the tone of the writing is very conntrolled. So the Serious and the Moonlight should be very different fonts, to refect that (it also reflects their personalities).

EDIT: Wait, you were talking about Serious and Business, not Moonlight. That makes sense. Duh.

I agree about the color of the #1.

I like the overlappping "g."

There is no shadow, that's all hair. No eyes, no nose.

That was helpful. Your cover looks great. What fonts did you use? Where was the text?


I hadn't thought about the fonts thematically, but that is super awesome and makes a ton of sense. Really, great idea by you/designer.

Yeah, I eventually figured out it was supposed to be hair, not a shadow. It confused me at first, but it still looks cool. I would probably try to emphasize that it's hair, but as is, it still looks pretty great.

Here is the full cover with the shadow thing I was talking about. I used a sci-fi font called Anurati, which I downloaded for free. I always use Gill Sans MT Regular for my name and add a bit of kerning to get that spacing effect. I like to do genre or thematic stuff with the font of the titles. I download all my fonts for free. I have a bunch of horror movie ones I'll show you sometime.

I started playing around in GIMP this summer and have watched a few tutorials. I'm an amateur, but I wanted to get some practice making covers and it's a lot of fun. These are probably the two I like the best. They aren't completely designed to look like book covers, but I still think it's nicer than slapping up a generic erotic picture with the default author info. I use depositphotos as well and just edit things a bit, messing around with gradients, shading, blending solid backgrounds into the photo, fonts and spacing. Stuff like that.

I can't afford to pay a designer (or have enough completed work) presently, but I'm hoping to get there eventually and do a similar push on Amazon.



Verbal
Gravelly-Voiced Fucker
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We have a cover! This example (People Who Boought This Item) is the longest title, and I wanted to mmake sure it worked with the graphic. Graphics only cost $100 (2.5 hours of time), out of the $200 I estimated it would cost. Mostly because I knew what I wanted going in, and had the image bought and ready.



It's not too different from the previous draft, but with a few teaks to the fonts, spacing, and colors.

In other news, here's a screenshot of the spreadsheet I am using to weed through the stories. I am making sure: the story is pulled from Lush, what kind of story it is, whether it's in the final draft document, whether it's edited, whether it's formatted, whether it's RE-formatted (missed some stuff first time around), what order it comes in, whether it has a cover, yadayadayada. Extremely tedious, extremely exciting.

browncoffee
Coco Pop
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Spreadsheets are so wonderful, I love them. I also love Verbal's writing and this entire thread. Btw you still owe me a story with no K's in it.

Yours,

Special K/spesh/Tracy flick/I swear I had more names/brownköffee
Verbal
Gravelly-Voiced Fucker
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Quote by browncoffee


Btw you still owe me a story with no K's in it.

Yours,

Special K/spesh/Tracy flick/I swear I had more names/brownköffee


Once upon a time there was a sweet and very smart girl named Hannah, who hated a certain letter of the alphabet so much I am scared to even spell it out here, so we will simply call it the LAJ (Letter After J). She hated the letter so much she would cross it out of tomes that she read, paint over it on street signs, and violently twitch whenever she heard a word said which contained the letter.

One night she had a horrible dream. A group of 15 pt Times Roman LAJ's had captured her and were holding her down against her will. She lay terrified, frozen in her LAJ-phobia, of what might happen next. Then suddenly, all the LAJ's held hands, forming a circle around her. They began to dance around her, displaying elaborate moves and serious dance abilities. They began to sing her name, over and over, in lucisous delicate harmonies.

It was delightful.

When the alarm went off the next morning she realized she had been wrong about the LAJ! The LAJ was awesome. She erased all of her crossing out of the LAJ in her tomes, repainted all the street signs on her street. She celebrated her twitchiness being gone with a glass of champagne she had saved for a special occasion.

Something had been missing from life, and now she had found it, and happiness could be hers. What had been missing was the letter...

calx86
Active Ink Slinger
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Very impressive Verbal you have me intrigued. I absolutely must read your stories now smile heart.
browncoffee
Coco Pop
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I love the story. It is possibly one of the greatest stories ever. The LAJ is now of course referred to as K and my use of said K is unkontrollable. I kould not kompliment this fine letter any more than I do. I kan only sing its praises and adore it. The K and I have a special kind of bond. It is such a konsiderate and kareful and kind member of the alphabet. It knocks me out knightly. It is kourageous and kompetent. Never have I known a letter so kickass and kasual and kuietly konfident. Thank you Verbal. and that gif is adorable.
browncoffee
Coco Pop
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P.s. did the K's dab during the dance??
Verbal
Gravelly-Voiced Fucker
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In formatting hell now.

Join me!

Here are the fairly boring details as far as how to format an eBook for Amazon. As far as fonts, I am going with the Georgia font, 24 pt for title, 12 pt for text. Justified text (meaning lines up on the left and the right) (I totally forgot about that until like 2 days ago, I don't like justified text) (I keep forgetting stuff, and having to go back and add it to all the other stories). Single space. One space between sentences (I had to do a find-and-replace on all the stories). No spaces between paragraphs. .2 em indent on each paragraph. DON'T USE TAB TO INDENT YOUR PARAGRAPHS (I had to replace those too).

I learned the ideal way to do format is to import the text into Calibre, mark it up with xhtml, and export it as an .ePub. Fuck that, I just don't have time. I want to launch on the day after Valentine's Day, so I have about 2 months, and one of those months is Christmas, when there is no free time. So I am just gonna make sure the books are formatted cleanly, and hope they look okay.

Added a new expense: I am paying a friend to line-edit the stories. I have WAY too many typos.

That's about it. The logistics behind building 52 books is a little daunting.
julie_slink
Active Ink Slinger
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It sucks you’re in formatting hell, but I actually think those details are pretty interesting. I like to write in Word which I’ve learned causes all kinds of issues with formatting later on. I’ve enjoyed hearing your updates on this project. If I ever get around to publishing on Amazon in the future, I’ll definitely be referring back to this thread. Keep on keeping on.
Verbal
Gravelly-Voiced Fucker
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Can I just say that hiring a line-editor was one of the smarter moves I've made in this whole process. In addition to correcting the typos I so commonly make, she is polishing sentences in simple ways (removing passive verbs, taking out the word began or begin) but it makes the whole story shiny and new to me, and I've been staring at some of these stories for years now.

She also said the Shards are "Henry Miller level brilliant." Yes, she is a good friend and therefore biased, but it is still a compliment that went straight to my head. smile
Verbal
Gravelly-Voiced Fucker
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So I broke the Shards (called Serious Moonlight now) into two pieces, because the whole thing was just too overwhelming.

The first half--26 stories--I am proud of, and they are all up on Amazon, ready to rock: line-edited, fomatted, with covers, categories, key words and burbs. Which buys me til mid-August or so. I have to write a monthly newsletter, and try to support via the web (Facebook, the website/blog), yadayadayada, but otherwise it's a matter of pushing a button once a week.

I am less secure about the second half of the stories, or the back 26, as I call them. Too wordy, too much dialogue. The meat is there, they are good stories, but they are sloppier in execution, and I think I was trying a little too hard. Oh well. I have 6 months to whip them into shape.
RumpleForeskin
The Right Rev of Lush
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Jeff, he wrote: Oh well. I have 6 months to whip them into shape.




Me, I wrote: Jeff, never forget that, 'Tempus do fugit'. ;)

RUMPLATIONS: AwesomeHonky Tonk and Cyber Bar
Home of the Lush "IN" crowd: indecent, intoxicated, and insolvent
a place to gossip, share news, talk sports, pimp a story, piss & moan, or just grab a drink. Check it out.

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwords. -- ROBERT HEINLEIN
Verbal
Gravelly-Voiced Fucker
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Quote by RumpleForeskin
Jeff, he wrote: Oh well. I have 6 months to whip them into shape.

Me, I wrote: Jeff, never forget that, 'Tempus do fugit'. ;)



Believe me Bill, I know. This project is gonna suck up all my time this year, I think, and I need to stay on it. At least it's fun to work on.

Just sold Mindful for $3.

It's a zine called Pink Litter, and right now they are just a glorified Wordpress blog, but they are trying to grow, with an author's hub page, so writers and readers can connect, and they are now paying $3 (they published me last year, before they paid). They also publish ebooks. Anyway, trying to get some exposure (heh).

Found another interesting project while trying to connect with writers/readers: http://mysexlifewithlola.com/. The conceit is that it's all real life, the guy, H H, writes about the sexual adventures of his wife, Lola. It's sounds pretty true, or true-ish. Sadly, the gallery of Lola was on Tumblr and so has been shut down, and the longer stories are off the blog and sold as ebooks. But there is some flash there that is pretty well written and has the ring of truth. Plus, if you ask for a password, Lola will personally email you!
Verbal
Gravelly-Voiced Fucker
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Anybody still reading this? I've been neglecting it for awhile.

So, 15 days to go before launch! I decided at the last second to rearrange the order of many of the stories, to make the whole thing more linear (for those of you who have been following the Shards from the outset, the original idea was that they should be read out of order, but I am making things easier for the readers out there). Anyway, I had to redo a bunch of book covers, and consulted not one but TWO spreadsheets to mak sure I had the numbering and the plotting correct. CRAZY! Sometimes I think I make changes at thhe last second because I get a weird rush from being in panic mode.

Anyway. The first 28 stories are loaded into Amazon and ready to publish with the push of a button. The 19 remaining stories are line edited, but need formatting, covers, keys words and blurbs.

And if you just did the math in your head, you will realize I am 5 stories short of 52. So I have to write those. I have til, like, Christmas of next year to get them written. I am sorta burned out on erotica right now (because of this project mostly), but I will get them written in time. I hope. Plus, I can use the time to massage the order of the last ten-ish stories to give the whole thing a nice wrap-up.

Blog traffic is rising slowly, newsletter is getting the occasionnal new sign-up, Facebook page is even getting a little traction, though I bet my page gets booted by the end of the year due to sexual content.

Anyway, the standard links:

Sign up for the newsletter! https://mailchi.mp/d61b1c236830/seriousmoonlight

My web page is here: https://jgcain.com/

The Amazon page is here: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B07HMMZBH3

Wish me luck!
sprite
Her Royal Spriteness
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good luck!

You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.

Verbal
Gravelly-Voiced Fucker
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So I am two days away from launch!

I hit the Publish button on the book today, because they said it takes up to 72 hours to publish. The book is already up, like 5 minutes after I hit publish, but without the last rewrite, which is "waiting for review." That pisses me off, but what are you gonna do? As the mods here are well aware of, I will rewrite every story at least one more time (even though they've been through like 10 rewrites already). I hope the old version doesn't publish every time. Grrr.

My to do list on Friday:
Add the link to the newsletter announcing the launch and send it out.
Add the link/announcement to the website/blog and publish.
Add the link/announcement to the Serious Moonlight Fakesbook page.
Announce it to my writer's group.
Add the link/announcement to my sig line here.
Obsessively check sales every five minutes all day long.

The embarrassing thing is, I still have 5 more stories to write! I only have 47. But I have til like Christmas to write them.

I took on some added expense to hire a line-editor (and I am glad I did). So if I get 30 people to read the whole thing (or about 1550 total sales) I break even. But I have a year to get there.

All for now. I'll report back when I get some sales.
Verbal
Gravelly-Voiced Fucker
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And we are live! For about an hour now.

This is exciting!

The book:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GY4631Y/

Buy it! Read it! Leave a review!

EDIT: Early glitch! I got an early warning from the lovely and talented Curvygalore, that there were issues buying the book on Amazon UK. I used a link that my writing group suggested - https://books2read.com/ - that allows you to use a universal link, and lets the buyer see all the e-stores selling the book. It worked! And thanks to the kind and generous community here at Lush, I can confirm that German and Ausrailian Amazon's carry the book too. Yay! Bullet dodged!

ANOTHER EDIT: I tried to run a Facebook ad, and they turned it down, saying it's against the TOS to promote sexual content. They didn't take down the page, just didn't allow the ad. So advertising through FB is not an option, if you are looking to publish.

Okay, I'll quit obsessing now. Or more accurately, quit obsessing publicly.
Unknown User
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So sorry I'm very late to the party

I just read this whole thread and I've purchased the first in the new Serious Moonlight series - on Amazon.co.uk, with no issues. All good smile

I'm so happy to see you publishing your work and I wish you all the best with it. Expect another review on Amazon UK and Goodreads in the near future xx
Verbal
Gravelly-Voiced Fucker
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Quote by Saucymh
So sorry I'm very late to the party

I just read this whole thread and I've purchased the first in the new Serious Moonlight series - on Amazon.co.uk, with no issues. All good smile

I'm so happy to see you publishing your work and I wish you all the best with it. Expect another review on Amazon UK and Goodreads in the near future xx


Thanks for the love Mags. You are never late to a party, because it doesn't begin until you arrive. Looking forward to the reviews!

The story that comes out tomorrow is what I like to call the "origin myth" of the relationship (the tagline is "Every relationship has an origin myth; this is theirs.") It's certainly the origin of the other 51 stories. It's a short story called Serious Moonlight, and it won first in a comp and grabbed an EP here. I truly hated pulling it from Lush, as it was the best thing I'd ever written here. And I liked the shiny yellow ribbon on my page. :)

Anyway, it's my attempt to describe the wild altered state of consciousness that D/s sex can pull you into, both her descent into "subspace" and his into "domspace" (I'm not sure that's a thing, but it should be). Very stripped down writing, no descriptions, no character names, almost no backstory. I just throw the reader into the middle of things so that they can experience a little of what the characters experience.

It's basically a long hardcore BDSM sex scene bookended with scenes that show the great love and caring and commitment they feel for each other. Because the two are NOT mutually exclusive. One requires the other. Sex is emotional, and emotion is sexy. Two sides of the same coin.

It releases tomorrow, but it's actually out now (I have to publish early cuz Amazon says they need 72 hours): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PFLNDSW/

Buy it! Or alternately, send me 35 cents in the mail (which is what I'll make in royalties).
Verbal
Gravelly-Voiced Fucker
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A lovely, loving woman talking filthy to her man. What more do you need?

99 cents. Trust me, you'll like it.

Serious Moonlight 5: Leviathan
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PND3DY2
Verbal
Gravelly-Voiced Fucker
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So this is the very first Shard I ever wrote. I remember laying (lying?) with Layla in some hotel bed (this was early in the relationship), telling her how cool it would be to write a series of flash stories that had no storyline, but just tried to capture fleeting, plotless, sexually charged sensations. Sort of like a memory, or a fragment of a dream. In that way these stories try to mimic memory; memories are never linear, they are like flashbulbs going off, a burst of neurons lighting up in your head.

She thought it was cool. We came up with the title Shards that night. We, um, celebrated. I wrote this when I got home, remembering her, missing her.

I even remember the comments on this story, with a couple people going WTF?, taking issue if this was even a story or not, because there was no structure, all it tried to capture was a sexually explosive moment in real time.

Okay. I've rambled on for a bit. Here's the story.

Serious Moonlight 6: Enraptured

It's only 3 paragraphs long. That's 33 cents a paragraph. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that part. smile Tell you what, you buy it, I'll send you 33 cents. A free paragraph!

EDIT: I didn't put the link in right before. Gotta work on those marketing skills. :). Anyway, it works now.
Verbal
Gravelly-Voiced Fucker
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So, actually there are still Shards on Lush, I just don't call them Shards anymore. In my head I think of them as v.3 Shards, meaning the third iteration of the couple's relationship. They are married in all of the stories.

Why? When I started the project, I only had 47 stories ready to go (these have all been pulled). In the process of editing, I cut two more stories. Meaning I have to fill the number out to 52 by mid-year. These are some the stories I wrote to fill the gap, and tie up the storylines.

There will also be two fairly sad Shards coming out soon on Lush. Lest people think LJ and I had a bad patch, let me tell you up front that these are a transition between Safe Word pt. 1 and Safe Word pt. 2, where our couple is recovering from a MMF threesome that didn't go exactly as planned (you gotta buy em to find out what went wrong!).

Anyway, the "new" Shards currently on Lush will probably get pulled in a month or two, before they go onto Amazon. They all revolve around marriage, and most of them feature wedding rings. Read em for free while you can!

They are:

*Firecracker Red

*Schrödinger's Kitten

*Engagement

*Infidelity
Verbal
Gravelly-Voiced Fucker
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A new Shard up. Rain.

It's a quiet, melancholy story, though I think the love they feel toward each other continues to shine through.

There is a lot of ambiguity in this story, built in purposefully, so I am a little reluctant to shed more light on it, but my OCD tendancies are pushing me to explain how it fits in the larger narrative (plus I like having this record of the process involved in the writing of these stories, just for myself). There were two short stories, now gone from Lush, titled Safe Word, part 1 and Safe Word, part 2. They were about a FMM threesome the couple was involved in that went poorly, and makes her feel unsafe. I decided that the stories needed an interlude between the two of them, to emphasize the distance they feel from each other. I wrote Rain to provide that interlude.

The sex in the parking lot that she is remembering, as they sit in the car in the rain, is from another short story, also gone from Lush now, called This Is Not a Game. For her, that story is all about feeling safe. A safety that is missing after Safe Word, part 1.

Anyway. None of those 3 stories are on Lush anymore, and I don't know if anyone even remembers them. But I thought I'd mention how these stoies fit together in the overall narrative.
Verbal
Gravelly-Voiced Fucker
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So. Haven't been on this thread in awhile. smile It's four pages back on the Self Promotion threads!

I FINALLY finished collecting and editing the entire Serious Moonlight collection last night. The list of stories follows, copy-and-pasted out of a long and incredibly unweildy Excel table. There are 44 stories. All of these were on Lush at some point, but only 5 are now (all towards the end of the list - I marked them with an asterisk). I cut 7 of them, including two really long stories that were once gonna be sort of the climax (heh) of the book. And I've rearranged the order more times than I can count.

1 EP, 3 Series Awards, and 25-ish RRs among them.

The first 24 stories went out as Amazon e-books. The entire collection comes out around Valentine's Day, next month, if I can get all my ducks in a row by then.

Business Casual
The Razor Thin Edge
Fire and Ice
Serious Moonlight
Leviathan
Enraptured
Elevation
Mindful
Sexhair
Holes
Domesticity
Pangloss
People Who Bought This Item
The Gravity of Desire
Unmasked
Have a Nice Day
Closing Time
Open Door
Open Window
Open Eyes
Morning Light
The Bridge of His Arms
Symmetry
Fashion
Theater
Art
Dicks
Quicksilver
Viewfinder
Thumbnail
Doppelgangers
You Know Who
Dirty Martini
What Do You See 1
What Do You See 2
This is Not a Game
Rain*
Click
Buttons
Engagement*
Firecracker Red*
Infidelity*
Simple
Drowning*