The Corporate Censorship of Erotica

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Cora

In recent weeks, there has been an attack on certain types of indie erotica. It started with Bookstrand, a site I investigated but never used, banning first some of the more fringe types of erotica and finally indie authors altogether. OmniLit/AllRomance ebooks, a site I do use, was next. Same story, erotica gets its own ghetto without any subclassifications and certain kinds of erotica are now unacceptable altogether. In addition to the underage sex, incest, bestiality, necrophilia and rape erotica, so-called pseudo-incest (featuring stepsiblings or stepparents and stepchildren) as well as barely legal erotica featuring 18 to 20-year-old women is now unacceptable as well. Oh yes, and BDSM is apparently a no-go as well.

More under the cut. And since we’re talking about erotica here, the content might bother more sensitive people: Continue reading →

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February 2012 E-Book Sales Figures and Some Links

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Cora

After a pretty good December and January, my February e-book sales were back to miserable, though a last minute sale saved February from being my worst month ever. So now February is tied with August 2011 for the title of worst month ever with 8 e-book sales across all platforms.

The detailed sales breakdown is as follows:

Amazon US: 4
Amazon UK: 2
Amazon DE: 1
DriveThruFiction: 1

What’s notable here is that Non-Amazon sales and Amazon DE sales remained constant. Amazon UK sales are on the low end, but still within normal range. However, sales on Amazon.com collapsed. I have no idea why this is.

And now for some links:

David Gaughran has a fascinating post about the Amazon bestseller and popularity lists (which are not the same thing), how they work and how KDP Select can affect ranking on the popularity list.

J.W. Manus has a great post about how even the tech-challenged can design their own covers and self-publish their own stories and why every writer should give it a try.

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A Leap Day Link and an Interview

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Cora

Today I’m interviewed by fantasy and YA writer Emily Ann Ward on her blog. Come on over and say hello. The links to all interviews I have done are also archived on the interview page.

Meanwhile, Indie Reader discusses the pros and cons of exclusivity clauses like those required by KDP Select.

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New Release: “He has come back to me…”

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Cora

February 29th is a day that only comes every four years. And here at Pegasus Pulp, we celebrate this unique day with the rerelease of two out of print science fiction stories, “He has come back to me…” and Contact Renewed, in a bumper edition. Both stories feature the same characters, albeit at a distance of twenty-five to thirty years.

"He has come back to me..." At the age of five, Steffi saw an UFO landing in the car park of the local bank. Of course, the UFO might just have sprung from the imagination of a lonely child missing her best friend who had recently moved away. But Steffi’s older sister Carrie saw it, too. Or did she?

Now an adult, Steffi is an astronomer working at a facility searching the depth of space for the extraterrestrial life she knows must exist. Because she saw it, when she was five, even if no one wants to believe her. And Carrie saw it, too, even if she never talks about it. But it takes a data readout with far-reaching implication to persuade Steffi that maybe she should talk to her estranged sister again about what happened on that autumn day so many years ago…

A bumper edition of two interlinked science fiction stories about two sisters and their contact with aliens and with each other.

For more information, visit the dedicated “He has come back to me…” page.
Buy it for the low price of 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP
at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, DriveThruFiction, OmniLit/AllRomance ebooks and XinXii.

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Cora contemplates getting an e-reader

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Cora

I posted some of my deliberations about getting an e-reader over at my main blog.

So far, I haven’t decided on any of the available readers, and I haven’t even checked out the Weltbild reader yet.

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New Book Trailer for El Carnicero

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Cora

I had so much fun using xtranormal to make a book trailer for the Silencer series that I went and made another trailer for El Carnicero, my regency adventure romance.

Xtranormal offers cartoon versions of historical figures, so the trailer features Napoleon Bonaparte himself who is not at all amused about El Carnicero, since the titular villain is one of his officers.

I’ve also edited the Silencer trailer, since I wasn’t happy with the automatic camera positions. If you want to watch the trailers again, I also have a new page for videos and book trailers.

I’m really happy with how those films turned out, so check them out behind the cut: Continue reading →

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Outlaw Love is a Bestseller

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Cora

Outlaw Love already is my bestselling story and hit the lesbian fiction bestseller list on Amazon UK last month.

Now, however, Outlaw Love is a bonafide triple bestseller on Amazon Germany:

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New Book Trailer for the Silencer series

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Cora

I made a book trailer for my Silencer stories via xtranormal, a cool site where you can make movies using CGI characters.

Check it out below the cut: Continue reading →

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A book pimping post and the problem of free

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Cora

First of all, happy book release day to Elke Marion Weiß whose debut crime novel Triangel is published today. A Kindle edition is also available. Elke was one of my teachers at university.

Chuck Wendig weighs in on KDP Select and particularly on the glut of free books and what it means in the long run. I share many of his reservations.

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An Interview and Some Links

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Cora

First of all, I’ve got another interview up. This time around, I was interviewed by Peter Joseph Lewis at Why Did You Write That? Drop by and say hello.

And now for a couple of links:

Writer Ian Duncan responds to the recent and not so recent anti e-book rants by Jonathan Franzen, Ray Bradbury and Maurice Sendak.

At Eviscerati, Christopher Wright offers his view on KDP Select with a digression into the history of the indie music scene. Found via The Passive Voice.

In this thread on the Kindleboards, two international authors report that some of their books were suddenly blocked by Amazon, because it turned out after several months that those books were in an “unsupported” language, Russian and Romanian respectively. I find this very troubling, because it again shows that Amazon doesn’t particularly care about readers and writers outside its favoured countries.

But while Amazon is cracking down on authors daring to write in “unapproved” languages, they are far less proactive in stopping actual scammers and plagiarists. Dear Author reports of two cases of obviously plagiarized e-books for sale at Amazon.

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