Natural Exposure on Goodreads
It’s business as usual for Kenzie in her boudoir studio. Every day, fascinating people of all genders stroll through and Kenzie has the privilege of making them shine. She’s photographed the gamut: sultry brides-to-be seeking a naughty gift for their spouse, the confidant trans person showing the world their true self, and triads locked in passion, each moment of their tender lovemaking on display.
Kenzie’s been a part of it all, but never has a client captivated her so completely, until she steps through the door.
Ripley never recuperated from the relationship that irrevocably changed her. Desperate to forget the past, she moves to the progressive town of Bijou Basin, pursuing a fresh start. While acquainting herself with her new life, she notices an advertisement for an erotic nude photographer. On a whim, she books a session, hoping the experience will help her reclaim her identity.
Sparks fly for both women, but Ripley discovers there’s more to Kenzie than meets the eye. Can Ripley accept Kenzie as she is and does she want to date someone so complicated? Can Kenzie prove she’s worth it?
Authors Note: This book features adult themes and language. Themes include: graphic sex, BDSM, Polyamory & LGBTQ+ Characters.
I've been writing these Countdown to publishing posts a few days now if you wanna click on the ----> right to view the others.
OMG did I finally write my blurb?
So I've had a cold the past week or so. Hasn't been awful, but I've been stuffy or sneezy for near a week now. I've still been edited and stuff but have been groggy or not felt 100%. Yesterday I decided to sleep in and I never felt awake most of the day - I couldn't wake up.
Today, I slept in again, but woke up feeling refreshed and came out to the living room, sat and wrote a blurb. A pretty kickass blurb, if I do say so myself. Its a LITTLE longer than the "suggested" length, but no where near some I've seen so I think I can get away with it. It's 169 words - which was NOT done on purpose, so I think the 69 is a sign, since it is an Erotic Romance. :D
Gonna let it sit the day and see what I think later, but I think I might have it. Finally. Wooooo. Now to see how it looks on the back cover...
Forgot to mention, if you haven't checked them out, I've had some others in my week of "Countdown to publication". Click to the right to check them out.
As I get closer to publishing, I'm all over the place in what I've been doing this week. Today, I edited chapters 10, 11 & 12, for wrong/missing words and fillers.
This takes time. What I do first is listen to the chapter in Scrivener, while I follow along word for word. This helps me catch missing words or improper words. The other day, on my own, I found an instance of "stairs" when I meant "stares", so I can't just listen, but listen and read, to make sure I catch everything. When something is repeated in the same paragraph, unless it's done on purpose, I highlight it to change it after the listen-through.
Once the listen-through is complete, I fix anything I highlighted. It used to be a lot of things, not it's just little spots - either something repetitive or something I want phrased different. Then, I run the chapter through the trial version of Pro Writing Aid. This points out all my fillers for me. Sure, I can search for them one by one, but I like how handy PWA does it. So I go through and take out as many fillers as I can. Big ones for me are - just, about, almost, would, all, anything... and some others. I also edit any other issues PWA points out, and then, once I'm satisfied, I move on to the the next chapter. I did this with three chapters today, so it took a while.
I also decided on another graphic for something for the book, so I spent time playing in Photoshop tinkering with that, and I like it. My book's definitely not like others, and I like that.
12 of 26 chapters edited again, so nearly half way. I look forward to when I can write without fillers, as I learn more and get better. I try not to be too hard on myself, I've only been writing a year. :)
Hi, and welcome back. There's two previous "Countdown" posts - did you read them? If you haven't you can see the links to them on the right -----> Go on, I'll wait. *Jeopardy theme music* All done? :)
So, I mentioned I'm close to publishing. What's the hold up? Two THREE things.
1 - I'm still seeking & destroying my fillers, redundant words and repetitive words. The last two are my least offensive and I don't have many, but damn - do I have a lot of fillers! It's a little crazy! :) I saw and retweeted a post about this today. "Just" is my big bad one. I use just for everything and I mean EVERYTHING. At one point, I had well over 100 instances of "just" in my book, I forget exactly how many, I think it was around 150! I worked it down to just (ha) 7, then when I re-wrote the book a few revisions ago, it went back up to 45. Now it's at a manageable 10, though I'm gonna see if I can spare any those. :D Other biggies for me are "about", "around", and "a" anything, such as "a bit", "a little", and "a lot". Since I'm seeking & destroying these, I'm taking the time to once again listen to the book read to me. Scrivener does this, and I LOOOOVE it!! I'd had my Kindle do it for me last year before I got Scrivener, but now I can listen and edit all at once and it's awesome. It's just time consuming.
2 - I gave myself til the 1st (also my wedding anniversary) so I'm taking the time. Putting it up on pre-order (on the 29th or 1st) will give time for a few betas to get back with me, see if I need to make any final changes, as well as starting to advertise and put the book up on Goodreads and such like that. I'm enjoying the whole process and just taking it one day at a time.
3 - I remembered the third thing - how could I forget?! THE BLURB I still don't have one! Ugh!! I can't get it how I want it, and it has become more difficult than any of the book! So my blurb is holding me back. LOL!
Anyone else putting out their first book soon? How are you feeling about it?
If you missed the first post of my new 'Countdown to publishing', click The Countdown Starts to get caught up. Go on, I'll wait.
All good? Good.
*****Disclaimer - these OPINIONS are my own, and that's all they are OPINIONS, so it's alright if we don't agree, and it's likely we don't. You do you, and I'll do me.
So, as I've been on this weird journey the past year, there were times that I thought about how cool it would be to be traditionally published, but as I looked around and read more and learned more, I determined it wasn't the road for me. Sure, it'd be nice to be a household name and recognized, but that's not my goal, at least right now. I'm writing for the enjoyment of it, and to see if anyone likes my stories, and that's about it.
Because of that, I decided to self-publish. The reasons being:
- I have total control over what I want
- I'm a new writer, and in no way perfect, and not polished -yet- but the thought of anyone telling me to remove something or change something in my book? No thank you. Can't do it. I'm not talking edits, I'm talking substance. Good or bad, I want what I want in it - I'll deal with what that means when it's in the world. And that's not to say I wouldn't listen to a suggestion, I have and did change things because of betas, I'm talking about the horror stories I've heard of editors completely changing the story. Nope, not gonna happen.
- Likewise, I would't want anyone telling me not to use my cover because it's not "standard" to erotica. Maybe I don't want to be standard. Maybe I want to stand apart. If that means less sales because my cover doesn't look like everyone else's, so be it. It looks DAMN better than the "cover creator" at KDP. I'm sorry but those options are AWFUL. If you're an erotica writer, and have only used it, let me help you do something, anything, better. I'm not an artist, but I can work with Photoshop and I love my cover. Sure, it's different and not "typical" of erotica, but that's not a bad thing in my eyes.
- I have control over when to publish
- I can't fathom getting a book deal, and being all excited about it and then being all "your publish date is 2 years away". That would drive me NUTS! Sure, if you're established and you have a backlog of books - no biggie, but just starting out and trying to get out there? Nah. It's nuts.
- I have the time to dedicate to marketing
- Am I going crazy with it? Probably not. But if I should choose to, I could. I have time, and I have computer knowledge for blogs or creating advertising and such. Do I want to do more than I have - sure, and I will. I'm not anal about it. I've been enjoying editing the past few months and now I've been working on the formatting of my book. Instead of "Chapter 1" each chapter, I have a graphic, and today I was inserting the graphics. I also have a graphic denoting time passing in the book during chapters, so I inserted those. I've been wanting to do more here, so hence these blog posts. I do what I wanna do when I wanna do it, with the book and marketing.
- Royalties
- So I'm not writing to make money - like I don't think I'll be a best seller and make life changing or even life sustaining money. Hey, never say never, and if that's what happens well I'll be joyous, but if I was just to make some spending money on a few sales then I'll be thrilled. That said, I don't wanna share that with anyone else. If my book sells 10 copies, 100 copies or if it sold 1000 copies, I'll be glad no matter what. But that's MY hard work and no one else's, so I'll be glad to take my royalties from those 10, 100 or 1000 copies.
I know, I've so not been regular updating here, but that stops now - for a while at least, because no promises. :D Just because I haven't updated here doesn't mean I haven't been doing much. I've been doing a lot in fact, on this crazy journey, so here's a recap for anyone just joining me.
Hello. I'm Koriana and I'm a woman in my early 40s. I've never written creatively before, because while I thought I would enjoy it, I always thought I lacked the ideas to write. I still think that sometimes, and in fact, ideas are the hardest aspect of writing for me. If I have the ideas, the writing part is easier.
Anyways, all that changed exactly a year ago when a penpal sent me a writing prompt at the end of February. It was just meant as an exercise between us, and I should have written a few hundred words and that was the end of it. Instead, I wrote over 2300 words. Another pal, an author, encouraged me to expound on it, so from there, I turned the 2300 words into five chapters and around 16k, if memory serves me correctly. Around this time (mid-March) I learned about Camp NaNoWriMo and decided 'what the hell'. I decided I'd do Camp, see if I could write any more for a full blown story. And since I was jumping in, I challenged myself to write 50k.
I ended up writing 50,306 words! As a pantser - which I didn't even know what that was at the time. I just sat and wrote and book 1 came out... well the first draft of course.
Now, a year later, the tenth (ish) draft is in the final stages. I've given myself a self-imposed deadline, otherwise I'll keep tinkering. The day I set for myself is March 1st, so either on the 29th or the 1st, I'll be putting my book up for pre-orders. I don't have a definitive date for release, but I'm hopeful within the month of March. :D
I can't believe I'm even writing this, or that I've written that!
All through this time, I'll be writing blog posts about it, as a person who never thought I'd write anything or do anything like this.
If there's anything specific you'd like me to blog about - leave me a comment!
