I ought to laugh but I’m not sure I can…

I recently made a few changes to the text of Ali’s Art. I uploaded these to Kindle and also to Smashwords last weekend so the updated version was available for the read an eBook week.

I have now just received an email from Smashwords saying the book cannot be included in the extended distribution channel because it needs changing. The change they require is:

Please obscure/cover over the woman’s nipple and areola in the photo inside the front of your book. When you’re finished correcting your book, go to Dashboard: ‘upload new version’ to upload the new version. Thanks.

Here’s the image.

It seems the move by PayPal and the Credit Card companies is spreading it’s wings even wider. Now I can’t have a drawing of a woman who displays her nipples inside my book. This isn’t on the cover, it’s an interior image!

Scary, scary times for writers of erotica.

Censorship in Erotica

Selena Kitt recently raised a number of posts on the groundswell of censorship being instigated, it seems, by PayPal and others. They are pulling the plug, one by one, on any sites that sell material they deem offensive. While some might agree with their categorizations – incest, rape and bestiality – they also include pseudo-incest; that is, sexual relations between adults who are step-relations and not blood relations. Like Woody Allen?

Censorship is a weird thing. What offends me may not offend you, and vice-versa, and there are lines across which 99.99% of people are likely to agree should not be crossed, but the blanket application of these categories to Erotica are dangerous.

The ban would seem to apply only to Erotica that crosses these boundaries. For instance, rape is a frequent motif in thriller and detective fiction.  Incest appears to be acceptable provided it is contained in a work of “literary” merit, for example  Arundhati Roy‘s The God of Small Things, as well as in works by a myriad of other writers both popular and literary. In some way I might be able to understand the distinction, because Erotica’s main purpose is to arouse, and using taboo subjects to cause arousal may disturb some people. The big problem I have is where this might lead.

PayPal is not banning these topics, they are saying you can publish what you like but we will not allow you to use our services to pay for them. From my point of view this is a subtle and even more dangerous form of censorship. Where might it end? An extra 5% on Taxes for writers of erotica?

Tread warily, my friends, because the people behind all of this are even madder than those of us that write this stuff!

SIGN THE PETITION TO STOP INTERNET CENSORSHIP

JOIN “AMAZON CENSORS” ON FACEBOOK

Ali

This last week I’ve commissioned J.D. Strobe to create a cover for Ali’s Art. I’ve always created my own cover art in the past, but I’m making a little money from this writing game now so I wanted to see what difference a professional cover might make.  So far I’m knocked out with what she’s done and wanted to share the first results of her work.

This only her preliminary sketch, but it’s so close to what I have in my head with this book it’s spooky. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

In case you want to find out more about J.D. you can find her website here.

Ali’s Art

Well, this took me by surprise. I was working on a couple of new things – Part 2 of Cherri Red and a new non-erotic fantasy novel, then read about how a writer needs to have as many titles out there as possible, wondering how I could do that when it takes so long to write and edit each book when I realized I’ve got a whole back catalog of things I published on an erotic fiction site a while back. These were attempts at writing in a different voice, from a male perspective. From the feedback I received I was not as successful as I’d planned because although they contain a lot of sex, the men have been accused of being too female in their thought processes.

Anyway, I dusted them off, re-wrote some sections and the first of these is currently undergoing an extensive edit. I thought I’d start with the blockbuster!

Ali’s Art was originally a 13 part story series. I’ve merged them into one, taken some bits out and added others. At the moment it’s coming in around 140,000 words. That’s about 550 pages!

I’m half way through the edit and hoping to publish some time around the start of December. Alongside this I’m continuing with the new works, but over the coming months I’ll be bringing out a number of these re-edited works.

To check out a sample of Ali’s Art click here to read the first chapter.

Some comments on the original Ali’s Art series (I love this first one, made me laugh out loud):

So, normally I dislike an author who spends so much time teasing, hinting and doing everything BUT consummating the intended main character/s relationship for too long a period. Normally after two chapters of that sort of teasing I get REALLY BORED, frustrated and just plain pissed off with the audacity of an author. It’s not like I don’t appreciate a good tease. It’s more that there are other ways to tease. There are other methods to draw out a story….. Like the inclusion of a ripping good plot, solid supporting characters, effortless writing skills and silky smooth details. Another thing that REALLY FUCKING SHITS ME UP THE FUCKING WALL is when an author spends over 5000 words getting to the first sex scene… No matter what type of sex it is, this site IS an erotic fiction site. If an author is more interested in stretching out a plot, stretching out the sex scenes, and generally being an idiot, then I move on. Sometimes I vote really low, sometimes I don’t bother. Sometimes I rant and rage in a comment about how poor the skills are, how unobservant the author is, how obtuse they are being, either deliberately or unintentionally. 

You? Well, you tick most of the boxes above. The work takes far too long to get to the hinted at climax of the story. It’s almost as if you, as an author, didn’t want the scene to be written. It’s almost as if the characters themselves didn’t want to do it. But, for all of that, this story remains a watershed for me. Not in terms of content, not in terms of style. Not in terms of details, or writing skills, or in terms of character development, nor in the fact that the entire story has had me horny as hell from start to finish…. But for the fact that, as an author, you made it all so effortless.


Just fucking wonderful! Great Story, great series! Wonderful again!


 It was an emotional highly charged sexual journey that was heartfelt. Love your writing.


Cherri Red 1 now available

Summer Secrets, book 1 of the Cherri Red lesbian romance is now available on Amazon’s Kindle store:

View on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk by clicking the links.

Summer Secrets can also be purchased from Smashwords and is currently being processed to be available as a paperback as well.


The year Dani Walker turns eighteen summer camp will change her life.

Dani has come each year to Pinecrest Lake but this is her first time as counselor. A chance meeting when her bus breaks down triggers an infatuation she never expected and doesn’t welcome. At camp two years before a traumatic event convinced Dani she would never find love again. This year she discovers she has been looking in the wrong place.

For Cheryl Redmond this is her first summer camp. She doesn’t know what to expect – certainly not to fall in love with Dani. Neither girl can admit their feelings, seeking other means of satisfaction with two male counselors.

Dani and Cherri battle to conceal their growing desire for each other, afraid of rejection, not aware the attraction is mutual until in a dilapidated barn, amid the scent of hay, obsession spills over into passion, their summer secret finally revealed.

Summer Secrets: Cherri Red Book 1 is set in the hothouse world of summer camp where love, lust and passions run high. The first in an explicit lesbian trilogy from international best-selling erotic author JT Harding, Summer Secrets will charm, arouse and shock in equal measure.

Cherri’s Diary Day 26

Well what d’ya know!

After I wrote only yesterday how Dan was acting strange we only got ourselves moved into the same fucking cabin. Separate rooms, of course, but she’s still only over the corridor from me and last night I almost wore myself out jilling off thinking about her only feet away. Almost as good as the real thing, could be as good as the real thing, good enough anyway to stop me attacking her like I’ve been afraid I’m about to.

Of course, Dan can’t stay cold now I’m living in her hut. We sat talking until real late and when I got up I went through to see her and there she was, soft and sleepy in bed and I had to make an excuse and left otherwise I’d have ended up in there with her. What a thought!

The summer’s looking up.

Cherri’s Diary Day 24

I’ve fucked up, big time. Maybe coming on to Dan, even just a little the other night scared her off, but whatever I’ve done, whatever’s changed, I don’t like it.

Dan’s acting like she doesn’t want to know me anymore. I think I’ve screwed things, really screwed things and I’m scared because I don’t want to spend the summer not being friends with Dan. I can live with not kissing her, that was just a stupid fucking pipe dream anyway, I can live with not touching her, live with not copping the occasional feel of boob or ass when I think she won’t notice, but not seeing her at all?

I’m sitting here crying. Me. Cherri Red, the girl who laughs at everything, the girl who makes out she hasn’t a care in the world.

Tomorrow I’m gonna call Dan out, find out what’s going on. And if I have to tell her how I feel.