I was in Library Journal and I didn't even know it, or how to be media savvy when promoting your book

It's fitting that as I'm in the midst of planning my upcoming online course on How To Get Publicity for Your Book, Event or Creative Project, yesterday I found out that back in March, Library Journal wrote up my Bluestockings Best Women's Erotica reading. The one I frantically ran around the Lower East Side to get cupcakes for, the one my heart was pounding with stress over, the one I was convinced nobody would attend because it didn't get listed in Time Out New York or the other papers as far as I know plus it was cold out and a Saturday night in New York with umpteen other cool things to do. By that point, I'd been traveling on and off for a few weeks for book events and was pretty exhausted and burned out, living in NYC hotels for a few days. While I was thrilled to be reading with the four authors I'd published for the first time (one reading her first published erotica story, one her first in print), I was frazzled.

But despite my fears and franticness and concern that I'd be stuck with all the cupcakes, people came and listened and ate and asked us really great questions, which you can read more about in the Library Journal article. This series has been a complete and total learning curve for me, and often feels like I'm just starting out in anthology editing, rather than 60+ books and 13 years in...and I mean that in a good way. Because I think over the years I'd gotten stale and lazy at my job as an editor. I'd done the bare minimum: select stories, put them in order, maybe slap up a Tumblr site and post a few Tweets, then let the publisher take over. Yes, along the way I've done book trailers and events and virtual book tours and I'm sure other things, but the anthology creation and promotion process had felt both somewhat out of my control and secondary to my life. I told myself that I had to focus on other aspects of my career, like freelance writing (and now, copywriting), which is true in the sense that those aspects bring me income that arrives on a more consistent basis than widely varying quarterly royalty statements. But it was also an excuse to not push myself to be the best anthology editor I could be.

When I took over this series, following in the very brilliant leadership of the first two editors, Marcy Sheiner and Violet Blue, I knew I wanted to step up my game, and I have. I've done so many things differently with this series, which I'll detail in their own post, but some of them include: Only allowing new authors per volume, hiring an outside copyeditor from Volume 2 onward (who is a lifesaver), hiring a social media assistant who made quote graphics for every story in Volume 2, launching Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram accounts that I keep regularly updated, making sure authors see both their copyedited stories and the copyedited proofs of the book so they can carefully proofread their stories, doing outreach directly to bookstores about the titles and planning book tour events many months in advance.

Where I fell down on the job last year was doing sufficient media outreach, especially in New York, because time got away from me and I was in a post-election fog for a few months where all I was really excited about was playing bingo. Where I excel, though, is learning from my mistakes, so I'm booking my next readings over six months in advance and will be making detailed media lists so I can contact them and follow up at the appropriate times. I know how to do media outreach because I ran a reading series for five years that was written up in almost all the local media. I hustled every single month for In The Flesh because I knew it was on me to bring a crowd and that nobody wants to read to two people in the audience. I actually loved that part of the job because it had a rhythm to it that was easy to repeat each month; being out of practice and only running a few events a year means that those skills are rusty. Plus I live in suburbia so am not as up on what local people in any given city are reading.

That being said, I've done my best to keep track of all the media the Best Women's Erotica of the Year series has garnered so that I can use that to make the series grow, both in sales, bookstores stocking it and reach. We got a huge unexpected and incredible bit of national publicity when the wonderful Bea and Lea Koch, owners of Culver City, California romance bookstore The Ripped Bodice (check out their Summer Read-Along Bingo on their site and stay tuned because I'm planning to teach another erotica writing class there in late February) mentioned it and in the May issue of Cosmopolitan, which also ran the cover of Volume 2. I'm working on a media list for galleys for Volume 3 now while also spreading the word as wide and far as I can about the call for submissions for Volume 4, which is the last one I'm currently contracted to edit, so I gave it a timely theme: outsiders and risk.

But even I, who thinks I'm so diligent and on top of things, can miss things, like the Library Journal article. I didn't realize there was a reporter there and if I had, I would have made sure they confirmed that all my authors wanted to be photographed. My authors' privacy is paramount to me, because if I breach that, I should quit anthology editing immediately and never return. I would never deliberately compromise that, but I had no idea they were there, hence I didn't look for the article, hence I found it yesterday when a publicist whose services I can't afford emailed me to tell me that my book was mentioned in Publishers Weekly.

As it turns out, Volume 3 got a mention in a roundup of fall romance and erotica titles. Woo-hoo! That's wonderful and I hope will go a long way toward having bookstores and libraries offer it to their patrons. While I was searching for that, I decided to check out Library Journal, and here we are. So these lessons will be going into my upcoming online class (stay tuned for launch news): Track your media mentions like a hawk. Never rely on anyone else to keep you updated. Be diligent with your Google alerts. Regularly search for yourself and your book title in prominent publications.

Don't worry, I'm not beating myself up over missing this, but am simply grateful I found it because I can now use it to let the stores I'm contacting about 2018 events know that my event just might get written up and get their store some publicity and that I know how to bring in audiences. In the Bluestockings case, I reverted to my old trick of bringing free cupcakes, because old habits die hard and there's a little part of the people pleasing side of me that thinks just an erotica reading isn't enough, and I'm happy to shell out for snacks or desserts (hello, business expense!) again if stores think it will draw people in.

I'm pretty sure now that the reason on a cosmic level that I was selected to edit this series is both to publish as many authors as I can (once Volume 4 comes out in December 2018, I will have published over 80 authors in the series) and to keep me on my toes. To keep me always with what the Buddhists call monkey mind. To keep me constantly brainstorming new ideas, trying new experiments, finding ways to reach people that I may not have thought of before, reaching for the stars and learning lessons from what works and what doesn't. It's challenging, because sometimes it feels overwhelming, like now when I'm working on finalizing Volume 3, planning a book tour and making sure Volume 4 gets amazing submissions. It's especially so because it's so different from the other work I do, where there's a fixed rate by the hour or project. This work has no fixed rate because it's all dependent on how many books are sold, and at a certain point you have to let go and realize you have no control over that. But the parts I can control? I am determined to hit them out of the park. And I have faith that I will be rewarded for this work, and that these books are reaching both newcomers to erotica and those who've been reading it longer than I have.

Why my Best Women's Erotica of the Year book tour is only going to 4 cities

When I sent out my most January newsletter announcing the Best Women's Erotica of the Year Volume 2 book tour, a few people asked me, "How come you're not come to my city?" (Side note, if you're a newsletter subscriber, read it above or in your inbox and enter to win a copy of my female orgasm anthology Orgasmic by January 22nd!)



So I wanted to answer that question here. Whether I do any book readings at all, and how many I do, boils down to three main factors: time, money and people. I'll break them each down.

Time

Especially since the middle of last year when I started working in an office again for the first time since 2011, my time is much more limited. I'm taking three unpaid days off to do this tour, and that's only four dates. If I could have scheduled them all to avoid taking days off, I would have, but I also have to accommodate the stores' available dates and the days they feel will have the best turnout, along with the availability of my readers. To my mind, there's no point in doing an event on a night that nobody shows up to readings. In addition to scheduling, there's also getting to the event and back home. The other time factor that I would imagine people don't realize is the numerous hours of promotion leading up to an event. I learned when I was running my reading series In The Flesh that you have to reach people in as many ways as possible, so for the few months leading up to my readings, I research every avenue possible to let people know. Then I add my event listings everywhere from Yelp to Craigslist to Eventful to Galleycat, send them to the local newspapers and alt weeklies and blogs, have my publisher send the book and the event details, post on message boards, etc. All of that is very time consuming, and probably not something I could do, or at least, do well, if I had 10 events at once. I would rather do 4 events where I know I did everything I could to get people to attend and, hopefully, have good turnout, than 10 events where I was too frazzled to do anything more than a half-hearted effort.

Money

Money is directly linked with time, in that the time I'm doing all of the above, I'm not doing any paid work. Now, indirectly, hopefully, a book tour helps generate sales and visibility and publicity, which in the long run translates into more money for me, but in the short term, my book tours are huge expenses. I organize and fund my book tour myself, so in addition to the days off work I'm taking (I'm a freelancer so I only get paid for the days I'm actually working), here are some of the expenses involved: having promotional postcards made, mailing postcards, travel (airfare, hotel, taxis and Uber), meals while traveling, payment to authors (I am paying authors traveling outside of their home city $50 to help cover their travel costs). I also believe it's only right to support the stores that are supporting my work so I will likely buy one or more books at each venue. I haven't done the math yet, but I will likely have spent around $2,000 on this tour, not counting the days off I'm taking. Let's be widely generous and say I will sell 20 books at each event (that's most likely not going to happen and I'm not even sure if stores bring in that many for an event), my royalties would be $101.60, which I would receive in early August.

In other words, I'm losing money on doing this or any other book tour, in the short term. So why do I do it at all? Several reasons. For one, it's simply in my blood. I've been organizing readings since my first short story, "Monica and Me," was published way back in 2000. I believe that words don't only live on the page, and should be enjoyed live in front of people to truly gauge their impact. I also know that most bookstores stock very little to no erotica, so to have the genre take center stage alongside all the other valuable and important books being published is a sign that we don't want to be relegated to some back corner somewhere or solely read in secret on e-readers. I love that I'm getting to read at the same bookstore that Jon Hamm recently did an event in. I want more visibility not just for my books but for the genre as a whole. I subscribe to numerous bookstores' mailing lists and simply don't see a lot of erotica events listed. I'm deeply grateful to all the independent bookstores from Asheville to Anchorage who have chosen to stock Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 2, amongst the hundreds of thousands of books they could have stocked, and I want to make sure everyone from casual browsers to regular customers knows that those stores have these offerings.

I believe it's also valuable for my book's word of mouth to be seen in a "coming soon" display, to appear in a bookstore's newsletter and social media, to be listed in local media (thank you, Time Out LA!), and to simply be talked about. Maybe someone will see it and not think anything of it but in a month or a year will get curious and remember, "Hey, I saw that book of erotica at ___ store. I'm going to see if it's up my alley." I'll also be sharing photos and video on Twitter and Instagram and follow the BWE Facebook page because in Boston on February 9 I'm going to do my first Facebook Live! Yes, I'm a little nervous, just as I'm always nervous before I do a reading, but I'm also excited. I also believe it's useful for my authors, many of whom are doing a public reading for the first time (for some, this is their first published erotica story, or first in print). Since I got my start organizing readings and doing them for anthologies I was published in, I want to give this opportunity back to my authors. This deserves its own post, but part of my vision for the Best Women's Erotica of the Year series is that it's one where readers come to read sexy stories but also find new to them authors to follow as their careers blossom and grow, and live readings are part of that. They can build lifelong fans who may not remember everything they read, but are far likely to remember having heard the author speak the words with their own unique way of telling a story.

To put it another way, I'm a gambler. I actually don't go to the casinos within ten minutes of my home because of that, but with my books, I'm willing to gamble my own money that they are worth the effort and expenditure, that the cumulative impact of doing several readings in a row under the guise of a "book tour" is sending the right message to the universe. I wish it were as simple an equation as, the more time and money you invest in your book, the better it does in the marketplace. Of course it's not. There's myriad factors that go into whether a book is a hit with readers and book buyers, but I want to position this series, which is the culmination of my 17 years in the erotica genre, to do the best it possibly can. The better this book sells, the more resources I have for the next two volumes and, hopefully, my publisher will be happy with the series' progress and ask me to edit more of them.

People

While time and money determine how many cities I can visit and how much I can spend on these events, the determining factor in which cities I actually book events in is people. For instance, I love feminist bookstore Book Woman in Austin (shop there! It's a treasure trove for book lovers), but I don't think there are any authors in Best Women's Erotica of the Year 1 or 2 anywhere in Texas. Ditto for many other locations I'd love to visit. It doesn't make sense for just the editor of an anthology to do an appearance. So I scan each volume and see where the largest concentration of authors are located, see if they are interested, and make my plans around that. I have authors in each volume who live outside the United States, which I think makes the books stronger and more varied, but it leaves more limited options for events. I love that we get insight into dating culture in the Philippines, but I obviously can't afford to go there for a reading.

In this case, two of my authors are traveling from northern California for our Los Angeles reading at Skylight Books on January 31, and several are traveling for the others. That to me is an incredible honor, that someone would give up their own time and effort to take part in a reading I organized. That makes me all the more determined that they get a big crowd to hear their dirty words! I don't believe in unpaid labor or exploiting authors, so this year I offered that extra payment to my authors who are traveling to readings.

One of the great aspects of editing a series like this, though, is that as the years go by, I have a larger pool of readers to choose from, so even if there weren't enough people the first time, there may be next time. While this tour is mainly focused on Volume 2, Jade A. Waters and D.R. Slaten from Volume 1 are also reading with us, and I will probably read selections from each volume.

So that is my very long-winded way of describing how my book tours operate. Obviously, authors with big publishers likely have a very different setup that doesn't involve out of pocket costs (though it may). I'll end by saying that I would greatly appreciate you helping to spread the word about these four events. I always poll attendees after events to see where they heard about them, and amazingly, I get a wide range of response; it's rare that 80% heard about it from one source. So you telling your friend in LA or Baltimore or New York or Jersey City about this event is extremely valuable and helpful. Below are the links to the individual venues and the Facebook event pages if you want to spread the word that way. We're also doing Q&As after each event so you can ask me and the authors anything about erotica, writing, publishing or whatever else you're curious about. The better this tour does, the more likely it is that I'll do it again next year in new cities!

Best Women's Erotica of the Year book tour, 2017

January 31, 7:30 pm, Skylight Books, Los Angeles, Facebook event page

February 9, 6:30 pm, Sugar, Baltimore (Hampden), Facebook event page

February 11, 7 pm, Bluestockings, New York City (Lower East Side), Facebook event page

February 13, 7:30 pm, WORD, Jersey City (half block from Grove Street PATH Station), Facebook event page

Why I organized a 2017 book tour for Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 2

Every year, I tell myself some version of: You need to stay home, be responsible, save money. Readings are not the most efficient use of your very limited financial resources. Sometimes I listen to that voice, because it does speak a certain kind of cold, hard, practical truth, but sometimes I go rogue and listen to my book loving heart, which tells me that short term loss is okay because what I gain in the long term, as an anthology series editor, person and event organizer, will worth it. I did that when I booked a mini book tour for Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 2.

mini book tour for

I wanted to share both the tour dates (with one more to be added hopefully in Jersey City) and also why I did it. Because it's true that readings, while technically free to organize, cost money in terms of hours spent booking and promoting, wages lost to travel to them, travel costs and promotion costs. I don't know exactly how many readings I've organized over the years, but likely close to 100 if you count my reading series In The Flesh, which had around 60 readings over 5 years, so I've definitely weighed the pros and cons. While there are plenty of cons, like the fact that you are always at the mercy of weather and competing events, the pros I decided in this case outweigh them for me.

So even though it's literally impossible for me to make back the actual money I'll be spending on book sales, since a good night would be selling maybe 20 books, hence earning around $20 in royalties, I still love making readings happen. It's in my blood; I organized one for the very first story I got published, "Monica and Me" in Best Lesbian Erotica 2001. That reading was at Bluestockings and I remember being amazed that authors would come from all over the country to read from this book, and that little old nobody me could get my event listed in places like Time Out New York. That felt as thrilling as getting published. The funny thing is actually standing in front of a crowd has always terrified me. I don't revel in being up on stage reading the dirty words I've written in privacy to people who are staring at me, eagerly awaiting their erotic entertainment.

So it's a paradox: I love creating readings and making those spaces where people can hear sexy stories, but the part I enjoy most is being get host, the instigator, the one running the show. I do read, and often choose to read other people's work because it's easier for me personally than reading my own. But as I tell my students and authors, reading your work aloud is one of the best ways to truly hear what you're writing, to catch things beyond typos that go to the heart of your story. Is there an extra pause that doesn't need to be there? Should certain words be moved or removed? Would it sound better to add a line or a noise or punctuation mark? The bonus of reading to an audience rather than just yourself is that you get to hear how your words affect people. Do they laugh where you expected them to, or in other places you never would have thought anyone would chuckle? Do you find yourself grinning or cringing inside at certain lines? Do you wonder why you even wrote that one section?

For authors, I think doing readings is something you should say yes to if you can, since it does provide this invaluable feedback that we so rarely get. People remember readings; they are moved by them. They listen closely, and they hear the lines far differently than they do when they are sitting at home reading them. Maybe they hear them similarly to when they listen to an audiobook, but they still don't hear them in the voice of the author (unless the author has narrated the audiobook). You might tell a very brief aside at the beginning or after your story (or sometimes during) that sheds light on it; you might find yourself falling in love with a twist you gave to a scene and imbuing it with something even stronger than the black text on a white page.

As for me, I decided ultimately that I was willing to give up that day or two of paid wages and truly invest my time and money in my book, because I urgently want it to succeed. It may not be "cool" to so shamelessly say that, but it's true. I am pouring my heart and soul, my time, my social media assistant's time, my entire erotica focus, into making the Best Women's Erotica of the Year series successful. It may or may not work, it's too early to tell (but I was very impressed with the first quarter sales of Volume 1), but I feel like I owe it to the series, having taken it over from two esteemed, wonderful editors, and having decided I want to publish a different set of authors with each volume, to honor those authors, to do right by my publisher and mostly to know in my heart I did every single thing I could to help these books. Readings do that by getting the books into stores that may not have stocked it otherwise (or may have stocked only one copy), by bringing the book to the attention of the local community and to customers of those stores, and by being listed in local media. It's also a great way to support small local businesses, because you are bringing new audiences into those stores. I've done events at Sugar and Bluestockings (as I mentioned, the home of the very first reading I organized 15 years ago), but never at Skylight Books. My hope is that if it goes well, it will also help pave the way for other erotica events at that store, so it's also a way to spread the word that erotica is a worthy genre, not just something people read on the sly in private, but something people are eager to hear in public.

Plus it's not only the people who show up to a reading who count in terms of awareness of your title, but every single person who is exposed to the name of your book. Maybe they see the event listed in the store's calendar or in the local paper, or see a postcard or poster or other promo material around the store. Maybe they ask a friend to join them; maybe they wind up looking up the book, or the next time they see it months later remember, "Oh yeah, that author did an event..." I really think readings are an invaluable, long-term way of putting your book cover and title into people's minds. It also makes me feel pretty badass, to borrow Jen Sincero's bestseller's term, to book these readings myself. Yes, some people have their publishers do this for them, but I really enjoy the process of personally reading out to stores (some never get back to you, and that's okay too) and doing all the logistics. It makes me feel in control and proud as a businesswoman, and reminds me that all those years of booking readings weren't for naught; they taught me a range of skills that are mostly dormant in my daily suburban life but can be revived easily.

Lastly, for me as an anthology editor, a live book event is a way to meet my authors in person, when they've previously only existed in my inbox. Yes, I follow them on social media and may know a bit about them, but I don't know their face or their voice, and getting to know them during readings is a wonderful feeling. I want this series to be about building a community of authors who support each other's work, including and going beyond their stories in the books, and readings help foster that. And putting my marketing hat back on, you can share the readings via broadcasts if you desire (like Facebook live), videos, and photos to amplify the effect.

All that to say, I truly hope you can make one of our free readings (the Jersey City event I hope to have news about soon and will be more of a party atmosphere), and whether you can or can't, I'd greatly appreciate you helping to spread the word. Readings only work if there's an audience there to hear them, and part of why I booked these so many months in advance, in addition to making travel bookings easier (Amtrak is so much cheaper when you book far ahead) is that I wanted to have the most time possible to share these dates and make sure anyone in Los Angeles, Baltimore or New York could mark their calendars. You can also find all of these on the press and events page of bweoftheyear.com and can use the Facebook event links to easily share these readings with your networks. Contributors from Volume 1, including Jade A. Waters and D.R. Slaten, will also be joining us (so there's another reason to do readings: giving some love to older books that often drop off bookstores shelves to make room for new ones). No RSVPs are required.

I also learned an important lesson: when you are creating Facebook events, make sure the proper page is hosting them; the first one below is hosted by my author page, which I decided to leave as is, but the other two are hosted by the BWE page, after I made a mistake and another page of mine had wound up hosting one of them. Branding counts even when posting events. Hope to see you there! And whether or not you can make it, you can help the book in a major way by marking it as "want to read" on Goodreads (you can log in to Goodreads using your Amazon.com U.S. email address and password if you don't have a separate Goodreads registration). And subscribe to my monthly newsletter because I'll be doing a big book giveaway this month.



Los Angeles
January 31, 2017, 7 pm Best Women's Erotica of the Year reading
Join Best Women's Erotica of the Year series editor Rachel Kramer Bussel for a rousing reading from Volumes 1 and 2, featuring Jocelyn Bringas, Melina Greenport and Jade A. Waters. Q&A and book signing to follow. Free. Wheelchair accessible.
Facebook event page
Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, 90027, 323-660-1175



Baltimore
February 9, 2017, 6:30 pm
Best Women's Erotica of the Year reading
Join Best Women's Erotica of the Year series editor Rachel Kramer Bussel along with contributors to Volumes 1 and 2 including Annabeth Leong, Jordan Monroe, and D.R. Slaten for a rousing reading, followed by a Q&A and book signing. You'll hear some of the sexiest stories around starring women characters who travel the world in search of satisfaction, and find out what it takes to be successful in the thriving erotica genre. Light refreshments will be served. Free. Wheelchair accessible.
Facebook event page
Sugar, 1001 W. 36th Street, Baltimore (Hampden), 410-467-2632 ​



New York City February 11, 2017, 7 pm Join editor Rachel Kramer Bussel and contributors Ella Dawson, Abigail Ekue, Annabeth Leong, Stella Watts Kelley and Vierra Lai for a rousing reading from hot new anthology Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 2. The authors will participate in a Q&A and book signing immediately following the reading. Wheelchair accessible. Free. Wheelchair accessible.
Facebook event page
Bluestockings, 172 Allen Street, New York, NY 10002, 212-777-6028
Nearest subways: F to 2nd Avenue, J/M/Z to Essex Street, B/D to Grand Street

I'm reading Wednesday night from Take Me There

I've mostly retired from doing readings, at least for a while, but I'm very excited to read from Tristan Taormino's anthology Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica, which is a little larger than average volume of stories that I haven't read in full but can say I'm extremely honored to be sharing its pages with the likes of writers like Laura Antoniou and Ivan Coyote and Sinclair Sexmith. I'm going to try to bring cupcakes, but no promises. It's a milestone for me in terms of writing what I have no fucking clue about (being FTM, boxing). Lately I'm trying to write fiction in settings and about topics I'm not personally familiar with because it pushes me as a writer to create more interesting settings and stories. A decade ago, which seems hard to believe, I organized a reading for my very first erotica story, "Monica and Me," in Tristan Taormino's Best Lesbian Erotica 2011 and I still remember my awe that people showed up, people traveled for it, that organizing a reading was this thing I could do, not to mention writing a story.

I was such a newcomer to this whole world that is now part and parcel of my life, to the point that I sometimes forget or get jaded. I really do prefer the ease of being behind my computer than live readings, because I just don't think that's where my skill and certainly not where my comfort lies, but the camaraderie, the sense of community, the ability to connect with people who've collectively listened to sex stories and gotten something out of them? That's why I still do it.

Lately I have to push myself hard to finish every story, to get out the queries, to not want to go work as an admin assistant again, (falsely) assuming anyone would even hire me for that. There is an ease to that kind of monotonous work, in my experience, yet while the lazy side of me longs for that, the rest of me wants to be challenged, to see what's next. And every day brings a blank page and that same challenge. I may blog a lot or read a lot or do all sorts of other things to escape that challenge, but it's always right back there, in front of my face. Right now I'm trying to finish a few stories that seem impossible, and I often abandon stories, even though I know my ideas are good, because I can't make them work the way they do in my head. I don't blog about the non-successes, the thousand or two-thousand or three-thousand words without a home sitting in files on my laptop, waiting for me to wrap them up, because I don't want to project that image of failure. I want to celebrate the sales, the publications, but it's those failures that haunt me.

I'm trying to atone for not at least getting to the point where I send out the work, where I try, and risk failure, rather than not submitting at all. I'm atoning to myself, by staying put, no matter how long it takes, because in the end, getting to that ending, flawed and frustrating and imperfect though it may be, is worth it. Last night on my subway ride home I was thinking to myself, I have no idea what to pitch ___, and getting stressed about it, and then I literally walked into my bedroom, got an idea, and started an essay. That act, even more than whatever response I get, reminded me where I'm supposed to be right now.

Bluestockings, 172 Allen Street, NYC
Wednesday, October 12th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: Tristan Taormino “Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica”
With Laura Antoniou, Rachel Kramer Bussel, and Sinclair Sexsmith
Come celebrate the hump day with some steamy readings from “Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica.” Local legendary contributors Laura Antoniou, Rachel Kramer Bussel, and Sinclair Sexsmith read their pieces. Columnist, sex educator, and “Take Me There” editor Tristan Taormino discusses the need for more Trans and Genderqueer erotica. Yes, Bluestockings will supply towels to mop up the sweat.

Speaking of Sinclair Sexsmith, I was looking up the details of this reading and found this column of Sinclair's: "Believe in Gratitude

I am grateful to every book I’ve ever read, all the writers who struggle to squeeze blood from a stone to get the right word on the page in the right place, making stories and sense of this world.

I am grateful to the Internet. Not just because that is the primary place of my career, but because I have been in touch with so many brilliant people because of the ways we share our lives online. It is the revolution of our times.

And if you're free Tuesday, you should also hit up Bluestockings for Samhita Mukhopadhyay's reading from Outdated, plus Thursday you can catch Justin Vivian Bond reading from the memoir Tango.

Tuesday, October 11th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: Samhita Mukhopadhyay “Outdated”
Status: Single, Married, Divorced, Desperate! Subscriptions to match.com and okCupid might be dragging you down instead of doubling your money. “Outdated: Why Dating is Ruining Your Love Life” shows how women have been coerced into believing their self-worth is tied to their relationship status, while addressing the difficulty of negotiating loving relationships within the borderlands of race, culture, class, and sexuality—and of holding true to your convictions and maintaining a sense of independence while doing it. Mukhopadhyay is the executive editor of Feministing.com.

Thursday, October 13th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: Justin Vivian Bond “Tango”
Growing up with the knowledge of being different from the other kids is never an easy task to tackle– especially when one minute you’re being bullied by the neighbor, and the next minute you’re making out. Justin Vivian Bond’s new book, “Tango: My Childhood, Backwards and in High Heels” vividly details Bond’s coming of age as a trans kid. With inimitable style, Bond raises issues about LBGTQ adolescence, homophobia, parenting, and sexuality, while being utterly fabulous and entertaining.

October 12th reading with Tristan Taormino, Laura Antoniou and Sinclair Sexsmith!

A heads up about this reading! I must admit that often I get contributor copies of anthologies I have stories in and...don't read them. Partly because I'm busy, partly because I feel like I have erotica overload and my leisure reading is often YA, memoir and mystery. This one, Take Me There: Trans and Genderqueer Erotica, though, I'll be devouring every story as soon as it comes in! And look, a cover blurb by Justin Vivian Bond, whose memoir Tango: My Childhood, Backwards and In High Heels I'm anxiously awaiting - I might not be able to hold out for the Nook edition and cave to the paperback. See more blurbs here.

October 12, 7:00 pm
Take Me There Reading @ Bluestockings
Join editor Tristan Taormino and local contributors as they read their work from Take Me There, a groundbreaking new collection of transgender and genderqueer erotica. Readers include legendary author of the Marketplace series Laura Antoniou, queen of erotica Rachel Kramer Bussel, and Sinclair Sexsmith of The Sugarbutch Chronicles.

Location: Bluestockings, 172 Allen Street (bet. Stanton and Rivington), NYC

Admission: Free and open to all. We will pass around the hat to help support Bluestockings, so please give what you can.



There will be other Take Me There events with Tristan; see her site for details.

Official Take Me There description:

In mainstream media, the erotic identities, sex lives, and fantasies of transgender and genderqueer people are often oversimplified, sensationalized, or invisible. Take Me There is an erotica collection unlike any other that celebrates the pleasure, heat, and diversity of transgender and genderqueer sexualities. The power of seeing and being seen is a central theme in the anthology; it’s not simply about passing or not passing (an idea often explored with transgender characters), but about being acknowledged and desired in a sexual context.

The book takes you from San Francisco to Israel, from heartache to lust, from stranger sex to a 10 year anniversary, from ballet shoes to butt plug bondage tables, from fumbling teenagers to leatherclad bears, from MTF and FTM—and in between and beyond.

Featuring renowned authors Kate Bornstein (Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation), Patrick Califia (Speaking Sex to Power), S. Bear Bergman (Butch is a Noun), Ivan Coyote (Missed Her), Julia Serrano (Whipping Girl), Laura Antoniou (The Marketplace), Helen Boyd (My Husband Betty), Rachel Kramer Bussel (Gotta Have It), Toni Amato (Pinned Down by Pronouns), Alicia E. Goranson (Supervillianz), filmmaker Tobi Hill-Meyer, musician Rahne Alexander, songwriter Shawna Virago, bloggers Andrea Zanin and Sinclair Sexsmith, and more.

I'm also revisiting Tristan Taormino's book Opening Up (also available for Kindle) because it's become newly relevant to my life (I'm not in an open relationship, but I am attracted to people who are). Visit OpeningUp.net for more information.

I wish there were more long-term relationship erotic stories like Christen Clifford's "After Ten Years"

Christen Clifford

I wasn’t really in the mood for a reading last night, and I was running really late. As I walked fast from SoHo to the Lower East Side, I got a voicemail from D.L. King that Bluestockings was packed. We had a good crowd, despite the umpteen other events, and as I listened to Christen Clifford read her story “After Ten Years” from Gotta Have It, I was struck by how rare it is that I get a perfect story like that about a long-term relationship. It was tender and sexy and real; it wasn’t trying to pretty sex up, make it funny or perfect. There are moments of friction between the characters, ways they don’t get along, aren’t quite in sync in bed, and yet the narrator isn’t looking elsewhere. She wants what she wants from the same person after ten years.

I’ve known Christen a long time; I once did an event she organized at Makor, along with Julie Atlas Muz and I can’t remember who else. I’ve seen her perform her one-woman show 17 Guys I Fucked while I think 7 or 8 months pregnant. Hearing and watching her read, seeing her blush or squirm, was so moving. I wish I could do readings with all the authors (66, since 3 of them are me), and hear what they bring to their work. I hope more people will send me stories like that, especially for my next erotic romance anthology, but even for the “erotica.” It was perfect and moving and in 1,200 words or less, she captured sex in a long-term relationship. THAT is what I look for when I edit an anthology, that mix that doesn’t shield sex from the rest of the world, or use sex to shield characters from the rest of the world. It mixes them together, and she brought all the italics in the story to life as she read. I wish I had a recording of it, but maybe part of me doesn’t; maybe you had to be there, and maybe that’s as it should be.

I wanted to select a short segment of the story for you, one that captures what I’m talking about, but you know what? You have to read it. I’m not even asking you to buy it (and, shhhh….I’ll give you a copy if you ask nicely and promise to write a review for me on Amazon, until I run out), but go to your local bookstore. Look at page 173 and take five minutes and tell me if that doesn’t move you. Or, yes, you could buy the book (see below for options). But really, I'm sick of the relentless selling, the postcard mailing, the posting in a bazillion places, the utter uncreativity of book promotion. Who knows if I'm good at it? Who knows when those statements arrive whether anything I've done has made a difference? Right now, I just am moved by a story...the whole reason I got into this crazy thing called erotica editing.

There’s love and hurt and lust and pain and desire and raw need. There’s so much in that short short story and I listened, me, someone who is likely never to be in a relationship for ten years, someone for whom that seems inconceivable. There is a line in the story that is not at the end, but near it, that is, I think, the backbone of it, what makes all the surrounding words so meaningful: “I want him to fuck me forever.” So yeah, that reading reminded me why I say yes to these things even when they’re often the last thing I want to do. I was in a sports bra and t-shirt and ratty sweater, no time to change. I was ratty and wheezing and didn’t really care, and I read some other people’s stories and my own. I knew I’d be reminded of D.L. King’s librarian late fee punishment story “Punishment Befitting the Crime” every time I pay the New York Public Library for my overdue fees. I remembered that way back when, in, 2001, I think, I organized my very first reading, and it was at Bluestockings. It was a nice way to end a long day, to sign off from doing readings and focus on words on the page, on the screen, words in ways that don’t involve quite as much relentless ubiquity and self-promotion and stress, words that have room to breathe and give the reader a chance to read them alone, in private, not be blasted with them live. That is not really my thing anymore, and the freedom of not having to corral people anywhere every month is one I feel immensely. I’m grateful every time anyone shows up, and was pleasantly surprised at the crowd last night, at the readers, and at myself. So thank you for that, for a last hurrah (though I will be asking questions about art, morals, death [her book opens with a suicide], love, sex, pornography and more of Pleasure Bound author Deborah Lutz Thursday night at 7 at McNally Jackson, which will also have copies of my books ,but interviewing, where the burden is on someone else to talk, I’m happy to keep doing).

Order Gotta Have It from:



Amazon.com



Kindle edition (coming soon)



Bn.com (Barnes & Noble)



Books-a-Million



Borders



Powell's



IndieBound (find your local independent bookstore)



Cleis Press

Free cupcakes and short erotica tonight at Bluestockings in NYC

I'm doing a lot fewer readings these days, and I have my sanity back, but tonight I'm hosting two In The Flesh alums, Christen Clifford and D.L. King, reading about long-term relationship sex and librarian/library patron BDSM, respectively, plus serving up free mini cupcakes, as we all read from my new book Gotta Have It: 69 Stories of Sudden Sex from 7-8 pm at Bluestockings, 72 Allen Street, NYC. I know there are a bazillion events this Valentine's Day in NYC (feels like more than ever), but mine is free, fast, sexy and you'll be out of there in time to go off and have a romantic dinner. And enjoy free cupcakes. What more could you ask for? See below for excerpts from their Gotta Have It stories and Christen, in the Gotta Have It book trailer. You'll also get to find out the two pseudonyms I use in the book!

And here's the Facebook invite if you want to tell your friends.



From "After Ten Years" by Christen Clifford:

“Touch me,” I say.

And he does, lightly, softly. I feel like he is really touching meæthe me he used to know and fuck. He traces the curve from my rib cage to waist to hip, slowly, up and down. He adds in my shoulder and thigh. I feel, not exactly beautiful, but well-shaped, for the moment. I breathe there with him; I leave my arms above my head as if I’m bound; I don’t start in on his cock. I lie there and let myself be touched.
He brushes my nipple. The next time he gives it a tight squeeze. I exhale, moan and voice an intake of breath. I turn to him for a kiss. His mouth is hot and wet and open and searching.

Now his hand is between my legs. I hate that my wetness doesn’t drip anymore; he has to go in and find it and coax it out. But it’s there. I shift so my back is to him. I have a very sensitive back. He reaches around so his hand is still on my cunt, the other on my nipple. I want him to hurt me a little. He’s never liked it when I’ve asked him to hurt me in a big way, to slap me or hit me; he can’t do that kind of violence to me. That’s okay. We have our limitations.

Another breath.

“Bite me a little,” I say.



Christen Clifford is a writer and performer in New York. Find her @cd_clifford or christenclifford.com.

From "Punishment Befitting the Crime" by D.L. King:

It seemed the rumors might actually be true. Ted had been working on finding out for himself for quite a while now. He’d been diligently bringing books back late ever since that friend of Frank’s had brought it up at the poker game. He’d said, “That bitch of a head librarian punishes guys who break the library rules.” He’d said that he heard she’d actually spanked some guy for bringing his books back late. He’d said it like it was a bad thing. Everybody laughed and made lewd remarks. That was all right; they weren’t library types. He’d have been surprised if they read much more than the back of the cereal box or the sports page.

But he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He began to fantasize about what kinds of punishments Ms. Carmichael might mete out to guys who didn’t follow the rules--and now he was going to find out.

He walked around the desk and fidgeted as he waited for her to open the door. He felt like a little boy who’d been sent to the principal’s office with the exception that a trip to the office in elementary school had never produced a hard-on. He crossed his hands in front of him just as the door opened and Ms. Carmichael, red lips pursed, gave him her most severe look yet. She led him to an office behind the desk.

Editor of Where the Girls Are, The Sweetest Kiss, Spank and Carnal Machines, D.L. King also publishes the review site, Erotica Revealed. Find her stories in Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Women’s Erotica, Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, Sweet Love, Please, Ma’am, Fast Girls and Sex in the City: New York, among others. She’s published two novels. Find her at http://www.dlkingerotica.com.

My January and February 2011 events

I'm still working on descriptions and jpegs and all that, but a heads up about my January and February events:

January 19, 8 pm - panelist at Gameshow Speakeasy at Le Poisson Rouge, NYC

January 27, time TBA - reading with Donna George Storey and others, Good Vibrations, Berkeley, CA

January 28, 7:30 pm - reading with free cupcakes at Booksmith, San Francisco, CA

Award-winning local writer and sexpert Violet Blue (Best Women’s Erotica 2011, Seal It With a Kiss) and New York-based erotica author and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel (Orgasmic, Fast Girls) join forces to bring you an evening of sexy smut! Featuring local Orgasmic contributors Susie Hara, Dusty Horn, and Donna George Storey, plus free cupcakes, this promises to be a steamy night of sensuous stories.

February 1, time TBA - Reading at Coco de Mer with Eden Bradley, Pamela Madsen and Oriana Small (aka Ashley Blue), Los Angeles, CA. Free cupcakes and champagne!

February 14, 7 pm - Hosting and curating erotica reading, Bluestockings, NYC

February 17, time TBA - discussion at McNally Jackson, NYC

After that, working on events in UK, Minneapolis, possibly LA again, Seattle in June and hopefully Denver, Madison, Milwaukee, down the road. Cities I'd love to visit and do events in (if you're the type who can make that happen, email me at rachelkramerbussel at gmail.com) : Santa Fe, Chicago, Washington, DC, Boston. And Russo's Books in Bakersfield, California is on my list.

I'm torn about events, because they are fun to do and organize, but extremely stressful. Even with In The Flesh, which had a steady audience, you are competing with all the other events in town, rushing to get press, to draw people in, to spread the word, and I'm talking here about free events. Readings are a hard sell, especially, imo, in bookstores, and I think draw a certain type of audience member. They can be a publicity boon and it's a wonderful chance to meet people you wouldn't otherwise meet, but the question I keep coming back to, as someone who pays for all my own travel, therefore not actually making money off these trips is, at what cost? It's something I have been doing despite the cost for the last few years, but as I'm getting older and also just don't have that disposable income, I have to truly consider. So in my ideal world, I'd love to hit all those places. In real life, with the constraint of money and limited time off, I am not sure how many I'll get a chance to visit. I'm already having qualms about taking 4 days at the start of the year, but will have to budget my time much better than I have in the past few years. So maybe the cities I don't get to, I go to in 2012. Because no way am I giving up on my dream of a real vacation, at the beach, by myself. That's what gets me through the tough days.

Erotica reading photos from Bluestockings

I read at Bluestockings on Saturday. Wasn't sure what I was going to read until I got there; opted for the oldie but goodie "Lap Dance Lust" and Jen Cross's story "Queen of Sheba" from my IPPY Award winning Tasting Her: Oral Sex Stories, which is a personal favorite. I can read other people's stories aloud with much more authority than my own!



This photo's netted me three compliments today, so thank you! I now have new glasses (Gucci, and they're kindof blinged out on the sides) that are brown...so I can color coordinate. Was thinking I'd go bold with red or blue but these work well. Photo TK.


Cheri Crystal, JD Glass, and me

"My First Play Party" - live reading this Friday at Bluestockings

Not my actual first play party, but my fictional story of the same name from Where the Girls Are: Urban Lesbian Erotica, edited by D.L. King. I'll be reading from it Friday night at 7 at Bluestockings, 72 Allen Street, before heading over to Fontana's to flash my boobs/sign sex blogger calendars.



Here's a snippet from the story:

“This is Beth,” Marcy said, then ordered me to turn around. I got it right away—they were getting introduced to me, but I wasn’t getting introduced to them, except to learn immediately that they were tops, and I was not.

“What’s she got under there?” one of the women asked. Marcy didn’t try to get my permission before lifting up the slips. I understood that I was giving her tacit permission to use me, to do with me whatever she desired, and I liked it, even as I blushed while they examined my ass.

“Why is she wearing panties?” another women with a Southern drawl complained. “Make her get rid of them.”

Marcy slipped a hand down into my panties and stroked my wetness. I didn’t know if it was okay to make noise, so I didn’t, but I wanted to. I was soaking already, the surprise of being the center of attention spurring me on. Nobody else in the little room was doing anything naughty.

Marcy pulled my panties down, then pushed my neck until my head was hanging down, my hands dangling around my ankles. Now it wasn’t just my butt that was so brazenly exposed. “No piercings; I bet she doesn’t have any tattoos. I guess now we have to find out how well she can take a spanking.”

I bit my lip, wanting to say, “Oh God,” because the idea of getting spanked by so many women was beyond anything I could have imagined.

“I think she needs a blindfold though. We don’t want her to know what’s coming.” They were talking about me in the third person, like I wasn’t even there, and in a way, I wasn’t. They were calling me Beth, but I was thinking of myself as Bella, a beautiful princess trapped by an evil band of female thieves who wanted to torture me to get at my riches. I liked the idea of them abusing me, of me defying them even as I took what they doled out.

Marcy moved around and raised my head and stared deeply into my eyes. Hers had changed, darkened somehow, and they mesmerized me. I stared back at her, silently telling her I wanted it all. She grabbed my hair and bent my head back, then sucked on my neck, biting me, making it hurt, surely giving me a hickey. She was telling me this wasn’t about my pleasure, even if I did enjoy it. It was about them enjoying me, about what my body could give them. That the whole party was about people serving and servicing each other, and if I chose this role, any enjoyment or sexual satisfaction I received would be a happy byproduct, and never the raison d'être of the action.

“She’s ready for you,” said Marcy, lifting me up and placing me on my stomach across the women’s laps. The couch was a big one, able to accommodate all of us, and I was settled across it, my slips pushed up high enough so my bare breasts were abraded by the leather of the women’s pants. I still didn’t know their names or anything about them, other than that they were hungry for my body.

“What a pretty ass Beth has,” one said, before slapping it hard. I nuzzled my face into the leather beneath me, while another woman stroked my hair. Someone reached below me to toy with my nipples, tugging and twisting them as the smacks increased in ferocity. The hand spanking me went at an amazing pace, and my bottom was soon tingling and throbbing with heat. Then something else crashed against my skin; I didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t a hand, that’s for sure.

“Such pretty marks. I like that in a sub,” one said. Being so coolly appraised was sexy in a way I couldn’t have imagined. I kept my eyes shut not because I was ordered to, but because I wanted to know as little as possible about what was happening to me; I only wanted to feel.

Bluestockings' Sexy Pride Erotica reading was a success!

Many thanks to Brooke at Bluestockings for inviting me to read there. The store is awesome; there were so many books I coveted, but I settled on Ariel Schrag's amazing senior year of high school in comic form Likewise and a copy of $pread magazine.


I bought 100 mini cupcakes from Baked by Melissa for the reading and they were a huge hit, plus I heard about two new (to me) places to get cupcakes, in Queens and Brooklyn.


Bluestockings had a fabulous selection of my and the readers' books


Sinclair Sexsmith read hot poetry (and has a chapbook for sale)


Charlie Vazquez read a hot gay erotica story about street baseball from Fast Balls: Erotic Stories About America's Favorite Pastime


Kathleen Warnock read about old friends who share a very steamy phone call


Bevin Branlandingham read about fisting in the woods (sorry about the blurriness)

Thanks to everyone who came out!

I read my story "Fist First" from Up All Night: Adventures in Lesbian Sex, my very first book (and it shows) from back in 2004. I had brought two other potential stories, but when I saw the book there, I decided to read that. That story is pretty old, and took place in, I think, 2001, but still held up. One woman told me afterward that she related, which made me feel like it had done its job.

It was so strange to see it in the store. I don't blog about it much because I was very naïve and took a $1,000 flat fee from Alyson to co-edit the book with Stacy Bias (though in reality, I did almost all, if not all, the selecting and editing). It was presented to me as a done deal (Stacy had signed her contract that way). In retrospect, I'd be thousands of dollars better off had I taken no advance and asked for royalties, but I didn't know back then. I also have no idea how it's sold...because I don't get royalty statements, though a few years ago I had someone check on Bookscan and had heard via word of mouth that it was doing well.

The point is, I'm so glad I know better now, and that Cleis Press would never think of asking me to edit books for no royalties. (I do get royalties for my Alyson anthology First-Timers, and would on the Fetish Chest series of Ultimate Undies, Sexiest Soles and Secret Slaves...if anyone had bought them. Oh well.) That's why I like editing anthologies, because even if you mess up, there is always a next time, a chance to figure out what went wrong, sales or marketing or topic-wise, and do better.

And even though I only got that measly $1,000, having that book become a Lambda Literary Award finalist and just having it out there helped put me on the map as an erotica editor and get me other gigs, so in many ways, it was worth it, but is a shame and I wouldn't recommend anyone agree to those terms unless it's strictly a work-for-hire type thing, or you don't expect it to sell, or whatever. Also, having someone advise you in those situations (not necessarily an agent for $1,000, that also doesn't really make financial sense), but someone to look things over and point out anything you may have missed in the contract, is probably a good idea too. Said all in hindsight, of course.

I'm working on finalizing a date for a fall reading at WORD in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and would love to teach Erotica 101 in NYC again, if I can find a host. I'm reading at Charlie Vazquez's PANIC! reading series at Nowhere Bar (14th Street between 1st and 2nd) on August 26th too.

100 free cupcakes at my Bluestockings reading TONIGHT!

photo by Stacie Joy

Tuesday, June 23, 7 pm - 8:30 pm, FREE!
SEXY PRIDE EROTICA READING
Erotica editor and author Rachel Kramer Bussel (First-Timers, Glamour Girls, Up All Night) brings you a very special sexy Pride reading!
100 mini cupcakes from Baked by Melissa (http://www.bakedbymelissa.net) will be served.

True stories and hot queer erotica from the city’s boldest, naughtiest writers. Featuring Bevin Branlandingham (Femmecast, Gayety), Sinclair Sexsmith (Sugarbutch.net), Charlie Vazquez (PANIC! reading series), Kathleen Warnock (Drunken! Careening! Writers!), Xan West (Hurts So Good, Best SM Erotica 2). Free cupcakes will be served and authors' books will be for sale.
Bluestockings Bookstore, 72 Allen Street, NYC
http://www.bluestockings.com
Email rachelkramerbussel at gmail.com if you have any questions.

100 free cupcakes at Tuesday's Sexy Pride Erotica Reading

photo by Stacie Joy

Tuesday, June 23, 7 pm - 8:30 pm, FREE!
SEXY PRIDE EROTICA READING
Erotica editor and author Rachel Kramer Bussel (First-Timers, Glamour Girls, Up All Night) brings you a very special sexy Pride reading!
100 mini cupcakes from Baked by Melissa (http://www.bakedbymelissa.net) will be served.

True stories and hot queer erotica from the city’s boldest, naughtiest writers. Featuring Bevin Branlandingham (Femmecast, Gayety), Sinclair Sexsmith (Sugarbutch.net), Charlie Vazquez (PANIC! reading series), Kathleen Warnock (Drunken! Careening! Writers!), Xan West (Hurts So Good, Best SM Erotica 2). Free cupcakes will be served and authors' books will be for sale.
Bluestockings Bookstore, 72 Allen Street, NYC
http://www.bluestockings.com
Email rachelkramerbussel at gmail.com if you have any questions.