New by me: Facebook's marketing problem when it comes to sex

This morning I was fired up and wrote a Medium essay/rant, "Facebook Has a Marketing Problem, and It's Spelled S-E-X."



You can see by the responses that I'm not the only one. If you read it, you'll learn I actually respect their decision to refuse adult product ads (though it's frustrating as an erotica editor). However, I'm specifically calling them out on sending me emails and courting my ad dollars on my page, when they will never accept said ads. To me, that's a bad user experience and bad business.

If you like the piece, please click the hands on the left and "clap" for it by holding it down for 1 to 50 claps. The more claps it gets, the more people who see it, and the more I get paid. I'm being told that someone from Facebook will be checking it out, but I'm not holding my breath.

How to follow me when I'm not blogging

So if you've been reading this blog for even a short period of time, you have probably realized that while my blogging intentions are good, my execution is lacking. I'll brainstorm daily post ideas but especially this year when I'm being pulled in so many directions, I haven't had as much time to devote to this blog as I'd like. I keep thinking I'll get to some magical "caught up" point but that hasn't happened yet. So while I will still be blogging here and will soon have news about my January and February mini book tour for Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 2, in the meantime, I wanted to share other ways to keep in touch and get info if you're interested.

My email newsletter - it's a monthly newsletter that includes giveaways, news about my writings and events and whatever else I feel like sharing. September's will go out this week and then October's will have a really special, huge giveaway, so stay tuned!

Twitter - I Tweet daily and post more there than I do on any other social media platform.

Facebook author page - I share my writings and news as well as articles I think may be of interest by other people.

Instagram - While my daily life isn't that exciting, I do post a lot when I'm traveling, such as my recent trip to Pittsburgh and this weekend in New York, where I went to the Adoptapalooza pet adoption event in Union Square and saw this:

Adoptapalooza!

A photo posted by Rachel Kramer Bussel (@rachelkramerbussel) on Sep 18, 2016 at 1:26pm PDT

If you want to be notified of my new book releases (or any other author's), follow me/them on Goodreads and Amazon (click on the "follow" button below my photo on the left while you're logged into your Amazon account). With Amazon, if you follow an author, as I do writer LN Bey, you'll get notifications like this when a new title is released, and if a book publishes early (before the official on sale date), you'll find out:



My publisher frequently puts my ebooks on sale for $1.99 and you can get notified of those by following me on BookBub, where I encourage you to also sign up for your favorite genres so you can find out when other authors have free or very cheap sales. They send one daily email rounding up the sales in the categories you've chosen, or you can search by category, such as erotic romance.

Why I don't post many personal updates on social media these days

You can read all about my transformation from incessant social media oversharer to middle-aged social media observer over at Ravishly. I love writing for them and encourage you to bookmarked them; they're one of my favorite sites to read. This is an essay I've been mulling over and tinkering with for months and Monday I got so sick of my procrastinating I just wrapped it up. It wound up being longer than I'd planned, and feels a little vulnerable to write because it's such a stark contrast to the old me, but it felt incredible to hit send. I've got to do more of that rather than overthinking, which is all too easy for me most days.

Amazon gets deeper into social shopping with linked Facebook accounts

Yes, I do check Amazon every morning as part of my nerdy book editor due diligence to see how my books are doing. This is what I saw this morning, and I wrote about it at Medium. If you like it, I'd love it if you'd click "Recommend" at the bottom.

Write a story with me Monday night at My Sexy Muse

On Monday night, August 19th, from 7-9 pm EST, I'm taking part in a very cool event called My Sexy Muse - I along with hosts Alyssa Turner, Renea Mason and Jenny Lyn will be posting sexy photos and story prompts, and anyone can add to the story! Join us at this Facebook URL for collaborative hotness!

Rejected by Brevity, accepted by Thought Catalog, and yes, I'm a fucking snob: "What is Kale?"

So I was doing this thing that I thought was semi-productive by blogging my rejections from journal-I-really-really-wanted-to-prove-something-to-myself-by-being-published-in Brevity, "Wannabe Housewife" and "Pill Popper." Then I realized even more productive would be to...send them somewhere else. Somewhere that doesn't even charge a fee! That even has cache. Of course I still want to be published in Brevity but I also have come to accept that that's highly unlikely and I am okay with that. I embrace my lack of whatever it is and I am now coming out as a snob in "What is Kale?" It was a snobby reject kind of day and yet I feel happy. Imagine that. Thanks, Thought Catalog! You rock.

Sex column: "The Nonconsensual Play Party Voyeur" and vain attempt at catchup

I clearly don't have much time to update this blog - not sure if/when that will change but you can keep up to date by becoming my fan on Facebook, where I post articles I've written and news mentions. You can also keep up with me daily on Twitter (@raquelita) and Tumblr, where I also offer free books to Amazon reviewers when they're out (right now I am looking for 20 reviewers for the extremely hot Best Bondage Erotica 2011 - click here for details, until that link is no longer active and I've gotten all my reviewers lined up, that book comes out in November, just in time for my 35th birthday).

My latest Secrets of a Sex Writer column is called The Nonconsensual Play Party Voyeur.

When I was in my mid-twenties and just starting to discover my kinkiness, I went to a lot of play parties. I was never much of a participant, but I liked being a voyeur, seeing the things I’d previously only read about come to life right before me. I could watch someone—not porn stars, just regular people—get punched, spanked, flogged, whipped, tickled, teased, tortured, fisted, live and in person.

Attending events taught me there was a community of fellow perverts who were into some of the same things I was, and even if we didn’t share a specific kink, there was a commonality of spirit. I liked the rules that went along with BDSM, the mantra of “safe, sane and consensual.” That made complete sense to me.

Over the past few years, I’ve shied away from public sex or play parties because I prefer my bouts of limited exhibitionism to take place in other arenas. Recently, though, I found myself at a party I hadn’t consented to attend—I hadn’t even known it was a play party.

I can’t reveal too much about the logistics or specifics, but I can say that because I wasn’t prepared, I felt not only out of place, but extremely uncomfortable. I didn’t have a date, which I don’t mind, but I couldn’t relax. I was surrounded by complete strangers and had to wait to get a ride in order to leave. I felt trapped.

Read the whole thing at SexIs Magazine.

I wrote about the big new national sex survey and quoted Debby Herbenick, PhD, and author of Because if Feels Good, at Lemondrop, where I wrote about my tattoo (and garnered 344 comments, none of which I've read, because I'm smart like that).

I have two very exciting interviews coming up at Lemondrop, so stay tuned, and will soon be writing for the must-read site, The Nervous Breakdown, whose book club I also highly recommend (first two picks were Room by Emma Donoghue and Exley by Brock Clarke). It's $9.99 a month in the U.S. and books arrive at your door, along with, at times, bonus books, like the Merge Records history. Presents in the mail and intelligent discussion about them and unexpected literary treasures? Do check it out.

My 2010 IPPY Gold Award winning book Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories (click to watch sexy SoHo Grand-shot champagne, lingerie and kissing book trailer and read TOC and intro) was given a shoutout in Canada's Globe and Mail as a good book to read for those who want to talk dirty. I concur! From the piece:

Your boyfriend has (like many men) never fully expounded on what it is he wants? Divert. Pick up an anthology of erotica. Suggestions: Do Not Disturb, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel; Lips Like Sugar, edited by Violet Blue or Russell Smith’s collection Diana: A Diary in the Second Person. Propose story time and read aloud to your paramour. Note carefully what each of you responds to. Even if you do not get to the end of the story, you may want to keep your librarian glasses on.

Erotica gives you a script. You did not invent this naughty story; you are merely one of its players. Talking dirty makes for role-play. And role-play? Ms. Rosenblat says: “Once you are in character, it is the perfect way for women to give feedback. Then he feels like a porn star and she gets the sex she wants.”

My reading series In The Flesh ends December 16th with a blowout event. The next reading is October 21st, Orgasm Night, with 5 (yes, 5!) readers from all over the country from my book Orgasmic: Erotic Stories for Women plus authors I'm so lucky to have and you will not want to miss! See the site for full lineup. Also mark your calendars: I'm having a public 35th birthday celebration and Passion: Erotic Romance for Women reading, again with authors coming in from Berkeley and Washington, DC (aka, not people you can see here all the time). That, along with free cupcakes, happens November 11th at 7 pm at Word, 126 Franklin Avenue, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, right off the G train.

Look for Passion ads in the November issue of Romance Writers Report (for the Romance Writers of America authors reading this) and on the sites Romance Divas and Smart Bitches Trashy Books. I need bloggers for the virtual book tour in November - you get an assigned day in November and in exchange you get a free book and write about it on that day. Email passionateantho at gmail.com with your URL and mailing address! The sexy kissing book trailer will be out soon too.

My calls for submissions page has now been updated to reflect the calls for the 2011 collections Women in Lust, a couples erotica anthology and Going Down: Oral Sex Erotica. My 2012 calls will be coming soon.

And October 16-17 I will be walking 39 miles in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. Wish me luck! Click on that link if you'd like to donate.

This is what happens when I don't blog for a while. Ha! I'm working on not making promises or plans I can't keep, so again, use the links above to find me, and I occasionally post photos from my iPhone to Flickr. Like this one from when I was sitting at a Starbucks in Burbank and saw the Los Angeles Times folded to reveal this:

Cupcake fandom

My group blog (now with interns!!) Cupcakes Take the Cake now has a Facebook fan page. Like us if you want to find out about cupcakes from around the world.

Social networking sites and me

A few social networking sites where you can find me (I'm on many of them but some are for my friends, these I'll add anyone, cause I'm easy like that):

My Facebook fan page

In The Flesh Reading Series Facebook fan page

Twitter (@raquelita)

Twitter (@cupcakeblog)

Twitter (@InTheFleshNYC)

Fetlife (sorry, not sure how to link my profile, but I'm easy to find) - please note, I am NOT in any way on Fetlife for dating purposes, just for catching up with people and promoting my events/books.

Yelp (same here)

Because Facebook comments are the new blogging, or, Marry Him, the article vs. the book

HarperStudio, the very smart, diverse, web-savvy imprint of HarperCollins that just signed new media types like Baratunde Thurston, Kevin Rose, Ryan Tate, Melanie Notkin of Savvie Auntie and author Jill Kargman, known for Momzillas, among other novels, asked on Facebook (and their blog) what readers think about Newsweek's "We Read It So You Don't Have To" feature, in this case, about Lori Gottlieb's new book Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Wrong (currently 106 on Amazon), based on her 2008 article in The Atlantic.

From Fast Company:

HarperStudio will publish just two books a month and offer authors 50-50 profit sharing, rather than a traditional 7% to 15% royalty.

I wrote:

Very interesting - I truly tend to think all publicity is good publicity; like even if people aren't going to buy the book, the fact that they know about it is preferable to never having heard of it. I actually thought the book was both better and had a different argument than the (IMO) offensive article. Not 100% behind it but it gave me a lot of stuff to think about whereas the article made me want to scream.

As for Newsweek, I hadn't seen that - pretty impressed with their rundown, especially namechecking the Cristina Nehring book which obviously doesn't have the populist appeal of Gottlieb's but was (from what I read, which wasn't, admittedly, the whole book) an interesting take on the topic of love and romance. I also like that Newsweek can cop to being wrong about the whole marrying vs. getting killed by a terrorist madness that Susan Faludi debunked back in the day.

Fan me on Facebook!

Just a reminder that you can become a fan of me and a fan of In The Flesh (free hot dogs, free cupcakes, free lube at Sex & Food Night January 21st!) on Facebook:

Rachel Kramer Bussel fan page

In The Flesh Reading Series fan page

Become a fan of In The Flesh on Facebook

If you've ever attended and enjoyed In The Flesh, please become our fan on Facebook. (I'm switching from a group to a page to make it easier to communicate with people.) I just added a bunch of great photos and have literally hundreds more to add. Feel free to add your own too. Thanks! Rachel

Fan me on Facebook

I get a lot of Facebook (yes, I got my vanity URL, whatever that's worth) friend requests from people I don't know. I don't add them back (sorry, just a personal preference).

However, you can also become my fan on Facebook. I haven't done much with that yet just because it's so new, but you can also join the In The Flesh Reading Series group on Facebook, which I send updates to every month. (I've heard some people have had trouble joining, so if you do have trouble, email me at rachelkb at gmail.com and I'll see about fixing it.)