What it's like to work on three books at once

The past week has been especially busy, with my mind and to do list pulled in many directions. Firstly, I've been helping my boyfriend promote and prepare for the play he's directing, which will be performed this Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Princeton, New Jersey. I don't know the first thing about theater except that I enjoy going as an audience member, but I know a few things about event promotion based on my five years of In The Flesh reading hosting and assorted book event organizing. Getting Instagram photos to show up in Blogger is not my strong suit, so if you can't see the image below, it's also here - evidence of my adventures in poster hanging (my takeaway: bring a stapler, not tape, next time).

Are you excited yet? See you Thursday, July 20 for opening night of Dead Man's Cell Phone at @artscouncilofprinceton at 102 Witherspoon Street, Princeton, NJ! Tickets available at the door at 7:30 pm each night or through July 19 via our @indiegogo campaign (link in bio). #comedy #theater #princeton #nj #newjersey #njarts #acting

A post shared by Chimera Productions (@chimera_productions) on Jul 15, 2017 at 12:23pm PDT

So I've put up posters in Princeton, posted on the Chimera Productions Facebook page and Instagram account and helped make some goodie bags. I love that I'm part of an artistic couple and am happy to help out where I can.



At the same time, I've been working on three anthologies simultaneously, and that's quite a mental challenge to keep track of what stage each one is in, attend to the seemingly umpteen emails and tasks associated with each, and not go into ultra panic mode. My anthology On Fire: Erotic Romance Stories publishes tomorrow, and as part of my efforts to reinvent my book promotion efforts, I've done a few new things. It will be listed soon on Netgalley, which is exciting for me because it has the potential to reach so many more book bloggers and reviewers that way, and I've done some outreach but would like to do more. It will also be On Fire week over at Lady Smut so stay tuned for related posts, including one from me Wednesday on the backstory of why this book took three years to come out (spoiler alert: I messed up) and a sexy excerpt.

At the same time, I'm diving in to self-publishing by reissuing my 2007 anthology Sex & Candy with a super hot new cover, new title and a few new stories. For that I had to contact all the original authors, some of whom had changed email addresses so the email bounced back to me, some of whom have updated their bios and bylines. I also solicited a few new stories so that the book isn't entirely a reprint of the first. The original was print only; the new edition will be ebook and audiobook only. So far I've only worked on the words part. Next it will go to the authors to look over for typos or grammatical errors, then I will send it to my amazing copyeditor, who is helping save my books from being horrifically riddled with grammar issues. Then...I'm not exactly sure because I've only self-published one short story and my then assistant did the hard part. So I'll have a learning curve in terms of formatting it for Kindle and possibly other retailers. Then Rose Caraway will be recording the audiobook. I'm hoping to have the ebook out by September, so stay tuned.



Along with all of that, I'm in full-fledged marketing mode for the book that will probably outsell the other two a few times over and therefore deserves the bulk of my attention, from a business/logical perspective: Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 3. Since this is part of a long-running series, which started in the year 2000 with Best Women's Erotica edited by Marcy Sheiner, then moved on to titles with calendar years before I took it over and we switched to Volume numbers, bookstores seem to be more inclined to stock it. Volume 2 was in over 50 indie bookstores and my hope is that more will sign on for Volume 3. So what am I doing all these months before the publication date? I'm making a list of long lead media for my publisher, Cleis Press, to send early galleys to. I'm booking readings for 2018 before bookstores fill up. I'm researching bloggers to contact about the book. I'm brainstorming with my social media assistant about what we will do in the months leading up to the launch so I am not sobbing in agony over having too much to do right before. Basically, I'm trying to set in motion a successful book launch, because the better the book does out of the gate, the better the chances that Volume 4 will do well. My hope is that if the books continue to sell well, I'll be asked to edit more of them, but even if I'm not, I want to make sure all the time, effort and money (I don't have the exact figure handy but I've easily invested thousands of dollars in promoting the series) pays off. If it doesn't, then I will turn to other income sources, because I'm 41 so am thinking about if I have a kid, how I will support them, not to mention retirement.

On top of that, I'm trying to launch a new series of online classes, for which I have to write the lectures and video scrips and learn how to use my new Blue Yeti microphone. That's another project that I decided to do to try to reclaim a semblance of financial stability for myself, because even though I'm on track for my business to have a six figure year and surpass last year's income, that doesn't mean 2018 holds any such promise. So there's a lot on my mind as I navigate all these projects, and any day now I will get edits back for The Big Book of Submission, Volume 2, the book that's coming out one month after BWE of the Year 3, and will therefore add a fourth book to the mix. For that one I'll have to finagle 68 author contracts (there's 69 stories in the book, but mine is one of them), prepare marketing materials, and more. So there's a lot on my plate, but as I said above, there has to be, because I need to be firing on all cylinders in order to make this whole career thing work.

When I break it all down like I have here, it's overwhelming. The only way it isn't is if I do a little bit each day so I can assure myself when I go to sleep each night that I've done the very best I could to provide for myself and my family, to make my authors' work seen and read, and to do right by my publisher (where applicable). Just as I never know how long any given employment will last, I never know if I'm about to edit my final anthology or not. Many factors go into those decisions but ultimately it's a matter, for me, of supply and demand. That may sound cold and artificial, but it's more than just business for me. I only want to produce books that readers want to read, and only ways I have to measure that are via book sales and reader feedback. I'll write soon about the incredible notes I've received recently that buoyed my hopes and reminded me of the human faces behind the numbers on a royalty statement. Those are heartening and incredible, but as much as that's true, I can't turn in a lovely handwritten note to my landlord. Or I could, but they could still evict me if I don't pay the rent. So that's on my mind, not because I'm in danger of eviction, but because until I save up several months' worth of rent, not to mention pay off all my debts, I won't feel like I have any kind of financial stability. The way I see all these marketing efforts is that while there's only 24 hours in a day, I literally can't afford not to market the hell out of my books. So that's what I'm doing, while also promoting my authors, especially my Best Women's Erotica of the Year authors, on social media. At the same time, I'm also trying to get as many worldwide authors as possible to submit stories to my upcoming anthologies Erotic Teasers and BWE of the Year 4, which can sometimes be an uphill battle and stressful because 90% of people submit in the last week, but until that happens I often think, What if I have to cancel this book after I've accepted an advance because there's not enough author interested? So, you know, no pressure or anything.

If you've read this far, you are very kind (thank you!). If you're thinking, Rachel, I want to help you and your books succeed. What can I do?, here's my answer: If you've read it or plan to read it, leave a review of On Fire on Amazon starting July 18th, no matter where you acquired the book, and/or Goodreads, or mark it as "want to read" on Goodreads.



Retweet when I Tweet about my books. Let someone know about my titles if they're asking about erotica. Ask your local library or bookstore to stock my books. Sign up to get a free copy of BWE of the Year 3 from me and leave a review. Lastly, you can think good thoughts (I know, that's super woo-woo, but I believe every little bit helps). It's certainly what I'm doing as I prepare to launch a new book into the world tomorrow.

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.

The one thing I would have done differently for my standing room only Best Women's Erotica of the Year reading in San Francisco

For the most part, I've retired from organizing readings, because if you didn't already know, they are a lot of work and while there are rewards, they aren't usually in a direct financial form. Yet they are still an important part of what I see as my involvement in the erotica community and, I believe, a valuable way to connect with an audience live. For me it's a way to meet my authors in person, when I've only ever interacted with them via email. Yes, I may get to know them by doing interviews with them and following them on Twitter but that's not that same, and as much as I'm a loner, I'm also a very social creature.

So when I commit to it, which means taking time away from income-generating tasks like writing, I commit to it. I've been organizing readings since my first anthology publication in Best Lesbian Erotica 2001, when I was able to get readers from around the United States to come to Bluestockings in New York City for what was a wonderful evening.

I wanted to share a little of what I've learned from 15 years of organizing readings. Now, in some cases, your publisher may organize ever aspect of it for you, and this will be irrelevant. For me, I'm as hands-on and involved as possible because that way I know exactly what's happening and can ask whoever's booked the reading any questions I may have in advance. As you'll read below, I didn't ask a key question and that wound up costing me book sales. But aside from the rookie mistake made with last week's reading, it was still far more crowded than I was expecting, so much so that we were standing room only for the first book reading from Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 1 at Good Vibrations. One of the first things I do is try to organize a reading as early as possible to give people time to mark their calendars and give myself time to promote it in local media and readers time to share the news with their networks.

Telling people about readings is a tricky endeavor; you want to tell them early enough that they can save the date, but don't want them to forget about it by the time the reading happens. You also have to stagger your media outreach so that the places that need the most advance notice get it, but the daily publications or blogs also get notified at the appropriate time. One thing I failed to do with this one, because I was packing to move and busy with other work, is have my publisher send a hard copy of the book along with the reading listings to local press. I had meant to send that list but got distracted, although I did submit the listing to several local newspapers and sites.

Other places I like to list events, if applicable: Galleycat on Facebook, She Writes, Poets & Writers, Eventful, Yelp (under the venue's page and then "events"), Craigslist (whatever the local site is for your event). Anywhere that hosts event listings that are relevant to your topic, go for it. You may not have time to list it everywhere, but if you have an assistant or someone who can help you, the more places you can list your event, the broader the audience you'll reach. You can also survey people at the event with a show of hands or just asking people about how they heard about it to get a sense of which places yield the best results, although I've found that varies with every event, which is why I try to list as widely as possible. When I do readings, there's always aspects that I don't get to, but I try to cover as much ground ahead of time as I can, including reaching out to local friends and asking readers to spread the word as far and wide as they can. You never know who will show up.

The things I did right, though? Getting the event posted on Facebook and Fetlife. I also actively used the Facebook listing to share links to the Q&As I did with the authors to generate ongoing interest and provide free samples of what they'd be reading so people could get excited ahead of time. Those also came with photos of the readers to make the connection more personal. Facebook turned out to be a major source of interaction about the reading, both before and after.

A little over a week before, I sent the listing to SFist, and they published it on a list of "12 Cool Things to Check Out This Week" and even gave it a little plug, so people who may have been hearing about the book for the first time, whether or not they could attend, might be inclined to further check it out. Here's what they said:

San Francisco is a literate town (think Litquake), and tonight's reading of Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 1 puts a very SF twist on our love of all things literature. Featured readers include editor Rachel Kramer Bussel, and well as various contributors. Not for the heteronormative, the "hot, varied pansexual stories" should make for a fun evening.

I arrived in San Francisco that morning by what felt like the skin of my teeth; my Virgin America flight from Los Angeles kept getting delayed due to weather but finally made it. Then I had a rush assignment so I spent a few hours at the airport, then headed over to Good Vibrations, arriving around 5:15 for the 6:30 reading to check in. I asked to put out the postcards I'd brought and asked about copies of the book.

Here is where I'm majorly kicking myself, because as it turns out, the store didn't have that many copies of the book (I don't know exactly how many but they weren't prepared for the demand, which I take responsibility for since I booked the reading and didn't even ask about this beforehand). Later on, they sold out quickly and there weren't any more, which was a lost revenue opportunity for everyone: me, my publisher, and the store. Now, I probably don't need to tell you that every book sale counts, especially when you factor in the cost of my flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco and my time, but just in case, I will. I make about one dollar for every book purchased, so I knew going in I'd be losing money on this event. Still, those book sales are important, beyond the specific dollar amount, especially in the first few weeks a book is out. Early sales help set the stage for how a book will do going forward, and strong early sales can give stores a hint of whether they should stock more copies or wait and see if anyone will purchase it. That's why I pushed hard to have this reading held the same month as the book's release; the book is still new and there's excitement about it, but soon other new titles will be competing for readers' attention.

I'm not involved in the regular purchasing process, but I would imagine that if a book sells a lot during a reading that would prompt the store to order more because it's been proven that their customers want to buy it. Good Vibrations is an exception because they had a few copies on their shelves (see my Instagram snapshot below) and are officially carrying it, but most small independent bookstores that purchase my books take 1 or 2 copies of it, since shelf space is limited, so that means that buying a copy at one of those stores has a great impact, because it shows that there's an audience for the book. (Here's a sobering post about what we really mean when we talk about book sales for many independent authors.) So my goal for the reading wasn't to make back my costs, because I consider those business expenses and part of what I'm willing to invest of my own money to promote my book, but I want to use this mistake to make sure I don't do it again. While I can't control how many copies of a book a store takes, I can give them a heads up about how many people I expect to attend and purchase, and now I have this successful reading as an example to refer to (I am hoping to do a reading in the summer or fall at the Good Vibrations store in Brookline, Massachusetts).

If I knew I wouldn't make a profit, why did I decide to do this reading? There's several reasons, beyond my desire to leave my house and interact with live people rather than purely electronic communication. One is that I think there are few venues where you can hear erotica read out loud, and that means people will remember and appreciate those who can offer that. You can simply hear different aspects of a story when the author reads it, whether that's little asides or jokes or backstory or simply the inflection and emphasis they put on certain words. Secondly, my book just came out and it's my first time editing the Best Women's Erotica series, and I wanted to come out swinging. I wanted the book to be buzzed about, to have people remembering the stories vividly in a different way than they'd get just reading them off the page. I chose San Francisco because that's one of only a few cities where my far-flung authors, who are located in six countries, could attend. If I ever win the lottery, my dream would be to do a reading with all the authors in one of my anthologies who were interested, but until that day, I have to rely on local authors or those willing to generously donate their time to travel to readings.



I also wanted to have photos and video of readings to share on my social media channels. For this book, because I believe in its potential so strongly, I've branched out and tried something new: a dedicated Best Women's Erotica of the Year Instagram account, one I plan to use for Volume 2 and any others I edit in the series. I love that because it means that when I saw the book on the Good Vibrations shelves, I could tag them and have the focus be on my book. I will be doing that for any stores stocking Best Women's Erotica of the Year, so if you see it anywhere, pretty please snap a photo and send it to me at bweoftheyear at gmail.com and I'd be more than happy to credit you.


We were awash in cameras wanting our attention! Back row: Amy Butcher and Rose Caraway. Front row: Jade A. Waters, Dorothy Freed, me

I don't have the resources to pull off a book trailer, but I did invest in hiring someone to record the readings so that those who couldn't attend could also hear the authors read (these will be up in about a month). To me, this is invaluable because as an editor, I can read the words on the page over and over and believe in their power, but hearing them read aloud, in every single case, put a new spin on them. I got to hear what the audience's reactions were to the funny and the sexy parts and everything in between. I got to find out what questions people had about the stories and my Volume 2 call for submissions during our Q&A. That is invaluable market research and that is another reason I wanted to do this reading; people may not know they have questions until they hear the work read aloud.

So the one thing I didn't do was make sure with my publisher that there would be a large supply of books at the store the night of the reading. I didn't even ask, because I was so focused on doing everything in my power to make sure there was an audience there to hear us. Clearly more could have sold, which made me feel heavily disappointed in myself for not taking book sales more seriously, because what better souvenir of a reading is there than an autographed copy? I know every time I move, I save my autographed books because they capture a specific moment in time that I want to treasure. Ultimately, I'm still thrilled with how the reading went. This was a best case scenario: a room full of people eager to meet the authors, get their books signed (someone who reads almost exclusively ebooks even bought a print copy so they could get it signed) and go home and read the stories they'd just heard snippets of. I'm hoping those who didn't pick up a copy that night either go back to Good Vibrations and buy one or purchase one elsewhere.

As it turned out, it was a perfect learning opportunity, because the next Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 1 reading is coming up March 31st at The Pleasure Chest in Chicago, and you can be damn sure I am starting early on promoting it and spreading the word and will be actively engaged in finding out how many books the store has on hand. I booked the reading then because I will be in town for CatalystCon and can't wait to meet Tara Betts and Rose P. Lethe and read with them. Hope you can make it, and if you can spread the word about the Chicago reading to anyone who might be interested, I'd be very appreciative!

A final note: these are just my experiences with booking readings. Your mileage may vary, but I think for any genre, the wider a net you cast, the wider a potential audience you'll draw. You're still competing with weather, other events in your town, and the rest of people's lives. There will always be people who want to attend but can't, but that's a better scenario than someone who might have been interested but never even knew your reading was happening.

How my 11 hour trip to San Francisco is part of my 2016 budget

One of the things I'm most excited about this year is starting a budget. I'm mortified that I'm 40 years old and have never really had a proper budget before. Especially since I was around 25, my "budgeting" has been a pretty haphazard process, if it's even been a thought at all. Trust me, I feel immense guilt and shame about that, but part of my embracing of the new year is allowing myself to move past the guilt/shame spiral and figure out what I can do differently.

In addition to setting a plan to earn a certain amount of income per week, which will probably mean increasing my writing output and, hopefully, focusing on including higher paying publications in my regular writing routine, what I'm doing is tracking where every penny I spend, and just as importantly, every penny my business, RKB Enterprises, Inc., spends. That means getting serious about some of the things I wish I could do, like travel frequently, and what I can actually afford. It means I will keep facing guilt and tough decisions occasion, because while, technically, I can "work from anywhere," it's undeniable that I lose out on the ability to earn money when I'm traveling. I can tell myself all I want that I will "write on the bus," meaning the two hour and 35 minute bus ride from Atlantic City to New York and back, usually, plus whatever other travel I do, but the reality is when I'm on a bus, or a plane, usually I'm tired and looking forward to digging into a juicy book.

So I am being a lot more careful about where and when I travel. Family is important to me, so I will be visiting my far-flung family members. I'm hoping to visit a friend I met when I was six for her birthday, but will largely be helping with her baby and working from her home. When I booked my trip to Los Angeles and San Francisco, I realized I had a choice: I could get an extra night's hotel room in San Francisco just for the sake of "hanging out" after my reading, or I could make the smarter business decision and fly home on a redeye after my reading. For one of the few times in my life, I made the more fiscally wise choice. I will leave my Good Vibrations reading and head right to SFO to catch my Virgin America flight home. Usually, I fly JetBlue, but their latest outgoing flight was too early for my schedule. So I will be in San Francisco from 12:45 pm until 11:20 pm, which is under 11 hours. Does it make sense? Not if I'd never been to San Francisco, but considering I lived in Berkeley for three years and have been to San Francisco countless times and this is a business trip, it certainly does.

I will briefly interrupt this post to plug my event, the whole reason I bought a flight to San Francisco in the first place. I'll be hosting the first reading from Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 1 on Tuesday, January 19th, from 6:30-8:30 pm at Good Vibrations, 1620 Polk Street, San Francisco. It's free and I hope you can make it! Joining me will be contributors Amy Butcher, Rose Caraway (who will narrate the audiobook, coming in spring 2016), Dorothy Freed and Jade A. Waters. My roots are in readings; I've always loved hearing authors read from their work, getting inside jokes and inflections, reliving a particular phrase. I'm especially eager to hear Amy Butcher read her hilarious, very hot and surprising story "Waiting to Pee," which pushes some boundaries but does so in a way that fascinates me. It's the kind of story I could read every month and get something new from.



Part of what's helped me make this decision has been my focus on what I want my money to accomplish this year. I've started a budget bucket list and realized that since my income fluctuates each week, I can never assume that I will have a certain amount to work with. This recent holiday I faced scrutiny around the dinner table about my plans for budgeting, and my biggest takeaway, aside from how frustrating it was and how shameful (that again!) it felt to say "I don't know yet how much I made this year" was that I want next December to feel different. I want to sit at that table and be able to report that I earned X and paid off Y and cut out spending on Z. I want to feel more confident about my worth and value and ability to handle money, and the only way that will happen is to say no to the impulse trips and hotels and purchases, at least, until I have accomplished some of my goals. I'm not going to overnight turn from hoarder to minimalist.

I've been listening to the You Need a Budget podcast and reading the YNAB blog and it's forced me to ask myself what I value, what I prioritize, what I'm doing with my life. Am I treating my income as something frivolous, or as the earnings of a real businesswoman? Am I using it to further my career, expand my books' reach, grow, or am I just using it for what feels good in the moment?

Now, as my boyfriend would be the first to tell you, I'm obsessive and impulsive. I get super into something, be it a food or a hobby or a podcast, and I can't shut up about it. Poor him, because most days he's the only person I talk to and he doesn't always want to hear about my obsessions. So, alas, you are bearing the brunt of my latest obsession. I say that jokingly, because while I am the last person you should look to as a financial role model, I can only hope that my late awakening to the value of what I earn can translate into someone else rethinking a purchase they "must" have. I plan to write more about how I invest my money back into my business, which I do primarily through buying books to send to Amazon reviewers and contest winners, traveling for events, book postcards, the occasional advertisement and domain names. I may try new marketing tools and tactics in 2016, especially since Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 1 has the potential to be my bestselling book, and the better it does, the better, I suspect, my chances of securing more anthology editing contracts. But first, I want to focus on the day to day decisions and what values and priorities they reflect. This is not a "resolution," because I traditionally fail hard at those, but a way of trying to embrace my forties and make up for lost time when it comes to cash, credit, savings and investing.

The Best Women's Erotica of the Year series is now on Instagram, or why I'm putting everything I can into using book marketing tips for this title

Warning: You are going to be hearing a lot from me about my 61st anthology, Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 1. I'm not apologizing, just letting you know. I've been editing anthologies since 2004, but working on this one feels in some ways like I'm doing it for the first time. Why? Because this one feels special in an entirely new way. It feels like I've been given an editorial gift that I don't want to squander. I will be announcing a call for submissions for the second volume on January 1st at bweoftheyear.com, and the deadline will be April 1, 2016, but for the first half of 2016, I will be focused on getting this book into as many stores as possible, and into the hands (and, later, ears) of as many readers as I can.

It feels momentous, like the culmination of all I've learned since that first anthology. I've done a lot right, and faltered here and there, with my anthologies, but I've discovered some of what both brings me joy about editing and what I think brings strength to the series. One of the things I'm most proud of is giving authors the opportunity to be published for the first time, such as Rose P. Lethe, whose story "Out of the Ordinary," about a couple where the trans man is having a tough time dealing with his disapproving family, and sex helps them bond as a couple. This is her first published erotica story. I hope to publish more authors' first published erotica in the series too.

So because this book is so important to me, I'm going all out in terms of promotion. I've been sending postcards to bookstores and sex toy stores to let them know about the book. I've been doing outreach on Twitter and via email. So far, I can tell you that Good Vibrations, with stores in the San Francisco Bay Area and Brookline, Massachusetts, and Toronto sex toy stores Come As You Are and Good for Her will have Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 1, when it comes out on January 12th, and postcards for it in the next few weeks. I hope to add to that list in a big way.

I've planned free readings, happening January 19th in San Francisco at Good Vibrations Polk Street and March 31st in Chicago at The Pleasure Chest, where I look forward to reading with contributors, especially those I've never met in person before.

I'm also trying something new with social media. In addition to Best Women's Erotica of the Year being on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, I've set up an Instagram account for the series.



Due to my making a typo the first time around, the title is not the full series name, but bestwomenseroticaofyearseries, which I think captures what this is: a series devoted to women's erotica. I look forward to posting photos from stores that stock it, and from our readings and events, and maybe even a short video here and there. Please feel free to follow the series, and I'll follow back (my personal Instagram account is rachelkramerbussel).

Thank you for your support for this book! Anything you can do to help it succeed is much appreciated. Here's some suggestions:

1. Follow us on one of the above social media platforms and share the news that the book is coming out.

2. Back our Thunderclap campaign. By doing so, you'll allow Thunderclap to post one time on January 12th on your Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr account letting people know the book is out.

3. Pre-order the book on Amazon or another online bookstore.

3. Pre-order the book at your local independent bookstore.

5. Mark Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 1 as want to read on Goodreads.

6. Come to one of our events! Or let me know where you'd like to see us do a reading by emailing bweoftheyear at gmail.com

7. On January 12th or afterwards, leave a review on Goodreads or Amazon or Bn.com or Powells or your blog or anywhere else. Tag the book on social media or send the link to bweoftheyear at gmail.com so I can spread the word.

8. On January 1, check out the call for submissions for Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 2, and if you qualify, consider submitting your work, or share the call with a writer you'd like to see published in this series.

Thank you for reading! I can't wait to share these 22 amazingly hot, sexy, creative, fun, wonderful stories with the world.

Why the "for couples" in the Dirty Dates subtitle is a suggestion, not a mandate

Look closely, or even not that closely, at the cover of my new BDSM erotica anthology Dirty Dates: Erotic Fantasies for Couples and you'll see that the image and subtitle are trying to tell you something. "Couples" is the theme, what with the one kissing in the black and white photo and the "for couples" in the subtitle of the book.



Well, I'm not saying the subtitle is a lie, but I am saying it's not the full story. I get into this more at Lady Smut in my post "Why I believe in sexy stories for everyone", which I encourage you to check out. The week before they made it Dirty Dates week and there's lots of posts there riffing on the theme.

I believe Dirty Dates, like all my anthologies, has something for everyone interested in sexy tales. You don't need to be part of a couple, or kinky, or have ever read erotica before, to find something to appreciate.

Now I will do my duty as an editor with a brand new book out to tell you where you can buy it (and if you buy the ebook by November 30th, I'll send you a free erotica ebook as thanks):

Amazon

Kindle

Barnes & Noble

Nook

Books-a-Million (paperback)

Books-a-Million (ebook)

Powells

IndieBound (find it at your local bookstore)

iBooks

Kobo

Cleis Press

Amazon UK

Kindle UK

Amazon Canada