Candy Lovers audiobook is out now!

I've been quietly working on several anthology projects, but the biggest so far this year has been my self-published anthology ebook Candy Lovers: Sugar Erotica, available exclusively for Kindle. I'm thrilled to share that the Audible audiobook was just published and is narrated by my absolute favorite narrator, Rose Caraway. If you're an Audible member, which offers you the best deal, you can get it for just one credit or $14.99 and if you have the ebook, you'll be able to purchase the audiobook at a discounted price shortly.



Whether you're new to audio erotica or a longtime listener, I hope you'll check out Candy Lovers, which has 35 full-length stories all about a different type of sweet treat. I've been so honored and lucky to get to work with Rose on over a dozen audiobooks, and needless to say, those are far and away the most popular. This project is near and dear to my heart and I look forward to hearing what listeners think! Self-published has been a lot of work and a giant learning curve, and so far, it's been a labor of love (my costs have up until now greatly exceeded my earnings), but I believe in this book and also know my erotic books have a huge audience on audio. My hope is that if this book does well, I can put out some others, thus reviving old out-of-print books that are essentially unavailable in any format. Either way, I'm proud of getting to work with so many authors and bring a book back to life ten years later (Candy Lovers is an updated, expanded version of Sex & Candy, which came out in print in 2008 from a now defunct publisher).

Candy Lovers: Sugar Erotica is out now!

After a lot of time and effort and trial and error, I'm thrilled to share the news that my first self-published anthology, Candy Lovers: Sugar Erotica, with 35 very sexy and delicious food erotic adult stories, is now available on Kindle. If you're outside the U.S., use the universal Kindle link. I'd also love, love, love it if you'd add it as want to read on Goodreads (and, of course, rate and review it if you've read it). Fun fact: Amazon reviews are the #1 way to help new readers find out about a book like Candy Lovers, which is competing with the 600,000 to 1,000,000 books published every year in the United States (and that's a 2013 statistic, so I bet the numbers are even higher). I am putting my heart and soul into making this ebook succeed, while also preparing my next two traditionally published releases, which will be out November 19 and January 21, but I'm good at juggling tasks.



If you're one of the very small number of people who read my 2008 anthology Sex & Candy, you'll recognize 26 of the stories as reprints. There are nine all new original stories as well, some of which taught me new terms like cuberdons and De La Rosa. The whole reason I put this book out is because that original title was print only and when the original publisher closed, access to the stories closed since there was never an ebook or audiobook. I have several other books in the same dead-end situation that I may look into reviving down the road, if I make a profit with Candy Lovers, which I've spent a little over $2,100 on so far (I'll break down those numbers in a Medium post soon.

Official description:

If you love the sweet taste of sugar melting on your tongue, the allure of chocolate and the exciting feeling of licking a creamy ice cream cone, you'll adore Candy Lovers: Sugar Erotica. These 35 enticing stories of food play delve into the fun of popular desserts used in the most tactile, sensual ways. These men and women pursue their sexual fantasies, opening wide to indulge an offered treat or presenting their bodies to be used for sticky, arousing, totally hot carnal celebrations.

Whether whipping up the perfect confection in the kitchen, feeding a partner a sweet treat direct from your fingertips (or other body parts) or indulging all their senses in a sugar orgy, the characters in these sexy stories are sure to whet your appetite and turn you on. From couples using dessert to add even more intimacy to their relationships to new passions fueled by a shared love of the pleasures of the tongue, Candy Lovers is sure to arouse you. Edited by the award-winning Rachel Kramer Bussel, these are the perfect erotic tales to read whenever you're in the mood…with your favorite candy nearby.

And here's a rave for it (aka, social proof):

"Like a delicious box of gourmet chocolates, Rachel Kramer Bussel's Candy Lovers: Sugar Erotica serves up a broad variety of sticky sweet and sexy goodness! This collection of treat-themed erotica includes refined classics from the likes of Shanna Germain, R. Gay, Salome Wilde, Tenille Brown, and Sacchi Green alongside new goodies from Jules Thorne, Kristina Wright, and more. 'Playfulness is one of the keys to youthfulness,' we read in Tsaurah Litzky's 'Old Fashioned Fudge,' and this anthology contains plenty of it with its sugary theme, plus a few heavier, seductive literary treats—resulting in the perfect sampler of desserts for any candy or erotica connoisseur. The trick will be choosing which sweet bite to take first!
Jade A. Waters, author of A Love Affair, From A to Z

As of now, I only plan to publish on Kindle, with an audiobook to follow later this year. I chose that partly because I get a better royalty rate from Amazon for being exclusive (70% instead of 35%), but even more so because the process was more complicated than I had expected and I wanted to simplify it, lest I give up entirely. So right now I'm simply relieved it's for sale. I still have to investigate getting into better categories than Fiction/Erotica, getting a sales rank, and have to send out copies to my authors. I'm sure there's an infinite number of things I could've done better, but I feel good about this first effort. I'll be posting about the resources I used and my self-published journey at Medium in the next few weeks, so follow me there if you want to learn more about it. I will say a huge thank you to Dayv Caraway of Stupid Fish Productions for the cover design and Jade A. Waters for formatting help. I also highly recommend checking out their ebooks and audiobooks; Stupid Fish has published many, and Jade just published her first, which I'll be posting more about soon. Without them, either there wouldn't be a Candy Lovers ebook, or it would be dreadfully ugly inside and out.

LitReactor student success story in new Ylva anthology Order Up: A Menu of Lesbian Romance and Erotica

I love getting to crow about my amazing erotica writing students, and am thrilled that just as I wrapped up my latest LitReactor online class yesterday (I'll be teaching there again in 2017), I can share news that a student from a previous class, CK Combs, has a story in the new Ylva Publishing anthology Order Up: A Menu of Lesbian Romance and Erotica edited by R.G. Emanuelle and Andi Marquette.



You can read an excerpt from "Daddy's Little Appetizer" and get some behind the scenes insights into Kyle's writing process over at Butchtastic. I was sharing this call for submissions all over the place because I love food as a theme and thought this was such a fun idea and am thrilled that what started as a homework assignment in our LitReactor class is now a published story for the world to read.

From the post: "I didn’t just want the food to be somewhere vaguely in the area of the two characters. I wanted the menu to be real, the steps and timing in preparation to be accurate. I wanted the reader to be able to imagine the dinner on the table, the setting and music and characters to come alive."

Official book description from Ylva:

Join Chef R.G. Emanuelle and sous chef Andi Marquette as they return to the kitchen to cook up another menu in their continuing quest to explore the sensuous qualities of food and illustrate how the act of preparing and eating it can engage much more than simply taste and smell. Food can become many things, from a gateway to greater intimacy to the creation or rediscovery of a connection. To help them in their quest, Andi and R.G. rounded up another group of cooks who created an array of dishes and meals, which they present to you here in a menu that ranges from sweet and romantic to sultry and seductive, from a relationship’s first tentative taste to the many layers of one that has simmered long and slow.

Each story also ends with a recipe. Some require cooking implements while others are whimsical accompaniments that don’t require cooking at all—at least not in the traditional sense. After all, food serves as more than sustenance—it’s a trigger for love, laughter, sex, pleasure, and carnal and sensory satisfaction. Whatever your palate prefers, you’re sure to find something tasty here.

You can also enter to win a copy of this hot new book here (deadline is June 16 at 9 pm EST).

LitReactor student success story: new fiction in Lit Select food erotica anthology Love Slave: Sizzle

Few things make me happier than to hear that my students have enjoyed my classes, save for when they tell me that work they created in my class is now published, and that that came about because of me. It feels like coming full circle and a wonderful validation of all their hard work and the community that's formed in my LitReactor classes. So yesterday when writer LN Bey announced that their story "Just Desserts" was published in the new food erotica anthology Love Slave: Sizzle from publisher Lit Select, I was thrilled. In LN's words from a recent blog post:

This is a food-themed erotica collection; I wrote this story as an assignment in Rachel Kramer Bussel’s online erotica writing class via LitReactor and I’ve been saving it for just such an anthology. I am especially happy about the acceptance because I mentioned it in my last blog post as an example of how I sometimes enjoy playing with the tropes of erotica in my stories, and now I look much more knowledgable since the story will be in print (or online, anyway)!

It's also wonderful to see that Lit Select has several calls for submissions posted on such wide-ranging topics ranging from "what went wrong?" to sports to enchanted forests to second chances. When I say that erotica is a democratic genre always in need of new writers, this is precisely what I mean. You don't need to have studied it, in my classes or anywhere else. You don't need intense research, unless you're writing about some specific aspect of sex like rope bondage, in which you'd want to make sure you're being accurate. You really just need imagination and dedication. Of course, we go over lots more than that in my classes, but I want to shatter the myth that to get published you need to somehow work your way up. You need to write the best work you can and make it as unique and polished and exciting as you can, but that is something I truly believe more people are capable of than they realize. I think many new writers shy away from submitting their work because they are nervous about it, and I always tell them the worst that can happen is it gets rejected. My work has been rejected umpteen times, but that doesn't stop me from continuing to submit it. In fact, those rejections have served me especially well in the last four and a half years of working for myself, because rejection is something I face daily and I know that my livelihood depends on continuing to persevere on the projects I am proud of and believe are worthy. Believing in your work, being passionate enough about it to pursue it in the face of rejection, researching markets and finding the right fit, is part of being a writer, and those are values I try to instill in my students. Again, I never pressure anyone to submit their work, but I do encourage my LitReactor and other students to get used to the submission process because it's a wonderful feeling to have worked hard and been rewarded for that.

I've written before about why I put a focus on my erotica students submitting their work, and I stand by it. Of course, not everyone wants to send out their work, but I want them to know what markets are available and what the possibilities are. Especially if, like LN, they have a novel coming out, whether self-publishing, as in LN's case, or traditionally publishing, getting your work seen by an audience beforehand has a great impact in terms of name recognition. This is all the more so if you're talking about an anthology, where, I believe based on editing over 60 of them, the final product is far greater than the sum of its parts, because you have so many people's combined talent and creativity in one package. You will undoubtedly be tapping in to an audience that may overlap with yours but that will also be different, because the publisher and your fellow authors will have wider networks than you alone do.

I don't share every student victory here, but since this book is out now and I think food erotica is a fun theme and something I often teach, I wanted to share it. Also, there's an early bird discount for my next LitReactor class, which will run May 17-June 14 and will likely be my final one for the year as I focus on other projects; sign up by April 15th to take advantage of it. Those classes are limited to 16 people and it's likely to sell out, based on past experience. It'll be my seventh time teaching the class and, having just wrapped up my sixth, I'm looking forward to working with another dedicated, enthusiastic group.



If you prefer in person erotica writing workshops, my next one will be a three-hour class Friday, April 1st from 9:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. in Chicago (actually, Rosemont, Illinois). It's being organized by the wonderful conference CatalystCon but you do not have to attend CatalystCon to take my workshop. Full details are at the CatalystCon site and you can register here. Hearing fellow students read their work aloud and having that space and time to focus on expanding your writing boundaries is a wonderful way to kickstart your writing and you should go home full of story starts and prompts that will keep you writing for a long time to come. Official details:

April 1, 2016, 9:15 am - 12:15 pm
Erotica 101 workshop, CatalystCon
In this three hour workshop Rachel Kramer Bussel, professional erotica author and editor of over 50 erotica anthologies, such as The Big Book of Orgasms, Cheeky Spanking Stories and Serving Him: Sexy Stories of Submission, will take you through the ins and outs of modern erotic writing. Learn how to get started, find your voice, and write against type. You’ll discover how to incorporate everyday scenarios as well as outlandish fantasies into your writing, and make them fit for particular magazines and anthologies. The class will also cover branding yourself as a writer, using and selecting a good pseudonym, and using social media to promote your work and do outreach. She’ll also talk about submitting your work and keeping up with the thriving erotica market, including anthologies, ebooks, magazines and websites. Please bring paper and writing implements or a laptop to use for in class writing exercises. A bibliography with erotica resources will be provided.

This class will take place on Friday, April 1, 2016 at the CatalystConhost hotel. You must purchase a ticket to this workshop separately from CatalystCon on the registration page and do not have to attend CatalystCon to take the workshop. $45/person.. Register here.

Hyatt Regency O'Hare, 9300 Bryn Mawr Avenue, Rosemont, IL 60018

Cinnamon raisin hump day buns recipe by Gotta Have It contributor Erica Rivera

Erica Rivera wrote the story "Hot Buns on a Sunday Afternoon" in Gotta Have It: 69 Stories of Sudden Sex. Now you can get her recipe for Cinnamon Raisin Hump Day Buns!





Here's the beginning of her story "Hot Buns on a Sunday Afternoon." Read the whole thing in Gotta Have It - click to watch the book trailer.

Hot Buns on a Sunday Afternoon
by Erica Rivera

I always preempt my booty calls with porn.

Sink your teeth into my buns, read the text I sent to my lover. Attached was a picture of my homemade pecan rolls, dripping with caramel. I deliver! Just say when!

To my relief, he was just as eager for the rolls as I was for another roll in the hay.
Now! he responded.

We’d only have an hour, but the way he fucked me, that would be plenty. His style was almost schizophrenic: bunny kisses interspersed with spankings. He’d given me a peek at the wide, wild world of BDSM, and I was hooked. Next on the menu? Anal.

“I’ll be gentle,” he’d promised during our previous in-person negotiations. “I’ll go slow. If you want to stop, we’ll stop. But you won’t want to.”



Order Gotta Have It from:

Amazon.com

Kindle edition

Bn.com (Barnes & Noble)

Books-a-Million

Borders

Powell's

IndieBound (find your local independent bookstore)

Cleis Press

Listen to me read hamburger erotica, hold a dripping penis candle and talk sex

Click here to listen to me and Shameless author Pamela Madsen last night on The Dr. Susan Block Show - photos coming soon! I held a red penis candle from Lucky Mojo and read part of "Eat Me," the hamburger erotica story by Marina Saint (aka, um, me) in Gotta Have It: 69 Stories of Sudden Sex and we chatted about erotic massage and other topics.

I also got to meet the very sexy Pleasure Mechanics who, well, were very hot in their mechanics uniforms and, I believe, will be on hand (ha!) live on Tuesday night at Coco de Mer. I totally want to know about their foot massage. Their videos offer guides to fingering, butt play, prostate massage and more. Plus their outfits! Could inspire a ton of erotica stories...just saying.