Hello, as the year draws to a close, now is the ideal time to reflect on the year gone by, both its highs and the lows.
Traditionally we have focused on writing books which push boundaries. Explore areas of human behaviour which goes right to the edge. Okay, some of our tastes are not for everyone and we always make this clear in our descriptions.
For a change we looked at exploring the paranormal. Perhaps not in the way most writers approach it. Ours looked at those who could, if they wished, return from the afterlife. We found a neat, possibly unique way to write this using the current interest worldwide of those who choose to end their lives rather than die in an otherwise painful and undignified way. Under the author B.L Miller, two books were written in 2024. The Girl Who Could See Ghosts and The Ghost of Sycamore Cottage.
Unfortunately, any joy a writer might experience having written books in a new genre, was quickly dampened by our experience in promotion. We found to our cost, being approached by 'successful writers' who shared their promotion methods but it soon turned out to be an elaborate scam. These 'writers' were nothing of the sort. They recommended their equally scam promoters. It took a while to realise and thankfully we were not stung financially. That was the downside of 2024.
Putting that behind us, we looked at age gap romance. Starting with older woman, younger woman, we created Age of Consent, quickly followed by One Hot Night, which is due to publish in early January.
These are both hot steamy reads which push the boundaries many authors choose to avoid. When we started writing erotica, we made a concious decision not to shy away from explicit detail. No fade to black, never a door closing, leaving the reader to best guess what takes place on the other side. In both cases erotic caning appears and in the case of
One Hot Night descriptions of sexual depravity abound. Not for every reader for sure, but we do like to warn in advance!
We are currently working on an age gap romance novelette which features an older man and a teenage girl of legal age. It is currently gentle, but we will have to see how that develops.
2024 saw the continued success of Sam Evan's books. We recognise a market exists in the male/ male corporal punishment genre. Men who wish to recall their time at school by taking this into adulthood. Younger men, meeting their nemesis. Often the same man, possibly a headmaster from their time at school, who they then meet by chance. Those events in the privacy of the head master's office are resurrected far more brutally in adulthood.
It doesn't need further description. These are books with an obvious theme. I'd like to thank all those who purchased these books and we obviously look forward to connecting with new readers too.
Like all INDY authors, promotion is a difficult area both to understand and especially negotiate. I'm sure authors reading this will find as we have, there is no shortage of offers to help promote our books. From our experience 99% are chancers. Eager to part us with our money. Quite how some offer mailing lists of 5000, even 10,000 or more is a mystery. I would not wish to find our books offered to the Women's Institute or the local church floral society as I am sure these are random lists which bear little authentic reality.
We are offering our books direct, as well as through usual channels such as Amazon and D2D.
One problem, especially with Amazon, is being able to offer reduced prices, without reaching a stage, where after commision, we might as well give our books away which is hardly the point is it!
We have a website or alternatively, our books can be found through Kindle searches or newsletters like this. So, if you wish to receive any book in epub form (no paperbacks unfortunately) please contact us through here or by following the link to www.texshirebooks.com/contact. Communicate the title you wish to purchase at a greatly reduced rate and we can email the title. You just need an epub reader (Kindle app is perfect) just load the file and it is done. Payment would be via PayPal.
Christmas Greetings to everyone reading this
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