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Larry Archer

Non-Traditional Writing or The Meaning of Life

by | January 24, 2020 | | 6 Comments

Recently a thought struck me that I guess has been buzzing around in my head for years, but I’ve consciously or subconsciously been ignoring it. I don’t think I write traditional books as my stories are more a slice of life rather than something with a beginning, middle, and end.

When I say a slice of life, my stories tend to be a day in the life of Foxy and Larry, the fictional pervert couple in my books. Just as an average person gets up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, and goes to bed, my stories tend to be that way.

I’ve always struggled with two words, “The End,” which elude me most of the time when I’m writing.

I started writing to give myself the ability to talk about fictionalized versions of our adventures in the world of wife swapping or swinging, also known as throwing your house keys in a bowl.

So far, most of my stories have ended up with a vague ending as I never really had a final chapter in the story but more of, “I’ve got an idea for a new story, so somehow I’ve got to kick this one out the door!”

One of my latest WIP’s is House Party 2, which is an effort to correct the problems I created in the original House Party. In HP, my fictional wife runs off to LA and becomes a porn star. Now in HP2, I’m struggling to be a marriage counselor and patch things up. The original was 85,000 words, and the sequel will likely approach 90,000 words, which is way too long for a smut story, but I just can’t seem to quit.

HP2 is my first serious attempt to write something with Scrivener, the word processor for writers. I’ve pretty much figured it out except for the output process, which I haven’t really looked at yet. Scrivener allows you to break up your story in blocks such as chapters.

Rather that one long file, the story can be broken up into sections (chapters), and the writer only deals with that section at any time. For me, it works well as I get tired/bored working on a scene and can instantly jump to another chapter for something new.

One of my faults is that I’m easily distracted by a shiny object or a short skirt and have problems keeping my focus on the job at hand or possibly in my hand. I guess to be a writer, you should have a vivid imagination, which I seem to be guilty of but have absolutely no control over.

There was a moment of sadness and reflection when I learned of the passing of Terry Jones, one of the key people behind the silliness of Monty Python. I first became aware of the British comedy series of Monty Python and Benny Hill back when we lived in the mid-west. Our public television station would run shows from these two series during fundraising weeks.

The British people have a wonderful sense of offbeat humor and a weird fascination with spanking but to each, his own. Every time I see Spam in the grocery store, I think of those crazy people and wish we could return to a simpler time where our biggest problem was determining the airspeed velocity of an African swallow and what is the best way to tie a migratory coconut to it. At least we learned how to determine if someone is a witch or not. That would have made things a lot simpler for the Pilgrims in Salem. Watch out for the Killer Rabbit!

Once again thank you for struggling to the end of this post without resorting to beer, and as always if you’re in the bathroom with nothing to do, grab one of my stories: https://LarryArcher.blog/stories

XOXO Foxy and Larry

Looking Forward

by | December 24, 2019 | | 4 Comments

As the year comes to an end, I wonder where did 2019 go? It seems every year is shorter and shorter; I’m tempted to check the calendar to count the number of months and make sure it is still twelve. Did it use to have more, maybe?

As a writer of erotica, I see myself sometimes as a male version of Sybil, the woman with multiple personalities. Typically, our author’s side is hidden from the world as your neighbors and co-workers would be aghast at learning the fact you write stuff for people to jerk off to.

Now certainly, we can wrap ourselves in the guise of literary license, somewhat like our President wraps himself in the American flag, but let’s not kid each other, most people think we are perverts.

Are we perverts or just being honest with ourselves? In my lifetime, I’ve seen gays go from being people rednecks would beat up after leaving the bar to people who are your neighbors and friends who borrow your turkey baster.

Maybe in another thirty years, when people say what do you do to keep the wolf away from the door, we can say, “I write erotica!” Well, I’m not holding my breath!

Leading secret lives is something that Wifey and I had done long before I started writing with one hand. Being in “The Lifestyle” means that you have two separate and distinct lives.

One of the first things we learned was you have two sets of friends, straights, and swingers. In effect, we have two little black books and they are seldom joined. Initially, you may think that you can keep them straight but it has been a struggle for us.

When we lived in the mid-west, I had a photography studio in my basement. One wall was devoted to pictures I’d shot that I liked. One day, my sister-in-law commented that she’d recognized a nude woman on my photo wall as a swinger friend of ours. One of our closest couples, we partied with, lived about ten minutes away and we did a lot of things together that didn’t always involve the bedroom.

Consequently, they had met our in-laws, and while my sister-in-law never voiced the obvious question, “Why do you have naked pictures of some other guy’s wife?” I’m sure that the thought was there.

Likewise, we have huge New Year’s Eve Pajama Parties, and deflecting the questions about why they weren’t invited was always problematic. In fact, a story I recently published, Crashing the Swinger’s Pajama Party, was an adaptation of what actually happened when a neighborhood couple showed up at midnight to a hundred people, who were mostly naked and doing the nasty!

All things considered, we’ve been lucky to escape having our secret life exposed and none of our neighbors have shown up with torches and pitchforks. It hasn’t been easy to live a double life, but at least until now, doable. Relocating to Las Vegas has made that aspect of our life, easier to deal with.

Throwing your house keys in a bowl often results in wildly exciting and often humorous consequences that you are unable to share with your straight friends. This is one of the reasons that I got started writing smut, this time seven years ago.

Writing erotic stories allows me to talk about things we’ve seen and done while maintaining the anonymity of the guilty parties and being able to get it off my chest, so to speak. Even before we got into the Lifestyle, Foxy and I lived a questionable lifestyle (lower case).

I always encouraged her to dress sexy, and being an ex-model and exhibitionist wasn’t much of a challenge for her. For me, I love having the woman that everyone in the room wants but can’t have, and that’s a real turn-on. While I don’t consider myself a cuckold, it is a thrill to see everyone’s tongue hanging out when she stalks into the room.

Writing adventures has added another separate side to our lives, straight, swinger, and now an erotic author. When I started this, I promised her that I would keep my author’s life completely separate and have managed to do so, although it’s been a struggle at times.

As my seventh year of writing smut comes to an end, I feel that I’ve been relatively successful at it. I write what is colloquially known as “stroke erotica,” or stories you masturbate to.

A lot of my fellow writers look down their noses at stroke, but I don’t care and enjoy writing stuff basically aimed at getting my readers off. Stroke stories are typically short, yet mine are often novel or novella length. So I like to think my readers are getting their money’s worth.

Heading into the new year, I have over thirty published stories under my belt and am averaging about four per year. Should I be more prolific? Certainly, but life often gets in the way and writing smut is only one part of our sometimes hectic life.

Having a real day job means that I don’t have to publish but it does nag at me when I see my sales figures drop as the days since my last story pile up. Amazon, the company we love to hate, factors time between releases as a major component in whether they suggest your story or not to a prospective reader with his/her pants unzipped.

Luckily, I also publish through SmashWords which goes more by popularity and rating than when it was published. SmashWords also pushes out my stories to other outlets such as Apple iBooks or Barnes and Noble without have to do anything. My sales through iBooks generally match what I sell through SmashWords, so I get twice the bang for my buck.

I also need to give a shout out to Kinky Literature, who promotes my porn and other popular writers. If you write erotica, you need to set up an account with Kinky Literature. Your reader pays the same price and you get the satisfaction of knowing Richie and Randi doesn’t look down upon you, unlike the blue-haired lady who hands you the dirty magazine in a brown paper bag as she sprays you with Lysol.

And of course, the Erotic Readers and Writers Association (ERWA) offers a place for writers to get together and discuss the finer points of writing smut stories as well as letting me opine on life in general once a month.

In closing, I’ll reiterate my singular goal for 2019, “Focus on one thing at a time!” Once again, I’ve failed at this goal. I will be writing some story, and out of the blue comes a thought for another story, which I can’t seem to get out of my head. Often, I will tell myself, “I’ll just write enough to flesh out the storyline.” Then what typically happens is that I’ll end up writing 20,000 words or so before going back to the story I’m trying to finish.

If I look at my draft folder, it contains over one-hundred partially finished stories that I really should do something about. I just can’t seem to turn my mind off, but maybe one day?

Well, I’m off like a prom dress! Until this time next month, stay kinky, and for more from my feeble mind, check out my blog, LarryArcher.blog.

Closer to the Edge of the Amazon Cliff?

by | November 24, 2019 | | 1 Comment

by Larry Archer

As a writer of erotica, I am painfully aware of the Amazon Cliff and how quickly I find my toes hooked over the edge, like a bird trying to hold onto a branch in a hurricane as nature attempts to blow you away.

The “Amazon Cliff” is widely discussed, and while not an official stated policy of Amazon, there appears to be almost undeniable proof of its existence. The Amazon Cliff is a term writers use to describe how an author’s ranking suddenly drops after the release of a new publication.

Previously, we have thought that the “cliff” was approximately 30-days after a new release, but I believe that has now changed to approximately 15-days (or two weeks), at least in my case. While I’ve tried not to be too anal about sales, I couldn’t help but notice the difference between daily sales, after the release of my latest story, Walk on the Wild Side, when compared to sales before the release.

The daily sales chart below shows how my daily sales increased at the time of release and, about two weeks later, dropped to the “normal” daily sales before the release of the story.

When you release a new story, there is typically a bump in your author’s and story’s rating, which translates into higher sales at Amazon, as the release date prioritizes the results of a search. Keep in mind that I’m looking at my sales data, which may or may not mirror the results of others.

A prospective reader goes to Amazon and searches for new smut to read. The results presented are based upon proprietary algorithms, but one of the components is the length of time since the author’s previous release.

The obvious and often stated takeaway from this is that you need to publish new stories frequently to keep you on the peak of the sales wave. However, for a lot of writers, this is not as easy as you might think.

Porn stories tend to be short because if the story is long enough to get you off, then that’s all you need. For me, this is a non-starter because I can’t seem to be able to type “The End.” When I start a new erotic story, I will only have a vague idea of where the story will go, and my characters take advantage of me to never stop doing the nasty.

When I compare my sales ranking at SmashWords, I see more consistent day to day sales figures. Below is a sales chart for the past 90 days at SmashWords. While there is a sales bump with the release of a new story, the overall sales tend to be a lot more consistent. Plus, if you dig into sales of popular stories, I have stories that have been out for over a year and are still in the upper section of popularity. This tells me that SmashWords places a priority on the popularity of a story and not just when it was released.

I think the bottom line is to publish as often as you can with Amazon to keep you higher in the SEO or search rankings. I use the Book Report web-based tool, https://app.getbookreport.com/, for my sales reporting, which is free if your sales are below a certain level.

That’s all for this month, and thanks for slogging through to the end. For more on erotica by Larry Archer, follow my blog at: https://LarryArcher.blog or https://LarryArcher.blog/stories for my list of HEA explicit erotica. Follow me on Twitter, @Archer_Larry, or MeWe at https://mewe.com/i/larryarcherauthor

 

What’s in My Toolbox

by | October 25, 2019 | , , , , | 8 Comments

For my ERWA blog posting this month, I’m going through the tools I normally use while scribbling out my smut stories. I’ve discovered that there are ways to save money, yet not scrimp on performance or capability.

Philosophy

The traditional way to publish a book involves the use of editors to proof your manuscript, graphics designers to create a cover, and a publishing house to put it all together. In a perfect world, this is the way to go, but unfortunately most of us live in the real world.

Assuming that our story sells for $2.99 or $3.99 and we have a 70% margin, then your profit from a $3 book is $2, and a $4 book is $3. I’m using rounded figures here and know this isn’t strictly correct.

For a cover, let’s assume a price of $50 to $200 per cover. In terms of sales this translates to 25 sales at $50/cover or 70-100 sales at $200/cover. The painful truth that most of us quickly learn, your sales on an erotic story will be slim. Then you have to ask yourself, how long will it take until my new story is in the black or when you stop bleeding money?

Until you become rich and famous or have a spouse who doesn’t pay a lot of attention to the credit card bill, the average beginning smut writer can’t afford the luxury of hiring outside help.

Getting your foot in the door can be a pricy first step unless you are willing to do the grunt work yourself. Designing a cover is not that hard if you are reasonably competent, and using inexpensive or free tools can get you started. Certainly a professional graphics designer or copy editor can do a better job, but I don’t think you should drive yourself into the poor house doing it.

Make sure that you join our group of talented people who write erotica. They can offer a lot of advice to both new and seasoned writers. Erotica Readers and Writers Association (ERWA) has been around for many years and should be high on your list of blogs to follow. https://erotica-readers.com/blog/

Hardware

I’ve always been a PC person and generally considered those who had drunk the Kool-Aid to be under the influence of Steve Jobs, even from the grave, but not any longer. Like many, I’ve been seduced and taken a bite out of the forbidden Apple. Like Adam and Eve, who just ran around naked in the woods and screwed all the time until they succumbed to the forbidden fruit. They took a bite of the Apple and found themselves outside the fence.

In 2012, when I first started writing porn, I realized that I needed a laptop that I could take to the bathroom when I had one of those urges. I have purchased three Ultrabooks or thin, light PC laptops for the successful executive on the go. Every time I bought one, I quickly realized that they were not very good. Buyer’s remorse quickly set in as I discovered their shortcomings.

The problems I discovered centered around a couple of necessary features for me. Touchpads under Windows sucked, and many people are plagued with “ghost” touches. The touchpad would do things by itself and drove me crazy. This is a common problem, and many users complain about it.

I finally figured out how to stop the problem, but by this time, I had moved on to my MacBook Air. Others have suggested that I use a mouse to eliminate the issues, but then you have to lug the mouse around and deal with it.

The other problem is battery life and performance with Windows laptops. If you don’t get a good CPU like an i7 processor, performance sucks. Battery life is always measured in a few hours. Manufacturers boast 8-10 hours of run time, but they typically lie. When you can only get maybe 3-4 hours, you’re as bad as someone with an iPhone. You walk around with the charger cord in your hand, looking for an outlet.

Foxy uses an iPhone 8S with 256 Gig of ram and constantly has it plugged in and complains about battery life. For a thousand-dollar phone, I’d expect more, but that’s what she wanted and who am I to complain. I’ve learned to just hand over my credit card and close my eyes. What I don’t know won’t hurt me.

My love affair with Apple started in 2012 with my purchase of a 2012 MacBook Air, which only has an i5 processor, but you’d think there was an i7 under the hood. As a touch typist, the MBA’s keyboard is the best I’ve ever seen. My mistakes dropped like a rock, and once I got used to the differences between the PC and Mac operating systems, I’ve never looked back, mostly.

In 2015, I upgraded to a new model MBA with 8 Gb of ram and gave my old Mac to Wifey. It works well with her iPhone and saves me a lot of time dealing with Mac to PC problems. My new Mac was just like the old one except for twice the memory. To be honest, I’ve never noticed any problems with the previous Mac’s 4 Gig of memory, but I’m a sucker for new stuff, especially if it’s shiny.

I’ve got money in my bank account for my writing and have been thinking about upgrading, but the new style keyboard scares me. My 2015 Mac is doing well, and I’ve been thinking about swapping out the 256 Gb hard disk for a 1-Tb disk, which is pretty reasonable. Not that I need it, but it would be something new.

One other neat thing about the MBA is that it boots instantly when you raise the lid and doesn’t drain the battery like a Windows laptop does. Fast Start is turned on by default, and that means when you power off, you don’t really power off but enter a hybrid state that allows the computer to boot faster. The downside is that the laptop is constantly using power and will rarely go more than two days without exhausting the battery. My Mac will go for several weeks at least by just closing the lid, with minimal battery loss.

But I have found that there are reasonable alternatives for those who like the Windows operating system. A couple of years back, they took away my work Toshiba laptop and gave me an iPad, which works for 95% of my needs when I’m away from my desktop PC.

A few months ago, I was running a test and needed a PC for the field. Our IT department loaned me a Lenovo business laptop, and I promptly fell in love. It has an older style keyboard that is a joy to type on. It reminds me of my old Dell keyboard, except this one doesn’t clack when you type on it.

The Lenovo is not as skinny and light as a modern Windows ultrabook but is not bad. It probably weighs a pound or so more than my MacBook Air but still not objectionable. Looking through refurbished laptops on Amazon, I discovered that I could buy a 4 year old Lenovo T450s for $315 used and rebuilt with Windows 10 Pro installed.

I’d never bought a used laptop before but liked the one at work so much, I sprung for the unit. It has an i7 processor, 250 Gb solid-state hard disc, and 4 Gb of ram. The unit is probably 4 or 5 years old but looks perfect. Naturally, both of the batteries had degraded to about 75% of new, and I ordered replacement batteries for the unit. While I had the back off, I added 16 Gb of ram to bring the unit up to 20 Gb of ram.

Now I have about $450 invested in the unit with new batteries and lots of ram. I consider this a better alternative than spending almost $2 grand on a high-end laptop. Plus, this thing has huge batteries and will run all day without requiring a charge.

I prefer my MacBook Air as it is lighter and has a phenomenal battery life. The Mac operating system is a form of Unix (Linux) and is more efficient than a Windows computer. On top of that, when you open the lid, the sign-in window shows up instantly. Even if you let it sleep overnight, the boot time is maybe 10-15 seconds, which blows my Windows 10 Pro laptop completely away. Unfortunately, some of the engineering software I use is only available on a Windows machine, so I flip back and forth as needed.

If you are on a tight budget and you need a computer, take a look at refurbished units. I’ve have been pleased with my used computer, and if you grab something with an i7 processor, it will be plenty fast even if it’s a few years old. Make sure you get a solid-state hard disk.

Less expensive laptops are available, such as a Chrome unit, but often have limitations and are slower than a more top of the line unit. By purchasing a used business-grade laptop, I get a unit that is durable and provides power and capability at a reasonable cost.

Word Processing Software

I use Microsoft Word for word processing, but it can be expensive. Now the new Microsoft Office 365 is just a rental that costs you about $120 per year. Renting software pisses, me off and I refuse to upgrade as I want to own the software. Depending on which computer I’m using, I run Office 2016 or 2019, but there are cheaper alternatives.

LibreOffice is a good free alternative that is available for both PCs and Macs. It’s virtually identical to Word, that is except for the Free part! LibreOffice comes with an office suite like Microsoft Office. https://www.libreoffice.org/

I’m also experimenting with Scrivener, which a lot of people like. You can buy it for either PC or Mac for about $50 each. They are beta testing the new Windows version, and you can download the beta version for free until they come out with the final release. If you are running Windows, it’s a good way to grab a word processor for free and will only cost you about $50 sometime in the future, if you like it. https://www.literatureandlatte.com/

Scrivener is kind of cool in that each chapter can be a separate document and allows the writer to deal with a story in parts, yet the software bundles everything together to output. You can also export to Word format to publish. It will publish to electronic book formats, but I’ve haven’t been that adventuresome yet.

Scrivener is a total solution to publishing by giving a writer the ability to build a completed manuscript from the parts, such as cover, front matter, body, and back matter. Plus, it can be set up to publish to different formats with a compiler option.

I’m writing the follow up to House Party, called cleverly House Party 2, using Scrivener, which has been an interesting challenge. There are enough differences to make the program different from Word, and I’m still not sure if I’ll like it going forward but am a glutton for punishment.

Graphics Processing

Having some good graphics tools are a requirement for the Indie writer, in my opinion. While an author can outsource the creation of the cover to a graphics artist, that cost can be difficult to make up with sales.

To replace PhotoShop try GIMP, which is very close to PhotoShop except being free. Download a copy at https://www.gimp.org/

To design your covers, give InkScape a try. InkScape is similar to CorelDraw but free and not hundreds of dollars. https://inkscape.org/

Another good one is Canva, an online cover designer. It’s somewhat limited as you have to pick a template and change it to your story’s details, but it’s free. https://www.canva.com/create/book-covers/

For resizing images, you can’t beat IrfanView, https://www.irfanview.com

To convert document files to ePub, MOBI, or PDF, grab a copy of Calibre. https://calibre-ebook.com/

All the software mentioned above is free and can be downloaded from the Internet. Certainly, commercial software will likely have a few more bells and whistles, but for the struggling artist they can fit your needs. I use mostly open-source (free) software except for a couple, but I pay the bills, and Foxy doesn’t have to bother her pretty little head about where our money goes!

Addendum 2019-10-26 – Mom always told me that if I kept on playing with myself, I’d go blind. I’ve always said, I’d just do it until I needed glasses! I now think it’s affected my brain as I missed a couple of things that are not really associated with writing smut but I consider necessary.

NAS Drive – If you have a network at home, which most of us with cable do, you should invest in a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device with RAID. A NAS drive is similar to the USB portable drives people use to backup or store important files such as pictures and videos from your wife’s first gangbang. A NAS drive will have an RJ-45 network jack that looks like an oversized telephone jack (you remember those don’t you?).

Plugging it into your router or a switch if you have a wired network, will allow backups from any device connected to your home wifi or network. The trick is to get a NAS drive with RAID 0. RAID means that the storage device has two physical hard disks inside that are the same size. With RAID, saving a file to the NAS drive means that the unit automatically writes a copy to the second hard disk. The non-techy explanation is there are two copies to every file, stored on different hard disks. So unless the unit is destroyed with a hammer, it’s virtually impossible to lose files if the hard disk crashes. Always remember, it’s not if a hard disk will fail, it’s when the hard disk is going to fail.

If a hard disk fails on the NAS drive, just unplug the bad hard disk and plug in a new disk of the same size or bigger. The NAS drive will automatically format and use the new hard disk by copying all the files from the original drive to it. This takes a few days as it’s done in the background but the drive will continue to work normally.

NAS drives are not cheap but what’s your data worth? I have a Qnap T-420 which holds 4 hard disks. I’ve currently got 2 – 2Tb and 2 – 4Tb drives in it. Using RAID the capacity of the unit is half the installed storage, so in my case, I have a 2 Tb file system for my writing and personal records and a 4Tb drive for scanned images and video. I also store my pictures from my DSLR and our cell phones there.

FastCopy – I use the FastCopy shareware software to backup my files from my desktop and laptop computers. FastCopy is supposed to be the fastest copy utility around and it only copies files that have changed or are new. It skips the existing files so you can just tell FastCopy to copy from folder to folder, which just takes a few clicks. I write batch files and put them on my desktop to backup my computers. The site to download from is partially in Japanese but with a little head-scratching you can figure out how to download an English version. https://fastcopy.jp/en/

Crystal Disk Info – This handy little utility will read the status of your attached hard disks and tell you if any are having problems. When you run it, it will scan all of the connected disk drives and display the health status of each. If you start seeing warning messages, immediately buy a replacement drive and copy the files to the new drive. Typically, you never get warnings when your hard disk is having problems as it will retry to read a bad sector until it manages to get the data. But then one day, it cannot and you are typically history at that point. By watching the Power On hours and if the status changes from good, then you’re okay. A rule of thumb that I use is to replace an external USB hard disk at around 12,000 run hours or an internal at 18,000 – 20,000 hours even if you don’t see problems. These days an 8-Tb USB drive is about $150 so it’s not that expensive to swap them out. A good 4-Tb internal drive is about $85 also. https://crystalmark.info/en/

Sorry, I didn’t think about those at the time I was writing my monthly blog issue but feel that these are also important.

That’s it for this month, and follow me for more ramblings from the dirty mind of Larry Archer. My personal blog is https://LarryArcher.blog.

Keeping my eye on the ball

by | September 24, 2019 | | 2 Comments

There is no way around it, I suck at finishing stories. Over the last several months, I’ve written over one-hundred thousand words yet haven’t published a darn thing. There should have been two or three smut stories that I could have pulled off my computer, but nada.

By the same token, I’ve had to tape additional paper on the bottom of my sales chart to hold the line that is pointing towards the floor, when it should be pointing to the ceiling. With SmashWords, my sales are relatively stable, but Amazon is another story.

Amazon’s 30-day cliff means that a month after releasing a story, the door to the basement opens and your rating gets kicked down the stairs. So in a perfect world, I’d be publishing at least every month to maintain my author’s rank, but no, I can’t seem to accomplish that no matter how hard I try.

I’m so easily distracted by shiny objects even when I know that I should keep my eye on the ball and finish what’s in front of me. Unlike most other writers, I’ve had little training on how to write beyond a Technical Report Writing course I took in college.

My story ideas come to me out of the blue, often when I see something that sparks a train of thought to begin in my mind. Too often, what I find is that these flashes of inspiration will come as I’m typing madly away on some story.

My latest saga started when I finished House Party, where Foxy ran off with a movie producer to Los Angeles. This story is the first one where Foxy and Larry had a less than optimal outcome to a story. Assuming you’ve never read one of my stories from the Foxy and Larry series, they are a fictional version of ourselves. I started writing porn to give me the opportunity to talk about some of our adventures in swinging.

What I discovered is that I really enjoyed writing smut stories but quickly realized that I should have picked different names for my two main characters, but that’s water over the bridge. Not being a trained writer, the last almost seven years have been on the job training, so hopefully, I’ve grown.

For us being in the Lifestyle has always been fun and never something we fought about. This has always been reflected in my stories, yet I know that stories should have conflict, which I tried to inject in House Party with Foxy running off with another man. The bitch!

As I write House Party 2, I’m attempting to rectify the heroine running off and bring her back home. As I approached 50,000 words, I got the bright idea of what could happen if two sexually unsatisfied co-workers decided to solve their problems by swinging, while their hubbies watched Monday Night Football.

Now, this new story is approaching 45,000 words and is actually more complete than my first story, House Party 2. At this point, I have two stories that are each about 90% finished when wouldn’t you know I watched a German Goo Girls (GGG) movie on my computer. If you’re not familiar with Goo Girl movies, they are an offshoot of Japanese Bukkake, which are girls getting their faces covered with jizz and often don’t have sex, depending on your definition of what sex is?

In Goo Girls, they have sex then get their faces painted, so it’s the best of both worlds! That got me thinking about the ending of Crashing the Swinger’s Pajama Party, where Foxy sells a neighbor’s wife to a Goo Girls movie producer for ten thousand dollars, and she’s required to star in his shows for six months.

After releasing that story, I’ve had several fans write to ask when I’m going to cover Samantha’s adventures in the German Goo Girl movie business. Now I’m trying to flesh out my thoughts on the story before forgetting my train of thought.

Now I have three stories under active status, yet nothing is going out the door. Hopefully, I can focus long enough to finish something without another thought hitting me. The way my typical storyboarding process works is that I’ll get an idea, then let the characters start working the scenes in my mind.

My initial thought is to write down enough about a potential story that I can pick up the story at a later date and finish it. What often happens to me is that as I write up my notes on the new story, I become more interested in it and shift my attention to the new story.

That wouldn’t be too bad except that my imagination doesn’t stop working, and I’m continually coming up with story ideas, which just repeats the problem. It would be sweet if I could focus on one story and finish it before starting a new story.

My draft folder is full of stories that are half to three-quarters finished as I keep getting off track. Maybe one day, but what the hell!

For more from the irrelevant mind of Larry Archer, check out my blog at https://LarryArcher.blog Until this time next month, I’m off like a prom dress.

Why We Enjoy Swinging?

by | August 24, 2019 | | 6 Comments

F*** and B**

By Larry Archer

Why do we enjoy the Lifestyle is an interesting question that occasionally we get asked? Occasionally is because there are not a lot of reasons for it to come up. Similar to being gay or trans, swinging is not a topic that you bring up with your straight friends.

Generally speaking, I believe most straights assume that we spend all our time in bed with somebody else’s husband or wife. While that may be true to somewhat of a degree, the Lifestyle is a lot more than fucking and sucking.

When you are with other couples, the atmosphere is a lot more relaxed and stressfree. You don’t have to worry about your other half playing grabass with someone else after a few drinks. While there is a fair possibility that it may, in fact, happen, it doesn’t mean a problem. Just pull up a chair and enjoy the view or take care of someone else.

Certainly, there is an initial adjustment period for most couples, and some will bail initially as they can’t come to grips with their spouse sleeping with another. It’s natural to have some jealousy when your wife is getting her brains fucked out, but it’s funny how quickly that passes.

We always tell new couples to try and keep it even as it’s hard to be upset when you’re getting your bell also rang at the same time your wife is getting off. So if one of you is partying, then hopefully the other is also. The point to keep in mind is that this is simply sex and nothing else. Swinging is not cheating, and there is no love involved.

You are not slipping off for a nooner at Motel 6 or tipping the gardeners with a gangbang. Plus the neat thing is you can tell your other half all about it. If you cheat with that hot MILF in accounting, who are you going to tell about the blowjob you got in the storeroom, certainly not your wife?

It might seem strange at first, but getting sloppy seconds from your wife while she’s telling you exactly what she just did to some other guy or girl is so neat. A lot of guys enjoy watching their wife with other men, and being in the Lifestyle allows you to do that without worrying about what could happen.

New couples may think it’s better to start with another couple, but I think larger parties are a better choice. With only one other couple, you may have to take one for the team or a “charity fuck” as we call them. You can certainly say no, but you may feel somewhat forced to get with the other person as you’ll both be in the living room looking at each other while your other half is getting his lights drilled out.

At a house party, you are free to pick a different partner or not do anything if you desire. Just because your husband is with someone’s wife, doesn’t mean that you have to go with her husband. When your choices are greater, it’s more likely that you’ll find someone you like.

Sometimes, the wife is the ticket for the husband to get in the door, and people will quickly pick up on the fact, she never parties. This will typically mean that invitations for the next party will quickly dry up. Swinging is an event for both parties, and if you both don’t want to do it, maybe you should take up bowling.

If a cuckold – Hotwife couple are not swingers, they end up having to pick up random guys at a bar or possibly at work. This can be fraught with potential problems. If she goes off with a person or couple at a party, everyone knows where their partner is, and you don’t have to worry about them getting raped or attacked.

Certainly, couples can make this work, but for new couples, be careful. One couple we know had just flown in from somewhere and decided to get a drink at the airport bar. The wife ended up taking a hockey team back to the motel for a gangbang. Her husband said that it was incredible watching his wife take on the whole team.

Straight guys tend to freak out if the husband asks if he can watch! One of our best friends is a Hotwife, and she’d been taking care of guys before they started swinging. Her husband would sometimes be frustrated as he couldn’t find a place to hide and watch from. He had to be satisfied with her giving him a blow by blow detailed story afterward.

Now he can stand by the bed and jerk off or hide in the closet and peek out without anyone thinking he’s weird. With us, he likes to video his wife so he can enjoy it over and over. She’s a blonde MILF with an awesome body, and she often goes out with my wife and I. They are both exhibitionists and enjoy flirting and showing off to strange guys and girls.

We have a Corvette convertible with only two seats, so one has to sit in the other’s lap which always generates interesting comments from passersby. She was initially not very BI but was quickly converted by my wife, who’s more into girls than guys, unless he’s well built, .i.e. hung (LOL).

For me, the swing scene offers a ton of benefits, especially if you enjoy your wife showing off and being able to check out the girls at a party. A big chunk of the women are exhibitionists and being able to show off their bodies without snide remarks is a big plus for them.

Wifey loves to flirt and gets a charge out of “accidentally” showing off to straights at a bar. She never wears a bra and is often commando. So bending over to show off the assets gives her a thrill. When there are several couples at a bar, the girls typically put on a show for everyone. We like our wives to be the center of attention and don’t have to worry about them running off with someone. Plus they know they are safe and protected in case someone gets the wrong idea.

Boredom is a common problem among marrieds. No matter how much fun it is to be with your other half, there’s always a thrill when you are with someone different. It’s called the Seven Year Itch for a reason, and being able to scratch that itch without causing a divorce is a good thing.

While swinging will not fix a bad marriage and will likely finish it off. But, for couples in a stable relationship, it can add spice to a good marriage.

This is Larry Archer signing off till this time next month. Hit me up if you have any questions, or check out my blog at LarryArcher.blog. I’m now on MeWe.com, which is a new uncensored type of FaceBook and uncensored Tumblr combined. My handle is Larry Archer Author or click this link.

MeWe is new but quickly getting their act together. Searching is a little hit or miss, but Google works pretty good, and it’s nice that it’s uncensored and FREE!

Hotwives and cuckolds

by | July 24, 2019 | | 0 Comments

By Larry Archer

Living on the edges of “normality” gives Foxy and me a sometimes different view of the world than a lot of people. There are a lot of unusual kinks we’ve seen, and one of the more common is the cuckold and Hotwife relationship.

ERWA writers have posted several stories about Hotwives lately, and I thought it would be appropriate to throw my 2 cents in the bucket.

The definition of a Hotwife has changed a lot from years ago and, at least from our perspective, is not the poor husband forced to watch in horror as his wife entertains her Bulls. Today it’s more of a spectator sport as the husband watches and jerks off or takes movies of his wife in action.

The wife’s lovers or Bulls as they are called, are typically better endowed and able to satisfy her in ways that her husband cannot do. For a lot of guys, it’s highly erotic to watch your wife in the arms of another man or to have her come home and tell you all about her activities.

Hotwifing often starts with a man enjoying showing off his wife and encouraging her to wear sexy revealing outfits. Then the next step is going to a bar and have his wife sit at the bar, while he sits across the room so he can watch her as guys hit on her. Then maybe they’ll end up in a booth playing grab-ass. From there it’s an easy jump to advancing to the backseat of a car or motel room, where she’ll give out blowjobs or sex.

Afterward, she’ll tell him all about it while he’s getting sloppy seconds or thirds. He’ll enjoy hearing about what his wife has done as he waited in the car for her. The Hotwife is somewhat like an open relationship except the husband is a part of his wife’s cheating activities.

Often the man does not seek out sex with other women but enjoys listening to the stories his wife tells of her escapades with other men and gets his satisfaction from voyeuristic fantasies.

Our best friends are a cuckold – Hotwife couple and she spends a lot of time in bed with us while her husband likes to hide in the closet and watch. For him, spying on his wife and her Bull is a big turn-on even though everyone knows where he’s at. They make no bones about what they enjoy and everyone assumes her husband is in a closet somewhere or peeking in the bedroom window.

He enjoys taking movies of her in action so he can wank off anytime he wants while watching her on his phone. The only problem is he tends to shake the camera as he jerks off with one hand while filming with the other.

His wife is a beautiful blonde with shoulder-length hair, nice boobs, and a slightly voluptuous figure. For a woman in her forties, she’s a knockout and always a hit at a house party.

While swingers don’t generally date or go out without their spouse, it’s a lot more common for Hotwives to do that. They will often meet up at a hotel for a quickie with one or more Bulls and then go home to hubby for a final romp in the hay.

The cuckold will usually have to clean his wife up, and he enjoys the taste of her well-used holes. I think this is a holdover from the early days as the humiliated husband is forced to clean the wife up and accept the fact she’s let her Bulls have her.

Swingers are generally very tolerant of most kinks even if they don’t personally engage in the activity. In general, we are relatively “normal” as an overall group with sub-groups that may focus on specific topics such as BDSM.

Our parties tend to be the same. A typical house party looks like any other party with the exception that people will disappear for periods and you are often not with your spouse but just check-in occasionally. Some couples we know, throw parties where you’re basically expected to shed your clothes at the front door, and you end up in a pile somewhere. We seldom go to these “orgy” parties as it’s not really our scene and my wife is not big on group activities.

Our New Year’s Eve Pajama parties would technically fall under the “orgy” classification except everyone knows that you don’t have to go in the orgy rooms and no one is expected to have to party with others. Even after midnight, when most people are naked or close to it, there is no unwanted grabbing or other inappropriate behavior except between consenting adults.

Certainly, we don’t have an objection to orgies as they are often a lot of fun, but we tend to be more selective about our partners. We’ve introduced a number of couples into the Lifestyle, and they rapidly gravitate to the group that most caters to their needs and desires.

For those who are interested in expanding your horizons, check out my blog at LarryArcher.blog for more info in sharing your wife or hopefully Hotwife. Until this time next month when it’s my day in the barrel once again, have fun and be good (I know those two things are typically exclusive).

New Year’s Resolution Going Down in Flames

by | June 24, 2019 | , , , , | 4 Comments

by Larry Archer

I must admit that I’m a failure at New Year’s Resolutions. Amid our annual New Year’s Eve Pajama Party, I made a promise to myself that I would focus on writing my porn and get stuff pushed out the door.

I didn’t promise to stop jerking off, lose weight or exercise more. Didn’t promise to stop beating my wife. The only thing I promised myself was to write erotic stories and get them published. One simple task and I utterly failed at it.

Being honest with myself, I have to admit that I have published two well-received stories in 2019 so far, Idle Hands and a box set, Swingers Box Set. While I did get those two stories out the door, I now find myself working on four stories at the same time and not being able to finish any of them as I can’t seem to focus on one story.

This is like in engineering, we have the expression, “There comes a time in every project when you have to fire the engineer and go into production.” Which loosely translates into, “Engineers are never satisfied and will continue to tweak something forever or until the cows come home.”

When you publish at Amazon, one of the things that you learn is the 30-day cliff. After about 30-days, Amazon will start sliding you further down in the search engine results. This means that when a reader searches for erotica, your stories will stop popping up in the search results no matter how good the story.

SmashWords doesn’t do this and ranks stories by popularity, no matter when they were released. For example, if you search for best-selling erotica in the SmashWords’ Menage/Multiple-Partners category, you will find my story, Crashing The Swinger’s Pajama Party is number sixteen in this category. The amazing thing about this is that this 80,000-word story was released in June 2018, a year ago and is still number 16 in the multiple partner’s best seller category!

As you might imagine, an 80,000-word story doesn’t just happen overnight, and there was a lot of work plowed into the story. If you publish at SmashWords, your stories get to stand on their own feet and don’t disappear in the distance after 30-days. To me, this tells me that my ROI (Return on Investment) is better at SmashWords than at Amazon. However, the fact that Amazon Kindle reaches millions of more readers than SmashWords will often make up the difference.

To accomplish the same type of ranking at Amazon Kindle, you need to publish often and at least once a month or more. This is why, at our New Year’s PJ Party, I promised myself that I’d focus and publish regularly. However, this resolution got lost in the orgy room along with my clothes as best I can remember.

Currently, I have four or five stories in various stages of completion, with most around 20,000-words or about half-finished at best. I just can’t seem to focus on one story and get it out the door.

What will happen to me is that I see something or get an idea for a story and cannot help but start working on it. I feel that I need to get my initial thoughts down before I get distracted by something else.

It’s like the curly headed brunette on the new Sally Beauty Supply billboards. I’m in love with her, much to my wife’s amusement. The truth is that being from Texas, we all love big hair and the girl on the billboard looks so much like Foxy that I can’t help but blow her a kiss every time I pass that billboard.

I will see something like the brunette and get an idea for a story, which is why I’m my own worst enemy. Once I get distracted, I will write madly away just like Don Quixote when he sees a new windmill, just without Sancho Panza.

Growing up on a farm, left me with the life-long curse of waking up at the crack of dawn only without cows to milk. Foxy reacts negatively to being woken before 9 AM, and so I’ll often lie in bed and think about my latest story.

I’ve found that I can let my characters act out their fantasies in my mind. I will slip out of bed, grab my laptop, and drive to a nearby fast-food restaurant for coffee. At that point, it’s just a matter of downloading my brain onto my trusty MacBook Air.

I fully realize that I’d sell more if I concentrated on one story at a time and got it out the door, but what I should do and what I actually do are two different things. Luckily, writing smut is not something I have to do to keep the wolf away from the door.

It’s been almost seven years since I published my first erotic story. Previously, the only thing I’ve done remotely close are presentations on how to throw a house party at Lifestyle conventions. Writing erotica allows me to take things we’ve seen and done and convert them to a story, which someone will hopefully enjoy reading and possibly wank off to.

Follow me at LarryArcher.blog for more of my ruminations, and until this time next month, I’m off like a prom dress.

Censorship and Formatting Your Smut

by | May 24, 2019 | | 1 Comment

Welcome fellow perverts, today I want to pontificate about two completely different topics, Censorship, and Formatting.

I recently wrote a blog post about what I saw as a change in Amazon’s censorship standards. You can read the post that started this brouhaha by clicking this link.

I published a story, Idle Hands, about two bored housewives who decide to take care of their problems without having to wait for their husbands to come home. Idle Hands is a HEA explicit erotic story but was written to skirt Amazon’s censor and be published with a “Safe” rating.

Previously, Amazon would rank stories as “Adult” if they violated one of their rules or often even suggested a taboo topic but properly done most porn would receive a “Safe” rating. To say that I was upset about Idle Hands being ranked Adult was an understatement.

This prompted me to get down on my knees and beg for forgiveness while Sister Amazon rapped my knuckles with her ruler. Amazon over the course of several emails told me that the story would show up in their regular searches for people who had indicated that adult material was okay.

I breathed a sigh of relief and told my Frenchie that Daddy will be able to buy your dog food and you can stop chewing up my shoes. But my tale of woe doesn’t end there.

To my knowledge, the only way to find your stories content rank is to use SalesRankExpress which will return Adult, Safe, or Unknown as the content ranking, beyond actually searching for it.

Using the program kept telling me that my story was ranked Adult and not Safe as promised. After several emails where I was promised that the story was included in searches, I started testing Amazon. I used different logons to check and see if Idle Hands showed up in searches and it did, even though ranked “Adult.”

Belinda replied that she couldn’t see the story in her searches from down under and as one of the people that I highly respect their competence in computers and the English language, I tried searching the Australia Amazon site and could find my story when she didn’t see it.

I even tried using Chrome’s incognito window and it showed up. Using my VPN, I logged into an Australian server with the same result. So now, I’m even more confused than normal.

I still think that Amazon has changed their system to rate smut as Adult yet allow the story to show up in normal searches but am still not 100% convinced.

I have no idea why she can’t find my stories and know that she certainly should as my smut doesn’t stink. LOL

Stay tuned to this bat channel for updates…!

 

Formatting Your Story

 

Continuing from my previous post On Writing, I want to delve into some of the individual parts of a typical eStory. Keep in mind that my recommendations are only that. Feel free to modify or use settings you prefer and reject anything I say. If you follow my advice, your story should meet the basic publishing requirements of the major publishers and can be a starting point for your literary masterpieces.

Many of us have a fear of the unknown, and your first story is no different, but we’ll take this one step at a time. The hard part is writing the story, getting your thoughts down on paper, and that’s where you need to focus. If you get bogged down, Google for help and you’d be surprised that other people have the same problems that you do.

First, make sure you download a copy of SmashWord’s Style Guide. You will likely have to create an account at SmashWords but do it anyway as they will be one of your best outlets for your stories. What I have found is that for the typical eStory such as Kindle or ePub, the same format works for all publishers that I use.

The typical electronic story contains only text except for the cover image. Personally, I include cover images and a blurb in the Back-Matter section of other stories that the reader may be interested in.

When reading the SmashWords Style Guide, don’t get bogged down in areas that don’t apply to your story. In truth, you could probably take the 100+ page style guide and cut it down to 10 pages or less.

If you refer to my previous post, I outlined the sections of a typical story, and if you need to refer to it, I’d suggest opening a new tab on your browser so that you can flip back and forth as needed. The link to the previous post, On Writing, is here. Below I’m going to run through the typical story and highlight any things to keep in mind.

Cover Image – I recommend 1600 pixels wide x 2400 pixels high at 300 DPI (dots per inch). Amazon recommends a slightly different size, but this one works well and can be easily resized to 200×300 for ads or insertions into blog posts.

Front Matter – The Title Page, Copyright, and Table of Contents (TOC) goes here. Use the Style Guide for an example of the text to include. Remember to never include another publishers name or link in your document, or it will be rejected. If there is any doubt, search the document for “SmashWords” if you are submitting to Amazon and vice versa. My previous post has suggestions on storing sections of the story in folders to keep everything separate. Make sure that you include a statement on the Title page that all characters are 18 years of age or older.

Body – Your story goes here. I typically use two styles, Normal and Heading 1.

Heading 1 is for chapter heads. I normally use Times New Roman, 14-point, centered, and bold. Select a page break before and 12-point spacing after the paragraph. I use a first line indent of 0.01 inches to keep Amazon from auto-indenting which will make the chapter head off center, but it’s not enough to visually show up.

Normal – Format your paragraphs of text as a Normal style. I recommend 12-point Times New Roman, first line indent 0.3 inches, 1.15 line spacing, and 6 points space after the paragraph. You can use another font but keep in mind that you have no control over what device your reader uses and if you use a font that is not available on the device, it may not display properly. For your first story, don’t get fancy and stick to the basics.

Back-Matter – This section includes “About the Author” and advertising for your other stories. You can link to your website but Do Not link to another publisher. I create a Back-Matter document for each publisher and then tack those on the body of the story as required.

In closing, read other people’s smut for ideas. Always remember that besides wanking off, reading another author’s story will provide help on how you want your finished product to look. Look at each section of the author’s story to see how he/she formats the section.

I believe in consistency, and if your story’s structure remains basically the same across your stories, then it’s easier to spot mistakes and ensure that it flows properly.

Keep reading your story as you work on it. I carry a laptop with me at all times or a tablet and use cloud storage, such as DropBox, to keep your manuscript updated on all your devices. If you have enough time, then write but if you’ve only a few minutes, pick a previous part and reread it. You’d be surprised at how often a misspelled or incorrect word will pop out.

Well, folks, that’s about it for this month and hopefully will give you some assistance in assembling your story. Check out my blog at LarryArcher.blog for more from my deranged mind. See you next month on the 24th at ERWA!

Remember this is National Masturbation Month, so remember to do your part!

On Writing by Larry Archer

by | April 24, 2019 | , , | 2 Comments

With apologies to Stephen King, I would like to outline the basic process I use to create a story suitable for publishing on Amazon or SmashWords. I don’t want to teach you how to write as there are far more qualified authors to do that. I am a lowly engineer and fully appreciate my lack of talents with the English word. But I think what I can help you with is the mechanics of compiling your story and make it ready for publication in the most efficient and time-saving method.

First, my bona fides as it were. I have been writing smut, basically stroke stories for almost seven years now. I’ve published over twenty-five stories, most over 30,000 words and several close to 100,000 words.

I’ve focused the majority of my publishing efforts to Amazon and SmashWords along with several other websites but I write primarily for the two major publishes of Indie writers.

When you publish at SmashWords, and the story is accepted into their Premium Status, SmashWords will automatically send your story to Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and others. So publishing at SmashWords will get you into Apple without any additional work. So it’s like repeating the publishing process multiple times.

For me, a great deal of my sales comes from Apple iBooks, and I’ve done nothing besides send the story to SmashWords. Now certainly, when you write erotica, certain topics will get you excluded from Apple and others. This topic is a blog post all on its own, and I’ll tackle that later.

My thought is to create a special section on my blog, LarryArcher.blog, and place all of these posts in one place for easy reference.

First, let’s talk about what makes up a story that will be accepted into SmashWords Premium Status for wide distribution. If you follow the steps I’ve outlined below, your story will be accepted at both Amazon and SmashWords with a minimum of rework.

This is the system I’m currently using, and while I’m working on version 2.0, it does work pretty well for me. If you have your own method and it’s working okay then don’t change a thing.

The parts of my story are as follows:

  • Cover Image, 300 dpi, 1600×2400 pixels
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Table of Contents (TOC)
  • Body (the actual story itself)
  • Back Matter (advertising, other stories, etc)
  • About the Author

Now a little bit about storing files.

  • Draft – Folder for stories I’m working on
  • Cover – Cover images
  • Front Matter – Amazon (Title and Copyright for Amazon)
  • Front Matter – SmashWords (Title and Copyright for SW)
  • Table of Contents
  • Body (actual story by itself)
  • Back Matter – Amazon (Ads, etc. for Amazon)
  • Back Matter – SmashWords (Ads, etc. for SmashWords)
  • Full – Amazon (Final full copy for Amazon)
  • Full – SmashWords (Final full copy for SmashWords)

Once I’ve written the story and moved it from Draft to Body, I assemble the finished product as follows.

  1. Let’s assume I’ve written a story called MyStory and storied it in Body after proofreading it. I recommend that you write in Word 2003 DOC format and not DOCX as some publishers do not accept DOCX.
  2. Open MyStory in the Body folder. Let’s assume this is for Amazon.
  3. Immediately do a Save As “MyStory – Full – Amazon.doc” in the Full – Amazon folder.
  4. Open the front matter file “MyStory – Front – Amazon.doc” from the Front Matter – Amazon folder. This will be the title page and copyright page customized for Amazon.
  5. Copy the front matter by selecting it, copying, and paste it to the top of the “MyStory – Full – Amazon.doc” file. If you’re happy save it, just in case. Now the full copy has the front matter plus the body in the Full folder.
  6. Close the front matter file and open the Table of Contents file. Select it all, copy and paste in between the front matter and the body of the story. Now save that.
  7. Open the back matter file, select it all, copy, and paste to the end of the full copy.
  8. At this point, we have a full copy of the MyStory for Amazon. The title page, copyright page, TOC, body, and back matter.
  9. Next check the points where you joined the various sections to be sure there are no extra page breaks or extra space.
  10. Go through the body and back matter and set bookmarks at each chapter and point in the back matter which you need to reference in the TOC. I recommend that you create a standardized set of bookmarks to make it easier to reuse the back matter on other stories.
  11. Once the bookmarks are in place, go to the Table of Contents and create links for each chapter and spot in the back matter.

At this point, we have assembled a complete book yet the individual parts are available for ongoing modifications. For example, in the back matter, you may list all of your other stories.

Then when you add a story, you normally have to go back and re-edit all of your finished stories to add the new material. By keeping the body and the back matter separate, all you have to do is copy and paste.

By the same token, to publish to a different publisher such as SmashWords, you simply create front matter and back matter for SmashWords. Then take the body that you used for Amazon and tack on the front and back for SmashWords.

When you publish a new story, update the back matter file and then rebuild old stories by assembling the new pieces and upload the new copy.

Hopefully, this makes some sense to you and will help to standardize your stories to look consistent and more professional.

I’m going to expand upon this in more detail on my blog and answer any questions that arise. I’ll get into what I use for setting and layout in a later issue.

Thank’s for reading and check out my blog: LarryArcher.blog

See you next month!

Hot Chilli Erotica

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