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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.

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!

Beware, Rant Follows

by | January 24, 2019 | , | 3 Comments

Okay, I have to admit that I’m ticked off and it’s all Lisabet’s fault. Well its not actually Lisabet’s fault, she just wrote a blog post Consent and Complicity that got me fired up.

If you haven’t read it, take a minute and look it up. You should be able to click the link above to view it.

My problem is simply this, why are writers of erotica treated differently than writers of any other genre and their stories have to conform to different rules than others.

My top peeve is the use of rubbers in erotic stories. Why do we need a condom, will you get an STD from reading? Do we need to promote safe sex? Why?

Did Dirty Harry use blanks in his 44 Magnum, well did he punk?

Are James Patterson’s characters all nice Sunday school teachers, well hell no!

So why can other writers write murder and mayhem without any thought to their character’s safety? Is it written anywhere that we have to play nice? I’m mad and I’m not going to take this any longer!

When you read a fictional story, most people read to be entertained and a means to escape to another world for a few minutes. Well, and if you read one of my stories, I hope you get off also.

I don’t have any lofty ideals about my stories, I write stroke, plain and simple but that’s not the whole story.

An erotic story by definition is to entertain and stimulate the reader, not to teach a lesson. Unless that’s the actual intent of the story.

I never use a condom in a story because I think that the reader needs to imagine the feeling of bare skin on skin, not plastic rubbing together. The story is not going to somehow infect us but if you’re worried about it try spraying your books with Lysol.

I doubt that you can find very many people who would rather have sex with a rubber than bareback. Especially in today’s world, where we are constantly concerned about some disease such as Ebola, AIDS, Hep C, or some other God-awful thing that might make your dick fall off.

By the same token, if the thought of pseudo-rape or non-con scenes turns your crank, then why can’t we read that? If Stephen King can torture and kill people in his stories without raising an eyebrow, why can’t we have someone put clothespins on our nipples?

Personally, I’m not into pain but I know a number of people who really get off on it. That doesn’t mean that you have to read/write a story involving a flogger but you should have the right if you want to.

According to authors who use a conventional publishing house and have to deal with editors, there is often the comments that the editor makes them tone down their story to be sure it doesn’t offend someone.

That’s why I like to satisfy myself and my readers, not some editor somewhere, which self-publishing gives you that ability.

“Freedom of speech doesn’t protect speech you like; it protects speech you don’t like,” Larry Flynt of Hustler Magazine.

If it’s not fun, you’re doing it wrong

by | September 21, 2018 | | 4 Comments

Smiley balloons

About a week ago, I had an “aha!” moment. I’d been feeling terribly stressed due to increased demands at my job and my author commitments, plus some impending travel that will make it all the more difficult to fulfill my obligations. I was obsessing about everything, when it hit me: even though I have way too much to do, I enjoy almost all of the tasks on my long list —writing, teaching, research, making covers, reading, writing reviews, creating blog posts, entertaining friends, sending birthday cards, cooking, even exercising. When I asked myself what I’d give up, if I had to make a choice, I really didn’t have a good answer.

That realization flipped my thinking and drained some of the stress. First, I felt a surge of gratitude that my life is so full of meaningful activity and so rich in joy. Second, I understood that joy is a reliable signal as to whether you’re on the right path.

If it’s not fun, you’re doing it wrong.

Am I talking about sex? Yes. Writing? Yes. Keeping fit? That too.

The Calvinistic/Puritan tradition views life as bitter and hard, an exercise in self-denial, a continuous series of trials one must endure in order to reach the promise of Paradise in the hereafter. I just don’t buy that. It doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t match my personal experience.

For me, life is something to celebrate, a continuous unfolding, a twisting and often surprising path. And when I’m wondering which branch to follow, I’ve learned to turn within first, to ask myself how the path feels. Does it feel right? Does it generate joy?

I remember when I got my first job in my second career. (I’ve had several since.) I had no prior professional experience in this field, just a couple of university courses. I got hired on the strength of my academic credentials. When I started working, though, something clicked. I really “got” the concepts. I found I had an aptitude that I would not have expected. The job tapped into my creativity and developed my interpersonal skills. It was definitely the right path at that time.

When I met my husband (at a technical conference), I tried to give him the brush-off. We lived on different coasts and I didn’t want a long-distance relationship. Besides, I was already juggling four lovers. When he persisted, however, I discovered that being with him felt inexplicably comfortable. We spent the first three weeks of our life together driving across the US, a trip that could strain even a well-established couple. We had a fantastic time—and despite the newness of our relationship, the whole process turned out to be incredibly easy and natural.

Thirty nine years later, I understand: it was so much fun because we were obviously doing it right.

Note that joy is not exactly the same as happiness. It’s not about pleasure or entertainment. Joy is something deeper, a spiritual quality, a sense of satisfaction, order and symmetry. Sometimes it’s a quiet, soothing warmth humming under your solar plexus. Sometimes it’s laughter bubbling up out of nowhere, an urge to sing or to dance. Joy can be wordless, or it can spill out in poetry or paint.

I believe we are meant to feel joy and that when we do, we can trust we’re being our best and truest selves.

The fact that something kindles your joy doesn’t mean it will be easy. Climbing a mountain, running a marathon, getting a degree, raising a child, or writing a book all take a huge amount of effort, but joy is the ultimate reward. And of course every life has its pain and its tragedies. But joy makes you more resilient.

Writing can be tough, frustrating work. We all complain when the words don’t flow or the characters don’t obey. We fight with incompetent editors, flinch at poor reviews, feel discouraged when our royalties don’t even begin to reach the level of minimum wage. In the face of all these negatives, why do we—why do I—keep writing? Out of love. Because of the joy.

Almost nothing compares to the sense of delight when I am in the groove, the words are flowing and the story is unfolding just as I’d imagined. It’s worth every bit of aggravation and every ounce of effort.

At least that’s how I feel. Your mileage may differ. But if you are truly suffering for your art, why bother? If what you’re doing doesn’t fundamentally satisfy you, give you that deep level feeling of rightness, maybe you are doing the wrong thing.

Not that I’m counseling my fellow authors to give up. Just stop and ask yourself: is it fun? And if not, what can you change so that it will be?

Tips for Typing Terrific Tales

by | August 11, 2018 | | 3 Comments

Squirrel!

Looky there. It’s a flying rat.

I know you already knew it.

It was here that I knew that Colonel Plum did it in the bathroom with the pipe wrench and “WHAM!” That is how it happened.

I have some type of attention deficit disorder; however, I have not been diagnosed, but I do know…

SQUIRREL!!!

Write over it.

Ok. Wait.

Where was I?

I ain’t got no clues present to get me back to the beginning, but I don’t want to start at the beginning because it is way too long ago and I can’t catch you up to speed.

Anyway, this was to get you to understand that holding the audience’s attention, maintaining good grammar and the story structure are the three very important parts to writing a story. The audience is your fan base and beyond. You know not to tell your audience anything unless it will not come out. Your audience is who you write for and make sure that the plot moves along. Make sure that you’re writing for your intended audience instead of trying to please everyone.

We always talk about speech tags and their overuse of speech tags like “she hissed,” “he snapped,” “she stammered,” get irritating fast. Likewise, reading a character’s name too often in dialogue can be a turn off. Avoid more than the occasional “um” or “well,” or “er,” and keep dialogue realistic, but more coherent. Also, make sure the words that are grammatically correct. IF the language that you are relaying your story in is not your first language or you’re not completely fluent, make sure to get assistance.

Your writing style, tone, character motivations, or even plot might begin one way and, unintentionally, change at some point in the book. Be especially aware of small details like names, occupations, physical descriptions of people or places, which can all fall prey to inconsistencies over the course of 300+ pages. Something to look at for writing style is “Eats Shoots & Leaves” by Lynne Truss and reading a few articles from Michael Hauge will assist in this category.

Make sure that when telling your story begin at a point that can be referenced back to in the story. Chronological stories are good, but there are some times the chronological order of the story will not bring the story to where it needs to be. If all the good stuff happens at the beginning, or if nothing exciting happens until the end, your reader will be frustrated with the rest of the book.

This is what gets me. Knowing when and where to begin your story. There are some that say that you should begin your first major plot point within the first 25% of your story or you can jar the balance of how the story arc falls. Some say that you can start your story chronologically and then work backwards to the event. Within each set of “rules” there is always time. Time is a factor in everything. If you give the audience too much too soon, then there is nothing else to read. If you make the audience wait until the last chapter to find out anything, you may lose your audience. You want to provide just enough, but no one ever knows when to say when and that is why we have editors.

I have gotten better at finding a balance in the information that I do provide my readers; however, that is after a lot of help from people in ERWA who help hone my skills for writing. There are other resources that can assist you if you have not subscribed to our Storytime List and those resources are:

“Damn Fine Story: Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative” by Chuck Wendig and “The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface” by Donald Maass.

There is a TedX video that brings in circularity, symmetry and a few other things to light for writers. That link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUT6GQveD0E (I do not own the rights to this video, I am just sharing it.)

All in all, in order to write something that someone else wants to read, make sure that you can capture and keep their attention, make sure your vocabulary fits your scenery, that you are aware of small detailed changes so there are no mix ups, and start at a good place in the story so that it can keep going and then finish it with something memorable.

SQUIRREL!

Made you look!

 

 

Orphans

by | May 29, 2018 | | 3 Comments

By Jean Roberta

[Note: please excuse me for missing my regular day to post, May 26. I hope this late post doesn’t interfere with anyone else’s.]

Have you written a story, a poem, a play, or some experimental hybrid that doesn’t fit any call-for-submissions or journal guidelines that you know of? Welcome to the club.

The divisions between erotica and other genres seem thinner now than ever before. Romance novels can be drenched with erotic tension and even include explicit sex scenes, although an unspoken rule in the “romances” of the past was that the wedding had to appear on the last page, and sex couldn’t take place before then. Speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, slipstream, steampunk, horror, etc.) can include sex that doesn’t have to obey the laws of the natural world we know. Suspense narratives, including murder mysteries, can include erotic tension as part of the suspense: Will the central characters solve the mystery and/or take their flirtatious partnership to the next level?

While the definitions of genres, per se, seem fairly fluid, every editor or editorial team has guidelines: lots of sex and magic, but no horror. Realistic character development and sex, but no magic. Elaborate world-building, including sexual traditions that would seem exotic to most readers, but no info-dumps. Horror required, but with minimal bloodshed. Violence okay, but no explicit sex.

And there are usually minimum and maximum word-limits which indirectly define the categories that will be considered. An erotic story of under 3,000 words can include one fairly detailed sex scene, but usually no more than one. A story of at least 10,000 words is pushing into novella territory, and therefore it needs at least two complex characters interacting in a plot which is about something besides– or apart from– sex.

It’s very easy to follow a plot-bunny down its rabbit-hole and write something that might appeal to certain readers, but which doesn’t completely fit the guidelines for a collection, website, or journal.

I still have a few orphan stories on my hard-drive which were rejected by the first editors to whom they were sent, usually for very logical reasons.

I know my weaknesses. The editor of a sci-fi anthology said she loved my story, but it didn’t include any technological revelations. (No surprise there. I’ve never had a very firm grasp of either modern technology or the nineteenth-century steam-driven type. I couldn’t explain to a visitor from another planet how I am able to transmit these words through a machine to people living far away from me. My version of the “sci” in “sci-fi” more closely resembles magic. )

Early versions of some of my stories resemble the feet of Cinderella’s stepsisters in the non-Disney version of the story in which they cut off their toes or their heels to fit into the glass slipper, then leave a trail of blood behind them. In a few cases, I’ve been able to prune a potential novel down to under 6,000, 5,000 or even 4,000 words. This usually requires leaving out something that needed to be left in: a character’s motivations or emotional responses, or the juicy details of a sex scene. Improving the story usually requires reattaching the toes or heels (or the heart, lungs, and brain, which is easier to do with stories than with human bodies), even if that means the story will no longer fit into a certain market.

Languishing in my “documents” are three different versions of an erotic lesbian story in which I experimented with viewpoint. The two central characters are so different (but complementary, I hope) that I didn’t simply want to describe one through the eyes of the other, so the story is divided into alternating sections told by the two narrators. This tends to interrupt the plot in much the way a supposedly true story is interrupted when someone offers a different version of events.

(“We met when you were still a barista at the coffee-shop.”

“No, honey, we didn’t really meet then. I first noticed you when we were in the same class at university.”

“You were so innocent. You weren’t a lesbian, and you weren’t into BDSM.”

“I didn’t have much experience, but I knew what I wanted.”

“You were so uptight because of the way you were raised.”

“Excuse me. My parents gave me everything they didn’t have, and they always encouraged me to think for myself.”)

Will any version of my story ever see the light of day? That remains to be seen. I like both the characters, and the way they resolve their differences. I think the sex is hot. I can also see why the divided viewpoint might prevent a reader (or an editor) from smoothly following the rising tension to a satisfying conclusion.

As usual for me, I probably need to expand the story into something longer, in which different sections or chapters wouldn’t look like unnecessary interruptions.

Occasionally, a story will be posted in the “Storytime” list in the Erotic Readers and Writers Association which includes great lines, great characters, great sex, and sometimes a fascinating plot, but something about the whole piece doesn’t gel. In some cases, character motivations look unclear or unconvincing to several of the readers who offer critiques, and in some cases, sex seems to be inserted into a plot without enough preparation. (The usefulness of lube in real life seems relevant here.)

Self-publishing offers a solution to the problem of where to place writing that doesn’t fit neatly into existing categories, and the Excessica site provides a marvelous combination of writer independence with technical support. However, I’m not willing to post a story for public consumption before it seems ripe enough.

I’d like to encourage all the writers reading this not to abandon your orphan pieces. Some of them probably have good bones. Leaving a first draft for awhile before coming back to it can enable you to see what it needs.

Think of it this way: there is no real failure. Some projects are thrown away, when they could have been recycled, and some just haven’t found the right home yet. Some are never finished, for various reasons. You had a reason for writing the first draft, and it might be calling you to come back to it.

Red Ink

by | March 21, 2018 | | 4 Comments

Although I don’t try to make my living through my writing, I consider myself a professional author. The Internal Revenue Service agrees. Every year for the last decade and a half, I’ve dutifully tallied up my royalties, subtracted my expenses, and reported my income on Schedule C.

Every year, I’ve managed to make a small profit—until 2017. When I finished the computations for this past year, I discovered that for the first time ever, my writing business is in the red. I spent more on promotion and publicity than I received from sales.

Strangely, I’m not upset by this. For one thing, I know that independent authors everywhere are seeing their incomes decline. Plus I haven’t had as many releases as I’d like, mostly due to outside demands on my time.

Also, I realize that I’ve been less than frugal in my expenditures. For instance, I spent over $200 on gift certificates and books used as prizes for my fans and blog followers. What can I say? I get joy from giving things to people who take the trouble to read my stuff. Next year I plan to cut back on this. I’ll offer free books that don’t cost me anything as prizes where I can. I will also reconsider some of my advertising choices. This past year I devoted quite a bit of cash to promoting two major releases. It’s not at all clear that the costs justified the benefits. I’m sure that with more judicious management of my funds, I can turn my red ink to black in 2018.

The main reason I’m not depressed, though, is that I’m having more fun writing than I have in years. My main difficulty is finding the time to write, given my real world responsibilities. When I do manage to sit down with a work in progress, my stories seem to flow—perhaps not effortlessly, but with far less friction than a few years ago. I’m writing in a variety of styles, each one aimed at a different audience. My intuitions are stronger. I revel in my sense of control over my craft. I’m not sure whether my readers would agree, but I feel as though I’ve become significantly more skilled as a writer.

I’ve moved almost entirely to self-publishing. Why not? The work I’ve released in the past through established publishers has never done particularly well, and I have sufficient editing and graphics skills to either do things myself or barter for editing and art services. Of course, the profits are higher on self-published books, as well, and the turnaround time a lot faster.

Meanwhile, I can now write what I want, even if my books don’t fit neatly into the established genre categories. I find this freedom truly exhilarating.

No longer do my lusty heroines need to restrict themselves to only one lover—even if they ultimately end up in a committed “romantic” relationship. No longer do I need to worry that an editor will object to my mixing lesbian or gay or even transgender content in with straight sex. I can write dark sex, taboo sex, silly sex, or deeply meaningful sex, depending on my mood. Not every reader will be comfortable with my erotic visions, but that’s okay. At least what I’m producing now is genuine, not a compromise based on genre “rules”.

I never planned to be an author. When I published my first novel, almost as a lark, I didn’t expect I’d become addicted to the thrill of sharing my fantasies with the world. Sure, the money is nice, a concrete validation of my talent, but the real payoff is the occasional rapturous reader email or breathlessly enthusiastic review.

I can’t afford to treat writing as an expensive hobby. If I started to lose a lot of money, I’d have to stop. As long as I can break even, though—or close—I’ll do it for the joy.

(My latest releases, in case you’re interested, are Butterfly: Asian Adventures Book 4, and Hot Brides in Vegas. The former is romantic literary erotica with a transgender theme. The latter is a light-hearted, smutty romp with very little redeeming social value, set in the world of swingers created by Larry Archer.)

Self-Publishing or Are You Sure This Won’t Hurt?

by | February 24, 2018 | | 6 Comments

Greetings fellow writers of smut, Larry Archer here. For this post, I’d like to talk a little more about the self-publishing game.

A lot of authors have mentioned the concern they have of the self-publishing mechanics which may be holding them back from taking the plunge.

I realize that it’s easier to just type up your manuscript and send it off to the publishing house and let them deal with all the dirty work, but you may be leaving a lot of money on the table when you do this.

From what I can see, sending in your manuscript for possible inclusion in an anthology results in about a $50 payment plus a copy of the book. Certainly, you may be offered more or less, but typically you will be given a fixed amount of money for your labor.

Think about a possible alternative, divide the money you could potentially receive by two and that’s roughly the number of stories you would have to sell to break even. Then once you break even, it’s all gravy after that.

Assuming that your sales ranking for the story is between 500,000 and a million which is a decent figure for an erotic story that captures the reader’s eye. This ranking should result in sales of 5-10 copies per month at Amazon or $10 to $20 per month income and the same from SmashWords. Personally, I normally make two or three times as much from SmashWords, but let’s assume the same sales.

Before you start rolling your eyes, consider this. A sales ranking of 100,000 should result in the sale of 30 to 40 copies per month or $60 to $80 per month profit per published story.

When your ranking drops into the top one-hundred, you could easily be selling thousands of copies per month and be waited on hand and foot by nubile scantily clad servants who are busily stuffing grapes into every one of your orifices.

Rank To Sales Estimator from David Gaughran estimates your sales as follows:
#1 to #5 = 5,000+ books a day (sometimes a lot more)
#5 to #10 = 4,000–5,000
#10 to #20 = 3,000–4,000
#20 to #50 = 2,000–3,000
#100 = 1,000+
#200 = 500
#300 = 250
#500 = 200
#1,000 = 120
#2,000 = 100
#3,000 = 80
#5,000 = 40
#10,000 = 20
#25,000 = 10
#50,000 = 5
#100,000+ = fewer than 1 a day

From what I’ve seen, this estimate is relatively close. A 100,000 sales rank should return sales in the 30 – 40 per month bracket, but your mileage may vary.

But let’s not get carried away here, the cold, cruel truth is that assuming you are a decent writer of material other people want to read, you’ll likely have a sales ranking around a million. At least that’s what you need to shoot for initially.

My point is simply that if you take the plunge and try self-publishing, then it is possible that with a number of stories published you could be pulling in a few hundred dollars per month. This would easily vault you past the single payment you receive when publishing in an anthology.

In an upcoming post, I’ll talk more about tools that can help you determine where you stand in the various rankings but I just want you to consider self-publishing.

Another benefit of self-publishing is that you have complete control over your story. When you deal with a publisher, then you have to first convince them to accept your work, and often beyond that point, there is a limited amount of control that you can exert.

A good example is search keywords to allow your readers to find you. Often these are determined by someone who may or may not have read your story and realized what a wonderful writer you are.

We all have a fear of the unknown, especially when it involves whips and chains, but that’s a whole different post. It’s sort of like a guy sitting at the bar, two stools over from a woman who is drop-dead gorgeous.

While he’s trying to build up his courage to talk to her, another guy slips in between them and sits down. The new guy leans over to the beautiful woman and asks, “Would you like to fuck?”

To which, the woman slaps the guy as hard as she can, calls him an asshole, and walks away.

While the cad is rubbing his cheek, the first guy says, “I bet you get slapped a lot with that line?” To which, the other guy replies, “Yeah, but you’d be surprised at how often I get laid!”

The moral of the story is you don’t get if you don’t ask. Your customers are not going to bang on your door and beg to buy a copy of your latest story.

For those who are hesitant about self-publishing, ask yourself this question, “What’s the absolute worst that can happen to me?”

Aside from the ones who write you and say, “You Suck!” or the old blue-haired lady who cancels your library card, that’s about the worst of it. It’s not like some guy with a broken nose is going to show up at your front door.

If you need further reassurance and cover, tell them, Larry, made me publish my drivel and then they can tell me that I suck! So now that you don’t have anything to worry about, dust off that manuscript and let’s see if we can make you rich.

After all, 50 Shades made millions and most of us would be ashamed to admit that we wrote crap as bad as that. Certainly, you can do better, can’t you?

Going forward, I’d like to help you with the process. Now, I can’t guarantee that I can help with your English, but I can help you package your story and get it out to your adoring fans.

See you next time and remember to stop stroking when you start needing glasses. Otherwise, you might find out that your Mother was right!

Now on a personal note, I’d just like to give a shout out to Lisabet Sarai, who I consider a good friend and inspiration. She and I published two stories concurrently at the end of last year, Hot Brides in Vegas and Nina, The Fallen Ballerina.

The two stories were well received and both were themed in Foxy and Larry’s world of swingers and strip clubs. It was fun and certainly interesting on how Lisabet portrayed the regular characters in my Foxy and Larry series.

I’ve published some 15 or so stories using these two characters whose roots grew out of our experiences swinging. Working with Lisabet taught me to make sure and flesh out your characters in every story to ensure your reader understands and can picture them instead of assuming they have read about the character in a previous story.

F&L series stories tend to flow from one to the other and characters are often introduced and built up from story to story. The whole chain of stories is sort of like a Roots or Godfather series except not on television. What I didn’t take into consideration was that readers may not have read all my books. Shame on you!

Another lesson in the road to becoming hopefully a better writer.

She’s helping me with one of my latest books based on an actual event where one of our neighbors crashed our annual New Year’s Eve party. While the actual event didn’t turn out quite as perverted as the resultant story, it could have. Lisabet has been instrumental in helping build a number of the chapters and helping to brainstorm the storyline. Thanks, Lisabet!

Wifey and I still laugh about that episode. We try not to make friends with our neighbors as bad things can happen innocently. But we had become friends with this straight couple, who live a couple of houses down from us. Our lots are pretty big and they were a little over a block in distance from us, so not like they are right next door.

After every New Year’s, they would always comment on the number of cars parked around our house and we would excuse not inviting them because they had said they were going to another party.

Then one year, sometime after midnight the doorbell rings and I stupidly answer the door. I find the couple from down the street, all decked out in a suit and fancy dress. Keep in mind that these people are really straight!

Not knowing what to do, I invite them in. At this point, there are over 100 people in various stages of undress or modeling Victoria Secret underwear with an impromptu orgy going on in the living room.

I’m wearing a bathrobe and Foxy is in long johns, unbuttoned down the front and with the back flap open. There is a picture of her with some of the girls here. Voyeurism at these parties is worth paying for. LOL

They were standing in the entry foyer with their mouths hanging open looking at the pile in the living room. After leading them to a quiet corner, we told them that they were welcome to stay but not to talk about what they saw or experienced. Anyway, our shocked neighbors soon departed except I got the impression the wife wanted to hang around.

That’s a thumbnail sketch of how the idea for the story got started and you’ll have to buy a copy to find out who did what and to whom. The title is still up for grabs, “The Neighbors,” “Our Nasty Neighbors,” or “Crashing a Swinger’s Party.”

See ya next month,

Larry Archer – LarryArcher.com for my blog or for the catalog of my stories – LarryArcher.blog/stories.

P.S. If you have any topics you’d like me to opine on or any suggestions, email me: Larry <at> LarryArcher <dot> com. For a laugh, check out my Twitter ads: http://bit.ly/2FtFzpG

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