Freebies for Early September and a New Story

So, the kids are finally back to school. I have time to write again and am slowly getting back into the habit.

This week, I have two different stories going free.

On Monday and Tue (Sep. 2nd + 3rd) you can download
Barb's Dancing - A Down and Dirty Erotic Tale
for free on Amazon.

On Wed. and Thu. (Sep 4th + 5th) you can download
Jasmine's Sultry Scent
#11 in the Son of a Minister Series for free on Amazon.

My newest book is out as of today. It's titled:
Coffin Nailed - An Erotic Tale

Here's the blurb for Coffin Nailed:

Missy wants to join Sigma Epsilon Chi, the sorority known for its sexual escapades. In her opinion, she'll fit right in. Her opinion doesn't matter though, the decision is up to the chapter president of Sigma Epsilon Chi and the entire Kappa Omicron Xi fraternity. She'll do her best to impress them, but is her best good enough?

Happy September...

A. Morrel
September, 2013

New Release in the Son of a Minister Series

I just released the newest book in The Son of a Minister Series.

Jasmine's Sultry Scent

I also have a recent release free for today (Aug 1st) and tomorrow:

Barb's Dancing

Enjoy...

A. Morrel

Five Day Freebie (for Kindle) and a New Story

So starting today (Tuesday, July 9th) I've got a five day freebie going on. The story:

Barb's Busted - A Down and Dirty Erotic Tale

Is free through Saturday July 13th.

I also just published my newest story:

Barb's Dancing - A Down and Dirty Erotic Tale

Busted is the first in the series, Dancing is #2 in the series. There will be two more stories in the series at some point.

A. Morrel
July, 2013

New story up

I published a new story today.

Barb's Busted - A Down and Dirty Erotic Tale

I'm trying to get some actual shorts back into my titles as opposed to the longer ones that I seem to like to write. Hoping to do four stories with Barb before I'm done with her. Here's the blurb:

Barb's life has gone from bad to worse. She's behind on bills, laid off, and now pulled over by the cops. The discovery that her car insurance is expired begins an adventure that leads her to places she'd never even imagined going.

When the police officers that pulled her over prove their unscrupulous morals, she thinks she's hit rock bottom. But Barb finds herself powerless to stop her continuing slide down the ladder. Her perspective of her life and self is fundamentally altered.

In addition, Jilting Jenny (the latest in The Son of a Minister Series) will be free from June 18th - June 22nd

Jilting Jenny

June 18th, 2013
A. Morrel

"Anything for Food" free for five days plus the new story in Son of a Minister

Starting tomorrow (Monday June 3rd) I'll have a five day freebie starting.

Anything for Food - A Post-Apocalyptic Erotic Tale

will be free from June 3rd to June 7th (Mon-Fri).

I just uploaded the newest story in The Son of a Minister Series and it should be available late tonight or early tomorrow. It's called:

Jilting Jenny - #10 in The Son of a Minister Series

The title will change to a link once the story is available on Amazon.

Blurb:
Tim's girlfriend Deena is furious with Jenny. She enlists Tim's aid in her shrewd plan for vengeance, bribing him with the the offer of some extra-curricular fun. Things start getting exciting when Tim is, initially, willing to help Deena out. But as the plan progresses he has second thoughts. When the results of Deena's plan are more than she had hoped for Tim's guilt gets in the way, landing him in a world of trouble with both women involved and leaving him out in the cold.


I've uploaded all of my stories that are out of KDP select onto Barnes & Noble. They are available on Barnesandnoble.com  at this link:

Amy Morrel's Stories on B&N

The first 15 of my stories are available there.

June 2, 2013
A. Morrel

Lots of Minutae

So, I've been slower posting stories recently. I have an excuse, actually several.

I've been reading up on proper writing styles and trying to incorporate them into my stories as I go. I went back and did a minor re-write on Anything for Food and then republished it to Amazon with the new version. Anyone who purchased it in the first ten days can get the new version through their 'manage my kindle' section on Amazon.

I intend on going back and slowly doing re-writes on each of the stories I've published so far. I'll post on here as each one is rewritten and the new version becomes available on Amazon, in case anyone wants to update their copy to the newer version. I'll do either a rewrite on a shorter story or a portion of one on a larger story between each new story I release.

Speaking of which, #10 in The Son of a Minister Series, entitled Jilting Jenny,  will be released next Sunday or Monday (June 1st or 2nd). I've got it completed and the cover done. It just needs to have one more pass for editing/proofing and it's good to go. I'd release earlier but my stories released on Thursday-Saturday tend to not do as well overall so I'll wait for Sunday to post and it will be available late Sunday or Monday.

I'll also run Anything for Food on a five day free promo starting the day after I publish Jilting Jenny.

In other news. I lost another chicken to the same disease as the first one, at least the symptoms were the same. The remaining ten don't seem to be having similar problems so I'm hoping that they are done dying off on me for no apparent reason.

I've got my garden going well. Been eating fresh spinach for the past month or so. Carrots, lettuce, peas, beans, chard, kale, garlic, onions, broccoli, and cauliflower are all up and doing okay. I have tomato starts to put down, I'm just waiting until the lows under 40 degrees Fahrenheit are out of the forecast. Looks like I'll be able to put those down around June 2nd. Peppers and cucurbits (squash types) will wait another week or so after that to go out. Then I should have all my planting done for the spring.

My daughters are getting out of school for the summer so there has been lots of end of school year stuff stealing my time as well. My youngest is out already, my eldest has her last day tomorrow so there won't be any more of that slowing me down. Not to say that having them around all the time won't do the same though.

Anyhow, that's what's up here.

A. Morrel
May 29th, 2013

Spring is Here, plus a new book and a 5 day free kindle book

So, Spring is finally here. At least I'm hoping so. The snow and hail we've gotten the last few days has all melted in under twenty-four hours. We've even had some nice bright, sunny patches where we've made it up to 80 degrees F. (Don't ask about the weather at over 8000 feet altitude in the Rockies, I've yet to find anyone that can explain it well. Suffice it to say that our highs tend to be much higher than forecast and our precipitation totals likewise since we live in a valley that traps storms and holds them for a while).
                                                                                                                                             

Anyhow, with the onset of Spring weather I finally got myself moving on my writing again. So, tomorrow I'll be publishing my new story:

Anything for Food - A Post-Apocalyptic Erotic Tale

The title will change to a link once the story goes live on Amazon.

Tentative Blurb:
Andrea Tompkins' world has come apart at the seams, just like the rest of the country. She's lost everything: her job, her home, her parents. Everything that meant anything to her is gone. She's on the run, fearing that she is being followed by the three men who killed her traveling companion.

Andi stumbles onto Jake O'Connell, almost literally. Jake is haunted by something, she can see it in his eyes. He's also one of those people that she used to consider an oddball or worse. He's a prepper who is actually prepared for a situation like this.

Can she convince him to take her in and, if she can, at what cost to herself?
                                                                                                                                           

The last story I published will be free from Monday, May 13th - Friday, May 17th.

The story is the 9th one in The Son of a Minister Series, it's entitled:

Erica's Erotic Education

Enjoy, and please send some wishes my way that spring has finally arrived for me.

May 11th, 2013
A. Morrel

Make it Stop!

I hate to be a whiner but: Someone Make it Stop!

So, we started May with another eleven inch snowfall. Just before the snow my husband found out that he was indeed going to have to sit a jury. For one and a half to two weeks. So, now I need to take care of all the stuff I normally take care of plus a lot of the stuff that he normally takes care of.

It wouldn't be so bad but my oldest daughter's school is on the way home from his work and with his schedule he can pick her up and only waste an extra five minutes in doing so. On the other hand, when I need to go pick her up after school it is a twenty minute drive either way. So, including getting the younger daughter ready for the ride, that's about an hour a day gone on Mon.-Fri.

My writing pace had already slowed for a variety of reasons. Now it's slower still since I'm doing all my normal stuff, some of my hubbie's stuff, putting in this year's garden, and slowly working on my next story as well. It's maybe another week before this one is finished. I'm using a divergent setting here so I'll wait and not toss out any teasers on this one.

May 5th, 2013
A. Morrel

April snowstorms

April showers may bring may flowers but...

April snowstorms bring delays in everything I try to get done. We've had three major storms since the beginning of the month, including school being cancelled for snow days for my daughters.

I also had a sick chicken that finally gave up on me this morning. It's strange, the symptoms appear common from what I found online but not a single person who had posted about it could say what exactly was the disease or problem afflicting their birds nor did any of them figure out a successful treatment. It is possible that it was a congenital thing due to inbreeding. Ours was an Araucana (it looked like the show breeds and not like the more common Easter Eggers) while the ones I found referenced online were also all hybrid breeds that frequently have a lot of inbreeding in their ancestry. I comfort myself by thinking that she was nearly three years old which is an extra year and half over what production chickens get for a lifespan.

So now we're down to eleven chickens in the coop until the young ones we are raising in a brooder are ready to move out there. We'll have to cull a few of the existing ones then so the new ones have room but several of our chickens are three+ years old and not laying too well any more, so it was about that time anyhow.

Anyhow, these are the reasons I've been slow on releasing new stories. I have one that I hope to get onto Amazon next week but I'm not making any promises. So far April has been difficulty after difficulty and, somehow, I don't expect that to change at all.

April 19th, 2013
A. Morrel

The Son of a Minister Series #9 - Erica's Erotic Education

My newest book should be out tomorrow, it is #9 in The Son of a Minister Series. I uploaded it earlier this evening. Despite being 26,000+ words I convinced myself to keep to the $0.99 pricing for all the books in the series.

The title is:

Erica's Erotic Education - The Son of a Minister Series #9

I'll change that to a link once it is available on Amazon.
changed to link

A quick synopsis that is more lengthy than the blurb I used for the book:

Erica, Deena's best friend, is very unhappy with her sex life. As she puts it, she and her boyfriend have been having sex for years and every time it's the same exact thing. She wants to try something much less vanilla than oral and missionary.

When she finds out that her boyfriend and Deena will be out of town for a couple of week, each with their respective families, and realizes that their vacations overlap for more than a week she asks if she can borrow Tim.

Erica wants to go to Florida but needs someone to drive, she'll pay for the trip but doesn't have a car of her own. Tim is loaned to Erica and Deena tells him the day before he and Erica leave (which is the day Deena is leaving town with her family) that not only will Erica want him to drive, but she'd also like him to expand her sexual repertoire. Since Erica has heard everything that he and Deena have done, she knows there is a lot he can show her that she hasn't experienced.

I think it's a fun one. My proofreaders told me it read more quickly than they thought it would because they didn't want to stop reading.

April 7th, 2013
A. Morrel

Free this week

Okay, I'm really slow getting freebies set up this week and they'll go later in the week than normal because of it. I'll be using up a few extra free days before they expire so there are a couple of stories available this week:

On April 3rd and 4th I'll have:

Caught Skinny Dipping - An Erotic Tale

up for free.

On April 5th:

Cthulhu's Caresses - Lovecraftian Erotica

Will be free.

Hopefully now that spring break is over for my children I'll be able to get a decent amount of time in writing again. Been a couple of weeks since I got anything new out. I've found a little time to write but since the next story I intend to publish is probably going to be close to 20,000 words I've yet to finish it, I'm close though. Hopefully this coming Monday or Tuesday (April 8th or 9th) will see it published. I need to finish it, proofread it myself, run it through my two other proofreaders, then get it published.

In the meanwhile, I hope you enjoy the freebies.

April 2nd, 2013
A. Morrel

Free full length novel - March 25th through March 29th

So, it's a slow week. Haven't gotten much writing done since we recently got 12" of snow and my girls are home on spring break. Plugging away still but haven't had as much time to write as normal.

This week, I'm putting my romantic suspense novel:

A Hero's Reward

up for free, Warning, it does contains some explicit sex.


A bitter and ugly divorce has turned Margaret Chisolm into a shy introvert who fears interacting with men. Instead she's chosen a life of solitude, focusing all of her efforts on raising her son. Greg Thompson lives across the street from Margaret and carries battle scars of his own. Beaten down by the custody loss of his children to his ex-wife, Greg takes comfort in books and movies, knowing that these tangible, but inanimate, objects can never hurt his heart.

When disasters strike Margaret and her son, Greg repeatedly comes to their rescue. Touched by Margaret's demure nature and her dire situation he opens his home and his heart to her. It isn't long before they are both reminded that not all members of the opposite sex are the same.

New and exciting feelings blossom for Margaret and Greg, but mental landmines and physical dangers plague their burgeoning relationship. When a sinister force targets Margaret and her son, the new-found relationship is put to the ultimate test. Can Greg save them from the clutches of evil? Can their love survive?

This romantic suspense novel is approximately 60,000 words long.

Warning:
Adult readers only, 18+ please
This story contains explicit sex and other content only suitable for mature audiences.

DRM free

If you enjoy the story please take a minute or two to leave a review.

March 24th, 2013
A. Morrel

Free Kindle title March 20th-24th - Dana's Renaissance Romp

I'll have one of my recent stories free from March 20th-24th.

Dana's Renaissance Romp

I don't know that I'll get anything new published this week. I spent time working on improving the blurb and cover for:

A Hero's Reward

which was my release from last week. In addition I managed to contract a stomach flu. I find it difficult to write erotica while nauseated. On top of everything else I got my hands on a copy of the newest book in one of my favorite series (Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series) and lost a day to reading Cold Days straight through from cover to cover.

I've got 11,000 words of my next release done but the story itself is not yet near to being complete. Probably about 20-25k on this one. It will be book #9 of "The Son of a Minister Series", tentatively titled:
"Erica's Erotic Education"

I'll keep plugging away at it and get it published once it is completed and proofed.

Hope you enjoy the freebie.

March 19th, 2013
A. Morrel

Kindle E-book - A Hero's Reward

So, I managed to get the novel I was talking about completed and published to Amazon. I used something similar to the blurb I suggested here:

Greg and Margaret have been divorced from their respective spouses for several years. Margaret has taken refuge in raising her son and has developed a raging case of shyness. Greg's ex-wife has custody of his children so he takes refuge in books and movies experienced alone.

Both are torn from their isolation when Greg rescues Margaret and her son. Spending time with each other causes them to remember that all members of the opposite gender are not like their previous spouses.

Greg attempts to help Margaret get her life together once more after it is destroyed in the incident which cast Greg in the role of a hero. Mental land mines and physical dangers plague their burgeoning relationship.

This romantic suspense novel is approximately 60,000 words long.

Warning: Adult readers only, 18+ please
This romantic suspense story contains explicit sex and other content only suitable for mature audiences.

DRM Free

The link is:

A Hero's Reward

While it isn't my normal erotic genre, it does have some explicit scenes to help develop Margaret's character.  I'm pretty happy with the way this book turned out. I'm sure there were a couple of things I could've done to make it better but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what they were.


'Look inside' will give you a pretty good feel for the book if you think you might be interested but aren't sure. It doesn't go far enough to be into the true romance portion of the book but it establishes the main male character quite well.

March 13th, 2013
A. Morrel

free kindle erotic story March 12th-14th

This weeks free story will be:

Caught Skinny Dipping - An Erotic Tale

It will be free from March 12th-March 14th.

My new story going up this week (at least I hope it will be up this week) is a departure from the straight erotic genre. The story is a romantic suspense (with an erotic element) clocking in at close to 60,000 words. Hooray for a novel length story (even if it is on the short end for a novel). I've been working on it for a while whenever I'd finish a new weeks story earlier than my desired submission date. It is slightly delayed in proofing although I hope to have it up in another day or two.

The title on it is tentatively:

A Hero's Reward

I haven't worked out the blurb for it yet but it will be something along the lines of:

Greg and Margaret have been divorced from their respective spouses for several years. Margaret has taken refuge in raising her son and has developed a raging case of shyness. Greg's ex-wife has custody of his children so he takes refuge in books and movies experienced alone.

Both are torn from their isolation when Greg rescues Margaret and her son. Being forced to keep company with the opposite gender for a while causes them to remember that all members of the opposite gender are not like their previous spouses.

Greg attempts to help Margaret get her life together once more after it is destroyed in the incident which cast Greg in the role of a hero. Mental land mines and physical difficulties plague their burgeoning relationship.

Or something along those lines anyhow. Like I said, I hope to have it published within a couple of days. I'll make another post when I publish it, with the actual blurb used.

March 11th, 2013
A. Morrel

New Story and this Week's Promotional Story

So, assuming I get it posted in time, my newest story should be live tomorrow (Mar 4th). It is:

Dana's Renaissance Romp

(title will be changed to a link once it goes live)

Dana had a date and he was taking her to the renaissance fair. When he found out that she liked the fair he claimed to enjoy it as well before asking her to go with him. Unfortunately she found out that he had been lying. She abandoned him at the fair, with good cause, only to remember several hours later that he was her ride home.

Dana gets very lucky with the ride she eventually finds.


Also, this week I'll have Doing Deena (The Son of a Minister Series #8) for free on Monday (March 4th) through Wednesday (March 6th). Link:

Doing Deena - The Son of a Minister Series #8

Hope you enjoy the stories. If you do, please take a minute or two to leave a review.

March 3rd, 2013
A. Morrel

Ruthless Redhead's Revenge Promotion

So, this weeks free story is:

The Ruthless Redhead's Revenge - An Erotic Tale on the High Seas

It is free from 2-25-13 to 2-27-13

This is not your average pirate story: Roberta is utterly unenthusiastic when she finds she is to be married off to a man three times her age. On the way there, she has the opportunity to avoid being ever married off and jumps on it (in more ways than one).

I can't stand the fainting 'oh help me' type of heroines I've seen in most pirate erotica. If they aren't those then they tend to be the bloodthirsty female pirates themselves. I tried to strike a happy medium here. It was a load of fun to write and I hope you enjoy reading it.

Also, tomorrow (assuming my internet connection is not impeded by the nearly 20" of snow we just received) I will put up my newest story.

Caught Skinny Dipping - An Erotic Tale

I'll change the title to a link once the story is live.

Sandra has a little problem. When she's drunk, she's all over any guy she finds even vaguely attractive if they manage to get skin contact with her. The problem has been progressing and now even the scent of a guy she finds attractive will get her going when she's drunk. In order to avoid the problem she tries to only dance with her female friends at parties when she drinks.

Well, she's partying with abandon now. She's about to graduate college and has no idea what she'll end up doing in the real world. So she's partying to forget about things for a bit. She manages to stay away from the guys at the party but she and a couple of friends decide to go skinny dipping when the party is over. Unbeknownst to Sandra, they've also invited a few guys to follow along.

Feb. 24th, 2013
A. Morrel

Now starting to get my ebooks available for Nook as well

As of today, the first e-book I published on Amazon (Church Serviced) is now available for the Nook as well as the Kindle. As each of my books come out of KDP select, I'll also add them into the B&N catalog. Maybe one of these days I'll get to adding them to Smashwords or Allromance or some other places as well.

Church Serviced

Feb 18th, 2013
A. Morrel

Freebie for 2/18-2/21 plus new story in The Son of a Minister Series

I'll have a four day freebie running starting on 2/18 and running through 2/21. The story is:
The Dreamers Balled - An Erotic Tale (m/m)

Also, I just published # 8 in The Son of a Minister Series. The title is:
Doing Deena
I'll make the title a link to the story's page as soon as it goes live. I just finished uploading it to Amazon about five minutes ago.

Feb 17th, 2013
A. Morrel

Melancholy Moods

Do you ever get those melancholy moods which seem to create an apathy and lethargy in you? The end result being you just don't want to do anything. That makes just about everything seem to be more effort than it's worth?

I do, I'm in one right now. I normally have a few things I can do to get myself back out of these moods, once I can convince myself it's worth the effort to do so. I've found in the past that creating a cathartic situation will normally snap me right back out within an hour or so. The most common ways I managed to do it involve movies, or at least specific scenes from them, and music. My recent story 'The Audiophile' was the result of one of those moods. As I was coming out of the mood I found myself thinking, Wow, I wonder if anyone has ever intentionally designed their music to alter people's moods. and as such, the kernel of the story was born.

Anyhow, these are a few of my favorite catharsis inducing movies and songs. These work for me most of the time. My biggest problem is when I hit a mood that none of these will get me out of. It happens about once a year and then the hunt is on for something else to induce catharsis in myself.

Note: When I say catharsis, this normally means a good crying jag (for me at least):

Movies:
Dances with Wolves: the scene where Kevin Costner charges the enemy lines on horseback, trying to commit suicide instead of having his leg amputated.

The Postman: The scene where Kevin Costner turns his horse around to grab the letter from the child at a gallop.

(yes, there is a Costner theme there, sorry but those are the two that cause catharsis for me pretty reliably)

Immortal Beloved: The Ode to Joy scene

Music:
This is a somewhat more eclectic list as my musical tastes widely vary

Bethoven's 9th Ode to Joy: That is the title of the nearly thirteen minute version I have with a magnificent version of Ode to Joy in the middle of it.

The next song is very specific. It is a version of 'When the Tigers Broke Free' that is done by the Royal Philharmonic with David Palmer conducting. The CD name is: 'The Music of Pink Floyd - Orchestral Maneuvers'. The first half of this song brings me (and my husband) to tears anytime we hear it.

Various and sundry religious based Brass Band pieces (yes, like the ones referenced in The Son of a Minister Series)

These are just a few that work for me. What works for you, if you have this issue, could be different but the one thing they have in common for me is that when I am not feeling down, they tend to cause a warm fuzzy feeling for me. So if you know of a scene or song that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, try watching or listening to it the next time you're down and see if it helps.

If you know of something that helps for you when you're in this kind of mood, please add it to the comments and maybe it will work for me, or someone else, also.

Feb 12, 2013
A. Morrel

New Story Should Go Live Sun. night/Mon. morning

I finished the pirate themed story and managed to get it proofed in time. I submitted it earlier today and it is into 'publishing' status. My best guess is that it should go live late tonight or tomorrow early morning. It is actually closer to 30,000 than 29,000 words but I didn't know how many words were added on through the links to my other stories at the end. So I just listed it as 29,000+

The story is:

The Ruthless Redhead's Revenge - An Erotic Tale on the High Seas

As always, once I find it live, I'll change the title to a link. This is something close to the description I used on Amazon:


When Roberta is auctioned off by her father for the highest bride price he can get, she doesn't know how she can escape her fate. Her new betrothed lives on an island several days away and her father is eager to get her there so he can collect the gold. When her ship sets sail she nearly becomes despondent.

Fate intervenes in the form of a pirate ship boarding her vessel. Her brother has ensured that she can defend herself and for a short time she does so. Multiple pirates at once pose a problem though, and so she is captured. When the pirate captain dies in an 'accident' involving Roberta's dagger and her temper, things change for the better. The new captain is much more amenable to her requests, especially when the lure of a way to obtain her bride price without Roberta having to get married is planned.

Roberta's temper is far more suited to the pirate lifestyle than to the lifestyle she'd have as the obedient wife of a rich man. She proceeds to demonstrate why this is so once she is relieved of the need to marry her 'betrothed'.

This sexy erotic pirate story is novella length with a word count of 29,000+

Warning: This story contains sex, oral sex, anal sex, and kinky sex.
(m/f)
-----

This was a fun one to write, I just had to remember to have fun with it while I wrote it and the words flew.

Feb 10th, 2013
A. Morrel

5 day freebie again

Oops, I meant to put this post up last night but have been very busy. Mainly I've been trying to get the pirate themed story I was talking about done. Word creep occurred again and it looks like it will finish off at about 30,000 words.  But I am finishing off the first final proof, my hubby will do the second final proof tonight and with any luck Tom can do the third early on tomorrow. If all goes as planned I can still get it published on Sunday night or Monday morning.

Anyhow, this message is about my second 5 day freebie. I did two back to back with 'Thyme's Up' (which had 1466 free downloads and reached spot #7 on the top 100 amazon free erotica for a day or two)
and the one that starts today:

The Audiophile - An Erotic Tale

In the story, Walter is a man who makes his own music. He has a degree in music but he also has a minor in psychology. Walter mixes his two studies together in an attempt to make songs that will get people up and moving, dancing, loving, and a variety of other things.

Carla has just moved in next to Walter. Her very first night there she hears music softly coming through the wall. She can't decide whether to be angry or just let it slide, until she actually listens to the music. The resulting activities improve her mood greatly and cause her to decide that she needs to know what music that is so she can get her own copy.

Carla and Walter meet and eventually Carla volunteers to let Walter test his songs on her, leading to some very interesting evenings.

Anyhow, if you download the story and enjoy it, please take a couple of seconds to click the 'like' button in the story's page on Amazon or take a couple of minutes and add a review to it.

Thank you...

Feb 9th, 2013
A. Morrel

bonus freebies

I managed to break into the top 100 free erotic ebooks on Amazon with Thyme's Up. It is currently at #7 as I am writing this. Since Valentines Day is coming up as well I thought I'd run a series of freebies to celebrate both.

Starting tomorrow, Feb. 8th, I'm going to run each of the earlier stories in The Son of a Minister Series (the same series Thyme's Up is in) free for one day each approaching Valentines Day. On Valentines Day I'll set two of my stand alone (An Erotic Tale) stories to be free. Here is the list with links to the ebooks on Amazon and the date each will be free:

Feb 8th: Church Serviced: The Son of a Minister Series #1

Feb 9th: Knowing Nora Biblically: The Son of a Minister Series #2

Feb 10th: Dee for Two and Two for Dee: The Son of a Minister Series #3

Feb 11th: Bi-Curious and the Rice Purity Test: The Son of a Minister Series #4

Feb 12th: The Rocky Horror After-Show Cast Party: The Son of a Minister Series #5

Feb 13th: A Woman's Pique: The Son of a Minister Series #6

Feb 14th: His Belonging - An Erotic Tale

Feb 14th: Padding Her Resume - An Erotic Tale

I hope you enjoy the stories. If you do, please take a second or two to click the 'like' button on the story's page on Amazon or a minute or two to add a review there. Thank you...

Feb 7th, 2013

A. Morrel

This week's freebie and some plant stuff

As of Feb. 6th, Thyme's Up has reached #10 in the top 100 free erotica stories on Amazon. I just figured I'd edit the post to drop this in since I am rather proud of it. It has two days to run on its freebie status so maybe it will reach higher. I have my fingers crossed at least.

Got a freebie up for this week (Feb 4th-8th). The seventh story in The Son of a Minister, called:
Thyme's Up
(The title is the link to the Amazon page for it)

Working on a pirate themed Erotic short (okay, so at this point it looks like it'll be novelette or novella length instead) that I hope to be publishing next Sunday or Monday. Not quite the standard style of that story as I envision the standard. I can't stand the fainting, 'oh rescue me!' type of heroine so I don't often write them.

Those who know me know I'm an avid gardener. Both inside (in the winter) and outside (spring-summer-fall). So my winter efforts are starting to bear fruit, so to speak. I pulled a nice ripe, medium sized jalapeno off of my bushy jalapeno plant inside the house. After a brief bout with white flies earlier in the late fall/early winter I was fearing that the plant might not fruit, but it finally did, and now the peppers are starting to ripen.

My fig plant (also indoors), which I feared I had been over watering earlier in the year (because it was dropping all of its leaves) is sprouting new leaves and new tiny figs. If anyone wants a really easy to care for indoor plant that will grow tasty treats, I highly recommend a Brown Turkey Fig plant.

The cuttings for the fig are inexpensive to acquire, the figs are tasty as can be, and it only needs daily watering and a bit of plant food maybe once a month. Depending on your local climate it might not even need watering once a day; my climate is really dry though. Just make sure to be willing to move it up to larger pot sizes as it grows and it will continue to get larger. Once every 2-3 years you need to give it new soil and trim the roots. Mine has ended up in the same size pot I use for my dwarf lemon tree and is really happy about it. If I could handle moving a larger pot around, I'd bump its pot size one more time even but that would be getting a bit large for me to move.

Feb 4th, 2013
A. Morrel

New Son of a Minister Story plus Freebies

Well, this week sees a new story in The Son of a Minister Series going up. Currently waiting on it to actually publish, I submitted it this morning. The new story is called:
Thyme's Up (Son of a Minister Series)
I'll change that to a link as soon as it comes online. This is #7 in the series.

This week, I'll have a melange of freebies available. Four different stories, each free for one day.
Mon - Jan 28th -  The Rocky Horror After-Show Cast Party (The Son of a Minister Series)
Tue - Jan 29th -   His Belonging - An Erotic Tale
Wed - Jan 30th - A Woman's Pique (The Son of a Minister Series)
Thu - Jan 31st -   Cthulhu's Caresses - Lovecraftian Erotica

I figured I'd finish out the month with a variety of different items and styles available for free.

Jan 27th, 2013
A. Morrel

last change, hopefully

Okay, so I've revised pricing again. I've been looking at my figures and decided that what I'm going to do is make all of my 'Son of a Minister Series' stories $0.99 (US). The other stories I do will follow the pricing guide that I outlined in earlier posts. Hopefully that will be the last change I make to pricing for some time. Then I don't have to think about it each time I publish. Since I'm tentatively planning for twenty stories in the Son of a Minister series when it is completed that should give a good sampling of my writing at an inexpensive price for people to check out. Price changes on previous series books marked higher should occur within twenty-four hours or so of this post.

Jan 24th, 2013
A. Morrel

Freebie for Jan 21-23 and this weeks story coming soon

So, I missed a Sunday deadline for this week's story. The story is actually written but at 26,000 words, my proofreaders haven't finished yet. I hope to put it up sometime tomorrow (Jan 21st). It's title will be:
The Audiophile - An Erotic Tale
I'll edit the title to a link once the story is live. Edited to include link.

The Audiophile may well border on erotic romance. The erotica is there but there's a whole lot more in there as well. It is a story about a woman who meets a man (imagine that! *grin*). The man is a musician who has been writing his own music and recording all parts of the music himself. His music is a touch different than most of what you might hear. We've all heard the songs that make us go warm and fuzzy, or bring a tear to the eye, or make us feel happy or sad or whatever, the music that triggers your emotions. The audiophile (whose name is Walter) has a degree in music, which was his major, but his minor was psychology. He combines the two to intentionally attempt to create specific emotions or states of mind in whoever listens to his music.

Our woman who meets the man is named Carla. After accidentally hearing some of the music from her new neighbor, she introduces herself the next day. She wants to find out what music it was so she can get her own copy but, Walter hasn't published his music yet and is unwilling to give out copies. He is kind enough to invite her to listen to some of it in his apartment if she would like to though. Carla willingly volunteers to test his songs with him, not quite fully understanding what some of them are intended to do.

Did she fall for him on her own? or did a romance inducing song assist in the matter. You'll have to make the decision yourself.

I'm going to let my proofreaders make the call on erotica vs. erotic romance for this one.

This weeks freebie is:
A Woman's Pique
Which is #6 in The Son of a Minister series. It will be free Mon-Wed (Jan 21 - 23)

A final note - I had listed my pricing policies a few posts back but I am changing one of those. I won't be doing an introductory price for the first week any more. Of the past four stories I've tried to change the price on, the minimum number of times I had to try to get the price changed was four, the maximum was twelve before I gave up and used a workaround . I try to change just the price and the kdp submission freezes up and gives me an error message. There is a workaround, but it involves changing the price AND resubmitting the main body of the story or resubmitting the cover. Then it seems to go right through the first time. I don't want to have to resubmit the main body or the cover for each story I change from an introductory price though. Sooner or later I'd screw up and submit the wrong thing in there, so the pricing guideline I listed will stay mostly unchanged, except the stories will come in at the pricing based on the word count and not have an introductory week at a lower price. I'll continue to toss freebies up each week though.

Jan 20th, 2013
A. Morrel

Amazon KDP explains search discrepancy with book search

So, KDP got back to me. I had emailed customer support asking if there was a reason that His Belonging - An Erotic Tale was not showing up in general search results from the 'all' category you are in when you log in to Amazon.

My reply stated:
"We have found your Kindle book contains mature content and it will not surface in our general product search results."

I stopped to wonder for a second, all my other books surface in the general search results, including Cthulhu's Caresses which I would've thought would qualify in that category more so then Belonging.

I mean, why would a book that contains a person who voluntarily takes training as a personal slut, someone who willingly and gladly subsumes their will to someone else's, be considered mature when other books that focus on sex primarily don't get these classifications?

Okay, I had a problem keeping a straight face while typing that. I always intellectually understood that sex was becoming more and more a part of the culture, reaching down to an ever-decreasing younger age. I guess intellectual understanding alone wasn't enough. I understand on a slightly deeper level now. If you're old enough to understand what sex is nowadays it invariably becomes a part of your life, even just through discussion with peers.

My ten year old is beginning to show a little interest, and isn't it embarrassing to have to tell a child "No, you can't read what Mommy is writing right now, let's wait until you're a bit older," and have her tell you that she knows all about sex. At least she thinks she does; she was right on a few things and wrong on some others when we had a little chat after that. At least she isn't interested in trying it yet, or so she told me.

Now, while sex has been becoming a part of the culture at a younger and younger age, evidently some of the alternative lifestyles have not, and so they are classified as "mature content". I have to wonder if it was the willing slavery or the very, very tame BDSM portion that led to the classification though. I know BDSM took a few hits to its reputation in the recent spat on what companies would publish in Ebooks on their sites. So it makes me wonder. Maybe I'll have to write one with some BDSM and no slavery as well as one with some willing slavery but no BDSM and see which one gets classified that way. It'd be a good test by fire.

Anyhow if other erotic authors are wondering why some of their stories may not be searchable in the 'all' category with a general search but are available in the 'books' tab, this may be what you encountered as well.

Jan 15th, 2013
A. Morrel

New title available, plus a freebie

I have my newest title available, it went live within the past hour or so. It is the 6th story in the "Son of a Minister Series". It is:
A Woman's Pique
(m/m) (m/m/f)

In this story Alice is finally speaking to Tim and Walker again. Since she has been after both of them all semester they arrange a private party for the three of them. Tim meets up with Walker much earlier in the day and they spend a portion of the afternoon familiarizing themselves with each other.

When Alice arrives, she is stunned by some perceptive observations by the two men. The same observations allow her to relax a little more. After that they move on to other, more interesting, things. Will having Tim and Walker at the same time be too much for Alice?

Also, the story I published last week will be free for three days: Mon, Jan 14th - Wed, Jan 16th. Fair warning in advance. This story is well out there and may not be for mainstream readers. Be sure to read the entire description to see if it could be to your taste or not. The story is:
Cthulhu's Caresses - Lovecraftian Erotica

I think it's possible that I may break my '1 star review cherry' on this one if someone picks it up who isn't familiar with Cthulhu or Lovecraft and doesn't read the entire description.

Jan 13th, 2013
A. Morrel

How I Price

I was asked, today, why His Belonging - An Erotic Tale had its price go up after it came off of its free days. So I figured I'd explain how I'm doing my pricing.

First, I define the stories by word count:
Shorts: up to 10,000 words
Novellette:  10,001 - 20,000 words
Novella: 20,001 - 40,000 words
Novel: 40,000 + words
Technically I should have epics and what not listed also but I have no intention of writing anything that long for release as a single Ebook.

Now, my pricing is based on length plus a couple of other variables.
Base pricing:
Shorts: $0.99
Novellette or Novella: $2.99
Novel: $3.99-$5.99

Variables that can affect the base pricing are niche and effort involved. If there is less demand for a certain niche that I write something in I am liable to price it higher. If something takes me five times as long to write because I had to research information for it repeatedly then it is liable to be priced higher.

Finally, when I introduce a book I'll normally drop its price category by one level. So 'His Belonging' which is priced at $2.99 because its word count is over 10,000 was dropped to $0.99 for its first week, then it had a few free days and once it came off of the free days I put the price to its normal level.

When I was asked the pricing question I was also asked why "His Belonging" isn't searchable from the 'all' category on Amazon. Even if you search by author name in the 'all' category it doesn't come up. I don't know why that is occurring unless it is a side effect of editing the price. I'll have to contact Amazon support about that in a week or so if it stays that way.

Jan, 2013
A. Morrel

Darkness of the Soul

You know how they say everyone has a little darkness in their soul? Well, I decided to share mine this week. This week's addition to my erotica available on Amazon is a Lovecraftian Erotica piece entitled:
Cthulhu's Caresses - Lovecraftian Erotica

My hubby's comment was a simple: "That is beyond creepy." after he proofread it. When our friend Tom did the second proof his comment was: "Ooohhh, creepy tentacle porn, Cool!". Tom's a bit out there but I give him kudos for doing proofreading for me and for liking, and adding tags to, my stories on Amazon.

For Mon.-Wed. of this week (Jan 7th-9th) I also have:
His Belonging - An Erotic Tale
available for free download on Amazon.

Currently working on the next book in The Son of a Minister series. It is titled "A Woman's Pique" and deals with Tim, Walker, and Alice. Hubby told me he is very much looking forward to proofreading this one after reading "Rocky Horror After-Show Cast Party". Hopefully I'll be publishing 'Pique' on either Sunday the 13th or Monday the 14th of Jan.

Jan. 7th, 2013

A. Morrel

Why?

Someone asked me why I decided to start writing erotica. As I answered them I thought to myself that it might be a good subject for a blog post.

A while back I got a Kindle. My hubby and I both read (a lot) and we have thousands of physical books in the house or I probably would've gotten one sooner. Anyhow, being me, I decided to download some of the erotic shorts that Amazon has available. I thought that maybe I could find something fun to share with the hubby. What I found disappointed me.

The hubby and I did indeed find something fun to share, or at least something funny to share. We looked through those I had downloaded and a major percentage of them had poor formatting, horrendous spelling, inappropriate grammar (and no not the sexual kind of inappropriate, just inappropriately used), poor or no plots, lack of continuity in the stories, and so on and so forth. We pointed out the most egregious errors to one another for a good laugh. At one point my hubby looked at me and said "This is horrible, we could write better erotica than this."

Since I had been writing on and off for years, and have a multitude of unfinished stories (not erotica) on my hard drive, when I told him I'd give it a shot he was somewhat doubtful about my following through. I have seven stories published now and I'd like to think that the spelling and grammar are all significantly better than the average found in an Amazon erotic short. I do try to put at least some plot and story line into each story and try to maintain continuity, especially over the course of  "The Son of a Minister" series I've been writing.

So, the short answer to why I started writing erotica was because I was disappointed in a large percentage of the existing erotic shorts I came upon. I decided to see if erotic shorts and longer erotic stories (because me being me, I will run over a word count goal frequently) that have good spelling and grammar, that have plots and storylines, would be appreciated or if people didn't care about those things.

As an aside, should you see a spelling or grammar error in one of my stories please let me know in a comment here or through some other means. I'll abashedly fix it, if I agree that it is an error, and then resubmit. If I don't agree, I'll reply explaining why I used something as I did.

Jan 4, 2013
A. Morrel