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--- Writing Porn For Fun and Profit! --- ========================================= Hi everybody, I don't know about you all but I've sure been busy the last couple of weeks. Several assignments, the contest, etc. I'm not complaining, though, any time I'm busy writing is a good time for me. This issue we've got a winner for the short story contest plus a bunch of other goodies. There's Part II of Don Vaughan's "Confessions of a Porno Hack," as well as some market listings (another Australian one for those of you have been asking for more Aussie markets) and lots of Goings On. Also, check out the Story Feedback heading and let me know what you think. Keep in touch and enjoy this issue! Katy
=========================================== Thanks to all of you who entered the short story contest! There were seven very well written stories to choose from and, as per usual, the hardest part of my job was trying to pick a winner. In the end, though, I chose ChocolateRoark's Anticipation. I'm sure you'll love his lush descriptions as much as I did. Read his story here He won a whopping $25.00 - although he chose to take his winnings in stories and serials from my site, duh, why didn't I think of that? - not to mention fame as a published author of smut on our Winners page! The next contest will be in April, which gives you plenty of time to craft the next perfect story! Visit here for all the juicy details (aka Rules and Regulations, such as they are.) Thanks again to those of you who entered, I had a great time reading your stories! =========================================== Once I knew where I was going (straight to hell, according to more than a few acquaintances), I grabbed my handy list of body-part adjectives and jumped right in, turning my friends into rutting hogs in heat. It was in this book, too, that I introduced the character of Wayne S. Diaz - a favorite inside joke. However, when the book finally came out, Wayne's last name had been changed to Smith. I never did find out if the editors at Greenleaf thought the character was too ethnic, or they just didn't like the gag. Anyway, Doug Saito, editorial director for Greenleaf, responded quickly to my latest submission: "Mother's Wild Urges is a buy," he wrote. "However, I've got to know if you'll be able to live with the fact that you won't be paid until at least nine months from now (yes, we're in a financial crunch)." Nine months? I didn't like the sound of that, but I was too overwhelmed by the fact that I was two for two in the smut game to really think about it. I signed the contract and started contemplating my third book. This was, after all, easy money, even if it took a while to get. The books were fun and simple to write, and the market seemed inexhaustible. At a book a month, I thought, I could bring in...an extra $4,800 a year!" Knowing a golden goose when I saw one, I decided to enlist my pal, cartoonist/writer Mark Cantrell, in penning my most daring book yet: Jessica's Class Act. This touching story tells the tale of Jessica Peters, a divorced housewife who decides to join her twin daughters at a small midwestern college. One of the twins is a nympho, you see, and the other hates sex, so the scene is set for all sorts of zany shenanigans. In fact, by the time we reach the inevitable climactic orgy, our leading lady and her family and friends would have sex with pizza dough, sex with Coke bottles (a scene half of my female pals loved and the other half loathed with a vengeance), sex with teachers, sex with students and sex on an airplane. Indeed, something for everyone. I wrote a simple outline of the story and Mark and I evenly divided the chapters. Things went smoothly until Mark's computer started acting up, freezing the chapter he had on his screen and preventing him from saving it to disk. Rather than lose the whole thing, he read the chapter into a tape recorder for future inputing - not realizing it was the same cassette on which he had recorded some guitar music for his new girlfriend. Days later, I was told, said girlfriend was driving to work when suddenly the tape she had been listening to segued from relaxing guitar tunes to Mark reciting his latest sex scene in a fixed monotone: "Bernie's tongue brushed her swollen pussy lips, then suddenly probed deep inside as he sucked her entire mound into his mouth..." Well, you get the idea. Anyway, it really put a unique spin on their relationship. Working in tandem, Mark and I finished the manuscript fairly quickly. A few last-minute tweaks here and there, and the sucker was in the mail. An easy $200 each, I thought. Boy was I wrong. I was halfway into Horny Sucking Neighbor, with Reunion Suck Slut waiting in the wings (yes, there was a distinct trend in my subject material) when the figurative ceiling came crashing down on my little sideline. "Sorry to give you the following bad news in the form of a nonpersonal, Xeroxed form letter: We are gutting back drastically in the number of titles we publish each month," Doug Saito wrote with great seriousness. "We will not be needing any submissions at present. If you have a work in progress, please stop at once. If you have a submission currently in house, there's a good chance that it will be sent back to you. If you have any money owed to you for manuscripts already purchased, payments, to the best of my knowledge, will still be made...but they've been delayed, postponed or rescheduled so many times that I cannot say with any degree of accuracy when checks will go out." This was news, of course, that I really didn't want to hear. I was still waiting for payment on A Mother So Naughty, not to mention Jessica's Class Act, and now it looked like it was going to take a lot longer than nine months to get any of it. Well, to make this twisted tale a little shorter, the publisher ended up doing to me what I had been doing to my characters, and he didn't even kiss me first. The nonpayment bothered me, especially because Mark was supposed to get half of one check, but what really pissed me off was the fact that I had two terrific books halfway written and nowhere to go with them. As I write this, they're still in a box, gathering dust, because I can't think of a way to convince Random House to publish a book titled Reunion Suck Slut. This story does have a happy ending, though - sort of. Just to even the score a little, I ordered 10 copies each of The Weekend We Swapped and A Mother So Naughty, autographed them and gave to friends as Christmas presents. Unfortunately, in so doing I probably blew any chance I ever had of running for public office. I can see the press conference now: "Mr. Vaughan, does the name Doug Vincent mean anything to you?..." Donald Vaughan is a full-time freelance writer based in Raleigh, North Carolina. His adult-oriented work has appeared in Hustler, Penthouse Forum, Screw, Draculina, Back Door, Sextra and elsewhere. His most recent book is "The Everything Civil War Book" from Adams Media. =========================================== Paying: AUSTRALIAN WOMEN'S FORUM: PO Box 4455, St Leonards, 2065. P:+61 2 9901 6185. F: +61 2 9901 6116. E-mail: awf@gemkilt.com.au. CONTACT: Helen Vnuk, Editor. An intelligent magazine (published monthly) for sexually liberated women. Circulation: around 20,000. 75% freelance written. Works with new writers. Responds in six weeks. Purchases first Australian serial rights. Pays on acceptance. Publishes manuscripts approximately two months or more after acceptance. Obtain guidelines via email or SASE. Obtain sample copy at newsagencies in Australia or through our subscriptions department. Submit complete story for fiction, idea or complete article for feature. SUBSCRIPTIONS: $95 (Australian) for 12 issues. CURRENT NEEDS: Fiction, opinion pieces, personal experiences, feature articles on anything that may interest intelligent, sexually liberated women. PAYMENT: $350 per published 1000 words, $300 for opinion pieces, $250 for personal experiences. WORD COUNT: Around 1800-2500 words for fiction and features, around 800 words for personal experiences and opinion pieces PHOTOS/ART: To be negotiated REPRINTS: Yes, as long as they were first published outside of Australia. Non-Paying: PHILOGYNY: Girls Who Kiss and Tell: P.O. Box 381732 - Cambridge, MA 02238. P(617)-541-6913. E-mail: philogynyzine@hotmail.com. CONTACT: Amie M. Evans - Editor, Fiction and Columns. Jean Powers - Assistant Editor, Poetry and Art. Wendy Stone - Photos. Quarterly publication featuring lesbian erotica - "Classy Lit for Trashy Broads." Circulation: 1000-2000 + 2 runs of 250 back issues. 90% freelance written. Committed to working with new writers. Our submission readers will provide feedback to rejected manuscripts and we often ask new writers for the option to see pieces again after rewrites. Response time varies, usually 2-8 months. Purchases one time use rights with an option for an anthology. Also asks that you credit Philogyny if the piece is published elsewhere. Pays 1-2 months after publication. Publishes manuscripts 3-8 months after acceptance. Obtain guidelines at http://www.erotica-readers.com/ERA/GuidelineFrames.htm or send SASE. Obtain copy by sending a 9x12 or 8x11 SASE with US$2.00 in postage affixed to it (NOT a check or cash) and a signed statement that you are over 18. Submit whole manuscript via email as an attachment with a .doc ending and a fax number (for edits) or send via snail mail with SASE and enough postage for return (for edits). Cover letters are great as are bios (which we require after acceptance), but are not needed with submissions. Query if you want to send something unusual or if you have a column or feature idea. SUBSCRIPTIONS: US - $15.00 US for four issues. Overseas - Please contact us, price varies by our postage cost. CURRENT NEEDS: We only publish lesbian erotica (i.e. two women having sex). Well crafted short stories (5000-8000 words) with character development, graphic but literary sex, and plots; poetry that doesn't read like it came from a freshman poetry class; photos with all kinds and shapes and colors and sizes of women doing all kinds of sexual and tempting things and art that is fun and exciting. We also need columns: reviews; sex and law; toy reviews; how-to reviews; interviews with lesbian erotic writers. We don't accept love poetry unless it is sexual. I am not fond of short short stories unless they are very well done. I love fresh ideas and approaches. All types of sex from vanilla to hard core S/m. PAYMENT: Currently 3 copies of the issue in which it appears. If selected for the anthology, payment will vary depending on who the publisher is. WORD COUNT: We are more concerned with quality than word counts, but as a rule of thumb: Prose - 1000-9000 words but ask if your story is over the max, we often will review long stories for use as a two-part piece. Poetry - no limits are currently set. Columns varies but in general 500-2000 words. PHOTOS/ART: Prefer black and white jpeg attachments. Will accept 5x7 or 8x10 black and white prints. PAYMENT/PHOTOS: Same as text ACCEPT REPRINTS?: Yes as long as the artist/writer has rights. HINTS: We pack each issue with 30 to 40 pages of well written lesbian erotica from vanilla to s/m. We always need manuscripts. We are a small operation with a slow turn around time. Be patient. We do events with opportunities for writers who have been published in Philogyny to read their works. Read our guidelines twice and follow them. All of the repeat problems we have encountered are covered in the guidelines. Email us or call us if you have a question or you aren't sure if your work is right for us. =========================================== Do you have a story to share? Are you happy with your writing career? Struggling, frustrated, inspired? Please send your thoughts, other writers are interested in knowing how you feel! =========================================== Thanks so much for sharing your 'goings on' with me/us, there was plenty of news to share this time! Congrats to all of you! If I missed anyone, I'm sorry, just send me your info again and I'll be sure to get it out in the next issue.... --- Alyssa Rivera has a piece of flash-fiction at Amoret. "Dinner" can be found here - http://www.amoretonline.com/C145.htm. She'll also have another story, "Email", out next next month, check it out! --- One reader (with multiple pseudonyms) has several pieces at ERA in January. "High Rise" by Gordon Jennings is in the Features Gallery; "Tonight" by Sheila Jay is in the main Poetry Gallery; "She" by Sheila Jay is a poem under the heading 'Pantoum,' and "Four Tanka" by Sheila Jay are under the 'Tanka' heading. --- One reader sent the following... Hi, My name is Holly Graham, and I'm an English writer of romantic and erotic fiction. I now have a website, developed to publicise and broaden awareness of my work. http://www.hawkse.demon.co.uk/hollygraham.htm This website is mainly dedicated to my latest novel entitled 'A Scandalous Affair' which was published in August by Black Lace Books, an imprint of Virgin Publishing. My website features details of my work with an extract from 'A Scandalous Affair', and links to various other sites that may be of interest to you. I'd love to know what you think of my work, and my web site. Best wishes, Holly Graham --- I've got my revamped website up and running here - www.KatyTerrega.com. Take a look and let me know what you think! In case you're thinking of starting your own story site, I'll warn you right now that mine doesn't make any money! Unfortunately I've got no advice to offer. But one of my goals for this year is to make the site not only profitable for my stories, but also to use it as a forum for other authors as well. I'd love to be buying and selling stories for all of us by the end of the year! Help me visualize, okay? --- Tell me what's going on! Have you made a sale? Do you have a piece being published? Let me know and I'll print it here for all to see! --- Check out my column at http://www.AbsoluteWrite.com on - what else?! - writing porn. This week I cheated (one last time!) and used a the third and final chapter from my book on how to tell if porn writing is the genre for you... =========================================
Several of you have expressed interest in receiving feedback on your stories from other writers. Shall we start a page where we post stories and give an email address for feedback? I can't do a message board type of thing as I (so far) don't have the programming knowledge (sigh) but if any of you do and would like to donate said knowledge, please feel free to get in touch with me! Otherwise, I could manually post stories and y'all could email the author. Let me know what you think! =============================================== =========================================== I sure hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the truth is, barring legal matters like non-payment or contractual issues, there is really nothing you can do. Yes, you could give said editor a piece of your mind, you could threaten to tell all of your writing buddies what a jerk s/he is, you could swear to never contribute anything to that publication again. In the end it won't matter much, they do, ultimately, have a fair amount of power. Basically, when dealing with editors who bully or (my personal bone of contention) don't respond, you have two choices: grin and bear it or write them off. Either way, it's best to do it with a minimum of confrontation. Try not to burn any bridges, you never know when you might need to deal with this particular editor or publication again. --- Send me your questions! I'll answer the most common ones here, and if I don't know the answer, I'll do my best to find a pro who does. =========================================== I'd love articles on specific markets. There are so many sub-genres of porn and it's hard to know the subtleties of each. If you've got a specialty, from BDSM to Watersports to Leg Sex to Amputeeism, feel free to share your knowledge. You can either suggest a topic (query) or send something whole. I'll get back to you within a week as to whether or not I'll be able to use it. Right now I'm paying with a copy of the updated It's A Dirty Job...(plus credits) but as SOON as this site is self-supporting I'll be able to offer some cash. ============CLASSIFIEDS==================== ========================================== Writing Porn For Fun and Profit! Katy Terrega |