Successful writing comes with so many aspects a prospective author doesn't think about.  So often when we are preparing to sell our work the thought is "publish, publish, publish" not "audience, audience, audience" but I think most any published or indie author would agree that the audience is the most important part.  

The audience is what drives our success, finding them, and bringing them to your book is only a small piece of the puzzle.  

Coming up with a marketing strategy that works is something I am still learning, and something all writers, yes even successful ones, will always be learning, fifteen years ago there was no such thing as Tweeting about a book... there was no Facebook, Tumblr, Youtube, Pinterest....  There are so many ways you can advertise now, whether working with a publisher or alone, but the advertising is only enough to capture an audience's eye!

I read a blog on OneHandedWriters a little while back about respecting our readers.  Its soooooo necessary!  To enrapture we must put forth quality work, respect our readers as intelligent beings who deserve our time, full attention, and efforts.  They want to feed their desires and we should fill them with delectable goodies!  Enrapture!

I have been working.  Hard.  Hard enough that I have felt the pressure at night when I am attempting to sleep.  Hard enough that there is serious kink in my shoulders from hunching over the pc, and in my legs from bending and squatting and lifting.  

My first novella is complete, and to the editor, final edits are hopefully received tomorrow for a tight publishing deadline by Friday. 

The cover has been done for a few weeks and has been officially released.  I have done an interview available on June 1st, and The Binding: An Erotic Fantasy is scheduled to be reviewed by GraveTells in mid-June.

My life has taken a crazy turn in the last month or so.  An emergency happened with a friend of friend causing some direct changes to my lifestyle.  Namely a 1 year old boy coming over 4 days a week.

The good news is that my writing career while- slowing drastically-has not died.  I have simply reworked my strategy.  We are going at it in a bit of a different way. 

Instead of pounding out delicious sex stories that kept my readers drooling for more of my delectable tales, I have focused on one or two longer pieces.  Including my very first novella, heavy duty advertising, and less hours at the keyboard.  

Sometimes businesses need a wrench to be thrown into the works to shake things up a bit, and that's certainly hoping this wrench shakes things up in a positive way. 


Every company goes through "slow" periods, times when sales are not at their peak and profit margins are slim (or even non-existent) and writing is no different.  Keeping that in mind through these ups and downs is key.

Welcome to the "official" release of my new book trailer for The Binding and Bound to Him: Erotic Fantasies.  

If you have visited my site before you will probably recall The Binding: An Erotic Fantasy.  A paranormal erotic love story between Brit, a college professor and Isaac, a hunky werewolf.  (Guess if you haven't read it yet the cat's outta the bag on that one hehe!)

Bound to Him: An Erotic Fantasy is in final edits tentatively scheduled for release this weekend, and follows the story of Brit and Isaac five months later when the pack learns of the binding between them, it also introduces you to Isaac and Brit's respective families and is a true follow up for my readers who begged for more!

Memorial Day is upon us, and I thought I'd give a big Thank You to all the troops out there spending it away from their loved ones.  

Long distance relationships are hard, and like many of you out there I have first hand experience with it.  I met my husband online - he lived three states away.  Granted that is nothing like the distance our soldiers deal with, nor the fear that their wives, mothers, husbands, fathers, brothers, and sisters live with each day.

Many people cringe at the idea of "phone sex" or "cybering," but sometimes they are the best opportunity to have with your loved one.  It can take the edge off of the miles apart, and grant stimulation to a part of you that is not dead just because your loved one is away, and in truth it can be incredibly sexy in its own accord.  

Think about the scene in the movie "The Truth About Cats and Dogs."  In it the hero (Brian) and heroine (Abby) fall in love on the radio and phone, but Brian doesn't know what Abby looks like and she lies and tells him she is model Noel.  The sex scene in the movie takes place on the phone and is perhaps one of the sexiest scenes I have ever seen on the big screen.  Why?  Because it entices the mind, inspires fantasy, and intrigues the body.  

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  If that's the case music is worth 11,038.

I have been working on Bound to Him for a long time compared to my normal erotica.  Not days, not weeks, months.  It is strange for me to have "writer's block" or to feel pressured while writing, but frankly I wanted so much from Bound to Him that I felt overwhelmed by it.  

I knew as soon as I started it would be a novella, the story of Brit and Isaac deserves more than a mere few thousand words.  They will have an entire series together, as completing the second piece yesterday showed me another story to complete their saga.  

But I digress.  I was stuck, every time I sat down to write Bound to Him my head would pull out maybe 500 words.  It just wasn't moving the way I wanted to.  Yesterday I had a day off and could focus 100% on my writing so I sat down to write.  An hour into it and I'd barely completed 100 words.  I sighed and put my laptop away and tried these steps:

1) I wrote an outline, giving myself the opportunity to think how I wanted to get into the endzone (to use a horrible sports metaphor...my husband teased me mercilessly at the end of my last short story about my football mentions.  He fixed them.) 

2.) I got set up with snacks and a decent breakfast.  This allowed me the opportunity to not interrupt me for food and therefore allowed steady and continual pc time. 

3) I turned on Pandora.  I knew that my Lesa Erotica channel wasn't really what I was looking for with Isaac and Brit's piece.  Yes they're incredibly sexy songs, but they didn't "Feel" right.  When this song came on about 11:30 I had put out a measly 600 words, the outline was barely helping, but this one felt perfect.  I immediately transferred it to a new playlist and replayed it.

It's been a few weeks since I've released anything new...ok I'll be honest its been almost a month.  I am a strong believer in quality.  With life getting in the way I didn't feel I was capable of handling my writing career and my extra curricular activities in a fashion that would allow for the quality I wanted with each.  But timing has finally allowed me a few hours to write some hot and passionate stories, and the first to release in my "second round" is Cheer Squad: Jeni's Party. 

I'll let you go and search out the "Sneak peek" and the description, since they're splashed three times on this website and available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon, and allow this blog to pull in some exciting and fun little incites. 

Since today is supposed to be a "Sex Filled Monday Blog"  (following my very loose pattern, hehe) I thought I'd talk about threesome sex, since that is what Jeni's Party is all about.  

Despite a relatively common fantasy (approximately 1 in 4) threesomes are still considered "taboo" enough that only 14 percent of American's admitted to having one.

What is the appeal?  Is it the voyeuristic nature while two partners are going at it?  Is it the idea of providing two people pleasure?  Being given the idea confirmation that two people want you?  I think the answer varies, but in the cases where threesomes work for the group involved it usually has to do with a strong level of trust and experimentation, adding spice to an already spicy love life.  One healthy and strong enough to have continued with or without the threesome.

The good news is as erotic authors we rarely have to deal with the aftermath and emotional drama that sometimes accompanies threesomes (unless of course that is the plot!).  We get to explore positions otherwise difficult or even impossible, we get to decide which hole is filled when and what body part is sucked first!  True to make the scene sexiest it should have some level of emotional charge, but we decide if our characters will be effected by societal issues.  And in most cases as erotic authors we're looking for the potential for a phenomenally good time more than for a social statement. 

This song was chosen by a friend of mine.  Its not really my style, but that is the reason I pulled it in.  

Everything varies so much from person to person, what someone considers sexy may be silly or even gross to someone else.

As erotic authors we have to take into account and respect all different types of sex and sexual styles.  I personally didn't understand male on male stories until I read Jungle Fever by Sara Pierce.  I have gay friends and absolutely no issue with it, I just didn't understand the pull until I read that, the sexy steamy scenes broadened my horizons and have encouraged me to consider writing a MM in the future.

The other thing to take into account is that the more types of stuff you have out there the broader your audience may become.  That is not to say that Niche artists aren't going to make it, but in experimenting you may discover that  your wildest fantasy really is a subject people love.  

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
                             Kisses, 
                                 Lesa

I heard an awesome statement the other day on a talk show (I'm paraphrasing), “Erotic books aren't about teaching new things they're about reminding you to fantasize.”

True an erotic author must write accurate sex, it doesn't make sense to stick 4 dicks into one pussy at exactly the same moment for example, but developing realistic fantasy could almost make that believable.

The fantasy may be one of the reasons that erotic literature is supposed to be mostly for the female.  Many women that I know wouldn't dream of watching raunchy porn and the idea of seeing blemish marks from the lash makes them wig out, but they enjoy reading about it, visualizing it within their mind's eye.  I knew a woman who was in love with Jack Sparrow - not Johnny Depp mind you.  Jack Sparrow, the character, the fantasy, and idea of him.  

Erotica encourages these fantasies to be played out, nourished, fed, visualized.  Whether a piece is intensely detailed or flashes of quick story, the better it is is directly related to the connection between the reader and the fantasy.  

So play with your fantasy, allow yourself time to dream in bed, in the shower, on your lunch break, notice what your body reacts to.  Notice what parts you spend the most time on, is it a fantastically detailed cock?  Is it the thrusts in and out and in and out?  Is it the moans escaping her soft pink lips?  Is it the scent of sweat and sex?  Is it the taste of salt from the work out you just finished?  Develop the moments that most enchant you.  

Sex and Crisis have long been bedfellows, whether its sex causing crisis, sex as comfort to crisis, or sex as a solution.  

Take in account the infamous sex scene on M*A*S*H* between Hawkeye and Major Houlihan.  Argue, argue,, bombshell, argue, argue, bombshell, passionate kiss fade to black.  As a child I didn't understand it and asked my mother about it.  My mother tried to explain it as simply a moment of comfort in crisis.  

On the radio a little while ago there was a discussion about a soldier in Afghanistan who had had a wild tryst with a woman there and the consequences and crisis that developed with his fiance back home.  He had tried to explain that he'd felt so numb and terrified and wasn't certain if he would live throughout the night and had used sex as a distraction, and I remembered that episode of M*A*S*H*.  That it was meaningless in any other situation.

You may be saying "Ok that's a moment of comfort in crisis, and obviously it caused a crisis between the soldier and fiance, but when could sex ever solve a problem!"  Consider Moulin Rouge!, sex fits in all three categories within this movie: crisis because Satine (the courtesan) falls in love with Christian (the writer), and thus cannot woo the Duke for money, comfort because they find love in each other's arms, and the solution because their love was inspiration for his writing.  Another key example is Pretty Woman, once again touching on the crisis in the end the physical sex grew into the love that both characters needed to develop and blossom.   


The point is that writing sex isn't always as simple as writing about fucking.  Sure we write graphic and exciting sex scenes, and in most cases all of our story is about the sex, but the best ones truly use the sex as the key point of the story, the crisis, the solution, the comfort.   

I decided shortly after publishing my first ebook that I should host a Book of the Month giveaway, and this is our first "competition"! 

The rules are simple: 

Post a comment on this blog post. (Please include your email address so I can let you know if you have won!)  

Don't worry I won't be sending you a bunch of spam emails, and you're welcome to post it as "soandso at gmail dot com" if you feel more comfortable with that.  

The "Drawing" will be sometime on May 15th (Next Tuesday) so look for your "You win" email on Wednesday the 16th.  

I am offering one Free Kindle, Nook, OR PDF version of Penance: Seclusion, the current Book of the Month.  Be sure to check back next month for your opportunity to win next month's Book of the Month!

Some trivia about Penance: Seclusion (Check out the All Lesa's Works page to read a blurb and sneak peek).  

1. Penance: Seclusion is the first in the Penance through Submission series and Lesa's 19th book published.   

2. It is one of Lesa's first erotic fantasies, developed long before she began publishing.

3. The setting (New England) was inserted in the story after her first vacation there two years ago.

4. The idea of someone else being in complete control holds Lesa fascinated.  In addition to a lot of reading and watching, Lesa has enjoyed experimenting with many aspects of this story to make it as real as possible for her readers.

5. Lesa's lover proclaimed this "one of your personal best!"

6. The baby-faced handyman is based on a repairman that visited her home last fall.  (Lesa did not have an affair with him however!)

7. The heater not working properly during winter and heating the house with the oven happened to Lesa in 2010, though it was a Colorado winter not a New England winter.

                         Good luck and Kisses!
                                      Lesa