It's a Party! Sunday Snog #150 (#sundaysnog @fetlife #free @MFRW_ORG)

To celebrate the 150th Sunday Snog--

Hey! you ask. What's a "Sunday Snog"?

The Sunday Snog is a blog hop created and hosted by the fabulous Victoria Blisse, a nice British lady who writes really smutty books--and celebrates that as much as she can. She holds events like "Smut by the Sea," an annual gathering in Scarborough. If you don't know where that is, don't worry. Unless you're English, the odds are very small that you would. She also does various promotional events all around the web as well as the in-person ones in England.

The point of the Sunday snog is that we post a snog--that's British for a kiss. (Remember what Shaw said? "England and America are two countries separated by the same language.")

So here's a special snog--it's a party snog, because this is a 150th birthday party. And parties always have gifts, so I'm giving away a copy of my latest ebook, Kinky Toes, to a lucky commenter!

And here's the snog, from Rakes in Tartan. In this scene, Dagmar and Andrew, who have recently become lovers, have left a ball to enjoy a different kind of pleasure:

He took her face in his hands, clasping firmly. His voice was deep and a little rough. “I want ye, madame, and I will have ye as often as I can. Do ye agree?”

“Ja. I…I agree.” She trembled with more than a little fear. She’d belonged completely to Ragnar, but Andrew did not love her and Ragnar had.

She kissed his mouth, looking into his blue eyes, now narrow and hot with lust. She pushed in her tongue to taste his desire, and he responded by biting it, drawing blood and sucking it hard. He then grabbed her hair to drag away her head. “If I want yer tongue, I’ll go in and get it. Do ye understand?”

“Yes, Sir.” She clung to him, limbs weak.

“That’s right, hold onto me tight. I willnae let ye go, willnae let ye fall.” 

If you like what you read of this BDSM-laced historical, find it here:

http://www.ellorascave.com/rakes-in-tartan.html

Remember--this is a blog hop, and every one of the authors in the hop is giving something away to celebrate the Sunday Snog's 150th birthday!

Find them here:

http://blissekiss.co.uk/

Vote for Meeeee.......Really? (#SexSceneChampionships #MFRWAuthor @MFRW_ORG #BDSM)

Every once in a while I come across one of those competitions between authors--you know, when an enterprising blogger or reviewer or even a sales page wants to rev up interest in their site, and so pits one author against another in some sort of competition. Thus far, I've participated in only one, and I thought it was fairly judged by readers--I was matched against a very well known author competing for the "Smooch" Award, which was given by the cataromance website. I won, which surprised me--like I said, my competitor was very well known, and at that time, I was a relative newbie. I had assumed that it was more like a

popularity contest than an actual contest judged on the merits.

But these so-called competitions have become more popular, and it's next to impossible to read yahoogroup 

postings for any length of time without coming across a plea like the one in my blog title: Vote for Meeeeee........!!!!!

Those pleas are awful. They're unattractive in a way I can't define. Perhaps it's the immodesty--my British mother raised me to be a lady as they were defined about a century ago. Or more. And begging has never been my strong suit. In Winter's Bone, Jennifer Lawrence's character tells her little brother, "Don't ever ask for what ought to be offered." I agree with that--especially as it applies to the opposite sex--but it feels right to me in this situation, as well. 

I signed on for the Sex Scene Championship because, well, I'm proud of my work, and also I figured it would be good promo. As many of you know if you've read my blogs and FB posts for a while, marketing is not exactly my forte.  Okay, I suck at it. So I'm experimenting by trying different venues to spread the word.

For me, this is the year of Twitter and Triberr, and so far I've been happy with the increased sales. I've also been reaching out to other writers, blogging with them and inviting them to share guest posts on my blog site. The symbiosis created by blog+Triberr+Twitter is very powerful--I have a reach of about two million. I don't delude myself that most of those two million read my books or will in the future--but it's a big improvement compared to my prior marketing efforts.

And soooo...the sex scene championships. I reached out to my competitor hoping we could evolve some kind of joint promo, but she never responded. I did the same with a couple other authors who were participating, but no one could come up with anything new, cute or inventive. And given my crippling lack of imagination when it comes to author marketing, I certainly haven't come up with anything brilliant.

So this is it. Blog+Triberr+Twitter.

Wish me luck.

The excerpt can be found at the Sex Scene Championship page:

http://www.scorching-book-reviews.com/category/events/sex-scene-championship-2014/

It's that really sexy BDSM scene from Rakes in Tartan in which Andrew practically rapes Dagmar. But as readers of this book know, Dagmar never does anything she doesn't want, and her desires are, umm... shall we say...arcane.

So: VOTE FOR MEEEEEE on August 22. Or for the other author, should you prefer her writing.

And if you enjoy the scene from Rakes, get it here:

And if you would, please post a comment about these contests and/or about the campaigning for votes. I'm really interested in people's opinions...am I out of step?  Or have I identified something that's maybe a little destructive?

Since I entered the romance community I've noticed a strong tendency away from competition and toward cooperation. Maybe it's because this genre is dominated by women, and we tend to work together toward common goals rather than competitively. The thought is that "a rising tide floats all boats." As the popularity of romance and erotica rises, we all benefit. Sure, there's competition for the scarce reader dollar, but in the main, we know that romance fans are voracious readers. Turning on a reader to romance and erotica generally benefits many if not all of us--our beloved readers don't buy one book from one authors, but tend to buy many books from many authors.

So why the competitions? Are they useful or divisive?