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From Erotic Oddities.

Ameranth & Ash 14

Hey, here's the second to the last Ameranth & Ash episode.  Enjoy!

Ameranth is a vasai, born with both male and female characteristics, and the ability to heal. Ash is a chel, a member of the underclass. Ash gets caught where he's not supposed to be and is brutally punished for it, but when Ameranth brings him to his home and heals him, that is really breaking all the rules. What begins as an act of compassion grows into a bond of love and ignites sparks that could set Ameranth and Ash's whole world on fire.

Please note: The Ameranth & Ash segments posted here are from a work in progress.  They are entirely raw, with author's notes, missing names, different versions of the same paragraph, and all manner of grisly error. They also include explicit, non-heteronormative sex, and graphic violence.

Ameranth & Ash main page

Ameranth & Ash 14

Bishie Con

Hey, the midwest has a yaoi convention!  It's called Bishie Con and it's taking place Nov. 20-22 in St. Louis, MO. Guests of honor include Studio Kosen, Amelie Belcher and Katrina Strauss.  Sounds like a party!

eBooks Will Save the World/eBooks Will Destroy Us All

I got a kick out of this article in the NYT, another of the flurry of epublishing stories that accompanied the flurry of new ereaders last week. In particular this p

Such testimonials do not persuade everyone. Many book publishing executives say that e-book sellers like Amazon have a strong interest in heralding a new age of reading, because they must persuade skeptical publishers that a higher sales volume of e-books will offset the eventual loss of profit if the most popular digital editions continue to be sold for $9.99. For now, sellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble subsidize that price.

Some publishers are also not quite willing to accept the notion that books can make a mainstream resurgence.

“Given the fact that people now have the Internet, almost 24-hour football entertainment in the fall, tennis matches from around the world, TV shows out the wazoo, and movies, do you really believe that people are going to be reading more because they can get it on a screen?” said John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, owner of imprints like Farrar, Straus and Giroux and St. Martin’s Press. “I don’t see the scenario.”

Well, in the first place, how does selling ebooks, with their lower overhead (no warehouses, no printing, no shipping), for less than $10 constitute taking a loss?  This drives me nuts about print publishers, this business of insisting on charging print prices for ebooks.  As far as I know, they're not passing the commensurate higher profit margin on to their authors in the form of higher royalties.  And frankly, if books are going to remain a mass-market entertainment form, they need to sell for less than $10.  I can be suspicious sometimes, and in this case, I suspect print publishers who want to charge $25 for an ebook really want to kill that ebook.  They want to remain a print-based business. 

Well, there's not necessarily anything wrong with that in and of itself, but what really gets me here is Sargent's quote.  He seems to be capitulating.  He seems to be saying books can't compete in today's entertainment marketplace.  Personally, I don't think screen or printed page is the issue.  I think cost and availability are the issue.  I don't think print and brick and mortar can deliver books in a way that is affordable enough for people to take chances on new authors and that is what makes literature thrive.  I'm thinking about the advent of the blockbuster model in publishing back in the eighties and the way that's played out and I'm wondering, did they already give up on us all the way back then?

eReader Roundup

So last week it seemed like every day someone was unveiling a new electronic book reader.  I was pretty busy at the time, but I saved a bunch of links. 

Of course, you've probably heard about Barnes & Noble's offering by now.  The Nook has some features that could give the Kindle a run for its money.  It has connectivity, which is the big thing.  You can buy books from the B&N site directly on the device.  I can't tell from product descriptions if you can also buy direct from ebook distributor sites like All Romance eBooks and Fictionwise.  That would be a big plus.  I also can't tell if the Nook has an email address so you can send it files as attachments.  That's a feature of the Kindle I simply adore, because it means I can send it my own mss. and stuff. The Nook wins big points from me from a design standpoint.  They have a great selection of cool covers for it, plus optional color backings.  I was playing Barbie ereader on their site within minutes of landing.

CNN offers a rundown of several different ereaders, but many of them don't seem to be widely available in the U.S.

And of course, there's the inexpensive Ectaco jetBook Lite, carving the pricepoint for ereaders down to $150, but with some sacrifices.

The Sony Pocket Edition is priced at $199, another magical consumer price point, and is being advertised on prime time TV.  It gets my vote for ereader most likely to cash in on the Xmas gift-buying season.  Their upcoming Daily Edition model will enter the connectivity fray, duking it out with Kindle and Nook.

Popcorn, anyone?

Man Candy Monday: Rise and Shine

Dotty Pinhole never disappoints.  A guy with a kitten and a boner.  How can you go wrong?

This Man Candy Monday approved by Princess Cheeseball, and posted in conjunction with Erotica Cover Watch.

Trippy Trek

Big shout out to St. Michael for turning me on to this one:

This faboo Star Trek vid was created by stargrossedgirl.  Thanks for letting me gank you, hon!

Ameranth & Ash 13

Here's A&A 13, I hope you like it.  And I should probably warn everyone that I'm stopping after episode 15, which is not, by any means, the end of the story.  The first draft gets pretty sketchy beyond that point though, (Yeah, even sketchier than what you've already put up with.  I know.) and I decided it would be better to stop at a high point.

But I am planning to complete the story and polish it, and seek publication for it.

You probably know the drill by now, but just in case:

Ameranth is a vasai, born with both male and female characteristics, and the ability to heal. Ash is a chel, a member of the underclass. Ash gets caught where he's not supposed to be and is brutally punished for it, but when Ameranth brings him to his home and heals him, that is really breaking all the rules. What begins as an act of compassion grows into a bond of love and ignites sparks that could set Ameranth and Ash's whole world on fire.

Please note: The Ameranth & Ash segments posted here are from a work in progress.  They are entirely raw, with author's notes, missing names, different versions of the same paragraph, and all manner of grisly error. They also include explicit, non-heteronormative sex, and graphic violence. And you should know that I will not post the whole story in its entirety.  At some point I will stop and pull the existing excerpts in preparation for submitting the work to a publisher.  And now, if I haven't driven you away yet, ;) enjoy!

Ameranth & Ash main page

Ameranth & Ash 13

Blogging on Victoria Janssen's Site

Hey, I'm a guest today on my pal Victoria Janssen's blog.  Victoria is a talented erotica and erotic romance author who writes for Harlequin Spice, and her books often include m/m elements.  Today I'm holding forth on the topic of promotion, so come on by and check out the rest of Vickie's blog while you're at it.  She's got all kinds of cool stuff over there.

Unpacking the Case Against M/M: Part 6, the Last Lambasting

Well, even though there's probably still a lot more that can be said in defense of m/m, I'm going to wrap up the Unpacking series here with six installments.  It's not really in my nature to be this serious for this long (And I'm running out of alliterations for the titles, can you tell?), so while I'm sure we'll be revisiting this topic many times here on Friskbiskit, for the moment, I'm running out of steam.

One thing I want to stress before wrapping things up is that none of what I've said in the course of this discussion is intended to be universal.  Women write and read m/m for a wide range of reasons and -- and this is the really important part -- all of them are legitimate.

Which brings me to porn and other forms of art designed to engage with reader fantasies. As I mentioned in the last installment, I think women are entitled to their own porn, and their own fantasies. And I think that romance novels, m/m, yaoi and slash all do for emotions something similar to what porn does for bodies. The right m/m story pushes emotional buttons for me, and that is exactly what I want it to do.

I've noticed a tendency for some folks to make a one-to-one correlation between what appears in fantasy-driven narratives and real life. For instance, if a story has two men in it who fall in love and have sex together then that story must reflect the author's views of and intentions toward real gay men in real life. I think that's a pretty broad assumption to make, and one that ignores the fun-house mirror nature of fantasy. For example, it's widely understood that women who engage in rape fantasies do not wish to experience rape in real life.  The fantasy is about being absolved of responsibility for having sex, or about relaxing and letting someone else take control, or about any number of things except actually being raped in real life.

Now I know that a number of women who write about gay men work hard at making their stories as true-to-life as possible. And I'm not slamming that at all.  What I do find distressing is a tendency to position the women authors who strive for realism as the "good" authors of gay male romance, whereas those of us who approach a love story between men from a fantasy-driven angle, are often dismissed as (all together now) voyeurs fetishizing and objectifying gay men for our own sexual gratification. And of course, we write m/m, which term in and of itself is considered a slam in these instances.

Well, you all know how I came to be an m/m fan.  I read it as an escape from real life.  Now, to each their own, of course, but for me personally, the last thing I want in an m/m story are men that act just like men in real life, gay or straight.  I'm into hurt-comfort.  I like my male m/m characters crying and in pain, and then, by the end of the book, I like them to win through to a richly deserved happy ending.  

Just as with a rape fantasy, that does not mean that in real life I want to hurt men.  It's something much more complex than that.  Something that has to do with differing aspects of my personality going through emotional catharsis and finally integrating. To be honest, what an m/m story does for me doesn't really have much to do with men at all.

I've sometimes played around with the question of whether the men in my stories are really men, and in Ameranth & Ash, I'm fooling around with it even more.  But of course, if I'm writing an m/m contemporary, and the characters are male, and they are involved romantically and sexually, then they are, within the context of the story itself, gay men. 

As a human being I feel a responsibility not to perpetuate negative stereotypes.  As an author it is my job to create a self-consistent world in which the reader can suspend disbelief, to write three-dimensional characters the reader can root for, and craft a story that holds reader interest.  And I feel that is the sum total of my obligation to realism.

Now I feel we have come full circle, and are back to the Lambda awards decision again. I see m/m and LGBT literature as two different areas of writing with different creative impulses and audiences.  That those impulses and audiences overlap creates wonderful opportunities for two marginalized communities to work together strategically.  And I do think that we overlap quite a bit, but I think I've made it pretty clear that I come to a story about two men falling in love from a different direction than a gay man would, and for different reasons.

So I don't feel any embarrassment about m/m being identified as a genre dominated by women and women's fantasy versions of men. And authors who want their stories to reflect the lives of real life gay men should keep that up too.  I think there's plenty of room for everyone. But when women m/m authors look to the LGBT community for affirmation of their legitimacy, then I think the Lambda decision is a good illustration of how that can become problematic for everyone.

I want to thank all of you who've taken the time to read these posts.  I hope that some of you come away with some talking points to help you address misconceptions about m/m when you encounter them in your own lives.  And I hope what I've said will encourage those of you who disagree with me to do your own exploration of your relationship with m/m.

Do we need to justify ourselves to our detractors? Of course not. But if we want to counter the myths about m/m so the genre can grow and reach wider distribution in the culture at large, then we do need to make our own voices heard.

Who benefits when m/m is acknowledged as a legitimate genre in its own right?

Reseller's Charity Campaign Gets Infusion from Creator of True Blood

 
All Romance eBooks announced last week that their 28 Days of Heart Campaign has received the support of Charlaine Harris. The famed, best-selling author of the Sookie Stackhouse series upon which HBO's new smash hit "True Blood" is based will be writing the foreword for the charity anthologies releasing exclusively from ARe in February 2010. All proceeds from the 28 individual stories and the 4 anthology eBook compilations will benefit the American Heart Association. Submissions are open until October 31, 2009. Here's their submissions guidelines:

Open Submissions Call!

All Romance™ Needs You for the 28 Days of Heart Campaign to Benefit the American Heart Association

During the month of love, when everyone's attention is focused on matters of the heart, we at All Romance (www.allromance.com) want to help fight the number one killer of women, heart disease, and we need your help and your submissions.

Beginning February 1, 2010, we will release one new short story per day for the entire month. All proceeds from the sale of these shorts, which will be offered exclusively on AllRomance.com as individual eBooks and also bundled into 4 eBook anthologies, will be donated to the American Heart Association (www.americanheart.org).

The 28 stories will be chosen from submissions received between July 1 and October 31, 2009. Any author who has an eBook available on ARe, or whose publisher lists eBooks with us, is eligible to submit. Submissions must be 10,000 to 20,000 words. The preferred heat rating is 4 or 5 flames, though stories rated a hard 3 flames will also be considered. An explanation of the flame ! rating system can be found on our site. We are looking for a wide variety of themes and sub-genres, as long as the story is a romance.

The stories selected will be reviewed by an editor and provided with cover art, but please make sure submissions are as polished as you can make them before submitting. Previously published stories will be considered only if all rights have reverted back to the author and the story is no longer available for download elsewhere. Backlist and contact info for the authors whose work is chosen will be listed in the back of their story.

Submission details can be found here: http://www.allromanceebooks.com/submissions.html

Questions should be emailed to cat.johnson@allromanceebooks.com. Final selection of participants will be made and announced in November 2009.

More details can be found at http://www.allromanceebooks.com/publishers.html.

Unpacking the Case Against M/M: Part 5, The Objectification Obfuscation

In Part 4, I mentioned the sex-negativity inherent in the statement that women authors and readers of m/m are voyeurs, fetishizing and objectifying gay men for our own sexual gratification. 

A lot of women of my association have had one particular response to that statement, and since I've embarked on this series, I've heard it quite a bit: So what?

I think it's a pretty reasonable question. Why is that men can look at women, gay men can look at men, drag queens can present stereotypical portrayals of women, and straight men can watch women pretend to get it on with each other, but a woman reading a work of fiction with men falling in love and having sex together is a moral reprobate of the first order?

Well, we've already been over the whole thing about how women are not entitled to their own sexuality in our society, so that's part of it.  And of course, many people certainly object to lesbian porn for straight men.  In fact, that's another comparison that's often made with m/m as a shaming tactic. 

But here's the thing: if in fact you believe that sexually objectifying anyone is wrong, why would you focus your ire on li'l ole m/m?  For the love of Mike, we don't even use real people!  Why aren't the objectification objectors going after all that fake lesbian porn for straight men?  Or any porn for straight men, for that matter? Personally, and this may be uncharitable, but, I think it's because m/m looks like an easier target.

Some branches of the feminist movement have been trying to put a stop to het porn since the seventies, and they haven't had much luck with it. And our culture is filled with images of women which, while they may not be outright porn, are certainly objectifying. As a woman who, through no fault of my own, cannot hope to meet the ridiculous physical standards of beauty that still count as the gold standard of feminine value, I get pretty sick of it myself.

I sometimes hear people say things like, well, by objectifying men you're just giving men permission to continue objectifying women.  This makes me laugh.  As far as I've ever seen, men are not waiting for my permission or anyone else's.  I don't see het porn for men or the ubiquitous airbrushed supermodel going anywhere any time soon.

Beyond that, I personally don't think objectification is necessarily, in and of itself, sexist.  As noted, I have a few things to say about unrealistic beauty standards that I do in fact think are misogynist, but, just looking at someone and fantasizing about them sexually -- actually, I think that's okay.  What's sexist is the imbalance in who gets to objectify who. 

My pals over at Erotica Cover Watch are all over this, fighting tirelessly to prove to the world that men make great sex objects.  I think m/m can be part of that movement too.

I wonder what a world with gawking parity across genders and sexual orientations would look like?

$150 eReader Unveiled

Okay, okay, just one more Frankfurt Book Fair post, and then I'm off to bed.  This one comes by way of TeleRead:

http://www.teleread.org/2009/10/18/new-ectaco-ebook-reader-shown-at-frankfurt-uses-aa-batteries-and-will-retail-for-149/

More from the Frankfurt Book Fair: Open Road eBooks

Yeah, I'm mining the Publisher's Weekly Frankfurt report tonight.  Here's an article about a former HarperCollins CEO's new epublishing venture:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6702018.html?nid=3327&htid=49099&intref=hottopic_Frankfurt_Book_Fair

Google Settlement at the Frankfurt Book Fair

Here's a really amusing article covering a panel at the Frankfurt Book Fair about the Google Books settlement:

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6702374.html?nid=3327&htid=49099&intref=hottopic_Frankfurt_Book_Fair

"We are not a publisher!"

Tee hee!