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American Yakuza
New Release from Sapphire Books Publishing
American Yakuza – Ties That Bind – Book 1
by Award winning author – Isabella
Paperback 14.95
e Bundle Price: $ 9.99 – all eBook formats
eBook Formats: AWZ, LIT, pdf, ePub, Mobi
Personalized e Bundle available only at Sapphire Books Publishing
Available at Amazon Barnes and Noble Sapphire Books Publishing
Lesbian Romance and Intrigue – Read the first 3 chapters here
Luce Potter straddles three cultures as she strives to live with the ideals of family, honor, and duty. When her grandfather passes the family business to her, Luce finds out that power, responsibility and justice come with a price. Is it a price she’s willing to die for?
Brooke Erickson lives the fast-paced life of an investigative journalist living on the edge until it all comes crashing down around her one night in Europe. Stateside, Brooke learns to deal with a new reality when she goes to work at a financial magazine and finds out things aren’t always as they seem.
Can two women find enough common ground for love or will their two different worlds and cultures keep them apart?
I know I said my next blog post would be about the bloodsport called, Lesfic, but I wanted to give a little back with this post. So here it is:
The one question I’m sure all writers get: how do you come up with the characters in your book? Since I don’t write series books I can’t rely on the same characters to visit in every book, which means two to four new characters a book. That means different looks, personalities, styles, language uses, and names. Once I begin to develop the story, the characters start to take form. A look starts to develop in my mind’s eye. How they look, how they think, words they use, and personalities start to take shape. When this happens I start to use a character form I designed to keep track of their physical descriptions. I write down everything from the way they dress, the words they use, their moods, and finally words they would never use or be used to describe them. Why the last part? Well, it helps me to keep them in “character”, so to speak. To keep them from verging off into something they aren’t.
If a character is moody, dark and foreboding, I don’t want them to suddenly pop-up on the page farting sparkles and glitter, or suddenly become Ms. Mary Sunshine. It would be out of character and the reader would stop and suddenly wonder if they had missed something like: a medication change, a personality disorder I forgot to tell them about, or worse, a writer screw-up. I build all the characters, even the secondary ones, using my study sheet. It makes me think about them on a deeper level. Motivation, moods, why they do what they do and who’s to blame for it. I also have locations, a story synopsis, and a place for notes. I keep all of these pages, along with my research in a binder I build for each book. This allows me quick access to go back and make sure I’m not off track with my character building. I also put a pad of paper in it for outlining, notes, names, and anything else that might come to me. This is a pretty simplistic description of what I do and I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.
I’ve attached my worksheets for you to use. Feel free to modify it to fit your needs, add details I might have forgotten or just see what I use to build a character. Enjoy!
So, does this mean writing builds character? Maybe.
With all the talk about self-publishing lately it seems that there is one little piece missing in most of the discussions. It’s a question I get asked all the time – How did you do it? My answer – perseverance. The dictionary says – Perseverance – per·se·ver·ance (noun) steady and continued action or belief, usually over a long period and especially despite difficulties or setbacks.
If you decide you want to be an author, or an independent publisher, or even a success in life, you must be prepared to do your research, work hard, put in long hours and stick with it. That’s where perseverance comes in. We all know the wisdom of making sure you write a good book, get it edited and don’t forget good cover art. Everyone talks about social media and how to “whore your wares” or “pimp” your stuff. Many are ready to share how they did it, but there is no real secret formula to success, it’s plain old fashion hard work, persistence, doggedness, determination and the will to persevere.
Publishing houses are full of authors who, “just want to be published” and are just fine with low sales, as long as they can see their book in print. They languish in the back of the room, throwing a book out there every once in a while. But they’re published and that’s all that matters, to them. Many will eventually fall off, writing fewer and fewer books until they’ve decided they can cross one more thing of their bucket list. Of course there are those authors who work hard for their publisher and peddle their wares to books signings, book events, readers clubs and the like. We see them on FB, on Twitter and in email groups making their publishers lots of money.
Self-publishers know that to be successful, they must work hard to educate themselves and be persistent. They must show-up and be counted. To languish in the back is the kiss of death for us and not an option. To put this in perspective, I raised three sons all by myself for ten years. Someone asked me how I did it and my reply was – You mean I had options? I guess I forgot to check the options box. I’m proud to say that they beat the odds, graduated from high school and are all at the same university, my alma mater.
It’s all about perseverance.
Isabella
I originally wanted to blog about how you decide what type of undergarments you have your character wear. Boxers, briefs or commando. While it seems like a silly question we often have to get our characters out of their clothing to get to the good stuff. But the topic of bullying has been on the forefront lately. Having been bullied in different ways, because of my orientation, anonymously from people I work with in education, to people on the streets, I thought about it for a long time. Then I watched as something happened in a yahoo group. I noticed that there are a group of people who bully in a group setting using email.
Surprised? I’m not. I teach online and I have encountered behavior that would never fly in the classroom. Things are said from the comfort of our office chair that would never, ever be said face to face, and yet it is allowed under the guise of “free speech”. Well it is destructive at best, demoralizing at worst and uncalled for. We have all seen them, the drive by email bully who doesn’t single someone out, but bullies without naming names. He/she talks about the larger group and then singles out a few general people, authors, publishers or titles he/she has issues with. By bullying the collective group, many don’t think it is about them, because, “surely he/she isn’t talking about me” or “I wonder who he/she means?” If the bully is the moderator of the group, there is little you can do. You can call them on it, but ultimately they own the group. It isn’t a democracy in those groups, it is a dictatorship, plain and simple. So, if you want to stay you suck it up and take it, or you can leave the group. Either way it is your choice.
Then there is the bully that is outright deliberate in their disdain for a book, author, website, or blog and makes no bones about pointing out their frustration with their work, their writing style or their story. Picking it apart like a vulture picks apart a carcass, leaving little behind but the broken author or publisher to defend themselves. If the author/publisher is lucky, someone will come to their aid, putting themselves in the line of fire of the bully. Then the bully moves on to another unknowing victim the next time he/she buys a book and it doesn’t meet their expectations, or they felt as though they have wasted their money on what they perceive as a useless purchase.
While everyone is entitled to their opinion, why spread negative energy around a group? If you don’t like a book, ask for your money back, email the author or contact the publisher and discuss it with them. Let’s be clear, bullying on a group isn’t giving constructive feedback, or giving an “honest” review of a book. It is plain and simple bullying. We all want our work to matter, but sometimes a bully doesn’t care about you, or your work. It’s self serving and unfortunate.
Why do I write this? Has it happened to me? Sure, but my momma didn’t raise any thin skinned babies. I write about it because I witnessed a moderator of a group do exactly what I have discussed. Sadly, only one called them on it, and a few disagreed with the moderator’s position, but it only added fuel to an already out off control burn. Then the self-inflicted victimization started. You can’t cry victim if you call other bigots, racists, or haters and then do exactly what you’ve just accused someone else of doing. See how that works?
What happened before the internet and instance gratification? It takes time to sit down and write a letter, it takes no time to sit down and vent on your computer. What do you think? Am I way off here or have you experienced this yourself?
Isabella
This is a post I did for Babbling About Books and KT/KB’s Lesbian Appreciation Week. Enjoy!
Hi, my name is Isabella and I write lesbian romance. Sounds like a recovery meeting for romance writers. When I contacted KB about being part of this two-week adventure called Lesbian Fiction Appreciation Event, my first question was: Is it open only to those that write F/F? She responded by saying that she wrote romance, and I responded by saying, I write romance too, but I am a lesbian who writes lesbian romance. “Is there a difference between F/F and lesbian romance?” I was asked. I wondered if this was similar to the fury over straight women writing gay romance or M/M. The subject of straight women writing lesbian romance is a hot topic even in lesbian circles. I think this is the elephant in the room and from each side comes some very different viewpoints, and neither is wrong, just different.
For my point of reference, the difference was pointed out to me about two years ago when I was in a lesbian romance chat with a few women. One of the women asked the group if they knew of any good F/F romance stories. I immediately offered up my favorite lesbian romance authors, a few of which have already been on this very blog tour. Almost immediately I was informed that she wasn’t looking for “lesbian” romance or polymorphism romance, because she wasn’t a lesbian. She was looking for “hot girl on girl romance.” When I asked her what the difference was, she took the opportunity to school me on the difference.
An example of F/F would be: two femme women who walk into a bar with their boyfriends. The women find out they like each other, but not “in that way, you know they aren’t lesbians”, and throughout the night they tease, flirt or come on to one another. They adjourn to the bathroom to freshen up their makeup and find themselves having hot, nasty sex in the bathroom or in the back of the bar, [insert location here] and then go back out into the straight world and back to their boyfriends. At least that was how this woman who, was not a lesbian, explained it to me.
After researching a few of the erotic websites that claim to have lesbian stories, I find the call for “hot F/F, or girl on girl,” stories and the hotter the better. I also start to look at the bios of some authors who out themselves as being straight women who love to write steamy F/F action. Some also talk about how they write gay or M/M, M/M/F stories, and some say they do write lesbian romance as well. Now the wheels start to turn. Why do straight women and some men want to venture in to the lesbian romance market? Is it all about money? How do my fellow lesbian feel about the phenomenon? So I asked. I know how I feel about it, but their responses were as varied as the acronyms used to describe women who have sex with other women.
When presented with the question about the gender of the writers some said that as lesbians, they wanted an authentic lesbian experience and felt “ripped off” if they found out a man wrote the story. Others wondered why straight women would want to write lesbian romance and didn’t know there was a difference between lesbian and F/F stories. Other authors and readers thought that there is enough room for everyone and that good lesbian stories would rise to the top, gender didn’t matter. Many lesbians gave me what I call the Stephen King response. He isn’t a murderer, but he writes about murder because he does his research. True. I can’t argue with that statement. Therefore, many will assume that most straight women who write lesbian fiction have done their research into what it feels like to pleasure a woman orally—the taste, the texture, and the spontaneous combustion that happens when pleasured correctly. I know, I know women know what they like sexually, so some of this is said tongue firmly in cheek.
After my “schooling” I read F/F stories. I knew right away that I probably wasn’t the intended audience. Perhaps a few might, but lesbians rarely use terms like “gushing”, “fuck you out of those heels,” or “you’re gonna find Jesus tonight, baby”. I’ve read all of these in F/F stories. Sure they’re hot and if I was a guy I’d be swooping up this little erotic pearls and string a necklace around my…well I’d read them over and over again.
You can go to the Lesbian Erotic section on Amazon, read the first chapter on many of these stories and know if they’re for you. Is there room for everyone? There’s room for good, storytelling. You as the reader have to decide what you like and don’t like and as for the gender or lifestyle of the author, again that is for you, the reader to decide. Having lived in the LGBT community and being a former President of a Pride organization, I can say that we are welcoming, almost to a fault. We encourage everyone to come, play, and have a good time, at least the majority of us. For some gender and lifestyle matter, but for others not so much. This article could go on with more anecdotal evidence to support either side of the coin. Should men teach women’s history, should someone other than an African American teach Black studies, and on and on. Ultimately, writers should do what they do best; write and readers will decide how they spend their money.
Happy Reading!
2011 GLCS Traditional Contemporary Romance winner
Author of Always Faithful and Broken Shield
Sapphire Books Publishing
This is our new blog. We took down the old one and decided to start the new year with fresh ideas, new content and hopefully some wonderful insight to writing and publishing. We look forward to having you here and thank you for your support of our authors
What’s in store for 2012? Well we’re pretty excited about the future and we’ve got a few announcements coming so watch for them. On a side note, check out Isabella’s hot new release Broken Shield. It’s currently in the top ten on Amazon’s lesbian romance and we couldn’t be prouder. We hope you’ll come to the website and buy her newest release as well as her award winning book, Always Faithful.
Oh, and lets not forget about Jett Abbott and her book Scarlet Masquerade. We hear there might be a sequel in store. So watch for that announcement.
Well back to the printing presses. We hope you have a wonderful 2012 and we hope you come along with us on the ride. Happy New Year!
SBP