Until recently, the use of Amazon and User-Friendly in the same sentence was almost a pejorative for authors, especially writers of erotica. When I publish a smut story, I hold my breath during the required “Review Process,” as I can imagine a group of little old church ladies sitting in a circle knitting while discussing my latest submission.
When you get the dreaded rejection notice, it contains a list of possible reasons that often trump the disclaimers seen on television for some new drug to cure erectile dysfunction or some other malady you are loath to discuss in mixed company.
On the one hand, you’d like to get lucky, but is it worth dying over a piece of tail? It always seems that the final side effect is always death with every drug.
Previously, when I got a rejection notice from Amazon and sorted through the wide range of possible objections, it was challenging to figure out precisely what they didn’t like? At least in my case, it typically boiled down to one thing, which Amazon could have told me to fix rather than play a guessing game.
Over the last couple of months, I’ve been focusing on taking my previously published electronic stories and publishing them in print format, so you have something else to hold while you read.
Amazon will take the electronic form of a story and pretty much republish it as a paperback. As someone who generally writes with one little finger up, I’ve always been one to take the path less followed and thought the easy way is for wimps and momma’s boys.
Like my wife says to one of her subs, “If I want your opinion, I’ll beat it out you!”
Amazon pretty much takes the story and just coverts it into a PDF to send to the printer. But the difference between an electronic and a print book is noticeable. The Chicago Manual of Style and picking up a “real” book show you several differences.
Beyond the fact that a print book is often stuck together with bodily fluids at the good parts. I added header and footers with the author’s name on the top left and the story name on the top right. Chapters always start on the right (odd) page, and I use a drop cap for the first paragraph. Page numbers don’t exist on electronic stories as the pages change with the display size of the device used.
Being averse to corporal punishment, I get my abuse from my computers and their software. My use of QuarkXPress to format my print books is akin to using a formula race car as a daily driver. Certainly, 200 MPH would make my daily commute much shorter, the abuse I’d get from Metro’s police officers would slow me down plus those irritating stoplights!
Like when Foxy says, “Bend over and you’ll feel a small pinch!” My abuse from Quark is getting better every time I use it. I’m learning to stop poking myself in the eye with a sharp stick.
So, when I received a rejection slip from Amazon, I couldn’t figure out what I did wrong. So I responded to their author’s helpline with, “WTF?” To my surprise, I got a response accompanied by a real person or a robot pretending to be a real person who told me what was wrong and made a couple of suggestions on how to fix it.
After making the corrections, I resubmitted my story and it was published to be purchased by my adoring public. As an afterthought, I responded to their email with an “Attaboy,” and was surprised to get a thank you response.
I’ve always felt that you get more pussy with a smile rather than a frown. Of course, dick size helps! Even though the two people from Amazon purported to be male it was sweet to actually be told what I did wrong as my wife generally does.
I’m hoping that this is the start of a new relationship between Amazon and myself as we work together to make Jeff Bezos richer than God.
I’m Larry Archer, and I write erotic stories for the huddled and yearning masses. Foxy and I are swingers in real life. I write erotic stories based on the things we do and see. While the Lifestyle is not for everyone, it’s been fun for us. My smut is explicit and hardcore but with a somewhat plot. My porn novels are generally positive and fun, as this reflects how enjoyable swinging has been for us. If you’re interested in checking out my stories, I publish them at all the popular outlets.
Kinky Literature
Amazon Kindle
SmashWords
Apple iBooks
Kobo
Barnes and Noble
Scribd
Larry Archer's World (LarryArcher.blog) 
When I published my first erotic book, my editor was extremely helpful. I’m a Certified Word Processor (yes, that’s a real thing) so I know about formatting, pagination, all that good stuff, but got educated in how this is different for printed books. The last thing I published was in EPUB format and… holy hell. So many things I had to correct but, then again, ebooks were in their infancy at that time but I finally got it to look right and made a few “pennies” from it.
I’d been asked to send in some stuff to a “Penthouse Letters” kind of publication and one got rejected… for being too explicit and I was told to tone it down… which I didn’t. After futzing around with outlets like that, I decided that the little bit of money I was making from my smut wasn’t worth the aggravation…
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You don’t see a new Range Rover in my driveway for the same reason! If you wanted to try again, submit to SmashWords as they are pretty much happy with anything that doesn’t use cub scouts. Today everything is a lot simpler as you can get the tools to help you. I typically knock down $250 – $450/mo so just barely able to keep my Frenchie in Blue Buffalo and put a dent on Wifey’s shoe bill. If I had written 50 Shades I’d be talking to you from my Gulfstream on the way to Paris! LOL
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Still considering doing it. I have the time. Not sure if I have the patience.
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“I typically knock down $250 – $450/mo so just barely able to keep my Frenchie in Blue Buffalo and put a dent on Wifey’s shoe bill. If I had written 50 Shades I’d be talking to you from my Gulfstream on the way to Paris! LOL”
and if you’d written 50 shades, you’d keep Frenchie in Dr Marty’s and/or TruDog.
That’s what my wife insists we feed our Caesar.
I guess I should count my blessings her shoe bill is virtually nonexistent.
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Updated photo, checking to see if it took it.
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Came here before I checked my e-mail.
Draft2Digital is acquiring Smashwords.
Not sure what, if anything that will mean towards how they view content of any given e-book.
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OK, apparently it is retroactive
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I’m hoping that the buyout doesn’t hurt anything. I’ve enjoyed working with SmashWords as they don’t give you grief like Amazon does. But we’ll just have to see.
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“When you get the dreaded rejection notice, it contains a list of possible reasons that often trump the disclaimers seen on television for some new drug to cure erectile dysfunction or some other malady you are loath to discuss in mixed company.”
Hmmmmm…. Was one of those possible errors “anal leakage’?
Formatting for print can be so much fun.
I’ve been the “author” for the manuals for the product my group makes since the mid 80’s.
For the first 20 odd years, we made a hard copy document that we provided. The company had some megaprint machine that we would use to print and assemble them.
I found out the hard way that if I didn’t have it selected as my default printer in Word, the document wouldn’t paginate right.
Also, the printer got “smart” and deleted the blank pages I would sometimes have to insert to keep chapter first pages, on the odd page.
So I would type on that page “blank page” and make the font white. Saved it as a “quick part” in Word to simplify that.
When I complained to the company rep that I had to do this, she was thrilled and asked if they could share that with others.
I told her sure, but I’d prefer they fix it.
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Funny you mention blank pages, Quark has a setting to include blank pages otherwise they are not printed. I take it one step further in that after Quark paginates everything, I go back and replace all the “blank” pages with actually blank pages. If your text ends on an odd (right side) page, the Quark will insert a page to get the next chapter to start on the next odd page but that page has the default stuff like page number, header, footer and the like. Quark allows you to drag and drop a blank page to replace the blank page with an actual blank page that is completely blank.
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I have actually received some civil and useful advice from Amazon myself recently. In particular, they helped me link my old and new editions so I could keep the reviews.
And yes, I always send a nice thank you when I get help.
Keep spanking that old monkey…!
xxoo,
Lisabet
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I don’t understand why they have treated us like an orphan stepchild? I don’t think they are losing money on us and so why not at least acknowledge that we exist?
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kDaddy, Your prodigious output would tell me that you could do it.
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