Latest Posts

Larry Archer

Experience vs. Reality?

by | March 24, 2019 | , , | 5 Comments

By Larry Archer

A question that seems to have come up a lot recently is what does a writer of erotic fiction base his/her story upon? Do I write from experience or imagination?

I’ve never hidden the fact that we are in the Lifestyle and often use our experiences in the stories I write. Being a swinger has helped me write erotic stories because we’ve often been there and done that.

I was reminded of this difference when I watched part of Suburban Swinger Club on Lifetime. I say part because I was interested in The Secret Sex Life of a Single Mom, which came on following Swinger Club. I ended up watching the last fifteen or so minutes of Swinger Club, so I got the ending portion first.

After watching Sex Life of a Single Mom, I started watching the Swinger Club movie which followed Sex Life. Lifetime was repeatedly showing these two movies back to back. Sort of pulling a sex story train gangbang to my way of thinking.

I could only stand a few minutes of Suburban Swinger Club because it was completely wrong and possibly based upon someone’s idea of what swinging is about instead of knowing what swinger’s parties are actually about.

I’ve based my opinion on the beginning and end of Swinger Club but don’t think watching the entire movie would change my opinion for a number of reasons.

Warning: somewhat of a spoiler follows. The movie seems to portray swingers and swinger’s clubs as some type of weird cult with people who would never get a second invitation to party at the clubs I’m familiar with.

First, the people were all young and attractive in general, which I guess is Hollywood’s idea of the typical suburban swinger’s club. When in real life the people you’ll encounter are a broad variety, young to older, plain to gorgeous, and everywhere in between. The only way you might be able to tell the type of party is the dress code. By and large, many women in the Lifestyle tend to be exhibitionists, and their dress code normally reflects that.

I knew that this story wasn’t based on reality was when everyone threw their house keys in a bowl. That was how you picked your partner for the night by plucking someone’s keys out of the bowl.

First, they didn’t go to the selected partner’s house, they went upstairs, so why the keys, other than it is something that may have happened in the 1950s with the original group of fighter pilot swinger’s?

When you are at a House Party (aka swinger’s party), your partner isn’t chosen by a lottery, it’s by personal choice. You meet and talk with someone; then if you hit it off, you ask if they would like to party (aka fuck and suck). At this point, if both of you agree, then you get together and do the nasty.

Another point that galled me was one of the guys assumed he could get with the new girl at any time he desired, even without getting reciprocal feelings from her, after they partied for the first time.

Just because you get together with someone, you don’t own that person or have more rights. You get together for recreational sex and not a relationship or ownership.

What you can’t expect is that your partner will stay quiet if you break the rules. Once I remember a new couple who showed up at a party and the husband immediately started inviting wives out for dates and nooners. I guess he thought that this would be like cheating where everything is on the down low. Boy, was he wrong and they were never invited to another party. I’m sure they were asking themselves, what happened? He had no idea that all the wives immediately started talking with each other about what had happened.

As hard as it may be to believe, swingers may have loose morals, but they don’t cheat. When we get together with someone else’s husband or wife, it’s typically in the same house and often the same room, not at Motel 6 with Tom Bodett.

Since swinging is not socially acceptable to the majority of the populous, we tend to not talk about our parties around the water cooler.

I got into writing erotica for two basic reasons, (1) I wanted to see if I could do it, and (2) it was a way to talk about our experiences that didn’t have our neighbors burning crosses in our front yard.

I admit that I made a bad choice in picking the names of our counterparts in my stories, Foxy and Larry. Originally, I started out by writing stories about us, but then fictional Foxy and Larry took on a life of their own. They have evolved into a couple, who are a lot like us but a little more over the edge.

The makebelieve Foxy and Larry own a strip club in Las Vegas, The Fox’s Den, and enjoy a hedonistic life of excess both in the money they make and the lifestyle they lead.

When I discuss the actions and emotions of Foxy or Larry, the story typically portrays how they actually are in real life. For example, in The Watchers, one scene portrays Foxy and one of our girlfriends Chrissy staring in a gangbang witnessed by a room of voyeurs, Foxy is apprehensive about performing for an audience.

Not trying to throw her under the bus but that’s exactly how my wife is. She hates to plan and while she’ll do the most outrageous stuff on the spur of the moment, will usually fail to follow through if it is planned and scripted.

I’ve seen her on the floor making out with another girl at a dance with hundreds of people watching, yet if I would have suggested anything like that, she’d flatly refuse.

I’ve learned never to push my wife and always let her take the lead as it typically works out better all the way around. Swinging has allowed us both to grow and the crowd we run with are the greatest.

One of my recent stories is based upon an actual event that actually occurred. We have huge New Year’s Eve Pajama Parties and once a couple from down the street crashed our party, creating the impetus for Crashing the Swinger’s Pajama Party.

You can imagine my shock and theirs when a straight “normal” couple walks into a party with over one-hundred naked or semi-naked people doing obscene things to each other.

Needless to say, our actual relationship with them cooled somewhat but exploded in the fictional version of the encounter.

This was another case of fiction imitating real life and while a lot of the story was a what if, it is based upon fact. Thanks to Lisabet for suggesting that I write that story, which ended up as an 80,000-word novel that’s been one of my best sellers.

I also feature a lot of the people we know in my stories. With the names changed to protect the guilty, naturally. People who are more than walk-ons are typically real people. In my stories, I try to portray them pretty much true to life.

We have a menagerie of friends that we run with and by and large are a great group. Our best friends, Pam and Jack, are a MILF Hotwife and cuckold cop couple we do everything with. And yes, even that, well except that Jack only likes to watch the three of us and abuse himself, while holding the camera.

Another thing I don’t believe in is using condoms in my stories, a topic I’ve railed against many times before. I believe using a rubber doesn’t add anything to a story and since stories are not safe sex lessons, I don’t use them. And I promise, once you can get an STI from reading, I’ll make everyone put on a rubber.

Now having ragged on Suburban Swinger Club, I’d like to suggest that you check out The Secret Sex Life of a Single Mom. This great movie on Lifetime is about a Cougar divorcee dating a young guy, half her age, and becoming a submissive in a Dom/sub relationship.

While some things were missing as this is regular TV and not the Playboy channel, the story, in general, was good and should help in understanding why someone is a Dominant or submissive.

As always, if it’s the 24th, then it’s more erotica from the dirty mind of Larry Archer. Visit my blog, LarryArcher.blog for more of my ramblings.

I’m Afraid to Come Out of the Closet!

by | February 24, 2019 | | 1 Comment

About a week ago, I released my latest box set, Swinger’s Box Set, for pre-order on Amazon. Who! Hoo! Then the very next day Amazon kicked me in the cojones and threw me into the dungeon. One Day, people!

Lisabet was right, and my original cover crossed the line for Zon. Why I asked myself? Everyone was pretty much dressed and in the bathroom, the cleanest place in the house. Surely, nothing nasty ever goes on in the bathroom?

Quickly, I reworked my cover with a more bland and non-threatening image. After resubmitting, my rating was switched to “Safe” within a couple of hours.

It was almost as if someone was sitting at their keyboard, ready to click Safe as they waited for my submission and give me absolution for my previous sins.

Up, Down, Yes, No! was I in some type of manic state where one day everyone is out to get me and the next its Mom and apple pie? Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that they’re not out to get you.

Then to top it off, the big guy upstairs, no not Trump, but the big, big guy throws Sin City into the freezer. For the first time in ten years, its snowed in Las Vegas and two days in a row.

The girls all abandoned their short skirts and switched to pants as the weather hovered in the thirties with a serious wind chill. Instant downer!

I turned to Fox News and confirmed that global warming was, in fact, a hoax and fake news, but even after showing the outside world the news on my laptop, it still hasn’t warmed up. Confused and upset I’ve retreated to the comfort of my desktop as the warming glow of my twin monitors is likely giving me measles, brain cancer, or berry berry.

As you’ve likely read about, recent changes in regulations have caused problems with the porn industry and erotica in general. First, Tumblr was purchased by a goody two shoes company who felt that nudity and sex had no place in their organization. A large number of blogs in Tumblr instantly were censored and yanked. No longer are you able to see pictures of your next door neighbor’s wife with the milkman.

Then the thought police in Washington tweaked the rules making companies who hosted sites that exposed the naughty bits to be responsible for the content posted by their downstream sites.

Fearing the loss of their licenses, more and more web hosting sites are clamping down on perverts like me. I’m going to have to stop wearing my raincoat to better blend in with my local elected officials.

Over the last few weeks, it seems that many of the blogs dedicated to authors of erotic material have sprouted numerous messages about censorship and the big thumb of the government pressing down on erotic author’s collective necks.

One of my favorite quotes is from Larry Flynt of Hustler magazine, “Freedom of speech doesn’t protect speech you like, it protects speech you don’t like.”

As the walls continue to close around authors of smut, like when Luke, Princess Leia, and crew were in the trash compactor, while movie watchers were trying to confirm that Princess Leia was, in fact, braless in the movie, we must not give up the fight.

 

Beware, Rant Follows

by | January 24, 2019 | , | 3 Comments

Okay, I have to admit that I’m ticked off and it’s all Lisabet’s fault. Well its not actually Lisabet’s fault, she just wrote a blog post Consent and Complicity that got me fired up.

If you haven’t read it, take a minute and look it up. You should be able to click the link above to view it.

My problem is simply this, why are writers of erotica treated differently than writers of any other genre and their stories have to conform to different rules than others.

My top peeve is the use of rubbers in erotic stories. Why do we need a condom, will you get an STD from reading? Do we need to promote safe sex? Why?

Did Dirty Harry use blanks in his 44 Magnum, well did he punk?

Are James Patterson’s characters all nice Sunday school teachers, well hell no!

So why can other writers write murder and mayhem without any thought to their character’s safety? Is it written anywhere that we have to play nice? I’m mad and I’m not going to take this any longer!

When you read a fictional story, most people read to be entertained and a means to escape to another world for a few minutes. Well, and if you read one of my stories, I hope you get off also.

I don’t have any lofty ideals about my stories, I write stroke, plain and simple but that’s not the whole story.

An erotic story by definition is to entertain and stimulate the reader, not to teach a lesson. Unless that’s the actual intent of the story.

I never use a condom in a story because I think that the reader needs to imagine the feeling of bare skin on skin, not plastic rubbing together. The story is not going to somehow infect us but if you’re worried about it try spraying your books with Lysol.

I doubt that you can find very many people who would rather have sex with a rubber than bareback. Especially in today’s world, where we are constantly concerned about some disease such as Ebola, AIDS, Hep C, or some other God-awful thing that might make your dick fall off.

By the same token, if the thought of pseudo-rape or non-con scenes turns your crank, then why can’t we read that? If Stephen King can torture and kill people in his stories without raising an eyebrow, why can’t we have someone put clothespins on our nipples?

Personally, I’m not into pain but I know a number of people who really get off on it. That doesn’t mean that you have to read/write a story involving a flogger but you should have the right if you want to.

According to authors who use a conventional publishing house and have to deal with editors, there is often the comments that the editor makes them tone down their story to be sure it doesn’t offend someone.

That’s why I like to satisfy myself and my readers, not some editor somewhere, which self-publishing gives you that ability.

“Freedom of speech doesn’t protect speech you like; it protects speech you don’t like,” Larry Flynt of Hustler Magazine.

Ooooh, a Shiny Object!

by | December 24, 2018 | , | 2 Comments

Well, it’s that time of year, when we generally look back on all the things, we did right but typically remember those times when we stepped on our dick. Let’s be honest, the lessons that hurt are the ones we generally remember best.
This year I’m going to focus on one resolution, and that is to avoid looking at shiny objects. I have a bad habit of getting distracted and not finishing the story I’m working on as I get a new idea about a different story. When the dust settles, I end up with multiple stories in various stages of completion.
This year, I’m going to try and finish one thing before I start another. Checking my Draft folder, I see that there are 173 document files in it. If I assume that there are a certain number of auxiliary files, then this means that since I started writing smut in 2012, I’ve published about 25 stories yet have over a hundred waiting in the wings.
It’s so hard for me though and like when I see a pretty girl, my attention is instantly glued to the shiny new object. All other things fall by the wayside. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if I’d finish one story before starting another, but I end up with a bunch of stories that are 25% -75% completed and only need a little push to put them over the top and out the door.

While I realize I should become a better person, lose weight, and stop jerking off so much, I’m not going to strive for something I’ll never accomplish. I’m going to try and do one thing for a change; finish a story before starting the next one.

I’ll do that right after I finish the four stories I currently am working on in rotation!

I certainly know better as I can watch my sales at Amazon and see the dreaded 30-day cliff when my latest story becomes old news and starts to drift off into the sunset. Just like the little engine that could, I can do it, I can do it.

I was reading Lisabet’s latest blog posting about how she got started writing smut, and my path was a similar one except for the fact that I previously hated to write. As an engineer, it seems to be a part of our genetic makeup that writing is always a struggle for us. We are much better at making something rather than telling someone how we made it.

I guess my first masterpiece after college was a paper I wrote on how to throw a swinger’s party. Foxy and I used to give presentations on throwing house parties back when we lived in the mid-west. You’d think it wouldn’t be that complicated to take your clothes off and lie in a pile, but it’s harder than you would expect.

Not trying to pat myself on the back, because it always makes my shoulder sore, we are reasonably successful at throwing parties. I can only remember one party when we invited someone we didn’t know, and the guy got belligerent and drunk. The couple we knew had vouched for them and against our better judgment extended them an invitation.

Our New Year’s Pajama Parties are typically 50-60 couples plus a few Unicorns and stags. The party normally lasts several days or until the next normal work day. After the first night, it’s down to about ten couples who we are very close with and with that one exception, always trouble free.

With several cops, strippers, a surgeon, a paramedic, and a forensic pathologist typically in attendance, we’re prepared for most situations. We can cover you coming and going!

The only problem having a party is that we don’t get to party much as watching out for everything is a full-time job. For us, constantly circulating to check the rooms, restock the towels, and change sheets takes most of our attention.

My first erotic story, Fantasy Swingers, was the offshoot of reading a poorly written story on Literotica and telling myself, “I can do that!” While struggling with the technicalities of proper English, I find that smut will pour out of my keyboard like a kicked over can of beer.

Swingers are still an ostracized group like the LGBTQ folks used to be, and I doubt that we’ll ever be fully accepted, but that’s okay as it’s a lot of fun and never a dull moment. Back home, we had a swinger’s bowling league, Friends and Lovers, that offended the other bowlers but it was amusing and would break up the work week on Wednesday night.

You would hear catty remarks about the girl’s low cut tops or short skirts and that generally encouraged them to be even more outrageous. A lot of women in the Lifestyle are exhibitionists, and the show is always a hoot. The manager at the bowling alley always bought the girls drinks and told us how much we boosted his business.

Unlike our current president, when I look back on 2018, I think it has been a successful year, all things considered. My only advice is first take a breath before proceeding.

Merry Christmas to all, and visit me at LarryArcher.blog for all your smut. Until next month.

Boobs, Beemers and SmashWords

by | November 24, 2018 | | 6 Comments

by

Larry Archer

Warning Non-PC Message Follows

One of the first things you realize about Las Vegas, a.k.a. Sin City, is vanity and show. Nowhere else in the world, except maybe on Rodeo Drive will you find as many boob jobs and fancy cars prowling the streets.

Being in the Lifestyle, it’s common to see women who’ve had some work done, as the saying goes but here everywhere you go they are in your face. We moved to Vegas from the mid-west, where things move at a much slower pace, and the women and cars are much plainer except maybe my wife, but she’s an exception. I had to throw that in, or she’d be pissed.

Dr. Jim’s Trophy Wife

Our plastic surgeon friend Doctor Jim and his demo wife are a typical example. I doubt if there is an original part on her body except for maybe her heels, and nicely rounded they are. For a fortyish MILF Hotwife, she has the best body money can buy, and she even gets an employee discount.

He keeps telling me that a couple of 500cc implants would fill Wifey out nicely but I’m terrified that something will go wrong. Plus, I’m more of a leg guy than a boob guy and like her just the way she is. This is laughable in several ways, two of our closest girlfriends (a.k.a. Unicorns) have ginormous hooters, one real and one not. But, I love them for their minds!

Here you go to the grocery store, and it’s all you can do to not get an eye poked out. One of our neighbors is a dancer at a local gentleman’s club. She’s a little Asian who is so top heavy I don’t understand why she doesn’t fall over when she stands up. She told me that a big rack is worth at least $50K a year and I can believe her. We men are so easy to manipulate, show me your tits and I’ll follow you anywhere!

She’s one of the few dancers I’ve ever known with a decent brain and doesn’t just stuff her money up her nose or give it to a drug-addicted boyfriend, who is jobless and plays in a band. She owns five houses and drives a new Denali. Plus, she just gave her boyfriend a new Infinity. She’s 28 and at the tail end of her career. She figures that she will last maybe another five years, so she’s already planning for retirement.

In Vegas, strippers/dancers have to pay to work, and it costs every girl typically one-hundred dollars a night to work. What other profession makes you pay to come to work? It just shows how much money passes through the typical club. You hear stories all the time of bouncers who drag an indebt customer to the ATM so he can get money to pay off the dancers and not suffer a broken leg.

There was a big lawsuit, a couple of years ago, about a guy from Kansas who was beaten up so bad that he’s now partially paralyzed and won a settlement for several million dollars from the club. So let that be a lesson to you, make sure you have enough money to pay for that lap dance beforehand.

Now that we’re in Sin City, we seldom go to a strip club as they are not the same. Back home, clubs were much friendlier, with less high pressure. We knew a lot of the dancers, and they would often come to our house parties. One girl, Linda, looked exactly like my wife, close enough to be twins, and they always told people that they were sisters (incestuous sisters at that)!

Another thing you’ll notice is that everyone drives a Mercedes, Beemer, or other fancy set of wheels. A business associate of mine drives a new blue Mercedes GLC, and I know for a fact that she’s spending a big chunk of her paycheck for her ride. I like to have a nice car, but I don’t need to spend the majority of my pay for one. Wifey has a red Lexus ES350, but I have simpler tastes and have downgraded from my usual Suburban to a Honda CRV EX-L.

Foxy is extremely outgoing and as my Mom says, “Would talk to a fence post.” We hadn’t been in town long before she met two women on the Strip, who are prime examples of Vegas excesses. One girl drives an SL class Mercedes convertible and the other a beautiful baby blue Bentley. They are both a product of too much money and too much free time but I love them both, and so far they’ve kept my wife somewhat out of trouble.

So if you ever consider moving to Sin City, put enough money aside for a boob job and a nice set of wheels.

Changes at SmashWords

The other thing in the news is that SmashWords has redone their site and hopefully it doesn’t screw up author’s sales too badly. Now what you see is about a 100-pixel wide cover image along with the story title and author’s name. The description is gone and allows the prospective reader to see more stories at a glance as they scroll horizontally.

I browsed the section on Men’s Erotica – Best Sellers and found five or six of my stories, so at least for me, I’m currently happy. SmashWords has published over 500,000 stories, which is amazing in itself after being in business for ten years.

They’ve changed their search and ranking algorithms and only time will tell how that works out. There’s a nice blog posting by Mark Coker on what they did. You can now make better choices on what you see or don’t see on their site, which hopefully will make readers happy and less offended by our smut.

Up until the last couple of months, about two-thirds of my meager author’s income came from SmashWords and their down market. But recently Amazon is running three or four times my SmashWords bucks. The only explanation I have is my latest two stories were released narrow and in Kindle Unlimited. So far it doesn’t seem to have hurt my SmashWords sells as my SW volume is up about 20% over average, but I need to finish up some stories that I can publish wide to keep my dogs in Blue Buffalo.

My last new novel, House Party, an 85,000-word novel of pretty much nonstop F’ing and S’ing was published narrow at Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. Previously, I’d poo-pooed distributing solely through Kindle and Kindle Unlimited, but have been amazed at my sales. While I don’t know how sales would have gone through SmashWords, they’ve been great at Amazon. House Party was released the first week of October, and for the next four to six weeks, my author’s rating has averaged below 1,000 and all the way down to a little over 100. The first couple of weeks, my author’s rating was in the 100-300 bracket. House Party hit a high best sellers rank of 30 in Erotica – Mystery & Erotica – Thrillers, and is the first story I’ve ever written that the best sellers rank was below a 100 and the story stayed in double digits for a long time.

While I haven’t ranted about it, I am amazed at the number of four-letter words in the titles of stories at SmashWords. I write strictly stoke material but would never use “fuck” or “cunt” in a story title. My stories are as dirty as the next pervert, but I do have my limits. Mark Coker of SmashWords is to be commended on his allowing the most juvenile of story titles to be published without complaint.

Several months ago, SmashWords implemented a voluntary categorizing of story content. When you publish a story (and previous ones), you have a checklist of about 10 categories that you answer a Yes/No question to things like “Does the story include screwing your Mother?”

At first, there was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth at the conspiracy theories about what Mark was really up to. I could see their point to try and maximize distribution while not offending those publishers with sensitive tastes.

So far, it doesn’t seem to have changed anything, but then my smut doesn’t usually involve large groups and Vaseline. Well, maybe the Vaseline and possibly the groups but you know what I mean.

The thing I love about SmashWords is they don’t nickel and dime you about story content or the cover image. I hate it when Amazon throws one of my stories into the dungeon, and I have to spend the next couple of weeks on my knees begging for forgiveness. Which usually means that I miss half of my maximum sales month.

Your first 30-days days at Amazon are typically when you sell the most copies because, after a month, you can watch the stories rating drop as Amazon starts to favor newer released stories. Plus, you are never told why you got dinged beyond vague hints as to what was offensive. While I write stroke porn primarily, I still try and meet Amazon’s restrictions. Then, when I get put on the cross down in the dungeon, it really pisses me off.

If you haven’t tried it, Amazon’s new beta report for sales and Kindle Unlimited pages read is pretty cool. It looks like they’ve been watching “Book Report” and have tried to emulate their reporting. There are two main pages, one for sales and one for pages read. I’ve posted a shot of each to give you a flavor of what they look like.

This is the sales page at: https://kdpreports.amazon.com/reports/sales

This screenshot is of the Kindle Unlimited pages read: https://kdpreports.amazon.com/reports/kenpc

This is the beta version of the new sales reporting tool and looks pretty sold so far. The report breaks down sales in a number of ways for all of you anal bean counters out there. The new report presents most of the things Book Report offers. The nice thing about Book Report as it gives you dollar sales figures for today, this month, last month, last 30-days etc. so it’s easy to see how your smut is going over with your adoring audience and when you’ll be able to afford your next lap dance.

Book Report is free and you can grab a copy here: https://www.getbookreport.com/ I think they start charging you for it after your sales hit $1,000 bucks a month, so for me, it’s a freebie.

I’m writing this month’s post on the Wednesday before Turkey Day and am sitting in the parking lot of a casino waiting for Foxy to emerge with her free bottle of liquor. When you have a casino player’s card, one of the regular inducements is free gifts to reward you for stuffing money in a slot machine or throwing it on the craps/poker table.

Wifey plays Texas Hold-Em primarily and does reasonably well at it, but I make it a point to never try and figure out what it costs me to keep her entertained. I am a firm believer in what you don’t know won’t hurt you.

If you run out of something to do, check out my blog at LarryArcher.blog for my latest theories on world domination and lesser topics. As most of the author’s on ERWA, I’m a writer of erotic literature, and my typical fare is primarily what’s called stroke porn for those of you with more base urges. Remember to think of me when you take yourself in hand!

See you next month on the 24th.

Larry Archer

Kindle Unlimited I’m Sorry For All The Bad Things I’ve Said

by | October 24, 2018 | , , , | 8 Comments

By Larry Archer

While I’ve understood the appeal of Kindle Unlimited (KU), up until now I’ve rejected it for a couple of reasons. First is narrow versus wide. With KU, you cannot publish your story anywhere but at Amazon. I think you can do print versions, but most of that stays with Amazon.

Going wide, you can publish at all the other sites such as SmashWords, Apple, Kobo, B&N, and others, in addition to Amazon. Another drawback to wide is that you can’t publish in ePub or other formats that are native to Windows, Mac, most tablets and phones.

Certainly, nowadays there are apps which allow you to read Kindle books on other types of devices besides a Kindle. But to me, it is aggravating that Amazon restricts you in an effort to keep you corralled into the Kindle World.

Publishing on Amazon and allowing your smut to be in the Kindle Unlimited section, allows people who cough up $10 a month to read all they can stomach. For an avid reader like myself, I like KU except the nonconformist side resents being told I can’t publish a story anywhere except on Amazon.

Amazon pays about one-half cent per page for every page someone reads of your masterpiece. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but when there are millions of people out there, it adds up.

I decided what the hell, I’ll try it again and published my latest story, House Party, both narrow and in Kindle Unlimited. This 85,000-word novel is my biggest yet, and I have to admit that I was a little hesitant about committing for the next 90-days before I could go wide.

I was floored when in the three weeks since release it has sold 31 copies, and almost 18,000 page reads, which translates into 74 complete story reads of the 243-page novel. This one story in three weeks has earned basically one and a half times my normal Amazon income for a typical month!

That’s all the bragging I’m going to do, and I apologize for it but what I’m trying to say is consider using Kindle Unlimited to see if it helps your book sales.

Normally I don’t pay a lot of attention to my Amazon sales as I’m too lazy to read all the reports but using Book Report (GetBookReport.com) makes it so easy to see your best selling stories and how much money you are making. Book Report also breaks out your sales per day, week, month, etc. so it’s a lot easier to see if you’re doing any good.

I’d had always read that Amazon has a 30-day cliff and will start throwing your story under the bus in a month. Since I’ve been using Book Report since May or June, I’ve confirmed to myself that is true.

If you release a story, it will bump your author’s rank for about a month, then you’ll see your rank start to fall. Publish a new book, and it’ll immediately jump up for another month.

So, the old saying “Publish or Perish,” is definitely a truism with Amazon. This does not seem to be true with SmashWords. From what I can see, SmashWords only goes by best sells or most popular, without considering age.

I have two books in SmashWords Men’s Erotica Best Sellers that are in the top 60, and one of the stories was published in 2014 and is ranked higher than a story published this year.

While certainly, you can argue that one story is better than the other, but the bottom line is that a story published four years ago is ranked about the same as a story published in the last few months.

This tells me that when you publish at SmashWords, your story doesn’t get forgotten in a month and continues to be ranked on its merits, without being penalized for age.

Up until recently, I’ve always made more money at SmashWords than I have with Amazon but the last couple of months have been just the opposite.

The thing I really like at SmashWords is that they automatically push out to Apple and others such as Kobo and B&N. My sales through SmashWords are typically split four ways between SmashWords, Apple, Kobo, and B&N.

Sales and marketing are the things I hate to do. I’d druther pound away at my keyboard than try to figure out how to market a story but I’m becoming convinced that I need to pay attention to things like sales figures, advertising, etc.

I’m not naive enough to think I’ll ever quit my day job and write smut but I am covering expenses and being able to buy a nice laptop every year or two.

That’s all for this month folks. Go out and VOTE on November 8th. Until next month, if it’s the 24th, it’s time for smut from the dirty mind of Larry Archer. LarryArcher.blog

cuckold – Hotwife – Bull

by | September 24, 2018 | , | 5 Comments

The cuckold, Hotwife, and Bull relationship is an interesting variant of swinging and sometimes is not even thought of as swinging. The wife is known as a Hotwife (upper case), who likes to have NSA (no strings attached) sex with men, who are typically well hung and known as Bulls (upper case). The husband is known as the cuckold (lower case to show subservience) and is often not well endowed or unable to satisfy his wife.

The 1950’s definition of a cuckold is a guy, who was often restrained and forced to watch his Hotwife have sex with other men. The husband is degraded and humiliated as his Hotwife takes on big cocked guys. The bigger their dicks are, the more it reinforces how inferior he is and is unable to satisfy his wife like her Bulls can.

The 50’s type of cuckold – Hotwife relationship has changed over the years to a somewhat different form. I can only speak to what I see as a swinger and the couples we know or have met who enjoy this type of play.

In my experience, you can’t easily pick out a cuckold – Hotwife couple until you get to know them. Often the Hotwife is in her late thirties or forties and generally has an extremely sexy appearance, but as many women in swinging are exhibitionists, this is not always a tell.

Off the top of my head, I can name about half-dozen cuckold – Hotwife couples that I know for sure. There are also variations of cuckold behavior, which is probably the biggest variant.

The common type is a husband who enjoys watching his wife have sex with her Bull(s). Often he will stand or sit by the bed and watch his wife taking care of her lovers, while often jerking off.

Our best friends, Pam and Jack, are a hardcore cuckold – Hotwife couple. Pam is a medium height blonde with shoulder-length curls, about a D-cup, shapely body, and is in her late forties. Her husband Jack is about five years older, nice looking guy, tall, and in good shape.

At a party, Pam is usually the first one naked and is a textbook definition of a nymphomaniac. Her husband generally likes to hide or stand somewhere where he can spy on his wife. They are honest and above board on how they enjoy having his wife take care of her boy toys. At our house, we have a large closet in the master bedroom, and he likes to hide in the closet and watch his wife with her Bull(s).

He loves to watch and will often do things like suggesting that her Bull take her to bed if the action doesn’t start quickly enough. He loves to video us with his wife so that he can watch and jerk off later.

He has never touched my wife or made any attempt to do so. To my knowledge, my wife has never had sex with any cuckold that we know. For them, they enjoy watching their wife with another man and are not really interested in sex with other women.

We met a very attractive thirties couple at a swinger’s convention out of state, well actually our wives met for girl-on-girl fun. They are both extremely good looking, the wife is a fitness instructor, and the hubby was well built. We invited them to one of our New Year’s Eve Pajama Parties, and they drove in from out of state a couple of days early.

The first night, we were in bed together with the girls in the middle and making out while facing each other. I was banging his wife from the back while spooning her. He was behind my wife and only played with her boobs. To my knowledge, he has never touched her beyond that.

The several other couples we know are all variants of that typical scenario. In all the cases, the Hotwife is thirties to forties, with a decent to great figure, and very sexy in appearance and attitude.

This is all honest and above board, with both the cuckold and Hotwife being open in their relationship with others. For those in the Lifestyle, attitudes about sex are open and casual, which is difficult for “straights” to probably understand.

The husbands, who are cuckolds, are not stigmatized in any way or treated differently. Just as their Hotwives would be called sluts in any other context, they are no different, and no one thinks differently if they enjoy sex with other men or gangbangs while hubby watches.

For those who are interested, it is extremely popular and fairly common to find these couples in the Lifestyle.

For more on this, visit my blog at LarryArcher.blog. See you next month!

Writing Porn at Work

by | August 24, 2018 | | 4 Comments

If you have a job that doesn’t occupy the entire day, have you thought about writing porn at work but were afraid that the IT department would catch you? Portable versions of LibreOffice might be something to think about.

You’ve likely heard of LibreOffice, an open source or free replacement of Microsoft Word but what is a “Portable” version?

PortableApps is a software package that allows the user to run Windows programs on a USB jump drive without requiring software to be installed on a desktop PC. What does this mean for the typical worker in a corporate environment?

Most of us, as a minion of corporate America, use a computer that is locked down. Without Administrative privileges, a user cannot install software on their desktop PC. Plus the fact that corporate IT regularly sweeps user PC’s to see what their serfs are up to.

This reminds me of the scene in Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail when King Author rides through a field with several workers. One of the workers asked, “Who’s that?” A worker replies, “Must be a king?” First worker, “How do you know he’s the king?” Answer, “He doesn’t have shit all over him.”

What’s a worker bee to do? Into the ring, PortableApps steps up to solve a problem. Keep in mind that what I’m about to tell you might get yourself into trouble with your employer, and so I have no responsibility for anything that happens to you.

Using a USB jump drive or thumb drive, you can install applications which run off the USB drive without requiring installation on your desktop PC. Furthermore, when you exit a program, it deletes the temporary folder created to completely erase any trace that it ever existed.

In plain English, this means that you can pull a jump drive out of your pocket or purse and plug it into your locked down work computer. Then run word processing and graphics applications that allow you to do work that would normally require Word, Excel, or PhotoShop. Then after you exit the programs, pull the jump drive out, and all traces of what you’ve been doing are erased.

There are a ton of programs, which have portable versions, that can be run from a thumb drive. It is a little slower than having the software installed on your PC, but slower is better than nothing. The program itself runs at typically the same speed, it just loads slower as a USB drive is slower reading than the hard disk.

For an Indie author, especially the paranoid type, being able to work on your latest masterpiece without worrying that your employer might find out that you’re a pervert can be a definite advantage for those who have free time at work.

If you haven’t tried LibreOffice, it is an open source clone of Microsoft Word and can easily read and write Word files. A Word user should feel right at home with LibreOffice, and it’s completely free!

Portable applications are available for GIMP, a PhotoShop clone, along with most of the other programs used by Indie authors to create and publish their stories. It typically takes 2gb of space to install a full suite of programs, which leaves plenty of space to store your work with an 8gb or larger jump drive. With jump drives selling for under twenty dollars, consider giving this a try.

Below find step by step directions on installing PortableApps onto a jump drive along with a common suite of useful programs.

Installing PortableApps On a Jump Drive

  1. For Windows PC’s, go to https://portableapps.com/ and install the PortableApps program on a jump drive. I suggest at least an 8gb drive or larger. For this article, I downloaded “PortableApps.com_Platform_Setup_15.0.2.paf.exe” to the Downloads folder of my desktop running 64bit Windows 10 Professional.
  2. Run the program you just downloaded, which in my case was version 15.0.2 (the latest as of 8/18/18). Go through the normal installation questions and select “New Install” when prompted.
  3. Plug a USB Jump Drive into your computer and select “Portable” as the Install Location. The installation program should default to the jump drive but if it doesn’t, select the appropriate Jump Drive. Okay the “are you sure” question to Install. Then click Finish when the installation is complete. This should automatically run the PortableApps program on the Jump Drive.
  4. Go through the list of available programs and check the ones you’d like installed. I’d suggest you include LibreOffice, GIMP, Note++, IrfanView, JPEGView, Fotografix, Inkscape, Scribus, Sigil, Kaspersky TDSSKiller, 7-Zip, Don’t Panic, and FastCopy to start. Feel free to add any others that strike your fancy. After you click Next, wait for the apps to be installed. Depending on the speed of your computer and Internet connection, this could be a while. There should be an icon in your taskbar showing the progression of the installs. I’m on a 300 Mbit cable connection and using an i7 computer, and it still took me 10-15 minutes to install the apps selected above.
  5. Assuming that you don’t get any errors, installing at a minimum the above list of programs will enable you to read/write Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, edit graphics (aka PhotoShop) and create covers (aka CorelDraw). You will probably have to agree to a few license agreements along the way, and hopefully, you don’t end up like Kyle from South Park when he agrees to be a HUMANCENTiPAD! Much less the cuttlefish!
  6. One of the recommended programs I installed in this How To guide is “Don’t Panic,” which is what we used to call a “Boss Switch” that hides your work. If you’re doing something that you shouldn’t and your boss or co-worker starts heading towards your desk, press the hotkey combination, and your program(s) are instantly hidden. Remember that I’m not recommending you screw off at work!

Am Writing

Currently, my story de jour is still House Party about surprisingly a house party. House party is an acronym of a swinger’s party with a number of twists and turns from my normal fare. I’m still not sure how it’s going to turn out but will hopefully be HEA in the end!

House Party is currently over 52,000 words and going strong despite all efforts to end the story. Amazon has a 30-day cliff, and if you don’t publish on a regular basis, you get kicked to the curb. But my characters don’t seem to appreciate the fact that it’s Publish or Perish!

Thanks for reading and if it’s the 24th, it’s another bit of smut from Larry Archer. Visit me at LarryArcher.blog for more pervy stuff. Sorry, I can’t offer any cooking or house cleaning tips but if it involves abusing yourself, drop me a line: Larry [at] LarryArcher [dot] com.

Self-Publishing or a Gangbang of Suggestions

by | July 22, 2018 | | 5 Comments

For those of you who are currently self-publishing or thinking of it, I’d like to offer some suggestions of tools that are available free of charge.

Kindle Create – https://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=16536087011 – Format your latest masterpiece by simply uploading the document file and allowing Kindle Create to do the rest.

Canva Cover Designer – https://www.canva.com/ A free online layout program that can be used for cover design for the graphically challenged.

Book Report – https://www.getbookreport.com/ – Your one-stop source for reporting Amazon sales.

 

Kindle Create

Kindle Create is a new tool that Amazon is rolling out to help with the formatting of your Kindle stories. This targeted tool takes your Word document file and builds a version ready to be uploaded to Amazon Kindle. The program is currently in Beta but relatively complete.

Create searches your doc file and automatically formats the chapter heads and applies styles to your manuscript. A Table of Contents is generated for you, which is one of the most labor-intensive parts of publishing a story IMHO. At this time it doesn’t appear that TOC generation is working but I’m assuming will be available shortly.

You pretty much just import the doc file and Create does the rest. It will find chapter headings and format them appropriately. You get a list of suggested chapter heads and if it’s not a heading, just uncheck the box to remove the heading.

There are a number of styles to select from to vary the look of your finished story and when done, just upload the Create output file to publish it. I’m planning on publishing my latest story, House Party, with Kindle Create so I can see how it goes.

So far there are some loose ends such as how to create a Table of Contents, but the beta version of the program looks promising. It’s nice that you can see what your story will look like on different devices such as a tablet, phone, or Kindle e-reader.

It will do cool stuff, like create drop caps to give your story a more professional look.

 

I’m still debating on whether I will use Kindle Create as it will mean that I will have yet another version of a story to keep track of. You cannot publish the same exact story for Amazon or SmashWords, for example. Embedding a link to SmashWords will get your story instantly rejected by Amazon and vice versa. I’ve created a methodology to package stories for specific publishers that is still a work in progress but an order of magnitude better than when I originally started.

 

Canva Cover Designer

Canva, an online layout designer allows the user to select from a number of templates and then edit the individual elements, such as text and images to your requirements. There are a number of book templates available to start from.

This will help those without a graphics design package or problems using crayons to create a cover. Just find the template, which is laid out in the style that you like. Then replace the original text (words) with your text and the image with your image.

When you are done, simply export the image, and you have a JPG file ready to publish.

Disclaimer: I do not use Canva as my goto layout program is CorelDraw, which I’ve used for years but from my testing, I’d recommend Canva for those who don’t want to lay out the money for other products.

Book Report

BookReport – An add-in for Chrome that summaries your Amazon sales in one easy to read sales report, automatically updated to the latest figures. The basic version is free if your sales are under $1,000 per month.

Book Report shows your sales between dates, such as last 30 days, top earners, and earnings per day.

Book Report will display your sales over time as well as the ranks in the Kindle Store. Your reviews are shown with the number of stars, etc.

You can drill down and examine your sales from a number of perspectives, and the thing I really like about it is how everything is in one tabbed report that is continually updated every time you refresh your browser.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Am Writing – Currently, my story de jour is House Party about surprisingly a house party. House party is an acronym of a swinger’s party with a number of twists and turns from my normal fare. I’m still not sure how it’s going to turn out but will hopefully be HEA in the end!

Thanks for reading and if it’s the 24th, it’s another bit of smut from Larry Archer. Visit me at LarryArcher.blog for more pervy stuff. Sorry, I can’t offer any cooking or house cleaning tips but if it involves abusing yourself, drop me a line: Larry [at] LarryArcher [dot] com.

Using Cloud Storage for Your Smut

by | June 24, 2018 | | 4 Comments

I encountered a problem with my cloud storage that I’d like to warn you about as it could happen to you. While trying to finish my latest tome, one of my beta readers pointed out an inconsistency in the story. I referenced a scene where one of the guys was previously pegged, yet my “proofer” pointed out that the chapter didn’t exist in the story.

I could have sworn that I wrote that chapter as I knew what happened yet going back through the document, I came up blank. WTF? I said, the scene was completely gone? Luckily, my beta-reader is a lot more organized than I am and was able to pull the chapter out of a previous file that I had sent her.

Thankfully, I was able to reinsert the chapter into the story somewhat like Foxy inserted her strap-on into Greg’s ass. Quick thinking by my beta-reader insured that Greg could be able to take another “insertion” by a tag-team of girls. For the uninitiated, “pegging” is when a man is butt-fucked by a woman with a dildo.

But how did this fulfilling scene get lost? Has my computer suddenly gotten its collective brains screwed out? After all, I was writing this on an iFruit computer.

While writing, I often switch between a laptop and a desktop computer depending on where I’m at. Dragging all of the cables, tower, and monitor into the bathroom was raising suspicions among my coworkers especially with the extension cord into the stall. Plus, the fact I kept dropping the mouse into the toilet didn’t help.

My MacBook Air laptop balances on my knees quite easily and allows me to pound out my smut everywhere I go. But how to easily transfer files between my laptop and desktop required some additional software.

I use DropBox cloud based storage as a storage point between computers. Storing the document in DropBox allows the Internet based software to seamlessly transfer the files back and forth between computers.

DropBox stores a copy of your files in the cloud as well as any computer it’s installed on including PC’s, Mac’s, Android, and I assume iPhone’s. When you edit a file, it’s on your local computer and DropBox uploads any changes to its cloud copy.

Whenever another computer is connected to the Internet, DropBox automatically synchronizes the files to insure that the latest copy is transmitted to all other computers.

The most obvious issue occurs when the same file is opened with two different computers. DropBox doesn’t lock files so the user must insure that there is only one copy of an individual file open at any one time.

In most cases, DropBox will detect this and will store “conflicted” copies of the file. Then you have to open the copies and merge the changes to end up with a single file which contains all of the changed and new data.

Preventing this problem is quickly learned and you always remember to close the file before switching computers.

This typically works seamlessly except when it doesn’t. I’ve come to realize there are a few flies in the ointment. First, make sure that you wait long enough for DropBox to upload the changed files before shutting down the computer. This will ensure that the cloud has the latest version.

If you’re going to be using a laptop and are not sure if WiFi is going to be available, fire up the laptop at home and allow DropBox to sync all the files before walking out the door. This way your laptop contains the latest copies of the files.

What I’ve recently figured out is that DropBox automatically limits the upload speed and generally speaking, this option should be cleared. It can take an inordinate amount of time to upload files and my laptops will often go to sleep before the process is finished, which leaves the state of the changed files in limbo.

By unchecking the upload limit, my WiFi uploads occur almost instantly and insure the cloud has the latest copy. While a little bit of an aggravation, being able to edit your smut on the go allows you to be productive when traveling or killing time at Starbucks.

If you are like me and enjoy working on the go, using a cloud storage such as DropBox makes life a lot easier, especially if you follow the rules.

Hot Chilli Erotica

Hot Chilli Erotica

Categories

Babysitting the Baumgartners - The Movie
From Adam & Eve - Based on the Book by New York Times Bestselling Authors Selena Kitt

Categories

Archives

Pin It on Pinterest