mmromance

Rainbow Book Fair!

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Just got back from this year’s Rainbow Book Fair in NYC.

It was fun! Lots of people, and everyone around me was super nice. I even sold some books! Though most people at the fair were not “romance readers” a few were, and some others I think may have purchased out of pity. But either way, I had a good time and I’m glad I went.

I had this on my table, and people added their thoughts. I think it went well as a booth idea, even though people seemed reluctant to write on it.

The last time I attended the rainbow fair was 2016. Back then I was really excited to see other authors I only knew online and hang out in person. I remember meeting them after, at a bar, and chatting a while, and leaving feeling so positive. Like I had a community.

This time was very different! I had no expectation of socializing at all. There was only one author I wanted to say hello to, and I didn’t get to see her. The “after party” seemed nice, but I was pretty tired and decided to skip it. So, not much of a social experience, this time around.

But that doesn’t mean it was bad! My little handmade books, which I had first intended to use as ARC rewards, ended up being my best sellers at $5 each! People kept commenting on how cute they were, and that was really positive and nice for me. I was next to an awesome lady & her kid and she gave me the most amazing book!! I can’t even find a link to the exact book so I’m feeling pretty special. (I wish I could share though because its a graphic memoir & gorgeous!) I’m staying in an absolutely beautiful hotel, and I’m LOVING the peace and alone time. Let me tell you, I have not been alone in my house (or anywhere besides my car) for months. It’s nice.

So now I’m going to post this, and enjoy some room service while I get to watch whatever I want (!) on TV. Or maybe I’ll write! Or read. Possibilities are endless here on my own LOL

Any thoughts about in-person book events? Do you attend? (As an author or reader?) Leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you.

Tiny flash fiction booklet

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Last summer I entered the NYC Midnight flash fiction challenge. It was super fun, and I recommend it to anyone who likes to write and needs a little spark to get going, or just likes to compete. I wrote a few things, but only one I was really proud of.

Fast forward to this spring, when I took a bookmaking art class at my local art center. Another fun experience! I love making things, and though I’ve made books before this workshop gave me a lot of new ideas and techniques. The instructor was so nice, and always brought in lots of sample books for us to look at. One was a mini-book, and I immediately thought of my flash fiction story, and how nicely it would fit.

So, I spent waaaaay too much time figuring out how I’d make this flash fiction into a mini-book. First I tried the “accordion” method, which was the style of the sample I’d liked.

Accordion style is cool, but it was a bit fussy to make and kind of awkward to read. So I kept playing, and settled on a pamphlet style binding.

I found some old silk thread in the depths of my sewing basket, and used an eyelet tool and string to create a “portfolio” type look for the cover. I think it came out really nice!

I’m going to attend the Rainbow Book Fair in NYC next weekend, and I’m planning to use these as rewards for those who sign up to be ARC (advance review copy) readers there.

If you are in the New York City area on Saturday the 22nd, and love LGBTQ fiction, consider attending the Rainbow book fair! Its a fun event. I hope to see you there 🙂

Revising old work

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Is what I’ve been doing in my spare time for the past six months. An old novella called “Taming the Fox” which I had published in 2013. I’m planning to re-release it this April.

Why? I guess it was one of those stories I loved that I knew I just didn’t tell very well. I wanted to do better, and made the mistake of starting to revise, and then before I knew it I was neck-deep in this thing, adding chapters, tweaking plot, deleting old writing mistakes. The story captured me again, and I had to finish it.

Now I’m nearly finished drafting, just a few more words to add here and there to tighten it up and it will be off to beta readers. So now I need to decide – what next? Do I promote this, try to get sales and reviews and be a “real” author about it? Or just quietly update the old amazon listing, and be satisfied that I produced something I am proud of?

I’ll probably do a half-hearted promotion and then let it fade, as per usual. I can’t summon the self-confidence to sell myself. Part of me wonders what would happen if I actually put the money and time and effort into promotion. Would it be well received? Or would it still flounder with mediocre reviews at the bottom of the lists? I’ll never know.

Now I’m going to figure out a cover. I wish I could use the original cover, but I think it would get banned from Amazon these days:

I think it was a stock photo, believe it or not. I just added text and slapped it up on kindle. Those were the early days of e-books, and obviously there wasn’t a lot of polish in my author game (some things never change lol) but I do think this photo still fits the story well. Maybe I can adjust the butt crack? I’ll see.

Have you ever read a re-released and revised story? Would you? Or would it depend on if you had read the first version?

The Raven & His Selkie

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Release day is today! I’m happy to say this book is out, and available on KU.

Available on Amazon

This is a paranormal m/m romance, and as the title suggests, the main characters are a raven & a selkie. I admit I made up the “raven” creature from various mythologies. In my story, I have Grigori (the raven) being a child of a Harpy. The Harpy legends vary a bit, so I took some artistic license in my creature-creation here. Grigori can jump/leap very high and far, but he can’t actually fly. He likes to gather information, and he’s a bit of a control freak. His Selkie, Murdoch, is much more chill.

I also play around with the idea of “fated mates” in this story. I LOVE the trope of soul mates/fated mates in paranormal romance, and I really like exploring different iterations of it. In this story, the mate-bond hits these boys hard, and it takes them a while to adjust. I hope you will enjoy their journey to happy-ever-after!

I am planning (and currently drafting) a second book in this world. It will be Drew’s story (he’s a wolf shifter) and he too will be blindsided by a fated-mate bond. Yum! However, both stories will be stand-alone, no cliffhangers I promise! I hate those 🙂

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts! Do you like the fated mates trope? What other romance tropes are your favorites? (I also really enjoy a good “enemies to lovers” story) Do you like new or unusual paranormal creatures, or do you prefer to stick to the more classic vampires & shifters? Leave me a comment and let me know 🙂

Cover Reveal: The Raven & His Selkie

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An m/m Paranormal Romance

Getting closer and closer to the release date of this one! Preorder is live, if you are so inclined. Also I should note I will keep this one in KU, at least for a while.

This story is about a pair of “fated mates” who have a little bit of a struggle coming to terms with the mate bond and what that means for each of them. It is possible I will write a book 2 for this world, I’ve written a little already and I’m liking it, but no promises yet. Either way, this is a standalone with a HEA.

I will definitely post more about this story and these characters as my release date (August 20) creeps closer. Stay tuned! And as always, I’d love to hear from you so feel free to leave thoughts and comments if you have them 🙂

Re-release of ‘Night Vision’

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Way back in 2014 I had a story published through Dreamspinner press called “Night Vision.” I really like this story, it has a fun romance and some slightly different paranormal creatures. (When I wrote it, I was inspired by the old legends of an owl-like creature, a sort of witch/vampire thing. My Strige feed on human emotions, and are only a little scary.) So now its been some time, and the rights to this story have reverted back to me. I had a new cover made and have just re-released it.

For now, it is exclusive to Amazon, which also means you can read it on Kindle Unlimited if you like.

My main character, Alex, is a sort of average guy. I don’t write alpha-dudes or anyone too “tough,” but Alex’s love interest, the Strige named Theron, is a slightly-scary monster who loves to cook. He’s as close as I get to tough guys I guess. So he is dangerous, and not quite human, but he also loves Alex passionately and can make a mean béchamel sauce.

This is a standalone romance, with a happy ever after ending. It has low angst and high heat, and is a fairly fast read. If you read this before (thank you!) please understand this is exactly the same book, I’ve made no changes to the story.

I’m glad that this book is out & available again. I hope if you decide to give it a try, you enjoy it. And as always, please feel free to comment! I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Update on where to buy my books

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Most people in the Romance community at this point have heard the sad news that All Romance E-books, a distributor of Romance and erotica, is closing. I have deactivated my books there, as they are not paying authors anymore. 😦

It got me thinking about what to do… Should I go back to being Amazon exclusive? It seems like KU is killing the competition, and maybe there is more money to be made by re-entering that program. But then, so many readers do not want to shop at Amazon, or can’t (for multiple reasons) so being tied down to just one vendor is maybe not the smartest.

For now, I’ve decided to stay “wide.” What that means is my books will continue to be available at Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Amazon, and Scribd.

Also, I have started a PayHip page for digital downloads of my books. Find it here: https://payhip.com/ameliabishop (I am working on a PayHip page for AC Bishop, too.)

A while back I had created a square store for selling signed paperbacks. So if that is something you are interested in, you can find those here. (US shipping only)

Is there a place you like to buy (or sell) your Romance fiction? I’d love to know!

Rainbow Book Fair

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I did it! I had a great time, too 🙂IMG_4875

Behind me you can see the tables full of vintage gay porn, which I had to resist buying 🙂 The man selling that stuff was really sweet and I loved looking through it all. I sold some books. Not a ton, but a decent amount, especially considering this was not a romance event. I got to talk with a lot of interesting people and that made the day pretty great. I wish I had walked around more! I only made one circle of the room and I said hello to a few people I knew from facebook, but I didn’t chat as much as I’d have liked.

I managed to keep my feelings of maybe not belonging there in check. I did get several passers-by who commented their surprise that there were “so many women who write gay stories!” but when I talked with them they seemed more amazed than upset, and a few even bought my books so that was cool.

I saw this guy wearing a super fun t-shirt, and doing something with his phone. This is the shirt: frontand what he was doing with his phone was live-casting from the fair for a group called PrideCasters. I spoke with him a few minutes and he explained what “periscope” is (It’s a video app. I had no idea lol) and he told me all about pridecasters. You can follow them on twitter @pridecasters and see what they do. He was trying to get people to join as casters, it seems a relatively new channel. I love the idea and I hope they are very successful. You can see my video here (I’m on with my awesome table-mate Renee at around 3 minutes in) and it also gives a great taste of what the fair was like.

After the fair I went to dinner with some very nice authors, and had a fun evening talking with them. Socializing was definitely the highlight of the trip for me. I will likely be going to the fair again next year! It was a great time and had a wonderful, positive vibe. Everyone seemed happy to be there ❤ and I am glad I was there, too.

 

More Than Love

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My m/m contemporary More Than Love is live!

I hope people like this story. It’s not very action packed or dramatic: it’s a quiet story of love. I know that is not as popular as other styles, but I hope maybe some people will enjoy it anyway.trustme_cover_v3

The two main characters are Dan and Ian. Dan is the point-of-view character the whole time, he’s a cop in his late 30’s who is longing for a relationship. Ian is a guy he dated in college and never forgot, and this is the story of their second chance at love.

If you are looking for a gentle love story with a happy ending, give it a try!

Thanks ❤

Bisexual Romance!

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It exists ❤

So here’s a story: I was scrolling facebook and I saw a post on queer sci-fi asking “what topics would you like to see discussed?” and I answered “Bisexual romance” (actually I wrote a bit more than that, basically outlining my concerns over including bisexual characters in a meaningful way, and increasing bi-representation in fiction.)

So then the other day I’m scrolling facebook again and I see that my topic idea got picked! Cool! There was a nice discussion on the queer sci-fi FB page (I thought so anyway) and I was pretty happy to see such a lot of participation on a topic that is so important to me. Nice.

Then someone made a blog post of their own about it (well maybe more than one person but only one I saw) and their post sparked some more heated discussion, and was taken down. I missed the drama of it all (thank the gods) but I would like to add a little bit. Not because I want to make drama (this won’t be dramatic don’t worry lol) but just because I think the problem is worth consideration, and is important enough that it should be talked about and not just brushed aside to keep things copacetic.

My original question was poorly worded (hey it was a facebook comment give me a break!) but my essential question was: what level of representation in a story is “enough” to label it a bisexual romance?

And the author of the drama-inducing blog post touched on this, as well. It is a real problem, and I think they actually pointed out the root of the issue: When we label romance, we do so based on the genders of the main couple, not their orientations. This is a problem, obviously, and leads to massive bi-erasure. So yes there are prejudices against bisexuals, lots of harmful stereotypes, and even outright disdain for bi’s in romance and, well, everywhere. But I don’t think that is the whole problem. In Romance, we also have an issue with marketing, labeling, and even just talking about bisexuality.

One point that blogger made was bisexual romance is a label used primarily for menage. I’m sure that was a hurtful statement for many. Unfortunately, it’s true. The bisexual romance shelf on amazon is pretty much a selection of mmf menage stories. And hey, I love bisexual menage stories (I’ve written some! *shameless plug* Buy my mmf!!) but mmf is hardly the typical bisexual love story, let’s be honest.

Here’s the thing: there are LOTS of bisexual characters in m/m Romance. Lots. Want to find one? Good luck! Because there really isn’t a way to search for them.

Imagine if there was just one LGBT Romance category on Amazon. And when you brought up a search for “gay romance” you automatically got bisexual, trans, gay, and lesbian titles all mixed in with no filtering. Good? Maybe for some, not for others. Well, when you search up “bisexual romance” you get a lot of menage, maybe a few m/m stories where the author tagged it bisexual, and that’s it. All mixed in, and many of the m/m books with bisexual characters are not there at all. When you search for “gay” or “lesbian” you get lots of bisexual in there, with no way to tell which is which. Sometimes, it’s not even clear in the blurb. And readers will call bisexual characters “gay” as well. Rarely is the word “bisexual” even mentioned.

There ARE bisexual characters in m/m. I’ve written them, I’ve read them, they’re totally there I promise you. For an example, Cut and Run’s Ty and Zane are bisexual (right?) and they’re pretty popular with readers. Yet those books are not listed in “bisexual romance” on amazon. Why? Because the main pairing is two males. So it’s m/m. But…m/m does not always mean “gay.”

Yet amazon (like most vendors) does not have an m/m category. You’ve got to pick an orientation. (Did you just cringe a little? Yep, me too.) Do you pick bisexual, and get your monogamous m/m thrown in with menage and thereby miss reaching the majority of your readership? Or pick gay and erase your bisexual characters? (I usually pick both, but to be honest it’s the “gay” list I’m trying to rank on, as it is the bigger market.)

Representation matters. But so does getting our books to the readers who want them. (bisexual romance authors gotta eat, too)

I’m not sure what the solution to this is. How can we spotlight our bisexual characters and still appeal to our readers? How can we change such a big thing as amazon’s categories? How can we openly recognize bisexual characters in romance? I wish I had more answers. As always, I’m open to ideas 🙂