publishing

Taming the Fox

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Just released! A m/m romance with some light paranormal elements and a HEA. Available on amazon (only, for now) and in KU.

This story is special to me. I started this 10 years ago! At first, I just had a picture in my mind of these characters and their relationship. I wrote a light, smutty short about them. It was fine but I always wished I’d done a better job of it. So I unpublished and promised myself I’d revise it at some point. Which I did this past year! It took a LOT of revising, rewriting, and I will admit some tears, but I’m finally happy with this story.

What I wanted to explore with this story was how intimacy grows. The characters feel a physical attraction right away, and that continues throughout the book, but the emotional intimacy builds more slowly.

Its a very sappy romance, with explicit sex, and two very sweet, sensitive main characters. It is entirely possible no one but me will enjoy this book, but I’m hoping maybe a few readers will like it, too. If you do read it and enjoy it, please let me know. You have no idea how thrilled I would be to hear that!

Re-release, coming soon! (yay?)

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Oops, I did it again 🙂 I wrote a story that does not fit neatly into any m/m romance sub-genre. But, it is done and I’m planning to publish by September 1. This is a re-release of a previously published erotica short, only now its a full on romance novel with no kink but plenty of steam. I really love this story, and I’m happy with how it came out. I even like the cover!

But where to place it?…how to market?…how to even describe this thing???

Its a book with shifters, so you’d think “paranormal” BUT – the shifters are sweeties. Sensitive men with no typical shifter stuff. No alpha/omega dynamics (not even strict top/bottom roles), no pack politics, no physical battles or near-death dramas. Its more like a contemporary romance in terms of plot. But I know a lot of contemporary romance readers avoid any hint of magic or paranormal, and the shifter stuff is a part of the story, a little.

I’m left, as usual, with the understanding that my story just doesn’t fit. It’s a bit odd. Maybe boring to some people. Too much and not enough at the same time. But I’m going to put it out there into the world, and then keep on writing.

I’ll post again when it is live! But for now, a sneak peek of the cover:

And the blurb:

[available on Amazon Sept.1]

Centuries of interbreeding with humans has weakened shifter magic. These days, they can barely shift, only producing partial animal forms: fuzzy humans with an animal edge. Those who can manage to sprout some fur stick together in tight clans, focused on strengthening their bloodlines.

Harlan is a fox shifter who’s supposed to settle down with a vixen and make a litter of fox kits. But he longs for a male partner, and he refuses to live a lie – a stance for which his clan ostracizes him. Alone and hurt, Harlan resigns himself to a life without love, and moves into the woods where he spends his days hunting, reading, and painting in his ramshackle cabin.

Shane is a gay wolf shifter longing for a mate. He decides to move into his wealthy family’s luxurious hunting lodge…which just happens to be right next door to Harlan’s place.

When the two meet, they develop a friendship with a strong sexual attraction. But Harlan’s insecurity about his poverty, and his fear of being hurt again, keeps them from being the partners they both need.

A wolf who has everything. A fox who’s lost it all. Will they take a chance on love?

A spicy contemporary m/m Romance with two fuzzy, sweet shifters who have a bad habit of snuggling by the fire.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts! The cover is different, for me. (no sexy dude.) Is this a mistake? Does the blurb sound too boring? Let me know what you think 🙂

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 🙂

Easing back into writing

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After years away from the keyboard, I have begun writing again. Slowly, but steadily, and I’m enjoying it! As a start, I revised & republished the 3rd story in my “moon-brier” series, Secret Cravings, which I had unpublished a while back. It’s erotica, so it is out under my AC Bishop pen name. You can find it HERE if you’re interested. It has a mild BDSM element but is definitely a romance, with a HEA, as per my usual.

I also wrote & published another AC Bishop erotica title, because apparently erotica inspires me to write more 🙂 It’s called Paddling the Prince, and it’s just what it sounds like. Very mild spanking, set in a fantasy AU, with a very sappy romance. Available on kindle unlimited, HERE.

I’m also working on a new story, which will be m/m romance. It’s paranormal, and looking like it will be a series. We will see how that goes!

I’ve been out of this so long, I’ve had to re-learn how to do all this posting and publishing stuff. Where are my passwords? Where did I put all my cover art? What am I even doing??? LOL I’ll get the hang of it again, I hope.

If anyone is reading this, thank you. Hope you are well and hope your day is great! 🙂

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!