Computers are annoying in that 99.99% of the time they work perfectly.
But the 0.01% of the time that they don't, the consequences can be quite traumatic.
So, we authors are in the habit of making copies of our work in progress, and storing it safe from the electronic mayhem of a crashed hard drive, or other total system failure.
My machine crashed recently - in a way that took away all the data files held within its memory banks.
And it now seems that the last time I backed up my data was many months ago - which means I have lost all my current work in progress. All of it. (That rhythmic sound of a distant thumping is my head hitting the wall in a vain attempt to ease the pain).
At least, if my gentle prod makes you remember to back up your stuff today, then some good might come out of this personal disaster...
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
They just don't get it.
We spankos have some odd ideas what non-spankos might think of us. We suspect that they don't understand us, and some of us go so far as to fear that main-line vanillas think we need medical treatment because we are a potential danger to children. Not that we are - just that vanillas might mistakenly think we are in need of treatment.
A recent survey revealed that of those vanillas who respond to spanking surveys, not one single one ticked either the "need medical attention" or "danger to children" boxes. We are talking a relative small sample (50 respondents) with no control group: but 0% suggests that we might possibly be a bit over cautious in how we think people will react to the news should it get out that we are spankos. And - as you might expect - over half did tick the "I don't understand spankos" box : we got that one right.
Of a couple of dozen spankos who tell me that they made their spanking inclination more wide known, only one reported (to me) an adverse reaction: and that was limited to a single friend who took it rather badly. If your experiences have been different, do share.
But there is one aspect of our predilection that vanillas just do not get.
A new survey is in the course of being set up to investigate deeper into what makes us tick and what the vanilla community think of us. While researching what questions to pose, I came over and over again the point that spanking as part of our sex drive is understandable - if a bit odd - to the average vanilla. But spanking just for the sake of spanking - with nothing to follow (save, perhaps, some corner time) - that seems to be beyond their capacity to understand.
And yet both you and I know that sometimes the spanking is the beginning and the end - the whole caboodle is the spanking and nothing but the spanking. Indeed, spanking exclusively as some sort of foreplay would take away a great deal of the enjoyment we get when not looking for a romp in the hay.
This looks like a topic for survey-man to tackle. I shall keep you posted on how it all works out.
A recent survey revealed that of those vanillas who respond to spanking surveys, not one single one ticked either the "need medical attention" or "danger to children" boxes. We are talking a relative small sample (50 respondents) with no control group: but 0% suggests that we might possibly be a bit over cautious in how we think people will react to the news should it get out that we are spankos. And - as you might expect - over half did tick the "I don't understand spankos" box : we got that one right.
Of a couple of dozen spankos who tell me that they made their spanking inclination more wide known, only one reported (to me) an adverse reaction: and that was limited to a single friend who took it rather badly. If your experiences have been different, do share.
But there is one aspect of our predilection that vanillas just do not get.
A new survey is in the course of being set up to investigate deeper into what makes us tick and what the vanilla community think of us. While researching what questions to pose, I came over and over again the point that spanking as part of our sex drive is understandable - if a bit odd - to the average vanilla. But spanking just for the sake of spanking - with nothing to follow (save, perhaps, some corner time) - that seems to be beyond their capacity to understand.
And yet both you and I know that sometimes the spanking is the beginning and the end - the whole caboodle is the spanking and nothing but the spanking. Indeed, spanking exclusively as some sort of foreplay would take away a great deal of the enjoyment we get when not looking for a romp in the hay.
This looks like a topic for survey-man to tackle. I shall keep you posted on how it all works out.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Just Wilhelmina and the Bridge Game
The young prankster known by her family as "Just Wilhelmina" is the subject of this brand new story that you will find in the Free Stories section.
By way of back-fill for those who have not met Wilhelmina before, she is a teenager who leads her chums ("the Outlaws") into a series of pranks and scrapes. Being set some time between 1930 and 1940, the consequences of getting caught invariably lead to a spanking of one kind or another. It is the price one had to pay - back then - for having too much fun at the expense of grown-ups.
In this tale, Wilhelmina pulls off a solo prank against her hapless parents. You might guess what then happens - yes, it does pretty much turn out like that.
By way of back-fill for those who have not met Wilhelmina before, she is a teenager who leads her chums ("the Outlaws") into a series of pranks and scrapes. Being set some time between 1930 and 1940, the consequences of getting caught invariably lead to a spanking of one kind or another. It is the price one had to pay - back then - for having too much fun at the expense of grown-ups.
In this tale, Wilhelmina pulls off a solo prank against her hapless parents. You might guess what then happens - yes, it does pretty much turn out like that.
Monday, August 4, 2014
Kindle Unlimited
In a move to secure even a bigger share of the e-book market, Amazon has launched Kindle Unlimited - full details on their site if you need them - but the edited high lights are that people pay just under $10 a month to have access to just about their entire e-book library. Like video streaming, but for hard copy instead.
We authors are promised a share of the pool of cash Amazon has set up to reward us if people read our books using this subscription service. The good thing (for us) is that as soon as a reader reads 10% of the book (typically less than free preview we offer) you get a full credit. One per subscriber per book, so if the reader reads it from cover to cover twice, we only get just the one credit.
The minor drawbacks - first, we have no idea how much we have earned until the share out takes place. I know that one day I will get over 50 (as of today) payments, but the sum will lie anywhere north of 50 cents. And second, in order to participate, I had to put the works inside the Kindle Select program. That is, I have to give Amazon a 90 day, non-cancellable, exclusive right to sell them. I have had to take those books off all other sites, in order to avoid any potential nastiness with Amazon. Since about 95% of my sales have come from Amazon so far, it is not a particular big deal for me. But if you are a fellow author, it may be for you.
In sum, for giving Amazon a three month exclusive right to sell your works, you may get an unspecified sum from people who purchased a subscription in order to read your stuff.
And that might be a difficult dilemma to solve. Will the additional revenue from Kindle Unlimited be sufficient to compensate for lost sales elsewhere? No one yet quite knows. May be it might be prudent to wait until some actual sales figures are out - so that you can properly weigh the proper odds.
I shall certainly give the tip off as to how much it was worth to have a book read by a subscriber this month - once I get to know what the figure is.
We authors are promised a share of the pool of cash Amazon has set up to reward us if people read our books using this subscription service. The good thing (for us) is that as soon as a reader reads 10% of the book (typically less than free preview we offer) you get a full credit. One per subscriber per book, so if the reader reads it from cover to cover twice, we only get just the one credit.
The minor drawbacks - first, we have no idea how much we have earned until the share out takes place. I know that one day I will get over 50 (as of today) payments, but the sum will lie anywhere north of 50 cents. And second, in order to participate, I had to put the works inside the Kindle Select program. That is, I have to give Amazon a 90 day, non-cancellable, exclusive right to sell them. I have had to take those books off all other sites, in order to avoid any potential nastiness with Amazon. Since about 95% of my sales have come from Amazon so far, it is not a particular big deal for me. But if you are a fellow author, it may be for you.
In sum, for giving Amazon a three month exclusive right to sell your works, you may get an unspecified sum from people who purchased a subscription in order to read your stuff.
And that might be a difficult dilemma to solve. Will the additional revenue from Kindle Unlimited be sufficient to compensate for lost sales elsewhere? No one yet quite knows. May be it might be prudent to wait until some actual sales figures are out - so that you can properly weigh the proper odds.
I shall certainly give the tip off as to how much it was worth to have a book read by a subscriber this month - once I get to know what the figure is.
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Is Spanking the new normal?
Well, we are not there yet, but there are some promising signs.
Take the recent events at Tumblr. A blogger called Cliff James used tumblr to post his own spanking photos and was, presumably, making a good living driving traffic to the numerous pay site links that appeared on his pages.
However, one of his blogs was called "Thespankingblogtaker" where he would list all the other photo blogs that he wished Tumblr to cancel, on the grounds of unspecific and unspecified allegations of copyright violations. Tumblr policy used to be that a claim of copyright violation was grounds to kill a tumblr site - and they routinely did so without wasting time on investigating whether a claim was valid or not. It was a spanking site, for crying out loud: who cares what happens to them?
Not only was his most recently published list totally ignored, in what some see as wicked poetic justice, it was the "Thespankingblogtaker" blog that vanished in a puff of administrative censorship. (I am against all forms of censorship that is not in pursuance of State or International Law: so by my lights they should have let his site stand as an epitaph to a mind that seemed to have been riddled with mean-spiritedness)
So, perhaps Tumblr has taken on the growing trend that spanking between consenting adults is normal. One hopes so, and the evidence that this might be the case is pretty solid. No new round of disappearing spanking blogs - and good bye to the blog that only existed to champion that questionable cause.
Elsewhere, we have seen that several TV companies have embraced this new way of thinking, even if the HBO script writers made a right mess of the subject in one episode of The Game of Thrones. In other series, spankings occur or are discussed without embarrassed leers or sneers.
We are not yet out of the woods. Googol search is mildly anti-spanking, and the Googol linked page editor called IGHome is virulently anti-spanking: any search on that page that contains the word spanking or its synonyms invariably returns a "no-results found" message. The puritans who run that good ship have to protect ourselves from ourselves in case we inadvertently go and enjoy ourselves with material that they have not approved.
But we are winning. Even dancers competing on So You Think You Can Dance can give each other friendly "good luck" swats on the rump without risking public outrage. Way to go, contestants, and more power your arms!
Take the recent events at Tumblr. A blogger called Cliff James used tumblr to post his own spanking photos and was, presumably, making a good living driving traffic to the numerous pay site links that appeared on his pages.
However, one of his blogs was called "Thespankingblogtaker" where he would list all the other photo blogs that he wished Tumblr to cancel, on the grounds of unspecific and unspecified allegations of copyright violations. Tumblr policy used to be that a claim of copyright violation was grounds to kill a tumblr site - and they routinely did so without wasting time on investigating whether a claim was valid or not. It was a spanking site, for crying out loud: who cares what happens to them?
Not only was his most recently published list totally ignored, in what some see as wicked poetic justice, it was the "Thespankingblogtaker" blog that vanished in a puff of administrative censorship. (I am against all forms of censorship that is not in pursuance of State or International Law: so by my lights they should have let his site stand as an epitaph to a mind that seemed to have been riddled with mean-spiritedness)
So, perhaps Tumblr has taken on the growing trend that spanking between consenting adults is normal. One hopes so, and the evidence that this might be the case is pretty solid. No new round of disappearing spanking blogs - and good bye to the blog that only existed to champion that questionable cause.
Elsewhere, we have seen that several TV companies have embraced this new way of thinking, even if the HBO script writers made a right mess of the subject in one episode of The Game of Thrones. In other series, spankings occur or are discussed without embarrassed leers or sneers.
We are not yet out of the woods. Googol search is mildly anti-spanking, and the Googol linked page editor called IGHome is virulently anti-spanking: any search on that page that contains the word spanking or its synonyms invariably returns a "no-results found" message. The puritans who run that good ship have to protect ourselves from ourselves in case we inadvertently go and enjoy ourselves with material that they have not approved.
But we are winning. Even dancers competing on So You Think You Can Dance can give each other friendly "good luck" swats on the rump without risking public outrage. Way to go, contestants, and more power your arms!
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Friday, July 4, 2014
July 4th Promotion
For 5 days, starting July 4th, you can get a copy of the novel The Gleam in Her Eyes absolutely free.
No strings - honest - no sign ups, no giving out your email address or any other trick. Simply go to Amazon, and "buy" a free copy.
The price goes back to its normal level on July 9th - so if you want to get your hands on this erotic masterpiece (advt.) you had better beetle across to this page a bit sharpish and score yourself some reading pleasure.
Enjoy!
No strings - honest - no sign ups, no giving out your email address or any other trick. Simply go to Amazon, and "buy" a free copy.
The price goes back to its normal level on July 9th - so if you want to get your hands on this erotic masterpiece (advt.) you had better beetle across to this page a bit sharpish and score yourself some reading pleasure.
Enjoy!
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Z is for Zwounds
We authors sometimes allow ourselves to fall into the trap of using technically correct words regardless of what our users may have in their vocabulary, or using obscure words for the sole purpose of revealing the meaning of them.
For example. if I had a tale that was set in North West England, I might construct a sentence that reads "The house stood on the bonking overlooking the River Mersey." After poring through lexicons of regional dialect, one or more readers might exclaim "Gosh Dave, you used a local word that describes a low hill side on one side of a plateau, not one of pair that make up a valley - wow, you is my hero of wordsmithpersonship." Yeah - right.
But such usage happens. One of our colleagues came up with "nates" in a context that clearly showed the word is a synonym of "buttocks". Nates? That author had presumably plumbed obscure, ancient dictionaries so as to tickle our delight by coming up with a brand new (to us) but totally authentic alternative to "bottom". And we were expected to be delighted, not snorting with derision.
The other time we are tempted to use an obscure word is that we have learned what it really means, and which to share our gleaned knowledge with a wider audience.
Let me explain further. In the times of the Cavaliers and Roundheads battling out a civil war in the UK, it became the custom of those days to use the body parts of the divine as swear words. "God's body" for example. And "God's teeth" for another.
Such profanity was not fit for polite society, so the initial "G" got dropped. 'ods body and 'ods teeth was far, far milder. (segue: "Oddsbodikins" transcribes as "God's little body" - I bet you didn't know that.)
And then to make it even milder, the "od" got censored as well, leaving us with a mild cuss still in use today: "Steeth"
Zwounds started out as "God's Wounds" and became "'Ods wounds" which morphed into "Swounds" and then inexplicably into "Zwounds". And there you have it: a medieval cuss word laid bare after such clinical dissection.
You may be so enraptured with your new knowledge that you want to set up some dialogue in your next tale so that you can share it with your readership. You know the sort of thing: "Professor, put that cane down for a moment and do tell me what the word Zwounds really means ..."
Don't do it. Your readers really don't give a damn that you have obscure regional dialect at your fingertips or have the ability to explain the etymology of any and every word your characters come to utter. All they care about is that the spanking that is being set up in your introduction gets delivered in luscious detail. Go back to basics and keep it simple. Not stupidly so, but enough to keep your reader apace with your plot.
If you really have a need to explain the origin of the word Zwounds, save it for the last article in a series of 26 that go through every letter of the alphabet. Then you might get away with it.
(Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible - (advt.)).
For example. if I had a tale that was set in North West England, I might construct a sentence that reads "The house stood on the bonking overlooking the River Mersey." After poring through lexicons of regional dialect, one or more readers might exclaim "Gosh Dave, you used a local word that describes a low hill side on one side of a plateau, not one of pair that make up a valley - wow, you is my hero of wordsmithpersonship." Yeah - right.
But such usage happens. One of our colleagues came up with "nates" in a context that clearly showed the word is a synonym of "buttocks". Nates? That author had presumably plumbed obscure, ancient dictionaries so as to tickle our delight by coming up with a brand new (to us) but totally authentic alternative to "bottom". And we were expected to be delighted, not snorting with derision.
The other time we are tempted to use an obscure word is that we have learned what it really means, and which to share our gleaned knowledge with a wider audience.
Let me explain further. In the times of the Cavaliers and Roundheads battling out a civil war in the UK, it became the custom of those days to use the body parts of the divine as swear words. "God's body" for example. And "God's teeth" for another.
Such profanity was not fit for polite society, so the initial "G" got dropped. 'ods body and 'ods teeth was far, far milder. (segue: "Oddsbodikins" transcribes as "God's little body" - I bet you didn't know that.)
And then to make it even milder, the "od" got censored as well, leaving us with a mild cuss still in use today: "Steeth"
Zwounds started out as "God's Wounds" and became "'Ods wounds" which morphed into "Swounds" and then inexplicably into "Zwounds". And there you have it: a medieval cuss word laid bare after such clinical dissection.
You may be so enraptured with your new knowledge that you want to set up some dialogue in your next tale so that you can share it with your readership. You know the sort of thing: "Professor, put that cane down for a moment and do tell me what the word Zwounds really means ..."
Don't do it. Your readers really don't give a damn that you have obscure regional dialect at your fingertips or have the ability to explain the etymology of any and every word your characters come to utter. All they care about is that the spanking that is being set up in your introduction gets delivered in luscious detail. Go back to basics and keep it simple. Not stupidly so, but enough to keep your reader apace with your plot.
If you really have a need to explain the origin of the word Zwounds, save it for the last article in a series of 26 that go through every letter of the alphabet. Then you might get away with it.
(Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible - (advt.)).
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Y is for You
Yes - you, dear reader without whom all my efforts are totally worthless.
We have never met, but I do have some idea of what makes you tick. Over 400 of you have responded to the survey to give some insight in what things are shared experiences and which ones make us stand apart.
From the pattern of my book sales, I can deduce which plot lines ring a chord with you, and which ones you find a little less than stellar. That's OK - it is my job to fulfill you reading wants, not yours to spend your hard earned cash on stuff just because I am inordinately proud of it. And the number of reads of short stories also give a hint - but that is more an indicator of how intriguing a title is, I rather suspect.
I get some hints - some clear, some obscure - from the comments some of you make about my posts, my stories and my published works.
One hard statistic of e-books is that, on average, it takes about 700 sales to generate one customer review. And since getting such reviews is vital to turning a pot boiler into a best seller, some new authors get friends and family to write glowing reviews for them in order to create some "buzz" about the work. A tactic doomed to failure, for if a new book arrives complete with half a dozen glowing reviews, just about everyone knows that it has not been in circulation long enough to get any reviews at all, and the game is up. If you are going to use phoney reviews, wait four to six months before publishing them and you may succeed with such con tricks.
If your are not an author, it might surprise you to learn that the hard currency for some web sites is the comments from the public at large who visit and partake of the stuff that has been put out for its amusement.
When it comes to the free stuff we hand out, some authors are desperate for comments and reviews. A very promising new picture blog was pulled a couple of years ago because not one of 12,000 visitors had been polite enough to make a comment. Not one single comment. That author - wrongly thinking he was entitled to get responses - was so upset that no-one agreed with that point of view - he pulled the plug rather than changing his mind.
There are free story sites that if a member does not comment after a pre-set number of reads, has membership rights revoked. "Good members" give comments freely, so if you are a "bad member" you can get the hell out of here until your manners improve. Or some such. Their web site - their rules. All is good.
But those ways of thinking do not apply to you, dear reader, while you are visiting this site, to pondering the musings or reading the free tales.
That you pop in from time to time is suffice. All that is published here is for you for without you the entire enterprise is without merit. By all means tell me if anything is less than average. But because you want to, not because I might get peeved if you don't.
We have never met, but I do have some idea of what makes you tick. Over 400 of you have responded to the survey to give some insight in what things are shared experiences and which ones make us stand apart.
From the pattern of my book sales, I can deduce which plot lines ring a chord with you, and which ones you find a little less than stellar. That's OK - it is my job to fulfill you reading wants, not yours to spend your hard earned cash on stuff just because I am inordinately proud of it. And the number of reads of short stories also give a hint - but that is more an indicator of how intriguing a title is, I rather suspect.
I get some hints - some clear, some obscure - from the comments some of you make about my posts, my stories and my published works.
One hard statistic of e-books is that, on average, it takes about 700 sales to generate one customer review. And since getting such reviews is vital to turning a pot boiler into a best seller, some new authors get friends and family to write glowing reviews for them in order to create some "buzz" about the work. A tactic doomed to failure, for if a new book arrives complete with half a dozen glowing reviews, just about everyone knows that it has not been in circulation long enough to get any reviews at all, and the game is up. If you are going to use phoney reviews, wait four to six months before publishing them and you may succeed with such con tricks.
If your are not an author, it might surprise you to learn that the hard currency for some web sites is the comments from the public at large who visit and partake of the stuff that has been put out for its amusement.
When it comes to the free stuff we hand out, some authors are desperate for comments and reviews. A very promising new picture blog was pulled a couple of years ago because not one of 12,000 visitors had been polite enough to make a comment. Not one single comment. That author - wrongly thinking he was entitled to get responses - was so upset that no-one agreed with that point of view - he pulled the plug rather than changing his mind.
There are free story sites that if a member does not comment after a pre-set number of reads, has membership rights revoked. "Good members" give comments freely, so if you are a "bad member" you can get the hell out of here until your manners improve. Or some such. Their web site - their rules. All is good.
But those ways of thinking do not apply to you, dear reader, while you are visiting this site, to pondering the musings or reading the free tales.
That you pop in from time to time is suffice. All that is published here is for you for without you the entire enterprise is without merit. By all means tell me if anything is less than average. But because you want to, not because I might get peeved if you don't.
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