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Tabitha Levin

Contemporary Romance Author

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Do Short Stories Sell on Amazon and other Retailers?

June 25, 2012 By Tabitha 33 Comments

Do short stories sell, and can make you some quick cash on places like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and iBooks (among others)?

Let’s get right to my answer.  Since we are friends here, I’m going to tell you the truth.  They do, but certainly not to the extent that novels and longer works do.

Recently well-known author Dean Wesley Smith wrote about a plan about making a living writing short fiction.  According to his plan, if an author was to write 50 short stories per year (averaging one short story per week), bundle them into 5 & 10 story collections, and continue doing that for five years – by the end of the five-year period, you’d have a nice passive income of approx $40,000 a year from then on.

[Read more…] about Do Short Stories Sell on Amazon and other Retailers?

Filed Under: Short Stories Rock

10 Reasons Why You Should Read Short Stories

June 20, 2012 By Tabitha Leave a Comment

Short stories are coming back into favour, now that digital publishing is on the rise.  And more and more authors are producing really great fiction in short form.  To celebrate this, I’ve written a short guide on why you should read short stories.  Enjoy.

#1. Begone you fluff monster

Short stories are like a little novel wrapped up in as few words as possible without all the fluff.  If you don’t want to read three pages of descriptive text showing how the wind is blowing through the leaves, and just want to get straight to the action – the GOOOOD stuff – then short stories are for you.

[Read more…] about 10 Reasons Why You Should Read Short Stories

Filed Under: Short Stories Rock

One Night Stand – #5 Desperately Delicious Series

May 29, 2012 By Tabitha Leave a Comment

A One Night Stand story by Tabitha Levin (cover)

I really wanted to bring an extra element to my erotic romance collection and so couldn’t wait to write a one night stand story for one of the characters.

One Night Stand is the 5th story in the Desperately Delicious series.

It’s the story of Melissa who, if you remember from Perfect Amy, was David’s ex girlfriend who we briefly met while they were holidaying in Fiji.

Even though she was only in that story briefly I really wanted to explore her character more but I wasn’t sure how to bring her in.

One Night Stand Stories Are Hot Right Now

When I read on a website that one of the top women’s sexual fantasies was to have an anonymous one night stand I thought that this would be perfect for Melissa.  As we can see from the first sex scene, she isn’t coping very well with being dumped by David.  Oh dear – but at least it leads to a really hot sex scene.

But I couldn’t let her just continue to have anonymous sex the whole book, so I introduced my favorite male character so far – Ross.  I am SOOO in love with Ross.  I think he is just lovely – I hope you think so too.

If you are interested in reading a one night stand story, then I would love for you to check it out.

Only two more stories to go in this series before I can put the collection up.

All the best,

Tabitha.

EXCERPT FROM ONE NIGHT STAND

Chapter 1

Melissa James held the photo frame in her hands, staring at her happy face in the picture. She remembered the way David had draped one arm across her back, gently caressing her shoulder, getting her to smile as he aimed the camera phone in their direction with his other hand. She was laughing. Her eyes sparkled as she leaned into him. He was always doing silly things like that.

If you looked closely you could see a tiny bit of relish at the side of her mouth. David had licked it off right after the photo was taken, his warm tongue entering her mouth, his hand sliding up her top.

She almost didn’t remember what it felt like to be that in love, but seeing him recently, had brought all those old feelings crashing back.

She shook her head to shake the feelings away. There was only one way to forget. She opened the fridge door and grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels, taking a long swig, feeling it burn her throat as it slid down. Another swig. Soon she’d forget all about him, and things would be okay again.

~

The bar was smoky and dark, there was a comfortable musty smell of alcohol that stuck to the carpet. The music was low, like it always was on Friday nights. The after-work crowd preferred it that way, so you could hear yourself talk.

She nodded to Ross, the bartender, as she walked in. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breathe she scanned the crowd. There were the usual men that frequented the place, but regulars were not on her agenda – she needed someone new, someone fresh, someone who likely she would never see again.

Her eyes settled on a booth in the far corner. He was tall and handsome for his age, which she guessed, was late thirties. A well-fitted suit covered what looked like a body in decent shape, uncommon for this area of town. Perfect. She undid a button on her top and headed in his direction.

“May I join you,” she asked, smiling at him. He nodded and indicated that the seat next to him was free. She slid in, making sure she was close enough that he could touch – if he wanted.

“You alone?” he asked, and Melissa thought about this for a second.

“Not anymore,” she said.

~~~

Get the rest of this story and more in the Desperately Delicious Box Set (Seven Erotic Romance Stories). Available now at Amazon

box-set-200

 

 

Filed Under: Romance Short Stories

Urban Darkness – The Collection is up!

May 21, 2012 By Tabitha Leave a Comment

The collection of all seven of the action suspense stories is now available. It’s called Urban Darkness (I love the title) and to contrast it from the shorts, we’ve used a empty street scene for the cover, instead of a person.

I think it portrays the feel of the stories really well, since they are all set in a tough future world and incorporate both suspense and action elements.

It will be interesting to see the difference between how the shorts have been selling, and whether people prefer to buy them all in the one collection.

I guess I’ll find out soon enough!

Tabs xx

Filed Under: Action Suspense Short Stories Tagged With: urban darkness

Is Erotic Romance Becoming Mainstream

May 18, 2012 By Tabitha Leave a Comment

Right now, in the Amazon Bestsellers list for books, 50 Shades of Grey (and it’s follow-ups: 50 Shades Darker and 50 Shades Freed) are dominating the top of the charts.

It’s appeared on top television shows, including Ellen, and if you mention its name most women will know what you are referring to, whether they’ve read the books or not.

Erotic romance (or mommy porn as it’s now affectionately referred to) seems to have become mainstream.

So as a writer of erotic romance short stories, what does that mean?

Now before I begin this post I must say that I am in no way comparing my e.romance short stories to EL James’s trilogy.  They are completely different in length, style of writing, and fan base (obviously).

Plus I actually think my stories are rather vanilla, whereas her books are more on the raunchy side.  (I also haven’t read written any BDSM scenes yet, but I’m thinking of doing it for the last book in the e.romance series).

But anyway, back to my point.  Is it now cool to read erotic romance novels?

Seems it is!

And it isn’t just bored housewives that are reading it either, young women, men, and even celebrities have jumped on the bandwagon and are whipping out their Kindles for a little juicy bedtime reading.

Therefore that should mean that the entire genre is exploding and people are now hungry (no pun intended) for more to read to satisfy their desires (again I meant reading desires, not the other kind – sheesh)

But I’m not seeing that at all.  While e.romance stories have always been popular, I don’t see any other similar titles jumping in leaps and bounds into the Amazon Top 100.

So if you think you’ll write some sexy scenes, upload to Kindle, and make a fortune – think again!

Like everything – you still will need a good story first and foremost.

Readers of the romance genre particularly are choosy and expect good writing, plot and characterisation as well as a good sex scene.  And if the sex scene isn’t hot – they’ll let you know about it with poor reviews.

I don’t classify myself as an erotic romance writer (even though I have a few steamy shorts that I’ve written).  Me, I’m just a writer.  Plain ol’ vanilla – don’t put me in a box – writer.

Perhaps that’s why I’m not as wildly successful as EL James, or perhaps I’m just not as good as I think I am (no!), but just because you write in this genre, which now HAS become mainstream, doesn’t mean you’ll be as popular as the big names.

Paranormal romance writers found this out the hard way too.  It seems putting a vampire in your story isn’t the way to success unless your name is Stephanie Meyer.

And yes, there are plenty of romantic paranormal erotic stories out there as well.  Who says you can’t mix your genres 😉

Me – I’ll keep plugging away at my stories and writing what I like to read.  Let’s just hope that short stories become mainstream soon too. 🙂

Filed Under: Romance Short Stories, Writing Musings

Double Cross

April 30, 2012 By Tabitha Leave a Comment

The 5th story in this series is now up.  Double Cross is about how Talli tries to get back the insurance money that Larry ripped off Ethyl.

(Ethyl, for those that haven’t read it yet, was the woman who buys the collar bomb from Disco in the short story Collar Bomb and Talli is Ethan’s girlfriend who we first met in Seeking Vengeance).

I really liked writing this and I think it’s the first story that shows how much I’ve grown as a writer within this series.

The story is very strong and we get to see how Talli handles the situation of meeting Larry and trying to get the money back from him.  She obviously needed to grow up a lot during the course of the story and her journey was really fun to write.

And who would have thought that Talli was actually Ethyl’s granddaughter!  Even I didn’t know that until this story emerged.  Funny how characters will tell you who they are.

I think you’ll really enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Tabs.

Filed Under: Action Suspense Short Stories

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