Role-Reversal

I've gotten a few reviews on Goodreads lately for Dominating Her Intern... and they've been one stars. I'm thrilled people have been reading (or listening to) it! I wish they'd review it on Amazon, one star or not.

What I find kind of funny and very interesting is the aspect of the role-reversal in the story and how people have reacted to it. It's a femdom story, or female domination, so the woman's in charge. I've read a lot of BDSM shorts (with and without billionaires) in preparation to write erotica (and afterwards, of course). I made Ms. Frost, the female billionaire dom, in this story basically the same as the maledoms in other stories I've read, except a woman. The acts are geared more towards the femdom audience as well, but the attitude is virtually identical. And people hate it.

Is it dubious consent? Absolutely it is. Yes, in the story Marc CAN say no, but he's threatened with losing his internship if he says no. Would he? We don't know as he dubiously consents. It's one of the rare dubcon stories I've written (I can't actually think of another off the top of my head, but I'm sure I've written one or two more in there) as consent is a big deal to me, fantasy or not. There's no doubt Marc is enjoying his submission (hence, dubcon--it's "Ok" because he really likes it... or is it?), but people have rightfully called what Ms. Frost did as sexual harassment. They didn't like it. Yet, I've read stories with the boss and BDSM elements roughly the same (shame, humiliation, dubcon), and when it's a dude in charge, it seems perfectly OK.

I don't know why that is. Is it the double standard? Is it because it's OK for a man to be in charge and not a woman? Is it something else? Is it because the readers of erotica are mostly women and don't like seeing a man humiliated like that? (Although, it's pretty clearly stated it's female domination.)

What I can say by the numbers is that Intern has outperformed all the other Dominating singles, by a factor of 170% percent. What I mean by that is that next best performing single--which is the second followed closely by the fourth--didn't even come close to Intern. Intern is almost double in income. Certain allowances can be made for it being the first in a series. People will naturally check out a first book first and decide if they like it enough to continue to the second. However. since I have a block of the singles, five in total, which are about the same for money earners. Hence, one could expect that Intern would have made about the same amount were it not first.

Or is there another reason? It's so hard to say, it really is. Dominating Her Intern has the most reviews of all the Dominating books on Goodreads. I did put the audio up for a promotion.... oh a long time ago last year. Yet these new reviews are, well, new. What spurred them on? And the difference in sales/money is substantial between Intern and the next five highest, so why aren't there more reviews on any of them? There's like... two between all five where Intern has seven. Is it just because of the dubcon? Is it because it's the first of the series? Is it something else?

I find statistics fascinating, and so this phenomenon here has me thinking it's something else, and the only thing I can think of is the role reversal, femdom instead of maledom. I don't have, sadly, solid enough information to draw a conclusion for sure. I could very well be wrong, but it's definitely something to think about!

"I Have to CREATE!" vs. Discipline

Quite often, I see posts asking why writers write and the answer usually comes back with "I JUST HAVE TO! I HAVE TO CREATE!" While I understand that urge--I have it myself--that's not true, at least not all of the time.

First, who is a writer? Do you write school reports? Blog posts? Books or stories? Tech reports? Anything at all? Congrats, you're a writer!

From the examples listed above, you can tell that I consider anyone who writes a writer, even if they have to do it for an assignment or job. While some jobs or reports may tap into creativity, more often than not they require discipline to complete, especially as a person may not be especially inspired to write a paper on what mitochondria is and what it does for the body. (But they might be; I'm not judging.)

So, let's narrow it down to writers who write fiction. Many times, writers will answer this question with "I just gotta create!" and that's great. However, there are a lot of people who choose not to write their fiction stories down and simply dream of writing the great American novel. Thus, discipline is needed to sit down and actually write. The creative impulse is important to get the whole process going, but... it's discipline which enables you to actually get it done. On the other hand, there are writers out there who write by the numbers books to just get a paycheck. Yes, there's still the creative spark present, but it's more rote, with less drive other than "I wanna get paid".

Hence, I think both are important. Without the spark of creativity, your stories will probably seem like anything else in its genre without anything really new to add. Yet without discipline, you'll never get the story out. The answer for me for the "Why do you write?" question is pretty easy: I want to and I have the time to.

Just random musings while I'm waiting to go home from work, heh.