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 Just Wrote a Romance, and Now I Feel Dirty

Well, I just finished up ten thousand words (almost) of Dominating Her Biker... and it's a romance. It's a really character driven romance. It's short, to the point, has a couple of sex scenes in it... but the sex totals probably 3,000 words or less of it. That leaves about 6,500 words of dirty things like "character development" and "plot". Pfft.

The reason why I feel dirty is because it legitimately is a romance... and I'm debating whether or not to put it under the romance category. Everything in me is saying to do it, except for my morals. I don't want people to think I'm a romance writer, cause I'm not, I write smut. This one in particular was a hard story to get out, and I had to get into the main character's head more. Strangely enough, I think it's one of my weaker stories because of it. However painful, I birthed it, and it's there, dirty filthy romance or not. If it wasn't part of a series, I'd make a new pen name for it. But I can't. It's in the femdom series, and well, some of them have romantic overtones, but they're about women dominating men. While this one has a similar theme, there's a reason behind it... and I just... I keep looking at that "romance, general" category, and it's giving me the stink eye, like, "Don't do it, bitch. Don't you dare."

I think I'll compromise here, and go "erotic romance" instead. Yet that doesn't feel right either.

Gah. Ok. I think I'll have to think up a romance pen name if I'm going to keep doing this and waffling all over the place.