Hard at work on my latest story

I feel I've learned a lot about the writing and self publishing process after having released 3 books. My first was a story that started out in the back of a notebook written at a job long ago. Not much thought went into that story, and I pretty much published as is with no outside editing help.

I researched as best I could and reached out to a graphic designer for the cover artwork. I also reached out to reviewers. Beyond that I didn't really have a marketing strategy.

I also didn't know how to make the story longer. I was stuck with having one very NSFW scene after another. This did generate some sales and Kindle page reads, and started my social media presence as a self published author. I didn't know what to write next, so I stuck with what I knew and wrote a sequel. Another very NSFW book. I'm still proud of these characters, and may come back to them in the future with a longer form book that includes a real plot.

For my next book I tried to step away from only writing sex scenes. The plot revolved around a hurt young man finding a letter left by his girlfriend that they have broken up and she moved out. This happens the day after graduating college with no warning. To top it off the now ex girlfriend has arranged with the landlord to let her friend move in to cover rent.

I was going for the angle of the hurting and angry young man who has no time to process. The book sort of took on a life of it's own. Before I knew it I had created a manipulative and abusive main character with very few redeeming qualities. I was getting good feedback with beta readers, but once reviewers got a hold of it things didn't look too good. This book still had a lot of focus on sex, along with a fair share of blackmail leading to sex.

There was one character that universally was liked among my readers.... Quick side note: Authors love private messages about their books, please keep them coming. But also, PLEASE leave a review for the book! I got more messages about this character, but only a handful of reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Side note over.

By the time I started getting this positive private feedback I started working on my current project. I don't want to get too distracted and try to write 2 books at once. I don't see that ending well. What I can say is this: You asked for it, you will get it. I plan on writing a story with Lauren as the main character! Yes, you'll get to see what makes her tick. But it may still be over a year before that story gets going. I promise you as my readers, the Lauren story will happen!

For now I'm working on a book that fully falls in the new adult genre. So far there's been only one sex scene, and it has been implied in 2-3 sentences. The story focuses on a group of high school friends reconnecting after all going their separate ways for college for the last year. Much of the story takes place at a newly built cabin deep in the woods. To stir things up I'm going to have this clingy friend from the main character's college come to town. She's a bit stalkerish and possessive. I'm having fun writing this and hope you all enjoy reading this when I finally self publish.