I Just Gotta Be Me

In case you haven’t heard, my new book went live yesterday. Yep, third book, and first in a series I plan to write. Go here, and get all the details. As much as I’d love to sell a million copies, that’s not what I want to talk about today.

If you haven’t noticed, this week hasn’t been particularly sexy. It sucks, don’t it? I’m working on the business of writing right now, but I promise, I will send you some sexy soon…cross my heart!

This business is very real to me, and I’ve had to do a lot of thinking about how I wanted to create and build it. Here’s the thing, I’m a process, policy, and procedures kind of girl. What I mean is that if there’s a “way” to do something right, that’s how I want to do it, especially when I see that it works. I like being good at things, and I like doing things the “right” way – I think that’s part of my submissive nature.

So back to the business of writing. I know that a lot of authors blog about writing, editing, the process of creating their work, and of course, snippets, previews, and back stories for their books. They host and go on blog tours and blog hops, and there’s a million giveaways. I say if that works, then keep on keepin’ on, ya know? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Just do you. And a few other cliches that I can’t think of right now.

That just never felt right for me.

I started this blog because I honestly thought all I would ever do is write about my sexual life. I believed the site would be my outlet  for sex and writing. Oh how wrong I was. The blog (first on WordPress and now self-hosted) is almost two years old and I’ve written over 600 posts. Somewhere along the way, I decided to create stories from leftover fantasies and half-conversations. A little further down the road, I became brave enough to self-publish.

When I’m passionate about something, I go all in – nothing half-assed. Plus I have an insatiable need to succeed and an obsessive personality. If I’m excited about something, that’s all I want to focus on, usually until I burn myself out. Except writing has been a part of who I am since I was a little girl. There is no burning out. The fire in my belly and the angst in my heart to write more than I already do continues to grow every day.

So here I am, obsessed with doing things the “right” way, obsessed with doing my best, obsessed with writing. But I had to go against my type when it comes to my business. Yes, I promote my books. Yes, I promote other authors. Yes, I will even allow some amount of advertising on my site. But I can’t do it the way I see other, more successful, authors doing it. That kind of promotion doesn’t feel right to me.

For the year ahead, I’m going to keep being me. I’ll write sexy thoughts, erotic poetry, and about a lifestyle that completes me as a woman. I’ll continue to proudly live the D/s lifestyle and grow in my relationship with my Daddy. I’ll write about what I know – here and in my books.

I have no doubt that the writers and readers I have met and those I’ll meet in the future will continue to influence me. But at the end of the day, I just gotta be me – kinky girl and all.

To all my fellow authors, if what you’re doing works, keep doing it! If it’s not working, think about why that might be. The advice I give as a marketer in the vanilla world is to always be your authentic self. Some people won’t like you, they might even hate you. But the people who connect with you, will love you. I’d rather have 100 followers, fans, and customers who like the real me and want to see me succeed than a million followers who barely know I exist and don’t know the first thing about me.

A little post script: I’m working with Debra at Book Enthusiast Promotions to schedule a blog tour for my new book from January 13-17! (Told you I was determined!) Click here to see the schedule and the info. If you’re interested in being a part of the tour as a blogger, email me at kaylalords (at) gmail (dot) com and I’ll give you the information you need to participate.