Sassy Vixen Authors and Friends

Season of Sun and Sin is out on other retailers!

4/2/2015

We're excited to announce the new anthology is now out of Kindle Select and is available from other retailers. We've upload to Draft 2 Digital and they will distribute to Barnes and Nobel, iTunes, Kobo and many others. Smashwords has it up live now while they review it to get it ready for their expanded distribution. All Romance (ARe) has it up live now.

It's still up on Amazon in ebook and now print. Within the next month, the print version will be distributed to other retailers through Createspace as well. We couldn't be happier about this and hope you're able to find Season of Sun and Sin from your favorite site and give it a try.

Tammy Dennings Maggy’s Bound in Paradise

Up and coming L.A. artist Julia Santos had searched for a Domme strong enough and confident enough in their relationship to allow her to be wild and free while trusting her to give over complete control to them in private. Unfortunately very few meet up with her expectations.

Except one.

Carmen Hall had longed for a partner who would be more than her pet, one who would challenge her skills as Mistress and yet offer themselves to her—heart and soul. She’d all but given up until she laid eyes on the fiery Julia.

Join Julia as she remembers her early days with Carmen and a love that spanned over two decades and would know no bounds.

Lia Michaels’s Sweet Surrender

Candice Monroe’s life couldn’t be happier—or chaotic. Not only is her bistro the place to be in the Detroit area, she’s fallen in love with not one, but three men. Their fantasy filled ménage a quatre and promises to spend their lives together have taken a backseat to round-the-clock construction, menu changes and plans for their grand opening of their pub Kisses After Dark.

Will Candice and her partners be able to handle the stress of running two successful businesses and still be able to surrender to the fire that burns between them? Or will some unexpected news threaten to tear them apart forever?

Tammy Dennings Maggy’s Curse of the First Born Cain

In the first book of the Kayne Legacy series, we meet reporter Abigail Matthews after she is awarded the interview of a lifetime. She’d been granted no holds barred access to everyone associated with one of the most powerful foundations in the world, including the current CEO Michael Kayne. Sparks fly between them the moment they meet but nothing compared to the jolt she receives when she comes face to face with Michael’s grandfather—the biblical legend Cain.

In hopes she’d accept her destiny as his grandson’s chosen mate, Cain opens up and shares his heartbreaking tale— everything from the tragic fight with his brother Abel to his journey to find Lilith and make her his wife. Together they were to create a family of immortals sworn to protect the Essence of the Tree of Life from the one hell bent on destroying it.

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#TheVixen Weighs In on Apps That Cover Up the Naughty Bits

3/27/2015

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I'm sure many of you have already heard about a new app called Clean Reader. It was designed by a couple who didn't like the idea there wasn't an app out there to help their grade school aged daughter read books she liked and white out any "swear words". These same people have made back handed comments insinuating that authors can write well without having to "resort to using profanity." (Click HERE to see the site's blog article for yourself.)

As you can imagine, the idea this particular app exists has irked a few members of the author community but not more than finding out the site had been selling books with this app. While it's true the app didn't alter the actual book file, and the user could turn the app on or off at will, the fact remains they're altering the intended content...often to something that no longer resembles the original work of the author.

Because of all the uproar and authors demanding their books be removed from their site, Clean Reader has done exactly that. They've removed ALL books from their catalog. Kind of hard to have books available when their source of books had been cut off. Page Foundry was distributing books to them. Smashwords and Draft 2 Digital requested Page Foundry not distribute any of their books to Clean Reader or basically risk losing their partnership. When two of the most popular distribution sites for Indie books threatened to cut off your access to the very thing you need to stay in business, it would behoove you to listen!

You, as a consumer may feel that once someone purchases a book, they are free to do with it as they see fit. This is true for PRINT books. When it comes to e-books, the reader purchases a license to read the book, on ONE reading device. As the owner of that one license to read the book, you do not have the right to reproduce or alter the content in any way or distribute it to others in the altered or unaltered state without the written permission of the author and their publisher.

In principle, the Clean Reader app could be a good tool for adults to use on books written by authors who have given their permission for their work to be included in catalogs that offer this service. While I don't understand it, there are some readers who simply cannot read a book with specific words in it. They may even love the story right up until their trigger word pops up. One of those words for many women is CUNT. It jars them right out of the story and they are so sickened, they refuse to continue to read any further. While I don't have a problem with it, there are those who do. Those are the readers I don't want to read my books. They're not my target audience. Reading my stories will not bring them enjoyment no matter how clean they scrub the pages with that app. There are plenty of other books out there for them to choose to read—without the words that offend them and I'll gladly point them in the right direction.

It's true there are under-aged readers who do get their hands on explicit material. Let's go back to the example mentioned in the introduction. The daughter of the creators of this app read a book in her school library that she loved, but made her sad because it had swear words in it. Instead of questioning why their daughter had such a book available, they immediately jumped to looking for an app to clean it up.

Where was the discussion with the school librarian? Where was the discussion about those words with their daughter? More importantly, where were the warnings on the book itself about the content? How can parents make the right choices as to what is age appropriate if there aren't any ratings offered or at least some sort of warning on the cover or in the blurbs?

This very thing happened when I was in middle school. Judy Blume books were quite popular and parents had no problem with the books being in our school library...until FOREVER was released. Based on the cover back when I read it, you would never have guessed it was a sexually explicit book. It's a Judy Blume book for heaven's sake! The second cover in the photo is what it looks like today. Based on comments as late as 2014, people are STILL upset this book is not for kids like Judy's other books (except WIFEY. That one is ADULTS ONLY). I'm in my late forties so why is it this book STILL doesn't have the appropriate warnings?

This is the main reason I write under more than one pen name. I don't want readers of my sweet romances and YA and children's books to pick up one of my erotic romances or erotica books. I put adult content warnings on the explicit stuff. I have warnings on my websites and blogs. While it's not up to me to police everything children do online, I do my best to warn readers. Restrictions on where they go online, what books they can check out from libraries and what movies they can see are all up to their parents. I will not allow my explicit books scrubbed clean in order for these kids to read them or to make them more appealing for folks who are offended by profanity or what they consider vulgar words.

It's bad enough to have to fight within the romance community about the heat levels of books and what is erotic and what is merely steamy. There's a group of publishers, authors and readers who what to "clean up" the erotic romance genre. There's no need to clean it up. All they have to do is stick with their own genres and heat levels and leave ours alone. Unfortunately, this dissension has lead to confused readers—just like those who pick up the Judy Blume books. They're expecting one thing and get another. If I'm promised hot sex scenes, I sure as hell better have them and not some watered down version. Same goes for those readers who wish to have more behind closed doors. They're also entitled to get what they expect and not have to use an app to get it.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. Just because you don't like profanity, substance abuse, blood and gore, etc doesn't mean that you have the right to filter out that content just so you can say you were able to enjoy the most popular books and movies out today. What would Fifty Shades of Grey be without the sex scenes? Is it the need to claim they've been able to enjoy movies and books like this but not feel the guilt the motivating factor for them? Why not simply choose movies, books, music and other art that already fall into the criteria they've set for themselves? Why force others to conform to their standards?

Authors of explicit material or even those who use a swear word here and there within their books are not forcing anyone to read their work. Each writes for themselves and to appeal to specific audiences. Their blurbs, covers and content warnings are there to help readers choose appropriately. if we didn't care who read our work, we wouldn't bother to provide the warnings and simply allow apps like Clean Reader mangle up our words in any way the person using the program desires.

My stance on this is quite simple. There are enough books out there to appeal to your tastes. Choose the ones with the content you desire, whatever heat level, whatever horror level, however dark or twisted they may be or not. Use your brain to make the choices and you won't need to rely on an app that your child can simply turn off if he or she wishes to read the "naughty" words.

Food for thought...

~The Vixen

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New Horizons Here At SVP

3/20/2015

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This is one of my favorite inspirational quotes. Maya Angelou always cut to the heart of the matter and straight to my soul. I loved her writings and her voice whenever I heard her speak. She's inspired many others besides myself, but in my mind she was always speaking directly to me—calling out to me to follow my dreams wherever they would lead.

This is why Mr. Vixen and I have worked to create Sassy Vixen Publishing to showcase not only my work and that of my other pen names, but some day we would love to help other authors as I've been helped in my journey to this point. While there have been many bumps in the road and our fair share of detours, we're right back on track now. We've moved The Vixen's reviews here as well as helped to move Lia, Tawny and Stephanie to our self hosted spot at HostGator.

No longer will we have to worry that Blogger will threaten to shut us down for having adult content. We can do so here and on HostGator. We have adult warnings and hopefully things will continue to run smoothly from here on out. We've invited a few close friends of Sassy Vixen to join us on HostGator. Mr. Vixen and I felt that it's the least we could do to pay back a fraction of the love and support these folks have shown us over the last few years.

Now for news on the publishing front...

Tawny Savage is still working on the final book in the Bigfoot Chronicles trilogy as well as outlining new tales based on old fairy tales. With Tawny you can count on the stories to be twisted and slanted heavily to favor the "monsters."

Stephanie Ryan plans to have her debut romantic suspense out in time for a fall release. in the meantime, she too is working on a few shorter tales to keep you busy reading until Dangerous Medicine is available for download.

Lia Michaels is working on the full Candy Kisses Gang novel which will include the novelettes already released in the anthologies. Of course there will be added material to help round out their full storyline.

Tammy Dennings Maggy is working on multiple projects including the next in the Kayne Legacy series, Now and Forever series, and a new idea that popped up yesterday during a conversation with another author. Hint: Lucius and Fate aren't the only gods who will make appearances in her stories. In fact, another sibling will take center stage.

Stay tuned!

~The Vixen

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Welcome to Our New Home!

2/24/2015

1 Comment

I am so excited! We're in the process of moving our blog to it's new place here on our website. Google has decided they're going to crack down on adult material and since we write sweet, spicy and the very taboo here at SVP, we wanted to make sure we had a place to go if they shut us down. It's unfortunate that a few...okay several dirty birds had to ruin it for everyone but that's the way it goes.

While I loved the way Blogger allowed me to create posts, I'm not thrilled with having to live in fear that they can take away all the hard work I've done over the last couple years to build the blog up to where it is today. It's not only the SVP blog that's affected, but ALL of the blogs for my alter egos, even our resident "good girl" Stephanie. Everyone who has an account with Blogger was sent the letter notifying them of the "doom" that lies ahead for sexually graphic content.

This isn't the first time this has happened. Last year Blogger/Google did it and several of our friends lost ALL of their content, never to have access to it again. Years of work down the tubes. Hopefully we won't lose anything but it's a day of archiving for all of us to save what we have. Google has stated we won't lose any content, but the blogs they feel break their new guidelines will be switched to private so no one will have access through searches. Defeats the purpose of getting our name out there doesn't it?

On the opening page of our website, we have the RSS feed for the old blog at http://www.sassyvixenpublishing.com/ Hopefully you'll still be able to access it if we get placed behind the "privacy wall", but the link is here in case you need to access that.

I know I'm rambling now. Forgive me. It's been a hell of a week but we're going to get through all of it together as long as we know you guys are out there cheering us on!

See ya around!
~The Vixen

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Generally considerably a woman who is irresistible to both men and women, a vixen doesn’t give her heart to just anyone. She attracts many, flirts with more than a few, but chooses only one. The Vixen is a bit mysterious, only sharing just enough personal information to keep you intrigued, but her secrets stay locked up tight until her soul mate is by her side.

The Vixen is nice to many, but friendly to a chosen few. Those in her inner circle are blessed to have this prowling lioness in their corner for she will fight to the death to protect the ones she loves.

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Season of Sun and Sin is out on other retailers!

#TheVixen Weighs In on Apps That Cover Up the Naughty Bits

New Horizons Here At SVP

Welcome to Our New Home!

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