Hi Readers!

Liz Everly posted today on LadySmut.com about our story–how we went from creating a successful romance blog to having our own anthology.  Her post is HERE.

It’s really interesting how it all went down.  We had originally started our blog with Elizabeth Shore, and it was going along swimmingly.  We added C. Margery Kempe, and were headed towards the end of a triumphant first year.  But how were we going to celebrate our anniversary?

Well.  For about two years every now and then Liz Everly would mention this story she really wanted to write about a vampire and technology.  I thought it was a great idea.  So finally, we talked about putting together an anthology and that would be her part of it — her vampire story.  I had an idea for a story too — about someone who had sexsomnia, and then the others had ideas for stories that all fit into this theme of paranormal steamy sexy stories with a hint of spooky.

Then about a month later it was May, and Elizabeth and I were saying to each other “Um, are we supposed to be writing these stories or just writing a pitch for a story or what?” when Liz emailed us both saying, “Okay, I finished my story, Margery has finished hers –so where are yours?” and we were like ‘doh’ and scrambled to catch up. [Just you so you know, folks, Liz Everly is one fast, prolific writer.]

Liz put together the proposal with me cheering her on and sent it off to her agent who was excited about the project and thought it would sell quickly.

Boy was she right.  We had just gotten two new bloggers to join us (Alexa Day and Kiersten Hallie Krum) when we got the news–there was interest in the anthology. In fact, it was *exactly* when we were celebrating our one year anniversary–but we couldn’t tell anyone because it wasn’t official yet! It almost killed me to not share the news.  I was extra excited because this is going to be my first romance publication.

Liz Everly’s agent Sharon Bowers has been a doll. With her incredibly generous, encouraging, and enthusiastic support our anthology LADY SMUT’S BOOK OF DARK DESIRES will be released by HarperImpulse in August. Meanwhile, our publisher is holding the first ever online romance festival on June 7th & June 8th  Check it out HERE.

And that’s our happy story.

The two best things about creating our own group blog is that we can take it in any direction we like. While right now we’re the Jezebel.com of erotic romance, who knows what the future will hold? The other great thing about our group blog is how much the other bloggers at LadySmut inspire me. They keep me in a whipped up froth of feeling confident and sexy.  I’m never at a loss for what to write about because I just want to respond to the interesting things they all say and share.

Haven’t checked out the LADY SMUT blog yet? (Quelle horror!) You can find it HERE.

xo,

Madeline