Mara Stone's Blog

I know, I know. Blogging is definitely not my strong suit. I am easily distracted. But that is the obvious news.

The good news is that my new series Chasing Fire is now being released. The Innocent, The Submissive and The Master are available right now at Amazon. The Lovers will be released by this weekend!

What a great month this is turning out to be for The Billionaire’s Daughter series.

Personal milestones are being breached left, right and centre!

Making Part 1 (Breaking Free) free has been a great success:

#1 on the Erotica Free Top 100 at Amazon.co.uk (highest position)

#3 on the Erotica Free Top 100 at Amazon.com (highest position)

Currently, over 12,500 copies of Breaking Free have been downloaded for free.

Parts 2, 3 and the complete trilogy have all been on the top 100 charts at iTUNES in January.

AND

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!

My first ever appearance on the Amazon Top 100 (paid) Erotica Charts. Thanks to you in the U.K.

I’m so happy!

One thing I wasn’t expecting when I decided to start publishing my stories was how much time is sucked away by administrative or “extra” jobs (like this blog!)

I started off slowly, just publishing at Amazon. But now I’m also distributing via Smashwords and Draft2Digital (d2d). I’ve just signed up for an AllRomance account and I’m learning that there’s so many more places that the stories could be available at.

It’s an information overload!

I want to be able to connect with other authors and readers so I’ve got this blog, I’m a member of two forums, plus in my insanity I have signed up for a Goodreads account because it looks like an awesome community.

What about creating a mailing list so that I can connect via newsletters? Argh!

The good news is that once things are set-up or you’ve been through them a couple of times, it just becomes a part of the routine of releasing new material. I’m going to focus on completing one new thing at a time.

First thing this week will be uploading all my stuff to d2d so that I can be available at Barnes and Noble, as their Pubit! distribution is only available for U.S authors to access directly. Boo!

Then I’m gonna get to some writing ‘cos that’s what I do. I’ve got a great new story on the go. Hoping to be able to post some excerpts this week. Exciting!

Part 1 has finally been price-matched at Amazon and is now free! Currently charting at #7 on the free erotica chart. Hopefully that will encourage some new readers to give the story a try.

And perhaps they might like to move onto Part Two:

Part Three:

Or pick up the complete trilogy in the one e-book.

Well, I am the first to admit that my blogging skills are slack. My only resolution for the year is to be more attentive to my blogs needs.

The good news is that currently The Billionaire’s Daughter, Parts 1,2 and the trilogy set are all charting on the erotica chart at ibooks in the UK, Canada, USA and Australia. Part 1 is free so no ranking for it. Great way to start the year.

With sales now reported at Smashwords, I’m going to spend this afternoon tallying my sales from last year. I know I gave away a lot of books for free, but I’m just interested in the actual sales. I’ve been very lucky and done really well since I started in August.

Right then, off to the spreadsheets!

When Gloria is offered a million dollar modeling contract she jumps at the chance to set herself up. Introduced to the world of rope bondage by secretive Andrew, she is at first puzzled by and then deeply attracted to him.

Little does she know that a moment of indiscretion will change everything – and force her to choose to make a very personal sacrifice…

Exasperated with the men in her life, Sarah turns to the internet to procure the next best thing, her very own man in a box – a sex toy!

However when the delivery arrives she finds she has been given the wrong item, a chair that she has no use for, and the company policy is strictly no refunds. Adding to her irritation, they insist that she has received the correct item and will be 100% satisfied. Sarah doesn’t know it yet, but her life is about to take a crazy turn and she will find herself tempted, teased and on the wild and sexy adventure of a lifetime!

Just finished putting the finishing touches on and uploading my new series of short stories. I have grouped them together in a collection called Fantasy & Fetish.

Well lazy me has finally decided to take the plunge and make a blog to talk about writing and showcase my stories. What an amazing last 4 months I have had!

I knew that other people were seeing some success with self-publishing but I wasn’t sure that I could be one of them. Since August I have managed to publish 14 short erotic stories and some of them have done very well indeed.

It’s been a massive learning curve during that time but with 2013 just peeking around the corner I feel that I’m in a good place to build on my modest successes next year.

So that’s my first post! I’m going to have to put in a few more, listing my previous stories and working out just what the dealio is with this blogging thing.

Lets keep in touch!