Workshop for Writers Announcement

During the month of May at Coffee Time Romance, I will be hosting a workshop entitled BDSM in Romance

Authors, are you looking to increase your readership? Have you spotted the growing trend in erotic romance to include light kink? Desire to add kink to your writing but are unsure how?

Then this workshop is for you!

If during sex scenes the following have occurred: Characters being held down, role play/costuming, light bondage i.e., silk scarves, light spankings, corsets, incorporated food into your sex scene, then guess what?

You’re KINKY!

BDSM is not all about pain, leather or physical abuse, although those are some perks!

This workshop is for authors particularly in the romance genre who dabble in BDSM in any form, be it writing spanking stories, light bondage, or like myself, heavier darker things. What authors may not know about Kink and BDSM is that the term BDSM is a BLANKET TERM encompassing many different things that if utilized properly and marketed appropriately can expand an author’s audience.

Marketing, the toughest part of any author’s job IMO will make or break any author who relies solely on the publisher. An author’s job is a business and needs to be treated like such, even if we DO get to have a more fun than any corporate schmo.

After writing the novel, here is the order of author responsibilities (and an example):

1. Establish the Brand (I’m Sascha Illyvich, paranormal erotica/BDSM romance author)
2. Maintain the Brand (Primarily through PR. I write about wolves, fae, vampires, but you’ll never see me write a western!)
3. Grow the Brand (I write paranormal romances, which puts me in with the anime crowd who likes dark fantasy, the BDSM crowd because my characters engage in mental dominance AND the romance crowd because my stories have a HEA!)

This workshop will focus on Number 3: Grow the Brand. When including different elements like spanking or light bondage you are writing for a normal audience, but with a little more effort you could target not just the fringe readers; those who are closeted about their darker desires, but those who are a little open with their darker desires.

What we will learn
Definition of BDSM in all its forms
SSC – Safe, Sane and Consensual code of conduct
Explanation of the BDSM symbol
Mentality of the various players (there are truly only three but variants are fun!)
Definition and structure of a Scene (Music, equipment, etc)
Basics on toys and reasons we use them (hint, it’s for our fun!)
Sub and Dom/me Space
The Club Scene (along with a story about real estate and my ego beating, lol!)
Definition of Fetish
Basic types of fetishes
Fakers – Those who claim to be everything to all people!
Abuse defined – crossing the line between BDSM and Abuse
Where to go to ask questions and not feel embarrassed
How all of this relates to romance writing
And of course, resources galore, including some great online stores.

Attendants will receive a full PDF copy of the finished manuscript complete with examples from the forum in addition to the knowledge presented here.

The cost will be $25 payable via Paypal to stpbigbangbaby@yahoo.com and will provide attendants access to the private forums at Coffee Time Romance set up for this workshop.

About the Instructor

I have been writing in this genre for the last eight years, worked two large BDSM events in Houston with Houston People Exchanging Power, been actively involved on mailing list discussions, amassed a library, spent time with Jay Wiseman (Author of SM 101: A Realistic Introduction). My Mom is a Lifestyle Domme – meaning when she realized that she enjoyed kinky sex, she sought out knowledge and became who she is today, a loving dominant Lady of Power. My previous workshop, Writing from the Male POV and Creating Better Heroes was a success both at Coffee Time Romance and at Collette Thomas’s Erotic Workshop yahoo group.