Showing posts with label collection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label collection. Show all posts

Friday, May 13, 2022

Story Inspiration - A Succubus for Remembrance

Continuing my impromptu Q'n'As about stories in my collections.  We're now at the 5th collection: "A Succubus for Remembrance".

Here's the list of stories from that collection:

1) A Succubus for Remembrance *
2) The Skinning Knife **
3) Vernon the Volunteer *
4) Trent the Traitor
5) Hugh the Hero *
6) Slugjob *
7) Iron Girders and Steel Springs
8) Ways to Break a Good Man #1 *
9) Ways to Break a Good Man no.2
10) Ways to Break a Good Man 3 *
11) Vampiric Boobies
12) Street-Walking with a Succubus
13) Nazi vs Succubus ***

* exclusive to this collection
** also appeared in eXcessica's "Colors" anthology
*** I'm pretty sure if I tried uploading this one to Literotica I'd be banned for life :D  

If you have any questions about the inspiration behind or about anything that happened in these stories (or anything else), ask away below.

This was from a relatively 'hot' period of short story writing, so quite a few exclusives in this collection.  I'm still trying to get these collections back up ASAP, so people that haven't read them before can catch up.  I was hoping to tick away with it alongside working on House of Hellish Harlots, but that hasn't worked out so far.  What I'm planning to do is get the regular monthly release for HoHH ready early, then spend a couple of weeks focused purely on all the nitty-gritty of formatting the manuscripts and uploading the collections to the various ebook sites.

ETA: Blogger seems to be eating comments again.  I don't know why.  I'm getting email notifications of comments, which then don't show up here.  If you're having problems posting, if I get the post through email, I'll repost it and answer the questions.  This is the site doing this.  I don't delete comments unless they're abusive or spam.

Friday, April 22, 2022

Story Inspiration - A Succubus for Freedom

After a slight pause to Covid and getting other things back on track, it's time to continue with the impromptu Q'n'As about the stories from my various collections.  We're now up to the 4th collection: "A Succubus for Freedom".

For a reminder, here is the list of stories from that collection:

1) A Succubus for Freedom *
2) Exile
3) Guard Duty
4) Don't Fuck the Flowers
5) The Biggest Tits in the World
6) A Night at McHooligans
7) Barbarian vs Succubus *
8) Onychophoral Dreams *
9) Naga Massage Review
10) Come on the Candle *
11) What Bad Boys Get For Christmas
12) Riding the Medusa *
13) Locked in with a Succubus

* exclusive to this collection

If you have any questions about the inspiration behind or anything that happened in these particular stories, fire away below.

As I mentioned, the last couple of months have been disrupted by Covid and other distractions.  I'm trying to get up to speed again.  I was blocked for a while trying to write the Story Inspiration segment for "A Succubus for Christmas".  I've now got over and completed that.  I need to prep the manuscript and give it a thorough editing pass.  Once that's done, I'll get the collection back up on Amazon and other places ASAP.

Friday, March 25, 2022

Story Inspiration - A Succubus for Halloween

Continuing my Q'n'As to get material for a behind-scenes section for each collection.  This time we're on to "A Succubus for Halloween".  So if you have any questions about any of the stories or characters from that collection (or anything in general), fire away below.

Here's a list of stories from that collection as a reminder:

1) A Succubus for Halloween
2) The Orgy of the Pink Flesh
3) Naga Special Massage
4) The Pearls of the Mediterranean
5) Halloween Nyte
6) The Big Black Bed
7) Cleric vs Succubus*
8) Oil Wrestling a Succubus*
9) Shrimp and the Crab Centaur Girls*
10) Welcome to the City
11) Capramendes, the Milkmaid
12) Serving the Earth Mother*
13) A Halloween Party with a Succubus*

* exclusive to this collection.

After a quiet period, I'm currently trying to catch up with House of Hellish Harlot releases.  I'm hoping to finally start getting the collections back up on Amazon again early April.

Friday, March 18, 2022

Story Inspiration - A Succubus for Valentine's Day

As I said in a previous post, to mark the rerelease of my ebook short story collections I want to add a section at the end with behind-the-scenes notes.  So, if you have any questions about story/characters/inspiration, fire away below.  It'll likely be something I hadn't considered and would therefore be good to add in that section.

Today we'll be looking at "A Succubus for Valentine's Day".

Here is the running order for that collection:

1) A Succubus for Valentine's Day
2) Initial Infiltration
3) The Succubus Heart Squad**
4) Puffed Up*
5) The Spiders of Thomisoidus*
6) Delivery Special Soap
7) Knight vs Succubus
8) Interrocution
9) Crushed Between Her Breasts
10) Venus of the Red Lights
11) The Soul Worm
12) Foam Shower*
13) A Summer Dance with a Succubus

* Exclusive to this collection

** This was the 1st chapter of Succubus Summoning 101 in the original collection.  Back then there was a minor gold rush of people rushing to self publish on Amazon's kindle platform and some less scrupulous people were ripping stories off places like Literotica to publish under their own name.  I'd already had someone try to swipe the Succubus Summoning series a year earlier for a smaller fan-writing site, so included the 1st chapter of SS101 in this collection (which was originally written as a standalone short story) as a form of pre-emptive copyright protection.  Now that Succubus Summoning 101 exists as its own book, that isn't necessary, so I'm planning to replace it with the appropriately Valentine's Day themed "The Succubus Heart Squad".

Fire away with questions below.  I did get distracted for a while at the start of the year, but I am hoping to get these collections back up on Amazon ASAP.

Friday, March 11, 2022

Story Inspiration - A Succubus for Christmas

Despite getting distracted by various things, I still want to get those old short story collections back up for sale again.

One thing I wanted to add was a little segment at the back detailing the inspiration behind the stories.  Writing them (or rather rewriting them as I wrote some for Christmas and Valentine's Day a while back) did unfortunately lock me up last month and is part of the reason why I've been a little quiet recently.  It's usually the non-fiction that locks me up, for some reason.  It's why I stopped blogging on almost anything other than documenting recent releases.

In this case I wasn't happy.  What I was writing felt self-indulgent.  I know I'm only trying to emulate what I've read in other horror short collections/anthologies, but let's face it, I'm not Stephen King and a previous publication history of "I uploaded them to Literotica" is not as interesting as a list of dates and original magazines the stories were published.

I think it might be better to use this segment to answer questions people might have on the inspiration for the characters and story, or to clarify things I intentionally left vague and cryptic.

Starting up is "A Succubus for Christmas", which has this line-up:

1) A Succubus for Christmas
2) The Masterton Covenant
3) Bubble Bath
4) Flesh Pitchers of Prague
5) Hookah'ed
6) Pool of the Undine
7) Slayer vs Succubus
8) Arachne's Web*
9) Wrapdance
10) The Coils of Aenictia
11) Squeezed
12) Happy Ending
13) Incall with a Succubus

*exclusive to the collection

If you've read the stories before and have any burning questions on them, fire away below.

That might be a little more interesting for me to write about than "I was inspired by a monster girl picture I saw on the internet and uploaded the story to Literotica on [insert date here]".

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Changes with M.E. Hydra books

I should have posted this earlier, but it's been a busy month yadda yadda.

A few weeks ago I received an email that eXcessica would be closing its doors and unpublishing all its books at the end of November.  First up, there's nothing controversial about this.  Excessica was started as a sort of writer's collective right before Amazon's Kindle blew the doors off self-publishing.  This was back when alternative book sites required "publishers" to have at least three authors in their stable and Selena Kitt wanted to both start her own career as an author and recognised there was a lot of untapped talent on Literotica that could be brought along for the ride.  I feel honoured and grateful to be one of those writers and have nothing but praise for Selena and her hardworking crew for having me along.

All good things must come to an end, and in an era where it's trivially easy for a writer to upload their work to Amazon and other places, there is no longer the need for writer's-collectives-cum-publishers.  It's time for us to make our own way, and I fully understand the decision.

What does it mean for M.E. Hydra books on Amazon and elsewhere?

As far as I know, the ones put out through eXcessica will be unpublished at the end of the month, so if you want to grab the old versions, you might want to do it pretty sharpish.  The books affected are Succubus Summoning 101 and 201, and the A Succubus for collections (6 of them).  The Sandwiched by novellas were fully self-published by me and won't be affected (I really should get back to finishing that series off!)

The books won't be gone for good.  As soon as I've sorted out the logistics of rights transfers and the rest, I'll be reuploading them under my own author account.  For Succubus Summoning 101 and 201, that will probably be right away as I'm happy with the current covers for those.  They'll just need some tweaks to the copyright page and the removal of the old logo and should be good to go.

As for the A Succubus for collections, I might use this as an opportunity to tweak these and rebrand the series as a whole.

As part of the rebranding I definitely want to redo the covers and number them as a series.

The other thing I might do is rejig the contents and running orders.  Sharp-eyed readers will have noticed links between characters and events, and realised these are all taking place in a shared universe.

This was not always the case.  Early on, I wrote them as standalone short stories, which means there are some that don't quite fit within that shared universe - the superhero parodies, that one science fiction story, some of the "Succubus vs." stories.

While I haven't put any books out for a while, I have continued to write stories.  Some have been Patreon-exclusives, others have been posted on Literotica.  I probably have enough for a new collection and some left over.  I'm thinking of replacing some of the older stories in the older collections, and then rebranding the collections as part of a much larger ongoing story in the same universe.

What do people think about that?

Go with the rebrand, or preserve the collections with their original line-ups?

Either way, expect the Succubus Summoning series to be reuploaded fairly quickly, and I'll likely follow with the new A Succubus for editions over the first half of 2022.  Maybe, if everything falls into place, a brand new 7th collection to follow the updated editions.

As for covers, I'm still checking on whether it's allowed, but the WOMBO dream app has thrown up a few pictures I wouldn't feel too bad about sticking on a book cover.


A Succubus for Halloween?


A Succubus for Freedom?


A Succubus for Remembrance?

What do you think?

Thursday, July 16, 2015

A Succubus for Saint Patrick's Day available in Print form

A few months late, but it's here.


This is the physical copy version of my latest short story collection.  The ebook version did come out around Saint Patrick's Day a few months ago, but the print version ended up lagging behind for one reason or another.  This has now been fixed, so if you prefer to read my stories in physical book form rather than on an ereader, the latest collection is now available.

Here's the blurb:
Who is the lucky one - the man given sensual pleasure beyond his dreams, or the succubus that ensnares and drains him? 
Dangerous and delectable sirens abound in M. E. Hydra's sixth collection of horror erotica.  Within these pages you'll find thirteen tales that will tempt, tease, titillate and terrify.  Read and enjoy as dark temptresses weave their seductive webs and draw in their (un)fortunate prey. 
In "A Succubus for Saint Patrick's Day" a down-on-his-luck gambler thinks his fortune has changed when a magical succubus comes to his aid.  A strange agency provides an unusual service in "The High-School Sweetheart Removal Agency".  A researcher has a dangerous and highly sensual encounter with an alien creature in "A Real-Life Goo Girl".  In "Number 66" an expat searches for an unusual girl in the fleshpots of Bangkok.  An accomplished thief falls prey to a shadowy guardian in "Rogue vs. Lamia".  A rich man gets the bigger dick he's always wanted in "Crabs", only to discover the treatment has some alarming side effects.  And finally, a young man gets a surprise when he tries to rape the wrong victim in "Joe Boyega Picks a Bad Night to Become a Rapist". 
They'll give you pleasures beyond your wildest dreams, and terrors beyond your darkest nightmares...
The collection consists of 13 stories of sexy succubus/monster girl horror erotica.  Six of these can only be found in this collection while a seventh only appeared previously in a horror erotica anthology from eXcessica.

The print versions aren't big sellers for me, mainly because Print-on-Demand makes books considerably more expensive than typical mass-market paperbacks, but I always like to make a print option available if I can because I know some people prefer to own physical books over ebooks.  It's also a nice ego-trip for a writer to see their own books sitting on a bookshelf. :D

Anyway, sorry for making you wait so long for this, print lovers.  I'll try to make sure the print and ereader version releases are synchronised a little better for future books.

Sunday, March 02, 2014

Moving the Forthcoming Collection back to 2015

The curse of date-themed collections strikes again.  I don't think I'm going to hit the date I need this month without some severe rushing, and if I do that there's a risk I'm going to end up with error-filled stories that aren't as enjoyable to read because I was stupid enough to suck the enjoyment out of writing them by trying to force-march myself through an arbitrary deadline.  Normally I subscribe more to the no-nonsense, words-on-page pulp-writer ethos rather than precious-little-snowflake "literary" noodling, but that's not an excuse to rush out crap to foist on the reader.  I might write smut, but I take pride in writing good-quality smut! :)

The last couple of collections I've been writing stories specifically to fit those collections.  This isn't working as well as I'd like as when I feel I "have" to write certain stories, procrastination and distraction behaviour kicks in.

(Plus I think readers can tell when something looks forced)

I'm going to switch to ChaosWriting for a while and write the ideas that seem hot'n'sexy at the time until I've built up a nice buffer of fresh material.  That should mean better stories and less last-minute panicking (and also more Succubus Summoning).  I'm not going to sit on all of these, so expect some new stories/chapters to show up here and on places like Literotica at frequent intervals throughout 2014.  The main thing I want to change is to organise my time better so that I'm not still writing/editing a book in the same month it's due to come out.  That time should be for promotion only.

I know some people were looking forward to "A Real-Life Goo Girl".  I do have a surplus of original stories for the next collection (although unfortunately not as complete as I'd like), so I'll be posting that up here later today.

The next book should now be Succubus Summoning 201.  At least that one isn't dependent on a specific date.

Date-themed collections, why did I think that was a good idea.  Sigh... :)