Interview with Brad Vance, Author of Gay Romance and Erotica

Today I’d like to welcome the extremely prolific writer of gay romance and erotica, Brad Vance. Welcome to my blog, Brad. Glad to have you here.

Thank you! Glad to be here!

 

First off, you just released a new book, Would I Lie to You? that is garnering high praise from reviewers. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

I’d love to. I’m calling the series “The Game Players” because the characters are the kind of people who need a challenge, even in their romantic lives. Just dating and mating isn’t going to be enough for them. There has to be desire that’s suppressed, teased, extended and made more powerful by every move in their games. They’re both aware that what’s developing between them is a chess match, and that’s what makes it so interesting. Marc and Jesse are similar in a lot of ways – incredibly smart, driven, goal-oriented – and they’ve been betrayed by men who were their romantic and business partners. They’re also both honest people, in their own ways – even if that honesty means confessing that you’re not telling all of the truth. The title is “Would I Lie to You?” and that’s really the question at the heart of the story – if you can’t tell someone the truth, do you lie, or do you walk away, acknowledging that there are things you won’t share, that you can’t trust someone with the truth?

 

What drew you to writing romance and erotica?

I’d flailed around publishing novels under another name that never really went anywhere, and then Aubrey Watt did an AMA on Reddit about being a M/M smut writer, back in October 2012. I was fascinated by that, especially with the amount of money she was making! I wrote up “Good Cop Bad Boy,” my first M/M story, and mailed it off to her, asking her to take a look at it and tell me if I had a future in the biz. She said HELL YEAH you do! So that was my start…when Amazon started blocking/banning a lot of erotica, I moved into writing novels.

 

You recently decided to become a full-time writer. How’s that treating you? Have you found that your writing habits have changed a lot because of it?

Oh my God it’s the greatest. I’ve lost 18 pounds since I left my day job at the end of February! Just being able to be active all day, not chained to a desk, overeating as if trying to chew my way out of the cubicle…I love the freedom. I haven’t signed up for a class or anything yet, because I’m still savoring the “clock free” life – I’m just not ready to be on anyone else’s schedule again, not yet. I was running on stress for so long that I’m still trying to come down from that…
I was really working two jobs for the longest time, getting up at 3 am to write till 6:30, then getting ready for and going to the day job…it made for long days, with no life. My writing habits have changed in some ways but not in others. I still get up at 3 am! I guess I’m still conditioned to that sleep cycle, and in the back of my mind I’m afraid that it’ll all end in tears and I’ll have to get a job again, in which case I better stay used to getting up early… But, I no longer feel under the gun the way I used to, when I had to keep an eye on the clock with a hard stop at 6:30 every morning. If I sleep in till the unholy hour of 5:00, well, my day isn’t shot!

 

Why did you choose to self-publish instead of going the traditional route?

Well, when I started, I was just doing short erotica, so there wasn’t any other avenue for it. And, under another name, I’d been through the New York/tradpub mill, and I had no desire to go through that again, ever. To have no control over your title, cover art, blurb, I hated that. And the WAITING. The endless wait for someone to get around to reading it, the endless wait for them to buy it, the endless wait for publication, and OMG the endless wait for your money! Now I finish a novel one week, edit it the next, then publish it, and two months later, make it rain, baby.
You have to be strong in all areas – your grammar, spelling, your ability to edit/copyedit yourself (I’m still catching errors in books in print, that I’ve missed after reading them a thousand times), to write a blurb, to make a book cover, to market and promote yourself…but you get all the profit. And there’s nobody “doing it wrong” to mess it up for you, other than yourself.

 

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers? Something you wish someone had told you at the beginning?

The hardest part of self pubbing, to me, was marketing. That was the one upside of tradpub, back in the day – you submitted your book, and they did all the hustling. Of course now they expect you to come ready-made with a fan base, Twitter followers, etc., so there’s no advantage there anymore. I was really loathe to do it at first – I grew up all “punk rock” and thought of advertising/marketing as, you know, infomercial shit, Billy Mayes shouting his way into your head, an inherently bad, bullshit thing.
Finally I had a moment of enlightenment – I realized I hated marketing because I hated sounding like a brochure. “I’m so excited to tell you about my new release!” Blah blah blah. I decided I’d just BE ME on Facebook, etc. Put my real personality out there instead of trying to sound the way I though I was supposed to sound.
So, that would be my advice, I guess – people are gonna connect with you because of your work, but also because they like you. So be you, don’t be a brochure, when it’s time to do your marketing.

 

I know you’ve had problems with Amazon before and their ridiculous censorship policies, but do you think that Amazon is doing all right for self-publishers? What would you like to see changed?

Well, NUMBER ONE would be, clear guidelines for what’s allowed. They say what they’ll ban is “pretty much what you’d expect.” What who would expect? Me, a libertarian sex-positive homo, or some bluenose in Arkansas who has a heart attack at an exposed tittie on TV? But keeping it vague is deliberate, of course, because it gives them leeway to change the rules any time without changing them on paper.
Number Two, which is more realistic, would be a set rate every month for the Kindle Select/Unlimited “borrow rate,” the amount writers get per borrow each month. It fluctuates all the time, $1.33, $1.39, etc. You don’t know what you earned last month until the middle of the next month. They should just part it at a certain amount and leave it there, I’d say $1.40, instead of leaving us all on pins and needles every month, as they arbitrarily decide how much more money to put into the fund and screw up people’s income forecasts. It’s like getting a pay raise/pay cut every month – very exhausting.

 

Do you ever get told by friends or family that you don’t write “real books”? I know I do. How do you respond if it happens?

No I don’t, actually. In my circle of friends, writing “gay erotica” is very cool! My mom’s response when I told her about my erotica career was, “Sure are a lot of weirdos out there.” The only book of mine she’s read is “Apollo’s Curse,” because there’s no sex in it. She loved it, but has no desire to read any of my other books!
I wrote a “real” book, a few years ago. I worked on it on and off for five years. It sold twelve copies. That’s the fate I gave Dane Gale in “Apollo’s Curse,” before he turned to writing romance novels. I gave him this exchange on the Greek island that pretty much says how I feel about writing romances now:

“But what I need, isn’t just…success, money, fame. I…what I’ve been writing, what the others before me wrote, it’s just…commercial fiction, airport fiction. Popular romances. I don’t want that to be my legacy, I don’t want that to be the last thing I ever write.”
“What’s wrong with romance? Don’t you bring pleasure into people’s lives? Don’t strange and wonderful stories heal their aches, take them from their sorrows?”
“Yes, but…”
“Maybe you’re being a bit selfish, yes?” He put on a dark, mocking scowl. “ ‘I am writing a Great Novel nobody will read, which is so much more important than making people happy.’”
I had to laugh. “Yes, I guess that is selfish. But…I have it in me, I know I do. To do something…wonderful. Something that’s so much more powerful, so much more…well, healing, if you will, than any little entertainment I concoct could ever do.” I looked at his shelves, saw the surprising variety of books – lots and lots of novels, Umberto Eco, Gunter Grass, Doris Lessing, George Eliot. “You know. You’ve read these books. You know how much more they do in the world than some…fluff could ever do.”
“Don’t underestimate the power of fluff. The power to make someone smile, to get them through to another day, take them away from their cares for a moment. Maybe later, you’ll have helped them feel stronger, maybe later they will read ‘Ulysses,’ yes?”

 

And finally, having nothing to do with writing at all, tell me about your dream vacation.

Oh boy. A whole summer in Europe. Nick in the “Kyle’s New Stepbrother” series gets to live out my fantasy, just moving from one place to another on a Eurail pass as the whim takes him. I’d have to have the money to do it right; Nick’s young and can crash in hostels and stretch a dollar! But I’d need my comforts. I’d love to see so much of France, Italy, Germany, Amsterdam, Barcelona…yeah, I’d need a whole summer!

 

Brad, I want to thank you again for stopping by and wish you good luck with your writing.

Thank you so much, Bey! I really appreciate your having me here!

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Little update

So!

Been busy.

With what, you say? Well...

The first? Sacrificed is coming out in just a few days. I've been dotting i's and crossing t's and making sure the launch will go smooth. Have you preordered your copy? :)

And I um... wrote another book in the interim. To get my mind off the fact that I sent out ARCs of Sacrificed. It's a novelette... The continuation to Sarge. It'll come out later this month.

 

Who me?

I'm ridiculously bad at talking about myself. I am. Always have been. I'm much better at sculpting a conversation... turning it into an interesting discussion on philosophy, religion, art, or science.

I am also good at making people talk about themselves. I'm a good listener. I keep secrets. I give brutally honest advice.

But about me? I feel like there's not much to say. I'm just... me. I do my things.

Was talking to an old friend yesterday who happens to be a writer. They asked me about my writing. Cue my scrabbling to find the right words to explain just the gist.

I look like I'm in pain when I'm trying to explain what I do and quickly manage to shift the conversation to another topic.

Phew.

Am I embarrassed by what I write? Not at all. I think it's great. I just don't have the language to talk about it.

Writing is an intensely personal thing, more so than painting ever was... and I need to learn to write about writing.

 

My Head

People always want to get inside my head. Women more than men, but they both say the same sorts of things:
"What's going on in your head?"
"I want to see what you see."
"Can I take a look inside your brain."
"Give me a look into your mind..."

Went out the other night with friends to pub quiz. Got asked a variation of the above by a slightly-drunken S.
B: Why does everyone want to see inside my head?
S: Because! I need to know...
M: Ohhh that's not a great idea. First off there are far too many walls in there. Then, if you do manage to get in, you'll never make it out alive. You'll stay trapped in there. Forever.

I like my friends.

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My head is in a slightly weird place these days. I was planning on continuing with Sword but Stripped, the third book of the Baal's Heart trilogy, wouldn't let me go so I started writing that instead. I'm about a chapter in and so far so good.  However, the weather's been fucking with my sinuses again so I've got a headache half the time which sucks.

It took me 82 days to write Caged. Sacrificed took me 173 days to write. I wonder how long Stripped will take me? When I wrote Caged, it was the only thing I was working on. I had two other projects on the go during the time I was writing Sacrificed. This time around... oh I have too many projects competing in my head. I should really focus on one thing at a time.

 

 

Spires complete!

Just finished writing the sequel to Caged last night. I'll wait a few days to clear my head and start the first reread. Hopefully it will be published in a few months.

Phew.

Still not sure about the name.

Can't wait to work on the cover. :)

5 hearts from SheReadsALot @ Boy Meets Boy Reviews

Brain derailed this morning due to this:

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When you learn that there is a book that you've ached to read about actually written and quite masterfully...

...a treasure. It's not a book for everyone but hearties....this book was made for me!! *licks pirate sword*

Sometimes it's hard discussing why a book rocks. There are very few books where I want to just say: 'eff this reviewing shit, just 'effing read this 'effing book! NOW!' Doesn't happen to me a lot but when it does I just want to crow from the rooftops.

This.

This is one of those books for me.

This book has heart, actually, hearts (literally and figuratively) and it's dope. For a first time novel...I was impressed. Is this book going to be for everyone? Hell no. And that's okay. I'll love this book enough for the non readers.

Read the rest at Boy Meets Boy Reviews

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Wait... was that a little pink in my cheeks?

A Real Book

The one year anniversary of the day I sat down and started writing is coming up at the end of the month. I'm going to do something special for it... haven't decided what yet.

Sometimes I'm honestly worried about this sudden, new obsession - because that's what writing is for me now. Is it a symptom of something insidious, like a brain tumour? Seriously... I went from writing approximately zero words a year to 400k (over my combined projects). By the time it's exactly one year (June 28th) I will probably have hit 425k.

Originally, the plan was to publish Caged and then wait a few months before starting Spires. What ended up happening was that I wrote the first three chapters of the sequel before I published the first book.

Guys, I'm already working on the third in my head and I'm still about ten chapters out from even finishing the second.

I guess I caught the writing "bug"?

 

One of the funniest reactions when I have a friend over and they pick up the paperback copy of Caged I have here is: "This... is a real book."

Yes. It's a real book. This is what I meant when I said I wrote a book. :)

I'm also rather enjoying reading everyone's reactions to it, positive and negative. It's been a pretty far-out experience so far.

I can't wait to finish Spires...

Arr matey!

piratebuddy

People find it hi-lar-ious that I wrote a book about gay pirates. I am getting bombarded by pirate-themed messages, including cute gifts like this little fella. My friends think they're funny.

Writing is going well. I'm at a part in the book where it's basically been fully written in my brain for months so putting it to 'paper' is going smooth. Three chapters in three days... about 10k words.

Every once in a while when I sit down to write a scene, my characters rebel. I'm glad that they do... They know themselves and keep me on the right path.

Tom: "Listen mate, do ye really think I'd be as daft as that? Come now... be a dove and change it, aye?"

Baltsaros: "I hope you're planning on rectifying this in the next few chapters. I can't see this working in the long run. You've done much better in the past. If I were you, I would redo it."

Jon: "Do I really sound like that? Really? I thought we were over that..."

Unfortunately I think I have to put one of my projects on hold. I might wait to continue Sentenced to the Sword in the fall - I just have too much to do these days, and my writing is paying the price.

This time around, for Beyond the Spires, I'm thinking of hiring an editor. Maybe. I'm just really bad at letting others touch my stuff. Juvenile, I know. All my report cards growing up said approximately the same thing: Gifted. Does not play well with others.

I'll think about it more. Weigh my options.

Today is a gorgeous day... I think I may actually go read outside and catch up with all the books that are going unread on my Kindle.

 

Sleepy Evenings

sleepydog
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Sleepy dog is sleepy. He's my constant companion. Doesn't mind when I have Wardruna on repeat for hours. Keeps my feet warm. Doesn't understand why the computer gets my lap and he doesn't. Snores, barks, and howls in his sleep. He's a great writing companion and never blushes when I read out the smutty bits.

I’m an… Author?

Every once in a while, when I have time to stop and just think, I start running around in circles in my head making an eeeeeeeee sound.

I'm an author.

I am. I really am. People refer to me as such every day. My name is up on sites where the word "author" shows up, if not right next to it, somewhere in the vicinity. I'm still processing that, because to be an author, you must first become a writer, don't you?

Just last summer I was neither.

I've been telling people that before the end of June 2013, I hadn't written a lick of fiction, but that's not entirely true... In the summer of 2002, I sat down and wrote two chapters of something that was going to become a first-person novel about an empathic serial killer. I spent about a week on it, and then I moved on. I don't even know if it still exists somewhere on an old backup. If it does, I would love to find it. (If I do, I'll post it unedited here.)

Oh and then there was that sixty-page handwritten Lost Boys-based fic that starred my brother and me. I was fourteen, and that movie just rocked my world. After school, we would sit on my bed so I could read out what I'd managed to write during class that day. The story was all about how we would live in a converted barn outside of Santa Carla where the ground floor was a garage so we could refurbish old cars.... while being vampires. Sounds sweet, right?

As an adult, I knew my writing was good, at least for lengthy university history papers on Romanesque architecture or performance art of the sixties and seventies. So good, in fact, that I was spared the ignominy of writing final exams.

However, tangents aside, it had never occurred to me before to become an author (well, maybe I'd thought of it... who doesn't want to write a memoir?).

Last year, inspired by something I was watching, I sat down and wrote, over the course of a few weeks, a 50k word story. People loved it. I then set my sights a little higher and wrote something longer that I could conceivably publish as a novel if people also loved it.

And they did.

So I decided to go ahead and send Caged out into the world.

First, I contacted my author friends for some advice on getting my book to a publisher. They gave me a list of do's and don'ts and wished me well.

Finding a publisher was not as simple as I'd thought. Caged is a little dark and twisted. There's BDSM that, as one reviewer points out, borders on abuse, and it touches on a few taboos. Also, some publishers wouldn't have liked the fact that at least two of my main characters aren't really choosy about the sex of their partners - they're ah... "free-agents" like me.  After reading a few of the submission guidelines and getting bored with the process of hunting down a publisher, I just shrugged my shoulders and did what one of my favourite authors did: I went the self-publishing route.

I'm a one man band. I wrote the book, edited it, formatted it, designed the cover, submitted it to Smashwords and Amazon, created a print version, and now do all of my own publicity/marketing. Honestly, it's a lot of work, much more than I had expected.

But I love it.

I've worked for a die-cutting factory, I've been a personal assistant, I've worked in a hardware store, I've sold boots and hair-dye to punks in a niche boutique in Montréal, I've been an inside sales-rep for video editing software, I've done tech support, I've been a manager at one of the big software companies, and I currently do freelance graphic work.

Now, I am an author. How about that?

Makes me wonder what the next thing will be.

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Wondering which retailer pays me the most?

#1 is Payhip. Not a retailer, but an online shop that I've set up myself. This is where I make the most return on my books.

Then after that it gets a little complicated, but these are the three best choices:

At Eden Books*, I make 70% royalties for all titles.

At Smashwords, I make 60% royalties for all titles.

At Amazon, for books OVER $2.99 (USD) I make 70% royalties and for books UNDER $2.99 I make 35%

So... if the book is under $2.99, buy from Eden Books or Smashwords.

If the books is over $2.99, buy from Eden Books or Amazon.

But best of all, buy from my Payhip store :)

Questions? Contact Me!

*Not all my titles are available at Eden yet as of 25/09/23 - I'm working on it.

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