In any case, I thought if they’re going to do it, why not follow suit! It’s one of my favorites among my own stories, and I’m happy to be able to share the goodness. 😉
The sequel to “Juliet Takes Stage,” it’s the story of how Allison (the Juliet of the title) got together with her teacher and Romeo, Ken. Jordan, who becomes very important later in the series, shows up too. 🙂
(Just so no one is surprised: this story is around 10,000 words long and contains scenes of sexually explicit M/F erotic romance between adults over the age of 18, UST, and sexual initiation. It is for adult readers only!)
Hey! Stillpoint/Eros has issued the first collection of my Juliet stories!
Juliet Takes First includes the first four stories in the series (Juliet Takes Stage, Juliet Takes Off, Juliet Takes Her Leave, and Juliet Takes a Chance) as well as an extended peek at the next story, Juliet Takes the Floor. Check it out!
(And yes: the cover model is once more the ever-lovely Miss Mary Cyn — who also voices the audiobooks!)
Juliet Takes First, the first collection of K.D. West’s tales of the sexual education of a young Juliet (Allison) at the hands of her teacher Ken, her more experienced best friend Jordan, and her own considerable imagination, is now available!
Sexy, surprising, and moving, this collection includes: Continue reading →
I did this with Juliet Takes Off and it seemed to be a good idea (and fun), so I’m doing it with Truth & Games. Over on Goodreads, I announced that I’d give a free copy of the story to anyone willing to give it an honest review — on GR, obviously, and/or wherever else they post reviews. But I don’t want to leave you folks, out!
So please let me know if you’re in. Here’s what I said over at Goodreads: Continue reading →
Guess what! Juliet Takes Off is back on Amazon. Because we edited a sentence in the description that mentioned Allison wanting Ken to “make her a woman” — which always sounded ridiculously Harlequin Romance to me anyway. So gone is the reference to :gasp: virginity, and back the story goes onto the world’s biggest slushpile/marketplace. Sheesh.
In any case, the story has NEVER gone out of circulation on the publisher’s site, so I wanted to give them this plug… And what do you think? Should we keep the “BANNED ON AMAZON!” banner on the cover?
Kobo still hasn’t reposted most of my publisher’s stories but has assured us that they’re “reviewing all titles to make sure that they adhere to [their] content guidelines…. Due to the number of titles that are under review, it may take a week or two before we can restore all of the books. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused by this.” Very nice. A week and a half too late. But still.
And “Bridget” is still off-line on B&N even though we’ve removed the offending word — “Virgin” — from the subtitle.
Made me laugh. Whether it gets anyone to buy it is anyone’s guess! Still, if it worked for Ulysses here’s hoping it work for us!
ALSO: I’ve just finished a draft of the next story in this cycle, and I’d love to have one of you lovely people read it and give me some feedback. Comment or send me an email at kdwestwrites@gmail.com and I’ll send you the story, as well as your choice of one of my other ebooks or an Audible coupon code for Juliet Takes Stage!
So a week after letting Juliet Takes Off back onto their playground — after we removed the shocking word “sex” from the subtitle and replaced the cover image with a picture of a fully dressed young woman — Amazon has once again informed us that they are shocked — shocked! — to find that my erotic romance is too shocking to sell. WTF?
Not sure what to do here. The Audible audio recording is still up. It’s still up on B&N, Kobo, Smashwords, and of course Stillpoint/Digital.
Oh, and I’ve got a free-for-a-review give-away going on at GoodReads — in exchange for an honest review (there, or wherever you post such things) I’ll send you a copy of the ebook (Kindle or ePub) or audiobook of “Juliet Takes Off” and its companion piece, “Juliet Takes Stage.”
You can also sign up here:
So there you are! For a limited time YOU can see — for free — the book that Amazon was so scandalized by! (And if you can figure it out, please, tell me! I’d love to know.)
Now that my student-teacher erotic romance “Juliet Takes Off” has been UN-banned on Amazon (after we removed the scandalous word “sex” from the subtitle), I would love to have some reviews for it and/or its prequel, “Juliet Takes Stage.”
If you comment or email, I’ll send you a copy of either or both of these stories (about 15,000 words combined) — if you promise to leave an honest review on Amazon, Goodreads, or wherever you like to review stories.
I just got an email forwarded by my publisher informing them and me that Amazon is pulling Juliet Takes Off from its shelves because it’s “in violation of our content guidelines.”
Those guidelines (as they pertain in this case)?
I quote:
Pornography We don’t accept pornography or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts.
Offensive Content What we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect.
My publisher expressed bewilderment.
Me? I’m not bewildered; I’m livid.
I’ve obviously read and thought a lot about the distinction between erotica and porn. We’ve thrown around a lot of definitions, but here’s the one that’s in my head right now: sex in the service of the story or the development of the character is erotic; sex for the sake of sex (or $) is porn. Does that cover it?
“Juliet Takes Off” is certainly sexual — it contains an extended scene in which a young woman loses her virginity, and a framing sequence that’s quite explicitly sexual. But it’s absolutely nowhere near the line crossed by something like 90% of the Erotica section on Amazon. (The work of present company, obviously, excepted.) But the whole story sequence is focused on the growth of the two characters and their coming to terms with each other.
Pornographic? I don’t think so. I’d have called it literary erotica — how successful its literary pretensions I can’t say, but that’s the intent. Porn? No.
What actually bothers me even more is the “offensive” bit. Obviously, I’m mortified to have offended anyone — and I assume that someone flagged the story as such. But I have NO idea what in the name of all that is sexy could have offended anyone about this particular story. It’s a story in which two adult characters of opposite gender who happen to love each other have sex. Twice. By mutual consent. And it’s all pretty straight sex, in every sense. Oh — I guess there is a very quick hand job. Still. Offensive?
Amazon says their definition of offensive is “about what you would expect” — which means… what? Me, there’s only one thing I find truly offensive: the glorification or romanticization of non-consensual sex. What does that mean, you ask? Thank you for asking: non-consensual sex means any sex involving anyone incapable of saying yes (children, animals, the mentally retarded, coma victims, sleepers, etc.) or who has said no.
There are other things that folks find erotic that really don’t turn me on — things that when I was reading and writing fan-fiction I was astonished to find where very popular. BDSM, scat, all of that. I don’t find those things offensive; they just don’t do anything for me. Turn me off, even. But rape — statutory or vanilla — portrayed for teh sex0rs? That I find patently offensive. Also illegal in most countries including the US of A.
“Chan” mostly shows Asian authors, which is a relief.
You want to know two things that really piss me off? Some of these stories outsell mine, for reasons that I can’t even begin to fathom; and these are all on Amazon but mine isn’t.
Sorry I’ve been non-present — school year beginning and…
And I have a new story — the next of my Juliet stories. Which you folks helped us choose the cover for!
😀
And it’s almost ready to be released, and I’ve spent the morning listening to the audiobook (voiced again by the wonderful Mary Cyn), and I’m very, very excited.
So here’s a sneak preview of the audiobook:
Sexual initiation (Audiobook/Ebook Trailer)
And for those of you who like reading to be… you know… reading, here’s the words:
If anything ever felt like a sexual initiation, it was that first time that Ken ate me. […] Before he’d even made it all of the way up my thigh, I could already tell that the trip that his tongue, teeth, lips, and fingers were going to send me on was going to be way beyond my realm of experience.
Stout Cortez first seeing the Pacific had nothing on this.
Trying to talk about sex is funny: using words to describe experiences that are (for me, at least) intensely non-verbal. From the moment that Ken’s lips touched mylips, the whole memory is a wash of sensory impressions. Pulling. Friction. Wetness. Pressure, building steadily. Heat.
I can’t tell you what he did that first time, or how he did it. Later experiences, sure, maybe — I can at least try.
All I know is that the whole time-stopped, earth-moved thing? It’s real.
I know this too: I had brought myself to hundreds or maybe even thousands of orgasms before Ken touched my cunt that night.
But that was the very first time that I experienced an orgasm as the Little Death, the way the Elizabethans called it. The French still call it that, or so Jonathon tells me.
When I re-inhabited my body, I was sprawled on the sofa, my legs splayed over Ken’s shoulders.
He was kissing his way leisurely up my belly….
Let me know what you think; I’ll let you know when it’s available!
Hey! I’ve just submitted my next Juliet story (and if you’d like to give me some feedback, please let me know!) and my publisher is trying to choose a cover. You guys were so helpful the last time around, we thought we’d have a poll again. What do you think?
K.D. West 
