Guest Post with Kayden McLeod

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Deadly Fetishes:
Kelly needs to get herself a fetish. A newly-converted vampire, she’s quiet, conservative, and prone to panic attacks. When her friend drags her to a vampire fetish club, she meets Marcus, a walking manual on sexual pleasure. Marcus is captivating and dangerous and knows exactly what he wants. With a single-minded purpose, he scoops Kelly up from her abnormal, disillusioned life and shows her the pleasures of immortality. His obsession with her body knows no limits, and her desire only burns hotter every time he touches her. She drives him insane with the blinding need to hear her scream his name with absolute abandon. Marcus shows her the true world of vampires, which is more magical than Kelly had ever dreamed.

Carnal Magnetism:
The RedLine is the perfect haven for a man of Ryder's extensive desires and tastes. He uses the women of the club, much like they do him, with little care to know anything more than names, sometimes even less than that. His reputation for open-minded tantalizing sex is renowned, and willing victims for this particular vampire are never at a shortage. At least until Catalym crashes into his life, taking over from the moment they'd met. And it isn't long before her past life's tribulations follow her, including a dangerous ex-boyfriend who hides far more than Ryder or his friends could ever guess.

Demonic Pandemonium:
Pandora is a half-demon, alone in the world and good as abandoned, with a mother who barely tolerates her and a father who is unable to be with her nearly often enough for her tastes. She keeps to herself and tries not to associate with others often, lest they discover her secret--until she meets Keviar Cornwall. The two collide in ignorance of one another, but the sexual attraction is indisputable and cannot be ignored, growing more profound with every passing moment. It blinds them to the lurking danger hiding just around the corner, out to end both their lives and everyone either of them have ever known or loved.

Dear Reader,

In the beginning of my writing career, I thought I had it all figured out. I’d been accepted by a publisher, and was well on my way. How wrong I had it. My first release, Jezebel’s Article was actually accepted after Deadly Fetishes, which was my second release. But Jezebel was needed to fill a spot the previous year. The first release went quite well, but Deadly Fetishes was an instant best seller, topping four hundred sales in my first quarter, and even three years later, still sells (to a significant lesser degree). This shocked me beyond belief, and filled me with illusions in so many ways. Everyone asked how I *did it.* I don’t have an answer for that. Beginner’s luck, I suppose.

The only reason I can think I had this success so early in the game, was I’d promoted a year in advance, attending publisher chats, visiting fellow author blogs, and sending out e-mail promos. I didn’t wait until the last minute to get my name out there. As a new author, if you aren’t “in your face” promoting, all of the time, many people skip right past you, before they get familiar with seeing your name everywhere.

But, after Deadly Fetishes, I struggled to find a publisher for Carnal Magnetism, a book written from the male lead, in first POV. I was rejected several times, either for it being written in a male’s prospective, in first person, or both. Sometimes, it was because there was too much in the book that wasn’t erotic. In the search for someone who believed in this book as much as I did, the process took nine months, just long enough for people to begin forgetting the first book (it takes up to year for publication after acceptance). Finally, after several revisions, I’d found someone, who snatched up not only Carnal Magnetism, but the third, Demonic Pandemonium as well.

For every book after that first best seller, I knew the bar had been set. Although Carnal Magnetism never matched the sales of the first, even today, I’m happy with its numbers. I’ve had books many books that have climbed the charts, but none that came close. My goals shifted to other things.
After drifting from genre to genre for a while, I quickly found out sex really does sell the best—at least for me. If I write a book with little to no sex, it sells okay, but if I put out a particularly erotic book, it “flies off the shelves.” So, I committed myself to writing erotica, or erotic romance for a year. But I found that I wasn’t writing what I truly wanted, but what sold. In being an author, you have to find a happy medium, at least somewhere. Write what you know, write what makes you happy, but do it in a way that it’s marketable. I wanted to challenge myself, and my characters, writing dynamic adventures with increasing complexities, thought-provoking situations, and unpredictable characters that surprise and inspire. I wanted to explore my limits in different directions than what erotica or erotic romance allowed me.

In staying true to my “roots”, I’m releasing the occasional erotic book, in particular the Master of Subservience series, which is all short stories. However, I’m also writing two fantasy series that allow me to explore new territories of fiction. The first is called the Demon Queen, and though the first book, Tarnished Halo has one sex scene, the act was crucial to the overall plot line. The second two installments do not have any at all.

Also, though Kayden McLeod has been my pen-name for three years, and will continue to be for anything I write that’s adult oriented, I’ve taken a second pen-name: Kinsey Knight. This second handle will be strictly fantasy youth fiction, beginning with the Elemental Series, the introduction of an alternate world called Maeryn, a place parallel to Earth. At the moment, there are four books, Earth, Water, Air and Fire.  It will be a while before I submit these books to anyone, as I’m determined to write all four well into editing, if not outright completed. The characters are still growing, and I’m immersing myself into the subtle differences between adult version and teenager oriented. I don’t want to give up the first book (which is mostly finished), until I know it can be perfect, with flawless continuity of any craziness my muse dreams up in the subsequent books.

Thank you for being here with me today! Please leave a comment, for a chance to win the Cornwall Coven Trilogy e-books.

Cheers,
Kayden McLeod

Tarnished Hero Book Trailer

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