50 Shades of Grey: Trash or Treasure?

Publish!! I cant wait to see this in comprehensive story. You two both write well and this has been a fascinating read to me for a couple of years now at least. I would love to see it.

 

Mistress Angelique,

You have a most unusual story to tell that many people would be interested in reading. Your audience is very limited but with the Internet, you can reach that limited audience.

If you look at the successes of others, it may help to guide you in the right direction. One that comes to mind is the malechastityblog.com website. It is written by a wife whose husband, several year ago, brought up chastity to her. They have an interest in chastity but no D/S at all. She started writing her and her husbands journey, and got lots of email questions and saw the demand for a vanilla style series of articles for those who only want chastity and nothing else. You signed up (and gave your email address) to get her articles and this started an email list of "prospects". Emails and letters she got also added to this email list. She found her audience and then starting writing more articles, then books. In her case, she was selling 'educational' material from her experiences and the letters she got and that helped make it popular. It's now one of the leading chastity books and perhaps even on Amazon. At first her articles were free and then she started charging for her writings.

You need to attract an audience, You have one here at this site but I know you have a blog and you might want to start doing it on a regular basis. You will attract an audience (please ignore the idiots and trolls that will show up) that will give you feedback on your stories. I find that reading Tina's feelings is what attracts me to it. And of course the wierd things done to him. And I love to hear your comments as well, particularly the loving feelings you express.

I think the best approach is as a love story, albeit a strange one. I think the spiritual aspect of your relationship is also interesting as I feel that sexuality, if done right, can lead to spiritual growth.

One of the things I think you have going for you is the sheer shock value that your lifestyle entails. It should keep a reader glued to the book.

I feel that you are such a good communicator that you should either write in this book or write one from your point of view, kind of a companion book to Tina's. Your writing is so enjoyable, I think you shouldn't deprive the reader of it. And the female point of view is not as common and as such is more welcome.

Since book publishing costs are high, publishing electronically costs you basically nothing, but I suggest selling it initially through your own dot com website.

Personally, I like the writing quality and style I've seen so far, I'm not sure you need an editor. You can certainly sell (or give some away free for evaulation) an initial book and get feedback as to whether or not you need an editor and what the reader likes or dislikes. The beauty of the Internet is that you can easily share and get feedback. You don't have to write one perfect book, you can release one of more chapters at a time, and rewrite or write another book.

I do a lot of writing and find it's best to just get it on paper (I mean word processor) and then go over it. This prevents writers block. Just write anything. The second or third pass will clean it up but you have to have something there in the first place.

And make sure to backup your work. I would suggest saving the book under different names as you go along so you have a number of versions of it. Never have one version as it could be trashed by your word processor under the right conditions (like a sudden power failure). I just append a number or letter after my title when I do the Save As so I'll end up with a number of versions. Also save the book to a server so even if disaster strikes your house, you have a backup off premises.

And, of course, let us know here since you have your initial audience on this site. It might help to restore your "Cruel to be Kind" posts (I'm sure they can remove the troll postings) to attract more potential readers. Right not, no one coming to this site knows about you. You need a have a post in order to point people to your blog or website.

Case in point: Before Chastity Mansion, Mistress Watchful was a regular poster on ChastityLifestyle.com. She made friends there, then started this site and advertised it on the ChastityLifestyle site (or I should say mentioned it in her posts). She took a lot of people away from that site. I don't think this was preplanned, it just happened.

The wonderful thing is when doing something like this, putting something out there, you never know where it will lead or what exciting things will happen, and what will grow out of it in the future. Perhaps a best seller?

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Best of luck.

 

Not had time to read it yet, but I've seen it No 1 bestseller in my local Waterstone's and its 2 sequels.

 

Mistress Angelique,

Thank you for your kind words. I'm very happy to be of service and absolutely delighted that my post was so helpful to you.

Given how much has happened to your relationship in just a few years, you might be able to write two books, one on what's happened so far and another later on about the 'fictionalized' future. This will help to separate fact from fiction. It will leave the reader wanting book two and will give you many months, perhaps a year or more, to not only write about the future but experience some of this future.

I think if you combined all of the posts that you and Tina have written on this site so far, you already have a short book.

As for making money with a blog, I think the format is too limited, and you will always be under someone elses rules. Even if you find the right blog, it may, in the future, be merged or bought out by someone not approving of what you're doing. So at that point you may have to move and this will hurt you in the sense that all of your traffic and web searches are used to your blog address. You should get a domain named web site, they're really cheap. You can do anything you want and you can use it for monetary purposes. It will be your own home on the web.

Fetlife is a great site, the people there really have their heads together. But the format is more of a question posed and many answers given. It's different than how this forum works. The 'author' of the post can write more but it's usually in response to one or more of the other responses. There are number of groups you could participate in, give it a try. But again, not a money making proposition.

I'm also very saddened to hear how hurt you've been by a few clueless idiots who had the nerve to criticize something they knew nothing about.

Please don't take it personally, anyone who creates a blog or website or posts will get their share of morons. The Edge of Vanilla, for example, is a very common sense and popular site, but the owner gets a steady stream of morons who feel they have the moral authority to tell others how to live. The same is true of the MaleChastityBlog site. It's an occupational hazard. These people aren't worth thinking about. You know your lifestyle is quite different so if you told a random person on the street, what would they say? Does their opinion matter or should you get upset about it?

You can certainly feel upset but don't BE upset. Feel the feeling but don't identify with it. My spiritual wisdom of the day

 

Mistress Angelique,

Again, you're most welcome.

Conerning trolls, this forum is well moderated. If you talk to the moderators before posting your story, I'm sure they will remove any troll posts that might occur. People like that do not belong on this site and will probably be removed. As you know, the moderators here are very caring and concerned.