It wasn’t my intention to abandon this blog/website completely and if you care to read on, I’ll let you into a secret regarding my increasing titles.
As I’ve said before, although I started my creative writing seriously in 2007 I wasn’t sure back then which direction to go with regards to genre. I wrote poetry and short passages in a wide variety of genre.
T.B. or not T.B.?
While my knowledge of the craft increased and my confidence grew I wondered about the possibility of using a pseudonym, or my own name, Tom Benson (T.B.).
I couldn’t think of a good reason for not using my own name.
Several years along the way and after seeing success with my ‘mainstream’ titles I pulled out a few of my experimental notes and passages from over the years. A good writer never throws away ideas, however ridiculous they might seem.
Around 2014 as I recall, I published my first erotica novel and after several good reviews I felt that it would be another genre I’d be comfortable writing. Having said that, it’s a genre that comes with a few built-in issues. For example, if you write erotica:
– you might get sales but reviews will be thin on the ground.
– you must be kinky, or at least have a dubious nature regarding sex.
– if not a part of the LGBTQ? scene, you have a desire to be.
The list could go on but those are the general opinions out there. It is useful to have life experience, subject knowledge, imagination, and the ability to write. I was happy to accept such things were par for the course so I continued. I produced novels, a series of novellas and two anthologies of short stories. While writing erotica I was continuing to produce what I call mainstream work.
About three years ago I thought it was time to try the pseudonym idea but there would be little point in having another male name, so Katya Cumming was born.
I continued writing erotica in the background but kept it aside so that I’d have more than one title to publish, and I’d be able to put them out there regularly to build up the new brand. I gave Katya a ‘background’ and created a website in her name. I also went for a distinctive, if a little garish, purple book cover colour with a small graphic, but it was all part of the experiment.
Now, a couple of years down the line, I’ve gained a lot of confidence in my ability to create covers, so recently I revamped all of them. I’d previously paid a lot of money for professional covers for my mainstream titles but it was an expense I wanted to lose. When my thrillers and suchlike continued to attract attention with their new covers I opted to deal with my erotica covers too.
About a week ago, after a lot of contemplation, I started work on Katya’s covers. I appreciate all of you who check out this blog/website, even if I’m more likely to get a private message via email rather than a public comment. For you, I’ll remind you that Katya’s website is linked on the right with my other sites. If you like my erotica, you’ll like hers too, not surprisingly.
I’ll watch to see if anyone happens by, but in the meantime, new characters and situations are waiting to be created.
Thank you for visiting.