Some of you
may remember this Super Bowl commercial—it’s one of my favorites.
At the end
of the commercial, here’s how the company, EDS, promotes itself:
In a sense, it’s what we do. We bring
together information, ideas and technologies and make them go where you want.
EDS—managing the complexities of the digital economy.
A few months
ago, my primary publisher underwent a corporate contraction which,
unfortunately, garnered an outsize amount of adverse publicity. Authors were
concerned about a variety of events which might take place. On the yahoogroup I
set up so we could privately exchange information, I read fear, worry,
anger...but candidly, little action.
I don’t
consider myself a leader. In fact, more than one group I’ve been in has lost
steam and foundered, so often I wondered if I was some sort of Jonah, a
bad-luck jinx. But I do prefer action, so after a while I proposed that we take
the energy we’d been expending on negative speculation and focus it on
something positive. To mangle Paul McCartney, I wanted to “take a sad song and
make it better.”
I proposed
creating a holiday boxed set. Thus was born the Naughty Literati, a group of
twelve authors who have, as our website says, “come together to show off
their epic talents in short stories filled with powerful eroticism and
satisfying romance.”
Why short
stories? The timeline was short, so I suggested short stories. That may change.
And because some were leery of too much structure, I kept it loose. Although
the conventional wisdom is that readers don’t like subgenre mixing—M/M mixed in
with F/M, for example—I didn’t care. I’m not interested in telling anyone how
to do her art. If someone wanted to write M/M, cool. If someone wanted to contribute
a ménage story, equally cool. Although the Naughty Literati all came from a
publisher of erotic romance, I pushed for no set heat level. I felt sure that
there would be plenty of hot sex, but I wasn’t going to decree XXX or BDSM.
Because
every writer in the NL is a professional, I felt comfortable with few rules and
I think others are also.
It’s been
sort of a “seat of the pants” undertaking—the organizational equivalent of
being a pantser as opposed to a plotter. But because I have a legal background,
and used to run a law practice, I tend to be highly organized. I tried to think
ahead, to anticipate issues before they arose.
We benefited
by being a group of highly motivated, talented, smart and
responsible
individuals. Each of us brings gifts others may lack. Nic Austin is a wizard
with Photoshop and has created beautiful covers and logos, plus the blog and
the website. Marianne Stephens is my right-hand gal, my co-organizer, my
sounding board. I can’t begin to say how glad I am she’s there for me. Regina
Kammer “concatenates” like nobody’s business. Everyone stepped up to edit,
copyedit, promote...there’s a myriad of tasks to complete.
There were
challenges, of course. Primary among them, for me, is my naturally strong
personality. I’m dominating and have the paddle and floggers to prove it. I had
to rein myself in, occasionally reminding the others, “Hey, I’m not the Queen.
I don’t have a tiara or Corgis.” (Damn. I like Corgis.) And I had to keep
people on task without, quite frankly, being an asshole about it.
Whenever
there was a potential point of disagreement, I took the easy way out. I put
issues up for a vote. I have to say that while many diss Yahoo, their polling
feature has been invaluable, as well as files, photo storage and databases.
Communication was relatively easy.
Initial
challenges: creating a loose but meaningful contract. Getting everyone to sign
it without being a jerk about it. I felt that the
arithmetic associated with divvying up the royalties could lead to serious
issues, so I persuaded everyone to hire an outside company for that very
purpose. The same company has handled publishing and distribution as well, for
a portion of the royalties.
What can I
say right now? Naughty List, the first boxed set, released during the winter holidays, is still selling nicely. We then released another in February, Naughty Hearts. I especially love the art on this one--it's got a clean, elegant look even though the stories are unabashedly dirty. We're in the midst of creating our third bozed set, Naughty Flings, a springtime set.
Even better,
the mere existence of the group, with its intense focus, has energized us. For me, I had been strangled in the grip of
writers’ block so long and tight that I often contemplated giving up.
Not any
more. My story for the summertime boxed set is coming along well, which is excellent since, again, we’re working with a very short timeline.
Lesson
learned. Next year will be easier, and there will, I think, be more boxed sets
from the Naughty Literati for years to come. At this
point we’re planning about four anthologies annually, each corresponding to a
season.
It’s hard to
pinpoint what’s been best about this experience. Falling in love again with
writing has been a big deal for me.
But
surpassing everything has been the joy of working with a group of such
fantastic colleagues. “Heart-warming” is a word that’s overused, but the caring
and commitment I see from the Naughty Literati truly does warm my heart.
