Hello again. It’s been awhile since my last post. Much of my energy and time is taken up looking for new freelance clients in a strange new landscape of commercial erotica. In the last couple of months, almost all the sex magazines I worked for have stopped publishing, driven out of existence basically by Internet competition; several of my editorial contacts have lost their jobs; and almost everything in porn is now online, where writers are often asked to create copy for low wages that make fast food worker salaries seem princely in comparison. It is, quite frankly, a sad, difficult time for somebody like myself, who made a decent living for decades writing sexy stories, doing porn star and stripper and dominatrix interviews, assembling and supervising national newsstand magazines, directing and commissioning pictorials and cover shoots, and editing hundreds of thousands of photographs into layouts that I feel were some of the best in the business.
Nonetheless I persevere. No choice but to keep going: “CRANK TILL YOU CROAK!” has always been my motto. In my irreverent moods, I like to call writing “cranking” sometimes, so I don’t start feeling or sounding self-serious about it. Well, there are websites and publishing companies out there run by people who appreciate my work, and we gradually find each other.
In the meantime, even as I look for new clients, I continue with my erotica writing and self-publishing. Just in the last two months I have released three new ebooks:
A tale of humiliation and financial domination as Sorceress Selikka takes control…
A lighthearted very short story about a guy who likes girls to get aggressive with snowballs!
A dominant “hot wife” gives her slave hubby the kind of treatment he sometimes resists, but always craves…
All these new ebooks are available on Amazon US here, and at the Amazon stores worldwide.
One of the things which keeps me going in times of stress is reading. I love to read. I love movies a lot too, but reading is the best. Just for fun, let me share some of the books I’ve enjoyed in recent months.
These 1950s noir novels explore seamy passions and dark desires of greed & twisted love.
These “domestic strife novels” from 50s and 60s deal not with crimes as much as messed-up relationships.
These disturbing “dystopian novels” depict America under totalitarian rule.
It was fascinating to read two sides of much of the same story: father and son autobiographies.
True crime is both compelling & sad to read, but you learn much about human nature.
I was lead to Condon’s bizarre Prohibition conspiracy novel by reading the scholarly America Noir.
Noir is my very favorite genre, and Paperback Confidential tells us about essential noir novels like Black Wings Has My Angel.
I enjoy moving from so-called “paperback” or “pulp fiction” novels like John D. MacDonald’s to “literary” novels like those of Richard Yates.
Michael Avallone and Frank Kane provided great entertainment in their various paperback books.
These are two books of very fine short stories that show how “noir” or “literary” are just labels–in the end, good tales should just be labeled GOOD!
One thing that’s nice about reading is that it’s both my pleasure and a way of improving my skills. I read somewhat slowly, and carefully, as I hope to absorb mostly by osmosis the techniques that will help me write the best possible fiction myself. We never stop learning how to write!
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Just want you to take note of the terrific photographers whose work adorns the covers of my new ebooks. I find these images at 123RFStock Photography here.
SHE MADE HIM PAY, cover by subbotina, find the photographer’s portfolio here.
SUBMIT IN THE SNOW! cover by maridav, portfolio here.
HER FEISTY CUCKOLD, cover by ssuaphoto, portfolio here.
And of course, without the hard-working memorable models, there wouldn’t be covers at all! My appreciation to them all.
Irv O. Neil's EROTICA IS MY TRADE 
