An unusual novel like The Man Who Reclaimed His Virginity is not easy to promote. It’s what I call a “slice of life” story, or psychological fiction; it’s not a genre story or erotica (although Amazon listed it as erotica as well as “contemporary romance” on the site). I dislike the term “literary fiction” because it’s always sounded pretentious to me. A story is a story is a story!
Basically what I try to do in any of my tales is to give the reader a vivid experience, something that seems real. That’s my basic goal. “Slice of life” seems closest to that. Even my femdom erotica ebooks are written in such a way that they’re realistic enough to qualify as slices of life, too.
For the new book, I’ve tried a couple of video promos on Twitter/X in a low-key, slightly humorous style, but they don’t seem to have made much of an impression. If you’re on that platform, you can find them at my timeline here and here
Meantime, I got the first review of the book on Amazon recently, a nice one.
I guess I’ll figure out how to promote this as time goes on. For the moment I just want to express my fervent wish that people will read it. I know a novel (even a short one of 142 pages) represents an investment of at least a couple of hours of time (not to mention $4.99 for the Kindle copy) so I don’t pester people in person to “read it, read it!” I’m simply saying it here on my blog.
I just want people to come to the novel when something about it grabs them. So give it an opportunity to grab you. One of its themes is “maybe you have to be a little mad to stay sane these days,” something my protagonist, Julius Caesar Klein, says at one point to rationalize his weird frame of mind about sex, love, his kinky fantasies about the mysterious actress Margaret Emilia Bortwell, and more. I think a lot of people can relate to this theme. Maybe I had to be a little mad to write a book with this title, hmm?
Read the book and learn what the unique phrase “contemplating the obvious” means.
Learn what life is like when you go through it with an unusual name like Julius Caesar Klein!
See what buttons twentysomething Margaret pushes to get seventysomething Julius to comply with her wishes in their unusual May-December relationship; see her get him to sell his prized vintage paperback book collection, so he can help out with her pressing need for cash as an aspiring performer in the cutthroat world of New York City’s Off-Off-Broadway theater scene.
See how she uses his revelation of his “I’m a virgin again” fantasy to her cruel advantage!
So check out the free sample at the Amazon store here (or at the store in your country) and feel The Man Who Reclaimed His Virginity capture your imagination!
And start out the new year of 2026 with something decidedly different and definitely entertaining.
Irv O. Neil's EROTICA IS MY TRADE 
Erotica readers have power
Spend your New Year’s holiday (at some point!) with femdom erotica~~
…I wish I could say otherwise, but my ebooks don’t sell a lot of copies. They do sell a certain amount steadily every month, and have for several years, but just not as many copies as I would hope for. I’ve done many things to promote these stories…like this blog; wrote a column called “Notes of a Rebel Subbie” for the late lamented Domme Dose site from late 2011 to early 2014, which provided me a forum for my raunchy ramblings and got me interacting with dommes and subs; I still actively promote the books on Twitter; and I’ve done several interviews about my work, the most prominent of which can be found here ; and here is the write-up I gave it earlier on this blog. There was another good lengthy Q&A, done by Gracie Passette, as mentioned here, but that seems to have disappeared online along with the site it appeared on, SexKitten.net.
So. I guess unless some famous personage (fill in your choices) embraces my work in public online, the sales will continue to trudge along at their faithful but skimpy pace. 😉
Meanwhile, let me note that the readers of erotica truly have power to alleviate a smut-scribe’s periodic fits of gloom. To wit (as they used to write, and sometimes I love to write that way), a brief comment I received a few mornings ago, after peering at a barren stretch on my Amazon sales report, really picked up my spirits:
Originally, Mommy’s Little Dunce was graced with an illustration by Sardax when it was first published in LEG SHOW in the late ’90s, and you can see, and read about, that gorgeous art here.
Reviews and comments are so important. No writer I know wants to feel he or she is sending work out into a vacuum, so rest assured, readers–your words, positive or negative, are meaningful. On a blog, on Twitter, on Amazon. Like these…
Or these for Rule by Cleavage!
And one more!
So, just to know that you are listening is a balm to the spirit! THANKS for reading!
Happy 2021, and I’ll have news here shortly of a new ebook soon to be published. Meanwhile, you can check out my current femdom books (and psychological suspense novel Fate of a Stripper) here on Amazon. Pleasant and kinky daydreams to all!
~~Irv
Posted by irvoneil on December 30, 2020 in Erotica
Tags: anthology, classical piano, cleavage, ebooks, femdom erotica, pandemic, reader comments, reviews, suspense novel