My last novel, ‘Hotel Girls’ was a coming-of-age story. Despite the sadness in the first chapter, like all young girls, Sandy was a survivor. She rallied, making a new life for herself in another country. As an innocent country girl who gained work in a hotel, she learned about life in a blunt and sometimes humorous way.
 
As a writer, when embarking on creating a story about a young woman, what does one say? … That she was a good girl, virtuous, boring, kind, never swore and never had sex? Well, if that is the case, dump your readership now. Nobody wants to read about Little Miss Muffet.
 
Life is about sex, especially when we are young. Let’s face it—all of us, without exception, alive on this earth today are a product of it—even if you are a test-tube baby. Some guy wanked into a bottle to get you started …
 
Like it or loathe it, that’s it in a nutshell. And in case you hadn’t heard: SEX SELLS.
 
This brings me to my next point:
In all innocence, after I finished my novel, I wrote asking FanStorians under which genre I should list it. Most didn’t have a clue, voicing the opinion that it was not a true romance. Some said family saga and others a coming-of-age story. Well, I’m not sure what I did, but once I got to Createspace and Amazon, I saw the genre, sexuality, so I used it.
 
It took a year for me to cotton on. I live in a small town and talk gets out. Some people have Googled my book, and now they ogle me because they think it’s a SEX book. They think I go to swingers’ parties, etc. I’ve been sneered at, snorted at and ignored.
 
Perhaps I should have researched my genre first. Great idea! But too late now.
 
Anyway, sex sells. Only 33 of my Facebook friends bothered to LIKE my book, but suddenly I have close to 500 LIKES. It’s promoting itself and it’s going viral; one LIKE at a time.
 
The weird thing is, I’ve been sent sex messages, pictures of penises and telephone numbers of hopefuls and from possible male hookers--all of which I deleted. I’m a nurse—I’ve seen it all. Nothing new there, so don’t send anymore, thanks.
 
TIP: If you open up a FB page for your book, like I did; DO NOT ‘friend’ anyone who you do not know. It is best to ignore the negative / sexy messages. Laugh them off. Some are entertaining in their stupidity. There are options to delete and block. Check your FB page every day to make sure there are no indecent public comments. You might need to change your options which grant permission as to who can comment on your page, but it shouldn’t be an issue.
 
Above is my book cover. Look at it. It’s plain. It’s just a picture of a girl. The title suggests the place where she worked as a receptionist—in a hotel. That’s all it is: a girl who worked in a hotel. However, there are people out there who judge my book by its cover and assume too much. They think it is about bonking prostitutes in a hotel! And perhaps my neighbours do too. Socially, I’m screwed—and I did nothing wrong. I only wrote about life. Mistake: I wrote it in the voice of ‘first person,’ it comes across as autobiographic.
 
One thing is for certain, my book title is getting around! It’s well liked—it’s going viral with the aid of one Viagra addict at a time. It all started by looking at an image and judging the book by its cover.