Thursday Thoughts

Good news! That anthology of erotic short stories I've been telling you about is moving right along. There are six of us working on it, and though we're not all finished with our contributions, we already have a pretty firm nibble from at least one e-book publisher, which is pretty cool.

When we first came up with the idea for the anthology, we all figured we'd write under different pen names since it was more erotic than anything we'd done before, and I'd about decided on a new name when I remembered that I'd published another erotic short story, Three Men on a Boat, with Ravenous Romance, using the Cheryl Brooks name.

It's had respectable sales, but a few days ago I received a royalty check for my self-published book, If You Could Read My Mind, written under the pen name, Samantha R Michaels. It was pretty tiny, but at least it appears that someone is buying them.

This got me to wondering about the name thing again. The new short story is a bit hotter than the CSC series, so it might be a good idea to establish a new brand, but it's difficult to know how readers will feel about it. Many writers change names when they change genres, but I'm not convinced it's the best idea. After all, sales of the Samantha R Michaels book in no way compare to the Cheryl Brooks sales, even though it's posted on my website as being written by the same person.

What about you? If a writer with a name you know writes something different from what you're used to seeing from them, does it bother you? Would you prefer that they write under a different name to distinguish between the different types of books? Or does it matter?

Oh, and speaking of sales, I've always felt that If You Could Read My Mind would have sold better if it had something like this on the cover instead of lambs and tulips.


















Or maybe this one?



























What are your thoughts?