Turn Up The Heat - Reflections

 It started with a joining a discord channel meant to hold writers accountable to reach goals. I saw someone post that there was a plan to boost the attention and sales for erotica authors by doing a reader challenge. This would eventually be the Turn Up The Heat challenge.

The setup was this: Download a challenge board, read as many erotica titles as you can and review them. Each book reviewed counted for one vote. The prize, $40 of erotica and $200 worth of Sohimi sex toys. Over $200 worth of prizes just to read erotica less than $1.99 is a pretty damn good deal. I had just the title I wanted to bring attention to.

Since I wrote Privilege, it hardly received any sales. I even gave it away for free for a period of time and after approximately 30 downloads, no reviews. Given the subject matter was about White privilege and racism, I anticipated I would eventually get some reviews, particularly negative ones. When giving it away for free does not work, I was willing to try something else. Thankfully, the TurnUptheHeat organizers accepted Privilege to the challenge board. I knew that if I was going to do this, I would need to commit and put in my own work by promoting the hell out of this. So for the month of May, I avoided promoting the Immodest Collection and focused my attention on boosting the challenge.

During this time, all of the other authors pitched in by creating promos and boosting each other's tweets. This was something new and I'm not sure what organizers expected but by the end of the month, we all shared how much our online presence had increased. This was my big takeaway in how one change can result in amazing outcomes. I can't speak for the other authors, but I will say I was more than happy with the results. Within a few weeks, sales started coming in. One awesome author was nice enough to buy 10 copies as a give away. Most affirming though, were the reviews:

"The kink is hot and steamy but what sets this one apart is the underlying message addressed within and how well that is handled. The author interweaves it well without leaving us feel preached to, giving the message meaning and voice of it's own. Very well done and well worth picking up." - Alexa Sommers

"Privilege is not quite the story I expected from the cover blurb - it's more, it's deeper, and it's heavier, and it's so much better. J.C. Parker manages to weave themes of race and privilege into the story without ever feeling forced or out-of-place. It's heavy at times, almost even heavy-handed, but that's the whole point - it's a story about confronting privilege and understanding that that means. Along the way, of course, it's also a kinky story of lesbian love, female domination, bondage, punishment, and orgasm denial. To Parker's credit, she never pulls back, never shies away from Kayla's anger, even when we might expect a softening into an apologetic sort of happy ending. It's a story that arouses mind and body, and that's not an easy thing to do!" - Sally Bend 

Sales are awesome, ratings are also great, and for me, the time reviewers took to share their reactions to Privilege were what really touched me, that folks connected with the heart of the message in addition to enjoying the sexy aspect of it. Also awesome was that these were reviews from other writers and it was an honor to have it reviewed by them. I'm certain had I not contributed to this challenge it would not have been seen by many, and that was the point of why the organizers wanted to try this out.

Not only did this challenge bring new attention to my work, but it also connected me with the nice folks at Sohimi, who had asked me to review some of their toys. Here is my favorite one I recently tried. Never would have expected to list sex toy reviewer on my kinky resume but that's the fun of giving new things a try. The positive outcome in participating in the Turn Up the Heat challenge was more than I could imagine. It boosted my sales, reviews, and more importantly connected me to the wider community of erotica authors. It was cool to see everyone pitch in and help others promote, offering videos and promo images for others to share. I can't wait to see what the organizers have in store next, but I applaud them for seeing a need to bring attention to indie writers and for pulling off an amazing event. Bonus points for doing it during Masturbation Month >:). Even if you missed out this time, that doesn't mean you can't check the challenge board and read the awesome titles on it!