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haven’t had any problems scoring some hotties, either, so I’m calling my way the good way.
    Joe McCoy, World’s Okayest Beast.
    Energy swished around properly, I sit down at my laptop and title a new word document Next Bestseller . The trick is to convince yourself everything you write is gold. Every book I’ve ever titled Next Bestseller has done just that. Success is what you make it, and I make it rain. Or at least sprinkle heavily consistently. I’m the Seattle of writing!
    I also ignore all the other bullshit writing advice out there. Too many authors wallow in self-doubt, consider their work crap, and never get anywhere. It takes a healthy dose of confidence to make it in this industry, and those of us who kick ass thrive on it. At least, I do. No one, and I mean no one, writes bizarro-porn like I do. And my sales back my mojo.
    Joe McCoy, Best-fucking-seller. Snaps .
    I pull out my idea notebook and sketch out a plot for Butt-Banged by Zombie Robots . Obviously, there’s going to be a lot of kinky robotic sex, and probably some animatronic braaaains action going on. Believe it or not, though, these stories do actually have a plot.
    I’m not a hack, I just give the people what they want. And people want a lot of absurd sex that makes them piss themselves laughing.
    Sure, big-shots like Bethany Bonafont may make babies with their sexy heroes and steamy erotic scenes, but do they make people laugh? Short answer: no. My readers don’t read my books to get off, though it’d be totally awesome if they did—actually, I’m sure there are plenty of sick fucks out there who do, and I can’t decide if they are my kind of people or not—but mostly they read it for an escape.
    Life sucks for a lot of people, and they need some relief. Enter me, the relief giver.
    Joe McCoy, Relief Giv—hold up. I think I almost turned myself into a happy endings masseuse. Scratch that.
    The thing that I never admit to anyone is that I really do find myself caring about these characters. I give them all their own unique backstory, and world-building, and in the end I get great satisfaction out of seeing them get their happily-ever-after. Even if it is with a pteranodon.
    Anyway, I get to work on my plot. My main guy, Dickson Slaver, is going to be a cop out on the beat when he meets a group of robot zombies. They’re going to be up to some shady business, probably running an underground ring of brains exchange, and Dickson is going to try to bust it up. There’ll be some big cop talk, some threats with guns (clearly a penis metaphor,) a lot of sexual tension. But these robot zombies have other plans and buy him off with some serious gang-butt-banging.
    Brilliant. I crack another Boulevard Tank 7 in celebration. Excellent plot, self.
    I bang out (hahahaha, see what I did there) around five thousand words of preposterous robot-zombie-on-cop action and call it good. I send it to Ted, who edits all my books because knowing an English teacher is the best thing to happen to my career, and get to work on a cover. See, while people love bizarro-porn, typos can rip someone out of a story. I don’t want to rip them out of the story; I want them to be so submersed in my nonsense that they forget their own name for twenty minutes.
    Just as long as they never forget mine. Charlie Shivers is synonymous with fun reads.
    Cover design is something new to me. I used to hire it out on a freelance site, but Nick gave me a copy of Photoshop for Christmas, because bros are the best, and I’ve had time to tinker with it. After I quit my job to write full-time, I figured I should learn as much as possible to keep it all in-house and preserve costs. I have beer to drink, after all. When I started, my budget often came down to alcohol vs. marketing, and alcohol always won.
    That’s actually why I’m totally psyched for the Romancing the World writers’ conference tomorrow. They’re letting me be on panels and shit. Sure, I’m not a traditional romance