My last two queer erotic horror novellas haven't really found their audiences, so I'm going back to what I know and love: robots and romance. My next novella, Imitation Love, is all about a lonely trans man who orders a robot online, and comes with a guaranteed HEA!

​Imitation Love is available for pre-order on Amazon, and it will also be part of the Kindle Unlimited program when it releases October 11th.

This is the horror erotica I've been sitting on for over a year because I didn't know if it was too hot to handle... and it is! Draft2Digital has told me that it won't be available on most major e-book retailers because they don't accept erotica or scenes of dubious/non-consent.

Smashwords does, though, as does Amazon, so if you want a copy of this spicy horror novella featuring monsterfucking, extremely dubious consent, drugged sex, rough sex, object penetration, gun kink, trans male pregnancy, eggpreg, and graphic birth, it's $2.99. Make sure you understand what you're in for before you order... it's not for the faint of heart!

Lonely Freaks will be out on October 24th, so you can enjoy it over the Halloween period. A paperback edition will be available on Amazon on the same date, priced at $7.99.

Amazon link: https://amzn.to/46Ucak1
Smashwords link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1465754

Michael Tilden's world is shattered when his wife Lori announces she wants to be with a cis man who can give her children. He'd assumed Lori loved and accepted who he was and cherished the life they'd built together. Instead, she makes him feel like less of a man, and they go their separate ways.
With no place to go but his unaccepting parents' home in Pennsylvania, Michael's in no rush to embark on a cross-country drive. When he stops at a dingy motel in the middle of nowhere, the trucker giving him the eye is too good to resist.
It doesn't matter that Bryan is rough in bed and doesn't use protection. Michael wants something that won't remind him of Lori—and Bryan is quite happy to oblige.
When Michael finds his car battery gone and his phone broken the next morning, he realizes he might have gotten more than he bargained for. Trapped in an abandoned town where it feels like something's watching him, he's at Bryan's mercy—but he enjoys being the prey almost as much as Bryan loves being the hunter…

Seeing Stars is completed sooner than I expected, so I've set the preorder date for my birthday (February 19th, 2023). Seeing Stars will be available widely, not exclusive to Amazon, but I don't have links to all the other stores yet.

An M/M Science Fiction Romance Disaster novel with a happy ending!

As children, Mick and Adrian forged a promise as they looked up at the stars. Time and money pulled them apart with harsh words and bitter regrets, and their wish was cast aside.
Now, space is a haven for the wealthy, who flaunt their riches aboard the opulent Empyrean Station, dining on crab with a spectacular view of Earth and enjoying a permanent vacation in one of Empyrean's many temperate biospheres. The stars are a long-forgotten dream to starship mechanic Mick, who lives in the Old New York shanty town swallowing his remorse as he struggles to meet his basic needs.
Until Adrian returns to him with heart-rending news—he's terminally ill with Miasma, a pollutant-driven, degenerative illness. With Adrian only having months to live, Mick realizes nothing matters except loving him and reaching for their dream together.
Stealing a spaceship, they launch into space to see the stars with their own eyes. Mick and Adrian end up embroiled in miracles and tragedies as they fathom Empyrean's true nature and face down those who would do anything to survive the coming apocalypse—except solve the problem.

So, it's been a busy few months here at Casa Reis. I've written a new M/M science fiction novel called Seeing Stars which will hopefully see the light of day in the next few months, and I've released a short story collection called Transliteration: A Collection of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Stories Featuring Transmasculine Characters. You can buy that on Amazon or read it for free using Amazon's Kindle Unlimited program.

As we wrap up the year I'm making plans for the next. I have several half-finished manuscripts which I would love to get past the finish line, specifically Nick Fabian #4, an untitled enemies-to-lovers style fantasy manuscript, and a science fiction telepath piece. I have 12 on-the-go projects that are above 10,000 words. Twelve! I need to work on my discipline and actually finish things this year!

Speaking of finishing things, this is the year I want to make my transition legal and change my name. It's probably going to cause a few waves in the work world, where I've been closeted for the past few years, but it's time to move forward with my life. That being said, I'm not a wealthy person, and due to my locality being stubborn, they've insisted I get a lawyer to handle the process. I don't accept donations (there are people far more needy than me!) but I always appreciate any support of my books, as building that side hustle reduces the stress of being reliant solely on my job for income. Please consider buying my books, and if you enjoy them, a review on your platform of choice goes a long way in boosting their discoverability.

It's been a pretty rough year for me, professionally. After receiving several rejections from paying markets, and seeing disappointing sales of my recent novel Conversion Dysphoria Blues, I didn't even want to look at anything I'd written, convinced it was all terrible.

There wasn't a magic pill that got me out of my slump, it simply took time to work through it and move past it. It's not the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last. Paying markets are incredibly hard to crack, charity projects are overwhelmed by people who want to help, and the novels I really, really love writing seem to be the ones that sell the worst. It's weird how that is, but it's always been true going right back to some of my first.

I can only write for myself, though. I know this because I wrote my worst novel (under my deadname) trying to write what I thought everyone else wanted, and not only was I dreadfully wrong on that count but the work was dreck. Writers must, above all, be honest and true to themselves, or the work suffers. So I don't intend to change what I'm writing, though I may adjust the price point and tweak some other factors. 

Speaking of which, I'm putting together an anthology of my short trans-themed works, most of which were written for markets that rejected them. Before you shout and say "nobody buys single-author anthologies!" don't panic, I know. I'm going to aim for a much lower digital price point and possible Kindle Unlimited inclusion to see if it makes for a good gateway drug to my novels. It has to be better than these stories (and they're good ones!) sitting around on my hard drive unread. Don't expect a launch with a lot of fanfare and hype - I'll probably just drop it onto the market at some point with a little announcement and a very short pre-order period (if any).

I'm also working on three other novella-sized projects. One is about a haunted hotel, one is about a dystopian future workplace, and the other is about inherited magic. All of them feature trans protagonists, but I haven't ruled out writing about cis men again in the future. Nick Fabian #4 is also kicking around, but I'm on my fourth try writing it and I'm not going to proceed without a very solid outline. There's nothing more frustrating to me than having 30,000 words in completely unusable fragments because I noped out on an idea halfway through, which is what happened in all my attempts. I think I might try to write something a little more light-hearted when I attempt it again.

That's all for now!

​-Reis

It's not an easy process, writing novels. Sometimes, when you work on something for two years, you think that it has a larger audience than it does. Truth is, writing books about trans and nonbinary people is always going to be a tiny niche in a large world - one that doesn't, unfortunately, turn a profit. Even keeping my costs as low as I possibly can, most of my novels never earn out what I spend to publish them. Things haven't been great for publishing as a whole in recent years, but books aimed at a tiny sliver of the population? The rule of selling is that there has to be a market, and in this case, the market for books about middle-aged trans men is slim-to-none.

I took out some ads on Amazon to try and boost the sales of Conversion Dysphoria Blues and other backlist titles. I didn't invest more money than I was willing to lose, but after three months, the experiment was a dismal failure. Out of two-thousand impressions, I got a handful of clicks, and none of those converted to sales. The fish aren't biting, and I have to face a fact after twelve years writing - my novels, written largely for my own self-expression and because they're the kind of books I'd like to read - don't appeal to more than a handful of people. A lot of trans people don't want to read trans books, because they don't want to be reminded of dysphoria, transphobia, and the other challenges we face (and that's fair!). Cis people balk at something they don't fully understand, especially with some of the negative press surrounding trans people, and my uncompromising queerness doesn't spare their feelings.

So novel writing is a hobby, and that might be for the best. Trying to make money out of fiction writing has been twelve years of trying to wring blood from a stone. The cycle of excitement pre-release that turns into depression post launch is bitter after so many years trying. Right now it has me in a terrible slump. I'm the wrong kind of writer for the mainstream, and I have no interest in trying to mold myself into a different kind of fiction writer. I'll always be that weird person (probably somewhere on the autism spectrum), who doesn't always relate well to others, and when I try to write typical stories about average people, it falls flat. The kind of books that make money for others don't work for me. My characters are quirky eccentrics who live in my head rent-free, who fight the good fight, who come through in the end. It's not everyone's cup of tea. I've accepted it.

There's more than one way to earn money writing, however. I've dipped my toes into the world of freelance writing. It's not glamorous work by any stretch of the imagination, but writing articles and blog posts for people who need them may well subsidize the next cover or round of editing. I've yet to make my first dollar, but I'm laying the groundwork while I'm blocked on my fiction writing to earn income in other ways. Hopefully I can make something work so that I can finally sever the cord between my art and the need to earn more money than my regular full-time job pays me.

Then I might be able to look at my paranormal novel's first draft without the belief that it's hot garbage.

I've been working on a little project I like to call "Echoes". It's a paranormal M/M novel set in an abandoned English hotel where the spirits of the dead aren't resting in peace. Leland is tuned into these spiritual afterimages, but his husband John is skeptical. When John inherits the hotel from his father, he plans to sell it quickly to deal with their financial problems, but Leland soon becomes obsessed with the Echoes, living their past lives as an escape from his own.

Here's a little snippet from a very early draft:

Was this hotel a hookup place for gay men? He thought back to Tom and Aiden from the day before. They'd used this hotel to meet up in secret. There was the possibility the Grand Park had been an oasis in the desert for Shorehaven's gay community. London was only an hour away. Men of wealth and means probably traveled here to meet with others, and he'd strolled in taking notes like an idiot.
"What's your name?" Leland asked, trying to diffuse the tension in the air.
"We don't use names here."
"They must call you something."
"I go by Nigel." Nigel went behind a small bar and poured himself a glass of brandy. Leland caught the tremor in his hand and the way he gulped the drink down in earnest.
"I'm one of you," Leland said. "That's why I'm here. I was foolish for bringing a notebook; I thought if I pretended at being a reporter, I could see what it was all about before I dipped my toes in the water."
"That's what a journalist would say," Nigel observed. He poured himself another brandy and walked over to the couch, where he sat down. The couch creaked, even under his slight weight. "Have you ever enjoyed the company of men before?"
"Y-yes," Leland replied, realizing his nerves made him sound every bit the virgin. Nigel tapped the seat next to him and he realized he had no choice but to go along. If he backed out now, things could take a terrible turn. He sat down close to Nigel, feeling the body heat emanate off him. He smelled like sandalwood and cigarettes, a heady aroma that made Leland think of wealth and taste.
Nigel placed a hand on his leg, gently rubbing it up and down. "What should I call you?" he purred into Leland's ear. Sweat trickled down Leland's brow. Was this cheating? Would Nigel reach his crotch and realize he didn't have a cock?
Except he did have a cock, and he was stiffening under Nigel's teasing touch. He wasn't Leland, was he? He was Walter. He was living another life, an echo of a past long gone; an afterimage.
"W-walter," he stammered. "Walter--"
"Just Walter will do. As I said, no names, in case of a police raid. It is better if we cannot identify one another."

The long wait is over! Join Nolan and Tallis as they tackle the corrupt system of Garden City to secure a future for cyborgs everywhere.

Enjoy a scene from the novel:

Nolan crossed the street to the park, which was brightly lit even at this time of night. He wandered over to the railings, looking at the beautiful city awash with color, its skyscrapers blinking neon blue and pink. In the old world down below, that might be considered a waste, but Garden City was sustainable, the first green city to be floated in the skies above the United States. The river roaring below him was clean enough to drink. Tallis wouldn't remember the world below. He'd probably been born here, in Garden City, and he hadn't had to endure the grim effects of global warming and environmental pollution.

"I still have doubts, sometimes," Tallis continued, seeming to shrug off Nolan's dismissal as he followed him. He stood next to Nolan, his shock of blue hair sticking to his face with the rain. His eyes were only for Nolan, the environment something he clearly took for granted. "Is that what you wanted to hear? If I was human, I'd probably have kids by now. A wife. A career. A normal life, like they show in commercials. Then I dig deeper and I realize I never wanted any of that stuff anyway. Still, just the thought that those doors have been closed forever—it's a lot, sometimes. Thinking about who I might have been if I'd made different choices. It's okay to mourn the life you might have lived, though. It's a process."

"You're starting to sound a lot like a Regretter yourself," Nolan observed, raising an eyebrow. "Sure you're not gonna become a so-called 'human rights' activist?" It felt only fair to fire that one back at him, even in jest.

"Never." Tallis shrugged, taking the remark at face value. "I think everyone has the same thoughts. If I hadn't made the leap, I'd be wondering what my life would be like if I had. A round peg trying to fit in a square hole for all time. Longing for all those lost years I could have spent in this body."

​