Phaze on TRS Blue

Phaze
www.phaze.com

At Phaze, you'll find some of the hottest, sexiest, funniest books ever to hit the romance market. Readers and writers alike have discovered the fun and friendly atmosphere, outstanding author support, and red-hot reads of this fast-growing publisher of romantic and women's erotica.

Hot Thrills! Erotic Chills! Edge-of-your-bed action!
Phaze HeatSheet Shivers
Coming October 24 to the Phaze Store.

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An Interview with Phaze
By Holly Hewson Marketing Director for The Romance Studio

HH: Thank you for joining us at TRS BLUE, Stacey. What can you tell us about Phaze? When did you open for business?

P: Very simply, Phaze is an honest, fun company dedicated to orgasmic fiction. We select books based on the quality of writing, heat level, and entertainment value. We welcome first-time authors as well as seasoned pros, and everyone in between.

Publisher and web geek Stacey L. King is an EPPIE Finalist author (2003), as well as a best-selling erotica author. She's also a multiple award-winning cover artist who has been in the publishing industry since 1999.

Our site features a custom-built store hosted on our secure server with our own secure certificate. All programming and maintenance is done in-house, and ebook purchases are available to customers immediately.

Phaze is an imprint of Mundania Press, which sports such authors as Piers Anthony, Elaine Corvidae, Jeff Strand, Don Callander, Anne Logston, Robert Adams, and Louise Cooper.

We began accepting submissions a little more than a year ago (in August 2004), and our first books were released in December 2004. We started essentially from scratch, and have grown to nearly 40 authors with more than 50 contracted works.

HH: What types of books does Phaze have to offer readers?

P: We offer Romantic Erotica and Women's erotica in a variety of genres and in a variety of lengths, all at great prices.

HH: What exciting things do you have planned for the upcoming year?

P: This month, we will be releasing our much-anticipated Shivers--six scary short stories to tickle the treats.

Next month, on the weekend of November 18-20, Phaze will be in Virginia Beach, VA, hosting a mini-con and booksigning for area Phaze authors! Readers in the area can find nine of our authors at The Pink Banana on Saturday, November 19th from noon to six. A portion of all book proceeds will benefit a leading breast cancer research foundation.

Beyond that, we have lots of good stuff in the works, so check our website often!

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HH: What advice would you give to any aspiring author who is thinking of submitting their work to you?

P: Phaze encourages all authors, aspiring or published, who are thinking of submitting their work to Phaze, to check out our Author Prospectus, available in PDF format on our website (Direct link: http://www.phaze.com/AuthorProspectus.pdf) We also encourage anyone curious about Phaze to join us for one of our monthly chats, come hang out with us on our discussion list or in our forum, the Phaze Starlight Lounge (Direct link: http://www.phaze.com/forum/). Feel free to talk to our authors, ask questions, get a feel for who we are and what we expect.

HH: Can you tell us what genre/s you are looking for and can you give us your guidelines for all book lengths?

P: Phaze is always on the look-out for outstanding erotic romance and women's erotica/erotic chic lit. We consider all subgenres, such as science fiction, contemporary, suspense, vampire, interracial, etc. Our only pseudo-requirement is that we prefer to have at least one male as part of the core 'romantic unit.' We love for authors to explore new territory and break new ground in their writing.

What We Look For:

• Strong, passionate, intelligent characters
• Intense sensual tension and situations
• Well-defined, well-executed romantic plot that illustrates the mutual relationship between two to four central characters (the romantic unit) and which includes plenty of opportunity for erotic exploration and variety.
• Conflict to create the tension and move the plot
• Expressive language that is explicit, yet appropriate to the story

• HeatSheet: 5,000 - 12,000 words (short stories)
• Photon: 12,000 - 30,000 words (novella)
• Comet: 30,000 - 60,000 words (category)
• Eclipse: 60,000 - 90,000 words (novel)

HH: In what formats are Phaze books available to readers?

P: All Phaze titles are available in five electronic formats: Adobe Reader (PDF), Microsoft Reader (LIT), Rocket/Gemstar (RB), Mobipocket (PRC), and HTML. Some titles are also available in paperback.

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HH: Can you tell us what a typical day is like for you at Phaze?

P: I'm not sure there IS a typical day at Phaze! The staff hits the ground running every morning, doing our best to make Phaze as efficient, friendly, and profitable as possible. Whatever needs to be done to achieve that goal, we do it.

HH: What sort of promotion do you ask your authors to do?

P: Phaze has a fabulous Promotion Goddess, Crystal, who works very hard to obtain reviews, interviews, features, etc., for each of our authors. We, in turn, expect each author to follow her lead and continue to promote themselves and their books.

To facilitate this, Phaze provides all our authors with ideas, tools, and goodies to use in their promotion efforts. Phaze authors may host chats on our our chat system, host author days on our discussion list, host parties and contests in our Starlight Lounge forum, and a wealth of other opportunities.

HH: Do you have a newsletter or group where readers can find out all the latest on Phaze?

P: The Phaze Announcements Newsletter can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/phaze-announcements/

The Phaze Discussion List may be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/phaze/

We also have our own forum where readers can connect directly with authors http://www.phaze.com/forum/.

HH: What can fans look forward to from Phaze?

P: Fans can look forward to more hot books at great prices, from new authors and old favorites.