Daniela R. Lovejoy
This interview contains adult images that should not be viewed by readers under 18.
Hello readers and writers!
Today we want to introduce you to an erotic author who loves to spice up her gender-bending stories with genre-bending topics. From Sci-Fi to Adventure, her books take you on a wild and wet journey! Her well-received and unique stories take risks but her gamble has paid off as readers continue to praise the stories!
Introducing Daniela R. Lovejoy!
When did you start writing as a career?
I published a book for the first time in the last half of 2019, but my writing began long before that time. I have written stories of various genres for myself or people close to me since my early teens.
What's your current work in progress?
I have just finished and published Naughty Swapped, which was my latest WIP. It has a more erotic adventure-based plot than the usual erotic romance stories of mine. So I'm hoping it will be received well by the readers. At the moment I’m in the early stages of my next which is going to be a gender swap SF story set in space and a not so distant future. It will be an erotic romance, but with drama, suspense, and humor.
You write Erotic. What inspired you to write in this genre?
I think that partly followed with the territory of writing gender swap stories where the themes often are steamy romances or pure erotica exploring the change of perspective and sex; How that impacts the sexual experiences for the characters.
How do your books rebel against the status quo in your genre?
When I decided to start publishing my gender swap stories instead of just keeping them for my eyes only, it was vital for me to prove that the new girl in the class could bring something fresh. Firstly to the readers and colleagues of the genre but most importantly to myself, prove that I had the creativity to do so. Therefore it was also a huge boost of confidence when some of my first reviewers/readers called my stories original. That was the biggest compliment they could give me. A few examples are The Girls Club series, which explores a niche within the genre very rarely told in books. With My Lesbian College Love, I attempted a fusion between an erotic gender swap and a coming-out lesbian romance which has been well received.
Gender-bending is a prevalent theme in your books. What inspired you to explore this side of eroticism?
It came somewhat naturally. In my late teens, I developed a personal kink for creating stories where men were transformed into women through various forms of sci-fi tech or paranormal magic/spells and then given a chance to explore sexual pleasures from a female perspective. For years I thought no one else had such ideas, so just made them for myself. It was first a few years ago I discovered it was a genre that had both authors and readers. I remember how surprised I was to read stories where some had plots that almost entirely followed some of my old shorts written years before. That discovery made me dare to take the leap later and start reshaping my old shorts into longer new full stories made for others to read.
Your book series for "The Girls Club" has a strong and extended plot-line. How have fans responded to the series?
The responses have been positive, which makes me very happy and honored. It’s a series where I, in my quest for creating an original story, took a bit of a gamble. I decided to let the books explore a niche within the gender swap genre using bodysuit/skinsuits for the transformation process. That form of transformation had more been seen in graphic comics than in written books when I made The Girls Club.
Erotic books are notoriously short, how long does it typically take you to write a book?
With work beside my writing, I don't have the amount of time each day to write that I would love to have in a perfect world, not yet at least. So it can take me between two to four-five weeks. I do not set a fixed word count on how long a story should be, but let the story take the pages and words it needs to be told. So far, my stories have been between 10-15k words.
Do you have any plans to write outside of your current genre?
There are no direct plans at the moment, since I'm very focused on establishing myself within my current genre, and I still have plenty of ideas for new stories to write. That said, I do have a wish to write a lesbian romance sometime in the future. I also got a plot in the drawer for a crime thriller with a female protagonist. Both are stories I would like to tell someday, though it would probably have to be under a different pen name. It's hard for any writer of erotic stories to break free of that and branch into other genres using the same name.
Talk to me about the path you choose in publishing.
With my genre in mind and starting with no contacts in the publishing world, doing it through self-publishing was the only possible way I could see. I started by doing some research on what was possible and how it worked, reading various guides and forums. That ended with I used Amazons KDP, and I still do. But there are also other platforms and paths to choose for self-publishing like, for example, Smashwords.
How do you prepare for a book release?
I make sure I have various banners and other graphics. They feature the cover and additional information regarding the book, which is ready for promoting it on the different SM platforms and websites where I'm an active member. That also includes blog posts on my website.
What advice can you give to authors who are looking to have their work published? 
I would say it is to get a SM presence while your book is still a WIP. I first got that part started when I had my first story ready for launch, and that was really too late. Even if your book is a 75k word novel where you maybe first plan to have available in six or twelve months, it can be a good help to connect with the sweet and helpful writing community on, for example, Twitter and Facebook. Besides meeting people who perhaps can offer the knowledge you don't have yet as a new writer, you might also gain some new great friends.
What can readers expect from you in the future?
Besides the erotic gender swap story set in a futuristic SF space, I talked about before. I'm tinkering with a gender swap story set in a virtual universe, be it within the gaming world or something more like The Matrix. But that is an idea that has been done before. So I'll not be writing that story before I have found a fresh, original take on the idea. I'm also toying with an origin story based on The Girls Club. It would feature one or two characters present in the original series but take place before the main character of the series joined the story.