Review: Summer Earns Her Collar By Dominic Freeman

Summer Earns Her Collar
By Dominic Freeman

Synopsis:

A story of submission as Summer finds out what it means to be a sub. Her Dom has a surprise for her and as long as she can take it, a reward as well.
(Yes that is literally all the synopsis you get from the author)

Review:
I was looking for a quick steamy read when I downloaded this book. While the story is only 2,500 words long I found nothing steamy about it. In a short story things need to be made clear. I'm still not sure if this is just one part of a larger story since every other book I found by Dominic Freeman had the same exact cover (P.S. There was nothing about duct tape roses in the book so I'm not sure what the cover was trying to get at).

From the beginning paragraph I had a bad feeling about this story and my fears were confirmed when the male character started biting the woman over and over again. I have no issue with biting, but I couldn't figure out why he was doing that. It was never made clear to the reader if he was some sort of supernatural character, or if he was just a jerk who was hungry. Yes this was a BDSM book but I've read BDSM stories before where there was character development that explained who, and more importantly, what the people were.

Summer's Dom oozes the creep factors. Doms can be sexy, they can be enticing, Summer's Dom however was neither of those things he was simply a creepy bully with no finesse.

Here's the breakdown: They've been Dom and sub for some extended period of time, they have been planning this “big night” for weeks. And yet when she goes to the cafe to meet him he never shows up, she waits a half an hour and finally he calls her to tell her he's been watching her. Creepy. Then he tells her to walk down a dark alley, where he then basically attacks her. Creepy. He then reminds her that it is his job to be a sadistic asshole. I'm paraphrasing her, but that is it in a nutshell. Still creepy. So they've been together all this time and she is getting the “honor” of seeing where he lives for the first time. Super creepy. I half expect there to be a musty smell of decaying flesh and blood splatters on the floor of his hovel, which by the way is a loft apartment with a door right in the same dark alleyway.

They laugh and frolic, as he flip flops between a dick and uber creepy uncle-type. And Summer just thinks he's swell and laps up his attention like a puppy at the water bowl. He restrains her, bites her all over and then they have sex.

Afterward is full of cuddles and falling asleep. You know what, he still hadn't given her the collar, only in the morning when he tells her he has something for her and she assumes that means he wants a blowjob does he give her the collar... Making her the most gosh-darn happiest girl in the world. Then of course she sucks him off as a sign of appreciation and the story ends with her acknowledging the fact that tomorrow things would go back to normal. Which I can only assume means her Dom will continue to be a douche bag who doesn't allow her access to him in his normal life, which really leads me to believe that Mister "I like to sink my teeth into your flesh" Dom is probably some bored banker with poor self-esteem, a wife and 5 kids at home and this alleyway loft of his is where he takes all the whimpering little Mary Sue's he cons into spreading their legs for him.

Would I recommend this free read to anyone? No. I'm not going to get into the formatting, editing, grammar, and book cover. The story was enough for me to decide on a rating. I love BDSM books, but I like strong female characters, you can be strong and still submit. There is strength in choosing to submit and hand over control to someone else whom you can trust and is worthy of taking control, but Mary Sue characters like Summer aren't strong, they are gullible and needy. That doesn't make for a good read.

1 out of 5 Stars

Heat Rating: Mild/Spicy

(The descriptions of sex are graphic and use words normally seen in a spicy rating but the lack of emotion and flavor left the sex scenes bland and stagnant. Be warned, due to the language used this is not a read for anyone under 18 years old or who is looking for a sweet romance)

(mild, medium, hot, spicy, scorching)

I downloaded a free copy of this book from Smashwords.

Download this short story:

on Smashwords

Titles

Ahhh titles, I think that's the second thing I hate most (writing synopsis being the first). You have to come up with something catching, relatable to the book, and something that's not so common 20,000 other books come up with the title. It's a pain in the butt. Some recent advice I was given about titles was to keep them short 2-3 words show up best on thumb nails and you want to make sure you can see titles. The one thing I recommend is to check Google, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and even Smashwords for books with similar titles, hell give Goodreads a try!

These are the results that I get for In Black and White:

This is Amazon, there is no romance or erotica that matches the title exactly, which is good. However, I do see that black and white is used often in erotica. Good to know, that wasn't something I was aware of until I saw Amazon.

This is what I get on Google. A few articles on interracial sex, a christian novel and a Goodreads link. That's without quotes and specifying novel, if I put quotes around it, I get a ton of photography references.

My results on BN are a bit more varied, but still nothing with an exact title match. So we're still going strong, it's a unique title that is relevant to the book, and I think it's catchy.

 This is what I found on Smashwords, I have to say I was a bit surprised because Smaswords normally has a tone of smut under the strangest of names. However, only having six results (and they all belong to that same series...) I'm a happy camper.


I have to say with all of these results, I'm confident that my title will stick out. Yes there are similar titles, but nothing the exact same, as well as little-if not none- of them deal with BDSM.

So remember when you are picking a title, make it catchy, make it unique, and relevant to the story.

Amazon and Smashwords

So while Mia and I are both working hard on our edits, I thought I would cover distribution a little bit. When I first looked into this, I was completely overwhelmed. There's Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, Kobo, Ibook and so many others out there. What was I going to do? I want my book out to as many readers in as may formats as I can. At one of the conventions I went to I sat through a panel that kept mentioning Smashwords, and I had to wonder what on earth was this magical website where authors only had to formate one document and were able to distribute to all kinds of different places? Naturally, I went home and I googled it. Now, I plan (and have used under my non-penname) to use Smashwords and Amazon to publish the digital copy of In Black and White.

Amazon is fantastic for Kindle and it's rare that Smashwords will distribute straight to Amazon (I'm not sure what the trick is behind it.). Kindle is easy to format for and simple to upload. Amazon has their KDP Direct program, where you have certain benefits for only having your book on Kindle for a specified about of time. I've never used this program, nor have I talked to others who have, so I can't tell you if it's worth it or not. Personally, I won't participate in this because I feel like I'm isolating my readers who don't have a kindle.

My Pros for Amazon:
-Widely known and trusted site
-Easy for readers to purchase and leave reviews
-Easy to up load and sell

My Cons for Amazon:
-Kind of a pain in the butt to run sales
-Other authors cannot leave reviews
-Kindle only
-Cannot offer free book without hassle

Smashwords to me is magical. I know a lot of people who have problems with Smashwords because they are DRM free (Digital Rights Management, read Smashwords' comments on it here in the FAQs). I read through their thoughts, did some research and decided it wasn't a deal breaker for me. Smashwords has guidelines you must follow in order to make it into their premium catalog so you can be distributed to the different companies they work for. It's a super simple guideline and easy to follow. They also have many different formats on their website (including Kindle, even though it's rare they distribute a book to Amazon.). I love the idea of uploading one document and them converting it for me. It saves me a ton of time. The biggest downfall to this is some times it takes a while for the book to show up at Barnes and Noble and Ibook, because of the days that Smashwords 'ships' books out. (But I feel they make up for that by offering all the different formats from their website.)

Pros for Smashwords:
-Different formats and distributions options
-Easy to format
-Easy to change price and run sales (Also offers coupons, great for giving free copies to review blogs.)
-Easy for readers to review
-Easy to put up a free story

Cons for Smashwords:
-Not widely known to readers who are new to the indie game
-DRM free (though again, not a deal breaker for me)
-Lots of smut and crap (There seems to be more on Smashwords than Amazon...)

So there you go, some basics on the two of them, a small comparison. My advice to you, read into it, do some research and see if they are both right for you.