reviews_and_ramblings | My First(s)… and I call the name!

No, it’s not the story of the orgy that was my first time (even if maybe it would be more interesting!) but two years ago I opened my LiveJournal and so I think it would be fun to share with you my walk on memory.

The first gay romance I read is Crossing the Lines by Stephanie Vaughan: as I said before, blame her if I'm around.

The first review I wrote (and yes after two years I finally have the courage to call what I write "review") is Angel's Evolution by T.A. Chase; it was a surprise to find an "historical" gay romance, and it opened me to a variety of genres.

The first person I contacted on LJ is Erastes (

erastes ) and also the reason why I'm on LJ: I was browsing the net on authors’ websites and found the link to this "strange" tool, which allowed you to blog, but also to have all the blogs of your friends in a page... wow, way better than other blog tools and so I thought "why not?".

The firsts to friend me back are Jourdan Lane (

jourdanlane ), Luisa Prieto (

l_prieto ), Sean Michael (

sean_michael ), Jane Davitt (

janedavitt ) and Jules Jones (

julesjones ) (all on the same day, so I don't now who was the first! In this case the paternity is uncertain…): thanks guys and girls, I'm really happy to have you still in my friends list! Jules Jones is also the first person to comment on one of my posts: thank you!

The first LJ friend I met by person is James Buchanan (

eroticjames ): so kind to invite me to a dinner at home where I found also Stephanie Vaughan, Jay Lygon, Eden Bradley, Zoe Nichols (

zoenichols ) and Marame (

marame ).

The first author who sent me a print book to review is William Maltese, actually he sent it to me since he is a wonderful man, but I obviously reviewed it! Not only, he packed the book three time to send it to Italy, since the post office gave him so much trouble... when I finally received to book I had to open three different envelopes, all of them with my address on them handwritten! Poor William, I'm really honoured that you had so much patient for me.

The first author who linked one of my reviews is Carolyn Gray (

paragraphs ) for her wonderful and till now only gay romance, A Red Tainted Silence; I was very proud of that link.

The first author who linked one of my websites (I have two blogs and one website) without me asking him, (and we didn’t know each other!), is D.J. Manly: he is a very sweet man, I like his yahoo groups, it’s almost a place to chat among family.

The first author I contacted is Laura Baumbach, I was really impressed from her Out There in the Night and I wanted to tell her so. I had so the chance to see also her first attempt to self-publishing (I proudly own probably one of the few copies of Details of the Hunt published through Lulu Press) before she successfully launched MLR Press.

The first publisher that listed me among the official reviewers is Linden Bay Romance and thanks to Lee Rowan (

lee_rowan ) who thought that my reviews were a worthy social activities; again I was very proud. Thanks also to the other publishers which followed soon: Torquere Press, Dreamspinner Press, Sofawolf Press, Samhain Publishing, Changeling Press, Lethe Press, MLR Press.

The first publisher who used one of my reviews in their print books is Samhain Publishing on the print version of With Caution by J.L. Langley (

jl_langley ); not only, but my reviews is the first before other more famous review sites like Literary Nymphs or Joyfully Reviewed... so I was even more proud.

The first person who asked me for an interview is Josh Lanyon (

jgraeme2007 ) for the manual on how to write gay romance, Man, Oh Man!: well, I was pretty surprise by it, but obviously I agreed with joy.

Finally my top ten commenters are: Max (

maximvanziel ), Robin (

snowmore ), Lauralyn (

abstractrx ), L.C., Alex (

ashmedai ), Leeteng (

leeteng ), Lee Rowan (

lee_rowan ), Jules Jones (

julesjones ), James Buchanan (

eroticjames ) and Tiffany (

muroku ), in this order: thank to you all!

And now a bit of numbers (remember guys, I studied Economics, I love numbers!):

Last month my LJ had 8.099 single visits per month, an average of 260 single visits per day... well guys, you are a lot but you don't comment so much... Why?

In the last 12 months the number of single visits per month was always higher than the previous month... I don't believe that this November will be the same, and I almost feel relieved, I was wondering if I should take some type of viagra pills to maintain the performance! I'm joking of course, but lately I was really wondering why such a trend was happening. I believe that most of the success was also due to my Man Candy posts :-) I know there are people out there that only wait that day... and probably there are also people that don't like them, but I really try to not doing a meat market: I don't post a list of anonymous pics with the only purpose to raise the number of hits. I try to choose the Man Candy for something special in him, something that tickles my fantasy (yes, of course, also my sexual fantasy), but also for his personal story; and for this reason I call them MY Men Candy, since I feel for them.

I have a rank of 7.000 (more or less) on Amazon.com, and this means that I'm a Top Reviewer (reviewers with a rank under 10.000); recently they changed the ranking system and I jumped on 1.500: well, it was a surprise, but also a pleasure. Now my goal is to go under 1.000 and obtain my badge!

Last I have almost 1.000 friends on MySpace, among authors and models: I don't use a lot MySpace, I only post bulletins and similar, but it's a good way to build a wider network than LiveJournal. But truth be told, I don't check it as often as LJ.