You Were Warned
As ya’ll know my first two print releases are um Erotica, yeah 
that stuff. So my step-mom, being my step-mom, emails me asking when they get a copy (signed of course). I email her back with a warning, HO contains FFM threesomes, masturbation and light BDSM. “Don’t you want to wait until Nailed comes out next year?”
She never emailed me back about it, so I left it alone. THEN they came over that Sunday to fix my dryer (this was the Sunday before Nationals), and Dad was like, “Where’s my book?”
So I go get him a copy, and I tell him, “That warning on the back is for real. I emailed Jo and I’m not kidding. You were warned.”
And he’s all, “I don’t know if I should tell my friends your book is out or not.”
And I”m like “Whatever. Your father was the original dirty old man. You were warned.”
So he says, “I’ll read it first.”
You do that.
So I have to call Dad because he called me (this is like two weeks later and I came home from Nationals sick so the phone wasn’t a priority for me). And he’s like, “I started reading your book and had to put it down.” (and consult with the step-mom about it).
I guess he didn’t know I knew words like that 
You were warned. No, what I said was, “I told you so!!!!!!! LOL” while I think to myself, was it the masturbation scene in chapter one? I mean if someone tells you a book has FFM threesome in it, I’d say that’s a pretty fair warning that ANY sex in it will be hot/graphic etc.
Then he says, “I started reading some more and I had to put it down again.”
No I didn’t ask why, I was too busy laughing. Sorry Dad, you’re not my target audience.
Then he says, “I guess I should be glad your mom and I raised you to be open minded.”
(He must have gotten to the scene where Lexi kisses Sherice on the bar.) 
I say, “Yeah,” while thinking my mom was the biggest PRUDE in the entire friggin world. She NEVER talked about sex–hell I was lucky to get the period talk. If I’m sexually open minded, its retaliation (may she not turn over in her grave too many times). 
So how you do handle your family reading your work? This is my first experience and I’ve tried to be tactful (IE Non-defensive/not irritated).
August 7th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
My family read my work? Hell no, not ever EVER. They weill NEVER understand that my ideas didn’t come from Real Life Experience. And they will forever be looking at my Dh askance. And they will pray for my Poor Lost Soul.
August 7th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Well my mom reads my stuff. And I’ve warned her plenty of times. Though I don’t think she’s read my naughtier stuff yet - and I really don’t want her to. I even warned her about one - basically I said just because I write about it doesn’t mean me and the hubster are DOING that.
It’s called a fertile imagination.
And there’s no way in hell I’d let my in-laws read it. They’d never ever understand.
Your poor dad.
<—- That’s him.
August 7th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
I tell people I write romance novels that are also considered marital aids. My mom read Tourist Attraction (cause it was my first) and she was like…
oh wow, does everyone use those…words now? Is it the popular thing to do. 
My sister-in-law reads my books and seems to enjoy them. She’s even passed them onto her relatives! (See I have to actually print out that book!)
August 7th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
*gigglefits*
My mom pretty much knows what I’ve been “into” (as she read some — uh, explicit blog posts before my girlfriend and I at the time even realised she knew we had LJs) and is cool with it. Hell, I asked her opinion as a psychiatric professional on a couple things given that I’m an edge-player. :P
Given that, I figure nothing I write is liable to surprise her.
Dad, on the other hand…….
I have to tell Mom what she can and can’t show my Dad. I think he would swallow his tonsils if he read some of the stuff in A Passion Draconic. Like the weredragon blowjob scene. Or the lesbian dominatrix scene. Or… yeah…
I’m not in close contact with the rest of my relatives. I don’t know if they read my work or not, and I don’t really care.
August 7th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Um question: are you sure your Dad didn’t have to put the book down to grab your step-mom???
Sorry, that was my first thought. My MIL is constantly asking for my books, but they have to be in print for her. I gave her one and she rang me up and couldn’t stop laughing. She said she had to go for a walk to cool down. Heaven knows what she’d think of my more graphic ones because the one she read was pretty tame. I keep putting her off when she asks for more.
August 7th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
My girlfriend just read my antho and said she’d never had so much sex with her husband.
Pretty much every one knows what I do. I can’t hide it, although sometimes I think I should. 
August 8th, 2007 at 1:32 am
My oldest sister is my beta reader. *shrugs* I’ve never been embarrassed about her reading my work, just like I wasn’t embarrassed when my mom read my early work.
I dunno. I guess it’s just our relationship.
August 8th, 2007 at 2:04 am
THIS is why I have a pen name!
If my family were to read the things I write, they would hog tie me in two seconds flat and drag me to church to have the demons cast out of my wicked, wicked self. I kid you not! Right now they only think I’m weird. 
And I can live with weird
August 8th, 2007 at 10:16 am
SHelly!!!!!!
Yeah I did. YIKES!
Jane my family already thinks I’m weird so now I’m weird and smutty with scary sexual things going on in my head
August 8th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Emma … I have no sisters but I do have CP’s who are like sisters
My step-mom was an english major…she’ll never be a beta reader (besides she’s not a reader anyway so why would I let her?)
Nonny … most of my family is born-again religious so I”m totally not worried about them picking up one of my books
Karen the fact I left my dad speachless totally cracks me up
August 8th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Eva I’m waiting on my dad to call me up and ask if I’m bisexual
August 9th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
I probably won’t let anyone in my family read what I write. My mom… well, she has opinions I don’t like, nor want to hear. She would see fit to start correcting what I’m saying, criticizing, etc.
All in the name of love, of course… Right! 
August 10th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Lynn HOney…sometimes the best way to save your sanity is to do just that!
August 10th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
My Mom wants to read my work but there is no chance in hell that I will let her. And luckily for me, she’s computer illiterate and therefore wouldn’t know the first step as to how to buy an ebook, lol.
Like Eva said, I don’t think they would be able to understand that my books are pure fantasy and do NOT stem from reality (But Lord, don’t I wish!)
August 12th, 2007 at 7:26 am
I had a nieces husband read my book and he said it was dirty–and mine was not considered erotica. I have two sister’s reading it now–I guess I’ll wait and see what they say.