As he continues along his multi-city book tour which began Labor Day Weekend 2009 in Atlanta during the city's annual In The Life Atlanta (black gay pride) with his fifth novel in tow, The King of Erotica IV: The Dethronement, Wilson can boast that he is the only self-published author to have

But that's not all. Wilson has also recently released two additional books - one a collection of short stories focusing on a specific example of fetishes, Some Men Wear Panties, and the one he says he is most excited about, Call Her Queen Hatshepsut, which takes his writing in a totally new direction.

"This is my first book that is not erotica and I think it is the book that will establish me as a serious writer," he said. "I had a dream that gave me the idea for the initial concept and I already knew the history of the Egyptian queen so it kind of wrote itself - in five days to be exact.

"But I also tie in some very personal experiences and things I have faced, including being abused and raped. I wanted to explore the notion of whether the way we express our sexuality - straight or gay - is really a choice or something that is forced on us.

That's what the main character asks himself in the novel - whether he dresses and sees himself as a woman because of his mother's brainwashing, or if it was always a part of his identity.

Telling the story of a young transvestite was really exciting for me because it wasn't about sex. I wanted my readers to bring their questions to the table and I push them in this novel. As for the ending - it's a real shocker."

Wilson sent a copy of his book to his mentor and best-selling author E. Lynn Harris last spring when he was still making revisions and found to his pleasant surprise that Harris thought it was a real hit. Harris even endorsed the novel just weeks before his unfortunate death.

"I consider his endorsement to be a real blessing and want to follow his example - even taking my career to places that I am sure he would have if he had had the chance," Wilson said.

"He told me that I have amazing talent and was impressed with how I write from so many different angles.

 That encouragement meant a great deal to me. And he called Queen Hatshepsut a masterpiece. Those were powerful words from someone as talented and successful as E. Lynn Harris."

During his days in elementary school, Dapharoah69 had the good fortune to be guided by teachers who recognized his potential even though he himself had yet to realize that he had an uncanny ability for writing.

"Even when I was a little boy I felt drawn to writing, but I really hoped that one day I would become a journalist or a television producer," he said. "I won numerous awards for my editing, wrote for the school newspaper and prepared copy for the teleprompter - I just wanted to write. At six I was already beginning to write. But it was mostly something I did for fun.

"My teachers would tell me that if you wanted to improve your writing you had to read the works of accomplished authors and my favorite by far was Langston Hughes, especially his poetry. I think he published something like 15 collections and I have read them all.

His words about love are amazing. Robert Frost also had a profound effect on me, as early as the third grade when my teacher forced me to memorize and recite "The Road Not Taken" for a school competition that incidentally I won. Frost's poetry touched me and opened up something inside of me.

I think I was still in high school when I was introduced to his seminal work - Invisible Life. I could relate to the characters in a lot of ways and it just blew me away. He explained so much about gay men and love in that book - it was a real revelation."

Struggling to Make His Voice Heard

The road of the self-published author is an arduous one - filled with valleys of setbacks, betrayals and disappointment. But according to Dapharoah69, he soon discovered that if he was going to make his voice be heard, he was going to have to find a way to publish his own work.
"Writing was the easy part," he said. "

It was common for me to whip out a few hundred pages in one sitting or at least in a couple of days. But getting my manuscripts published was another obstacle. Being a self-published author is very difficult and next to impossible.

My first deal was supposed to be with Trimaxx Publishersand they introduced me to the idea of using My Space to market my book. That was about five years ago. Talk about naïve.

"I was just another want-to-be author to them and they really burned me. As my popularity grew and I became a super blogger, the traffic really began to increase. Before I knew it the attention I was getting and the demand for my work had overshadowed their number one author.

First they accused me of plagiarism saying it was impossible for someone my age to write something so good. Needless to say I never got the book deal that they initially offered. They betrayed me but it made me even more determined to get my work out there.

"Other aspiring authors can probably relate to the daily grind - I was writing proposals, sending them to publishers, getting a lot of rejections and coming out of my own pocket to cover the expenses. Then someone asked me about doing some movies - porn flicks. The money was really good and I needed the money so I sacrificed my body and who I was and did it. But that only lasted about five days. As soon as I had the money I needed I called it quits.

"I was able to find a distributor and had my book mass-produced. I didn't have a car so I carried my books with me everywhere I went and I gave them away. That was my first book - The King of Erotica I. I just wanted people to read it and naturally I wanted to know what they thought about my work. I was praying that folks would believe I had something worth reading."

Dapharoah69 was now a published author but would his book become just another paperback novel collecting dust on the coffee tables of his friends and family? He says that what happened next was more than he could have hoped for. And he attributes the success of that first novel and his subsequent works to the decision he made to tackle topics that were considered taboo in the black community.

"Things started blowing up like wildfire and people were ordering my book online like crazy," he said. "It kind of took on a life of its own. I was talking about sexual abuse and the things I went through as early as

six-years-old. I challenged families who allowed such abuse to go on while looking the other way. I confronted sexuality in the church and the way men are often promiscuous and cheat on their wives.

I wrote in a way that moved towards understanding the complexities of life and the complex situations that many of us have faced or still face. I wanted to deal with the psychology of my characters and examine what drives a person to do things to others that they know are wrong.

And then, I wanted or perhaps needed to address my own sexuality - why was I attracted to other men and did that make me gay?

"I knew that I was writing about topics that were rarely discussed in our families and in the black community but it was necessary.

I was treated brutally by people within my own family and every time I went for help, people turned their backs on me. Later on I understood some of what I went through to be part of a generational curse. But at the time all I knew was that it hurt. I hoped that if I shared what I had been through and how I had survived, including attempts at suicide that I would be able to inspire other and help them deal with their own demons. And it worked - people connected with what I was saying."

Some Men Wear Panties

While Wilson (Dapharoah69) prepares to introduce his fans to the final installment in his four-part series, The King of Erotica, he has also just completed a powerful collection of short stories about men with a particular fetish - women's panties.

"Some Men Wear Panties has been getting great feedback since it was released late last year," he said. "The book deals with the psychology of men who are infatuated with women's panties and believe me - there are a lot of men out here that have a real thing for them. I know some brothers that wear them and really like the way they feel on their skin, but if the general public knew about their fetish, they would be looked at quite strangely.

So I write about husbands, boyfriends and even construction workers - every day,

nondescript men who wear panties under their uniforms and suits. Some men just like to smell their woman's aroma that lingers in their panties. Maybe it's a wild notion but it's also reality. And I like to write about the real. And except for one or two stories that deal with men who are gay, it's really about the sexual desires of heterosexual men."

At a Store, or Website, Near You

The way books are distributed and purchased has changed over the last decade. While community bookstores and national chains carry some of his books, the majority of his readers access his books for purchase over the Internet. All of Wilson's books can be purchased on Barnes and Nobel and Amazon.

And if you are the kind of person that likes to read the reviews before you make your selection, you will find that his books are rated with five stars.

Clearly Wilson has learned how to market himself and his product, with several thousand fans on his Face book page and an estimated 400 book clubs across the globe who have read one or more of his books. And while he is pleased with his success so far, he says he still has a lot more he plans to accomplish.

"I have over 40,000 fans that follow me on Twitter, Tagged and Face book and these are readers who represent a variety of demographics," he said. "E. Lynn used to get a lot of the straight women but I tend to have a lot of straight men. Of course you will always get those people (male or female) who are just looking for a hook up. Some just hit me up because they like my pictures and find me sexy.

And I use that I suppose to hook them and then show them that while I am not interested in having sex with them, that in my novels I do talk about sex and the kinds of situations in which we often find ourselves while pursuing our sexual desires.

Ironically, the ones that were once interested in me from a physical basis have often become my biggest fans. I think that's the power of the Internet. And while I cannot entertain in depth conversations on line, I do personally reply to every note I get, if only to say thank you."

Dapharoah69 says that with each novel he has found that his writing has become more developed and the analysis he provides of his characters has grown more complex. In other words, he has had to delve deeper into the abuse suffered by his characters and then consider how that abuse impacted the decisions they later make as adults.

"In order to be honest in my work, I had to relive some of the abuse that I went through as a child - and that was not easy," he said. "The new book is probably my most personal work to date and like all of my books, I reveal a lot about myself at the beginning.

I talk about why I wrote the book and the things I was dealing with while writing. Some writers tend to keep their personal lives separate but for me it is a strategic move - I want my readers to know me intimately."

One of the author's more personal revelations is the fact that he recently tested positive for the HIV virus. He says that he discovered this during a routine testing that was conducted by one of his friends in South Beach who does community outreach for SoBap, a program that targets the LGBT community. And the news was something that almost destroyed him.

"I had been walking around for the last year or so infected and I didn't even know it," he said. "I was dealing with one man who I loved and who claimed he loved me. But what I discovered was that he was not only positive, but knew he was positive. It was the kind of thing that I write about in my novels. What happens to my characters in my make believe world was actually happening to me in real life.

I guess it's true that in many instances, art imitates life.

"For a few weeks I kind of gave up - I was suicidal and very depressed and while I needed to tell someone, I didn't know who I could tell. It was my secret and I was prepared to die as I had lost my desire to live. But then I decided to tell my 3,000-plus friends who make up my Face book family about my status. I logged on about midnight and shared the news - it was a pivotal moment in my life and I experienced a true epiphany."

Wilson continues his story by saying that before the sun would rise, he had over 790 comments from around the world. People from South Africa, Malaysia, the Philippines, China and even Russia were reaching out to him. And in some cases they even shared that they too were positive and had been living with that secret.

"One sister from Kenya wrote that she had been HIV-positive for 15 years and because I was willing to share the truth about my health, she was able to tell her own family what she had been going through," he said. "I thought it was a glitch in the system," he said. "I mean almost 800 comments is hard to believe.

People were saying that I was their hero and that they were proud of me for being so brave. They were encouraging me not to give up. They were sharing their love and it was so emotional that I finally had to turn off my computer - I was shaking."

He adds that his friends' list grew overnight and his book sales went through the roof.

Dapharoah69 was asked to join Harris, as part of his Literary Café as one of three selected authors at an annual event hosted early last year. What's more, Harris would publicly endorse his new protégée, advising him and offering encouragement when needed.

"He [Harris] told me that he wanted me to join him in Miami at the Café because of the kinds of topics I addressed in my books," Wilson said. "And like him, I busted my butt to get my books in the hands of the public. I remember how his first book, Invisible Life, actually changed my life. And it occurred to me that maybe my books might have the same influence on others.

We took a picture together and he held up my books - something he said he almost never did. And within a few hours every book I had with me was sold - well over 100 copies. So when he died recently you can imagine how devastated I was. He had the courage years ago to push the conversation and introduce to the mainstream the reality that some of us were living - men loving and living with men and in relationships with other men who were also brothers, uncles and fathers. I feel like it was my destiny to meet him and believe that we have lost one of our real jewels."

As Dapharoah69 continues to traverse the nation, he isn't just be peddling his books. In fact, one of his primary concerns now is talking about HIV/AIDS awareness. He says with pride that as an official face for Meak Productions he not only has the chance to talk about his work but also how important it is to protect one's self.

"My books often present characters that intentionally affect others with sexually transmitted diseases and since that is my reality I want to educate people," he said. "I guess you can say that I am using my own life as an example and hopefully, will be able to save some people from the pain I have had to deal with. But hey, I am a survivor."

The author can be reached on FaceBook , Tagged or Twitter.

All of the proceeds from the sale of his "Queen" novel have been dedicated to relief efforts in Haiti.