LOS ANGELES — Asa Akira told XBIZ that releasing her memoir next month is giving her a feeling of anticipation unlike any she’s experienced.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited about anything,” Akira said Friday from Seattle, where she is feature dancing tonight at Dream Girls at Rick’s Gentlemen’s Club. “This is a totally new venture for me. I’ve never done anything like this. Half of it is like I’m super nervous and half of it is I’m super excited.”
Akira said that "Insatiable: Porn — A Love Story" officially releases on May 6 through Grove Press “but it seems to be on sale already.”
She plans to promote the book through a series of radio interviews in the coming weeks, an “Ask Me Anything” session on Reddit.com at 1 p.m. on May 14, and at a launch event scheduled for 8 p.m. May 15 at Hustler Hollywood on Sunset Blvd.
The 2012 XBIZ Female Performer of the Year and Wicked Pictures exclusive contract girl said it took her about six months to write the book. She started it before Thanksgiving in 2012 and finished in May 2013, using her regular journal entries and even her popular Twitter feed as reference points to jog her memory.
“I’ve always kept a journal and I’ve always loved writing,” Akira said.
In the five weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2012, she wrote the first five chapters and shopped those as her proposal to seven different publishers before choosing Grove Press.
“Everything they stand for I really liked, so it was kind of a no-brainer,” Akira said. “As soon as I met with them I knew they were the ones.”
After her initial creative burst, Akira said she found her writing rhythm with a daily routine.
“I’d wake up super early at 6 a.m. and write for an hour or two, and then go to the gym, and then go to set,” she recalled.
The performer estimated about 60 percent of the book is based on her recent industry experiences, including her marriage to fellow porn star Toni Ribas, while the other 40 percent entails her going back further to recount various memories.
“It’s definitely not a tell-all, because I’ve never done anything that’s scandalous,” Akira joked. “The most famous person I’ve ever had sex with is probably James Deen. But at the same time it’s definitely the most vulnerable I’ve ever felt and it’s the most revealing I’ve ever been.”
She continued, “I think I lot of people would think doing porn and having sex on camera is like as public as you can get. But for me this was a lot more. I was a lot more scared writing this than from showing my asshole.
“There’s definitely a lot about Toni in it. There’s some stuff about previous relationships I’ve had in the business and out of the business. The whole book isn’t about my life in porn but it’s definitely a big part of it because that’s what my life is now.”
The Japanese-American star said she wrote about the two times she escorted and about when she worked as a dominatrix in her native New York before getting into porn.
“There’s a diary portion in it of the year 2012. And I feel so lucky that between journaling and Twittering that I was able to remember so much, which is great because I have a really bad memory, so that helped a lot,” she said.
Akira updates her journal even to this day.
“I’ve always kept a journal even when I was really young. I stopped for a few years when I was 15 or 16 because my mom found my diary and I was writing about guys I was fucking and all this crazy stuff. But eventually I got back into it,” Akira said. “I’m just like a huge reader, always have been. And reading and writing is something I like to do. I always thought it would be cool to write a book, but when keeping a journal those weren’t my intentions.”
She said many of the stories she tells in the book have “sexual undertones because I’m such a sexual person and I think about sex so much.”
“But it’s definitely not an erotic novel,” Akira added.
Now six-plus years and more than 340 movies into her adult film career, she has racked up more than two dozen industry awards. More recently, she has begun earning critical acclaim for her work behind the camera too as a director for Elegant Angel. The former cashier at Barnes & Noble said the hardest part for her wasn’t writing the book, it was figuring out the title and how the cover would look.
“It was that part where I went back and forth the most and I felt the most frustrated with it,” Akira said. “Because in writing it my publishers really just let me do whatever I wanted. Aside from editing grammatical errors, they didn’t censor me at all. They didn’t say I couldn’t talk about certain things or anything like that. They really gave me free range and I was so lucky for that.”
Akira and her friend David Choe, a painter and graffiti artist, collaborated on the cover design.
“I’m so happy with the painting David did. He did the font and everything for the cover,” Akira said. “The whole thing is beautiful and I’m so lucky to have a friend like him.”
The pair more than a year ago also launched a podcast called “DVDASA” — Double Vag Double Anal Sensitive Artist — that they record together every Tuesday and Thursday.
“It’s kind of like a therapy session, but everyone can hear it. It’s like my favorite part of the week,” Akira said, noting the podcast is available on ITunes.
She said an audio version of “Insatiable” will also be available starting May 6 on Audible.com, Amazon and ITunes.
“I read it myself,” Akira said.
