The first event of the morning was the Publishers’ panel and it was an interesting one. There was certainly a consensus that the rise of the e-book has done nothing but brighten the future of erotic writing. The people who spoke, representing a variety of publishers, all seem to have very solid understanding of their business model and how it may evolve. They all laid out very persuasive arguments why having a publisher is an advantage over self-publishing. But the negativity that used to be there towards authors who take the self-publishing route has pretty much completely disappeared. On the troubling side, I felt there was a lot of mission and not a lot of vision.
There is always the perennial danger, when immersed in a particular industry, of losing sight of your place in it. It is understandable that both erotic writers and publishers desire to see themselves as legitimate and on par with other forms of literature, but I’m pretty sure this is a mistake for a number of reasons.
No matter how much we would like it to be, erotica is not a normative form of fiction. It is still, for a large percentage of the population, transgressive. The strategy inherent in the business models seems to attempt to ignore this. If we keep insisting we are like every other form of fiction, we’ll be seen as such and gain the market share we deserve. And if the world weren’t the mass of neuroses it is, this would be the case. But it’s not.
Ultimately, sex – graphic sex with the express intent to arouse – is not likely to be acceptable to the mainstream tomorrow, or next week, or next year. There are only two logical options: pretend it is anyway (which is what everyone is currently doing) or embrace the fact that it’s not and marketize that very problem.
When an author’s book is pulled from Amazon’s kindle list for having a title too hot for them to handle, I’m not sure the best approach is to negotiate the problem away. An alternative is to shout it from the rooftops, publicity wise, and use the controversy to steer those who are made curious by the brouhaha to other outlets.
Moreover, there are probably people who are never going to crack an erotica e-book because they’re morally uncomfortable with the genre. I think we need to stop trying to convince them it’s okay, and aim ourselves at the reading public who doesn’t buy erotica because they believe the actual writing is of inferior quality. If we could legitimize ourselves as purveyors of good, if explicit literature, the budge-able hordes with the moral dilemmas would find their way to us with yet another persuasive reason to try it – because it’s just very good writing. And it also happens to be arousing.
But that requires that instead of trying to model ourselves on mainstream models of what has been traditionally viewed as fiction of low literary quality, and crossing our fingers that we don’t offend too many people, we demand a much higher level of skills in our genre and court the far more liberal readers who will read a diverse selection of genres IF the writing is good.
Perhaps this is naive. I’m a writer, not a publisher. And not a very financial successful writer at all. So perhaps I’m the last person you should trust for an opinion on any of this.
For the rest of the day, I feel I probably missed a lot of interesting stuff because I was either in my own class, or prepping for it. I hope someone else will blog on some of the other panels and talks that went on.
I did get the opportunity to hear some wonderful fiction read by the likes of Cecilia Tan and one of the hottest descriptions of sex on a Harley I’ve ever heard from K.D. Grace. There was some question as to whether it was actually physically possible to do it, but I plugged my hears and chanted “nah, nah, nah, nah…” Who cares? It was hot.
I had tremendous fun at both my classes. The first one ‘But is it a story’ was a little disconcerting, since there wasn’t a single attendee who wasn’t probably more knowledgeable than I about the difference between fantasy and story. But it became great fun as the discussions got going. Perceptions of what different genders are looking for in erotica came up and was very interesting. There was also an engaging discussion on enabling and empowering writers not to hold back and self-censor.
For the afternoon class: “Setting as Character” I was generously helped along by Blake C. Aarens and M. Christian. I hope that between the three of us, we made persuasive and informed arguments against writing sex in the aether, pulling it down to earth, and inviting the reader into the event with good, descriptive writing.
The first day ended with a glorious banquet of erotica readings at the Erotic Heritage Museum. Many of the attendees read and read brilliantly. I’m not going to list them all, because if I leave one out by mistake ( and I’m sure to do that) it would imply that they weren’t great – and they all were.
On a more personal note, I dined in tremendous style with Aisling Weaver, Dangerous Sweets and EroticNotebook at Le Circe. And a number of us hitched a ride back to the hotel from the readings in a limo the size of a small city block. We were told this would be free of charge if we “took care” of the driver. After some discussion, it was agreed that none of us was willing to suck cock for transport so he got a rather large tip instead.
Well it shows you are getting a lot out of the event..thank you for sharing your thoughts and I hope that a list of people who shared stories will be published so we can read their works.
Best
I will do my level best to get one for you.
Thanks for the very interesting points you raise – especially the way they focus on literary quality in erotica. How I wish I could be out there with you all!
o.g.
You’re right; we do need to demand a higher level of skill in the genre, because while most professionally published erotica is nowhere near as bad as your average literary snob might think it is, in many cases it does not reach the basic quality standard that many other genres are held to.
A thing that I constantly struggle with as a publisher is how to lure these people I see in lit mags and other hoity-toityish places, people who are writing fabulously beautiful stories about dark sex that are getting published in those places, to submit to my press. I’ve gotten some and that pleases me, but I know I’m not getting as much as I could be getting, and the conclusion I’ve come to is that there is a large percentage of writers who are writing the kinds of stories that I’d love to put out at Freaky Fountain but these writers don’t want to be associated with the word “erotica.” We’ve worked hard to present stories with high literary quality, but it doesn’t seem to matter. I guess it’s that stigma hanging around again, that something openly branded as erotica can’t be literary, or can’t be equal in quality to a story about sex that has been published in a literary journal.
The other thing, and I’m not going to name names, is the staggering amount of submissions I get that are sub-par at best yet come attached to a long list of erotica-only publication credits. I mean the kind of stuff that’s full of basic punctuation and grammar errors, which doesn’t even address the cliches and poor character development and so on and so on.
The fact that you are actually concerned about this warms the cockles of my heart it a way I can’t describe.
Oh yeah, these are the top things about this business that irritate me.
Oh, you have no idea. We literally spend hours discussing these subjects, figuring out what we can do to fix the status quo. We refer to our genre as “dark literary erotica”, but it seems like many people discard the second word as soon as they read the third, and it’s so damn frustrating. I’m honestly not sure if anything can be done unless there’s a lot more publishers pushing quality erotica; right now we’re fighting against the tide of some large companies that apparently have no quality standards whatsoever. When there’s a trickle of excellent literary erotica in the midst of a sea of crappy writing, well, it’s no surprise the average reader thinks erotica in general isn’t worth their time.
I think, honestly, we need another genre label. As long as we get tossed in the same boat with the formulaic, explicit bodice busters, we’re fucked. Because it’s like being the only orange in a shipping container full of apples. I’m not dissing it. It’s just NOT what we write at all. And we’d disappoint any reader who was expecting that type of thing as much as we are disappointed by reading the label erotica and reading the bodice buster.
I understand what Hazel Cushion is after. I know she knows her market.
At the same time, we’ve got to stop fooling ourselves that her readers will ever be interested in what we do. And we have to stop aiming there. Because there is no shelter for us at that inn. We need a new word.
This is interesting to hear. There’s been so little demand for anything other than stroke-like erotica that I have pretty much stopped writing in the genre and am moving into other areas. I’ve said all along that there is a strong market for literary erotica, but most publishers seem to disagree.
I’m heartened to hear Robin and Catherine’s views on this – although I don’t write ‘dark’. I wish there were more literary erotica publishers out there.
The quality of writing is also an important issue for me. I hate the idea that just because I’m writing sex I don’t have to worry about quality. In fact, part of the reason I started writing erotica was that I wanted topics that came easy so that I could evolve and nourish the quality of my writing.
The better the writing, the more seriously I take the story. Simple as.
(I’d go into more detail, but it’s 3am and I’m not even sure the above was what I intended to say. Oh well.)
Whatever you write about, RG, I always know the final paragraph will bring a smile to my face. As did: We were told this would be free of charge if we “took care” of the driver. After some discussion, it was agreed that none of us was willing to suck cock for transport so he got a rather large tip instead.
As for writing standard amongst erotica writers, I do agree. Some of it I only read to get off on, and try not to notice the mistakes. Yours, of course, is always sublime. I wish I had a tenth of your talent. (No, it’s my honest opinion; I’m not sucking up!)
Sublime and usually unfinished. Thank you for the compliment, though.
While I don’t usually write or publish dark erotica, I do strive for quality. I like to pride myself that the anthologies I’ve edited are something to be proud of, for both myself and the authors involved. I know what you mean; there’s plenty of cringe-worthy stuff out there. I try not to add to it.
Actually, I think there are a lot of writers out there worthy of reading. I hope they’ll keep writing.
Good to know you got something out of the Con! I meant to email you but we never exchanged cards!
OH well. Perhaps in the future, darling.