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.
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