New Valuations: Erotica and What It’s Worth

There is no other way to put it, writers get paid shit. Erotica writers get paid even less shit.

At present, a writer of a short, say 4,000 word, story gets approximately $50 for the story. This works out at about 1 cent a word. Does that seem like the wrong way to work out a value? How about this: it takes me about 30 hours from initial inspiration to polished completion to write a 4K story (It may be that I’m a slow writer, or a fast one. I don’t know). About $1.5 per hour. 1/3 of the minimum wage in most western countries.

It has been said that the reason for this is because there is so much freely available erotica that the intrinsic value of a piece is very low. This may indeed be a contributing factor, but long before the internet was around, erotica writers still got paid shit.

It could also be said that writers value being published in print so much that they are willing to get paid very little in the hopes of seing themselves in print.

It might also be that our society is still uncomfortable with the consumption of explicit written material, and that this skews the marketplace. People might want to read erotica, but they don’t want to slap a dirty book down at the checkout counter. They’d rather consume their erotica secretly.

The bean counters would say, as evidenced by the summary folding of Black Lace, that there is no market.

Literary critics would say that, in an attempt to ensure good sales, erotica publishers began to only accept work that was so formulaic, they killed their own market.

I don’t have an answer for this dilemma. But clearly something is not being understood. Clearly there IS a demand for good explicit writing, and there are good writers to produce it. But social conventions, inflated profit expectations, and a general undervaluing of creative labour are all contributing to a disconnect between the producer and the consumer.

I propose that we need to find another way to evaluate the relative worth of erotic writing. I’m not sure what that way would be, but the one we currently have is not working. And perhaps it is because we have been brainwashed into thinking the only valuation that matters is financial.

I, and I suspect most writers, feel as if the process of writing is not complete until the work is read by a reader. So, for my part, I prefer to be read than to be paid.

Readers, for their part, seem to be very happy to consume erotic writing, but don’t seem so inclined to pay for it. An erotic story may excite them, may linger in their minds for a long time. May play a material part in their own sexual fantasies, or in their erotic lives with others. And yet, we don’t really feel it’s worth anything.

This is why I feel that I have a right to demand comments off my readers. I write the work, you consume it. I feel that I am owed something: your feedback, your comments. And, to be fair, I get a lot of comments from readers and I feel fairly remunerated for my efforts.

However, if you’re one of those people who never comment when you go and read erotica on people’s sites, might I suggest that you do. We spend a lot of time on our work, and you get the fruits of it for free. Please consider, at least, expending the effort of acknowledging that you have consumed the story, and enjoyed it (or not, as the case may be). For a great many of us, just the proof that someone has read it means a lot. It isn’t a living, but it’s something valuable, nonetheless.