Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
I would point out that romances & erotica are selling *amazingly* well in ebooks. That I can name, off the top of my head, a dozen romance/erotica DRM-free publishers, thriving in a market where the "big 6" publishers are screaming about losses.
A great many readers of romance & erotica books put up with the thin plots and cliched characters because other genres are prone to disruptive fade-to-black topic switches, rather than actually showing pivotal events in character interactions. (The idea that a gory murder should be described in exquisite, stomach-churning detail, but the one-night-stand that inspired the murder should be glossed over as shuffling in the shadows, never fails to amaze me.)
I'm a good deal more likely to venture out of my normal reading range if I know the author doesn't shy away from sex. It's a powerful force in human interactions, and I'm tired of seeing it considered the one topic that can only be mentioned, not depicted. I've seen a lot of books where sex was important to the story--and the writing gets disjointed before & after the spot that obviously should've held a sex scene, that either the writer didn't feel comfortable writing or an editor demanded to be cut out.
I'm aware it's not everyone's cuppa, and some people flat-out won't try anything they think might have an erotic scene. I can understand that; there's content I flinch away from, won't read if I know it's included, and sometimes drop a book I'm otherwise enjoying if I run across it. But that's personal tastes, not literary trends... the open market says there's plenty of interest in books of all genres with sex in them, and finding that audience is no more work than finding any other targeted group of readers.
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Yep, the Romance market is a very large chunk of the book publishing market as I understand it and the line between Romance and Erotica is often quite blurred as well.