I know that several people publish erotica. I was wondering thoughts/feelings about it. I am not sure I would do it, as to me sex is a private matter, but I also would never say never, especially if the money was REALLY good.

Thoughts?

I love writing erotica, I would absolutely publish it. While I understand the comforts of privacy delegated toward ones own personal activities, erotica is fun because it doesn't need to have anything to do with your personal ventures, though many writers do tend to write about them initially. As with traditional romance/fiction, you can create erotic passion between your fictional characters that hypnotizes and turns on your audience in a seductive way that is tasteful and acceptable for you. Erotica isn't limited to the sex scenes involved, rather built around the characters who are engaging in the acts and the temptation of the build up which creates sensuality in your reader. I can't wait to publish my first erotic novel.

I write erotica too. Mostly fantasy stuff.

I think the stigma about it has CONSIDERABLY dropped. Almost all of top stories on the kindle store when I first got my kindle were erotica. The paid stuff was mainly clean, but the free stuff was almost entirely erotica. I don't know if you should read into that too much...but it shows that people are devouring it and it's becoming more accessible to people.

Not to mention, with 50 shades of grey being a best seller....well that door has been broken down. It's no longer underground or even hidden.......even in public.

Erotica has come under a microscope of sorts at Amazon: they've put a freeze on a LOT of adult content because some jokers were dancing on the edge of child porn.

Several publishing houses in the UK have actually stopped accepting erotica altogether.

Why? It was just becoming accepted!

I understand that they can't just punish the few....but it sucks to be part of the many being punished for the crimes of a few.

Bunny (05:49am Thu, Oct 24, 2013)

Why? It was just becoming accepted!

I understand that they can't just punish the few....but it sucks to be part of the many being punished for the crimes of a few.

Well, here's an article from the Writer Beware blog that might explain it a bit better than I can.

I can't speak for places like Kobo or WH Smith but I know Amazon does a fairly thorough scan every so often - this is just the latest iteration and received the most press. Basically they react by throwing the baby out with the bathwater.   

Wow. Well that is a bit...yeah.

I think they need to screen everything and approve it, and get some tech in to search for key phrases, or phrases relating to incest and rape etc as they see fit.

Well, this could just be a wild-assed guess, but I wonder if it's because they spend so much of their editing time looking for duplicate content instead of pornographic content?

With the sudden explosion of "authors" taking free and/or pirated ebooks and submitting them as original content I don't blame Amazon for being on the look-out, but they really need to do something based on keywords as you suggested. There are bots that can do the job, so there's really no reason they don't at least try.

Exactly. I see what's happened, every tom dick and harry is publishing crap, and some of it is actually really disgusting.... unfortunately Amazon never expected that so they never checked it...and only when they were found out did they go "oh shit" so it's a bit of a knee jerk reaction...but I get why they're doing it. I would have done similar initially (shut everything down for cleaning), but I would come out of it with a smooth plan and an apology, as well as a fixed up situation!

Ironically I think you can place quite a bit of blame on the 50 shades of grey trilogy for the spike in crappily written, over-the-top, borderline offensive/criminal stories. There is quite a fine line sometimes between erotica and some quite unpleasant stuff.
That said, there are those who are 'turned' on by the violent, offensive etc stuff, that is their 'fetish'. There is quite a market for Vorarephilia, which would make many want to be sick. (google it if you dare )

Well written erotica is fantastic, and yes I do write it sometimes, and yes I would publish it.

Agree with Haffina. 50 Shades of Grey was basically the worst written book ever, and it's made everyone think they can publish anything.

I am a huge consumer of erotic literature and I'm very distressed with the state of things since that book. I'm happy it made erotica more socially acceptable, but not the other consequences.

I've never tried writing erotica. I considered it sometimes, but I've never published anything and I don't know how should I approach it to make it somehow profitable. Besides, I'm a bit scared of the possibility of somebody finding it out. I don't think writing erotica is sinful or anything like that... I just wouldn't feel comfortable saying "oh yeah, I write erotic fiction for a living".

I heard that some people who write short erotic stories and self-publish them for Kindle earn a lot, but I don't know whether it's true and if they promote those books a lot.

Haffina (11:37pm Thu, Oct 24, 2013)

... There is quite a market for Vorarephilia, which would make many want to be sick. (google it if you dare )

I find that hard to swallow ...

SifuPhil (04:31am Thu, Nov  7, 2013)

Haffina (11:37pm Thu, Oct 24, 2013)

... There is quite a market for Vorarephilia, which would make many want to be sick. (google it if you dare )

I find that hard to swallow ...

Yeah, it's quite a mouthful....

Haffina (12:16pm Fri, Nov  8, 2013)

SifuPhil (04:31am Thu, Nov  7, 2013)

Haffina (11:37pm Thu, Oct 24, 2013)

... There is quite a market for Vorarephilia, which would make many want to be sick. (google it if you dare )

I find that hard to swallow ...

Yeah, it's quite a mouthful....

It does give me something to chew on, though ...

You guys are NOT going to convince me to Google it lol.

Bunny (08:19pm Fri, Nov  8, 2013)

You guys are NOT going to convince me to Google it lol.

Can't even get you to take a nibble, huh?

Lorigh (08:37pm Sun, Sep 15, 2013)

I know that several people publish erotica. I was wondering thoughts/feelings about it. I am not sure I would do it, as to me sex is a private matter, but I also would never say never, especially if the money was REALLY good.

Thoughts?

I have no problem with writing and publishing erotica. I actually currently am doing just that! It's fun and also sells the best on Amazon. You should try it out.

I face erotica (and pornography, for that matter, although being different subjects) as art. And it's up to the writer to be able to turn that into art, which most people fail at. I've never written erotica just because... I don't even know, maybe I should, because I love to sexualize the human body. For me, sex isn't necessarily private. It is private between me and you, you and someone else, etc, but it is public as us being a part of the human race - and it's something beautiful. It's what we are. I actually like 50 Shades of Grey very much.

SifuPhil (04:31am Thu, Nov  7, 2013)

Haffina (11:37pm Thu, Oct 24, 2013)

... There is quite a market for Vorarephilia, which would make many want to be sick. (google it if you dare )

I find that hard to swallow ...

Gosh I gotta say I did  google it.  UMMMM not quite one I want to try.
Ryder13

So, maybe somebody who is successfully publishing erotica is willing to give a few tips? I mostly wonder whether I'd be profitable at all to just write an e-book, give it a generic cover (I'm no artist, I'm afraid...) and publish it on Amazon or somewhere like that... Or do they need a lot of promotion? I can't really imagine myself going around and promoting erotic stories I wrote 

Really, I don't have a problem with erotica.  I did read that article that someone posted about the discovery of books that violated policies and how the books were removed along with other books that did not violate the site protocols.  When authors turn violence against innocent women and children into marketable products I think they are crossing a line.  There is a difference between describing the brutal rape and pillage of a village in the context of it being a disgusting event and glorifying it as a pleasurable interlude for the soldiers.  If we didn't write about such things people would not know that they exist, but when someone is taking pleasure and profit by glorifying acts of this nature I think it crosses beyond the genre erotica and into plain disgusting.  I do stand by people's rights to express themselves and don't find anything wrong with vividly describing the coupling of a human couple or a human village in an orgy.  I think that stuff is great, but I've always had trouble reading when the book was bouncing up and down anyway.  I think erotica is better as an audio book so you can keep your hands free.

There are many interesting topics i want to write about and i am not seeing erotica in the waiting list yet. I don't see any problem writing erotica themes but it is not yet in my priority list at the moment.

I feel that publishing erotica can be a very enjoyable thing to do. I think most of us have sexual fantasies that we play out in our heads from time to time. To be able to put in writing and share it with other people can be a very thrilling experience.

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Simone D (03:50pm Sun, Sep 22, 2013)

I love writing erotica, I would absolutely publish it. While I understand the comforts of privacy delegated toward ones own personal activities, erotica is fun because it doesn't need to have anything to do with your personal ventures, though many writers do tend to write about them initially. As with traditional romance/fiction, you can create erotic passion between your fictional characters that hypnotizes and turns on your audience in a seductive way that is tasteful and acceptable for you. Erotica isn't limited to the sex scenes involved, rather built around the characters who are engaging in the acts and the temptation of the build up which creates sensuality in your reader. I can't wait to publish my first erotic novel.

I agree with you about the erotica being built around the characters. I have read many different erotica stories and what impressed me the most were the compelling characters. I was surprised at how multi-dimensional the characters are.

I think erotica is fantastic when done well, and I'm glad the stigma about it is slowly fading away. Unfortunately, there is a lot of terrible erotica out there, so it gives good erotica a bad name. A lot of the stuff is poorly written and tasteless. That's why so many people view it as strictly something pornographic or gross. Really, it can be very seductive and enjoyable to read.

It's quite to fun to write, too!

I have absolutely no issues with it overall.

That being said, for me personally, it's not something I want to attach to my real name. I would do it under a pseudonym because there's no telling what kind of job I may have in the future where sexual content may pose an issue.

I've written erotic scenes before. When I read it back it's a little weird. I can't help but wonder what my parents would think. I try to make it as tasteful as possible.

Everyone has genres they're into, but as an author I would feel weird about publishing erotica, especially celebrating my success with family and friends! I'd be a little uncomfortable telling my grandma about the plot of my erotica book I just published. Of course we all know the difference between the author and the narrator of a story, but I would worry that people would wonder if this was some sort of outlet for my inner fantasy/auto-biographical work!

I thought about it once when I was younger. At that time some porn magazines really wanted good erotica. I considered writing something but decided not to because great erotica must have the same effect on you the writer as it should (on) your target audience. I couldn't go around obsessed with sex all the time. So, no. For me it's out of question because of the effect it would have on me. That's one of my worst weaknesses.