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You are here: Home / Archives for 50 Shades of Grey

Cover Fail, and Thoughts On The State of Indie Erotica

January 20, 2013 By Trent Evans

Hello all,

So, I don’t normally talk about the writing/publishing biz here on the blog — this is supposed to be for the readers — but I wanted to write this for any of my readers who also might happen to be smut slingers like me:) This post covers a few things I’ve learned as I’ve gone along, as well as a handful of observations on the erotica genre in general.

1. Don’t do this (unless you don’t care about sales)

My fourth release, a novella titled Night Beach initially had a cover that I thought was sexy, but still within the boundaries (as well as anyone can guess — but that’s another story) of Amazon’s content guidelines. That initial cover is shown below:

Night Beach - Trent Evans - Updated Amazon - Smash

At first, all seemed well. The book was selling, a few readers said they loved the cover — so we’re rollin’, right?

Wrong.

The dreaded Adult filter was applied to the book’s listing on Amazon within a few days of release. This filter normally spells the death of sales for a title on Amazon, for a couple of reasons:

– First, the book is difficult, if not impossible, to find in general search — even if you search for the book’s title and the author’s name.

– The second, and much more insidious (and damaging) reason, is that the book will no longer be shown as an also-bought for any other non-Adult filtered titles. So, rather than have at least the chance for your book to show up as an also-bought for “50 Blinds of Bestseller”, you show up as an also-bought only for other Adult filtered titles.

I contacted ‘Zon customer service about it, and they confirmed that the book cover did indeed violate their content guidelines. They were very nice (as usual) and understanding of my plight, but they were firm that the Adult filter would remain until a new cover was added. Now, me being me, I shrugged my shoulders, muttered a “Whisky Tango Foxtrot”, and just went on with my business of writing the next book.

This was a serious mistake. Within about two weeks after release of Night Beach, my third book, a novelette titled Maintenance Night, took off, going from selling 5-6 copies a day to 20-30 copies per day. I still have no idea why. That part was RAD (and to those readers who bought the book, I can’t thank you enough), but the problem was that there was no new release that built upon that sales momentum. You see, since Night Beach was languishing under the The Scarlet Adult Filter, readers who bought and loved Maintenance Night wouldn’t see that others had picked up Night Beach. It was as if it didn’t exist.

Now, all this being said, Night Beach did still sell … some. In November, Night Beach sold 80 copies, more than 75% of that number selling at the mighty ‘Zon. But it’s likely that it would have sold significantly more, had it had the much improved visibility it would have enjoyed sans Adult filter. Is there any way to know for sure how many sales were lost? Of course not. BUT, one thing I’ve learned is this: make your books as convenient as possible to buy. Always give your reader an uber-easy way to spend money on you.

To bastardize a quote from Sun Tzu:

“Build your reader a golden bridge to your books.”

2. What can I take away from this?

My experience actually calls for being somewhat conservative with the content of covers. There is a price for pushing the envelope (though really, I don’t think the first cover was that edgy), and when you do, sometimes that price is going to cost you sales/money. Be prepared for that eventuality.

Now, with regard to this specific instance, there is one aspect to this that I think really might help another writer who reads this. What follows are the commonly understood “no-no’s” vis-a-vis cover content:

– No female nipples or areolas

– No male or female genitalia or pubic hair

– No fully naked buttocks — there has to be at least a dental floss bikini or thong (this one appears to be sporadically enforced, as some do get through the review process with bare nekkid asses:)

– No profanity (this one appears to be only sporadically enforced as there have actually been erotica bestsellers that had f-bombs … in the title!!)

– No excessive gore (very subjective, so err on the side of caution)

Here is one that I got nailed on — and one that has snagged other authors too:

– No grabbing/squeezing/clutching of the naked breast(s) or even covering of the naked breast with a hand. 

Now, a case could be made that there wasn’t a thing wrong with the original cover for Night Beach, BUT it’s Amazon’s site, and they can do what they want.  I’m not going to sit here and tell them how they should run their business, nor what content they can or can’t accept on the covers. I can take it or leave it, and if I want to sell ebooks, I’m going to be taking it:)

That said, I really do wish that they would release a short list of definitive no-no’s, rather than leaving us poor authors/publishers to stumble around in the dark. I know why they don’t release any specifics — they want to keep their options open, and want to be flexible in case of any changes to the legal or regulatory environment. It’s smart business, but it is a bit of a pain.

But oh well — what the mighty ‘Zon wants, the mighty ‘Zon gets:)

Other Erotica Observations

There is a flood-tide of erotica on the market right now, presumably due to authors seeking to ride the (already rapidly receding) 50 Shades wave, and it’s only going to get worse. For those new erotica writers who are wondering why their sales are not those of the Land of (Breast)Milk and (Alien Pussy)Honey that the erotica genre is purported to exist, you can blame an excess of product for this … mostly.

One of the things I’ve observed is a large number of low word count, slapped- together titles in almost every conceivable sub-genre of erotica (I know a lot of them — yeah I’m a perv, I read a lot of smut). I render no judgement on those writers that are following the “quantity is king” philosophy. It works, and it will make you money — for now.

But for those new erotica readers just coming online now, I implore you to do one thing: think long term. At some point, the wheat does get separated from the chaff, and no matter how many titles you have published, if the quality of the writing is shoddy, if the story isn’t compelling, and the packaging is unappealing (read: unprofessional covers and flat, lifeless blurbs), those books will cease to sell. Why is this?

Word of mouth.

This is the single most effective way to sell books and to build a career. Word of mouth trumps everything, and will buoy a book no matter what. This is very, very important because in this new era of publishing, the traditional gatekeepers (editors, agents, publishers) are steadily being replaced … by readers.

This fact should feel both freeing and terrifying. To those erotica writers who concentrate on releasing well-written, edited, attractively packaged books on a regular basis (e.g. not less than once per quarter, and preferably more frequently), you will succeed. It may take 5 books, 20 books, or more, but eventually, if you put out quality, the readers will find you — and reward you.

To those erotica writers out there who are only concentrating on publishing as much product as you can, as fast as you can, you should be terrified. If your product is shoddy, readers will call you on it — and they’ll do more than leave you bad reviews on Amazon.

They’ll tell their friends.

The gold rush of 2009-2011 is absolutely over, and the days of being able to throw up any old cover and first draft of a smut book are long gone. Many, many readers have been burned over and over by just plain shitty indie smut books. If your product is rushed out, haphazard, sloppy, readers will notice it — and run the other way. Please, please don’t be that writer!

Whichever type of erotica writer you are, your challenge, above and beyond continuing to publish good books, will be discoverability. The volume of erotica is incredible, and as many others have pointed out, discoverability is going to be the irreducible problem faced by all authors, especially in a genre overwhelmed with a tsunami of new content every month. Worse, traditional publishers have (by and large) awakened from their comas and are changing their tactics. They are lowering prices, targeting sub-genres with more narrowly focused story lines,  and greatly speeding up things like submission response times and time to publication. Contrary to what you hear some self-pub evangelists say, trad publishing is not stupid, and it’s not going away. Not by a long shot.

What does this mean for the lowly indie smut slinger like me? It means things are going to get much, much harder. It means in order to survive, and increase your visibility/discoverability, you will need to make your product the best quality you possibly can. Keep writing, but do take the time needed to make the book a good quality book. You need to acknowledge that a significant portion of your potential readership is likely to look askance at anything written by an Indie. Accept that, then set out to prove them wrong. Sloppy indie authors have hurt the rest of us, of this there can be no doubt, so for those of us that are in this for the long-haul, who will be making careers of this, our job is to win those readers back, one by one. I’m still working on this myself, and my own products aren’t yet where I want them to be, so I’m constantly improving them where and when I can. You should too!

Make your product as indistinguishable from trad products as you possibly can (this is where great covers, blurbs that snap, and professional-looking, clean formatting comes in). Don’t give these skeptical readers any reason to pass over your book at a mere glance. Make them “pick it up” and read those first lines. That’s where your quality writing will get the chance to do its work. And this is how you win back those burned-by-indies readers.

Yes, taste is 100% subjective, but that’s beside the point; a quality product needs to be noticed, and read (which will increasingly become the most difficult hurdle to jump) before taste even figures into the equation. THEN, if it’s well-written, compelling, at least some of those readers will tell their friends, who in turn will tell their friends. Again, word of mouth.

But you need to give them a reason to look at your book. More important than this: don’t give the reader a reason NOT to look at your book.

Smut readers are voracious, the demand never-ending (and we LOVE you for that), and if you push their buttons, and if the books you have for sale are fairly priced, they’ll snap up everything you have on the market. And they’ll keep coming back for more, as long as you keep publishing good books.

Contrary to all the doom and gloom you are seeing of late in indie circles, I think this is only the beginning … for those indies who are willing to put in the work, and to fight for every one of those readers. Those readers will take a chance on a new author, but increasingly they will demand quality — and they deserve nothing less.

Best,

Trent

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Filed Under: On Writing, Trent's Thoughts Tagged With: 50 Shades of Grey, 50 Shades wave, backlash against indies, BDSM, bdsm erotica, BDSM fiction, books, content guidelines for Amazon, cover fail, cover images, edgy covers, formatting, literature, Maintenance Night, Night Beach, On Writing-, professionalism, quantity vs quality, smut, state of erotica, strategic thinking, Sun Tzu, tips for new erotica writers, traditional publishing, Trent Evans, whisky tango foxtrot, writing

30 Days of Kink – Day 11

August 2, 2012 By Trent Evans

Day 11: What are your views on the ethics of kink?

This is much too broad a topic to write about here in a blog post, so I will address one aspect of  “kink ethics” that has been bothering me of late: the soft tyranny of Safe Sane and Consensual (SSC). Uh oh,  now I’ve stepped in it. I’m off the reservation. There, got my mixed metaphors out of the way:)

SSC as a concept is a great thing, but there is a problem with it. It’s morphed from something that was formerly a rallying cry, a call for rational, clear thinking to a thing resembling a cudgel to be used to keep the pervy riff raff in line.

Everybody wants everyone to be safe; I think that should go without saying for 99% of us. However, some people who practice BDSM don’t want to be “safe”. I’ll use extreme breathplay as an example. Some normal, awesome people enjoy it. I don’t, but you sure as hell won’t hear me tell someone else that their kink doesn’t fall within the lines (read: prison bars) of SSC, and thus is wrong. This is where SSC becomes kink shaming – which drives me bat poop crazy.

SSC is one way to keep people safe, a set of guidelines perhaps. But it’s not the be all and end all of kink (yes, I realize nobody is saying it is – I loathe strawmen). SSC should absolutely NOT be a way for fellow pervs to deem other pervs beyond the pale.

So why am I writing about this? For those of you who’ve been following along with me, you know I am not a pro Dom. I don’t do clubs. I don’t scene. I am a relationship Dom (mostly). Is that even a term? Doesn’t matter. Why does SSC get under my skin so much? Because I am also a writer of BDSM erotica (and eventually erotic romance).

I am not here to call anybody out…but I have seen some things that disturb me vis-à-vis SSC and BDSM fiction.

I’m going to be blunt here. Fiction is fiction – it is not kink prosletyzing.

If someone wants to write about unsupervised body suspension, mummification, extreme breathplay, texting while driving, whatever it is that causes the SSC acolytes to fall to the ground in grand mal seizures, then they should be able to do so. Fiction is not real life – it’s shit the author made up. That’s it.

An author wants to tell a story – something that makes the reader feel. A writer wants to craft something that connects with the reader as a human being. You don’t tell a story by hitting all your marks in SSC dogma. If you try that then you end up writing a how-to manual. How-to manuals are great for what they are. But they aren’t the same thing as a story manufactured out of whole cloth. When I see someone tear down an author’s work because something occurs in their story that doesn’t conform to SSC, I scratch my head.

Do we berate someone like thriller writer Chelsea Cain? She depicts absolutely ghastly things in her books. But they’re great books, great fiction. Her books are not a how-to for serial killers, or profilers, or cops. They’re fiction; shit she made up. Do we wag our finger at her for depicting something that violates all laws, morals, and basic human decency? No, we see her books for what they are:  great, gripping yarns. The end.

(BTW – if you haven’t checked out Chelsea’s Gretchen Lowell series, you must do so. Like yesterday. Incredible characters, incredible voice. You will not regret it. Sorry, I can’t help it – I am a Chelsea Cain fan.)

But, in BDSM fiction we are seeing just that. It’s happening by inches, but it’s as relentless and unstoppable as the grind of a glacier. BDSM is being normalized, mainstreamed. Is it due to 50 Shades of Grey? I don’t know. I suppose it could be part of it. I think it’s actually more of a function of the commercial success of erotic romance in general.

What particular sub-genre of erotic romance sells the most books?

Paranormal? Maybe in 2010.

Menage? Nope.

Yes, you guessed it – it’s BDSM. I think it’s a GREAT thing. I really do. But, I wonder if the attention currently focused on BDSM is going to turn it into something many of us no longer recognize? Only time will tell.

I’ve seen other writers struggle with their erotica being lumped in with erotic romance, and suffering the ire of erotic romance readers because the story doesn’t include an HEA or strays into areas (such as non-con themes) deemed to be too dark. It’s not fair, but it’s happening.

I’m rambling here, so I am going to wrap this up. I guess what I am getting at here is that the very thing that differentiates kinky people from others – the “forbidden” nature of our orientations – is undergoing some change. How is it possible that BDSM is being both normalized/regulated (SSC dogma) and sanitized (the mainstreaming of BDSM in fiction and the popular consciousness)? I don’t know, but it’s happening.

What does this mean? My guess is that it means one of two things: either the spotlight will eventually move on to something else (and us sickos can get back to the business of being regular sickos), or it doesn’t move on – and it really becomes a new world for kink. Things might get even more interesting!

This post morphed into a mini-rant about a single topic, so maybe I will just call this Day 11 part I  🙂

Until next time.

Trent

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Filed Under: Trent's Thoughts Tagged With: 30 Days of Kink, 50 Shades of Grey, bdsm erotica, BDSM fiction, BDSM safety, breathplay, ethics of kink, extreme kinks, gretchen lowell, kink normalization, kink shaming, mixed metaphors, riff raff, safe sane and consensual, SSC, thrillers, writing

50 Shades of…

July 14, 2012 By Trent Evans

I’ll just leave this right here 🙂

 

ETA (thanks Flogging Mommy!): Here’s the full video. I’m crying laughing right now…

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/amazon-mothers-day-ad/1400037

 

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Filed Under: Trent's Thoughts Tagged With: 50 Shades of Grey, bath-time erotica, fantasy, funny, Laughed my ass off, leave me alone I'm busy!, slice of life

Trent’s Thoughts on 50 Shades of Grey

May 7, 2012 By Trent Evans

“50 Shades of Dom hatred”

I read this in a posting over on Kitty Thomas‘ blog a while back.  I think it might be a perfect summation of what the success of the 50 Shades of Grey erotic trilogy means for the BDSM community in the short term. If you haven’t read, please click on over and have a look. Well worth your time.

Ironically enough, the success of E.L. James’ series is not a black or white, good or bad thing for BDSM practitioners (I don’t really like ‘kinksters’ as a descriptor). In the short run, there are both positives and negatives, while in the long run I think it will be almost uniformly helpful to BDSM – but not for the reasons you may think. In fact, in an odd way, the success may help push BDSM back into the “underground” somewhat. I will explain why in a bit.

Here are some of the short term benefits as I see them:

  1. “normalizing” of BDSM (i.e. people will realize that a whole lot of other people are interested in this stuff)
  2. sparks discussion in an honest manner not littered with snickering and general snark (I can’t tell you what kind of damage farces such as Exit to Eden do to BDSM; luckily nodody saw that movie, so it could have been a lot worse)
  3. more people will try it or talk about it with their significant others – this is only a good thing IMO
  4. will be a boon to erotica and erotic romance writers in a general sense ( a rising tide lifts all boats)

Short term detriments:

  1. kink tourists – people will “join in” as more of a lark than any real urge to explore their sexuality
  2. people will develop an unrealistic idea of BDSM based on the novels; by all accounts the novels are at best sugar-kink and at worst vanilla with a thin kink veneer.
  3. 50 Shades “clones” pushed by publishers
  4. PC police descend on the community – you thought it was bad when SSC was used as a cudgel to keep us unruly pervs in line? Now, comes “mainstream” kink – a contradiction in terms – that we’ll have to fall in line behind (or argue against).

In the long term though, I think 50 Shades could do for BDSM fiction what Twilight or the Harry Potter trilogy did for young adult and fantasy fiction, respectively. Like those books, the literary merit of the story or authorial talent ceases to matter – it’s the activity and the conversations sparked that matter.

How long has BDSM been whispered about, snickered about, or outright ridiculed? You can still be fired for being kinky, and quite legally at that. But it is NOT legal to be fired for being gay or lesbian. Now, the 50 Shades phenomenon is getting “regular” people talking about BDSM in :::shock::: a serious manner.

Now, many of the readers will be truly shocked and/or repelled by what those of us regard as “real” BDSM. That’s OK with me; it by default restores the “forbidden” to BDSM that may have been part of its initial appeal to many of us. That being said, we do need more honesty and openness about sexuality, and even if it results in a tsunami of kink tourists, this will encourage such openness. Maybe only 5% of these tourists decide to explore more deeply, and tap into something within themselves that speaks to needs far beyond the confines of the 50 Shades storyline? Is that ultimately a good thing? Hell yes, it is.

There are many of us who consider ourselves more or less “kinky” and actually regard being different as a badge of honor. However, the success of the series shows that there is a vast cohort of people who are at least intrigued by BDSM. As Kitty Thomas has stated many times on her blog, these readers may not be as vanilla as they think they are. The suppression of  the (at one time) very popular “bodice ripper” storylines in the Romance genre by the PC police doesn’t mean readers aren’t still interested in it. That to me is the most fascinating subtext to the 50 Shades phenomenon: readers want to read this stuff – a LOT of this stuff. If they can’t get it in the more “acceptable” Romance forms, then they will get it somewhere else.

Maybe 50 Shades helps revive the “bodice ripper” in the same way self-publishing is starting to revive the moribund gothic romance genre? My guess is that it continues to benefit erotic romance (which has seen more and more successes that embrace some rather dark storylines) and to a lesser extent, erotica.  It’s way too early to tell, but more genres mean more choices. This is always a good thing for readers and authors both.

What do you think? What is your take on the 50 Shades phenomenon?

 

Trent

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Filed Under: Trent's Thoughts Tagged With: 50 Shades of Grey, BDSM fiction, bodice ripper, Dom Hatred, erotic romance, kink tourists, mainstream kink, random thoughts, safe sane and consensual, sugar kink, Twilight

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