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Xenallure, n. - The attractiveness of the exotic,
the alien, the unusual.
the alien, the unusual.
PHILOSOPHY Here at Xenallure books our focus is on the intersection between speculative fiction and erotic romance. We want to stimulate not only our readers' libidos, but also their hearts and their intellects. We guarantee quality worldbuilding, thought-provoking themes, deeply developed characters and relationships, hot sex, and a happy ending in every book we publish!
LENGTH Xenallure is relatively flexible about length; we prefer submitted manuscripts to be between 85,000 and 120,000 words. We feel that manuscripts of less than 80,000 words do not have room for quality worldbuilding, character development, and plot, and we don't want to see any of those neglected.
POV We prefer manuscripts written in third or first person point of view, past tense.
FORMATTING We only accept electronic submissions. Because of this the font doesn't really matter because our editors tend to change it to whatever they like to read. Please include a note if it is important for some reason that your font not be altered. Please include a synopsis of no more than 1,000 words before your manuscript. Make sure your personal information includes both your email address and your telephone number, and which you prefer to be contacted by. Because we publish erotica we cannot accept submissions by writers under 18 years of age, sorry.
LOVE INTEREST The term 'hero' is not terribly accurate for most of Xenallure's books since we accept not only the usual male/female romance, but also gay and lesbian romances, threesomes, intersex or hermaphrodite characters, and races where gender works differently than for humans. But here is what we are looking for in a love interest character: Typically a Xenallure love interest is in some way a freak who has been treated with prejudice by others. The character's strangeness can be something as simple as being openly gay in a homophobic culture or being an alien among humans, but often they are something more exotic – a halfblood who fits in nowhere, a person with strangely colored skin or hair, a supervillain, a child of incest, a carnivore-anthro who is only attracted to herbivore-anthros, an atavistic throwback to a more primitive version of their race... surprise us!
LOVE INTEREST Pt. II The other important trait of the love interest is that they need some help or sympathy from the main character to achieve their full potential, whether their full potential means maturing from being amoral to being more protective and constructive, or from lacking self confidence to feeling valued and proud, or from being a loner to being a leader, or from feeling like a failure to finding new hope and drive and then accomplishing something impressive, or from always feeling alienated to finding a sense of belonging, or from always being tense and grumpy to being more relaxed and content, or even from being unhappy with their body to being physically transformed with the main character's aid. There is one specific way in which the love interest should NOT change: the love interest should not be 'cured' of whatever marked him as strange in the first place. Here at Xenallure we refer to that as the 'Beauty and the Beast Cop-out'; we like our Beasts to stay Beasts because that's what makes them unique and sexy.
MAIN CHARACTER The main character of a Xenallure novel may be any gender. Typically they should display intelligence, resourcefulness, a sense of humor, romanticness, openmindedness, sympathy, and a desire to be helpful and creatively solve problems. They should generally not be cruel, whiny, impatient, bitter, seeking revenge, driven by ambition, or religious. Xenallure MCs are often modern humans who travel to other worlds and go native, but they may also be a member of a different species who is normal or admired within their own culture, or they may be unusual but in a socially valued way to contrast the love interest's prejudiced-against strangeness.
POPULAR ELEMENTS A particularly well-received combination is a main character who is normal or even a bit below average in their own culture but discovers that they are extremely valuable to the love interest's culture or just the love interest's personal needs. Another popular approach is the character who gains a new special ability near the beginning of the book (shapeshifting, magic, ability to hack a virtual world, etc.) and learns to use it in creative and clever ways throughout the book. Our readers want to empathize with the main character in feeling skilled and admirable (although aware of their own faults, not nauseatingly perfect like a Mary Sue). Our readers also like to vicariously accompany the main character as they experience interesting new (possibly forbidden) sexual situations. Thus interspecies and incestuous romances are both popular with our readership. And one last well-received ingredient is a point of view that alternates between the main character and the love interest(s).
What Xenallure is probably not looking for:
- a romance between one male human and one female human
- a modern or historical setting with no fantasy elements
- high fantasy
- horror
- elves, dwarves, zombies, vampires, faeries, werewolves, mermaids, centaurs, gods and goddesses, or other traditional fantasy races
- grittiness, gore, rape, torture, tragedy, character death
If you have any questions on whether a particular element is or isn't our cup of tea, feel free to ask! ^_^ We look forward to reading (and perhaps publishing!) your submissions.
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