Erotica vs. Romance in a submission?

Just sent one my manuscripts out into the wild. As with every submission package heading to a publisher with multiple lines, I had to tell them where I saw my story fitting in.

In keeping with my conundrum, I even had to figure out whether to post this question in here, or in Erotica.

This particular manuscript kicks off with sex. The story itself could not stand alone without the sexual content, and the entire plot revolves around a sexual scenario. So... erotica, right?

But the focus of the story is the relationship between the hero and the heroine. More than half of the text is not sexual, and there is a (fairly) conventional happily ever after. So... romance, right?

I've noticed most of the stuff sold as erotica depicts pretty non-stop sex, and if they're not doing it, they're talking about it. I've also noticed that romance as a category tends to contain a lot more graphic sex than it did even ten years ago. So I went ahead and subbed this puppy to the romance line that advertises high levels of heat, instead of to their erotica imprint.

I've been searching on publisher websites across the internet looking for a solid explanation of the difference between erotica and romance-with-heat, and at this point I'm pretty sure I'm overthinking it. I'm also in that wired, jittery state of mind I always get into right after hitting submit.

Is there anyone who can help a newbie out? Did I guess right? Does it really matter? I'm snowed in and I didn't stock up on booze, so a stiff drink isn't happening.

Thanks, C If I can just internalize that... well, that and learn to have the best of both worlds on a regular basis...

Veinglory: This particular publisher doesn't have an erotic romance category. At least not explicitly called that. The one I just subbed to has "erotica" as its own category, and then fourteen flavors of romance with various clever names. About half of those romance lines have books that carry warnings about explicit language and sexual content, so I can't even use that as a guide.

I have bought several of their offerings to get a sense of the editorial tone they like, but I just can't buy multiple titles in each category and still break even on my writing.

As it is, my accountant is going to fall over and die laughing when he sees some of the stuff I'm writing off as business expenses this year.

Hrm. This IS an epub, and yes, as with most of the epubs, its focus is erotica.

The fact that an outfit that primarily publishes erotica would even have a separate erotica category is part of why I went back and forth on where to sub this piece.

I honestly didn't consider that the expectation with these epub outfits is that all the material will have an erotic component. I knew that's mainly what they all sold, but I don't think I put two and two together. But if that's the case, then I accidentally did the right thing to choose one of the romance flavors.

(Not trying to be coy, by the way - I'm not mentioning the publisher's name out of equal parts superstition and professional caution. The former is not unlike refusing to tell people what I've wished for when I blow out my birthday candles, and the latter is because I submit bounced manuscripts to the next publisher down the list. I'm probably being paranoid, but with Google being so omnipresent, I'd rather not create a scenario where an editor could infer that everyone else and their dog has rejected a particular story...)

Thank you for the advice and help

I tend to think the lines between genres are going to keep blurring, and that the erotic romance stuff is going to get more popular as more e-readers come on the market. The blurring makes it rough on neophytes like me, though!