potential publishing question

Brandi · Mar 31, 2006

My husband and I own a small company. We've been publishing information booklets - "how to"-type stuff. We're looking to expand this year. We're starting with book publishing and have 2 authors already lined up.

We've also been toying with the idea of publishing erotica as e-books. I will admit that I'm out of my element with this genre. I've written a little erotica, but I've not been brave enough yet to try to sell it. Quite frankly, it's been mostly for personal fulfillment.

So, here are my biggest questions:

Would you consider submitting your work for electronic publication?

How many words are your works? I was thinking somewhere between short story-length and novel length, but there's obviously a lot of room there.

Would you consider going with an unknown publisher, particularly if you were among the first authors?

What type of royalties arrangement would you expect to have? How often?

Beyond cover design, are illustrations necessary? A nice extra? Silly?

I'd appreciate any feedback you guys have. I'm usually on the writing side of the fence, so it's interesting to get perspective from the other side.

Brandi

veinglory · Apr 1, 2006

* Would you consider submitting your work for electronic publication?

I would and do

* How many words are your works?

900 to 50,000 but it's just a genre--erotica can be any length

* Would you consider going with an unknown publisher, particularly if you were among the first authors?

There are many start-ups out there. I would take the chance on a personal recommendation, for an advance, ot if there was some other feature that suggested it would be successful.

* What type of royalties arrangement would you expect to have? How often?

Quartlerly at least, probably monthly. 30-40% is pretty standard.

* Beyond cover design, are illustrations necessary? A nice extra? Silly?

Non-standard, I would prefer none as illustrations at many publishers are not of the highest quality.

There needs to be something to set a new publisher apart--particulalry a specific niche.

Brandi · Apr 1, 2006

Thanks for your response. We were just discussing the whole issue outside as I've been checking out a number of erotica publishers to see what they offer. We were thinking of going with short stories (up to 5K) and novellas (15K-20K). We'll probably go 1/3 royalties on the short stories; I don't know about novellas.

We're paying our non-fiction writers royalties monthly, which works well for me. As a writer, I know it's preferable to get paid more often. As an editor, I know that quarterly royalties can get overwhelming. We'd probably stick with monthly for the erotica as well.

I like the idea of going with a niche to get things up and running. I'll have to think that one over.

Brandi

veinglory · Apr 1, 2006

Romance and general erotica is well supplied. I suspect there might be some unexploited niches out there. For example scif fi and fantasy erotica is popular but hard to find--especially catering to female readers.

Maryn · Apr 2, 2006

Depending on myriad other factors I can't begin to guess (and wouldn't want to) about your interests in erotica, you may want to consider fetish niches. Certain fetish erotica is wildly under-represented.

You would, of course, want to rule out catering to folks who like kids, rape, or farm stock, since those can cause legal difficulties, but many fetishes are fully legal and have thousands or hundreds of thousands of--is 'practicioners' the word?--in online communities. Spanking is plentiful, but there's lots, lots more out there.

Maryn, a private person

James Buchanan · Apr 2, 2006

f/f seems to be under represented. I don't know if that's because there's no market out there for it... or no one has figured out how to tap into that market. I would think, as a corelary to m/m market, the largest portion of the readership would not actually be the sex that's being written about.

Brandi · Apr 4, 2006

F/F is really under-represented? I find that fascinating. I guess now that I ponder it, that makes sense, but I would have guessed there was more out there. Hmm. I'm obviously still in the very early stages of this project, but ah, the research possibilities...

James Buchanan · Apr 4, 2006

Well that's second hand... no personal research done. Just "listening" to f/f writers on various boards/promo groups whine about the lack of markets.

potential publishing question

Brandi

practical experience, FTW

veinglory

volitare nequeo

Brandi

practical experience, FTW

veinglory

volitare nequeo

Maryn

Baaa!

James Buchanan

Brandi

practical experience, FTW

James Buchanan