Saturday, February 16, 2008

My Erotica Intern

Please note that the title of this post IS NOT my erotic intern, so this is not a piece of erotica for your reading pleasure.

This is a post about my new intern who will be speciaizing in erotica and how you can help us corner this market (just joking - sort of).

As most of you know, after years of selling sci-fi, horror and fantasy, as well as books about popular culture, I ended up selling a lot of nonfiction by and about the adult entertainment industry (it's pop culture, Mom!). But I wondered about the fiction? I had been working with Ceclia Tan (selling both her erotica and nonfiction baseball writing) and we ended up doing an anthology together. We received over 200 susbmissions for the first anthology, and a lot of them were really good.

It made me wonder why I had never heard of some of these authors, because their writing was excellent. It turned out they were all erotica writers who had been making a living by writing hundreds of short stories a year, and they had excellent writing chops. Better than most of the sci-fi, horror or fantasy writers I knew, because once they've published a few stories, they move on to the much more lucrative long form.

But for many years there was no long-form for erotica. Or, just the same old same old, which was erotica by horny guys about a) sleeping with much younger girls or b) getting spanked (these seemed to be the British imports, which I affectionally refer to as The Spank Me, Baby titles).

About two years ago, the erotica market for women (which is erotic stories featuring women as the central characters, usually written by women) took publishing by surprise from both the African American reading community (Zane) and the electronic publishing readership (Ellora's Cave). Suddenly, mainstream women's publishing wanted in on this obvious market, and started publishing anthologies and novels that would have once made some of these prissy women's fiction editors blush.

So, quite suddenly, there is a real market, for well-written erotica novels featuring women in sexual situations.

About a year and a half ago, I started looking for these writers and I took on about ten of them hoping that my then-assistant would want to take them on under my supervision. When I offered her the gig, she told me she didn't want to be an agent, explaning "you work too hard." So I was stuck with ten new clients in addition to all my existing clients.

I've sold most of those writers' work. But I have many other writers (from anthologies and the wonderful world of blogs) who I would like to work with, if I could only find the time.

Enter my Erotica Intern. She found me from both my blog and my reputation and wants to do nothing more than work with erotica writers.

So, if you have a memoir and/or a novel, or you have a short story track record and wonder if you can be developed into the long form, send me an email titled "erotica intern" and I'll pass it on to her. Or if you know someone who should be writing their memoir and/or erotic novel.

7 comments:

ryan field said...

This post is very interesting. I'm one of those writers who has been publishing erotica for many years, mostly in short story form...in books and magazines. I always have plenty of work, and try to get into at least twenty books each year. I use about three different pen names, depending on the sub-genre. I even landed a gig with an e-publisher, which is something I said I'd never do five years ago. But they liked me...it's all about ego :)

So, after this month's deadline is over, I may submit something just to see if it's a fit.

I always figured I was on my own, when it came to writing erotica, and agents weren't interested. So I went out and sold it myself, and built good relationships with editors from good publishing houses. But it's nice to see you're forging ahead with this.

Molly Evans said...

Lori,
this is a great opportunity. Do you have a website I can look at? What is the email address we're to send to?
thanks
Molly

Unknown said...

Are you/she looking for people with a current finished manuscript, or just someone with prior experience? I have five current contracted stories (3 in anthologies and 2 novels) with Total E Bound and I am working on a third novel. But I am not sure if you/she would like it completed before someone contacts you.

Thank you,
Dakota Rebel

www.dakotarebel.com

Cynnara Tregarth said...

This is fantastic news, Lori. Thanks so much. Question-- what lengths are you(your intern) searching for? Is there anything that we can do to make it easier for your intern and yourself? You're being more than generous, so I figured I'd ask to see what we can do to streamline the process.

Ms. Dennis said...

This is something that I am seriously interested in. Can you please email me your contact information to stephanie.breshears@gmail.com?

I was unable to locate your email address here (duh) and wanted very much to discuss this further with you.

Thanks,
Stephanie

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