Speaking of Amnesia

There’s something missing in this article about the advent of romantic erotica. Is it mentioning of explicit sex?

No, the article covers that.

Discussion of self-confident heroines with adventurous sexual appetites? Yup.

Hmmm. Creation of erotica imprints from established publishing houses? Yeah, that’s in there.

So what’s missing from this article?

Could it be ANY MENTION WHATSOEVER of Ellora’s Cave? Hello?! “Berkley was a pioneer with its Heat line last May”??!! Are you kidding me?

Gee whiz. For a million-dollar genre, you’d think the writer would find reference to EC quick enough in her research. Of course, it is USA Today, which Hubby and I call “McNews.” Perhaps I ask too much.

Nah, I don’t. To write about the popularity of erotica and not mention EC? That was boneheaded, no pun intended.

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  1. MeriBeth says:

    Ladies ~

    I feel compelled to point out that the USA Today article is only referencing print books, not ebooks.  According to my records Ellora’s Cave came out with print books after Berkley started their erotic romance imprint.  In that context the article is essentially correct; however, you are also correct in pointing out that with regard to the overall topic of erotic romance, it is limited in scope and not comprehensive.

    May I ask why you didn’t contact either Ellora’s Cave or USA Today regarding this?  If only to state the inaccuracies of the article to the newspaper and advise Ellora’s Cave of their being left out?

    Sincerely,
    MeriBeth

  2. SB Sarah says:

    Hi MeriBeth! I did indeed contact EC about it, and the response from the folks there was, “We’re surprised as well, and wow, are our authors ticked off, too!”

    My queries to USA Today have gone unanswered. Perhaps receiving email from “@smartbitchestrashybooks.com” has send my missive to the mail spam folder? Either way, if I hear back, I am certain to let y’all know.

  3. MeriBeth says:

    Hi Sarah… I did the more direct approach this morning, I called the corrections editor via their 1-800 number.  Most emails aren’t read or are merely autoresponded to, while phone calls/phone messages will at least be listened to, if not responded to by the people on the other end.  Figured it was worth a shot… talk about half-assed research. 🙄

    MeriBeth

  4. Not everyone can be as on top of news, trends or reality as The Bitches.

  5. SB Sarah says:

    I am so amused at the idea that we Bitches are on top of reality. Unless you mean our own reality, where every romance receives at the very least a B-, and the man titty shields us from the bitter cold rain.

  6. Kate R says:

    of course I mean *that* reality. . . it’s more genuine than phantoms like Paris Hilton or (skirting the political here) a canned hunt.

    And it’s not all pretty pictures and mantitty here, ya know. There’s at least one F in the SB archives, Ms. Sarah.

  7. Spider says:

    I think what irritates me is their discussion of how “new” it all is.  I don’t think that romantic erotica (or romances or erotica) are at all new. 

    While the literal content might contain words not commonly used in print in the past, there have always been books that were too titillating/cutting edge for the print world.  I’m not just talking about the paperback romance novel world either; I think you could go back 100, 200, or more years and label certain novels erotic.  (Or even further if you really wanted to write your dissertation! 😛 )

  8. What offends me about this is that there wouldn’t BE any mainstream publishers in erotica if not for trailblazers like The Cave. Even if they were talking specifically about print books, they should have paid homage to the inspiration behind these new lines.

  9. Kiku says:

    I work at a Borders store, and we stock EC titles, which sell like hot sexycakes. However, at our location at least, “Erotica” is spread out allover the store. Right after “Sex” comes “Erotica” (Interestingly, “Sex” comes right after “Death” and “Self-Help”)This section contains Story of O, The Sleeping Beauty trilogy, The Letters to Penthouse collections, and paperbacks with French maids, maked doms, and chaises longues on the badly designed covers.
    Over at the beginning of the Hardcover/trade paperback “Romance” section (just after graphic novels) are the EC titles and related erotic fiction. I assume that it isover there to seperate ‘serious erotic fiction’ (i.e. for men) from ‘romance smut’, which is primarily geared toward/bought by women.   
    The gay and lesbian erotic literature is between Tarot/Divination and Sociology,where(I guess)it won’t offend the tender sensibilities of red-meat heteros looking for Letters to Penthouse.
    Just a ramble on the fun shelving systems stores come up with to avoid Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress.

  10. Wendywoo says:

    And I don’t think there was any mention of Black Lace in that article either, and they were pioneering erotic fiction for women, often with a strong romantic bias, as far back as 1994!

    Obviously BL is British, but they’ve always been on sale in America [and they have American authors on their list] and I’ve been told that US sales figures are quite good.

  11. Wendywoo beat me to it.  I was wondering where Black Lace, the imprint that introduced me to Emma Holly, was in this article. 

    Some of us have been reading women’s erotica for years.  I think this is just another example of sloppy “It’s more important to get it fast than get it right” journalism.

  12. Claire says:

    Now i’m not saying they’re the best ever, but Kensington Publishing has had an erotic component for alittle while now, called Brava.  I saw no mention of them in the article either.

    This whole ‘erotic is new!’ seems like a very big marketing ploy to me.

  13. SB Sarah says:

    The whole “erotica is new!” thing is like when AOL’s commercials acted as if they had just discovered this cool thing called the “internet.”

  14. Shannon says:

    Dammit, I thought Al Gore invented the Internet.

  15. Ursula says:

    And you’re surprised why?
    Let me take off my tin foil hat for a moment, here…
    Berkely probably advertises with USA today. And, Berkely is a brick and mortar publisher, which EVERYONE knows makes them legit. And, they weren’t founded by a woman, much less a woman with avant garde opinions she’s not afraid to express.  So all these things add up to: Berkely did it first, because we’re just going to close our eyes, stick our fingers in our ears, and sing Tee-Tumm Tee-Tumm, if you try to tell us otherwise. (If we don’t talk about Ellora’s Cave maybe it doesn’t really exist?)  Yes, I’m extreme. But it’s the typical marginalization crapola again.
    Either that, or the gin swilling reporter forgot to do research. Again, we’re surprised WHY????

    Okay, tin foil firmly back in place, wouldn’t want the CIA brain probe rays to download any valuable info.

  16. What is clear is that the USA Today folks did this lovely little article without ever walking into a book store. Maybe they don’t know how to read and so never frequent such places.

    If you go into any Borders in the country you will most likely find a whole rack of EC books and believe me those are both PRINT and HARD TO MISS. We have very distinctive covers.

  17. Jayne Anderson says:

    Actually, Ellora’s Cave came out with print books in late 2002-early 2003, which far predates anyone but Red Sage in the erotic romance market. I bought some EC print books at the RT conventions in Reno and Kansas in 2002 and 2003 respectively.

  18. Ah, a sore spot for me…rant follows.

    So they’re putting out erotica in print. BFD. So are a ton of small press, including us. We sell our paper on Amazon, and we sell well, even without being in brick and mortar. The author actually gets a decent royalty on paperbacks(40% of net) because we don’t have to hand over huge percentages to bookstores.

    Last year at the RT bookselling, our author sold out all forty copies she was allowed to bring in less than twenty minutes, and would have sold more if she had them. People went straight to Amazon and bought…and have continued to buy. Us, the no-names.

    We are able to do this because we worked our ass off. Even when the market went from full to flooded in the last year or so, we’re still kicking ass. We’ve been around an long time, and built our readership from scratch. I haven’t slept in the last three years to do it, but it’s working.

    In fact, we have even had bookstores purchase directly from us. But we’re not in every chain, so USA Today doesn’t see us.

    New Concepts is in chain bookstores, but they’re not mentioned. Several other small pubs are out there, but not a word about them, either.

    What’s really rough is that we as small press can’t even band together and present a united front. Idea theft and bandwagon hopping is predominant in this industry among a certain faction, even at our level. I see one house come up with an idea, then another (or three) cop the same idea. Lots of infighting and BS, gossip and rumors.

    At the risk of having my ass soundly kicked, my personal opinion is that we small press as a whole need to stop the kindergarten crap on our level, which would help establish ourselves that much better, and get the industry in general in people’s faces. We must not be ignored.

    In addition, if all the NY houses want to jump on a bandwagon they should bloody well say so, instead of acting like it’s all their idea.

    When we put out our line of anime art-covered books with stories reminicent of Manga, we said outright that it was due to the popularity of the medium and its market, not hey, look what we discovered, it’s all our idea. Ain’t we special?

    Would it kill the press to mention all of us who have busted our buns to make this market what it is? That basically cleared the road for those who already corner most of the romance market to snatch up the last remaining piece of the pie they don’t own?

    Pioneers. Snort.

    Rant over. Off to take some Midol and do deep breathing exercises.

  19. Robin says:

    Ah, a sore spot for me…rant follows.

    And a great one, to boot, Stef! Sign my up for whatever you’re selling.

    Berkely probably advertises with USA today.

    One of the first cases I read in Contracts was that between Berkely and the Naval Institute Press, which had published the hardcover edition of Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October (after Clancy struggled mightily to get it published, IIRC) and then sold the paperback rights to Berkely.  Although there were strict provisions regarding when Berkely could start distributing those copies (timed so that they would not take away significant hardcover sales from the small Naval press), Berkely breached, distributing copies early.  The lesson for us, as students, was that sometimes a party will breach if they judge it to be “efficient” or profitable, despite whatever damages they might have to pay. I thought it was crappy.  Now, ironically(?), Clancy is published by the Penguin Group, which includes Berkely (which must be why those books all have so many typos and other copy editing errors????). 

    Anyone but me remember those wonderful Penguin Classics and wonder what the world of publishing has come to every time you glance up at that seemingly indestructible copy of Billy Budd on your bookshelf?

    There’s at least one F in the SB archives, Ms. Sarah.

    Is that the only book to have gotten an F here?  The thought of it makes me so sad, not only because I loved that book, but also because, well, it seems that there are so many authors more deserving of that distinction.

  20. sabrina says:

    My name is Sabrina and I’m a documentary filmmaker making a documentary on romance readers (being one myself).  Anyway, so far I have a lot of different readers in my documentary.  What I don’t have is a romantica/erotica reader.  I was wondering if any of you read romantica/erotica & plan on attending this year’s romantic times convention
    (http://www.rtconvention.com/)
    If so, I’d love to interview you!  Again, I’m looking for READERS, not published authors.

    Sincerely,
    Sabrina Almeida
    sabrina @ whatstheretolove.com

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