em·bar·rass: v
1. To cause to feel self-conscious or ill at ease; disconcert.
2. To involve in or hamper with financial difficulties.
3. To hinder with obstacles or difficulties; impede.
Sixteen bodrillion people forwarded me this link, so thank you to all of them: IT World says ebooks are taking off because women can buy erotica and romance without embarrassment. Specifically: “porn is blazing a path to a new media format.”
Lest anyone think I’m quoting out of context, let me grab the two paragraphs that caught my eye.
Barnes & Noble abandoned ebooks once, so why are they coming back to them now? Because the format is starting to take off. Why is that? What’s popular on Fictionwise? Well, once again it seems like porn is blazing a path to a new media format. Of the top 10 bestsellers under the “Multiformat” category, nine are tagged “erotica” amd the last is “dark fantasy”.
Hey, I’m not judging anyone (one of my dearest friends is an erotic romance author) and yes, I’ve used the most salacious Top 10 list on the site in my example, but this data backs up my anecdotal observations. People who read erotic romance and ‘bodice rippers’ love ebooks because of the privacy they offer, both during purchase and when reading.
I disagree with the first, but not with the second. People who read digital copies of romance and erotic romance like ebooks because for a long ass time that was the only format in which they were available. Furthermore, people read erotic romance and romance in ebook form because they prefer to do so. But in terms of purchasing privacy? That’s a tough debate, because for a while, epubs were the only ones who were actively publishing erotic romance. Arguing that people wanted privacy so epubs provided it is putting the cart before the horse, or the balls before the mighty wang. I think privacy was a bi-product (pun intended) of digital publishers seizing a new market opportunity in fiction through the most inexpensive and quickest venue possible: digital media.
But in terms of privacy needs driving the market? I disagree. I’m not embarrassed to buy romance or erotica. I really don’t care. My Give-a-Shit is totally broken in that regard. Chas, one of the readers who forwarded me the link, agrees:
I must say that I have NEVER been ashamed to be seen purchasing any romance or erotica. The only reason I have ever purchased an E-book is due to the fact that I live in BFE and don’t have handy access to a decent bookstore. I’m an instant gratification type girl – I want to read something right then, not wait for it to arrive, or have to leave the house to purchase the book. Instant gratification usually always wins.
In fact I must say, I usually take an extended period of time browsing through the romance selection at every book store I go to. I’ve even been known to strike up loud conversations with the person standing next to me regarding the content of several books. (Insert husband eye roll here.)
I am PROUD to be a romance reader and refuse to hide in shame or be embarrassed by my choice in reading material. If I cared what people thought, I hide in a damn cave all day.
Right with you there, Chas. eBooks don’t appeal to me because I’m embarrassed to be seen buying them.
But let’s be honest: privacy while reading is a total benefit to eBooks. Being seen with some erotica covers is embarrassing in the context I defined above: disconcerting, difficult, potentially hampering my financial status. Cover art decisions are often so salacious that while they work as a point-of-sale attractant to potential readers, they do NOT work as something I can read at work on my lunch break without having a call from Human Resources within 5 minutes.
Take Megan Hart’s 2008 book Tempted:
Hart is no slouch in the fiction department. There are a LOT of people who adore her books. I personally couldn’t finish “Broken” because the narrator so strongly reminded me of someone I knew, someone who was broken and still is, that I couldn’t suspend my own painful reality to read the book. Pretty evocative writing, if I can’t get past my own reality because the fiction so strongly resembles it.
Anyway, cover. Take a look at the cover. Can I read that at work? On the subway with umpteen children going to school on the train with me (yes, kids take the subway to school in New York)? For God’s sake, near my mother in law? Yes, there are book covers, but for me, they are a pain in the ass.
I’ll tell anyone who asks what I’m reading, that it’s erotic fiction or historical romance. I’m very up front about it and don’t give a shit what most people think. If they have a hard time reconciling my brain with my enjoyment of romance and erotic romance, that’s their problem. I don’t think less of anyone because they read the NY Daily News, despite the headlines like “Air More Stinky, Kids Less Thinky.”
But I cannot read a book featuring a cover of gyrating limps and limped man-titty and massive wangs and side-boob out the yin yang, no matter how blithe I am about my reading material. It’s not a question of my shame. It’s a question of hostile workplace, disciplinary phone calls, or having some fucknut presume upon my own sexual choices based on the cover image I’ve got in my mittened hands. It’s a question of where I can appropriately be seen with openly sexual content because for the most part, the USA is as uptight about sexuality as a virgin’s sphincter, and book covers aren’t going to change that. I remarked on this last weekend as the first ever ebook LOL.
For that reason, among many others, ebooks are marvelous things. I’m not embarrassed to be reading anything. But there are times when the cover art is so over-the-top hornypants I am categorically unable to read it in public.
That said, resting the success on ebooks mainly on “Woo! Hidden porn!” evidence is a faulty argument. The fact that the cover art is now hidden is a minor benefit. I sure as hell do like that benefit but that’s not the main reason I’m a very happy digital reader. The ability to control text size and to read with an on-board light with the Sony 700 or to wirelessly load content on my device as with Kindle I, and Kindle II: The Matzoh Edition, is WAY more important than whether or not anyone thinks I read erotica, or whether the cover art earns me some raised eyebrows. eBooks are as much about a new and comfortable experience of reading as an act of leisure more than they are about squirreling away salacious content from prying, nosy eyes. Peekaboo Porn is a fringe benefit, and a very far-off fringe at that.
Yes, Actually they could. I work in the education and health care system. Sexual Harassment claims can be filed by any individual who feels you have offended them by anything you’ve done or said. Dialog between 2 individuals overheard by another who thinks the content overheard is offensive, even if the 2 people having the convo are fine with it can be reported as harassment. (damn, sorry that’s one ugly sentence.)
Having said all of that, I do like the privacy part of the ereader. Actually I like everything about them and rarely read printed material at all any more. Bring on more.
I don’t have any kind of e-reader yet, but that may change soon. I love browsing around in bookstores and feel that there is no substitute for it. However, the shelves at my local bookstores keep getting emptier and the different sections keep shrinking so I may have to find an alternative. As far as erotica, I have to go 90 minutes out of town and I don’t enjoy visiting that particular bookstore anymore because they had to go and move it into the damn mall. Luckily, I live a block from where I work so I can go home everyday for lunch, but if I had to eat at work there are certain covers I wouldn’t want to be seen with since my dear coworkers are already nosy enough.
Absolutely. At my last job I worked for a large retail company and a coworker was offended by just putting the books on the shelf (it was Megan Hart’s Tempted actually). She bitched enough that the book was removed, and returned (stripped actually) to the vendor.
That is wrong on so many levels that it makes my head hurt. A hostile workplace is one thing, but putting books on the shelf is the woman’s job. I think that should be covered by what Rachel Maddow calls the “Amish bus driver rule”. It’s fine of your personal beliefs make it impossible for you to drive. No one should force you to violate those beliefs, but that means you can’t have a job as a bus driver.
E-books: the ones I buy usually aren’t available, yes, actually. I tend to hide the cover of my romance novels: I think I’m too young to be over the embarrassment factor and there are creepy people with Wrong Ideas on the bus.
I associate the phrase ‘bodice rippers’ with my English Literature teacher. If I remember correctly: An ex-friend of mine, who took pleasure in putting me down would bring up my love of romance novels to other people and thus how superior her literary tastes were, revealed it in some unflattering way to him. I remember attempts to fix ideas about that phrasing and romance, and failing. Apparently, crime was outselling romance in the UK at the time. My other English Literature teacher used M&B books as an example of… purple prose, I think it was, with the quick addendum of ‘not that I’m condemning anyone who reads them’ if I recall correctly. I also remember the quick ‘you read those! *snicker*’ from ex-friend in question when this was mentioned. Ex-friend now reads Sherrilyn Kenyon (not by my recommendation) but continues to condemn romance. Oh, now that I think about all the occasions when it came up, especially with other people: she seems downright spiteful about it!
Men actually seem more accepting about it than women, if we look at the general view and indeed at the examples of the articles you bring up: they seem to either think ‘girl thing’ or read it themselves.
It’s possible that nobody was taking privacy into the account at first but I think that publishers realise the importance of it now. I kinda see the point of the author – ebooks are uncomfortable to read and their only redeeming value is the fact that they don’t take up any space. And that you can purchase them without anyone knowing.
I don’t view ebooks as uncomfortable-I’ve got a Sony reader and that’s every bit as easy for me as a book. Actually easier at places like the Y, because I don’t need to keep a hand on it to keep it open while I’m on the tread mill. When I’m cooking dinner, I can leave the reader on the counter, no need to dig up a book mark or put it face down and crack the spine. I don’t lose my place with an ebook reader because it saves the last page I was on.
There are a lot of redeeming values, privacy aside
-they take up less room
-they are friendly on the environment
-you can change the font size to accommodate your eye sight
-you can have as many as 2000 books with you at at given time thanks to SD cards-I don’t see this the same argument as taking up space, because storing books at home isn’t the same as picking which ones to keep with you when you go out of town-this is more about readily accessible variety.
-many, many ebooks aren’t available in print so the fact that you can access them in e-format is certainly a redeeming quality.
-instant gratification for those that do a lot of book browsing on the web. no need to wait for the trip to the bookstore-viola, you have it now.
Definitely more than just one or two redeeming qualities.
What Lori said. I’m sorry, if she’s offended by book content, she needs to work in another field. I’d be uncomfortable working in a strip joint but does that mean the strippers should be on clothes when I’m around? Uh…no, it means I don’t work in a strip joint.
Until people learn to respect the fact that not everybody shares their point of view, that we don’t have to make others believe how we believe, things like peace and general understanding aren’t ever going to happen.
Ditto what Shiloh said. In fact, the bookstores where used to shop (I switched completely to ebooks for content, financial, and space reasons) didn’t carry any of Shiloh’s books for a long time. I first found her books at etailers and from ebook reading friends.
Because ebooks have that instant gratification factor and are cheaper than print (this almost always applies to books that release exclusively in digital formats by epubs like Ellora’s Cave and Loose Id), taking risks on new authors is much more likely to happen. I did so with Shiloh’s Hunters, I’m so glad I did, and it may well not have happened if we were talking about just print.
Obviously anecdotes aren’t data, but I thought I’d weigh in with my own take on comfort. I really like physical books, but I think that if I had a reader I’d use it for romances. I don’t really read erotica.
Most of my reading gets done on the train during my morning commute. I’m not ashamed that my friends know I read romance, but I don’t like getting judgmental looks from strangers (or perceived judgmental looks…I can be a bit sensitive). It’d be nice not even to worry about that.
However I think this post and a lot of the comments hit on the real point. In my experience, there isn’t a lot of eroitca or a great variety of romance in most bookstores. There’s always something, but it’s a lot easier to get stuff online.
Why d’you think the net was born? Porn, porn, porn!
Ahem, sorry, Avenue Q moment there (I used to have that as my ringtone).
Being an ebook author who writes both erotic and non-erotic romances, I can agree that the hotter the book, the higher the sales. 10-1, 100-1, maybe in some cases 1000-1. And while I’m not sure about cause-and-effect, I don’t see it as a coincidence that the biggest epublishers are the ones who specialise in erotic romance. And without them leading the way, would trad. print houses have followed?
I do buy ebooks for erotic romance, but then a lot of my book-buying, regardless of genre, is done online. Even for print books. My local bookshop is tiny, and doesn’t stock a lot of romance. Even the larger shops I visit on occasion have either a very small or no romance section. One does have an erotica section, but it’s usually accessorised with a shady guy in a dirty mac. So, if I want to buy erotica, I do it online.