The First Annual Erotica Throw Down

By Bill Stephens - May 26 , 2008

As a member of several writing and book marketing social networks, I get my share of requests to become “friends.” It continues to amaze me how many of these people write erotica. Equally amazing is how few of these folks are men. There is a constant barrage of sweet elderly female faces showing up on my monitor, who openly advertise their wares.

I hit on the idea of having “The First Annual Erotica Throw Down” (that may be a unfortunate choice of words). I posted a request on all the network blogs for erotica authors to tell me why I should read their work in particular. From these I would make a short list, read those authors, and declare a winner in the TFAETD on my “Publishers Marketplace” blog, “Read It and Weep.” The response was amazing.

So I found myself reading my first erotica since Fanny Hill and The Story of O in college. I singled out Skylar Sinclair as the winner of the competition. Her book Sex Slave, an explicit little romp through the tenderloin of literature, was blessedly short (7,800 words). I mean, how many ways are there to write/describe folks really, really enjoying themselves, after all?

Doing the research for the article was a real eye opener. There are a lot of erotic book genres available to readers—so many, it is difficult to draw generalities about the broader genus, “Erotica.” From Romance to Science Fiction to Fantasy, to Horror and everything in between—pick any genre of literature and put “Erotica” behind it, and there are books available.

There is some commonality in this artistic outreach, however. You absolutely must kick your word processor into Hyperboldrive. Load up your literary shotgun with adverbs, adjectives, and every other modifier available, and fire away

By far, “fantasy” of every kind outranks a good old everyday explicit romp in the hay. It seems just sex alone doesn’t get it done for these readers. They need hyperbolic fantasy to keep up their interest as they plow through a subject that grows mundane rather quickly.

My overall feeling about erotica? I just can’t wait for several more decades to again pass before I read another erotic book, but here’s the capper:  My blog got 385 unique visitors the day I posted the Winner of “The First Annual Erotica Throw Down.” That’s about 15 times the normal. So if everything else fails, you might try this genre, as there’s a great big world of erotica out there.