Help With A Category

[John988]

I'm currently working on a story that's a collection of vignettes. There's lesbian, cuckold, incest, and a slew of other things. What category should I list it in? I'm thinking Erotic Couplings, but I'm not sure.

 

[sr71plt]

Incest is a "control" category here, so if it has a described incest scene, the editor is likely to put it in Incest no matter how you marked it.

 

[John988]

Incest is a "control" category here, so if it has a described incest scene, the editor is likely to put it in Incest no matter how you marked it.

What do you mean by a "control category"?

 

[NotWise]

What do you mean by a "control category"?

Readers of categories other than I/T are usually offended by the presence of incest in a story. As a result, most any story with incest in it--even if it isn't a main theme--usually should be in I/T.

If you try to put it into some other category and Laurel finds the incest content then she may put it in I/T anyway.

 

[John988]

Readers of categories other than I/T are usually offended by the presence of incest in a story. As a result, most any story with incest in it--even if it isn't a main theme--usually should be in I/T.

If you try to put it into some other category and Laurel finds the incest content then she may put it in I/T anyway.

Really? I suppose that makes sense: as popular as incest is, it is still highly controversial. I think I'll take out the incest, then. It's not pivotal to the story, and I don't think that the rest of it would be satisfying to people who were looking for an incest story.

Any other words of wisdom you have about categories?

 

[SimonDoom]

This is an excellent article that explains the peculiarities of categories on this site, and which categories "trump" the other ones. It's very helpful to know how this works.

https://www.literotica.com/s/love-your-readers-categories

 

[RejectReality]

This is an excellent article that explains the peculiarities of categories on this site, and which categories "trump" the other ones. It's very helpful to know how this works.

https://www.literotica.com/s/love-your-readers-categories

That may not be up to speed with current conditions, though.

Incest, as a trump, seems to be overruling previous norms almost absolutely now. If there's Incest, Pseudo-Incest, or even Incest Roleplay, it seems to get slapped into I/T regardless of whether it contains stronger or equally strong elements that fit perfectly well into another category that is historically accepting of various kinks.

So far as the OP: I honestly don't see any category where you're going to get a great reception from a collection of kinks that diverse. The incest is going to creep out readers in most categories, and if it gets slapped into Incest/Taboo, you're likely to get savaged by the readership there for all the off-topic content.

Since it's a collection of vignettes, I would seriously consider removing the incest one and waiting until you have enough to include it in an incest-exclusive collection.

That's just the hottest potato, though. Lesbian and Cuckold aren't exactly compatible readerships, either. The bulk of the readership here is extremely tribal. They go to a category looking for something specific, and they're not happy when you throw them a curveball.

If, however, there's a connection in the vignettes ( perhaps they share characters, a setting, etc. ) or you simply feel that dropping/shifting the scenes destroys the integrity of the piece, you could go with Erotic Couplings. ( which is a bit of a grab-bag category with a transient readership ) There's a better than average chance that the incest content will get it moved to that category, though.

There's still a readership for darn near anything here, but you just have to be prepared for a less than stellar reception — and potentially nasty commentary — if you combine too many kinks in one piece. You just have to take the eyeballs you will connect with and be happy about them. It will probably still be more readers than you'll get anywhere else.

 

[sr71plt]

That may not be up to speed with current conditions, though.

Incest, as a trump, seems to be overruling previous norms almost absolutely now. If there's Incest, Pseudo-Incest, or even Incest Roleplay, it seems to get slapped into I/T regardless of whether it contains stronger or equally strong elements that fit perfectly well into another category that is historically accepting of various kinks.

If that's the trend (and I could believe it--there are moves in the greater erotica distribution world to isolate incest stories like this in preparation for more distributors to just ban them) I would counsel authors not to post GM incest to Literotica at all. It's not going to be received well in the Incest category here--badly enough not to bother to try posting it at all.

 

[NotWise]

If that's the trend (and I could believe it--there are moves in the greater erotica distribution world to isolate incest stories like this in preparation for more distributors to just ban them) I would counsel authors not to post GM incest to Literotica at all. It's not going to be received well in the Incest category here--badly enough not to bother to try posting it at all.

That doesn't make very much commercial sense to me. Incest is a popular fantasy. They would lose a big chunk of market by banning incest stories. What's the logic?

 

[sr71plt]

That doesn't make very much commercial sense to me. Incest is a popular fantasy. They would lose a big chunk of market by banning incest stories. What's the logic?

There doesn't have to be logic. Underage is a guaranteed sale too, as is rape and sexual snuff. Distributors don't go there. It's been on and off with Incest for a decade. There's another thread here somewhere about Smashwords making its erotica authors all go back over their inventory (I have over 200 titles with Smashwords--thank goodness they are all by publishers who have to do this. The indy authors have to do their own) and verify, one by one, that there's no incest or pseudo incest (which isn't even incest) in the books. One of Smashwords' major distributors, Barnes and Nobel, has dropped distributing incest. This isn't the first distributor attack over the last ten years over a few categories, including incest.

Indy-published erotica has been a big headache for major distributors on content, cover images, substandard quality, and copyright issues. They increasingly aren't seeing the profit as worth the aggregation. Amazon, which has the crazy policy, of reimbursing returns at 100 percent without question, has particular aggregation with edgy erotica because readers in this area are particularly dishonest about ordering, consuming, and returning for reimbursement.

If Literotica is, as RR suggests, changing its rationale for what goes into the Incest category here in response to this trend (or even for any other reason), it would be nice if the Web site administration spelled that out on the board for authors. No further comment on the likelihood of that.

 

[NotWise]

If Literotica is, as RR suggests, changing its rationale for what goes into the Incest category here in response to this trend (or even for any other reason), it would be nice if the Web site administration spelled that out on the board for authors. No further comment on the likelihood of that.

I reread what RR said and we're not on the same page. Maybe he can clarify.

The market is there. I suspect (without more than general experience) that if one retailer walks away then another will take advantage of the opening. Is there a reason why they wouldn't?

 

[RejectReality]

I've personally seen two stories with incest/pseudo-incest where the author wished them to be in Non-Human or Sci-Fi&Fantasy, which they most certainly were, and the category was changed to incest. Both tried to switch the category back to their original choice and were unsuccessful.

Both of those categories have always been tolerant of incest content — especially when warned. So I doubt the readership of the categories are complaining about it.

I've seen other stories pop up ( via perusing the comment portals and seeing "Not incest!" complaints ) that likewise had the author commenting that they'd originally selected an appropriate category, but it was changed because of incest content.

That's where I'm coming from. Incest has always been a trump, but there were several exceptions. Those exceptions do not seem to apply any longer.

 

[sr71plt]

The market is there. I suspect (without more than general experience) that if one retailer walks away then another will take advantage of the opening. Is there a reason why they wouldn't?

Because they have before, and because if you can't get on distribution with one of the few major distributors who exist, you will be paying people to take your product.

It's not just the distributors. Most of the money for this goes through PayPal. When PayPal shuts it down--even though you and I see that they aren't going with the market--the distributors do too. And PayPal has shut it all down before for incest.

There's always been a need for more distributors--but at the same time major erotica distributors have been shutting down.

And as far as the e-book erotica market goes, I've been suggesting for some time that if you aren't already in that market with titles and can take a steady decrease in sales, you've missed the crest of the wave already. People already have their e-readers stuffed with books they'll never get around to reading and they are moving on to other delights.

 

[NotWise]

And as far as the e-book erotica market goes, I've been suggesting for some time that if you aren't already in that market with titles and can take a steady decrease in sales, you've missed the crest of the wave already. People already have their e-readers stuffed with books they'll never get around to reading and they are moving on to other delights.

You're such a pessimist, but then I'm an optimist with no experience.

 

[sr71plt]

You're such a pessimist, but then I'm an optimist with no experience.

Yeah, I was thinking of the effect of no experience on the topic.