Sex scenes in published erotica

[BobbyBrandt]

The thing I'm struggling with is an honest opinion by someone else on whether what I write would meet the bar for "published" literature, i.e. I get comments to that effect on my stories but are they just here for the dinner and not the entire show? Before sinking a bunch of time into pulling something like The Monogamists together into a book, I'd much rather have someone take me to one side and tell me to stick to the day job...?

As I mentioned in a different thread, agents and publishers (for the most part) will decline to consider anything already published on a free site such as Literotica, no matter how you might alter it.

My suggestion is to write something new and before posting it, query a few agents or publishers to gauge their interest.

Going back to the discussion on erotica vs. porn, there are several other sites that will allow erotic content as long as it is "tame" enough for them, meaning that it elicits arousal without the crude details. Goodreads and Inkitt are two that come to mind. You might want to try posting some of your current works on these sites to get feedback from a different reader audience.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

But Lit stories require sex - I presume the expectation is minimum one scene per chapter. That doesn't necessarily translate well when you combine a series of 9 chapters into a novel, ending up with ~10 sex scenes. Too much sex? Not enough story? Probably.

Where do you get this idea?

I have 68 red H submissions here. 58 of these have either no sex or only implied sexual activity. Of those 58 submissions, 46 are novels, either posted as chapters or in single submissions.

 

[Zenith77]

Where do you get this idea?

I have 68 red H submissions here. 58 of these have either no sex or only implied sexual activity. Of those 58 submissions, 46 are novels, either posted as chapters or in single submissions.

I think you're the exception that proves the rule.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I think you're the exception that proves the rule.

The point is that there is no "rule" to be an exception to. Some of the most popular writers on this site have minimal sexual activity in many of their stories.

One that comes to mind is "You Can Go Home Again", by blackrandl1958. It maintains a good score, has more than 677k views, is favored by 1.4k readers, and has received 659 comments since being published.

I could list hundreds of others, but the fact would remain the same; sex is not a story requirement here.

 

[alohadave]

Completely agree, and I've found the sex quickly boring in many of the stories I've read on Kindle, sticking with the book for the story, not the sex.

But Lit stories require sex - I presume the expectation is minimum one scene per chapter. That doesn't necessarily translate well when you combine a series of 9 chapters into a novel, ending up with ~10 sex scenes. Too much sex? Not enough story? Probably.

There are authors I follow that write serials/long form and after a while, I just skip through the sex scenes. If I'm reading a 500k-1m word story, I'm there for the story and sometimes the sex scenes feel tacked on, or they don't really do anything to advance the story.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I've done IT contract work in the past. I'd need to consistently sell stories to well-paying publications to even come close to earning the rates I did in IT. This is not to show off - it's the reality, and I would imagine there are lots of authors who can relate to this situation.

Yup. I occasionally get feedback from somebody who loves my stories and thinks I should go pro, and I'll take that as a compliment on the quality, but looking at some of the authors who I admire... I'd be considerably poorer than I am now, and having to do a whole heap of promotion-type stuff that I don't enjoy.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The point is that there is no "rule" to be an exception to. Some of the most popular writers on this site have minimal sexual activity in many of their stories.

One that comes to mind is "You Can Go Home Again", by blackrandl1958. It maintains a good score, has more than 677k views, is favored by 1.4k readers, and has received 659 comments since being published.

I could list hundreds of others, but the fact would remain the same; sex is not a story requirement here.

Seconded. There's little if any correlation between the amount of sex in my stories and the ratings they get. I have two stories where the sex is just "fade to black" and a couple of series chapters with no sex at all, and it doesn't seem to have hurt their ratings appreciably.

I don't think this is true for every author on the site. I expect it depends on what audience you're writing for. If you're aiming primarily for readers who are looking for stroke, then probably you'd want a fair bit of sex to keep them happy. But that's not the only game in town.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

But that's not the only game in town.

My point exactly

 

[PandemicReader8]

As I mentioned in a different thread, agents and publishers (for the most part) will decline to consider anything already published on a free site such as Literotica, no matter how you might alter it.

Even Amazon has been known to scan the web for matching text. Not enough to keep authors from having epub formats pirated, but enough to make life miserable for honest authors.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

Even Amazon has been known to scan the web for matching text. Not enough to keep authors from having epub formats pirated, but enough to make life miserable for honest authors.

Not too long ago I found 20 stories that were lifted from Literotica (including one of mine) attributed to an author using a fake on Amazon. It took a while to get Amazon to remove them, but at least now they're gone.

Since I've been checking more often, I've found a few more of my stories that have been pirated. It's frustrating to see that someone is not only taking credit for something they didn't write, but that they're profiting from it, too.

 

[tenyari]

Interesting, I would have expected the opposite. That we were amateur hour and I was losing out by not buying that published stuff.

I guess they're more tamed down to try an meet the conflicting interests of not being censored while also appealing to stroke readers?

 

[Zenith77]

Not too long ago I found 20 stories that were lifted from Literotica (including one of mine) attributed to an author using a fake on Amazon. It took a while to get Amazon to remove them, but at least now they're gone.

Since I've been checking more often, I've found a few more of my stories that have been pirated. It's frustrating to see that someone is not only taking credit for something they didn't write, but that they're profiting from it, too.

They are in breach of copyright. You should E-mail Amazon, request all profits from the sale of the stories, and a request to identify the author pending legal action.

Worth a giggle anyway

 

[PandemicReader8]

Since I've been checking more often, I've found a few more of my stories that have been pirated. It's frustrating to see that someone is not only taking credit for something they didn't write, but that they're profiting from it, too.

I run weekly searches on multiple search engines for titles and pennames. Two years ago I learned I was selling a lot of books in Greece and Australia. Took almost a year to get them pulled down.

It was enough that I'm not sure I will release any more e-books.

 

[oneagainst]

I've done IT contract work in the past. I'd need to consistently sell stories to well-paying publications to even come close to earning the rates I did in IT. This is not to show off - it's the reality, and I would imagine there are lots of authors who can relate to this situation.

If I did it yeah would still need the day job, but that's pretty flexible, he writes 2h into a 12h drive up the coast to see a total solar eclipse

After looking at it all the ways I don't understand how anyone makes a good living writing books. Happy to be corrected by misc proper authors moonlighting here in AH....

 

[Bramblethorn]

If I did it yeah would still need the day job, but that's pretty flexible, he writes 2h into a 12h drive up the coast to see a total solar eclipse

After looking at it all the ways I don't understand how anyone makes a good living writing books. Happy to be corrected by misc proper authors moonlighting here in AH....

Almost nobody does. A tiny percentage make it big, most professional writers are leaning heavily on some other means of support whether that's savings, a day job, or a partner.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

If I did it yeah would still need the day job, but that's pretty flexible, he writes 2h into a 12h drive up the coast to see a total solar eclipse

After looking at it all the ways I don't understand how anyone makes a good living writing books. Happy to be corrected by misc proper authors moonlighting here in AH....

I think it all boils down to how well your material gets promoted whether or not you see success, and I don't measure "success" strictly in financial terms.

Now, others might disagree, but I believe that a lot of the authors who contribute material to sites such as Literotica find it difficult to promote their stories for a couple of reasons:

1. It's tough to self-promote a nom de plume. Anonymity makes it challenging to communicate through a lot of normal channels. Some have Facebook pages and other social media presence under their pen names, but keeping their erotic writing adventures from friends and relatives remains a hindrance.
2. A different audience. "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" That is a philosophy of a large number of Literotica readers. Stories that are popular at no cost may not always hold the same value when a price is put on them. I know that there are very few stories here that I would pay to read (including some of my own), yet I buy a lot of e-books every year, none of which are erotic.

I only have one book of mine on D2D under this pen name and it does diddly-squat. All of my mainstream books under my real name do just fine, simply because the promotion of them is easier and they can't be easily read for free.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I started writing and posting my stories here on LitE to learn something about writing and publishing. I'm a geek and only wrote tech instructions in the past. But my daughter wanted to be a writer, so I thought at least learning about the process would be interesting. I even eventually learned about SmashWords and links to Amazon as a means of sell stories. (No, I haven't tried that ... yet.)

In the meantime, my wife (unfiltered as she is) mentioned my new hobby to my daughter. My daughter pointed her to an explicit erotic series called "The Baumgartner's" on Amazon, erotic stories of a 19-year-old babysitter seduced by the mid-30's couple. These are mostly erotic scenes that you'd find here on LitE. The book "Babysitting the Baumgartners" is copyright 2008 and published in 2014. (My wife bought that audio book and found it to be very hot!)

With just a little curiosity, thought, and searches, I found the book author "Selena Kitt" has an account here on LitE; "Selena_Kitt", where the author posted 249 stories from 2004 through about 2010. Apparently, the author prototyped the stories here, before refining and organizing them into books for commercial publication. If you read the five-part series here on LitE "Babysitting the Baumgartner's" (link to Ch. 01) and buy the book to read, you'll find they are very similar.

This is just an FYI for those newbies like me interested in the process. And the type of masturbation material you find here on LitE can be found on Amazon, they just don't make it as easy to search and find it there.

 

[oneagainst]

Apparently, the author prototyped the stories here, before refining and organizing them into books for commercial publication.

That's what I imagined happens, that the story is posted here to get customer feedback and some of its rough edges knocked off. It seems like a good way of researching your market before you add the spit and polish that Amazon would require...?

 

[BobbyBrandt]

That's what I imagined happens, that the story is posted here to get customer feedback and some of its rough edges knocked off. It seems like a good way of researching your market before you add the spit and polish that Amazon would require...?

A sound strategy, especially if you don't have access to an editor.

I have heard of authors here eventually taking their stories down so that they would be acceptable to an agent or publisher. If you find someone that this will satisfy, go for it.

 

[thomas1965]

After looking at it all the ways I don't understand how anyone makes a good living writing books. Happy to be corrected by misc proper authors moonlighting here in AH....

One example:
https://www.amazon.com/Nanny-Neighb...text&sprefix=erotica,digital-text,152&sr=1-17
sells 145 copies per day, according to Amazon Book Sales Calculator

There are quite a few books with this sales figure

 

[KeithD]

I made a good living so that I could retire to writing books.

 

[PandemicReader8]

I am motivated by the successes I've witnessed around me. I an far from where I want to be re: Amazon sales, but I know - more than tangentially - one six figure Indie author and at last count four authors who have quit their day jobs to just write. But it will always take work.