What is the most desired theme for erotic novels?

[MistressCassy]

Hi Everyone,

I've been hunting around the internet for a while now, but I can't seem to make my mind up on what is a clear theme that stands above all others in terms of most read / popularity.

Obviously the bondage D/s billionaire type thing is quite popular at the moment. (50 Shades and other Dirty Billionaire novels).

Is sensual romance something that is more popular in your experience?

Or taboo sexual situations / encounters / relationships?

Or are hard, rough BDSM-type novels very popular and I'm just not looking in the right places?

What about gay and lesbian romance? Or gay and lesbian BDSM? I know for myself if I'm reading a novel the sexual orientation doesn't have an effect on whether I would read the book or not, it's the theme surrounding the characters which makes me continue reading or not.

Feel free to add any other areas which are popular with readers that I haven't added in this. I'm just very interested to try and figure out what type of erotica is the most popular.

Thanks for any and all comments / ideas.

 

[Blind_Justice]

Without comprehensive sales data, that's a tough one to answer.

 

[MistressCassy]

Without comprehensive sales data, that's a tough one to answer.

That has been my problem as well, I've looked around different websites and looked at reviews of books bought etc. but nothing seems to actually stand out to me.

 

[Kojak01]

There was a thread a while ago where somebody seemed to have extensive knowledge about booksales and the buyers. It was only about Romances, though but maybe that person can help...

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1469057

 

[Jada59]

I was told by a college professor that if you want to make a quick buck, write Harlequin romances under a Pen name. I could no more do that than I could write an incest story. I write what feels good for me. Then again, I'm not in it for money.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Feel free to add any other areas which are popular with readers that I haven't added in this. I'm just very interested to try and figure out what type of erotica is the most popular.

Thanks for any and all comments / ideas.

All of the above, and none of the above. There have been many threads on this in the years I've been on Lit. There are several common themes:

1. Empirical paying marketplace data is extremely hard to find
2. The erotica market is saturated, it's tough to make an entry
3. The big publishers are playing games and ramping back on erotica coverage (which seems contrary to #2)
4. Forget about making decent money unless you're exceptionally lucky.

In terms of Lit, there's a page somewhere that shows how many stories are in each category, and the Top Lists give you an idea of volume.

 

[SimonDoom]

I haven't read enough erotic novels to claim expertise, but I know 50 Shades was more successful than anything else, and there are many copycats. So I would guess the dominant- submissive romance is the number one erotic novel theme.

 

[oggbashan]

There was a report in a UK magazine a couple of years ago that started with the amounts authors get from Public Lending Rights - the fees libraries pay to authors for books borrowed.

The vast majority of authors received NOTHING because their books weren't borrowed enough. A handful, i.e. fewer than 5, received thousands of pounds. The rest, fewer than a quarter of registered authors, had from fifty pounds up to a few hundreds of pounds.

The magazine went further and asked for information from UK publishers in general terms about how much money British authors might expect to make in a year from book sales.

The answers showed that most received less than a thousand pounds a year from ALL that author's sales. The few high earners were very rare and often not writers of fiction but celebrity exposés, diet and cookery books.

Being a UK based writer of fiction, especially erotic fiction, is unlikely to be a significant line on your tax return. You need another income source.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Being a UK based writer of fiction, especially erotic fiction, is unlikely to be a significant line on your tax return. You need another income source.

Probably accurate for every country outside the UK too.

It reminds me of an anecdote I read the other day, about the composer Philip Glass. Even after he achieved fame with his opera "Einstein on the Beach", he still wasn't making enough to live on as a composer, so he kept on working as a plumber, taxi-driver, and removalist to pay the bills. One day while he was at work:

"I suddenly heard a noise and looked up to find Robert Hughes, the art critic of Time magazine, staring at me in disbelief. ‘But you’re Philip Glass! What are you doing here?’ It was obvious that I was installing his dishwasher and I told him I would soon be finished. ‘But you are an artist,’ he protested. I explained that I was an artist but that I was sometimes a plumber as well and that he should go away and let me finish."

Another time, one of his taxi passengers told him "You have the same name as a very famous composer!"

 

[ChloeTzang]

I haven't read enough erotic novels to claim expertise, but I know 50 Shades was more successful than anything else, and there are many copycats. So I would guess the dominant- submissive romance is the number one erotic novel theme.

Sylvia Day with her Crossfire series being a good example of that. Amanda Hocking is another good example.

Self-help, kid lit, and erotica: That, in a nutshell, sums up the last 20 years of bestselling books, according to a new analysis by USA Today. Between 1994 and 2008, romance accounted for 5 percent to 9 percent of bestsellers. In 2012, it accounted for a whopping 25 percent of bestsellers tracked by USA Today.

This is from 2017. Which genre is the one bringing in the bucks and here are the top 5 genres that earn the most money.

1) Romance/Erotica - $1.44 billion
2) Crime/Mystery - $728.2 million
3) Religious/Inspirational - $720 million
4) Science Fiction/Fantasy - $590.2 million
5) Horror - $79.6 million

So an Erotic Crime novel with a religious theme in a Science Fiction setting with some Horror. We have a winning combination, just got to write it. Maybe pn a space station, with murders and a romance between an alien and a human and egg-laying horror. Darn! I forgot the religion, no wonder Nockatunga Station didn't do so well.

Half of the e-book bestsellers in the romance, science fiction, and fantasy genres on Amazon are self-published. Readers of these genres are more likely to share recommendations via blogs and forums, and their clearly defined interests make it easier for authors in these genres to target their book sales marketing efforts.

Of these three genres, romance books make up a whopping 40% of the market share on Amazon e-book sales. And if you think romance sells so well because it’s erotica—not true. Only 1.2% of Kindle sales are erotica. So do hot romance, not erotica if you want larger sales.

 

[Captainnumnuts]

Whatever the most desired theme is - that's a difficult thing to discuss for many and ponder on.

In the literature and materialistic world, I'd have to go where the money is.

In my mind and heart, 1 singular word stands out among the rest and is applied accordingly .

Passion.

 

[SimonDoom]

Sylvia Day with her Crossfire series being a good example of that. Amanda Hocking is another good example.

Self-help, kid lit, and erotica: That, in a nutshell, sums up the last 20 years of bestselling books, according to a new analysis by USA Today. Between 1994 and 2008, romance accounted for 5 percent to 9 percent of bestsellers. In 2012, it accounted for a whopping 25 percent of bestsellers tracked by USA Today.

This is from 2017. Which genre is the one bringing in the bucks and here are the top 5 genres that earn the most money.

1) Romance/Erotica - $1.44 billion
2) Crime/Mystery - $728.2 million
3) Religious/Inspirational - $720 million
4) Science Fiction/Fantasy - $590.2 million
5) Horror - $79.6 million

So an Erotic Crime novel with a religious theme in a Science Fiction setting with some Horror. We have a winning combination, just got to write it. Maybe pn a space station, with murders and a romance between an alien and a human and egg-laying horror. Darn! I forgot the religion, no wonder Nockatunga Station didn't do so well.

Half of the e-book bestsellers in the romance, science fiction, and fantasy genres on Amazon are self-published. Readers of these genres are more likely to share recommendations via blogs and forums, and their clearly defined interests make it easier for authors in these genres to target their book sales marketing efforts.

Of these three genres, romance books make up a whopping 40% of the market share on Amazon e-book sales. And if you think romance sells so well because it’s erotica—not true. Only 1.2% of Kindle sales are erotica. So do hot romance, not erotica if you want larger sales.

I figured that most of "romance" was not "erotica."

What interests me is erotica that is more erotica than romance. Most of the erotica that falls under that category probably can best be called spicy romance. That's how I saw 50 Shades, and it's why I got bored with it. The author had to contrive silly ways to maintain dramatic tension over the length of the story. I read one of those Sylvia Day books and felt the same way about it. I got tired of the characters being foolish and impulsive and dramatic. I wanted to slap them.

I'm always on the lookout for good published erotic novels, but I haven't found many.

 

[Alice_Rosaleen]

I'm always on the lookout for good published erotic novels, but I haven't found many.

Have you read Written On The Body by Jeanette Winterson? I found Silk by Grace Dane Mazur to have some beautiful erotic tales as well. I've read good erotica/smut by men as well, but I can only think of female authors or erotica anthologies by women that I've read at the moment.

 

[SimonDoom]

Have you read Written On The Body by Jeanette Winterson? I found Silk by Grace Dane Mazur to have some beautiful erotic tales as well. I've read good erotica/smut by men as well, but I can only think of female authors or erotica anthologies by women that I've read at the moment.

I have not read those. Thanks for the recommendations!

 

[NotWise]

1) Romance/Erotica - $1.44 billion
2) Crime/Mystery - $728.2 million
3) Religious/Inspirational - $720 million
4) Science Fiction/Fantasy - $590.2 million
5) Horror - $79.6 million

This is all good to know, but the OP seemed to be asking about the erotic theme rather than the popular genres.

It seems like the odds-on most popular story might come from combining Romance with BDSM. Combing Romance with NonCon is a stretch, but I imagine it's possible. Group and 'Cheating Wives' seem like odd matches to Romance. The more-popular category of Incest doesn't seem to go far in the main stream, but Taboo Romances have legs on Lit.

Gay and Lesbian Romances appeal mostly to minority crowds.

 

[R. Richard]

In my own case, incest is my best seller. Scifi is next, but a majority of my books are scifi. Erotica is next, followed by adventure.

 

[PenLightStories]

Straight-up erotica can be tough because there are thousands of people trying to make a quick buck selling it on Amazon.

The biggest sellers seem to be bad boy/bad girl themed, taboo doesn't just mean incest, though. I've also noticed that explicit portions of good selling Amazon books seem to go a little lighter on the explicitness of the sex itself. Most sex scenes don't end in a huge cumshot like they do on Literotica.


My suggestion is to find something unique but that dovetails from an existing genre. It's not that you need to get this crazy but, at one point, one of the highest revenue writers of explicit stories was churning out stories about women being taken advatage of by dinosaurs (I kid you not).

 

[SimonDoom]

It's not that you need to get this crazy but, at one point, one of the highest revenue writers of explicit stories was churning out stories about women being taken advatage of by dinosaurs (I kid you not).

I had no idea that was a thing. I'm trying to wrap my brain around that.

Dino-porn.

What a weird world we live in.

 

[NotWise]

Dino-porn.

Tiptoeing about the margins of bestiality.

 

[SimonDoom]

Tiptoeing about the margins of bestiality.

Well, that's sort of what non-human is, isn't it? It is interesting that on this site bestiality is strictly forbidden, but non-human sex is allowed. On this site your character can have sex with a werewolf, but not a wolf.

I'm not complaining, because I have no interest in writing canine sex stories, and, regardless, it's the owner's site and she's free to set the rules as she wants them, but it is interesting.

I'm working on a tentacle sex story. There are no actual octopuses, squids, or cuttlefish involved in the making of this story, so I think it will satisfy the Lit requirements.

 

[yukonnights]

Hi Everyone,

I've been hunting around the internet for a while now, but I can't seem to make my mind up on what is a clear theme that stands above all others in terms of most read / popularity.

Obviously the bondage D/s billionaire type thing is quite popular at the moment. (50 Shades and other Dirty Billionaire novels).

Is sensual romance something that is more popular in your experience?

Or taboo sexual situations / encounters / relationships?

Or are hard, rough BDSM-type novels very popular and I'm just not looking in the right places?

What about gay and lesbian romance? Or gay and lesbian BDSM? I know for myself if I'm reading a novel the sexual orientation doesn't have an effect on whether I would read the book or not, it's the theme surrounding the characters which makes me continue reading or not.

Feel free to add any other areas which are popular with readers that I haven't added in this. I'm just very interested to try and figure out what type of erotica is the most popular.

Thanks for any and all comments / ideas.

It's been said before; Most writers of erotica can produce their best work when it is something they personally enjoy or aroused by. As you noted above, it's the 'theme surrounding the characters' that you enjoy. Perhaps it's as simple as that...just write around the theme/themes you would enjoy reading.

As an aside; I always get a little confused with the terms 'theme' and 'premise'. Here's a couple of quicky definitions I just looked up: Theme is a general principle. Message is a specific example of that theme in action. Premise is what the drama is about.

I'm not saying those definitions are complete or even correct. But if they are close, then it seems your question is actually more concerned with which "sub-genre" of the Romance genre is the most popular. That of course is 100% dependent on the target audience. From what I've gathered by reading what others here have learned, the Romance category on Lit tends toward the happy ever after "theme". For what it's worth; I just did a HEA in Romance with a premise of a cis-lesbian and a transitioning MTF transgender and it was received well there. (I think that was an unusual situation though. Had it been two men or two women, the better category would have been the Gay Male and the Lesbian)

Hope any of that helps !

 

[Bramblethorn]

My suggestion is to find something unique but that dovetails from an existing genre. It's not that you need to get this crazy but, at one point, one of the highest revenue writers of explicit stories was churning out stories about women being taken advatage of by dinosaurs (I kid you not).

https://wordery.com/helicopter-man-pounds-dinosaur-billionaire-ass-dr-chuck-tingle-9781517103156

 

[ausfet]

Probably accurate for every country outside the UK too.
"

Absolutely, unless you are committed to writing a story that is easily, universally, understood.

This short paragraph;

'It was the end of a fortnightly pay cycle and funds were tight. Dazza ambled over to his ute, a tallie of Bundy tucked under his arm, as he ate a potato scallop and pondered the Bronco's chances in tonight's game.'

Makes complete sense to Australians. Not so much to your average American who doesn't typically know what a fortnight, ute, tallie, Bundy or potato scallop might be. Nor would they know Dazza's full name. An Australian would also know he's likely in a trade and was born or raised in Queensland.

Other than ensuring you aren't using colloquialisms, I'd suggest most readers want:

* Attractive characters
* A female lead who isn't *quite* perfect, but mostly is
* Wealthy characters
* A happy ending

You might not want to write that, though. Like Jada59, I write for myself. There are also a lot of readers who come to Literotica for niche fiction that would never make it past a publisher's discerning eye.

 

[Hypoxia]

At least presidential pr0n doesn't make the list. Whew.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I can tell you which are my best sellers...

1. Incest/Taboo

2. Loving Wives

3. And an outlier Female Domination...but only in the UK. I don't know why, but those guys over there loved that one. I must have sold 800 - 900 copies in England alone.