Constance Daley's Blog - Posts Tagged "publishing"
Revisiting Literary Lesbianism
I know I've talked about it before, but I'm fascinated by the performance of Pictures of Lillian on my sales charts, so I'm going to talk about it again. The thing is, Pictures of Lillian is not only NOT my bestselling story, it's pretty much the worst. Since my descriptions are intentionally vague so as not to spoil whatever plot twist the story might contain, the reader can only get a basic idea of what the story will be about. Pictures of Lillian is my only story with a lesbian bent, my only story that a reader has tagged with the word lesbian on Amazon.
The question is, why isn't it selling? The answer is, I have no idea. I understand that the market for lesbian erotica might be limited to begin with, that there are probably a great many women who have no interest in reading it. But that just begs the question as to why so few women seem to be interested in the genre? When every possible fetish imaginable has a sizable reading demographic, why does something as relatively prosaic as lesbianism have such limited appeal.
I wonder sometimes if the problem is that it is too accessible. For the most part I deal with situations and types of sex that most women can't really have, whether because the actual experience would be too much for them or because even arranging such a scenario is difficult. After all, we can all read about our husbands watching us have sex with another man, but actually making it happen could lead to a trip to a divorce lawyer. Lesbianism doesn't have this issue. First, it was readily available for most of our lives. There was nothing stopping us from making out with a girl. Second, even if you're married chances are bringing up making out with another girl to your husband isn't going to send him running for a lawyer. It'll probably send him running for the video camera.
Ultimately there's no way to know why some things sell and some things don't. I still plan to write another lesbian story at some point, just in case the real problem with Pictures of Lillian is something else entirely. Maybe people think the scenario is lame. Maybe people never noticed it. But I always enjoy a little speculating, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on the matter.
The question is, why isn't it selling? The answer is, I have no idea. I understand that the market for lesbian erotica might be limited to begin with, that there are probably a great many women who have no interest in reading it. But that just begs the question as to why so few women seem to be interested in the genre? When every possible fetish imaginable has a sizable reading demographic, why does something as relatively prosaic as lesbianism have such limited appeal.
I wonder sometimes if the problem is that it is too accessible. For the most part I deal with situations and types of sex that most women can't really have, whether because the actual experience would be too much for them or because even arranging such a scenario is difficult. After all, we can all read about our husbands watching us have sex with another man, but actually making it happen could lead to a trip to a divorce lawyer. Lesbianism doesn't have this issue. First, it was readily available for most of our lives. There was nothing stopping us from making out with a girl. Second, even if you're married chances are bringing up making out with another girl to your husband isn't going to send him running for a lawyer. It'll probably send him running for the video camera.
Ultimately there's no way to know why some things sell and some things don't. I still plan to write another lesbian story at some point, just in case the real problem with Pictures of Lillian is something else entirely. Maybe people think the scenario is lame. Maybe people never noticed it. But I always enjoy a little speculating, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on the matter.
To Butt Sex or Not to Butt Sex?
Just a forewarning, I will probably be using the term "butt sex" a lot in this blog post, mostly because I think it's awesome but unfortunately has no place in erotica. After all, it's a lot hotter for a man to say, "I'm going to fuck your ass," than "I'm going to have butt sex with you now," or even "I'm going to sex your butt." So this is one of the few times I get a chance to refer to the action as butt sex, and I'm not going to let that opportunity pass.
Butt sex has a weird place in our culture, in that it is one of the last taboos. Sixty years ago something like a blowjob was likely to be a man's primary fantasy, but now that those are commonplace it seems that anal is final frontier. Because of that, it seems to feature very heavily in a lot of erotica, and I'm still not exactly sure where to incorporate it and where not to.
For the most part, you can squeeze butt sex into pretty much any story with just a few minor tweaks (though there are exceptions). The question is whether you should, and I have to admit that I don't know the answer to that. You have two potential audiences to worry about, those who are instantly turned off by any backdoor action, and those who require it in their erotica. You don't want to alienate either audience, but ultimately you're going to have to. The question is, which one should I cater to?
So far, judging by my sales, anything that can be tagged on Amazon with "backdoor sex" seems to do pretty well, though not as well as "spanking," and nowhere near as well as "reluctant." This leads me to believe that as a writer, you're probably better off catering to the butt sex crowd than not. But being the type of writer I am (as explained in an earlier blog post), I'm not really catering to anyone yet.
I'll check back in on this subject a few months down the line, once I have more sales data to parse and maybe more stories featuring anal exploration to give myself a better idea of what people like. Readers, if you have a particular preference for more or less anal in your erotica, please let me know in the comments.
Butt sex has a weird place in our culture, in that it is one of the last taboos. Sixty years ago something like a blowjob was likely to be a man's primary fantasy, but now that those are commonplace it seems that anal is final frontier. Because of that, it seems to feature very heavily in a lot of erotica, and I'm still not exactly sure where to incorporate it and where not to.
For the most part, you can squeeze butt sex into pretty much any story with just a few minor tweaks (though there are exceptions). The question is whether you should, and I have to admit that I don't know the answer to that. You have two potential audiences to worry about, those who are instantly turned off by any backdoor action, and those who require it in their erotica. You don't want to alienate either audience, but ultimately you're going to have to. The question is, which one should I cater to?
So far, judging by my sales, anything that can be tagged on Amazon with "backdoor sex" seems to do pretty well, though not as well as "spanking," and nowhere near as well as "reluctant." This leads me to believe that as a writer, you're probably better off catering to the butt sex crowd than not. But being the type of writer I am (as explained in an earlier blog post), I'm not really catering to anyone yet.
I'll check back in on this subject a few months down the line, once I have more sales data to parse and maybe more stories featuring anal exploration to give myself a better idea of what people like. Readers, if you have a particular preference for more or less anal in your erotica, please let me know in the comments.
