What's Hot and Not in Erotic Romance

I'm a pretty insightful person. Sure, I also have flaws: I'm not organized, or calm, or a good driver. But I am remarkably skilled at gauging what's going to happen and feeling the pulse of the general public. It's probably because I'm so unorganized that I accurately read the signs. Go-with-the-flow people need to be able to correctly interpret the flow.

It's with this in mind that I present you with my current forecast of what's going to grown and shrink in erotic romance in the near future. Ignore my prophecies if you will, but don't say I didn't warn you!

NOT: Menages with brothers.



Um, can you say "incest?" Eeeeeeeew! How could we have ever been into that?

HOT: Incest!



Mmmmmm.… How could we ever have forgotten that most taboo of all tropes? The Flowers in the Attic generation's ready to go there again. Don't believe me if you don't wanna. I'm just callin' 'em like I see 'em.

NOT: Steampunk.

Yeah, yeah. A lot of people lurve steampunk. And I think it will continue to be a strong niche market among the die hard fans. But I read an article recently calling steampunk "the trend that never really happened" and it rang true to me. I don't think steampunk is going to tank the way menages will, but neither do I believe it'll get as big as folks predicted.

HOT: Zombies and Steins.



Steins? Yeah– I made that up. My most recent WIP featured re-animated humans called steins, so of course I'm hoping the trope takes off. I may not be the person to benefit from the Frankenstein/zombie revival, but someone will. Readers are searching for the new vampire, and zombies are looking like the contenders.

NOT: Chicks with Dicks in M-M

Male-male romance readers are getting more and more savvy, and with all the new books flooding the market, they're not going to settle for stories that simply replace the heroine with a dude.

HOT: Gender-Bendy Men in Straight Romance

Like many of my predictions, this comes from what I see in youth culture. Did you know that on the new Nickelodeon show "Monster High" the Medusa character is a hunky guy? Think about it– a gorgeous boy with snakes for hair, who wears badass shades and when he takes them off, you turn to stone!! HOT!!

A lot of the traditional female tropes no longer work for heroines– virginity, vanity, being chased by multiple suitors. But those same things can be scorching for heroes. Also– Gen-Xers grew up on gender-reversing shows like Who's the Boss, Remington Steele, and Scarecrow and Mrs. King. My call– more men with guyliner.

NOT: Sex for sex's sake.

Other than incest, most erotica readers can't be shocked anymore. They're not going to settle for poorly-written erotica, or gratuitous smexxing.

HOT: Stories that rock.

Readers will always enjoy a well-written book. And I think some authors are strong enough to start their own trends. But let's face it, there's always a zeitgeist, and authors will generally do better is they listen to the whispers of pop-culture.

What do you guys think? What do you want to read more of? What are you sick of? What's on the way in and what's on the way out? I wanna know!