I like reading Erotica as much as the next person

Okay, that sounds a lot naughtier out loud than I meant it to be.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I don't have a problem with erotica (lots of sex) as long as the book has well developed three dimensional characters and a plot.

Too often of late I've come across books that claim they are erotica, but the reality is, the author has just strung a series of sex scenes together, with no/limited/or a nonsensical plot and characters who are one dimensional - in other words, horny.

I never took to the whole 'Fifty Shades of Grey' series. I did pick up the first book but couldn't get into it. The characters failed to grab me, I didn't like the writing and quite frankly I think there are a lot better writers out there doing erotica. Plus I've read the 'Story of O' - which I'm pretty sure is the inspiration for the 'Grey series' and is done a whole lot better.
But hey, it got people reading, so the series did manage to achieve something in my eyes.

One series that really caught me by surprise as it evolved (sometimes I think that should be devolved) into erotica is Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake series.
I mean you read that first book where Anita has more than a few hang ups regarding sex and men. You'd never in a million years guess that fifteen books later Anita would be shagging over a dozen men at a time, be a big fan of auto-erotic asphyxiation and that somewhere along the way she had her gag reflex surgically removed.
I'm sorry - but I believe the CONSTANT sex scenes in these books now are often at the detriment of the storylines. I loved the first 6 or so books, strong plots, kick ass heroine but now, it feels like I have to wade through half a book of been there done that sex scenes just to get to the action.

Some authors are a class act when it comes to combining storyline and erotica - Lora Leigh, Eve Langlais (and kudos to Eve for all the laughs along the way) Emma Holly and a host of other authors who don't shy away from a sex scene but never at the cost of the plot or the development of the characters.

So why am I writing about erotica today?
Well several fledgling authors have sent me first drafts of their novels lately. And whilst I'm not going to provide comment on individual work there was a running theme in all of those drafts - erotica.

So here is just some general advice to all those authors out there thinking they can make a quick buck off writing erotica - research people.
Read the authors who do erotica well. They are the best teachers you can find; show casing intricate plots, how to keep it serious, how to keep it light and get some laughs without resolving to the wacky, how to create a H and h that the readers give a damn about and yearn to see win out over all the odds.
Like any book - even when it is erotica - you have to make the readers care, it's as simple and as complex as that.