Interview with a Reader

The other night I left the house. Shocking, I know. In doing so, I had drinks with a group of ladies and found that I'd accidentally stumbled upon a networking event.

Egads!

So, I had some interesting conversations with people *not* in the publishing industry about the packaging, distribution, and presentation of erotic romance content. Now, I say "content," not books, because books are…well, they're a specific thing, of specific length. Up until recently, they were all made of paper and had covers. E-books basically mimic "real" books.

The group was divided as to whether they prefer to read paper books or e-versions. Most agreed that for erotic romance, e-book was preferable due to the smexy covers.

Yes! Yes, I said it! These urban, professional, sexually-liberated women were embarrassed about walking around with a picture of a naked, man-scaped hunk under their arm. I was as shocked as you! (Just kidding– I wasn't shocked at all, though I know a lot of people in romance think being shy about covers is heresy.)

What did surprise me was the wide variety of formats the group wanted to read. Some liked full-length novels, or even sagas. Others preferred short stories. Many agreed with me that the sexier the book, the smaller the screen we wanted to read it on. One particularly enthusiastic woman argued left, right, and center that erotic content should be short-format and subscription-based, like a periodical. She wanted 1000 word stories to read after a long days work– before masturbating and falling asleep.

So the whole thing got me started thinking about publishing. I mean, I assume publishers go out and talk to regular people, right? Ask them what they want? I hope they've asked more than the three or four people I did.

I started to wonder how publishers decide about story length and how they decide how to charge for books. For a while now, I've been thinking it would be cool if someone tried a subscription model. I mean, that's how a lot of porn sites make money, right? Ditto the New York Times Online. A periodical model could make money through advertising!

Anyway– I learned a lot talking to readers who have no stake whatsoever in publishing. Said people know nothing about the industry, and one might think they have nothing of value to add. But these people are our customers. Without them, we'd have no one to whom to sell.