In another blog, Romancing the Blog, asks the question if readers are finding what the want to read. It starts by saying that readers are buying for example e-books because they are finding what they want to read. I don’t agree. Once this used to be so, but not anymore. Maybe the shock value of erotic romance is gone. Maybe the good authors left in favor of publishing contracts by the big houses or maybe e-book companies are just contracting crap that mainly drips too much sex in lieu of A STORY.
Still that’s just one part of the market. NY is doing the same. I don’t read Kensington’s Aphrodisia. Why pay for what you can get for free at porn sites? As to paranormals it’s become the same situation, an over-abundance of the same kind of stories and characters where authors copy other authors in endless stream of kick ass heroines with tortured warriors who are vampires or werewolves.
That’s not even counting the amount of hero emasculation going on these stories. Maybe it makes sense because most of these stories are written in first person POV, but hell did the hero have to become Robin? The hero has become a prop to our heroine because she’s gonna save the world while having damn good sex, bullets flying, without mushing her hair.
As to humor/spoof romance with a paranormal twist I only read MJD. She still has that corner of the market, though Katie MacAlister and Lindsey Sands have given her a run for her money which incidentally I don’t understand why since I don’t find them funny just silly with MacAlister having the dubious honor of creating the most irritating heroines. Incidentally when did silly become funny? When did humor disregard a well plotted story? I’ll take Jennifer Crusie for $100. She gives me A STORY and a good laugh. Hell of a writer. If I want suspense, I wait for Nora, Linda Howard or Elizabeth Lowell, old school writers who KNOW how to write.
Why are readers not buying as much? When readers found a lack of a story in their books. Simple as that. It has nothing to do with covers, promotion or lack of packaging. As the economy has gone down the drain and money has tightened, especially for entertainment, readers are demanding more. Books are expensive and we are waiting for releases of those authors that compose our keeper shelf because we are so tired of being dissapointed with wallbangers.
4 responses so far ↓
Cheyenne McCray // February 16, 2008 at 3:22 pm
I have to agree with you in a lot of ways. I think erotic romance has really become erotica with authors trying harder and harder to be explicit as possible. I judged a contest and there was nothing but sex in most. Where’s the story? Also the e-publisher I used to write for throws stories out there, so many a week it makes your head spin. To keep up with that volume, are they sacrificing quality for quantity? I don’t know, I don’t read any of them anymore.
Having said that, my old e-publisher sold the print rights to 8 books and 3 novellas to St. Martin’s. Yesterday I reformatted the 3 novellas, which are BDSM, and OMG, they are sex sex sex sex sex. I believe they each have a story, but they’re sex. This is the “Erotic” collection. Being BDSM, they’re naturally all about sex. I’m publishing them with St. Martin’s as C. McCray, though, to distinguish them from what I write now. I want a reader to know she’s getting erotica if she’s used to my “Magic” series, for example. She needs to know what she’s got in her hands. It’s now the SURRENDER collection, with the first being TOTAL SURRENDER, and the collection is coming out in 2009. These are the only pieces out of everything that was sold to St. M’s that I don’t have to REWRITE.at all. They’re staying the same and going straight to copyedits. REWRITING these old books is a sore point for me right now as I REWRITE WILDFIRE (Now Armed and Dangerous: ZACK.) It’s not the same book at all. But the real point is I want to MOVE ON. I have so many books inside me and now I have to go back to a world I finished and left behind.
I digress. I shouldn’t be going THERE. But my point was (somewhere in here) that my former “Erotic” collection is so much freaking sex that it may not be what the readers of my “Magic” series or contemp suspense are looking for. So I think it’s the right thing to do to publish under a variation of my name.
Jeez, I’m rambling today. But I agree with you, MZ. Where has the quality and the story gone?
BTW, on one blog one person commented, with a whole lot of agreement from other commenters, that they preferred the ebooks some of us had written, rather than our NY books–the NY books have too much plot. LOL. My theory? Some readers want instant gratification and the pure sex. My comment was, sure a 50K novel you can have less story and more sex. Try that with a 100K + novel.
I’ve also noticed that review sites with a lot of ebook reviews will rate the ebooks higher than print books by the same author. Again, I think it’s instant gratification.
But I’m onto completely different topics, aren’t I.
Love ya, MZ!
Chey
Cheyenne McCray // February 16, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Good Lord, that was a long post!
Chey
Hotflashes // February 16, 2008 at 6:29 pm
There’s where I have to disagree, those stories had plot and characterization. Two of my favorite series are your Elf and King of Heart series. As far as the BDSM books, you never exploited them for cheap thrills. You did RESEARCH. You cared about the product you released to the readers. But then again, from the beginning, you were never the run of the mill EC author just like Annie, Lora, Angela, Diane, MJD and others who were part of the golden age of EC.
Cheyenne McCray // February 16, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Thanks, MZ. I know my books had solid stories to them. Though my “Erotic” collection bdsm series–whoa, they border on erotica, especially my last ever series with them, the “Taboo” series. But I still have story.
I mean more that some readers think there’s too much plot in the larger books which is a strange thing to say. They want constant sex for 100,000 words? As opposed to the ebooks which were about 50,000 words.
I think you’re right about the golden age. There are some good authords at that epublisher now, I’m certain, but they’re pushing quantity over quality and that’s sad. I think that’s disrespectful to the readers.
Chey