Sex sells! What a surprise!
Even during the Renaissance, writers knew that sex and violence were the way to make money. So much so that when I get around to writing it, I’m going to put together a multi-series piece about sex in Renaissance literature and how things written back then would make a lot of people blush today.
But I’m diverging from my topic. I came across an interesting article on cnn.com about a woman, who out of boredom, started writing erotica in her spare time. Given the subject matter, and given the public’s insatiable appetite for sex, she soon developed a healthy following on the internet. That initial success lead to a book deal and the rest is, as they say, history.
According to the article she has some 2.7 million books in print, and she is also a publisher, running Strebor Books (an imprint of Simon and Schuster). All this from a woman who calls herself Zane (her pen name) and one who never planned on being an author.
"Whenever I had creative writing assignments and stuff in school, the teachers would almost be shocked at what I turned in because it would be so far-fetched and so imaginative," Zane says. "Most of my teachers told me I should be a writer, but I just never took it seriously until I got bored enough to do it."
What I find interesting, aside from her success in erotica, which some still consider to be outside the mainstream (but becoming more mainstream every day), is that boredom is what compelled her to write. She wasn’t looking for money, fame, or even a way to stay at home and still earn a living. No. Zane was bored and decided to fill her time with a creative outlet that she obviously had/has a knack for.
Yes, sex does sell. But if you start writing erotica just to sell books (or infuse your own fiction with erotic elements hoping to make them sell better), you’ll probably be really disappointed. Like any other genre, there are certain "conventions" within erotica. To just start writing sloppy sex scenes (no pun intended) would probably turn people off to your writing, rather than turning them on to it (again, no pun intended).
Thus, sex does sell, but only when done properly. That usually means that there must be something more than sex. The characters still need to be well-developed so readers can make an emotional attachment to them and the plot needs to be interesting and carry readers from point A to point B.
Read the CNN article here:
Writer makes name with sex
(NOTE: Hey, I haven’t forgotten about my "Trimming the fat from you writing" post. I just haven’t written it yet. The original post I wrote was pretty damned good, if I do say so myself. And I’m still mourning its loss. Hopefully I’ll be able to re-write it and get it up sometime this week. Thanks for your patience, and as always, thanks for reading!)
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