A thread for writers of ff/lesbian fiction (including erotica)

3723 Views 31 Replies 11 Participants Last post by Claudia King, Jan 24, 2013

Lady Vine

Discussion Starter · Jan 21, 2013

I haven't really seen a thread on KB for this topic, only M/M fiction. As a writer of lesbian romance & erotica I'm interested to hear about others' experiences writing in these genres. Before the Blackout all of my titles were in genre Top 100 lists. Only one title hasn't recovered from that. I think I'm doing okay, but I've only been writing under this pen name for a couple of months, so can't say for sure. It does help that I release a new book every 2 or so weeks, and I write series. So far I'm on track to sell triple the amount of books I sold last month. I write novellas btw.

Before I started writing under this pen name I heard a lot of talk about F/F fiction not selling well, and being the stubborn gal that I am, it made me more determined to write it. I'm glad that I did, because I'm having lots of fun telling these stories and people seem to really like them.

I don't think I'm the only one who's realised that there's a nice little market out there for books with lesbian protagonists. What have your experiences been like with this genre?

1 - 20 of 32 Posts

Romana Grimm

· #2 · Jan 21, 2013

I will try this soon, only in my native language, not English. Also, I'm more of a short story writer in this genre, so I'm not sure the experience will be quite the same. Hopefully it'll work out fine, though. But even if it doesn't, your post is very encouraging, and we should at least try, right? So thank you for that

My question now is: do you write mainly smutty things, or smut with a healthy dose of plot and romantic entanglements? I suppose that women like the latter a bit better, but one never knows for sure without asking *g* And there actually might be the occasional guy who likes a bit plot with his pron

Hildred

· #3 · Jan 21, 2013

*gets out folding chair and sits in this thread forever*

Hi. My name is Hildred. I write lesbian erotic romance and will be eternally poor because of it.

Well, to be fair, from what I hear I sell pretty well for writing 40yo-polyamorous-lesbians. January is turning out to be my best month. I currently have six titles out with a seventh next week (which is the highly anticipated third of my main series.) I'll make about double this month what I did last month. I've only seen an uptick in sales since this blackout I never even witnessed.

It saddens me that it's considered a niche. A majority of my audience are queer women themselves, who write to me and thank me for the content. I strive for a balance between emotional and sexual, and the sex scenes run from down and dirty to emotionally charged. As a lesbian myself, it's very important to me to get to the heart and ~heart~ of the matters, so to speak. most lesbian fiction I read is either clearly by men or straight women. I need to branch out, man.

Even though I'm writing eroms currently under my real name, I'm planning to jumpstart an unrelated pen name next month that will be pure smutty shorts of the escapist variety. That's more as a business decision as anything else. I'm already taking a gamble on "just" writing lesbians.

The audience is certainly out there, and they're starving for relevant material. (I've also had it in my mind to start one of those facebook pages for lesbian fiction links, kinda like WTRAFSOG. Simply because I have never had a sale after advertising there. I might as well be advertising towards my target audience!)

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Romana Grimm

· #4 · Jan 21, 2013

Thanks for your insights, Hildred! Very interesting, as I'm one of the non-lesbians gals trying her hand. So would this be considered "escapist" for me already?

Since I'm only starting, it'll be shorts for me.

Actually I'm convinced that there's a huge market out there, people only have to discover it. And who knows, maybe f/f fiction will be the new m/m fiction? *presses her thumbs*

Lady Vine

Discussion Starter · #5 · Jan 21, 2013

Romana Grimm said:
I will try this soon, only in my native language, not English. Also, I'm more of a short story writer in this genre, so I'm not sure the experience will be quite the same. Hopefully it'll work out fine, though. But even if it doesn't, your post is very encouraging, and we should at least try, right? So thank you for that

My question now is: do you write mainly smutty things, or smut with a healthy dose of plot and romantic entanglements? I suppose that women like the latter a bit better, but one never knows for sure without asking *g* And there actually might be the occasional guy who likes a bit plot with his pron

Hey! I'm glad that you're planning to step into the market. There definitely is a need for more quality lesbian fiction. Can I ask what your native language is? I've sold a handful of books in Germany, which was a nice surprise for me, and eventually I'd like to start looking at translation; German would be the first language to start in, I'd think.

To answer your question: my stuff is, surprisingly, smut-free! I know, how am I still selling? Haha. Well, my main pen name only writes everyday, child-friendly romance that's suitable for all. I don't even use swearwords. I do have another pen name that writes pure smut, which is doing fairly well. I have no idea who my audience is for the erotica, but I'm pretty sure at least 90% of my smut-free f/f romance readers are gay women.

Lady Vine

Discussion Starter · #6 · Jan 21, 2013

Hildred said:
*gets out folding chair and sits in this thread forever*

Hi. My name is Hildred. I write lesbian erotic romance and will be eternally poor because of it.

Well, to be fair, from what I hear I sell pretty well for writing 40yo-polyamorous-lesbians. January is turning out to be my best month. I currently have six titles out with a seventh next week (which is the highly anticipated third of my main series.) I'll make about double this month what I did last month. I've only seen an uptick in sales since this blackout I never even witnessed.

It saddens me that it's considered a niche. A majority of my audience are queer women themselves, who write to me and thank me for the content. I strive for a balance between emotional and sexual, and the sex scenes run from down and dirty to emotionally charged. As a lesbian myself, it's very important to me to get to the heart and ~heart~ of the matters, so to speak. most lesbian fiction I read is either clearly by men or straight women. I need to branch out, man.

Even though I'm writing eroms currently under my real name, I'm planning to jumpstart an unrelated pen name next month that will be pure smutty shorts of the escapist variety. That's more as a business decision as anything else. I'm already taking a gamble on "just" writing lesbians.

The audience is certainly out there, and they're starving for relevant material. (I've also had it in my mind to start one of those facebook pages for lesbian fiction links, kinda like WTRAFSOG. Simply because I have never had a sale after advertising there. I might as well be advertising towards my target audience!)

Hey, Hildred!

Wow, that's quite a niche you've got there. I think it's great that you've found it, though. It already sounds like you have some pretty grateful, loyal readers, so that's the most important thing. I've always been a fan of making money in niche markets -- a sentiment I subscribed to long before I started writing for a living. What made you write for this group? Was it a desire to read stories about people similar to you, or was it just something you were interested in reading yourself?

I too started the unrelated smut pen name as a purely economical move; I wanted to see if it would work, and it has. I intend to put out more titles over the next few weeks. At the moment I'm separating my romance from my erotica, because with my current series' sex scenes wouldn't add anything to the stories. However, in my next series I'll be combining the two. That should be all kinds of fun.

Oh, and please do start that Facebook group! You have no idea how many times I've searched for such a group, coming up trumps each time. I said I'd eventually make one myself, but I say things like this all the time and never get around to it. That would be an awesometastic idea and I'm sure there are thousands and thousands of eager readers out there who'd be relieved to have a place like that to go for new material. I know I would.

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Hildred

· #7 · Jan 21, 2013

@Romana: I suppose so?

Good luck with it. I have nothing against non-queers writing about queer characters so long as it's done in a respectful manner...and yes, smut tastic times can be done respectfully! :-*

:-*

@Lady Vine: Well, most specifically at the moment I am focusing on the polyamorous lesbians part. (They also happen to be Japanese, but that was a matter of circumstance as it's a spinoff of a fantasy series I am working on...blah blah blah it's quite complicated.

) It takes place over the span of 20 years but I'm not telling it chronologically. Book 1 takes place in 2012 while book 2 takes place in 1992. Book 3 takes place in 2013 while book 4 takes place in 1997, etc etc. But I call them my 40yo lesbians because that's how I see them fire and foremost. XD As for why I write about them, well, as I said before it was a matter of circumstance. It just so happens though I have an affinity for that age range, and so do a lot of readers. I've received emails along the lines of "Thanks for writing about older women." I think, especially in the YA reading world we're mostly in, there's an overabundance of teenage and young 20s love stories, but nobody talks about what happens after "happily ever after," which is my angle.

I'll most certainly think about starting the FB group. Definitely not today though, and probably not tomorrow.

In re: to f/f becoming the new m/m that would be really interesting, but it may be a long time. I think there are a lot of ingrained cultural reasons why you see a lot of women who love m/m but not so much f/f. (Which has always, personally, baffled me. ((Wonder why~))) The tl;dr version is that m/m is seen as "safe" to indulge in because nobody will question a woman's sexuality if she's watching/reading about two men in love/having sex, but the moment they turn to f/f it becomes too "gay" and people start questioning them about THEIR sexuality. (Like, omg, you read this lesbian stuff, are you lesbian?!?!) There's also the romanticized notion that two men in love is the "purest" form of love. All of this is heavily rooted in homophobia and misogyny and I will personally dance naked under the moonlight once it's over. (And I become a millionaire. Ha!)

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Romana Grimm

· #8 · Jan 21, 2013

Lady Vine said:
Hey! I'm glad that you're planning to step into the market. There definitely is a need for more quality lesbian fiction. Can I ask what your native language is? I've sold a handful of books in Germany, which was a nice surprise for me, and eventually I'd like to start looking at translation; German would be the first language to start in, I'd think.

To answer your question: my stuff is, surprisingly, smut-free! I know, how am I still selling? Haha. Well, my main pen name only writes everyday, child-friendly romance that's suitable for all. I don't even use swearwords. I do have another pen name that writes pure smut, which is doing fairly well. I have no idea who my audience is for the erotica, but I'm pretty sure at least 90% of my smut-free f/f romance readers are gay women.

My native language is German, which you can probably see by the way I form my sentences

Anyway, it's a much smaller market than America and Co, but it's large enough for a first foray. Right now my stuff will only be smut with a little story, cut up in several parts with different characters. There are too many other stories on my to do pile already, I can't afford to invest time in yet another long and convoluted (because I like convoluted ... a lot *le sigh*) project $:-\$

Romana Grimm

· #9 · Jan 21, 2013

Hildred said:
The tl;dr version is that m/m is seen as "safe" to indulge in because nobody will question a woman's sexuality if she's watching/reading about two men in love/having sex, but the moment they turn to f/f it becomes too "gay" and people start questioning them about THEIR sexuality. (Like, omg, you read this lesbian stuff, are you lesbian?!?!) There's also the romanticized notion that two men in love is the "purest" form of love. All of this is heavily rooted in homophobia and misogyny and I will personally dance naked under the moonlight once it's over. (And I become a millionaire. Ha!)

Well, personally speaking, it has nothing to do with what other people may think about me. I'm not a lesbian, so I'm not very interested in women who fall in love (although that part is nice and gets to me regardless of gender) and have sex. I like gorgeous male studmuffins, and I like them even more if there is a lot of hot, male, studmuffinly writhing going on

Why would other heterosexual women be any different? It's the same with guys. If they like women they usually love to watch f/f action but almost never m/m.

That's not to say that a little more tolerance wouldn't be appreciated, I just believe that this is anthropology at work here, not just culture or upbringing.

Hildred

· #10 · Jan 21, 2013

Romana Grimm said:
Well, personally speaking, it has nothing to do with what other people may think about me. I'm not a lesbian, so I'm not very interested in women who fall in love (although that part is nice and gets to me regardless of gender) and have sex. I like gorgeous male studmuffins, and I like them even more if there is a lot of hot, male, studmuffinly writhing going on Why would other heterosexual women be any different? It's the same with guys. If they like women they usually love to watch f/f action but almost never m/m.

That's not to say that a little more tolerance wouldn't be appreciated, I just believe that this is anthropology at work here, not just culture or upbringing.

I don't doubt that for many women they do enjoy m/m interaction for what it is. But there is a lot of ~super fun~ psychological reasonings for the aversion to f/f, particularly here in America. I've spent quite a few years studying it as it's one of my academic backgrounds. Either way, I highly doubt f/f will ever be the subgenre powerhouse that m/m has become over the years.

Also, for what it's worth re: sales in Germany, I can't obviously speak for German-language works, but I see decent sales in Germany. I think you can tap into quite a market with German language stories.

George Berger

· #11 · Jan 21, 2013

As creepy as it might at first appear, me being, y'know... I wrote a F/F YA romance novel that hung around in the category top 100 for about eighty days, selling several hundred copies along the way. And I wrote a F/F YA rom-com valentine's short story this time last year that did tolerably well.

Romana Grimm said:
My question now is: do you write mainly smutty things, or smut with a healthy dose of plot and romantic entanglements? I suppose that women like the latter a bit better, but one never knows for sure without asking *g* And there actually might be the occasional guy who likes a bit plot with his pron

Mine are quite clean, closed-door, very much about the characters and romantic entanglement. There definitely seems to be a market for it, however limited. (I was in the category top 20 for a month, selling 10-15 copies a day, which is not much at all by romance genre standards.)

I write F/F honestly just because I occasionally want to write a romance, and I detest the typical super-perfect alpha male that seems nigh-obligatory in M/F romance right now. (I know they're not actually required, and I did write a M/F romance novella about a beta male, but it's like, hmm, I'm supposed to give the sort of people who beat me up in high school, way back when, a happy ever after ending? Oh hell no.)

I have plans to write a F/F gothic romance later this year, which I think promises to be an entertaining experience. Here's hoping, anyway...

Hildred said:
The tl;dr version is that m/m is seen as "safe" to indulge in because nobody will question a woman's sexuality if she's watching/reading about two men in love/having sex, but the moment they turn to f/f it becomes too "gay" and people start questioning them about THEIR sexuality. (Like, omg, you read this lesbian stuff, are you lesbian?!?!)

I think there's also this sort of... social conditioning... that teaches us from an early age that our own naughty bits are shameful and disgusting, and not something you want to look at, whereas the other flavor of plumbing is kind of unavoidably mysterious and exotic, and so M/M or F/F satisfies that curiosity, in a way, without kind of unavoidably forcing one to see/think about one's own flavor of anatomical embarrassment.

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Romana Grimm

· #12 · Jan 21, 2013

Hildred said:
I don't doubt that for many women they do enjoy m/m interaction for what it is. But there is a lot of ~super fun~ psychological reasonings for the aversion to f/f, particularly here in America. I've spent quite a few years studying it as it's one of my academic backgrounds. Either way, I highly doubt f/f will ever be the subgenre powerhouse that m/m has become over the years.

Also, for what it's worth re: sales in Germany, I can't obviously speak for German-language works, but I see decent sales in Germany. I think you can tap into quite a market with German language stories.

And I hope you'll continue to sell well here. With a German translation things should pick up even more, because, as I said, it's a smaller market and the visibility is much better!

Interesting, I'd love to know what these reasons are in particular. I think I can come up with a few, though not nearly as many as there must be

Hopefully, one day this topic will at least be out of the closet, just like m/m did. Good stories about it can only help.

Hildred

· #13 · Jan 21, 2013

Romana Grimm said:
And I hope you'll continue to sell well here. With a German translation things should pick up even more, because, as I said, it's a smaller market and the visibility is much better!

Interesting, I'd love to know what these reasons are in particular. I think I can come up with a few, though not nearly as many as there must be Hopefully, one day this topic will at least be out of the closet, just like m/m did. Good stories about it can only help.

If I find some of my notes later (ha!! good luck! my office space is a dire mess) I'll share what I can, but it basically boiled down to image and some of what George touched on. I know that at least in my region of the world, girls are conditioned from the time they can bathe themselves to basically avoid ever talking about their own bodies. Was quite liberating to get away from there.

My first translation goal is to get my works translated into Japanese, but that has to do with the setting subject matter more than anything else. Plus it's my second language so I would be able to help edit and go over it to make sure it sounds right. Would definitely consider German translations though. At least my name fits.

Romana Grimm

· #14 · Jan 21, 2013

Hildred said:
If I find some of my notes later (ha!! good luck! my office space is a dire mess) I'll share what I can, but it basically boiled down to image and some of what George touched on. I know that at least in my region of the world, girls are conditioned from the time they can bathe themselves to basically avoid ever talking about their own bodies. Was quite liberating to get away from there.

My first translation goal is to get my works translated into Japanese, but that has to do with the setting subject matter more than anything else. Plus it's my second language so I would be able to help edit and go over it to make sure it sounds right. Would definitely consider German translations though. At least my name fits.

Ugh, what a terrible thought! Thankfully there are people standing up every day now. Women have really suffered long enough in silence. And good on you for getting "the old people" back by writing what you write.

LOL, Hildred actually sounds rather stuffy even in Germany. Old, somehow. We're over-saturated with Stefanies and Julias and Sarahs. Your name alone might bring you great brand name recognition

Hildred

· #15 · Jan 21, 2013

Romana Grimm said:
Ugh, what a terrible thought! Thankfully there are people standing up every day now. Women have really suffered long enough in silence. And good on you for getting "the old people" back by writing what you write.

LOL, Hildred actually sounds rather stuffy even in Germany. Old, somehow. We're over-saturated with Stefanies and Julias and Sarahs. Your name alone might bring you great brand name recognition

Ha, I've received more than a few dirty looks in my old (super small and conservative) town since I write under my real name and tell e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e. And yeah, totally worth it. "Oh Hildred, I haven't seen you since you were a little girl in frilly dresses and had long hair! What are you up to these days?" "Writing about lesbians doing it." "..." "Yup." My mother is already a pariah by their standards, so I'm sure they think it's because she's tainted me.

As for my name, it's a a really old family name on my mother's side. My grandmother was named Hildred, her great aunt was named Hildred, etc etc. I'm the last one (and will remain the last one) but it's a really rare name here. I used to hate it for being so stuffy, but now I think it's the bestest name ever. I just hate it when people try to call me Hilly, or, even worse once they learn my last name, HILL-BILLY.

I have plans to write a F/F gothic romance later this year

Don't know how I overlooked this earlier but

Romana Grimm

· #16 · Jan 21, 2013

Hildred said:
Ha, I've received more than a few dirty looks in my old (super small and conservative) town since I write under my real name and tell e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e. And yeah, totally worth it. "Oh Hildred, I haven't seen you since you were a little girl in frilly dresses and had long hair! What are you up to these days?" "Writing about lesbians doing it." "..." "Yup." My mother is already a pariah by their standards, so I'm sure they think it's because she's tainted me.

Haha, show 'em! I wish I had your gumption sometimes, but well, they're not really needed where I grew up and live (except for bashing trolls, but you have those everywhere, not just in little backwards oriented societies)

Hildred said:
As for my name, it's a a really old family name on my mother's side. My grandmother was named Hildred, her great aunt was named Hildred, etc etc. I'm the last one (and will remain the last one) but it's a really rare name here. I used to hate it for being so stuffy, but now I think it's the bestest name ever. I just hate it when people try to call me Hilly, or, even worse once they learn my last name, HILL-BILLY.

I'd never, I swear.

Gosh, you had me almost spit out my tea here!

Adele Ward

· #17 · Jan 21, 2013

I edit the work of VG Lee, quite an activist among UK lesbian fiction writers. I'm not lesbian myself but have really enjoyed going around with her to events, especially the Stonewall Awards where she was shortlisted alongside Jeanette Winterson and I was lucky enough to spend the interval chatting with Sarah Waters. That sounds like terrible name dropping, but what I mean is that Sarah Waters is one of my all-time favourite writers so it was a real thrill. VG Lee is very funny and is a stand-up comedian and comedy feature writer for The Lady as well as writing fiction.

Her books aren't erotica although there can be sex scenes, and although they're funny they also show the sadness of relationships. I wish Amazon had better categories for lesbian fiction, as it can be interesting for everybody to step into the world of somebody else and how they live their relationships.

We'll be doing a giveaway of her novel Diary of a Provincial Lesbian for Valentine's Day and I'm enjoying the final edit so much. In the meantime I've edited another novel which is at a low price still for Christmas and January sales. Always you edina by VG Lee

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TexasGirl

· #18 · Jan 21, 2013

The categories defnitely are awkward. I had a lesbian romantic comedy (no sex) listed in lesbian, but it was just crowded with the erotica, so I moved it to comic fiction. I like that just as well--a romcom is a romcom no matter which way the slots fit together. It's selling much better there.

bmcox

· #19 · Jan 21, 2013

Since a similar topic was discussed back in December, I asked Betsy and Ann if we can create a thread in The Book Bazaar that promotes (non-erotica) LGBTQI fiction. I got the go ahead the other day and it's now up: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,139893.0.html

Please feel free to promote your work there. I'm sorry that it doesn't include erotica.

Hildred

· #20 · Jan 21, 2013

Adele Ward said:
I wish Amazon had better categories for lesbian fiction, as it can be interesting for everybody to step into the world of somebody else and how they live their relationships.

I agree. Although I do write erotic romances, I wish there was a way to further separate it from the straight (lol) up erotica. It's disconcerting to see your book about long term relationships and FEELZ be jammed in with "Peggy and Susie Do The Aquarium." Some of my readers who go searching for my books leave me messages saying what some of the books I was lumped in with, and although they're joking about it, I get the feeling some of them are really embarrassed.

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