[CJAnderson]

If the goal is to sell as many books as possible to the largest audience:

How much erotic content compared to "romantic" should a book contain?

Can Erotica be listed as Romance?

Can Romance be listed as Erotica?

What if it's a hybrid of both? Does it default to Erotica category?

 

[Janet Rochester]

These sound like some $10,000 questions.

Given what I'm seeing on the bestseller lists these days, it looks like the more erotica your book contains, the better. I'm probably a lousy person to try and respond to this post, because I don't read erotica, but I do follow what others are saying about it, so I'll give it a whirl anyway.

The most important thing is that you don't want to give a reader an unpleasant surprise. If they buy your "romance" for their 14-year-old niece, are they going to get an earful from a ticked-off mom? OTOH, if someone looking for a hot read settles in for the afternoon with a story that never gets past third base, will they feel gypped?

If you're looking to see the greatest number of books to the greatest number of people, I'd say try really hard to convey the level of heat in your blurb. Then, no matter what list you put it on, a savvy reader should have a good idea of what she's getting. And, as always, the right cover helps too.

Hybrid? Hmm. That's an interesting question. What do you mean by hybrid? My impression is that erotic novels contain romance, but (obviously) not always the other way around. Am I wrong? Are there novels where the characters know nothing about each other, care even less, and just want to hit the sheets/wall/padded playroom?

 

[CJAnderson]

These sound like some $10,000 questions.

Given what I'm seeing on the bestseller lists these days, it looks like the more erotica your book contains, the better. I'm probably a lousy person to try and respond to this post, because I don't read erotica, but I do follow what others are saying about it, so I'll give it a whirl anyway.

The most important thing is that you don't want to give a reader an unpleasant surprise. If they buy your "romance" for their 14-year-old niece, are they going to get an earful from a ticked-off mom? OTOH, if someone looking for a hot read settles in for the afternoon with a story that never gets past third base, will they feel gypped?

If you're looking to see the greatest number of books to the greatest number of people, I'd say try really hard to convey the level of heat in your blurb. Then, no matter what list you put it on, a savvy reader should have a good idea of what she's getting. And, as always, the right cover helps too.

Hybrid? Hmm. That's an interesting question. What do you mean by hybrid? My impression is that erotic novels contain romance, but (obviously) not always the other way around. Am I wrong? Are there novels where the characters know nothing about each other, care even less, and just want to hit the sheets/wall/padded playroom?

Janet,

Great points. Thanks!

 

[Melisse]

Erotic Romance is a huge subgenre of romance and has been for years. Entire publishers are devoted to Erotic Romance(Ellora's Cave, Loose Id are two well known ones). Do a search on Amazon and you'll come up with lots of free and .99 to study. There are also craft books on writing erotic romance.

 

[Stephanie Marks]

By "hybrid" it sounds like she actually means erotic romance or "erom". Erom is BIG right now. Erom is interesting because the content is expected to be hot hot hot, but readers also expect to see proper romance genre tropes. It MUST have a HEA or HFN ending. Readers seem to want to "feel" something, like they do with regular romance, but they want it a little more down and dirty.

I'm an urban fantasy writer but I've been working on some contemporary erom short stories in order to flex my writing muscles. It's been a real challenge but I'm likeing it. 2 of my shorts went live today under a pen name. I don't know if I'll ever CLAIM this pen name or how much work I will put into producing content for it, but it's definitely been a good learning experience.

 

[CJAnderson]

By "hybrid" it sounds like she actually means erotic romance or "erom". Erom is BIG right now. Erom is interesting because the content is expected to be hot hot hot, but readers also expect to see proper romance genre tropes. It MUST have a HEA or HFN ending. Readers seem to want to "feel" something, like they do with regular romance, but they want it a little more down and dirty.

I'm an urban fantasy writer but I've been working on some contemporary erom short stories in order to flex my writing muscles. It's been a real challenge but I'm likeing it. 2 of my shorts went live today under a pen name. I don't know if I'll ever CLAIM this pen name or how much work I will put into producing content for it, but it's definitely been a good learning experience.

HEA = Happily Ever After?
HFN = Happy for Now?

How many pages were your pen name short stories?

 

[Stephanie Marks]

HEA = Happily Ever After?
HFN = Happy for Now?

How many pages were your pen name short stories?

Yes those are the meaning.
My first story was about 5,600 words and the second around 5,200. I'm sure the third will be around the same. They've each been live for about 8 hours and 4 hours respectively, and I've had...(checking)... 5 borrows total between them so far. Which I'm REALLY hoping means that this is the start of something good.

 

[CJAnderson]

Yes those are the meaning.
My first story was about 5,600 words and the second around 5,200. I'm sure the third will be around the same. They've each been live for about 8 hours and 4 hours respectively, and I've had...(checking)... 5 borrows total between them so far. Which I'm REALLY hoping means that this is the start of something good.

Awesome! Best of luck

I am working on my alt pen name's first release.

 

[telracs]

no, romance should not be listed as erotica.

no erotica should not be listed as romance.

they have specific definitions, and putting them in the incorrect category will seriously annoy readers.

as has been suggested, there are inexpensive examples of romance, e-rom, and erotica available.  check them out (or check out their reviews) to get a sense of what people like/dislike.

i have to admit that i get a bit twitchy when authors seem to be writing a category they don't seem to have knowledge about.  (note: this tends to happen a lot in romance category, but i have also seen it science fiction and fantasy categories)

 

[cinisajoy]

Adding to telracs post.
Read the genre before attempting to write it.  Most especially in those 3 distinct categories.    Those genres have picky readers.  They are also voracious readers.    So lots of money to be had or lost.

 

[Stephanie Marks]

Awesome! Best of luck

I am working on my alt pen name's first release.

lol the first 2 releases I did under a different pen name were COMPLETED flops. They've been up a week and the only 2 borrows were by forum members. I know that seems soon to judge but I can just feel that continuing that series is beyond pointless. I have a different series I will be launching under that name in 2 weeks so we'll see how it goes.

Good luck on your new pen name!!

 

[Melody Simmons]

There are actually three categories - erotica, romance and erotic romance.  Erotica has to have sex in the first or second chapter already, and often thereafter.  It usually has very little in terms of plot or character development.  It does not show the development of a romantic relationship either, but focuses on how sex affects the lives of the characters and how they explore sex.  Romance will probably only have sex by chapter 7, and might not have detailed scenes beyond kissing if it is more clean or Christian romance.  Romance has a detailed plot, focuses on the development of a relationship, and it also a happy ending.  Erotic Romance is romance but with more graphic sex scenes than the usual type of romance.

Oh, want to add - you can possibly classify your erotica as romance BUT you will end up with bad reviews if romance readers feel cheated and feel it is nothing but sex.

 

[CJAnderson]

There are actually three categories - erotica, romance and erotic romance. Erotica has to have sex in the first or second chapter already, and often thereafter. It usually has very little in terms of plot or character development. It does not show the development of a romantic relationship either, but focuses on how sex affects the lives of the characters and how they explore sex. Romance will probably only have sex by chapter 7, and might not have detailed scenes beyond kissing if it is more clean or Christian romance. Romance has a detailed plot and also a happy ending. Erotic Romance is romance but with more graphic sex scenes than the usual type of romance.

Oh, want to add - you can possibly classify your erotica as romance BUT you will end up with bad reviews if romance readers feel cheated and feel it is nothing but sex.

See that is the balance I am concerned about. I don't want to offend anyone but at the same I don't want to disappoint (cheat) them.

 

[Stephanie Marks]

See that is the balance I am concerned about. I don't want to offend anyone but at the same I don't want to disappoint (cheat) them.

I figure some people will love my work, some will hate it, some won't care. All you can do is write the very best story that you can, but you're bound to displease SOMEONE.

 

[Melisse]

The best thing you could do is actually read the genre.

 

[Crystal_]

I'm willing to give OP a pass on not understanding this because there are a lot of mis and poorly categorized books in erotica and romance. There's a huge variety on romance and one person's hot is another's tame, so there's no way to please everyone. For erom, I would look at Sylvia Day as the go to author. But I see books in erom with relatively few sex scenes that aren't all that explicit.

Romance (except for sweet/ Christan) seems to average 2-5 sex scenes per novel and they're not usually too explicit. E-rom (which is often just categorized in romance because retailers make it harder to get visibility is erotica and erotic romance is categorized in erotica) is probably about 10% sex scenes and they should be sensual and explicit. Depending on length, that's 5-10 1-2k word sex scenes. But, honestly, I've seen popular books in all categories totally across the board.

NA seems to be a little hotter on average.

But, as long as you make it clear with your blurb and cover, you should be ok.

 

[CJAnderson]

If you put "erotic" in the blurb, this should be enough to let readers know what to expect?

 

[katetanner]

This is my first post, Hello everyone.

I wanted to write a reply to your question because I write in the erotic romance genre (under a pen name) and i read a lot of books in this genre.

I would echo what Melody Simmons said about the three categories. With erotic romance there can be a lot of sex, there are quite a few books in the bestsellers chart right now that feature a lot of sex but there is always a HEA.

Some authors to check out - J.S. Cooper, Helen Cooper, Kristen Proby, Christina Lauren, Deborah Bladon, Whitney Gracia Williams, Laurelin Paige and Krista Ritchie.
You can look at a list of erotic romance books on Goodreads - http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/erotic-romance

The readers of this genre are great, they read these books in a day and come back for more. So it's a good idea to plan out a series and write them and release them quite quickly. However, if you write at a slower pace then maybe consider writing novella's like Deborah Bladon and Helen Cooper do

 

[CJAnderson]

This is my first post, Hello everyone.

I wanted to write a reply to your question because I write in the erotic romance genre (under a pen name) and i read a lot of books in this genre.

I would echo what Melody Simmons said about the three categories. With erotic romance there can be a lot of sex, there are quite a few books in the bestsellers chart right now that feature a lot of sex but there is always a HEA.

Some authors to check out - J.S. Cooper, Helen Cooper, Kristen Proby, Christina Lauren, Deborah Bladon, Whitney Gracia Williams, Laurelin Paige and Krista Ritchie.
You can look at a list of erotic romance books on Goodreads - http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/erotic-romance

The readers of this genre are great, they read these books in a day and come back for more. So it's a good idea to plan out a series and write them and release them quite quickly. However, if you write at a slower pace then maybe consider writing novella's like Deborah Bladon and Helen Cooper do

Kate,

Thanks for the great feedback.

 

[Speaker-To-Animals]

Here's my simple guide. Is a reader going to pick up this book to read about two people falling in love? Then put it in romance. Otherwise, no, it's not enough to just tack on someone saying "I love you" to an erotica book.

There is a lot of erotica being mischaracterized as romance and it's irritating readers. When that happens, Amazon tends to crack down hard and it never goes well for erotica writers when that happens.