Another New Erotic Romance Imprint

Another best-selling erotic romance author has joined Delilah Devlin , Cat Johnson and Shiloh Walker in publishing e-books under her own imprint. Melissa Schroeder is continuing her popular A Little Harmless series with Infatuation.

Saturday Musings

New self-published writers are often advised to produce, produce, produce. The big-time SP gurus like Dean Wesley Smith, JA Kornrath, and John Locke heavily promote this idea. In some SP circles, unless you write four books a year, you're not a serious writer. Now this may just be sour grapes because I'm such a slow writer, but I think this advice is crazy. An author's economic future depends on sales, to be sure. But what are the hidden costs of factory-style creativity?

Back in the day, highly productive best-selling writers started out slowly, learning how to write, improving with every book. Stephen King, for example, first wrote short stories. Nora Roberts got her writing chops by publishing short category romances. But now there's immediate gratification through self-publishing. About 30,000 SP ebooks are uploaded to Amazon each month.

Many of self-published writers are great producers: The young man who announces the release of his very first book--part of a fantasy trilogy. A woman who has just published her eleventh romance book (in two years), which read like fanfic. A writer who is papering amazon with short stories, informing the amazon forums, "Good, bad or ugly, just get it out there. I figure I'm going to hit all sides of the market and like spaghetti on the wall, see what sticks." A young woman who aspires to write 11 books in her fiction series, and then sell licenses for writers who want to play in her universe.

A rapid publishing schedule can't improve writing skills. Writers need feedback during the process, not just after publication. And getting that feedback takes time. Beta readers, critique partners, and superb editors, can all point out flaws. With enough time between drafts, a writer can even recognize problems in her own work. Wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am style of writing is the same as working in a vacuum. Improvement is unlikely, no matter how economically appealing.

The hidden price of mass book production is author stagnation. But the ultimate cost to the self-publishing industry is more devastating. Crap books damage the reputation of SP. There are superior self-published books, but on average, they are pretty bad. With uploads increasing every month, the average quality of an SP book is going to get worse. When the novelty of the 99 cent SP ebook wears off, and everybody has a kindle or nook, readers will turn away from SP. It's a pyramid scheme. The authors who first published cheap ebooks will have reaped the financial rewards, but the newbies won't. Because readers, having been burned too many times, won't risk reading a random SP book again.

When Greed Trumps Civility: Amazon Spam Revisited

I've blogged several times about Amazon's new rules forbidding promotion outside of the "Meet our Authors" forum. But that hasn't stopped people from trying--and trying again. A few days ago, one author promoted his self-pubbed book on the Kindle forum. He was told politely to stop. Rather than apologize, and make a move to become part of the forum community, he emailed one of the women who'd advised him to stop promoting. He then posted this rant (reproduced in part) on his personal blog. Other than the stalkerish misogyny, his viewpoint is quite typical of the spurned spammer:

I strolled into Amazon this weekend to browse around... I’d unwittingly wandered into the Amazon equivalent of a pack of street thugs, roving bands of opportunists taking advantage of the faceless anonymity of the web to prey upon others. Seems I’d broken a rule by self-promoting my book in there.

...So I looked into some of their backgrounds, and found that one woman (the apparent leader who seemed to set the tone) liked to give hatchet-job book reviews. 
..

I contacted the authors on the receiving end of several of these reviews...One voiced the probability that she has a dog because she can’t keep a man around because none will have her, and this is her revenge and bitter outlet for her rage. After experiencing her and her little pack tearing away at me, that thought carries some real merit, and does seem probable, with her aptly-chosen nic “[name deleted by January]" Another author indicated that she needed to get L^!d, which I found a bit offensive – for the poor soul "saddled" with that distasteful task.

...once we step outside the invisible walls of our literary world, we are - upon occasion - going to encounter a less enlightened element. [Those unsavory few] live to create chaos - the way writers live to create art, poetry, and beauty.

Hey dude! Another name for those street thugs and "less enlightened element" is a reader.

New Erotic Romance Imprints

Two more best-selling erotic romance authors have joined Delilah Devlin in publishing e-books under their own imprints. Shiloh Walker released her BDSM novella Beg Me last November. In May, Cat Johnson published Educating Ansley, a cowboy menage, under her Red imprint.

The covers of these self-pubbed books are terrific. No doubt the stories are just as buffed and polished.

Exploitation of Self-published Authors

I've been seeing a disturbing trend in recent months. Traditional reviewers and agents (and even other authors) are sensing there's money to made off self-pubbed dreams of making it big.

Charging for book reviews:

Kirkus will provide a 300 word review of your self-published book for $425. Not only that, but Kirkus promises you will also: “get your book discovered and proudly wear the title, Published Author.” In capital letters, even.

Publishers Weekly will consider reviewing your self-published book for a $149 "processing" fee.


Literary agents acting as self-publishing "consultants":

The Mediashift blog describes several of these intermediary agents who will "package" your self-pubbed book for a percentage. The Bookends Agency just announced it's also jumping on the bandwagon.


And finally, an example of a self-published author exploiting other self-published authors:

An Amazon forum spam queen provides a website listing random "indy" titles. She also provides these bonuses: referrer amazon links, and listing her own books first.

Future of erotica?

Delilah Devlin has recently self-published a BDSM novella entitled Pleasing Sir. Delilah is a well-known author with a huge backlist--from erotica publishers like Samhain and Ellora's Cave.

I wonder if one day she looked at her big fan base and decided to eliminate the middleman. Is she a forerunner of the future? Will other erotica authors use the "traditional" publishers as a stepping stone to independence? (Not that Ellora's Cave or Samhain are considered traditional...at least not yet.)

As of the writing of this post, Delilah's e-book is ranked number one in Kindle erotica. Good for her!