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A modest proposal
Oct. 4th, 2004 08:43 pmYou know what I want? I want one of the many, many multimillionaires who read my LJ to start a magazine for original (nonfannish) erotica. E-magazine, print magazine, quarterly anthology, whatever -- just so it's good stuff like our good stuff.
I mean, really. If you read erotica, you know that:
1. Most of the erotica that you pay for is crap. Especially when you consider how much great stuff there is for free.
2. Even the non-crappy, reasonably well-written published erotica has -- how shall I say this? It's just as riddled with cliches as slash is -- and their cliches are a lot more annoying, to me, than ours are.
And if you've tried to sell erotica, you know that:
1. Most erotica markets pay either nothing at all or an embarrassing pittance that's almost worse than working for free.
2. If you write a story in which the first half is set-up, increasing sexual tension, plot, conversations, etc., and the second half is about 50% more of the above and 50% sex -- well, the erotica publishers don't want it because there's so much in it that isn't sex, and the non-erotica publishers don't want it because it's too explicit, and the romance publishers will only take it if it's het with a conventional (not to say trite) romantic happy ending.
And, seriously, wouldn't you buy an erotica magazine or anthology if you knew that it was similar, in balance, depth, and quality, to the better slash stories? I surely would.
Especially if somehow we could convince them that not every volume of erotica has to have a naked woman on the cover, but that's a different rant.
Edited to add: I would read it; I would write for it -- and I would offer to edit it, copy-edit it, do Quark page layout, whatever it took, yes, yes I would. And I've done all of those things for a living, too, so that's good-quality labor I'm offering there!
I mean, really. If you read erotica, you know that:
1. Most of the erotica that you pay for is crap. Especially when you consider how much great stuff there is for free.
2. Even the non-crappy, reasonably well-written published erotica has -- how shall I say this? It's just as riddled with cliches as slash is -- and their cliches are a lot more annoying, to me, than ours are.
And if you've tried to sell erotica, you know that:
1. Most erotica markets pay either nothing at all or an embarrassing pittance that's almost worse than working for free.
2. If you write a story in which the first half is set-up, increasing sexual tension, plot, conversations, etc., and the second half is about 50% more of the above and 50% sex -- well, the erotica publishers don't want it because there's so much in it that isn't sex, and the non-erotica publishers don't want it because it's too explicit, and the romance publishers will only take it if it's het with a conventional (not to say trite) romantic happy ending.
And, seriously, wouldn't you buy an erotica magazine or anthology if you knew that it was similar, in balance, depth, and quality, to the better slash stories? I surely would.
Especially if somehow we could convince them that not every volume of erotica has to have a naked woman on the cover, but that's a different rant.
Edited to add: I would read it; I would write for it -- and I would offer to edit it, copy-edit it, do Quark page layout, whatever it took, yes, yes I would. And I've done all of those things for a living, too, so that's good-quality labor I'm offering there!