Hello, fellow writers. It’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group time, and this month I’m gonna talk about something equal parts amusing and uncomfortable.
Okay, so quick background in case this is your first time here: almost two years ago now I self-published my first novel, “Nowhere to Hide“. And while I am very proud of the book, and it’s gotten some great reviews from the few people who actually read it (*chuckle completely lacking in humor*) it hasn’t been a particularly successful release. There are a number of factors that contribute to this lack of success, but the fact of the matter is basically that people are not buying the book. End of story.
Now, for a while I’ve been making jokes to my husband and coworkers about how I’m going to quit my job (as a commissioning technician on the Alberta oil sands) and just start writing erotica. It’s a joke I’ve made when I’m having a bad day, or when really crappy stuff happens (like the huge pay cut we just took), but I’ve only really been half kidding this whole time.
Because, you see, a while back I read an article about how (supposedly) easy it is to make money from writing erotica, and it got me wondering if I could write a short erotic novel that is more successful than my zombie novel has been.
So during last year’s National Novel Writing Month I decided to give it a go. I chose a theme for my novella’s that was something I thought I could easily stick to – fairy tales – and I started jotting down ideas and scenes for different characters. Several months later and two nights ago, I compiled and uploaded the first in the series. It is now available on Amazon. @_@
Now, let’s get something straight right off the bat: this is not a good story. And while just the admission of that might make some of you cringe, I have to respond by asking if you’ve ever actually read any erotica? None of it is good. It’s designed to do the job, as it were, and half the time even the popular stuff isn’t so much as properly edited. So no, this story is never going to be a glowing mark on my writing career. As such, I decided to write it under a pseudonym, and I’m definitely not going to share the book link on my blog as a big shining beacon that says, “HEY! I WROTE THIS!”
Why, then, am I sharing this with you now? Well, I just thought you’d find it interesting, basically. 😀
So let the experiment begin! I definitely don’t expect anything substantial out of this little idea, but I’m interested to see what happens, and if nothing, it was pretty fun to write. XD
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And so let the scavenger hunt begin to track down the mysterious pseudonym… 😉
IWSG July.
Well I can tell you that if you’re just searching through “erotic fairy tales” you’re gonna have a time because there’s a lot of them. lol
Here from Alex’s b log. I enjoyed reading your post. I understand erotica is big right now so you might be surprised by the response you receive. Please keep us posted, I’d be interested to know how it goes. Best of luck with it.
Thanks, Andrea. 🙂 No bites yet on the book, unfortunately. I’m having a difficult time figuring out how to go about promoting it because I had intended to do some free book promotions and whatnot, but because the subject matter of the book falls under public domain, it’s not eligible for ANY of the different promotional tools that you can use through Kindle. It’s really frustrating and something I did not foresee at all.