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Guys Guide To Writing Womens Erotica PDF

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A GUY’S GUIDE TO WRITING WOMEN’S EROTICA By Tink Boord-Dill IMPORTANT COPYRIGHT NOTICE You are not permitted to sell or give away copies of this report. Copyright © 2012 Tink Boord-Dill. All Rights Reserved. LEGAL NOTICE: DISCLAIMER AND TERMS OF USE AGREEMENT The author of this manual makes no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness, or completeness of the contents of this report. 2 A Guy’s Guide to Women’s Erotica © Tink Boord-Dill For Personal Use Only TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................. 3 — READER ADVISORY — ........................................................ 7 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................... 7 WOMEN’S EROTICA - A WIDE OPEN MARKET ....................................... 7 WOMEN’S EROTICA IS TOTALLY DIFFERENT FROM MEN’S EROTICA. .. 11 SIMPLY CHANGING THE POINT OF VIEW IS NOT THE SOLUTION. ........ 12 TWO KINDS OF WOMEN’S EROTICA .................................................... 13 OVERVIEW ........................................................................... 14 OVERVIEW OF WOMENS EROTICA ONLINE ......................................... 14 COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ............................................................. 14 WE FICTION IS DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT FROM ME FICTION ........... 15 DECIPHERING THE FORMULA ............................................................. 15 WHAT WOMEN ARE LOOKING FOR ..................................................... 19 WE GUIDELINES FROM SUCCESSFUL PUBLISHERS ................. 20 ELLORA’S CAVE ...................................................................................... 21 Points to Ponder regarding Ellora’s Cave Submission Guidelines ..... 23 SAMHAIN ROMANCE ............................................................................... 23 Points to Ponder regarding Samhain Submission Guidelines ........... 24 EXTASY BOOKS ....................................................................................... 24 Points to Ponder regarding Extasy Submission Guidelines ............... 27 RESPLENDENCE PUBLISHING ...................................................................... 27 Points to Ponder regarding Resplendence Publishing Submission Guidelines ........................................................................................ 28 LOOSE ID PUBLISHING ............................................................................. 28 3 A Guy’s Guide to Women’s Erotica © Tink Boord-Dill For Personal Use Only Points to Ponder regarding Loose ID Submission Guidelines ............ 30 SIREN PUBLISHING .................................................................................. 30 Points to Ponder regarding Siren Submission Guidelines ................. 41 WE GUIDELINES -- CONCLUSION ......................................................... 41 THEMES, GENRES, AND CATEGORIES .................................... 42 MEN’S FANTASIES VS WOMEN’S FANTASIES ...................................... 42 THEMES, CATEGORIES, AND GENRES… OH, MY! ................................... 45 QUICK REVIEW OF ELLORA”S CAVE GUIDELINES .............................. 45 ELLORA’S CAVE GENRES ......................................................................... 45 ELLORA’S CAVE THEMES ........................................................................ 48 FINDING THE POPULAR THEMES AND GENRES ................................... 51 A WOMAN’S POINT OF VIEW ................................................ 52 WHY AVOID FIRST PERSON? ............................................................... 52 CREATE WOMEN’S FANTASIES ............................................................ 53 AVOID WOMEN’S NIGHTMARES ......................................................... 53 PLOTS AND CHARACTERS ..................................................... 55 PLOTS ................................................................................................. 55 Boy Falls for Girl ............................................................................... 56 CHARACTERS ...................................................................................... 57 The HERO ......................................................................................... 57 The HEROINE ................................................................................... 58 Secondary Characters ...................................................................... 59 Walk-On Characters ........................................................................ 59 LANGUAGE GUIDELINES ....................................................... 60 NEVER MEASURE .................................................................................. 60 HERS ................................................................................................... 61 4 A Guy’s Guide to Women’s Erotica © Tink Boord-Dill For Personal Use Only HIS ...................................................................................................... 62 BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOUR READERS ................. 62 BOOK DESCRIPTIONS ............................................................ 63 LENGTH OF BOOK ................................................................................... 63 HEAT RATING ......................................................................................... 63 READER ADVISORIES ................................................................................ 63 STARTING YOUR WE WRITING .............................................. 66 PLAN OF ATTACK .................................................................................... 67 RESOURCES .......................................................................... 69 FORUMS ............................................................................................. 69 KINDLE THREADS .................................................................................. 69 RELATED ARTICLES .................................................................................. 70 ABBREVIATIONS USED WHEN DISCUSSING WOMEN’S EROTICA ......................... 71 SUGGESTED READING .............................................................................. 72 Writing in Series............................................................................... 73 Lora Leigh ........................................................................................ 73 Maya Banks ..................................................................................... 75 Gail Faulkner .................................................................................... 75 Kristin Ashley ................................................................................... 75 Cherise Sinclair ................................................................................. 76 Victoria Heywood ............................................................................ 76 HEAT LEVEL EXAMPLES ......................................................... 76 ALL ROMANCE EBOOKS ............................................................................ 76 RESPLENDENCE PUBLISHING ...................................................................... 77 SIREN BOOKS ......................................................................................... 78 5 A Guy’s Guide to Women’s Erotica © Tink Boord-Dill For Personal Use Only CHARACTER TEMPLATES ....................................................... 79 HEROINE ............................................................................................. 79 HERO .................................................................................................. 80 FINAL THOUGHTS ................................................................. 82 6 A Guy’s Guide to Women’s Erotica © Tink Boord-Dill For Personal Use Only — READER ADVISORY — Needless to say, a topic such as erotica, is going to entail using language and describing situations which some may consider offensive. If you ARE offended, I respectfully suggest that erotica may not be the niche for you! Let me also say that the opinions expressed within this report are my own. They are not based on any scientific evidence or testing, but they ARE based on years of buying, reading, and enjoying women’s erotica. INTRODUCTION The first question to ask is why you, a male, want to write Women’s Erotica — WE. I don’t read Men’s Erotica - ME, but as I understand it, it is also a big, lucrative, and, importantly, a serial purchasing market on the Kindle. There have been several info products touting the financial success that can be made by writing and publishing erotica. As a result, there are many men now looking to enter the field of Women’s Erotica. Let me preface this by saying that I personally am not particularly familiar with Men’s Erotica. I don’t read it on purpose and I am not familiar with its availability online. From what I have heard, it is a strong market — at least on Amazon. If you are interested in a mainly historical overview of the evolution of Male Erotica online, here is an interesting read: Source: http://www.wallpaper.com/art/erotic-publishing- taschen/3463 I will admit that, out of curiosity, I did take a peek at ”The Big Penis Book”. As a woman, I found it more ludicrous than stimulating. Sorry. WOMEN’S EROTICA - A WIDE OPEN MARKET 7 A Guy’s Guide to Women’s Erotica © Tink Boord-Dill For Personal Use Only Which brings me to what I DO know, (and appreciate) which is Women’s Erotica. If you have been keeping up with the news, you may have heard something about “50 Shades of Gray”, a self-published Amazon bestseller. Written by English author E. L James, it has been picked up for print by Vintage Books, part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. 50 Shades, the first in a trilogy, and its two siblings were purchased in a bidding war for a seven-figure sum. The significance of this is that in the eyes of the American mainstream press, Erotica — in this case, Women’s Erotica — seems to have come of age. What many are missing is the fact that Women’s Erotica has been a quiet, if hot selling genre online for a number of years. For close to 10 years, Ellora’s Cave has been gaining recognition as a leading publisher of Women’s Erotica. Along with several other digital publishers and a few imprints from print publishers, the Women’s Erotica genre has even made it into mainstream print bookstores, and trust me, with the current state of print publishing, the paper print runs — usually about $14.95 trade paperbacks, say that this is a successful and lucrative market. I will say that the odds of having a self-published Women’s Erotica book make it into print (other than a self-publishing print option) is pretty low. However, the current state of the digital market is a very good one for self-published authors. Let’s look at some figures here: Jaid Black, the author and founder of Ellora’s Cave, put her Women’s Erotica online after being told there was not market for the subniche. Her first year sales were $43,000. In 2010, the date of the article where I found these figures (See link below) Ellora’s Cave was expected to pull in $5 million. NOTE - The majority of EC stories are what I call Women’s Romantic Erotica (WRE), but they also sell Women’s Erotica No Romance (WENR) and they are just now starting to expand into Men’s Erotica. Here is a brief quote for the article: 8 A Guy’s Guide to Women’s Erotica © Tink Boord-Dill For Personal Use Only <QUOTE> Ellora’s Cave publishes erotic romance–basically, romance with a much higher proportion of bedroom scenes. Perhaps not surprisingly, the e-book format fits nicely with this genre; purchasers might hesitate to buy printed erotic romance books in a bookstore, but there’s not much danger of embarrassment in downloading an e-book from a web site. They now publish approximately ten new titles a week, all as e-books, and maintain an extensive backlist (why take an e-book out of print?) of over 2800 titles; and they’ve started offering their bestsellers as print books, too, BUT with a big twist. Because they don’t want print sales to interfere with their main e-book sales, print editions are released 3-6 months after the initial e-book. EC also allows various retailers to carry their products, but with a window of at least a couple of weeks, so EC is sure to capture the initial direct-to- consumer sales from their most rabid customers on every new title. And direct-to-consumer purchasers are well-rewarded for buying directly from EC: they receive roughly 50 percent off the retail price. The average price for an EC title on their site is between $5 and $6; on Amazon, the Kindle versions sell for $11 to $12. In other words, EC has, through disciplined pricing and format decisions, retained its direct to consumer model, and thus retained control and maximized profitability. Royalties are dramatically different than typical publishing contracts, too. Authors receive 37.5 percent of the cover price of e-books–yes, that’s right, 37.5 percent. They receive a more traditional 7.5 percent on the p-book version; and all royalties are calculated and paid monthly! <END QUOTE> Here it the link to the full article. It is definitely a worthwhile read: Source: http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2010/learning-from- elloras-cave/ 9 A Guy’s Guide to Women’s Erotica © Tink Boord-Dill For Personal Use Only In addition to online publishers focusing on Women’s Erotica (and I assure you there are many others and I discuss some of them later in this report) there are also online retailers specializing in Women’s Erotica. One of the biggest retailers is All Romance eBooks (ARe): http://www.allromanceebooks.com While researching this report, I found a December 2010 New York Times article, discussing the success of ARe: Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/books/09romance.html <QUOTE> At All Romance, an online retailer that sells only e-books, sales have more than doubled this year, and the most sought-after titles are usually the raciest. “It’s easier to check out some naughty little title online than in a brick-and- mortar store where your pastor could step up in line behind you,” said Barb Perfetti, the chief financial officer of All Romance. “We’ve had lots of customers write to us and say, ‘Now I don’t always have to show my husband what I’m reading.’ ” <END QUOTE> As you can see from the above quote, the inherent nature of digital delivery has worked in favor of Women’s Erotica. 1) PRIVACY - A Women’s Erotica title can be read privately. On a Kindle or ereader, no one can see what you are reading! 2) AVAILABILITY - Many more titles are available online than in brick and mortar book stores. My local book store DOES carry Women’s Erotica, but there are less than 12 linear feet of shelf space and they generally get only one or two of any title 3) CONVENIENCE - Online you can purchase 24/7/365 with no one standing behind you in line… All in all, Women’s Erotica in the digital format is a hot and lucrative market. 10 A Guy’s Guide to Women’s Erotica © Tink Boord-Dill For Personal Use Only

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