Rich and Famous (Not!)

By Lucy Felthouse (Guest Blogger)

Hi everyone, and thanks for having me on OGAG once more. This time the theme is publishing myths and misconceptions. As I'm far from being an all-knowing expert type, I can only talk about my own experiences and hopeful you find them useful and/or entertaining. Probably the latter, to tell the truth ;)

I have to tell you, I'm a realist. Although as a child I'd sit at a table surrounded by paper and pens proclaiming "I'm going to be a famous author," I realise that this will not happen. To be a truly household name, you have to have books on the shelves in bookstores and supermarkets. And unless said stores embrace erotica, it's not going to happen. Plus I haven't actually written a book yet!

So although it is, of course, possible to become rich and famous through writing, us peddlers of smut are unfortunately going to have to be content with comfortable. And famous within our community (which I think is awesome and pretty close knit, especially when you take into consideration the wide variety of ages, backgrounds and time zones). But to be honest, I don't mind. I enjoy what I do, and surely that's the point?

I remember way back when I had my first story accepted for print and I mentioned it to a couple of friends. They were excited for me, which was lovely, but then the questions began.

They asked things like would I be paid loads? Did I get an advance? They couldn't quite get their heads around the one-off payment scheme usually adopted for anthologies. Regardless, I was just happy that someone wanted to buy my work. And I still get equally excited to this day.

So although I'm not a rich and famous author, I still love it. Writing and publishing erotica is full of surprises. For example, almost a year ago I put out my short eBook anthology, The Great Outdoors. It was done purely as an experiment to see how it all worked, and the way I learn best is by doing.

Now, though, my little eBook with the terrible cover has become the little eBook that could, by popping regularly into the Kindle Erotica Chart in the UK, and selling consistently on Barnes & Noble and the Sony Reader Store.

I never expected it, but it did dispel one of the misconceptions that I believed in myself. Despite the phrase "never judge a book by its cover," I always believed that The Great Outdoors would never sell much because of its horrendous cover. But it does, so I've taken heart from that and produced a second volume which has a much nicer cover. If The Great Outdoors Vol 2 does even half as well, I'll be happy.

I still won't be rich and famous. But I'll be happy. And that to me, is the whole point.

Bio

Lucy is a graduate of the University of Derby, where she studied Creative Writing. During her first year, she was dared to write an erotic story - so she did. It went down a storm and she's never looked back. Lucy has had stories published by Cleis Press, Noble Romance, Ravenous Romance and Xcite Books. She is also the editor of Uniform Behaviour - Steamy Stories About Men and Women in Uniform. Find out more at http://www.lucyfelthouse.co.uk. Alternatively, find her on Twitter and Facebook.