Lying for Fun and Profit

All authors are deceitful.  The whole idea behind writing a novel or short story is to tell stories that sound believable to your audience.  But I think with some genres, the deceitfulness runs a little deeper.

I’ve found with writing erotica, people assume that I’m writing about real life experiences.  (Honestly, if I fucked as much as my characters do, I wouldn’t have time to write about it.)  But with creating a pseudonym to write erotica, it certainly helps to give readers the impression that I’m a man-slut.  Would you rather read an erotica book from a party-loving man-slut or from a quiet, shy guy that likes to read Star Trek books?

It’s a little odd that this deceit seems to be required in erotica — if I were to write a sci-fi story, I wouldn’t have readers wondering if this was based on my lived experiences fighting off alien hordes on some distant planet.  If I were to write a thriller, I doubt anyone would wonder if I really had chased spies through Croatia.  Yet if I write about a hot sexual encounter — say, two guys in the back alley behind a gay club — I get readers wondering if it’s based on my sexual history.

Really, it would hurt my sales if I wrote dirty stories, but anywhere I was active online I kept saying, “Oh, I don’t do anything like what I write — I could never lower myself to such base desires.”  And it would also hurt my credibility as an erotic author.

Again, that’s a little odd since mystery authors don’t lose credibility for not actually being detectives, fantasy authors don’t lose credibility for not being wizards, and paranormal authors don’t lose credibility for not being vampires.  (That being said, there are some mystery authors who have a history in police, military, or forensic science, and I think it works in their favour — but it’s certainly not necessary for their success, since they are skilled writers to begin with.)

So is my whole persona a lie?  No, actually.  I present a slice of myself online, the slice that I believe appeals to readers of erotic fiction, and leave the rest of me offline.  I do twink-watch at Starbucks, like flirting with hot guys, and I really am a man in his thirties that looks rather twink-ish.  And while my stories are not based on lived experiences, I have had some experiences that parallel some of my stories.  Some, not all.  I confess I have not been involved in a bukkake… yet.  The rest is up to you to determine.



Cameron D. James is a writer of gay erotica and M/M erotic romance; his latest release is Go-Go Boys of Club 21: The Complete Series.  He lives in Canada, is always crushing on Starbucks baristas, and has two rescue cats.  To learn more about Cameron, visit http://www.camerondjames.com.

Learn from the Master

A Guest Post by Lexi Wood

Who's got two thumbs and writes such dirty, filthy (not to mention QUALITY) smut that it's been paying Giselle's bills for months?

This g... okay, well I don't have thumbs, but you get the gist. 

You know me. If you haven't heard about my rise to stardom from my bunk mate/evil captor Giselle Renarde, I'm the most popular erotica-writing sock puppet on the planet.  I've also got the best hair, but I don't have any tips for you there. That's down to Mother Nature.

When Giselle told me your topic at The Grip was branding, I insisted on taking her spot. When it comes to establishing an author brand, the kid's got nuthin on me.  I mean, look at Giselle's backlist: genre fiction, literary fiction, non-fiction, erotic romance, erotica of every kind, from queer kink to trans science fiction to straight-up adultery. Novels, novellas, anthologies, short stories?  She published her freakin' DIARY, for Christ's sake! She's out of control!

With Lexi Wood, you're getting the same fine product with every purchase.  You can count on all my smut to get you hot.  How?  Take one barely-legal stepdaughter, add one sexy stepdad who knows he shouldn't, and make sure they get it on... and get you off!

There are variations on this theme, of course.  In Driving the Sitter, you get a babysitter and the dad driving her home.  In Blueberry Brat, an older man gets it on with a barely-legal blueberry seller in her roadside hut. Even though they're not related, you can count on these sweet young things to call their lovers Daddy, loudly and repeatedly. "Fuck me, Daddy!  Fuck me HARD!"

Amazon doesn't make it easy to communicate with readers what they're in for.  They won't let you call your book Sweet Young Thing Fucks Her Sexy Stepdaddy, or even refer to it in the blurb.  You have to count on readers of taboo erotica to seek out the term Taboo Erotica, and hope that anyone who buys your smut knows what they're getting into.

Since you don't want readers who are offended by seriously salacious content picking up your smut by accident, it helps to title your work in a way that tells the reading public exactly what's inside (but that won't get your book banned--notice Driving the Sitter isn't called Driving the Babysitter. Why? Because I've heard from other authors that erotic books including the word "babysitter" in their metadata have been banned. Can't be too careful!)

Back to titles. Take Good Girl's Fertile First Time as an example.  It's about an innocent young virgin who gets knocked up the first time she has sex (with her best friend's father).  Same principle with Pregnant by the Professor: The First-Time Fertility Experiment. A keyword-packed title tells the reader what's going to happen, and who it's going to happen to.

The reader knows what they want, so why not give it to them?  I don't get why this is so hard for Giselle The French Bitch.  She's been at this writing gig almost 10 years and she still makes novice mistakes, like writing a dark romance with a hetero HEA that's also full of hardcore lesbian rape scenes.  What even IS that?  There isn't a reader in the world who's searching the internet for the weird random stuff she's writing, and it shows in her royalty statements.

So fill those screens with daddies and daughters. Or find another fetish and stick with it. Readers of genre fiction have precise expectations, so be predictable. What have you got to lose...?

Besides your soul! *Bwahahahaha*
 
***

LEXI WOOD is a sock puppet who came to life one night while her keeper was out picking up Chinese food. When nobody’s around, she bashes her face against a typewriter until stories come out. And those stories are shocking.

Lexi’s exterior is 53% acrylic, 37% nylon, and 10% recycled tinsel. On the inside, she’s full of bloodlust, wanderlust, lust-lust, bathtub gin, and pills she found on the floor. She also got into those tranquilizers you give your cat to get it in the travel carrier. You shouldn’t leave those things lying around.

Handmade in Vulgaria.

The Author Brand

As my co-blogger, Lisabet, discussed yesterday, building an author brand is quite complicated.  Primarily, you need to consider what a reader will associate with your name — and the clearer and more direct the association, the better.

In the traditional publishing world, authors stick to one genre or sub-genre under their name.  If they choose to explore a different genre or sub-genre, they often choose an alternate pen name.  For example, I’m a huge fan of James Rollins thrillers — but when he wanted to give epic fantasy a try, his publisher forced him to choose a different pen name (James Clemens) so as to not dilute the brand associated with the name James Rollins.  Romance author Nora Roberts also writes mystery under the name JD Robb.

There are some exceptions, of course, in the traditional publishing world.  PD James, mystery author, wrote the sci-fi novel, The Children of Men, under the same name.  While I haven’t read her mystery books, her one sci-fi novel wasn’t a grand epic of futuristic starship battles.  Rather, it was the tale of one man in the near-future, who meets a pregnant woman in a world that’s been gripped by total infertility for decades.  I would imagine the writing style, tone, and general plot structure resembled her mystery novels — and, so while The Children of Men would be a departure from her brand, it likely didn’t dilute it that much.  (Also, she wrote only one sci-fi novel — if she had wanted to write a series, she likely would have chosen a new name.)

I’ve noticed, though, that self-publishers often don’t follow the same procedure.  I think it’s because self-publishers can put out whatever they want, whenever they want.  They aren’t beholden to a publisher who can say, “You know what... this really doesn’t fit what readers expect from you... can you write something else?”  The self-publisher can put out non-fiction, romance, sci-fi, mystery, and more under one pen name because no one is going to tell them different.

Personally, I think this is a big mistake.  Readers get an unclear picture of what to expect from the author, which can lead to disappointment down the road.  It can also lead to serious problems... I came across one author who writes erotica and children’s picture books under the same pen name.  I don’t know why this author thought that was a good idea.

For myself, I write gay erotica (and sometimes gay erotic romance) under the pen name Cameron D. James.  I currently have two other pen names that handle different genres (and I’d rather not link them here to my erotica output).  It helps me stay clear about what is and what isn’t acceptable to say online.  As my erotica persona, I can talk about hot older men fucking skinny twinks, and maybe share some pictures on Tumblr depicting such things.  But if I was publishing my other stuff under the same pen name, then I couldn’t do that, as readers of the other genres wouldn’t want to see hot gay sex.

But a brand comes down to more than just the genre.  As Lisabet said yesterday, it includes specifics of what the reader might find in your stories.  Your pen name may be associated with BDSM, paranormal, power differentials, or more.

This is where I struggled with Cameron D. James.  I started as an erotic romance author with my novel, Autumn Fire.  However, I quickly learned that while my publisher classified me as erotic romance, Autumn Fire was clearly more in the erotica category.  So I was promoting myself as an e-rom author and getting bad reviews from e-rom readers who felt the novel was clearly erotica.  It certainly didn’t help that I self-published an erotica short story, then sold another e-rom novel to my publisher (and that one was also really more erotica than e-rom).  So I floundered for about two years, trying to determine my brand and my voice.

Finally, I said, “Fuck it,” and classified myself as an erotica author.  My erotica was doing better than my e-rom anyway.  But deciding my brand was as an erotica author wasn’t enough.  I still needed to define my brand further, to differentiate myself from other erotica authors.  Most of my stories feature older/younger pairings — and those that don’t will usually feature something similar (like a bulky football player and a skinny twink cheer team member).  So, I’ve taken that and kind of run with it.  I don’t always stay 100% true to my brand, but it does help focus what I do with my writing, how I promote myself, and how I interact with readers.  And I have no doubt that the readers appreciate it — because a quick glance at my brand can tell them if they’re likely to enjoy my stories or not.

Branding isn’t only about guiding the reader; it can also guide the author.  When I begin a new project, I make sure it fits into my brand — which can inspire ideas.  Since I know my brand primarily features older/younger, I start a new project by thinking of a hot older/younger pairing or situation that I haven’t explored yet.  Once I figure it out, the ideas tumble out from there and soon I’m excited to start the new project.

Branding is smart business advice, and I fear it’s something that’s being largely overlooked in the self-publishing world.  I wonder if some of the many self-pubbed authors that complain of eternally-low sales would do much better if they could brand and define themselves.  While there is certainly a whole lot more that goes into creating a professional author identity and high quality products, branding is a key element that cannot be ignored.


Cameron D. James is a writer of gay erotica and M/M erotic romance; his latest release is Go-Go Boys of Club 21: The Complete Series.  He lives in Canada, is always crushing on Starbucks baristas, and has two rescue cats.  To learn more about Cameron, visit http://www.camerondjames.com.