First of all, apologies to those of you who come here looking for filth, whether written or photographic. I expect to resume normal posting very soon, but for now I feel it would be useful to try everyone’s patience just a little more by clarifying a couple of the points I made on Tuesday.
Predictably, I’ve kept a close eye on what people have been writing and tweeting in response to what I said. A lot of the feedback has been extremely kind and supportive, though of course there’s been plenty of criticism too; and that’s fine – even when it skews more towards the visceral than the constructive. I’ve largely avoided engaging with the people who strongly disagree with what I wrote – or rather, with how/why I wrote it – not because I’m unwilling to stand behind my words, but because I don’t believe they have a responsibility to publicly defend how they feel about me. If someone thinks I’m a piece of shit for how I went about all of this, they have a right to hold that view; I’m not about to jump into their Twitter timeline and try to persuade them otherwise, especially if they make it clear that they’re talking about me, rather than to me.
One thing that I do think I explained poorly in the original piece, and which has been flagged up by a couple of people subsequently, is the relative importance of relationship-building in erotica, versus other genres. Here’s the key passage on that from Tuesday:
In a world where few mainstream publishers are willing to take a chance on erotica, personal interactions are extremely important, as are the social media networks that enable them . . . In erotica, more than just about any other genre, relationships matter. It really is about who you know, as much as it is about how good you are…
That final sentence rubbed a few people up the wrong way, and I can kind of see why. I ought to have taken a bit more time to explain what I meant by it, rather than leaping straight into my main point about the review culture; I certainly didn’t mean to insinuate that quality isn’t important in erotica, but the way I just left it hanging there probably did at least leave me open to that accusation.
For the record then, no, I don’t believe that personal relationships (or patronage) are the be-all and end-all in erotica. However, nor do I believe that the link between talent and success is directly proportional: no industry is completely meritocratic, and it would be naive to think otherwise about ours. The truth lies somewhere in the middle, and probably varies a bit according to how you approach your own career and what stage it’s at.
Whether this differs substantively from other (fiction) genres is the bit that’s up for debate. My view is that erotica is unusual in three (relevant) respects:
- As detailed in the first section of the original post, it has a small writing community that’s very close-knit and supportive.
- It largely exists outside the world of ‘big publishing’, literary agents, and mainstream media; instead it relies heavily on smaller, independent publishers and (increasingly) on self-publishing.
- A significant percentage of total sales is generated by short story collections and other anthologies.
Ironically, I think that Alison Tyler is 100% correct to attack the way the traditional publishing model has treated erotica, and to assert that the future lies in self-publishing. However, I think that will only reinforce the value of cultivating and leaning on personal relationships and professional networks as a way of getting your product out there and selling it to as wide an audience as possible.
Does that product still have to be good? Of course. But the way the industry is set up – a small and supportive pool of editors and writers, active on social media and often only loosely affiliated to major publishers – gives new authors the opportunity to build and leverage the sort of access that seems much harder to come by in other genres. Acknowledging that is not the same as questioning the integrity or professionalism of the individual editors who give them that access, nor is it a way of suggesting that quality doesn’t matter.
Maybe a simpler way to put it is this. To get your work seen and taken seriously by the people who count is easier in erotica than it is in Crime Fiction, or Sci-Fi, or Literary Fiction, or whatever. That’s partly because the decision-makers are more visible and more accessible – they’re the people who edit anthologies, and run competitions, and engage with Twitter followers – and partly because the industry is much smaller overall. Add the two together, and you’re left with fewer hoops to jump through before someone who really matters will read your stuff. If you’ve already built up a decent rapport with that someone before s/he reads it, the chances of them taking it seriously increase even more, because, y’know, that’s how human nature works.
Unfortunately, the flip side appears to be that if you piss off one of those people by posting a negative review of their work, or by writing unfavourably about publications in which they appear, it can have an even more dramatic impact on your professional prospects, and that’s the bit I take issue with.
In conclusion, does knowing the right people in erotica guarantee that you’ll be published? No. Are personal relationships with editors and publishers also important in other genres? Yes – they’re just much, much harder to form, especially if you’re starting from scratch.
Just to finish off, I’d ask any of you who genuinely believe that the only criterion for success in erotica is the quality of one’s work to ask yourselves this question: do you think that my chances of having a short story accepted for publication in a major anthology have increased, decreased or remained the same as a result of what I wrote the other day? If you truly believe that it will have no impact whatsoever – that the professional and the personal are completely unrelated – then your view on the industry is very different to mine.
4 replies on “Do personal relationships matter in erotica?”
It seems to me, in other industries, personal relationships leading to jobs/contracts/gigs etc. is sort of the norm and usually goes by the buzzword “networking”. It doesn’t mean that you will get the job/contract based on your relationship alone (you do need a certain amount of skill to back it up) but knowing the right people helps. In my professional life, I’ve seen many cases where personality/relationship carries the day when two candidates are otherwise fairly even. It’s not necessarily fair, but it does seem to be the way it is. Unless you are in the upper echelons of your field, it’s hard to live simply by skill/talent alone. Whether you are talking about art or science or business.
I agree that no one’s work exists in a vacuum. We should all work to be more objective, and certainly some industries are more “network-biased” than others. Hiring managers, clients, consumers are all human and prone to personality cues as much as evidence of good work. Just think about how it bums you out if you learn that your favorite singer is a real asshole, for instance.
I know your original post was about the need for constructive criticism in this genre which, I believe, is important in any field. Having an art background, I know you don’t improve without critique from people more knowledgeable than yourself. Which points to the need to differentiate between mere trolls and people with helpful criticism. That onus probably rests on the individual contributor.
However, I also think especially when you’re engaging in something as personal and possibly risky as erotica and sex writing, the need for a welcoming, caring community is as important as honest critique. (if not more, depending on the stage of your experience).
All in all, I say yes to constructive criticism and yes to mentors/cheerleaders/positive feedback. There is room (and need) for both.
Absolutely there is, and thank you for making that point. I think the balance – and the nature of each – depends a bit on where you sit in that community and what you’re trying to achieve within it. Would I ever go onto someone’s Sinful Sunday post, for example, and leave a negative comment about their photo? Absolutely not: people who put themselves out there in that way are doing something deeply personal, and anyone engaging with their work should understand that trying to offer ‘constructive’ criticism is almost never going to be appropriate. The same broadly applies to sex writing, I think, though that covers a lot of things, and if you’re trying to say something about sex/sexuality in a general sense (rather than recounting your own experience) I’d say you should expect people to respond to that in a variety of ways.
On the other hand, writing erotica that you hope to benefit from commercially is something that I think people need to go into with eyes wide open and – yes – a fairly thick skin. If you offer a product for public consumption – and especially if you’re willing to use positive reviews of that product as a sales tool – I think you lose the right to throw your toys out of the pram when people review it publicly in a less kind way. That’s sort of just how the game works!
Agreed. Context is definitely key.
In answer to you final question, I tend to think this won’t have done you any harm. Ruffling a few feathers is not always a bad thing, and is how many people make a mark in their professional lives. I dare say erotica writing is no different.