Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #301803 in Books
Published on: 2006-06-02
Original language: English
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
240 pages
Customer Reviews
Sorely Lacking but Very Much a Necessity
I was one of those eager writers signed up to pre-purchase this title long before it was published. Aside from going back and forth with Amazon about the continuously changing publication date, lack of information and updates for us buyers, and finally giving up on the opportunity to buy this unique offering all together, I was thrilled to hear that it had finally been published and is available for the masses. A published market guide for the erotica genre in book form? It never existed until now and has been sorely needed, which should make it a relative godsend for sex writers everywhere...
But it's not that miracle we've been hoping for.
The book touts being a project handed down from one dreamy-eyed associate at Circlet Press to another, until someone finally put it together. It shows. All of that time and separate authors didn't go into creating a comprehensive, well researched, completely detailed, and painstakingly accurate list of erotica markets. There are only 95 pages of actual market listings in the entire book, hardly enough pages to even be termed a "book," which may be why "the collective" added all the other junk in the remaining 145 pages between the covers.
The authors state in useless Chapter 1 that this "isn't a handbook on 'how to write a story'" and then proceeds through many chapters to tell you just how to do that. If you're completely new to the world of writing, in any genre, you'll appreciate knowing that tax deductions are available to writers in the US, how other authors choose their pen names, or being warned to develop a thick skin about rejection letters, but you won't get much else from the editorial content in this book. You'll even be laughing at advice like the recommendation to avoid distractions while writing, not threaten or bribe potential editors, and that you don't have to have experienced everything you want to write fiction about. The authors also go on and on about how sex writing should not be viewed as taboo and to let your inhibitions and hangups go as a writer so much that you begin to wonder if they still harbor these hangups about sex writing themselves. These lengthy chapters present more common information than common sense itself...just enough for a beginning writer to wonder "oh, I need to know about that?" and then not find the detailed information to actually help them through that aspect of the writing life. If you're looking for any information about the legalities, decisions, fears, business, marketing, etc. of writing itself, refer to the masses of OTHER books available on those subjects. And the authors here instruct you to do the same just before continuing to waste our time and take up way too much paper dabbing at different aspects of the writing life.
If you're buying this book for the listing of markets for your erotica, sex, and porn writing as I was, you'll find 5 pages of those e-Book publishers that just can't be avoided, 39 pages of magazines and periodicals (including e-zines), and 56 pages of book publishers. The list of markets is far from comprehensive or accurate. Comparing this book's list to the spreadsheet full of erotica markets I've created for myself as an author fully entrenched in the genre now, there is an alarming amount of missing potential markets for your work... large, obvious, long existing, better paying, and well known markets completely overlooked. And my list started from scratch barely a year ago. I also recognized several markets listed in the book that no longer exist, haven't existed for almost a year, and can be found out as such by a quick trip to their website, which posts that very notice or no longer exists at all.
Sure, markets change and publications and editors come and go like the wind, but why would the authors of The Erotic Writer's Market Guide bother to actually list defunct markets and pubs no longer in circulation, even including their own speculation and personal comments, and not verify the accuracy of their own listings by even a quick check of the current status of a market's website? The listing for Playgirl magazine alone is TWO editors behind in accuracy and incorrect in payment amount. Where I know full guidelines are available for markets, they're not included here. You still have to send off for guidelines (but you always should to maintain completely accurate info) yourself. Also beware of all the non-paying markets listed here, not exactly what you wanted to pay the book price to find and not even including those truly beneficial non-paying markets that continue to result in lots of fans, feedback, and visitors forwarded to our own sites for those of us in the genre who've benefited from working them in among our paying market submissions.
The resources section at the back of the book is just as incomplete...just astonishing considering the authors of this book are supposedly working authors and editors in the erotica genre themselves. If I was able to discover the markets, organizations, market listing resources, etc. all by myself over the last year, "the collective" should've been able to list them in their book. Maybe these authors should've taken the time to send out a mass inquiry to existing erotica writers, editors, and publishers and asked them to share their own personal collections of markets to form a true and very valuable listing... or at least inquired with the members of the Erotica Readers & Writers association. And perhaps then this first market guide for this wonderful genre wouldn't reflect so badly on the genre itself, as it currently encourages the perception that erotica isn't anything to take seriously, there are few serious markets for it, and erotica writers don't have quite the skillset or professionalism of writers focusing their efforts in mainstream genres. (The authors and editors at work here couldn't even place page breaks in the right places to ensure all the information regarding one market was kept together and easy to use and refer to...you'll find a title of a publication at the bottom of one page and have to turn the page to read the details about it.)
All in all, this is not the comprehensive and accurate resource for erotica markets it should be, can be, or that you're expecting. It has large, numerous, embarassing holes in it. BUT it is still the only collective listing of its kind, a tool that will hopefully evolve over time and become, for the erotica genre, what other listings are for mainstream markets. And there are a few markets listed here that I hadn't found myself, which is like gold in this genre where markets are hard to find, not always paying, and exist only in small numbers. And that alone makes purchasing this book worth the money and the time I spent laughing at it; it'll pay for itself in the very first short story I sell to a new market.
Is this book all that it could've easily been and all that we writers need or expect it to be? No. Is it still an indispensable tool and a must-buy for writers of erotica, porn, and sex in fiction or non-fiction? Absolutely.
And hopefully any future edition of The Erotic Writer's Market Guide will solicit the input and incorporate the knowledge of a larger circle of writers actively working in the genre.
An indispensable asset
"The Erotic Writer's Market Guide" is compiled by The Circlet Press Collective and is a compendium of listings of literally hundreds of paying markets for erotic writing. This unique and "user friendly" writer's reference also includes practical, step-by-step advice contributing by working professionals on how to not only write good erotica, but how to sell it and make a career in the genre. There is invaluable information on pay scales and pay rates, tax deduction tips, "writer's rights", notations on the difference between men's and women's erotic fiction, what the editors of erotic magazines and presses want to see in submitted material, and a great deal more. Anyone wanting to write professional in the specialized genre of erotic short stories and novels will find "The Erotic Writer's Market Guide" to be an indispensable asset and a core reference for marketing their work.
Very Helpful Even If Not Perfect
No printed guide to markets is totally up-to-date because they are usually already out-of-date by the time they're printed and able to penetrate the bookstore market. A website is much easier to keep current and even they are often in need of constant correcting and require a lot of effort and expense to keep relatively current.
As with every market guide for writers, photographers and artists I've ever examined, the listings are combined with a series of articles about how best to use the guide, how to submit your material and the basic ground rules for writing, photographing and creating publishable art. Those short articles are very important because most people using the guide will not be experienced and have a portfolio of published work. Many of them will probably be people who have always thought they would like to write and are usually complete novices as far as how to go about fulfilling their dreams.
Even writers who have been published may have been lucky or had helpful contacts rather than being experts in locating and developing other markets for their work. Personally, I found the articles in the first half this book very helpful and there was some legal information included that might keep some writers out of trouble with their potential editors and/or the censors, authorities and lawyers looking to sue for any number of reasons. The more successful the book, and any movies made from the story, the more likely that lawyers will come out of the woodwork looking to get their "fair share of any and all profits."
The authorship "Compiled by The Circlet Press Collective" made me a bit wary of buying the book. I didn't know whether that was a huge committee with lots of sub-committees or simply the name of a company, a writer's organization or perhaps a writer's union. I simply didn't know if the book was going to be some kind of patchwork of material that was spoiled by too many cooks with their fingers in the pie? Frankly, I was surprised that it all seemed to fit together rather well. Much better than some guides that include articles done by various authors with their own individual and distinct styles.
Frankly, I know nothing about the markets for Erotic Writing so I can't comment on how accurate and up-to-date the various possible markets are. It will take a lot more investigation than I'm interested in doing at this time, but I'm just assuming that the information is somewhat out-of-date--much like the news in your morning newspaper is all a day or two old and stale.
It is important to have somewhere to start a survey of possible markets and this guide fills that function as well as this reader expected. Without already knowing the market intimately, this guide seems okay and there aren't a lot of choices for this particular subject. It's seems like a very helpful introduction to the subject and many people who read it will probably decide that they really don't want to commercially write Erotica. Finding that information out is more than worth the cost of the book.
