I got annoyed today. (Yeah, I know and in other news water is wet.) No seriously, I got annoyed today. I know there are a lot of people out there (some of them fans of Rock Star), that won’t read my subsequent books because they are erotic romance. Yes, it hurts my feelings a little bit, but I can certainly respect that people have every right to buy what they like. The other day though I was reading some of the comments over at Amazon and someone said that they thought people were writing erotic because it was easier. I wish. Writing a good erotic romance is far more difficult (at least for me) simply because you have more work. You still have to write a good story with complex characters, but now you have to also have to make it erotic as well.
I’ve explained repeatedly that many of the IR stories are erotic romance because most of them are coming from the e-publishers, and overwhelmingly the e-pubs put out erotic romance. It’s my understanding that this is gradually changing, but I suspect that the e-pubs that don’t go erotic are going to be less likely to do IR stories as well. After all, they’re going to have to go up against the mainstream publishers, and without the niche of erotica to boost their numbers they might be hesitant to risk catering to such a small audience. I hope I’m wrong and those readers who prefer sweet IRs will be able to find them.
the one who writes 
People that make comments like that have obviously never tried to write an erotic romance.
I like to read both. I just finished re-reading Rockstar and I’m in the middle of Santa Baby. I’ve recently read Morning Star and Pussy Cat Death Squad which have some great female heroes! I also enjoyed Given. I don’t understand why it’s all or nothing. It’s either AA romance or IR romance but not both. Erotic or sweet, but not both. At the end of the day it’s like you have said before you need to have good characters and a good story.
Kim
I think very often people who never wrote anything in their life think being a writer is easy. It really isn’t, especially not writing about something like sex, erotica, and the various sexualities. Then there is the whole sexy can’t be smart thing and the real literature/ chic lit – romance divide.
As far as the IR/AA issue, I think many AA people are very cautious about sex and public declarations about sex. But with IR, everyone assumes people in them are having hot, kinky sex anyways so no need to be so uptight. I and friends I have in IRs are constantly asked rude, presumptuous questions or are supposed to appreciate everyone’s interest in our sex lives, even strangers.
PS. I love your blog and your books. I especially love the free lessons and procrastinate a lot by reading your site.
Well, I read Try a Little Tenderness (skipping a good two pages of too-much-for-Foreverloyal content, and I DID think it was sweet.
Especially the early expressions of love from the hero, the that first ring he bought for the heroine. Sweetest thing ever!
Thank you. I think Try a Little Tenderness is actually one of my sweetest books. It’s unfortunate that some people won’t read it because it’s labeled erotic.
I love ‘Try a Little Tenderness’ and I didn’t think it was off the charts of erotica. It was very sweet and just an all around excellently written story. I know people who think that any sex in a book is erotica, some folks just can’t read it. Personally, I’ve read some excellent erotica and I must say it can’t be easy to write a good story with some hot sex. To just try to write a regular sex scene is hard and I think people who don’t write don’t know how difficult it is to write something sexy and good in a book.