Speculative Erotica Markets -- Philcon 2010

Almost every year at Philcon, I moderate the panel on selling fantastic (science fiction and fantasy) erotica. It was interesting this year to note how the panel topics have shifted over time: print to electronic to self-electronic.

For several years, after I first began to publish erotica, just before the beginning of the twenty-first century, at science fiction conventions I would give talks or host discussion groups on selling science fiction/fantasy erotica. I would focus on short stories, in particular selling sf/f erotica to mainstream erotica markets, also discussing sex in science fiction/fantasy in general. Once I'd sold novels, I added in chat about print publication, and my experiences writing erotica for Harlequin.

For the last few years, another local author, Stephanie Burke, has also participated in the Philcon panels; she focuses on electronic publishing, mostly in erotic romance, and talks about how she broke into and continues to sell to those markets.

This year, for the first time I found myself discussing self-publishing at the panel, as well. It seems to be the year of it. I read an interesting article in the Novelists, Inc. newsletter about how cover quality can influence sales of Kindle/Smashwords/etc. books; if you've received back the rights to a novel from your print publisher, usually you will need to do a new cover. Some writers have seen significant sales increases simply from getting a new, better cover that looks good as a thumbnail. One of this year's panelists was L.W. Perkins, a cover artist for numerous small presses and for electronic press Liquid Silver (please note her site is undergoing renovation at the moment; I gave the link for future reference).

I've been following reports from fellow writers who've experimented with electronically publishing novels or short stories they were unable to sell elsewhere, or that were out of print; sometimes they have significant sales. I've been following discussions of using free Kindle downloads to encourage sales of an author's backlist.

Last year, I didn't have any of that information. This year, discussion of these possibilities is becoming more and more mainstream.

Sale, Philcon, NINC guest post

Three things today:

1. I sold a short erotic story, "Vanilla," to Kristina Wright's anthology Dream Lover: Paranormal Tales of Erotic Romance for Cleis Press. It's already available for pre-order!

2. I am at Philcon this weekend, hanging out with a UK friend, an archivist who was one of my chief resources about male homosexuality during World War One for The Moonlight Mistress. If you're there, feel free to say hi!

3. And I'm a guest poster today at the Novelists, Inc. Blog on "Reading for the Writer." Please drop by and check it out!

Philcon 2010 & "Hints of Mystery" at K.S. Manning's Blog

Today, I'm visiting K.S. Manning's Blog talking about "Hints of Mystery" in the plot of The Duke and The Pirate Queen.

Please stop by!

I'll be at Philcon 2010 this weekend (November 19-21). Here's my schedule:

Fri 7:00 PM in Plaza VII (1 hour)
Breaking into the fantastic erotica market
Victoria Janssen (moderator), Stephanie Burke, Jennifer Williams, Lynn Perkins
How to be part of this burgeoning market for strange and sexy tales.

Fri 10:00 PM in Executive Suite 623 (1 hour)
Victoria Janssen, Reading

Fri 11:59 PM in Crystal Ballroom Three (1 hour)
Eye of Argon reading
Oz Fontecchio (moderator), Keith R.A. DeCandido, Victoria Janssen, Gregory Frost, Hildy Silverman, Michael A. Ventrella
Science fiction professionals and members of the audience compete in a live reading contest of what may well be the genre's worst story ever. Last year's contest played to an audience that spilled half way down the hall and to peals of laughter. Come see what all the guffawing is about!

Sat 12:00 PM in Grand Ballroom A (1 hour)
Is steampunk a rejection of the present?
Victoria Janssen (moderator), Jeff Mach, Gil Cnaan, Philippa Ballantine, C.J. Henderson
What is the appeal of steampunk? What is the source of its enormous popularity?

Sat 3:00 PM in Plaza III (1 hour)
The avoidable cliches of steampunk
Jared Axelrod (moderator), Jeff Mach, Victoria Janssen, Bernie Mojzes
As this sub-genre has crystallized, what are the elements we see too much of?

Sat 9:00 PM in Plaza VI (Six) (1 hour)
The paranormal romance
L.A. Banks (moderator), Stephanie Burke, C.J. Henderson, Victoria Janssen, Gail Z. Martin
What is meant by the term paranormal romance, and what are the significant works in this field?

Sun 10:00 AM in Grand Ballroom A (1 hour)
Robots since Asimov
Ty Drago (moderator), Victoria Janssen, Neal Levin
There is more to robots than Asimov's Three Laws. A discussion of recent science fiction about robotics and artificial intelligence.

Sun 1:00 PM in Crystal Ballroom Three (1 hour)
Vampires thick as fleas
Victoria Janssen (moderator), L.A. Banks, Genevieve Iseult Eldredge, Michael A. Ventrella
Has this trend crested? Is it going to take over the field or has it become a ghetto unto itself?

RWA 2011 in NYC - things to think about

If you've never been to New York City before, and if you're debating whether or not to attend the 2011 RWA National Conference in New York City, here are some of my thoughts.

Because the city is a major destination, it might be easier to find cheap flights; if you live in an area where it's possible, it's also very easy to take the train to Penn Station, which is close to the conference hotel. The hotel, the Marriott Marquis, is expensive, but unlike in some other cities, you won't be limited to the onsite hotel restaurants; Midtown is crowded with restaurants with a wide range of prices. (Though take note, the Marquis has a cool revolving rooftop restaurant!)

Depending on your tourism desires, sightseeing can also be very cheap in New York, if you're willing to walk and take the subway. (Cabs are reasonable as well, but sometimes hard to come by during rush hour or in certain neighborhoods). There are myriad guides and helpful websites to tourism in the city. And the people-watching can't be beaten.

Plus, you can also attend the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance Conference, which is piggybacked on RWA. One trip, two conferences!

RWA Conference 2010 Report, Part Two

The cover of The Moonlight Mistress is featured on Naked Romance this week, with some of my thoughts on it as well.

And now back to my RWA 2010 report!

Friday was my busiest day. I attended the awards lunch and cheered for the Librarian of the Year Jennifer Lohmann and for the Veritas Award recipient, Gwenda Bond. I then spent some quality time in the bar with Gwenda; her husband, writer Christopher Rowe; and YA author Diana Peterfreund. We talked genre and book covers and markets. It was nice to be back in the science fiction/fantasy world for a little while; I'm more at home there than in romance, because I've "lived" there longer.

In late afternoon, I attended a reception for Harlequin's Single Title authors and finally got to meet one of the Mira staff who'd been exceedingly helpful to me for a long time. I also met Susan Anderson briefly, as well as Courtney Milan (it took me a little while to realize we'd never met in person, only online!) and Kathryn Smith, and got to see Victoria Dahl for the first time at the conference. And a bunch of other people as well.

I then returned to my room to dress for that evening's big bash, the Harlequin Party at the Waldorf Astoria. On the right you will see the signature cocktail of the evening, the "Harleqin Heartbreaker," or rather what's left of one!

The space this year was much smaller than usual, but the dancing was just as enthusiastic; they've had the same DJ for all three years I've been attending, and he really knows how to get people out ("It's Raining Men," for example, is popular for more than one reason). I danced, took photos, and ate pretty sugary things including ice cream lollipops and caramel apple and lemon ice. Below is a section of the pretty, pretty chocolate log, decorated with candy leaves and insects.

All parties must eventually end, and a group of us left after midnight, trudging out behind a group including Nora Roberts. For the record, we did not steal their cab. They had a limo waiting.

Back in my room, I realized belatedly that I needed to take off my eye makeup again (it was different from what I'd worn earlier in the day). But I was good and did that. Then I slept. Packing could wait until the morning.

I was really glad to get home on Saturday night. I spent all of Sunday lolling about reading and napping. I'll be ready for next year...in about eleven months or so.

RWA 2010 Report, Part One

At last, my report on the 2010 Romance Writers of America Annual Conference! Scroll down or click the "RWA" tag for more posts and lots of photos. That picture on the left is one of the pretty floor mosaics at the Orlando Airport.

I arrived Wednesday afternoon. I unfortunately had woken up way too early so was a bit punchy that whole day. My travel, though, was fine; the plane was about an hour late leaving, yet arrived close to the original arrival time. Perhaps there was a TARDIS involved? The van I took from the airport to the Dolphin Hotel was completely full of RWA Conference attendees, with the exception of one male business traveler who was going to the Hilton. We almost talked him into going to the conference with us instead.

I spent the rest of Wednesday with the mundanities of checking in, registering, unpacking, etc. before the Literacy Autographing, which is a fun but exhausting event. I then ventured out to the Blogger Bar Bash and met...lots and lots of cool people. I have a pile of business cards. Let's see, there was Anime June of Gossamer Obsessions, and KristieJ of Ramblings on Romance, and Librarian of the Year Jennifer Lohmann, and Magdalen B of Promantica, and of course host Wendy the Super Librarian. And many more. I was so tired I wasn't very entertaining, though. Instead of going on to the Romance Divas Karaoke gathering as I'd planned, I went to sleep instead. That was the right choice.

Thursday morning, thanks to the suggestion of rommate Sarah Frantz, I got room service. It was an unspeakable luxury not to have to hunt around for food, since I hadn't quite mastered the hotel's geography yet. However, I felt about a thousand times better than I had the night before, so everything made much more sense! I dropped off my postcards and bookmarks at the Goody Room and picked up various goodies for a Romance Diva friend who collects such things. I also visited the bookmarks of friends Kate Pearce and Jeannie Lin and snabbled a couple for my own use, even though I'd already pre-ordered their books.

Before lunch, I hung out in the lobby for a while with fellow Romance Divas, briefly interrupted by chats with my editor, who was passing by, and with Lucienne Diver, whom I hadn't seen on Wednesday. I really enjoyed Nora Roberts' keynote speech, and had a nice chat at the luncheon with Robin Rotham.

I worked out at the hotel's health club on Thursday afternoon, then that evening was the party for my online RWA chapter, Passionate Ink. Writer Angela Knight and scholar Sarah Frantz spoke most entertainingly, and I ate a lot of cheese. Soon after, I discovered my voicemail on my cell phone was wonky, so I dragged Ella Drake with me to fix it, because being without voicemail at a conference spells disaster.

I skipped dinner (remember all the cheese?) and then put on my pink pajamas and black satin robe to attend eHarlequin's annual Pajama Party. I was one of the first folks there, so got some interesting looks as I trekked through the crowded hotel lobby, along with a couple of "Pajama party?" queries. At the party, I holed up in a corner with roomie Elaine Golden and fellow writers Ella Drake, Leia Rice, Janet Mullany, and several others who wafted in and out, catching Amanda Berry and Jeannie Lin towards the end.

And so, dear reader, to bed.

Continued tomorrow!

Harlequin Party, RWA 2010

The dance floor was small, but lively!

Beverly Jenkins does air electric guitar.

My new cover flashed on the screen! Then I waited fifteen minutes, camera in hand, until it came up again, so I could take a picture.

More dancing.

RWA 2010 - Friday afternoon pics

Christopher Rowe, Diana Peterfreund, Gwenda Bond.

Vivian Arend and her hat.

Maria Snyder and Mindy Klasky.

Passionate Ink Party Picspam - RWA 2010

eHarlequin Pajama Party!

Leia Rice, Amanda Berry, Jeannie Lin.

RWA 2010 - The Swan & Dolphin

The conference hotel is very, very scenic.

RWA 2010, Wednesday, Literacy Autographing

Flying sure does make me tired. I spent most of yesterday feeling very slow and inefficient at everything, and eventually gave up and went back to my room and slept. I feel much better now!

Here are some pictures of folks that I took at the beginning and end of the signing, when I had a little time to wander around and see people myself.

Luckily, for the Literacy Autographing, all I had to do was sit down and talk to people. I can do that for a while even while tired. But the best part of the signing? Leia Rice had her e-reader, and I got to sign The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom and Their Lover with a stylus! I've signed my first e-book! Alas, the photo doesn't show my autograph very well. But I am still thrilled.

My editor stopped by and I got to chat with her; I also got to meet, for the first time, a representative from the German publisher of The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom and Their Lover in translation. It was lovely to be able to tell her in person how much I like the edition's dust jacket.

Also, I got to sit next to Beverly Jenkins! That was really cool.

Literacy Autographing at RWA 2010 Pics

Vivienne Westlake and Beverly Jenkins.

Madeline Hunter and Elizabeth Hoyt.

K.A. Mitchell.

Louise Edwards and and Liz Scheier.

Suzanne Enoch.

Meagan Hatfield.



Per RWA, "The 2010 Readers for Life Literacy Autographing was a huge success with approximately 3,600 attendees and 500 participating authors. This two-hour event raised $55,000 for literacy, with the proceeds going to ProLiteracy Worldwide, Orlando’s Adult Literacy League, and the Nashville Adult Literacy Council."

Win a Kindle2! at the Literacy Autographing, RWA 2010 National Conference

At the "Readers for Life" Literacy Autographing tonight (5:30 pm – 7:30 pm, Pacific Exhibit Hall at the Dolphin Hotel), I'm participating in a Signature Scavenger Hunt to give away a Kindle2. It's part of the festivities in Orlando, Florida for the 30th Annual Romance Writers of America Conference.

To enter, visit the Romance Diva authors listed below at the Literacy signing, obtain a Scavenger Hunt sheet from one of them, and acquire all the signatures. Leave the sheet with the last one you visit. You'll then be entered in a drawing for the Kindle2 at the end of the night. By participating in this giveaway, you give these authors permission to add your email to their mailing lists.

My list of participants is helpfully alphabetical, since the authors are seated in alphabetical order at the signing.

Gina Ardito
Amanda Berry
Teresa D'Amario
Sabrina Darby
Ella Drake
Louisa Edwards
Karen Erickson
Victoria Janssen
Natasha Moore
Kristen Painter
Sarah Parr
Kate Pearce
Robin L. Rotham
Liz Talley
Kimberley Troutte

I hope to see you there! I'll have a pile of author scavenger hunt sheets, some bookmarks for The Duke & The Pirate Queen, and possibly chocolate.

If you can't attend the conference, check out my blog post from yesterday which features information about the annual Romance Divas' Not-Going-To-Conference Conference.

I will hopefully be blogging from the conference, but likely on an irregular schedule.

RWA Nationals Tomorrow!

I'm leaving for RWA Nationals in Orlando tomorrow.


I'm bringing:

1. Business cards;

2. Bookmarks and postcards for The Duke and The Pirate Queen;

3. A list of cell phone numbers, and dates and times of parties and rendezvous;

4. A book to read (yes, really!); and

5. Fuchsia lipstick.

Also some clothing and toiletries, if you were worried.

Here are some a couple of events where you might be able to find me:
Wednesday, July 28, 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm, Pacific Exhibit Hall at the Dolphin Hotel: "Readers for Life" Literacy Autographing

Thursday, July 29, 10:00 pm – 1:00 am, Oceanic 1: The eHarlequin Pajama Party.

ALSO:



Not forking out the dough for the RWA Conference this year, with evening wear, suits, high heels and whatever "business casual" means?

Not to worry! Romance Divas is hosting the

Not Going to Conference Conference...

The Conference You Don't Have to Get Out of Bed For!

From July 28-31, come hang out with some terrific, savvy authors -- and you don't even have to brush your teeth (although, seriously, good dental hygiene gets you extra points.)

We'll be hosting panels on:

--The Power of Three: A crit group tell-all (Paranormal): Crystal Jordan& Patti O'Shea & Dayna Hart/Rowan Larke.

--The Lolitas of Steamed! Present Writing the Steampunk Romance -more than leather corsets and brass goggles! Marie-Claude Bourque & Theresa Meyers.

--Whips, Chains, Slings, Oh My: It Really Isn’t About the Toys (BDSM Erotica): James Buchanan & Joey Hill.

--The Great Big YA Panel: Rhonda Stapleton & Shannon Delany & Kiersten White & Carrie Ryan & Linda Gerber & Saundra Mitchell & Lara Zielin & Brenna Yovanoff.

Register for free at Romance Divas, then come join us on the forums for the discussions, as well as some terrific prizes, including critiques of synopses, chapters, and proposals; books both print and electronic; design services; a $25 Barnes and Noble gift card; and more.

Readercon Linkgasm

For those who are interested, I've been collecting some links to reports on Readercon, which took place July 8-11, 2010. These are in no particular order, but grouped by topic. There are lots more than this. I recommend checking out Icerocket's Blog Search if you want more and have a few days to read.

General Reports and Comments

First, My summary report.

Rose Fox's report. Gwynne Garfinkle on her first Readerson; and reports from Barbara Krasnoff and Inanna Arthen and K.A. Laity and Matthew Kressel.

Greer Gilman on some joys of Readercon, and Michael Swanwick shares the coolest thing he saw at Readercon.

The best panel quotes from Readercon, and more quotes, collected by Caitlín R. Kiernan. Beth Bernobich offers possibly the best quote of the con when she reports on "The Closet Door Dilated" panel.

Reports on Specific Panels and Talks

Andrea Hairston on "Sexuality and Gender in Contemporary F&SF."

Kate Nepveu reports on "Fanfic as Criticism".

Andrew Liptak on "New England, At Home to the Unheimlich” panel.

Cecilia Tan's report on Alternatives to the Pay Per Copy System of Author Compensation.

Nora Jemisin on Brainstorming Immersive Inclusive Worlds.

Kestrell Verlager posted her talk on "What Writers Still Get Wrong About Blindness" in three parts as well as some panel notes.

Critic Graham Sleight's talk on And so.... "... it's remarkable that, in certain contexts, we put discrete entities like shots in a movie together into narrative. I think it's even more interesting when you consider sentences in a prose narrative."

Stacey Mason on the Non-Western Fantasy panel.

DXMachina reports on a number of panels.

Report on the Shirley Jackson Awards for horror.

Photographs

Ellen Datlow's photographs and Scott Edelman's photographs and Tempest Bradford's photos of attendees making sad faces.

I'm a guest later this week at the Novelists, Inc. blog. I'll have a direct link on Friday the 23rd, the date of the post.

Readercon 2010

I have a new free read posted on my website, in PDF format: Camille, Henri, Maxime, an erotic outtake from The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom & Their Lover. It was removed from the original submitted manuscript for pacing reasons. If you've ever heard me say, "I removed the sodomy for pacing reasons," this is the scene to which I was referring. It's an odd feeling for me to read over it now, particularly since I just finished an entire book with Maxime as the hero. The Duke & the Pirate Queen isn't the same kind of novel at all, despite being set in the same world. Or maybe it is. I don't know. Maybe I'll know once I have some distance from it.

Otherwise, today I'm attending Readercon, the conference on imaginative literature, twenty-first edition, and taking part in a number of panels, discussions, and the like.

My schedule is here.

You can read the panel descriptions here.

Recent Readercons past, the short version:

2009: No heat wave, no breakdowns, no tow truck, no last-minute boatlike rental car, no desperate attempts to keep driver awake! The drive was...uneventful. Shocking.

2008: Tom Purdom told me of the Age of Pulp, "when writers were iron and stories were wooden." Geoff Ryman pushed our luggage trolley. Andy Duncan signed my arm. Ellen Kushner ate my french fries.

2007: No one ever believes that Laura Kinsale's plots are real.

Readercon 2010 Schedule

This is what I'll be doing while everyone else is at RomCon! I'll be at Readercon 2010 this weekend. For the special events, I'll be participating in the Meet the Pro(se) party and the marathon reading of Theodore Sturgeon stories.

Here's my panel and talk schedule:

Axes of Identity in Speculative Fiction
Friday 5 pm, ME/CT
Andrea Hairston, Victoria Janssen (L.), N.K. Jemisin, Vandana Singh, Kestrell Verlager
"[H]ow can you talk about one structural barrier without at least mentioning how… barriers for others are advantages for you? ... We all have races and genders and class levels and levels of ability. All of our identities contribute to our positions in society...this is not a radical notion." — Thea Lim, commenting on Newsweek's failure to mention race in a retrospective article about feminism. Writers like Nalo Hopkinson in The Salt Roads and Larissa Lai in When Fox Is a Thousand refuse to elide these intersections, presenting queer characters of color front and center to their stories. Speculative fiction also offers opportunities to create new axes of identity, like those experienced by the dadalocked narrator of Nnedi Okorafor's Zahrah the Windseeker or the information-immune protagonist of Geoff Ryman's The Child Garden. What other works of imaginative literature have portrayed or explored the complexity of social standing generated by our multiple axes of identity? What does an awareness of these intersectionalities add to both the text and our understanding of it?

The New YA Golden Age
Friday, 7:30 pm, Salon G
Paolo Bacigalupi, Judith Berman, Victoria Janssen (L), Alaya Dawn Johnson, Konrad Walewski
In her intellectual epic The Children's Book (2009), A.S. Byatt interprets the "Golden Age of Children's Literature" — including such authors as Rudyard Kipling, Kenneth Graham, J.M. Barrie, E. Nesbit, and H.G. Wells — as a direct outgrowth of the Edwardian obsession with childhood, itself a kind of national nostalgic regression. "The Edwardians knew they came after something...There were so many things they wanted to go back to, to retrieve, to reinhabit." At Readercon 18, we declared, "This is a golden age for young adult speculative fiction." If this statement still holds true, what are the driving forces behind our present high-water mark? Environmental factors, market forces, changes in categorization — or what are they putting in the zeitgeist these days? This time around, are we looking backward or forward?

Bookaholics Anonymous
Friday, 9:00 pm, RI
Victoria Janssen et al.
A great way for folks attending their first Readercon to meet some of the regulars and get into the spirit of the weekend.

The Career of Nalo Hopkinson
Saturday, 11:00 am, Salon G
Elizabeth Bear, Gemma Files, Andrea Hairston, Victoria Janssen, Gary K. Wolfe (L)

Fanfic as Criticism (Only More Fun)
Saturday, 12:00 pm, Salon F
Victoria Janssen (L), Alaya Dawn Johnson, Erin Kissane, Kenneth Schneyer, Cecilia Tan
Fanfiction is being produced online at a rate of millions of words per month. Fanfiction can expand on a shorter work, change a work's themes, or even attempt to "fix" things the author is felt to have done "wrong" (e.g., provide a backstory to explain otherwise undermotivated behavior). These dynamics are not unheard of outside of Internet fandom communities — Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway attempts to "fix" James Joyce's Ulysses (which itself retells Homer's Odyssey). In what ways can fanfiction be a valuable part of the criticism of a text? Can it appeal as criticism to readers outside the fanfiction community? If so, how can they find the most interesting works?

Great War Geeks Unite
Saturday, 2 pm, ME/CT
Victoria Janssen
Have you written a story or novel set during World War One? Read fiction of the period, or set in the period? Do you have a love for trench warfare, poison gas, and puttees that passeth all understanding? Then this is the discussion group for you to geek out with. What is the imaginary speculative WWI novel you'd most love to read?

Kaffeeklatsch, Victoria Janssen
Saturday, 3 pm, Vineyard Room

Theodore Sturgeon Marathon Short Story Reading
Sunday, 10:00 AM, Room 730
Victoria Janssen reads "Scars" and "Blue Butter"

Not Quite the Punctuation Panel
Sunday, 11:00 AM, ME/CT
John Crowley, Samuel R. Delany, Ron Drummond (L), Victoria Janssen, Barry Malzberg
We think of an author's style as being about vocabulary and word choice, but sentence structure can be equally important. Barry N. Malzberg and Alan Garner are examples of writers whose unique, fresh, and immediately identifiable styles are largely the product of the rhythms of their characteristically structured sentences. Try using a comma in place of a semicolon, you immediately sound like John Crowley. We're not confident that the possessors of such prose styles can have much to say about how they do what they do, so we'll discuss this from the point of view of readers. Our panelists have brought examples of writers who fit this description for our delectation and analysis.

Find out more about my fellow program participants here.