Splinters

Independent UK publisher Serpent's Tail are moving into erotica as one of the ways to finance their publication of experimental fiction [found via The Cusp Of Something]. In a fascinating interview with Bloomberg, ST supremo Pete Ayrton reveals that sales of modern erotic tales like The Sexual Life of Catherine M. and One Hundred Strokes Of The Brush Before Bed bring in a third of the company's revenue. It's just like Grove Press all over again!

Here's an excerpt from the Bloomberg interview:

Nayeri: How much of your annual sales come from these titles?

Ayrton: The first year that we published ``Catherine M.,'' it probably accounted for a third of our turnover, as did ``One Hundred Strokes of the Brush.'' These books go into the erotica section of bookstores and then just sell quite regularly.

Nayeri: So they have a long shelf life?

Ayrton: Yeah. Also, it's a fairly specific genre. People who want those kinds of books just go to the erotic section and pick something.

Nayeri: Why didn't anyone do highbrow erotica before now?

Ayrton: There's a strong high-versus-low culture division. A lot of fiction editors in literary imprints would see these books as lowbrow. We have no problem with lowbrow. The other thing is, a lot of women editors turned it down. They probably couldn't identify with the narrator.

Nayeri: That makes sense.

Ayrton: It doesn't, really. You can see how it happens. But as an editor, it's not your job to only publish books with narrators you're sympathetic to. If you publish ``The Sexual Life of Catherine M.,'' it's not as if you're saying that this is the way people should live their lives. It's one person's experience and, to that extent, can be of interest.

This kind of promiscuousness is not something that women are meant to be into. Obviously, that's one of the reasons for the great popularity of ``Catherine M.'' At the readings, it's almost always women -- young women -- who can or do relate to her complete separation between love and sex.

Technology is changing things. It was interesting, reading ``One Hundred Strokes of the Brush,'' how it's inconceivable without the Internet that this would happen. In a little village in Sicily, which is where she grew up, she would go online and say, ``I'm ready and waiting. Anyone in the Catania district?'' And then Maurizio would flash up saying, ``Meet me at the cathedral in 20 minutes.'' All of this kind of stuff couldn't have happened without the Internet.

More on erotica:
Spike | Google | Amazon UK | Amazon US | Wikipedia
Open Directory | Technorati: erotica