Top Ten Tips: How Not To Sell Erotica

I know most of you are not trying to sell erotica or at least, you don’t seem to be trying to sell erotica to me.

I’m grateful for this.

However, at least one person in my life apparently needs this advice and so, in the spirit of goodwill, I will share it with all of you. Just in case.

1. Don’t use your erotic masterpiece as an excuse to mass-mail your friends repeatedly. A single email explaining your project and why you would like support is fine. Mailing everyone in your address book to tell them that you are going to mail the details next week is annoying. Three mails leading up to the actual release smacks of desperation. Any more than that gets you added to the spam list.

2. Please don’t presume to tell me whether I would like the erotica you wrote. This isn’t a conversation that I’m happy to have unless we have been intimate.

3. Designing the print book for one-handed reason is a cute selling point. You really do not need to tell me why I would want this feature. Please, let’s just shy away from the details.

4. I know that many erotica authors have successfully used sexy-talk as a means of selling their books. However, that approach usually requires the author to present herself as a fantasy figure. You, on the other hand, used to sit next to me in Science class. We took sex-ed together in 1981 and now you are posting porn on my Facebook wall.

5. Your personal experience with written porn and erotica does not influence my purchase decision. I am already deeply uncomfortable with your telling me how aroused I will be when I read them. I super-duper don’t need you to tell me how aroused you were when you were writing them.

6. It is hard not to cringe at your porny taglines that lead into story of how you had to tell your Great Aunt Jacqueline about your project because she saw you spamming posting to Facebook. These are great backroom stories that I would love to laugh over. They shouldn’t be a part of your sales pitch and honestly, I really don’t want to even consider your question as to whether Great Aunt Jacqueline was aroused. This shouldn’t be a part of your sales pitch.

7. Publishing your cover art to Instagram seems like a cool marketing opportunity but tagging it with #swinging just to find out that the rest of the hashtag is actually kids on swings is really cringeworthy. Again: not good for sales.

8. A new update every time that you can refer to the number 69 is not making me feel more confident about your erotica-writing abilities.

9. Asking for support is fine. We are your friends. We like you! But when Susie commented that she enjoyed reading erotica without, well, doing anything more with it, you told her that she was doing it wrong. We shouldn’t even be HAVING this conversation, let alone on your Facebook wall. And was that your great aunt who liked Susie’s comment?

10. Seriously, I love the fact that you write erotica. I want to support you. I just really and truly do not want to hear about your masturbation techniques and especially not your advice as to what I should do with your book. I… Look. You aren’t my type. It’s not you, it’s me. I’m sorry.

And that, dear friend, is why I’m not buying your book. A little less sexually explicit marketing and a little more discretion, and I probably would have bought the one-handed version just for laughs. Now I’m afraid it will put me off sexual fantasy for life.

The inexplicable photograph entitled “sex toy with papaya and orange and cinnamon” is by Dainis Graveris