Whoever came up with the saying "sex sells" obviously hadn't tried to promote a collection of gay erotic fiction. I've been writing and publishing erotica for nearly 20 years. For most of that time it was with the backing of a mainstream publisher. Nothing prepared me for the steep, up hill slog of trying to promote an independent e-book. I actually thought I was well prepared for the task; I knew my market and how I wanted to get the word out to them; I had promotion material prepared, advertising artwork and freebies to give away. That seems somewhat naive now. What I wasn't prepared for was the utter negativity from webmasters and forum readers, and reviewers with a closed door policy to self publications. I wasn't trying to use a scatter gun approach with the sites I approached, they were all erotic story based websites, blogs and forums. Neither was I spaming the sites with unwanted ads. In every case I've obeyed forum rules and approached webmasters direct.
Publicising an erotic book isn't easy. Most of the avenues available to independent authors - local press, radio etc - are understandably out of the question. Is there a right way to do it? I'll keep trying and let you know.
In the meantime I'm almost finished the final stages of proof reading for my second collection Body Language, due for publication in February 2012. Maybe two books will be easier to publicise than one.
Look out for the next part of my interview with Kevin Killian this weekend.
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