And I thought my stuff was schlocky

[elfs]

I found a romance publisher I might entertain, and they actually have a print line along with their e-book line, but, good grief, just titles alone are enough to make me wince. And they have a science fiction section.

I mean, c'mon, how can you turn down titles like Adam 483: Man or Machine, or My Rebel, My Slave, or Zylar's Moons: Zylar's Captive?

Comments

[fallenpegasus]

Wow, the covers themselves are good for some laughs.

[rkda.livejournal.com]

drizzle seems to be slow again. The last update on your home page is "Your my first" from Sunday, March 6, 2005 7:42pm.

[srmalloy.livejournal.com]

I wonder if you'd find the same stories in other categories -- same plot, same dialog, but with all the nouns replaced (aren't word processors fun?)...

[funos.livejournal.com]

Hm. I note that one of the books has the same title as the company.
Also, how many of the author names you bet are noms de plume?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

There's a series: Ellora's Cavemen. And there's even a calendar of cover art from the series. I imagine there are quite a few noms on there. On the other hand, I've met two authors who have work on there, so I know there's more than one producer there.

I mean, come on, some of this stuff is fun. And it's cheap, harmless fun. It doesn't even kill trees.

[glendower.livejournal.com]

http://shopping.yahoo.com/search;_ylc=X3oDMTFlZG1oNjhqBF9TAzk2MDc5MjYwBGsDbmFydXRvIGhlYWRiYW5kBHNlYwNrYgRzbGsDdGl0bGU-?p=naruto+headband
this is the "relevant ad" I get when I follow those links. That says a lot.

Ok..guilty I am..

[(Anonymous)]

I have bought some books from this company before. IMHO, I have found that the writing quality seems to have gone down in the past year or so and some of their writers have jumped ship to other presses (such as Changeling Press). I tend to stay away from the short story/novellas and the holiday themed stories on the site as I have found that they don't seem to have a good plot or believable characters. (It takes a fairly good writer to be able to get a coherent plot and believeable characters in a short story.)
-chocaholicdc

Re: Ok..guilty I am..

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I bought one, Fur For All, and... it's right up there with BloodRayne as a guilty pleasure. Oh, it's cheesy, and oh, she has adjective abuse, but oh, it's hot too. Hot in wonderful ways. I don't object.

Ellora's Cave

[genericjoe.livejournal.com]

As a bit of research, I bought a couple of the ebooks from here, and the writing quality was ok. I really didn't/don't know how to tell who the 'hot' authors are there, so I'm not sure if I got them (althought the authors I purchased had more than 3 or so book on the site).

The fantasy story I purchased was slightly higher in quality compared to the stories I've read on alt.sex.stories.moderated. The BDSM-related one had well done sex scenes but was just of the scene followed by scene followed by scene type, again, in line with the quality from assm (I was somewhat dissatisfied with the bdsm, but since that's what I write, maybe I'm more critical).

According to Writer's Market, they accept between 1/3 and 2/3 of all the manuscripts submitted (I'm not sure of these statistics exactly, but the rate is much higher than most other publishers) This being the advantage of 3d-rendered cover art and e-books, I'd imagine. The author also gets a healthy chuck of the gross sales, and they sell, according to their site, 30,000 e-books a month.

I'm writing an erotic novel anyway, there's no reason not to look at them, and see what it is. A nom de plume, sure, although I have published bdsm under my real name, just not on the 'net.