It has occurred to me that I'm currently spending a lot more time writing smut than I am working on my novel. Clearly I am a poor and deprived author that I should swap doing one thing I love for...well, another.
But there's sort of a reason behind it. I'm trying to hammer out a lot of practice with erotica, mostly because I want to start seeing if I can flog some e-book variants of the damned things. I've got a ton of stuff that'd probably be more than suitable for the purpose given a thorough scrubbing and editing.
Well, what's holding me back from doing it?
Well! There's a couple of things. Firstly, there's the need for eye-catching artwork to serve as a cover and to seize attention when people are browsing through the reams of stuff out there. That costs money, and money I don't have. Worse still, if the stories don't sell, then I'm operating at a loss...which is kinda the opposite of what I want!
I also have issues with the art that I like. I'm really not a fan of 'cartoony' (Duh, see Mariya, Olesya and Vestae over there > ), which totally prices me out of the deal! Plus added to that is the possibility of the artist wanting royalties. Gah, I don't get all that stuff!
This of course leads into the second, probably larger, problem. I'm a natural born coward! The whole process if hugely intimidating to me. What if I'm not good enough? What if I don't sell? What do I do about pricing? What if I somehow fuck up?! I'm legendarily self-critical and have no real grasp of how good I am at this stuff or not. Thankfully I guess that the bar is set pretty low after shit like 50 Shades of Grey
Hence the practice!
Will I build up enough confidence to get on with it? Who knows!
Phill
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