Writers’ Resources
This page is divided into sections focused on resources for both erotica authors and authors in general.
- Marketing & Promotional Services — Places you can advertise and promote your book that are friendly to erotica and erotic romance
- Author Resources: Sites — Websites that offer relevant info for erotica writers
- Author Resources: Books — Books & websites that offer relevant info for erotica writers
- Author Resources: Dictionaries — Online dictionaries and grammar tips for erotica authors
- Book Cover Designs: List of book cover artists
- Book Review Sites: List of websites that do book reviews on erotica and erotic romance
- Copyright Issues: Valuable information on copyright concerns and plagiarism for all writers
Marketing & Promotional Services
Erotica Readers & Writers Association (ERWA) — Variety of promotional opportunities for authors, publishers, and retailers. Founded in 1996, the Erotica Readers & Writers Association has been commended by Playboy, ELLE magazine, AVN online magazine, Writer’s Digest, MSNBC online, and recommended in a host of books and articles as the premier website for people interested in erotica and adult products. ERWA’s high-profile ensures successful marketing at affordable prices. Contact Selena
Excite Spice — Promotes erotica on a daily basis. 8000+ subscribers, reasonable prices.
Excite Steam — Promotes romance and erotic romance three times a week, reasonable prices.
Authors Resources: Sites
A website for writers called Writing Tips Oasis created a massive guide to help
writers write their first novel: http://writingtipsoasis.com/a-beginners-guide-to-writing-a-novel/.
Erotic Authors Guild — The Erotic Authors Guild represents the interests of the erotic writing community as a whole. Our purpose is to address issues common and unique to our writing genre, and to provide a unified voice for erotic authors.
Rights: What They Mean and Why They’re Important: “It’s important to understand what rights you’re selling or licensing away, not only to protect your interests, but to keep you out of legal hot water. Understanding rights can also help you make more money on a piece by — legally — reselling it again and again.”
WritersWeekly.com is one of the longest running sites on freelance writing, published continuously since 1997. Keep in mind that Writers Weekly is owned by Booklocker.com, Inc. so some articles may be slanted towards the owners. Of particular interest is Writer’s Weekly Warning Report featuring weekly reports about shoddy publishers, scams, and unfair contract terms.
Preditors & Editors — A guide to publishers and writing services for serious writers. Their sole purpose is to provide writers with information and contacts for the purpose of seeking publication of their work. There’s an enormous amount of important information on this site, including lists of agents, publishers and editors to avoid. Highly recommended!
National Writers Union — The union for freelance writers working in U.S. markets. Offering include grievance resolution, industry campaigns, contract advice, health & dental plans, member education, job banks, networking, social events, and much more. Membership dues are based on your annual writing income.
EPIC, the Electronically Published Internet Connection, is a professional organization for published and contracted e-book and print author. EPIC offers an extensive knowledge base that includes contract information, hints, guidance, and provides networking opportunities for exchange of information about promotion and market growth. Authors must qualify for membership, and pay annual dues.
Author Resources: Books Just For Erotica and Erotic Romance Authors
The SEXasaurus: Sexy Words for Writers — A non-traditional thesaurus geared toward the writer of romance and erotic fiction, filled with all the words you need for your sexy scenes. Beautifully illustrated with traditional romantic scenes, this reference book is all the inspiration you’ll ever want!
Naughty Words for Nice Writers: A Sexual and Spanking Thesaurus — If you’ve struggled to find the right tone for your romantic sex scene, stared at the computer for 15 minutes trying to come up with the perfect verb, become stymied because some terms are too crude while others are too flowery, or found yourself reusing the same words over and over, Naughty Words for Nice Writers, A Sexual and Spanking Thesaurus can help you break through those barriers.
How to Write Erotic Fiction and Sex Scenes: This book demonstrates some of the most effective ways that convincing sex scenes can be portrayed on the page. Using examples from a broad range of writers, and containing exercises that have been tested successfully in workshops and classrooms throughout the country, this is an indispensable guide for anyone wanting to include compelling, well-crafted and saleable sex scenes within their fiction.
How To Write Hot Sex: Tips from Multi-Published Erotic Romance Authors features everything you need to know about adding sizzling sexual tension, scorching sex scenes, and emotional impact to your romance writing in twelve info-packed essays from bestselling and multi-published authors — so you can get published and get paid.
Thinking Like a Romance Writer: A romance writing thesaurus unlike anything ever published. This reference book is filled to the brim with words and phrases. Using this book you will be able to describe intimate encounters of every kind without breaking a sweat. 8,500 words and phrases sorted into 37 categories; thousands of words you can use to describe each part of the body; words that describe each of the five senses; taste, touch, sight, sound, smell; words to describe feelings and emotions; words that describe facial expressions; hundreds of words to describe intimacy.
How to Write and Sell Gay Erotica: In this how-to ebook, Amazon bestselling author Nathan J Morissey spills his secrets on how to write good gay erotica and sell it too. Man Oh Man Writing Quality M/M Erotic Fiction — Everything in Man, Oh Man is geared to the M/M market and the M/M writer, to you and the genre that you love, whether you’re an aspiring writer or you’re already published.
In Violation: An Erotic Author’s Guide to Navigating Kindle Direct Publishing’s Content Guidelines — Amazon’s Content Guidelines could MAKE or BREAK your erotica-writing career. Learn the RULES TODAY! Safeguard your writing career, with this exclusive guide to what IS and ISN’T allowed on Amazon.
Author Resources: Dictionaries, Thesauri, & Grammar Guides
WordWeb is a one-click thesaurus and dictionary for Windows that can look up words in almost any program. It works off-line, but can also look up words in web references such as the Wikipedia encyclopedia. There’s a free version and a Pro version. Highly recommended.
Urban Dictionary is an excellent slang dictionary constantly updated by users.
Your Dictionary is a free dictionary with definitions, thesaurus entries, spelling, pronunciation, and etymology results for your word. Includes links to language and research tools.
OneLook’s Reverse Dictionary lets you describe a concept resulting in a useful list of related terms with the best matches shown first.
The Free Dictionary is a comprehensive resource including dictionaries, encyclopedia and thesaurus. Includes fun facts, word games, articles and more.
Free Thesaurus for a no frills but very effect thesaurus/synonyms tool.
The Elements of Style is the online reproduction of the classic reference book, The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. — a must have bookmark for all writers.
Guide to Grammar and Writing is an easy to use comprehensive guide maintained by Professor of English Charles Darling for English courses at Capital Community College and for the general online public.
The Dialectizer turn any text into dialect, including redneck, jive, pig Latin, cockney, Elmur Fudd and the Swedish Chef. Useful and lots of fun.
Book Cover Designs
- April Martinez: Fantastic Art & Graphic Design
- Book Cover Express: book cover design services
- Designs by Starla Huchton
Book Review Sites/Blogs
- Coffee Time Romance and More: Review submissions including erotica
- Dear Author: A romance review blog for readers by readers
- Erotica For The Big Brain: Blogger who reviews short digital works
- Erotica Revealed: Review site edited by our very own D.L. King
- Kirsten’s BDSM Book Reviews: Reviews for S&M and D/s
- Long and Short Reviews: For publishers & well published authors
- Sand in My Shoes Reviews: Reviews genre fiction
- Smart Bitches Trashy Books: Bitchy, snarky, and way cool reviews
Copyright Issues
Rights: What They Mean and Why They’re Important This is an excellent, easy to understand definition of various rights, and why it’s important to understand what rights you’re selling.
U.S. Copyright Office provides a wealth of information about copyright law, including guidance on how to obtain a copyright registration, current regulations, links to outside copyright resources, and much more.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA): A comprehensive explanation of the United States copyright law (DMCA), that “criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works.” This is an important document, read it!
The ‘Fair Use’ Rule: An discussion of when use of copyrighted material is acceptable. Sooner or later, almost all writers quote or closely paraphrase what others have written. This article will help writers navigate Fair Use correctly. Bookmark the URL, you will refer to it often!
10 Big Myths about Copyright Explained What are you allowed to do with someone else’s copyrighted work? 10 Big Myths FAQ attempts to answer common myths about copyright seen on the Net.
Copyright Confusion: This excellent article written by Neil Wilkinson (a practicing attorney, and adjunct professor of Intellectual Property Law at the KSU Michael Coles School of Business) is feature on the WritersWeekly.com website.
Plagiarism and You — Blog post about plagiarism — what it is, how to spot it, and what to do about it.