{"id":6644,"date":"2016-02-21T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-21T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crocolessons.com\/erwa\/muse-versus-marke\/"},"modified":"2016-02-21T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-02-21T08:00:00","slug":"muse-versus-marke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/21\/muse-versus-marke\/","title":{"rendered":"Muse versus Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/a><\/p>\n

\nBy Lisabet Sarai<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nA few nights ago I woke from a vivid dream with an idea for a new story. Consumed with excitement, I grabbed the notebook I keep on the shelf in my headboard and scribbled down a synopsis, in the dark. When the next day dawned, I was delighted to find that (a) I could actually read my notes, and (b) the story premise still struck me as really promising.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nHaving just released a novel, I\u2019ve been wondering what project I should tackle next. This new concept\u2014a scifi tale that resonates with a lot of contemporary issues\u2014really got my mental wheels turning. Though the dream was little more than a single scene, with hints of a back story, I could see how to expand it, and how to focus its harrowing emotional intensity. Tragically romantic\u2014intellectually challenging\u2014distinctly different\u2014the idea really sank its claws into my psyche.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nThen I realized that although what I\u2019d envisioned was a love story, it definitely did not have a happy ending. So if I wrote and published it, I couldn\u2019t sell it as romance. And at this point in my publishing carreer, romance is what I know how to promote. The readers on my 300-odd mailing list, the daily visitors to my blog, the people who enter all my giveaways, are readers of romance. They crave an ending where the characters ultimately get what they want, not a finale where the hero dies. Yet that\u2019s the natural way my dream would play out, if I spun a story from it. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nCould I make it into a romance with a HEA? Probably, though finding a believable solution to the hero\u2019s impending demise would take significant creativity. As a romance, I suspect this would sell, at least among the readers who have come to appreciate my unconventional approach to romance tropes. Did I want<\/em> to turn this notion into a happily ending tale, though? Wasn\u2019t that a betrayal of my midnight vision? <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nI could always keep the original ending and market the book as erotica, of course. Although the thematic core of the tale is not primarily about sex, I expect it to contain a significant amount of carnal activity, since the hero is a prostitute. Even erotica readers tend to shy away from dark endings, though. They might not require the characters to make a commitment, but they like it when everyone ends up satisfied. Heartbreak, injustice, terror\u2014these aren\u2019t favorite topics in erotica.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nIn any case, I don\u2019t know how to market erotica these days, at least not stuff that would probably be more literary than smutty. Blue Moon is gone. Cleis (and just about everyone else) wants romance. In the old days, Circlet would have been the perfect publisher for this tale. But even Circlet seems to have largely climbed on the romance bandwagon. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nWhat about turning the dream into mainstream fiction? Tragic endings are always welcome in literature. Or genre science fiction? But then what would I do about the sex? Play it down? Leave it out? I\u2019d probably need to create a new pseudonym, too, to avoid being tarred with the opprobrium of also writing \u201cporn\u201d. I\u2019d be starting from scratch, in an environment about which I know very little, at least as an author. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nLet me be clear. I don\u2019t make my living from my writing. Heaven forbid. I don\u2019t write primarily for the money. On the other hand, I have very limited time to write, so I try to produce books that I think people will actually read. That\u2019s the payoff, for me\u2014emails like the one I received a few weeks ago, from a guy who absolutely loved Rajasthani Moon<\/em>, or gushing reviews like I\u2019ve been getting for The Gazillionaire and the Virgin<\/em>. I write to be read. So I don\u2019t want to put effort into creating something that will go over like a lead balloon. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nIt\u2019s a dilemma. Do I follow my muse down a barely-trodden path, or divert her onto a more well-traveled highway? I go back and forth about this. Is it principled or foolish to stick to my original notions? Or maybe a bit of both?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nA lot of authors read this blog, so I\u2019ll ask: what would you do? Which would you choose, the muse or the market?<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lisabet Sarai A few nights ago I woke from a vivid dream with an idea for a new story. Consumed with excitement, I grabbed the notebook I keep on the shelf in my headboard and scribbled down a synopsis, in the dark. When the next day dawned, I was delighted to find that (a) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1347,1367,2228,2229],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6644"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erotica-readers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}