Back on Valentine's Day (one week ago today), contributing writer Juli Monroe put together a just-for-fun survey that we hoped would tell us at least a little bit about the erotica e-reading habits of our audience. And the results are in! * * * Just under 40 percent of the survey's respondents (there were 31 in total) fessed up to buying blue lit in its electronic version as a way to hide their reading habits from others. This question's solitary "other" respondent said, "No, but I have downloaded free samples or free books." * * * Again, more "no" responses than "yes" for question number...

It’s Valentine’s Day, and what better day to talk about e-books and romance? Or to be more specific, e-books and erotica. E-books have been very good for the erotica genre. Even the Wall Street Journal thinks so. Why? Because women can now read books they’d otherwise be ashamed to be seen reading in public. No more blushing! After all, would you want your seatmate on the subway to know you were reading Fifty Shades of Grey? I didn’t think so. Erotica and digital reading have had other unique pairings lately. Who would have thought, for instance, that e-books (especially erotica books) could have...

Paul forwarded to me an email from Michael O’Neil from the National Coalition Against Censorship, with a press release noting that the NCAC and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) are mobilizing to put pressure on PayPal to reverse its requirement that online bookshops stop carrying certain kinds of erotica. Scribd carries a copy of the open letter the organizations sent to PayPal. The press release says: The ABFFE and NCAC letter notes that PayPal’s policy has the potential to suppress important literary works.  “Incest, rape and bestiality have been depicted in world...

Remember when Amazon started removing various kinds of erotica from its store? It’s happening again, this time with a number of independent e-publishing sites such as All Romance and Smashwords. Today, Nate Hoffelder called attention to an e-mail from Mark Coker of Smashwords to authors who publish through the platform. Coker reported that PayPal had issued Smashwords an ultimatum regarding certain categories of erotica published through the site. If books in these categories were not removed, PayPal would stop doing business with the site. Because Smashwords relies so heavily on PayPal as a payment processor, the site is...

An interesting thing about the latest post from publishing-industry observer Mike Shatzkin, highlighting what he feels were the most important points from the Digital Book World conference he helped run: it largely focuses on DRM. Aside from Matteo Berlucchi’s call for publishers to drop DRM (which I covered here and here), Shatzkin also brings up a point about the relationship of DRM to sales at romance e-bookseller All Romance Ebooks. Shatzkin notes three interesting statistics that came up in All Romance’s presentation at DBW: Only 20% of All Romance’s readers strongly resist e-books with DRM....

It was only a matter of time until mainstream journalists noticed. Slate has a probably-not-completely-safe-for-work piece that looks at the rise in popularity of erotica and pornography delivered by e-book reader. Although women-oriented romance novels have been e-book bestsellers since well before most people even cared about e-books, the article looks at what might be a new breed: racy e-books aimed at men. Though I won’t paste in the description, out of deference to people who may be reading this at work, a novel called Office Slave is tailor-made to appeal to the fantasies of a primarily masculine...

Dear Author is reporting that this app for the romance reader is now available. It's for the reader looking for the latest reviews, content and free romance reads. Here's what the site says: The app is a first for romance readers and romance bloggers, and is a joint venture of Smart Bitches Trashy Books and Dear Author. The app features the most recent reviews from both sites, as well as a feed of the full content. Best of all, it includes free reads from some of the best writers in romance fiction. We’ll be kicking off our free reads section...

Last November we reported on a new audiobook romance publisher - AudioLark which was was about to get started. Now i've got an email from Jennifer Feddersen telling me that they are up and running with 10 titles for sale and they are adding 2 to 3 new romance audiobooks per week. Jennifer says that their production schedule is booked for the next 6 months and that they have agreements in place with The Wild Rose Press and Changeling Press, as well as contracts directly with authors. They also seem to have a pretty generous affiliate program, which pays 30%...

eHarlequin is having a 14% off sale today and ending at 11:59pm tomorrow. In addition if you buy any two titles you'll get Susan Stephens' Sheikh Boss, Hot Desert Nights for free. According to the site, in 60 years of publishing they have sold 5.8 billion books with 34,000 different titles. Wow! (via Smart Bitches)...

The Romance Writers of America are holding their annual conference in Washington, D.C. next week on June 15 to 17. Along with that Booksquare (which has one of the best logos on the net) has set up their own Rogue Digital Conference on July 16. Here are the details. It looks pretty interesting: Kassia Krozser of Booksquare.com, a frequent speaker on the publishing circuit and co-founder of a new romance epublisher, Quartet Press, will start us off by focusing on digital issues, particularly the contrasts between traditional print publishers and digital publishers. She will be highlighting the efficiencies...

I’ve never understood the disdain with which the romance novel is treated. It seems to me that this is nothing but pure sexism.  After all, the James Bond series of books is well regarded and even spawns movies and  the Bond gendre is simply the male version of romance books.  But Bond is literature of course!   Well there’s going to be a conference on these issues soon in Princeton on April 23-24.  Thank to Dear Author for the link. This two-day symposium will be the first national conference to focus on the multiple ways that...