It's certainly not news that the rising tide of books in the so-called "mommy porn" genre are driving sales of e-books like nothing else that has come before them. But a recent article in Ireland's Belfast Telegraph explains that erotic fiction is resulting in many more e-book library loans, too. In one Irish community, according to the article, e-book library loans rose "from 16,231 in 2011 to 19,847 in 2012." And what was the area's most popular library e-book in 2012? A steamy Harlequin romance by India Grey, titled At The Argentinean Billionaire's Bidding. Another Harelquin, Kate Walker's Bedded by the Greek Billionaire, was the second most-borrowed...

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...

Reporting from this year's Frankfurt Book Fair, AFP's Frederic Happe filed an amusing feature over the weekend about the somewhat recent—and astonishingly quick—rise of e-books with fictional erotic themes. It doesn't exactly take a publishing futurist, of course, to understand why erotic e-books have attained such popularity, and as far as I can tell, there are really only two main factors in play here: 1. The breakaway success of EL James' Fifty Shades trilogy has resulted in untold numbers of copycat attempts. To get a sense of just have prevalent erotica has lately become in the publishing industry, check out this AP...

The UK’s Daily Mail surveyed 1,863 UK readers on their e-book reading habits and determined that 34% of the readers surveyed admitted to using e-readers to conceal that they were reading erotic literature, 57% to hide reading children’s books such as Harry Potter, and 26% to hide their science fiction habit. (Science fiction is the Rodney Dangerfield of literary genres—it gets no respect, sometimes even from its own fans.) All in all, counting overlap in categories, 58% of the readers admitted using the device to “hide” reading something they wouldn’t want others to see them with. So much...

Fast Company has an interview with Mark Coker of Smashwords in which he discusses the recent moves by PayPal to force removal from sale of certain categories of erotica, and how public pressure from writers, readers, the press, and others was able to make the company (and the credit card companies behind it) back down. He also expresses his opinions on the agency pricing anti-trust lawsuits. Perhaps the most interesting thing to me is the remarkable bit of luck Coker had when he was first trying to contact PayPal to find out how to fight the requirements: ...

From Good E Reader: While a number of forward thinking publishing houses have developed ebook-only imprints, especially in high volume genres like romance, HarperCollins has announced its erotica imprint within its Avon romance imprint. The new division, Mischief, will launch with thirteen original ebooks and plans to release four ebooks per month, a slight number given the popularity of e-reading among romance fans. “The juggernaut of romance blended with the paranormal and the erotic is driven almost exclusively by female readers today,” said Avon and Mischief publisher Caroline Ridding in an article for The Bookseller. ...

Amazon has pulled the plug on the account of an erotica publisher, Digital Manga Publishing. DMP is an importer and translator of Japanese manga (whose launch on Kobo we covered last year), and apparently one of its yaoi (homosexual male romance genre) titles ran afoul of Amazon’s prohibition on “Pornography and hard-core material that depicts graphic sexual acts.” DMP writes on its news blog: There is no definition of “pornography” versus “erotica” officially available from amazon. In the past, we considered our titles the latter, and strive to comply with Amazon’s guidelines. However, with such vague...

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...

Last week, The Digital Reader noted that erotic fiction publisher Ellora's Cave plans to release a custom ereader device at its annual RomantiCon Convention in September. Although it's rare to see a publisher move directly into the device space, it could bring obvious benefits, like lower costs and direct access to shoppers. It's also the sort of thing one might expect to see first from a romance or erotica publisher, since those genres tend to have customers who are comfortable buying and reading ebooks. (Only some of Ellora's Cave's titles are sold in print.) There's not much information about the device...

A discussion thread on Amazon’s Kindle Community forum notes that Amazon has begun removing some previously-published books or stories from its store, and from the Kindle archives. Readers who have previously downloaded them to their Kindles can keep them there, but cannot re-download them (and will be refunded the price of purchase assuming Amazon can still find the purchase record). The story whose removal sparked the discussion was an erotica title called Wicked Lovely by author Jess C. Scott. The tale dealt with incest, and involved a love scene between a 17- and an 18-year-old. However, Amazon would...