Something tells us that The Elegant Variation doesn’t hang on our every word. Luckily, we have a very strong ego, and can forgive him for missing the tip of the iceberg on this story: mere weeks ago, we broke the news that Harlequin is moving into straight erotica (the Spice imprint is ramping up). For the uninitiated, Harlequin is a very marketing driven publisher; when it invests in an imprint, there’s a good, solid financial basis for it. Apparently sex is the next big thing in Britain (makes us wonder if perhaps the author of the article is unaware of the long-lived British Black Lace books — books which, to our disappointment, have grown increasingly heavy on the pointless sex and decreasingly dependent on plot). Sure American romance has always been, well, steamy, but it hasn’t really been sexual — there is a distinction having to do with Vaseline’d lenses and lack of, well, earthy terms — until recently. The trend toward erotica has fueled the success of one epublisher (Ellora’s Cave) and launched many other. The authors are writing it, and the chicks, well, they’re buying it.
TEV (we’ve linked to so much of his stuff, we feel we’ve reached the abbreviation phase of our relationship) can be forgiven for not realizing this heaving bosom of literature (yes, we know our stance on this phrase, but it feels so right in this context) is hottest thing since, well, the last time a bosom heaved (that would be the early 80’s, close as we can tell). Without getting all sexist on you, men tend not to gravitate toward romantic fiction or erotica. Of course we’re not suggesting they’re visual creatures — okay, we are, but that’s only after a lifetime of observing the species. However, we thank him for pointing us to this article — we were looking for the right hook to link to the Ellora’s Cave story. And in the meantime, we’re going to watch our Google ads with interest to see how their magic machine translates this posting into targeted advertising.
- We Usually Just Send Flowers
- Explicit sex now used to lure young women readers
- Raising Our Eyebrows
- The Great Escape: Tina Engler went from food stamps to fame and fortune — and she’s just getting started (note: the URL hints to us that the Weekly Planet doesn’t have an advanced naming scheme for articles. You may need to search on the title and/or Ellora’s Cave once the article is no longer this week’s cover story)
