The Mysterious Case of the Apparent Market

February 15th, 2006 · No Comments
by Booksquare

By now it should be clear that we woke up slightly above cranky on our mood scale. It is the little things that will get to us today, and possibly we should give up now.

No, apparently that’s not going happen, or it won’t happen until after we invite you to join us in banging our head on hard wood surfaces.

Let us begin by saying that we are sure that Jeffrey Trachtenberg is very knowledgeable about the publishing industry. We have fairly good faith in the Wall Street Journal, and since he’s on staff, probably he knows his stuff. Then he says something like this:

One intriguing trend is that mainstream publishers are launching in-house lines of erotica. Most recently, HarperCollins Publishers, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., launched Avon Red. The imprint is described as a line of “erotic romance.” These books have X-rated, graphic sexual scenes, and apparently there is a market for them.

Apparently? Apparently? Hello? The market has been burgeoning, and we use the word advisedly, for years now. It should be apparent that there is indeed a robust market for erotica. What is interesting about the erotica market, as we noted earlier this week is the move toward making it more accessible online.

Okay, now we’re giving up.

File Under: Square Pegs