Wanna make extra cash? Write erotica
I ran across Debu Mufitsusan's article on being a freelance writer. Most of it was quite straightforward and informative until I read something that made my blood boil:
I don't disagree that keeping one's writing genres separate is a good idea, or that creating different email accounts for different jobs is a good idea. But with this line, she insinuates that knocking off a bit of erotic fiction is what you do when your pressed for cash - like working as a waitress. Or else, she suggests that writing erotic fiction is what you do when you can't do anything else. Or that writers deplore writing erotic fiction and only do it when they absolutely have to, kicking and screaming or shamefacedly.make a new email address that has nothing to do with any other email address/username of yours on the internet. You can be damned sure an employer will google your name to see if you are a member of that "420-4-ever" myspace group, or if you've published erotic fiction to pad your income a little.
It's insulting to those of us who have chosen this genre, who feel that there is far more freedom in this genre than in any other, and who believe that there are a lot of "good" writers out there who can't write a sex scene to save their elitist, snooty little lives.
By all means, keep your genres compartmentalized, but I'll tell you what: the same thing goes if you've earned your reputation writing articles for Better Homes and Gardens and want to make it in the sci-fi world.
Also, it might be just worth mentioning that if you REALLY want to pad your income a little, you're looking in the wrong part of the industry. I earned $2,800 writing the copy for a ratan furniture catalogue. I get about $50 per short story - if I'm lucky enough to get one accepted.
So, Ms Debu, I CHALLENGE you to write a good, literary, hot piece of erotic fiction, because I think I could wipe the floor with you, babe.
Comments
I apologized for offending your literary senses. Oh, and please, challenge people on their vox's, and not just your own, it's quite tacky. So sorry to have crawled up your ass, now I will make an expedient escape from it.
Sara.
As I said in my post, I couldn't possibly write a better guide. On the whole, yours is very good. What I criticized was the negative light in which you painted the genre I write in.
Honestly, I don't purport to know a lot about freelance writing, and I wouldn't offer people advice about it. Clearly you do and so you can. I think you are doing a lot of people an excellent service.
I do something constructive. I write. I write erotic fiction. Which you seem to think of as a lesser form of writing. I hoped my post would prompt you to reconsider your prejudice.
And I do challenge you, because you assume that writing erotica - good erotica - is easy to write and lucrative. So, I'm challenging you to write some, and sell it and prove me the fool.
I apologize for being "tacky", but then...what more could you expect of an erotic fiction writer?
Regards,
rg
p.s. I wish to GOD that $50 took care of my electricity bill.
You two have a most interesting love/hate distaste/respect thing going on. I'm enjoying it. Perhaps it's the perv in me.
Out of lack of another channel to ask - have you heard of anyone making $$ READING erotica aloud? It has occurred to me that it would be my PERFECT 2nd career - but I can't think of how to get it off the ground. To be honest, I would do it for free - but I can't think of where to start that either.
Fortunately, more than a few men enjoy listening in private. So I have at least some outlet.