Open Heart Publishing

To me "Open Heart" suggests either painful surgery or Jane Seymour selling her soul to Kay Jewelers.  But apparently it is also an e-publisher.  Sort of.

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Trapezium Closing

Trapezium Ebooks (a distributor) is closing its doors due to software issues and a general failure to thrive.

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Not *That* Adult

Whoever decided to widely announced JK Rowling's first "adult novel" clearly had a mind that never gets within spitting distance of the gutter.  But there have been plenty of raised eyebrows ever since.  As witness an outbreak of sniggering in the comments section. It kind of makes me kind of hope she is penning an erotic romance (although I very much doubt it).

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Kite Hill

Does anyone have the 411 on who is behind Kite Hill Publishing. Is it the rather inexperienced (as far as I can tell) debut authors? It seems to be a small e/POD gay fiction press depending on Smashwords and Lightning Press.  Rather underwhelming. So, the matter of who is behind it is kind of important. And the pop ups on the website, well....

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Paypal Hits Smashwords Next

"Today we are modifying our Terms of Service to clarify our policies regarding erotic fiction that contains bestiality, rape and incest. If you write in any of these categories, please carefully read the instructions below and remove such content from Smashwords. If you don’t write in these categories, you can disregard this message."

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About "Barely Legal"

Nice... swimsuit

One of the issue pushed to the surface by the ARe/Bookstrand reactions to taboo erotica is 'barely legal' erotica.  I have seen reaction ranging for 'legal is legal so who cares' to 'it's basically child abuse'. Ad it seems an ambiguity/anxiety tat is playing out across many genres and media.The model on the cover of this year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition is only 19 years old.  Miley Cyrus is redefining "age appropriate" on a daily basis. And a new biography revealed some of JFK's more sordid activities with a teen intern (a sort of thing previously swept under the rug, and which Clinton probably wishes still was).

Hugo Schwyzer at Jezebel looked at the issue in visual porn using 18-29 years old or older actresses who look that age or younger (so popular Hustler registered "Barely legal" as a trademark). His theory is that the the drive for male viewers is evolutionary (maximum fertility), nostalgia and because a young girl basically won't know if you are bad at sex, having (theoretically) little basis for comparison. Or to put it more bluntly, post-puberty and pre-aging is just something they like to look at.

Interestingly, none of this buzz seem to relate to the female viewer.  The assumption being that these materials are making sales charts based purely on a male sales demographic.  But I wonder if this is true? For a long time it was assumed that women didn't like sex, let alone erotica, and certain not stuff about gay men.  I am not entirely sure that assumption works for barely legal either.  Not only in terms of who might be buying barely legal girl material, but the potential market amongst women for twink and extreme cougar material. It's not my thing, but I suspect a few gals out there do like it--and most of them are keeping quiet right now....

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RIP Barney Rosset

Barney Rosset's, the man behind Grove Press which he acquired in 1951, was a crusader for erotic and other kinds of challenging fiction. Frequently embroiled in lawsuits, Rosset saw erotica as just one of many frontiers where the first amendment was under attack. If he liked something, he published it, and would not let oppressive obscenity laws stop him. He was the first to publish uncensored editions of Lady Chatterley's Lover and Tropic of Cancer in the United States. Grove also published The Story of O, Autobiography of Malcolm X and the first US edition of Waiting for Godot. Rosset recently passed away at the age of 89.

See also:
Champion of Erotica and the Beats

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