I’ll be honest: I don’t follow JA Konrath’s blog much these days. When I was first venturing into self-publishing, I ate it up. But as I continued down my path, somehow I just fell away from a lot of the self-publishing bloggers I’d been reading.
Last Tuesday, Konrath took to his blog to sing the praises of self-publishing and the freedom it brings:
“So why am I writing kinky romance?
Lots of reasons.
First, because I can.
We live during the greatest time in history to be a fiction writer. Anything you can dream up, you can publish. Maybe it will find an audience. Maybe it won’t.
But at least it has the chance to.”
Yes! Right on! Self-publishing is fantastic for that! I don’t see why everyone is so up in arms over this post!
Our male protagonist is a sex worker. An escort. A prostitute. I’m pretty sure Harlequin didn’t allow that back when Ann was publishing her romance continuities. I also believe Harlequin had a guideline that once the hero met the heroine, neither were allowed to philander. Strike two. Finally, the sex in Want It Bad makes Fifty Shades of Grey look like a Disney picturebook. Harlequin may have had some racy titles, but I doubt they ever got this racy.
Hmmm. I’m starting to get a sense of why some authors took exception to this post.
I bet I can pick 3 Harlequin books that push more boundaries than the newly-announced erotic romance by That Author Who Bashes Harlequin.
— Courtney Milan (@courtneymilan) December 11, 2014
The “Ann” Konrath refers to is Ann Voss Peterson, who wrote award-winning romantic suspense for Harlequin’s Intrigue line. This is important information later.
So check out Want It Bad. It has romance. It has female-buddy banter. It has humor. It has insanely kinky sex. It’s a feminist, empowering, 21st century love story that couldn’t have been written ten years ago because the genre, opportunity, and mindset didn’t exist.
Oh. Okay, now I see why I took exception to this post.
Let’s start with the obvious: you could have totally written a 21st century love story ten years ago. Because ten years ago was in the 21st century. So let’s be pedantic and get that out of the way right now.
Your book has romance, kinky sex, female-buddy banter, is feminist and empowering, but couldn’t have been written ten years ago because there was no genre for it, no opportunity to write it, and nobody had the mindset.
Now, I’m not going to debate whether or not Sex and the City lives up to either modern or contemporary standards of feminism. But the popularity of Sex and the City was a watershed moment in how our culture viewed sex from a female perspective. Here was a show that gave us female characters who didn’t compete with each other, who talked about more than just how their lives related to men (though men were the topic of conversation more often than not) and which exposed the frank, raunchy, enthusiastic approach toward sex that women were sharing with each other. Again, I’m not debating whether the show covered all possible experiences (the characters were middle and upper class white women who were all straight), but it did have empowerment, feminist issues, “female-buddy banter,” humor, and kinky sex (every time I write about Sophie squirting, I remember that I learned about it from Sex and the City). The show had everything Konrath is praising his own work for having… and it ended its run in 2004. For those of you who are tragically bad with numbers, that’s… ten years ago. It actually debuted in 1998. So clearly the “mindset” existed.
The problem is that Konrath didn’t realize the mindset existed. Or, more accurately, Konrath didn’t realize the mindset could make him money back then. In the comments section, he says:
Courtney Milan, who by all accounts is a good writer and a person I respect even if I don’t agree with her on everything, mentioned this on Twitter.
Which is why you said the “genre, opportunity, and mindset didn’t exist”?
I said that because it didn’t exist.
Has there always been erotic romance? Sure.
Has it always been mainstream?
No. Fifty Shades of Grey sold 100 million copies and opened the genre up to huge numbers of readers who never tried the genre before.
Fair enough, Fifty Shades of Grey did cause an erotica boom. But Konrath appears to be saying that yeah, erotic romance exists, but he wasn’t paying attention to it back when it didn’t stand a chance of lining his pockets. Now that he’s seen the kind of cash erotic romance authors are making, he’s going to expose and break down the barriers of censorship that had already been crumbling since 2000, when Tina Engler founded Ellora’s Cave.
Again, if you’re bad at math, that’s fourteen years ago, four years before the mindset that allowed for female-friendly erotica’s existence.
When confronted about his statements, Konrath moved the goal posts and demanded evidence that erotic romance existed before his:
Can someone show me an HQ series featuring a sex worker who sleeps with a woman after meeting the heroine? Or a HQ continuity with candle wax, pillory spanking, and a sex machine?
and
So you’re telling me that FSoG could have gotten into Walmart years ago, as part of a HQ series or continuity?
You’re saying that HQ Blaze was not only mainstream, but the hero and heroine could sleep with others after they met, used sex machines, dripped hot wax on each other, etc, and were still for sale in Target or Sam’s Club?
If so, then I’m wrong. But if FSoG opened up this genre to worldwide acceptance, then my points stand.
As several commenters rightly pointed out, Konrath didn’t say that erotic romance couldn’t have been carried in big box stores ten years ago, or that Harlequin hadn’t published the elements in his book. He didn’t even say that his book couldn’t have been published ten years ago. He said:
It’s a feminist, empowering, 21st century love story that couldn’t have been written ten years ago because the genre, opportunity, and mindset didn’t exist.
The twitter and comments arguments continued in this vein, with women who’ve been writing in the genre for twenty or more books simply asking Konrath to admit that he’d written something objectively false, and Konrath refusing to acknowledge both the actual words in the above quote, or that Harlequin isn’t the sum total of the romance genre.
For some reason, this behavior doesn’t endear him to erotic romance authors, and neither does his behavior toward Courtney Milan in their twitter exchange:
@courtneymilan Honest question: are there any men you don’t believe are sexist?
— JA Konrath (@jakonrath) December 13, 2014
Konrath grew even more defensive when author KT Grant suggested that a snipe he made with regards to Milan’s sales compared to Peterson’s sales was hitting below the belt:
Courtney insulted me a lot in that Twitter exchange, and I was polite.
Then she insulted my co-authors, saying Ann didn’t know what she was talking about.
Taking potshots at me is fine. Potshots at my co-authors? I don’t play that.
Courtney has NO BUSINESS telling Ann Voss Peterson that she doesn’t knwo what she’s talking about. Ann has forgotten more about writing than Courtney knows, and she’s a better writer than damn ear anyone I’ve ever met.
Next time you get insulted, read it in context.
Ah. Apparently Grant was interrogating the text from the wrong perspective. I mean, clearly Konrath was perfectly polite in his exchange with Milan, as evidenced by his above potshot at Milan’s outspoken views on feminism.
At one point, Konrath appears to be trying to bring the conversation in his comments section to a close by stating:
I have no control over what insults people. But I did write a very funny, very sexy romance, which I’m excited about, and want to tell the world about, so I’m very amused by the reaction it is getting.
There’s no zero sum in writing. One author’s sale don’t come at the expense of another. I encourage writers, I don’t take offense when someone enters my genre. I wasn’t aware I needed to get a union card to write ER. 🙂
The amount of butt hurt wafting off this comment is strong. First of all, it isn’t the book that’s garnering attention; that’s just deluded self-flattery. The reason Konrath has found himself at the center of this conflict is that he said something ignorant, he was called on it, claimed he meant something else, but still stands by the original statement enough to continually argue with authors who know the genre better than him. And better than his writing partner; when asked by Milan if she could name a boundary pushing self-published erotic romance author, Peterson listed Bella Andre, H.M Ward, Jasinda Wilder, and Liliana Hart, none of whom are considered erotic romance authors.
Second, no one in the conversation suggested that the book Konrath and Peterson wrote isn’t welcome in the genre, or that they’re not allowed to write in the genre. People were upset by the statement Konrath made, that a book like his couldn’t have been written ten years ago.
The cherry on top of the condescension sundae is when Konrath seems to imply that the ire directed toward him by erotic romance authors is one of financial envy. The concern was never that this book would sell so incredibly well that all of us would be out here wailing and gnashing our teeth in seething want of the same professional success. The concern was that Konrath had made the statement that a book like his couldn’t have been written (again, not published, not self-published, not successfully marketed, but simply could not have been written) ten years ago, because the “mindset” didn’t exist. And when faced with the overwhelming evidence that yes, the erotic romance “mindset” existed prior to the time he had the idea to make money off it, he chose to repeatedly ignore both the proof of that and his own words. He blatantly refuses to admit that the “mindset” that creates feminist friendly, kinky books existed prior to the time he believes it did.
For some bizarro reason, some ER writers think I’m disrespecting them by not acknowledging them, and that I have no business writing in this genre.
Seriously? You sound like whiny fans who are mad that the band they discovered in high school now sells out arenas.
Gosh. I don’t know why anyone would find that insulting at all.
Why does this man seem to think there was no romance being written outside of Harlequin until 50 Shades? he keeps referencing Harlequin but nothing else. He sounds like a complete idiot.
Romance was never a genre I was all that into, but I have always been aware it was more than Harlequin and its sister companies putting it out.
*I* was reading erotic romance, with some pretty kinky stuff in it, back in 1999. He didn’t reinvent the wheel, and wasn’t even the first one who put “Ooooh sparkly!” stuff on it. He has just put a different pattern of “sparkly” on his wheel.
And that was stretching that metaphor too far! Sorry…
I’m staggered that the only romance line he knows in Harlequin. My hubby used to buy me Black Lace novels from the bookstore back in the 90s. Black Lace covered some kinky themes and had strong women characters and were doing it nearly 30 years ago.
The first anthology I bought was the Black Lace Omnibus.
Loved it.
I loved the Black Lace novels. And if we want to talk about sexually liberating, they are still some of the kinkiest, unapologetically sexual books I’ve ever read.
And let’s not forget Anne Rice’s jump into Erotica. The A. N. Roquelaure and Anne Rampling books were published back in the eighties.
Man! What a cruel world we live in where some poor guy can’t just enjoy making self congratulatory proclamations about having probably, definitely, invented something SUPER new and original. The polite thing to do is offer appropriately grateful congratulations, maybe some light fawning, not contradiction and facts that refute sweeping claims of inventivness. Rude.
God do I hope that was sarcasm.
I’ve read the book in question (it’s on Kindle Unlimited). The banter with the buddy is often rip-roaringly funny, but other than that, it’s pretty run of the mill as far as the sex goes, the characters are rather thinly drawn, and the “watch me punch this trope in the face” was usually pretty clumsy. This is definitely not a “ground breaking” or “destined to be a classic” book. It’s pretty darn average.
And given that we’re talking about FSoG being an inspiration, there are also problems with the portrayal of BDSM. No discussion of the psychological issues (sub space, sub drop), he gets her right into some very heavy stuff, and when she freaks out, she runs and because there’s been no discussion, he abandons her to deal with it on her own.
I’ve also read The Alice in Wonderland books (which I believe are Peterson’s alone), and they are some wonderfully sexy snark, which makes me wonder just what Konrath brought to this collaboration, because Want it Bad just doesn’t measure up to Wonderland.
I’ve read (and enjoyed!) the 50 Shades of Alice books too, but Konrath claims he works on those 50-50 with a romance author in this post:
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2014/03/melinda-duchamp-summer-daniels.html
I haven’t read his blog regularly for a while so I’m not aware whether he’s actually named his writing partner since this post.
My mistake then. But the Alice series is still better than Want it Bad.
Ugh. I used to read Konrath’s blog a lot, but stopped recently because I just couldn’t handle one more ten-page long “fisking” rant – but he makes it pretty clear who his perceived enemies are, and one of them is Harlequin which is probably why he’s focused solely on bashing them in this post.
Regardless, he clearly can’t admit when he’s wrong, and his remarks to and about Courtney Milan are very uncool.
I don’t even read a ton of romance, erotic or otherwise, and I’ve read at least one book with every element he’s listed. Some of them were written more than a year or two ago. Granted, I suppose I’m more likely to seek out kinky stuff, but he should really be more aware of the boundaries of his genre if he’s going to make comments of that sort (or he could just talk about his work without comparing it to that of others, or a combination of the two).
It seems to me that he has an extremely inflated ego, honestly, which almost requires the comparison.
Most writers don’t describe their own work the way he describes his because most of us 1.) Don’t want to come across as assholes and 2.) Usually are far too insecure about it, no matter how many other people tell us it’s great.
I think it’s certainly fine to recognize if you wrote a good story (imo the insecurity a lot of authors are encouraged to have can be very self-defeating and problematic) but the way he praises it to high heaven is off-putting. I prefer not to have the author’s input until after I’ve read the book, so an impartial “this is what it’s about” is preferable to “this is terrible/amazing.”
Granted, when it’s the author’s job to promote the book, it becomes a little more tricky.
There’s a difference, though, between, “I think I wrote a pretty good book,” and what this guy said. Telling people how funny you are pretty much guarantees you probably aren’t that funny. Maybe he is. I have no idea. I’m not spending my money on his book, though, to find out.
If he quoted someone else saying that about the book, I’d be more inclined.
Man Discovers Erotica, news at 11.
Seriously, Jenny, you’re on point. If he would’ve said ‘look, a book featuring fucking machines and hot wax play wouldn’t have had a chance in the mass market ten years ago,’ I would’ve agreed. Many romance publishers STILL have weird rules about what you’re allowed to have in your book (the ‘once hero and heroine meet, they’re not allowed to bang anyone else’ thing, for instance). But he went the ‘the mindset for empowering, feminist love stories didn’t exist ten years ago’ route, which is horseshit.
This reminds me of Fox News complaining that no Muslim organization ever comes out and unambiguously condemns Islamic terrorism… because they’re not aware of it. Ignorance is truth, baby!
My intro to erotica *was* ten years ago. Borders stocked it.
I read the debate between Konrath and Courney Milan and I cheered out loud for Milan. She more than held her own and when it was time to go (Konrath getting personal, comments about sales etc) she left! It strikes me that, through the tenor of Konrath’s comments this is another one of those situations where a man (clearly motivated, in part by the ringing dollar signs he sees) turns his eye to a largely female orientated space and decides it can now…TA DA… EXIST! That his comments were clearly inaccurate doesn’t mater to him (as evidenced by his “are there any men you don’t see as sexist” comment), what matters most is that now, he’s thrown his hat into the erotic arena. Konrath’s comments reek of the whole ‘male gaze/male privilege to me and his enormous butt hurt when challenged only reinforces this feeling.
So…it’s a super feminist ~empowering book because the *male* protagonist gets to sleep with someone else after meeting the heroine? Dude just slapped whatever labels he thinks will sell on his own little fantasy.
My thoughts exactly, SillyHead.
What a douchenozzle.
Is this ignorant bloviating becoming a trend or something? Didn’t we have a post a while ago about a female author who’d never heard of the Hunger Games and Divergent (and numerous other books) and thought that she had invented the YA female heroine? Don’t people do a little research before making grandiose statement? Apparently not.
Why is Walmart the end all and be all of where books should be published? I don’t even have a Walmart near me and wouldn’t go there to buy books. I always went to B&N and Borders *sobmissthemsob* when they were still around. Back when Harlequin still had their Spice line, I saw one of their books by Sarah Mccarty in Target.
So in order for a book to be a “real book” and hit the mainstream it has to sell 100 million copies? Joe argued that 50 Shades is the only reason erotic romance is in the mainstream and does well. I can name at least 10 authors of erotic romance that were mainstream in the early to mid 90’s.
Kensington always published some very steamy erotic romance, even before Harlequin.
I have never bought a book from Walmart or Target. And I also miss Borders terribly. Borders was the only book store in the part of town where I live and now I have to drive 10 miles away to get to one. 🙁 They keep opening shoe stores over here.
I used to go to Borders every Tuesday to check out the new romance releases. I had two to choose from. I was very upset when Borders closed because they had a better romance section than B&N. 🙁
I noticed Target has a big YA section.
I just can’t. I can’t shop for books in a big box store. It isn’t right!
I’m not much into YA, anyway, or romance, for that matter. We have a B&N here, but it’s in a mall and I don’t like it nearly as much as I like the freestanding ones I went to when I lived in other cities. Sadly, we have no independents here. I would have loved to open one in the old Borders. They actually did great business in that location. It’s a shoe store now …
We have a Books-A-Million, too. I don’t like that store at all. Feels like a warehouse.
Aww but he really wanted to be a groundbreaking special little snowflake. Dont crush his dreams! /sarcasm
Also, I guess he never heard of Zane. Whose been publishing crazy, WILD, NYT best selling erotic romances (albeit with Black folks, so he may have missed it) since 1997.
ugh. typo.
Who’s*
So yeah, I was working in a small bookstore in a small town (roughly 70,000 pop) in 1998 and we had a pretty racy erotica section. Since so few parents keep an eye on their kids in bookstores *and* get angry about whatever mischief child has managed, blaming the staff for not babysitting; I was the official height set for the naughty books in the store. I’m 5’4″ if I had to stretch to reach it, most actual prepubescent children couldn’t reach it. I can’t say that I never read excerpts as I was shelving. I’m thinking that perhaps he is overreaching in his claims to be revolutionary for erotica. Even if we are restricting it to just ten years ago? Emma Holly.
Little off subject, but I was in Borders once and I discovered AT GROUND LEVEL a bunch of pornographic books. As in photos you would see in Hustler or still shots from porn movies.
Now, I have no problem with adults buying, reading, seeing, whatever this stuff and I’m not so naive as to think teenagers aren’t aware of it or looking at it. But it wasn’t something I think a 5-year-old should have such easy access to. I contacted the corporate office and they told me basically “too bad, so sad.”
And now I’m rethinking my love of Borders. lol
Then don’t take your kid into that section of Borders? I mean, there is a huge section in most book stores dedicated to kids and if you have to shop for books with your kid….why go into ANY section that contains erotica or erotic books while they are there? It seems like common sense to me. Plus, I’m sure kids are seeing so much worst on the internet.
It was in the Bargain Books section surrounded by normal books. I’m an adult and haven’t seen “much worse” on the Internet. I doubt small children are just stumbling across porn online.
And if you have the cash to hire a babysitter every time you leave your house, good for you. Not everyone does.
I don’t have a problem with the books. I have a problem with them being at ground level where a child is very likely to stumble across them.
Well thanks, I can’t have children, so I don’t have to worry about baby sitters. So your condescending crack about my ability to hire a baby sitter Everytime I leave the house is kinda null. As for them being in the discount section, didnt realize that. That’s kinda shitty of them in that case
I’m sorry you can’t have children, but your snark to me was uncalled for, as was the remark about “if you have to take your kids to the bookstore.” Of course people take their children to the book store.
I also might point out that in this case, the only way to get to the children’s section (had that been my destination) was to walk right past where these books were stored.
I also clearly said I expected older children — middle to high school — to see things like that and specifically stated my concern was for much younger children. I assume you skimmed right past those things in your rush to be offended.
Yes! As I was reading the madness of that article Emma Holly was the first author I thought of! I also was reading Cheyenne McCray & Lora Leigh over ten years ago & I think Lauren Dane too. Those are just some of the first ones that come to mind.
You’ve jogged my memory — I picked up an Emma Holly book in Walmart waaaay back before 50 Shades took shelf space there. Standing before the carousel with the greeting cards behind me, I cracked open this book and was immediately met with a scene in which two men have anal sex while a woman watches.
So, yes, Walmart was stocking this stuff back before the ER boom.
Yep, I bought my Emma Holly books at Wal Mart & my local Co-op grocery store. They were stocked next to the Amish romances & Mandie books.
Wow, that’s a heap of male privilige and huge amount of lack of research (erotic romances in general but also the subject of male escorts working for women).
The first book I was thinking off was “Exit to Eden” by Ann Rampling/Ann Rice which was published in the late 80s of the 20st century. One of the first m/f erotic romances I read at that time. So even back then erotic romances with strong female characters existed. And it was an erotic romance not only with BDSM but also with a female dominant (so rare even today).
Wasn’t “The Marketplace” by Laura Antoniou originally published in the 90s? Talk about unusual and highly non-traditional romance.
There were others on which I’m blanking right now.
Certainly he never read the Kushiel’s Dart series by Jacqueline Carey, in which the protagonist, Phédre nó Delaunay, is a prized masochist trained in a pleasure house & sold into servitude. She acts as a courtesan and talented spy, and is guarded by a warrior-priest with whom she has delicious UST and romance.
Hugely popular and published in…oh, 2002. 😀
Of course, it’s a fantasy book, so I guess it doesn’t fit the genre. But it’s still a romance. And BDSM. And hot. Honestly, if this stuff has been around long enough to cross genres, that’s saying something, isn’t it?
Until recently I was writing erotic romance for Ellora’s Cave. I wrote for them from 2007, and made a good living at it. And it was fun. Talking to my fellow authors, most of them women, collaborating on the Cougar Challenge series (a whole series about older women and younger men, shock horror!) and writing my own series was huge fun and very lucrative. Back then the romance community didn’t accept us. The RWA denied that eBooks were ‘real’ books or that erotic romance was romance at all. We just kept putting the checks in the bank and writing the books.
It’s all a storm in a teacup, fanned by bombast.
Oh, and he asked for a book where a male escort is the hero? I can name at least half a dozen, but the one I recalled immediately was Lisa Kleypas’s “Suddenly You,” a mainstream historical where the heroine pays for a stud for the night. The hero isn’t a stud, but he goes along with it because it amuses him.
Wow. Mansplaining at it’s best.
He’s come back to comment on the blogpost now… wonder if it’s because the sales on the book are down.
Suddenly You is one of my all time LK favorite reads. That is her steamiest, and I guess you could say erotic romances, especially the scene toward the end where raspberries are used in very oh so shocking ways ;P
[…] DON’T DO THIS EVER: “World Before Columbus Syndrome” edition Oh, look. J.A. Konrath also needs a nice big glass of shut the fuck up. He gets the biggest glass of shut up because I know he’s been to at least two RT conventions (I witnessed his presence) where he presumably talked to some erotica writers and you’d think some of it would have sunk in between drinking vast amounts of alcohol and pontification on the joys of self-publishing but apparently not. Next RT you go to, Joe? Try drinking and talking less and listening more. You might learn something. […]
Roberta Latow’s THREE RIVERS was published in 1981 (by Ballantine, no less) and for YEARS was the benchmark of what I considered erotic and even kinky. (And as a bonus—included an interracial/interreligious couple as the leads.)
So, not only does Joe Konrath not have an inkling of a clue of what he’s talking about (no surprise there, really), he’s actually woefully nearly 35 years behind the times.
Having made my living writing kinky romance (and kinky erotica and erotic romance, etc.) since 2001, I find the willful ignorance and mansplaining really breaks my brain. And clearly, I (and all of my peers) must not exist, since I claim to have been writing, publishing, and selling this stuff for more than ten years.
Thankfully, in the decade plus that I’ve been in this industry, I’ve found that erotica readers are smart; they find the great stuff among the crap and they support the hell out of it.
He’s still going at it on the KBoards. *sigh*
Does anyone remember when he accused people of misusing the word monopoly to describe PayPal in context of online payment processors during the Erotica banning on Amazon, and when people pointed out that in fact PP does have an effective monopoly on the market of usable payment processors for small businesses, he basically went all butt hurt and refused to apologize?
I also remember when he basically said that he had made self-publishing viable (not in so many words), as if Zoe Winters and others hadn’t already proved it was possible without a publishing company behind them.
Wasn’t Sex and the City written by gay men?
I know that Mad Men is written by a team of women.
So ultimately, gender and sexual orientation is as irrelevant as JA Konrath.
I read a lot of his blogs when I was starting out and worked out early on that this guy who was championing self-publishing had spent years building a brand through regular publishing. He then abandoned traditional publishing to self-publish and use that well established brand to market his self-published books… which is the exact opposite situation that most self-published authors are in.
He’s a noisy stupid man – and I’ll continue to ignore him.
Y’know, I doubt his book is as kinky, as funny, or as sexy as Doc and Fluff, written in 1990. It’s also almost certainly more feminist than his work, and is queer as fuck to boot.
Now I need to go see if I can find an ebook of it. It’s been years since I read it.
Since someone else mentioned Doc and Fluff, I’ll throw my favorite Pat Califia book into the ring: Macho Sluts which was published in 1987. That blew my head off way back when I read it the first time and I even went on eBay and bought a copy because mine had disappeared a long time ago – I like the original cover much better than later editions.
Which is to say: women of all stripes and orientations have been writing words that get them off long before dude showed up to tell any of us how it’s done. Watching him have his moment is like having someone show up at your house uninvited, sit down in your living room and then proceed to eat all your food while telling you how great *their* food is.
Now that’s a perfect analogy right there.
How are you able to keep making these posts? Don’t authors know that getting into fights with people and making people mad at you is the opposite way to sell books? Jesus.