Erotica

ADDED NOTE: I'd forgot about this, but an interview with me just went up over at Penny Ehrenkranz's blog. I hope you can check it out.
And now, back to my original blog post for today.

I’ve blogged before about a strange goal I’ve had in my writing life to try and publish something in every genre. In pursuit of that goal, many years ago now, I had an erotica story published under a pseudonym. I used the pseudonym because my mom was still alive at the time, and she would not have approved. When I was a teenager my mom didn’t even like me reading anything with sex in it. She once picked up a book I’d borrowed from my older sister that had sex scenes in it. That was not a pleasant day when I got home from school, and I know it was worse for my sister, who I’m sure got a sound chewing out.

Even worse, when I was in high school my mom found one of my notebooks in which I’d written down a scene that had sex in it. I still vaguely remember that scene, and it was incredibly tame even by the standards of the time. Nevertheless, it was sex and she was not happy. I didn’t get yelled at too much; I got the “disappointment,” and that was far worse.

I did later publish stories with sex in them while mom was alive. I just didn’t tell her about them. But I didn’t publish anything in which sex was pretty much the sole purpose of the tale. Except that one pseudonymous story. This brings me to today’s post.

I’m thinking of republishing that old erotic story as a .99 cent kindle ebook. I haven’t decided on a title yet, and I have no idea at present about a cover. I’m trying to decide whether to use my own name or another pseudonym. I do intend to acknowledge it if I publish it, but it might still be best to use a pseudonym. The thing is, although the books published under Charles Allen Gramlich have been in different genres, they have all had a strong sense of adventure at the core of them (except for some of the stuff in Midnight in Rosary, I guess.) This story would not have that so it seems reasonable to establish a different name for it. I had once thought about writing a romance novel and using the name “Pamela Charles” on it. I have a feeling that erotica sells better with a female author’s name on it, but I don’t know for sure. Maybe someone here knows. So here are my questions to my fellow bloggers.

1. Is there any likelihood that publishing an erotica story would hurt the sales of my other titles? I guess here I’m wondering if there is still any stigma attached to publishing erotica. I have to admit, and it’s probably my Catholic upbringing, it still sometimes seems a little questionable to me.

2. What do you think about a pseudonym? Should I use a female one, and, if so, what about Pamela Charles?

3. For anyone that has published or read a .99 cent ebook, what kind of word count do you typically look for in such a work? Especially for erotica?

4. As for covers, how and where do people get covers for erotica?

As always, thanks for reading.
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