Once I got over the fact, I had no clue how to write a query letter, I found myself with another problem. Who publishes erotica? The quick answer is: Many publishers now support erotic content. The problem is, each has their own target niche and mine is a sub-niche of Hot Wife (Hotwife if you prefer).
Back to the search engine. Back to doing research. Search after search gave me less than best results. I was fortunate in that back in February I ran across Deep Desires Press and their podcasts. I commute almost forty minutes each way, every day. Their podcasts covered my interest in publishing erotica, so it was a good listen.
Now, let’s see if you have better luck than I did. Do a search (or various searches) and get Deep Desires Press to come up. If you, do it on the first try – please, please, please, tell me the keywords used. Here are some that I used trying to find Deep Desires Press:
EROTICA PUBLISHERS
It brings up a large list (over 2 million results), but remember I’m trying to find the keywords that bring up Deep Desires Press. My plan is then to use those key words to find the rest. In the third position there is a link to Author’s Publish. The first line has Deep Desires Press. While it gave me a link to it, it did not bring Deep Desires Press as a return on the first page, so I kept looking further into the search results.
The call for submissions for Deep Desires Press comes up on page 3. When I narrow the search to show results in the last twelve months, the link disappears. Why limit it to such a short period of time? Because the publishing industry has gone through a huge shakeup, and I got tired of opening links to publishers that no longer exist.
Several other choices gave me nothing better. That’s when I started to look at their submission pages and this is what I commonly found: The story must have an LGBTQA+ romance between the main characters running through it. Both HEA and HFN accepted.
I found this specific requirement in many I checked. Note to self: Keep that in mind for the next novel. Since I’m committed to the Stag-Vixen story I wrote, I passed on those publishers.
I narrowed the list to the following group of potential publishers:
DEEP DESIRES PRESS: https://www.deepdesirespress.com/submissions/
BOLD STROKES BOOKS: https://www.boldstrokesbooks.com/submissions
BOOKOUTURE: https://www.bookouture.com/submission-guidelines/
RIPTIDE PUBLISHING: https://riptidepublishing.com/pages/submissions
THE WILD ROSE PRESS: https://www.thewildrosepress.com/traditionalpublishing
WORDWOOZE PUBLISHING: https://www.wordwooze.com/submissions.html
EXTACY BOOKS: https://www.extasybooks.com/submissions-faqs/
FOREVER YOURS: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/landing-page/forever-yours-submission-guidelines/
TOTALLY BOUND PUBLISHING: https://www.totallyentwinedgroup.com/submissions/submission-calls-totally-bound-publishing/
Now is time to test the waters. Each of the above publishers appear to accept the genre that FIRST TENTATIVE STEPS – a Stag-Vixen Journey fits. There are likely a few that I missed the niche, and a few where I’m going to have to cut down the length.
The key to this is to learn how to go about finding publishers that accept manuscripts without agents. I thought I’d find more publishers to query, but it seems the novel’s niche is a bit narrowly defined.
Looking at this from a business point of view, I think of the old story from an MBA class. Two men walk into a town. They look around and notice the majority of the people are walking barefoot. One man turns around and walks away saying “This is no place to sell shoes. No one wears them.” The other man waits till the first man is out of sight, looks around and shouts with joy, “Hallelujah! So many people need so many shoes here!” and sets up his shop.
They never do say which of the two men was correct. Perhaps both. The one that walked away may have found a better target audience. The one that stayed may have found a way to introduce the concept of the shoe.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
How do you go about finding the publishers for your specific niche in erotica?
Do you have an agent?
Do you feel erotica is best served by the self-publishing author?
