Let me take you back in time. To a time before e-readers (the first Kindle launched in 2007). Then even further back, to a time before Amazon (founded in 1994). What did you do if you wanted a book?
You had to get out of bed, get dressed and leave the house. You then had to visit your local, friendly bookshop and spend an hour or two browsing. There were companies which ran mail-order book clubs as well. You bought at least one book a month and they were posted to your door. At the time, this idea seemed quite revolutionary.
But what if you wanted a book which your local, friendly bookshop didn’t display on their shelves? Didn’t even keep under the counter? What if you wanted some erotica? That was infinitely more difficult.
Some bookshops would stock a small selection of what we might today call the classics. ‘The Story of O’, and various compilations of Victorian gentleman’s publications. But that would be it. If you wanted more, you would have to visit a certain kind of establishment – at least here in the UK. Basically, a sex shop.
But not the type we are used to now, when sex is more openly discussed (although we still have a long way to go). Not the bright, shiny boutique, selling toys, lingerie, and accessories on the local main street. No. This would be a seedy, dark hole, on a grubby backstreet. Their main product was imported porn – mostly very tame, by today’s standards – but they also sold books, including erotica. Most of the product was second hand, which brought its own perils.
These were places that most men wouldn’t enter, in case they were seen. They were generally out of bounds for women. The only option for most people was to find a specialist mail order company. But they were few and far between, difficult to find and because of that, attracted a myriad of con-artists.
Today, the situation has changed out of all recognition; thanks largely to e-books. Yes, Amazon allowed anyone – male or female – to order physical copies of erotic works, but it was the coming of e-books which gave everyone the freedom to search for exactly what they wanted and download it at home. And it was the advent of self-publishing which satisfied the demand and largely continues to do so.
As I write this, there are around 400,000 Kindle books in the erotica categories on Amazon.com. I would venture that the majority of these are self-published, or by authors who started out that way. Sales are booming, and even mainstream publishers and bookshops have noticed (and jumped on the bandwagon). Books such as Fifty Shades (whatever we might think of it) have brought erotica into the mainstream. Traditional romance novels consistently push the boundaries with more explicit content.
There is still a market for physical books, which varies enormously from country to country and genre to genre. Many readers still prefer a real book to a tablet or Kindle. Sales of physical books are generally holding up well, and your local, friendly bookshop is still a great place to visit and use. But the erotica categories on Amazon.com only contain about 70,000 physical titles. The genre lends itself perfectly to the digital format, for convenience and privacy.
So spare a thought for our parents and grandparents. They were as interested in sex as we are – sex didn’t begin in the 1960s. But they had little access to anything to help them explore their fantasies. We live in an age where we arguably have too much choice. The problem now is not sourcing your next steamy read; it’s about sorting the wheat from the chaff. About how to choose which books to try next. And I’m going to talk about that in a later post.
