Karen Knows Best

It Was All Going So Well…

Mrs G had an interesting post called The Great Porn and Erotica Divide on her blog yesterday.

Now I read it, and didn’t feel that she was bashing Phaze, and the first few comments from some of the Phaze authors (for some reason I keep wanting to write ‘Litrats’, but I’m not sure why, I guess I must have read it somewhere) were fairly reasonable, and well thought out.

But as you know, there’s always one person who comes in and ruins the good work of his/her colleagues/peers. This time it was Daniel J. Reitz Snr, owner of Mundania Press and Phaze:

As owner of Mundania Press and Phaze Books, I can assure you that neither I, nor Phaze Books, has any connection with Literotica, now or in the past. At no time does this group enter into our picture. To be honest, prior to your labeling Phaze as connected to it, or part of it, or derived from it, I have never even heard of this group. {K: Really? Well at least one of the authors there is quite vocal about her association with Lit. By the way, that link features a woman with a finger stuck up her anus, so you probably don’t want to click on it… or maybe you do, who knows?} It has never been discussed on Phaze forums and lists, and has no influence over us at all……

I am beginning to question your motives for againing singuling out Phaze to show us in a bad light, while blatantly ignoring the dozens and dozens of other erotic romance publishers that publish similar books. Please do us, your readers, and yourself a favor and cease painting Phaze Books as some supposed spin-off of some other erotic group out there in the world. It does everyone involved an injustice and is simply not true. Thank you.

When I read Mrs G’s post, my take on it was that she was wondering how authors who write ‘traditional’ (hehe) erotic romance, and those who write for places like Literotica and who are quite open about their somewhat unorthodox sexual lifestyles, will get on in the future, seeing as some of the Lit Authors are being published by mainstream houses, like Harlequin, etc.

By the looks of things, somebody told Daniel J Reitz Snr that Mrs G was bashing Phaze again, so he came in with his size twelves, having not read the post properly. You’d think the beginning of Mrs Giggles’ post would have given him a clue:

Let me begin by clarifying to the usual oversensitive suspects at Literotica – whom I know are reading this blog despite their public declarations to the contrary – that this is not an attack on their sensibilities, moral, past lives, lifestyles, choices, lingerie, diet, or anything even remotely related to their selves. Got that?

Anyway, Mrs G followed it up with this post, and of course at least one of the usual suspects came out to play, as well as Daniel J. Reitz posing as a sock puppet and posting under ‘Anonymous’. Unluckily for him, Mrs G responded to this:

“I find it amusing when bloggers post stuff slamming people, then get all confused when people get upset with them.”

With this:

“To the Anonymous above, given that you have exactly the same IP number as Danny Boy (24.29.27.134), maybe you should just quit while you are ahead. You’re really doing Phaze no favors.”

Oh well, it amused me for at least ten minutes. What would life be without a kooky Phaze author or two eh? Shoot, even the owner is a bit ‘special’.

18 Comments »

Marianne LaCroix
February 29
1:42 pm

I went over and read the entry and comments. I don’t know what Phaze is getting all upset over. It all comes down to what sells. Label it how you wish, what publishers look for are books that sell. BDSM is hot, and if these people write it (knowing first hand I guess helps with the minute details) then their books will be picked up by publishers.

I know with EC, sometimes my stories don’t have enough sex in them, and I am asked to add more. Why? Because that is what sells at EC. If I was uncomfortable with it, I wouldn’t make the additions.

I don’t know, the origin of some of the authors seems unimportant. If some of them live out their fantasies, more power to them. Me, I write stories, I don’t live them. Sorry. To each his/her own.

Again, Phaze shouldn’t get upset. All Mrs G said was that she noticed Lit authors were writing books for them. If it was somewhere else, she would have said that. If what they write is coming out at SPICE or Avon Red (guidelines say romance optional, but sex is not), then they see their books as sellers.

sallahdog
February 29
2:15 pm

I didn’t, and still don’t get what the big deal is.

So Phaze is publishing a lot of lit writers… I personally don’t have a problem with what writers do as practice, since I know of a few Harry Potter fanfiction writers who have gone on to be published with books of their own.

The Phaze guru completely overreacted to the question, but then in fairness I didn’t really get Mrs G’s reference to authors that emailed her privately and said that they would NEVER submit to Phaze because of the lit writers? I don’t get where anyone is forcing them to. Like I said over there, each company has its own corporate culture and while I wouldn’t be comfortable at one, others might very well be…

I hadn’t gone to Phazes website (I am no longer buying ebooks till they get some kind of standard form, I have several books I can no longer access)… I went after the second dust up, and frankly I probably wouldn’t try to sell a book there (if I was an author) because of the substandard way the site is set up… I am judging it against Elloras Cave, Amazon, Samhain (the only places I bought ebooks from, so maybe thats not a fair comparison, but its mine)

The covers are not good(call me shallow, but a good cover is more likely to get me to click a link if I am unfamiliar with the author),the excerpts were too small and often on blogger pages that were not loading correctly, the descriptions of the books often didn’t have a good hook (I couldn’t write a good hook to save my life either, but something has to make me WANT to buy the damn book)…

Mrs Giggles
February 29
2:38 pm

but then in fairness I didn’t really get Mrs G’s reference to authors that emailed her privately and said that they would NEVER submit to Phaze because of the lit writers?

The entire thing was about the growing rift between authors who openly get involved in adult sites like Literotica and authors who would like to think that they write erotic romance instead of smut. And how they therefore view being associated with a publishing house with a high number of authors actively involved in these adult sites detrimental to the image of “erotic romance”. Good god, was my blog entry so hard to understand? (I’m being serious here, not facetious.)

I should’ve stuck with naked men and reality TV talk, I tell you.

whey
February 29
3:33 pm

When I finished reading through the two blog posts and comments, I was left feeling, with the exception of a couple of earlier comments, all Phaze-related/affiliated comments should be filtered through Kathryn Lively before being publicly posted.

Mrs. G, I believe you are in a no-win situation. Even if you made a generalized post, sensitive peoples may still feel you’re talking about them (versus an issue).

——

Tangent issue: We’re going into a recession (actually, I’m more bearish and doom-and-gloom and think we’re already in the Big R and are headed to the Big D). This means discretionary spending is going to continue going down. I’m more likely to buy, when I do buy, from an author/publisher I have fuzzy-bunny feelings about than not.

azteclady
February 29
3:38 pm

whey wisely sayeth,

Tangent issue: We’re going into a recession (actually, I’m more bearish and doom-and-gloom and think we’re already in the Big R and are headed to the Big D). This means discretionary spending is going to continue going down. I’m more likely to buy, when I do buy, from an author/publisher I have fuzzy-bunny feelings about than not.

Big fat “me too!” here. And that goes for individual authors as well *shrug* What can I say? Too many books, too little money for them.

Gennita Low
February 29
4:24 pm

Mrs. G, I understood your post the way you wrote it, so no worries about misreading. I think your thoughts were interesting and worth discussion among readers and writers. However, the owner-sock puppet and your reply to him…what’s Karen’s favorite phrase? “I laughed my tits off.” That was a classic Mrs. G moment.

sallahdog
February 29
5:04 pm

Posted: Feb 29th, 2008 at 2:38 pm 3but then in fairness I didn’t really get Mrs G’s reference to authors that emailed her privately and said that they would NEVER submit to Phaze because of the lit writers?

No, I know, I suck at this, so I am not being clear. I understand your post, I just don’t understand why an author would spend time even considering a publisher that they don’t feel their books would be a good fit at (for whatever the reason)…. I personally think that there is probably a niche for everyone, and frankly I have read a lot of erotica/romance that wasn’t too damn romantic. So I do understand to a certain extent why Phaze feels singled out, even though you are just posing the question and using them for an example…

Honestly, I think PHaze had much bigger problems with the way their website and books were presented, rather than some of their authors used to write stories for Lit… I know of one author personally, that just got her first book deal, who wrote Harry Potter fanfiction for years (which is quite sneered upon)… She told me that she credits writing fanfiction with giving her a built in Crit group, that allowed her to hone her skills and write an original book that a publisher actually bought.

So it just didn’t surprise me that folks writing smut for free (and some of them doing it quite well) would make the jump to writing smutty romance (or just smut) for pay. since I don’t have a problem or look down on them for that, I really don’t understand other authors sneering at that particular experience(but hey, I have been known to peruse Lit upon occasion).. which is why I didn’t get what the big deal was about…

hey, nekkid men are good too, but we need the occasional dust up to get the blood moving north, as well as south… nudge, nudge, wink wink (ucck, I am now gagging myself, stopping now)

Michelle
February 29
5:57 pm

Isn’t Literotica the site where in the chatrooms people would discuss incest/pedophilia fantasies and that is why some people avoid being associated with it or am I mixing up sites?

Anyway I think there is a divide in the erotica/romantica community between “everything is fiction/fantasy and there should be no boundaries” and some that think there are still some lines that shouldn’t be crossed even in fantasy.

sallahdog
February 29
6:05 pm

Literotica is a huge website, with stories, pictures and I guess chatrooms where people discuss their fantasies… I never went to the chatrooms but from what I understand, incest can be a subject but its not the only part or even the most popular subject…

Hey, I am not defending preditors, but every website community has its share of nutjobs, I personally would be more worried about some old guy pretending to be a young girl or boy, to lure other kids on KIDS websites… Kids shouldn’t be on an over 18 erotic story website..

Marianne LaCroix
February 29
6:54 pm

I would never believe chat room antics. People can be whatever they want online. The cold facts of the internet–no one can “see” the reality.

I don’t even know if most readers would take the time and effort (or care to) to look up backgrounds of authors before buying. Seems like it is a lot of commotion over nothing.

As for professional views, RWA sees authors who write erotic fiction as smut peddlers anyway. Whatever.

And Mrs G, I like the naked men.

I really am procrastinating today….

Michelle
March 1
12:25 am

sallahdog
Good point, every place can have weird/out there people/posters. I was just trying to figure out why some people(phaze) is trying so hard to “distance” themselves from the site.

kirsten saell
March 1
7:25 pm

I saw the post as not singling out literotica or phaze per se, so much as erotica/romantica authors in general who openly indulge in the lifestyles they write about.

I would guess that most of us erotic romance authors do not live in committed m/m/f menage relationships, or have bondage dungeons in our cellars, just like most traditional romance authors probably don’t have heart-shaped beds, cherubs painted on the ceiling, and write in feather boas and those high-heeled slippers with the little poofy-thingies on them.

I live in a small town. It would irk me to have the people here believe that I live the way my characters live. And although I’m almost certain none of them would think I have ever chopped off anyone’s fingers or killed a man with a blowjob, when it comes to fetishism and non-mainstream sexual practices, I’m sure some of them would wonder.

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Shiloh Walker
March 2
1:41 pm

I didn’t see Mrs. G’s post as a slam against anybody. She openly admits she enjoys all sorts of romance/erotica. Just seemed to me she was speculating.

I do want to point out that this…

As for professional views, RWA sees authors who write erotic fiction as smut peddlers anyway. Whatever.

is a generalization, IMO.

There are plenty within RWA who don’t see erotica, erotica romance, or similar beasts as smut. They may not care to read it, but that doesn’t mean that automatically assume it’s trash.

Such a generalization is the same thing romance authors in general, erotic or otherwise, face when people who don’t read romance automatically assume it’s all about the sex.

Karen Scott
March 2
10:06 pm

I should’ve stuck with naked men and reality TV talk, I tell you.

What amazed me was how foolish Daniel Reitz made himself look. He’s clued up enough to run a ‘successful’ e-publishing organisation, but obviously lacks the intelligence and diplomatic skills needed to navigate the internet.

What makes it worse is that Kat Lively had impressed me with her even tone, and carefully chosen words, then he comes in all guns blazing, totally ruining Lively’s work.