For starters, don’t sneer.  Erotic romance is one of the hottest genres on the market today.  And in an economy that is constantly being threatened by recession, and an industry that is constantly bemoaning the fact that nobody reads anymore, that is saying a lot.

You’ll find erotic romance novels published by big houses such as Avon, Random House, and Simon and Schuster.  But you’ll also find many small houses that concentrate on ebooks.  Buying an ebook has several advantages: immediate delivery, low cost, and perhaps best of all, you don’t have to carry the erotic book up to the clerk at the checkout stand.  In part two of this series, which is going to be posted tomorrow, I’ll share some tips for getting published and list a few of the well-known publishers. 

Erotic romance is similar to traditional romance, only it has more sex.  A lot more sex.  And erotic romance has sex without euphemisms.  There is no cute or coy in erotic romance.  A whole lot of graphic sex, yes, but no closed doors.  Uh-uh.

Here’s how Alison Kent, author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Erotic Romance, puts it:  "The promise a romance author makes to a romance reader is to deliver a love story with a happy ending.  In an erotic romance, she also promises to imbue the love story with a highly charged sexual component.  However, no erotic romance will work if the basic story elements aren’t in place."

So your job as an erotic romance novelist is to write a rip-roaring romance with the addition of hot, steamy sex.  Easy, right?  Well, it is fun, but I won’t say it is easy. 

For a list of excellent tips that will help get you on the road to writing steamy erotic romance, check out this article by Angela Knight.  Angela has written a gazillion erotic romances herself, which you can check out at her  website.  She is also the author of Passionate Ink, published by Loose Id and available in print format from Amazon, which is an excellent book on writing erotic romance.

The best way to prepare yourself to write erotic romance is to steep yourself in reading it.  The two how-to books I’ve mentioned above are great starting points.  But you also need to read as many books in the genre as possible.   Go to the websites of publishers such as Loose Id or Ellora’s Cave and buy some books and then devour them. You’ll find novels, novellas, and shorts in all manner of combinations:  menage, futuristic, paranormal, vampire, historical and so on.  And the variety of sexual content is astonishing and since this is not an X-rated blog I can’t really go into the details here.  Just go look around some of the sites I mention here and in part two of the series tomorrow.

Here’s a listing of individual author sites, chosen randomly either because I edit them or or just happen to like them.

Trista Ann Michaels

Robin Gideon

Angela Knight

Alison Kent

And, for an entertaining and sometimes controversial read about romance in general, try the Smart Bitches Trashy Books website.  They are the ones who broke the Cassie Edwards plagiarism story.

You might also want to google "erotic romance novels" or "erotic romance authors" and just follow where your nose leads you.  Have some fun wandering around and see what you find.  Get yourself familiar with the genre.

And stay tuned for Part Two in this series, on getting your erotic romance published.