Erotic romance is erotica written to women’s tastes using the conventions of the romance genre. It’s a spinoff from the romance genre, and is heavily influenced by slash and mainstream erotica. (In fact, with the slow death of traditional erotica presses like Blue Moon and Black Lace, erotic romance and erotic romance-influenced women’s erotica is taking the place of older types of erotica.)

What are the conventions of the romance genre?

Part of it is the style–lusher, purpler than mainstream erotica–that’s ported straight over from romance. But there are also Rules:

• Once the hero and the heroine meet, they must be faithful to one another. It doesn’t matter if they haven’t actually developed a relationship yet–from the moment of that first meeting, their privates are off-limits to all others.
• There must be either a happily ever after (HEA) or a happy for now (HFN) ending. (Happily ever after = It’s true love, they’ll be together for always. Happy for now = they’re settled happily into the relationship and have no plans or reasons to leave, though they might not end up staying together forever.)
• The hero should be either a manly, dominant-yet-gentle alpha male, or the slightly less macho but still gently dominant beta male.

What kinds of stories are popular?

Urban fantasy and paranormal romance are huge. Right now vampires are a little past their peak and werewolves are the hot new thing, with other kinds of shifters right behind. Fairies, elves, angels, demons, and other magical beasties are eternally popular. In general, stories set in the modern day sell better than historicals, fantasies, and science fiction.

Kink sells extremely well, especially BDSM. You really really really want an alpha male in charge–femdom is a respectable niche, but not a large one. And did I mention the alpha male? Because you want him. In your book. or in your pants. Wherever. Everyone wants him. He is infinitely wantable. You want him right now, as you read this. Feel that emotion? That’s you, wanting the alpha male.

If you don’t want alpha males, you’re kinda screwed. Because erotic romance? Is all about alpha males.

What kinds of stories are right out?

Publishers don’t want to see underage sex, bestiality (shapeshifters excluded, though the lovers might have to be in humanoid form before they get down and dirty), or rape as titillation. Most also don’t want to see scat, waterplay, or incest. Consent issues (”forced seduction”) are acceptable at some houses and unacceptable at others.

Once upon a time some houses didn’t want to see gay or lesbian sex, but that has changed with the massive and rampant popularity of m/m fiction. I don’t know how genderqueer would be accepted; no publisher I know of is saying “no intersexed/transsexual characters,” but then, I haven’t heard of any genderqueer characters, either. Considering how into Manly McBrickerson and His Mighty Manly Penis the genre is, readers just might not be interested enough for houses to take a chance on it.

Orrr there could be a sea change in tastes. You never know. There’s a very small but growing contingent of readers who are tired of alpha males and willing to move past vanilla kink and idealized sex.

Who publishes erotic romance?

Oh lawd, there’s quite a list. Most of the publishers are e-presses, but many of them also put out print books, which show up in the romance section of real bookstores. Some of the top houses are:

Ellora’s Cave (THE erotic romance press)
Samhain Press
Torquere
Changeling Press

How hard is it to get published?

Not hard at all compared with traditional publishing. Standards are a bit lower,* volume is a bit higher, books are shorter–10K to 50K is standard, compared to 80K to 200K for typical fantasy novels. Waits are shorter, so rather than spending a year to get an agent, a year to shop the manuscript around, and a year to get the accepted manuscript into print, you can send the story straight to publishers, get an answer back in one to three months, and see your work in print three to six months** after it’s accepted. All publishers accept unagented submissions; in fact, agents usually won’t touch the erotic romance market because the sums of money are too small to bother with.

Between taking less time to write a completed work, less time to acceptance, less time to publication, lower standards, and a much less risk-averse publishing culture, it’s far faster and easier to get published in erotic romance. That doesn’t mean it’s a cakewalk… but acceptance rates in traditional publishing are under 1%, and even the pickiest erotic romance press accepts a higher percentage than that.

* Scream all you want, that won’t change the fact that the floor is set lower for erotic romance. Some erotic romance is written to standards that would surpass those of any genre you care to name; but the bottom-of-the-barrel stuff… well.

** or so.

Related pages:

1. Erotic Romance Resources General Sites EREC – Erotic Romance E-Publisher Comparison An industry...
2. What Is Erotic Romance? Once upon a time there was a genre called Romance;...