Erotic Corner - Sharing (or not) the love!

With the advent of Amazon's tagging system to find and "like" books on social media, the industry has been swarmed with requests from authors to other authors, authors to readers and producers to consumers to "Like" and "tag" products.

The biggest problem I have with this entire ordeal is twofold: 
One:  I'm not sure  it's relevant to buying habits because it forces us to lie in support of friends, etc and I'm not really sure of the intrinsic value
Two:  I don't have time to help my competition, especially if I"m NOT a fan of your writing.'

The biggest problem people have is with my second statement.

In erotica, sex sells yes.  And there IS plenty of wealth to go around so we're  not really competing for the same dollar exactly.  I mean my FemDomme readers are not necessarily going to be the same audience as my paranormal readership, which may eschew my fantasy romance readers, etc. 

The biggest reason people seem upset with me has more to do with an ideal of you scratch my back I'll scratch yours.  Except that unless you're a NY author or someone bigger than I am, I'm probably NOT reading you, and I"m almost NOT going to take a chance on you when I have a huge to be read pile already, full of writers who I KNOW adhere to the nonverbal contract between a reader and author.  It seems selfish, even in sex, but new authors who don't even know me asking me for social media exposure, quite frankly, are being presumptuous.

The argument is that back when I was a new author, someone helped  me.  You're right, they did.  AFTER I made the effort to get to know the author, make some semblance of friendship and establish a relationship while putting in my own work to show I was both professional and serious.

Quite frankly, many of us are sick and tired of the lazy people in publishing.  

As I've stated before, erotica is just another genre in the BUSINESS of publishing.  I know it seems droll to keep bringing that up but my patience and the patience of those around me for this type of behavior is growing thin.  In truth, on something like Amazon,  my help only means a great deal after you've established an audience and they are similar to mine.  In that case, you've done the work to hype your own stats, credibility and career by attracting READERS to "like and tag" you.

The primary job of an author is one most of us forget from time to time.  It's not truly the pursuit of wealth though it can lead to that path, nor is it to stroke the ego.  The primary job is to entertain READERS.  Yes, authors are often readers too, but many of us are so busy writing and on deadline that we want to stick to established relationships.  Yes, if Joey W. Hill suggests a new author to me, I'm more in line to check out her recommendation. 

As my career grows, my time to help the small guy becomes limited, which is why I took up an editing position.  I can best serve the needs of the authors and industry by building the line I am and editing both for Sizzler Editions and Freelance, rather than "liking and tagging" your work.