The Sunday Business section of the New York Times recently carried a lengthy article on Meredith Wild,
a woman who, after becoming a very successful independent author of romance
novels, started her own publishing imprint called “Waterhouse Press.”
“I wanted something that sounded like it was a real imprint,
because nobody takes you seriously as an independent author,” the Times quoted Ms Wild as saying.
After first publishing her own books, Ms Wild began
acquiring and releasing the works of other self-published romance writers under
the Waterhouse name, becoming what the Times
termed “a kind of value investor in erotic prose, pinpointing under-valued
writers and backing their brands.”
One such acquisition was the “Calendar Girl” series by
Audrey Carlan. It’s about a young woman who becomes a high-priced escort to
settle her father’s gambling debts. In
other words, it’s all about family values.
What really caught my eye in this article came toward the
end, where the Times reported that
not only did Waterhouse buy all of Ms Carlan’s existing books, but signed her
to a 27-book deal that calls for her to produce a new novel every two months.
That’s a lot of stories. What will they be about?
These days, it appears, “romance” means sex, and lots of it.
Ms Carlan, the Times said,
told the paper the arrangement with Waterhouse came as a relief to her because
she could focus on writing sex scenes. “I’m not interested in designing websites and formatting my
books,” she was quoted as saying. “I just want to write wicked hot books.”
How about Ms Wild’s own offerings? “Hardwired,” the first
novel in what will be known as her “Hacker” series, is said to be about a young, female
Harvard grad who, in the course of raising money from angel investors for her fashion-themed
social networking startup, is seduced by one of them and introduced to “an
array of sexual kinks.”
Who’d have
thought it? Well, maybe someone who wants to sell a lot of books.
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