Crowdsourced Erotic Fiction Novel Hits #4 On The iTunes Charts

from the features-100%-more-'beekeeper-sex'-than-the-closest-competitor dept

One of the old adages of publishing is "know your audience." In today's ultra-crowded digital markets, that adage is more important than ever. There's money to be made simply by following trends, and if you can get over any hangups about "artistic integrity," you can ride the wave until it collapses.

Much like the success of the Twilight series kicked loose a wave of imitators and revitalized young adult fiction , E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Gray trilogy (which itself began as Twilight fan fiction) has pushed the erotic fiction genre into the mainstream. This fact didn't go unnoticed by a couple of opportunists (and several accomplices), who took it upon themselves to add to the pantheon of stroke books erotic fiction with a contribution of their own. Enter Brian Brushwood and Justin Young, hosts of The NSFW Podcast.

"It all started with Scam School Book 2 – Brian’s magic book," Justin said. "He found out as he was pushing that book that the top ten in iTunes was all erotic fiction. Even to the point where established authors, like Janet Evanovich, couldn’t break into the top five of the iBooks store—because of all the erotic fiction that was capitalizing on Shades of Grey. And he thought—we could do that!"

The twist here is that Brushwood and Young didn't write a single word. The entire book is compiled from the contributions of their listeners. Held together only by the appearance of the same main character in every chapter, The Diamond Club has more in common with anthologies of Penthouse Letters (such things actually exist) and its inspiration, Naked Came the Stranger, than an actual cohesive novel. No matter. It crashed the iTunes best-seller chart, placing at #4 -- directly following the Fifty Shades of Gray trilogy.

The men behind the book claim to be trolling, but the sales seem to indicate that the book's audience stretches further than those who are in on the joke. Certainly some people aren't aware of the origin, but it's listed as erotic fiction and delivers the payload expected. Without having to spend a lot of time on character development, plot pacing or "compelling" dialogue, it likely delivers on the "erotic" side more efficiently than other books in the genre.

Justin said, "It’s a hoax in that we are not erotic fiction writers. We don't genuinely think it’s any good. But I will stand behind our product that it delivers what we believe to be the most important component in this genre: sex."

And the book does deliver. Though it has over 1,000 user reviews, only one of them calls out the hoax. "If you look at it, right now," Justin said, "There’s only one comment that says it’s a joke. One review says: Don’t pay money for this. It’s what they want."

Some may see this as yet another indicator of how opening ebooks to the masses is going to result in piles of lousy writing popping up everywhere. Maybe so, but I just can't see it as being solely a bad thing. If the customers are happy with their purchases, it doesn't seem to be much of a problem. The advantage here is a ridiculously short turnaround time that would be nearly impossible to emulate running through a second party, which allowed The Diamond Club to take full advantage of a trend before the audience moved on.

The other big takeaway from this? Another new way to connect with your fans, which springs out of the duo's understanding of both their core podcast audience and the ongoing disruption in content creation:

Users are the content creators today – so they made the listeners of their podcast the authors.

Nothing builds loyalty like including your fans in the creative process, and nothing builds word-of-mouth faster than loyal fans.

Filed Under: books, crowdsourcing, ebooks, literature, trolling

If Entire Books Can Be Sampled, Why Not Songs?

from the stand-up-for-free-expression dept

Recently, there's been some talk about David Shield's new book, Reality Hunger, which is getting some press attention for the fact that most of the book is "plagiarized." Or, rather, the book is derivative. It's a literary collage, of sorts, with only an appendix at the end that links the works back to the original authors -- and that appendix was put in against Shield's original wishes, but on the command of his publishers' lawyers. Of course, as many have noted, even the idea is derivative. Three years ago we wrote about Jonathan Lethem's wonderful Harper's article, The Ecstasy of Influence, which, again, was a collage of other people's works.

And, of course, this follows on the recent "controversy" over a German teen who had done something similar, but did as Shields originally wished, in that she chose not to directly credit the sources in the book.

While some are confused by all of this into thinking that the entire concept of "authorship" is at risk -- many are realizing that's utter hogwash, and this actually shows how unique forms of new content creation are thriving.

However, there is a separate issue that's worth pointing out. While there is some controversy over these sorts of books, we're not hearing about lawsuits -- and we're definitely not hearing about demands for licensing fees. Yet, in the music world, thanks to a series of highly questionable legal rulings, it's impossible to do the same thing. If you make a collage in music, you have to clear every sample or risk getting sued. In some cases, such as Girl Talk, the lawsuits haven't come, but plenty of sampling lawsuits are still filed, and many in the music business want to clear every sample.

But this vast split between the process of creating a remixed/collage book and a remixed/collage music is reasonably upsetting many. Copycense points us to a manifesto, refering back to the discussion on Reality Hunger, suggesting that musicians should stand up for their rights to make derivative, transformative works without having to pay for every sample -- just as what's happening in the literary world:

Rather than take offense however, I'd like to turn the tables.  Indeed what Shields has done is art, and should be treated as original despite being a derivative work.  Where this is accepted, and every day it remains on the market supports its acceptance, then all other original derivative works must be held to the same standard.  The archaic practice of extorting sample based artists for their profits on the legal basis of treating their art only on intellectual property terms, must be out eliminated.  If an author is legally protected in their use of derivative works by simply citing the reference to their usage, there can be no double standard when it comes to musicians.

And so I put forth to sample based producers, and the labels who support them, it's time to take this issue to task.  End your relationships with the sampling clearing houses.  Create your art without the fear of legal repercussions.  Release it for profit, with your sample sources clearly stated.  At first there will be legal cases brought up, but DO NOT BACK DOWN.  You are on the side of the right, and it is only by pushing forward that the laws will change to reflect that.  I believe there are lawyers and activists who need to, as well as those who already do, stand with us to take this as far as it needs to go, but it begins with us the artists not being afraid to stand up for what is right.

Of course, some might argue that it's not necessarily that this is legal in the literary space, just that it's rare for a lawsuit to be filed over such appropriation. Tragically, that's not the case in the music business. But, on the whole, I do agree that it's high time that the courts fix what they got so very, very, very wrong on the legality of de minimis copying of music -- and one way to make that happen is to get musicians who sample to stand up for their rights to sample without having to pay a toll.

Filed Under: books, copyright, fair use, literature, music, plagiarism, samples