Jerico Knight's Blog: Odd rumors for the land of Jerico

So I'm back from taking a break from writing with two new stories in the Tina Diamond series.
Piece by Piece: A Tina Diamond Story and I Want you to Like Me: A Tina Diamond Story continue Tina's spiral into the depths of the camgirl industry.

I hope you like them and as always feel free to ask me any questions or make any suggests, here, by e-mail or on Twitter.

Thanks,
Jerico

I consider myself to be a pulp smut writer. My characters aren't particularly nice people. In fact, a lot of them are cruel and a bit evil. I do not do well at writing romance.

I've taken a shot at it a few times. I've tried writing softer stories with more likable male protagonists. These stories go unread while the ones with the rat bastard dominants do quite well.

I'm taking this to mean I should stick to what I do best. It would seem that in my fiction, much like in real life, women prefer bad boys to nice guys. And in the case of my fiction, readers want really bad boys.

I've come to this decision after spending a couple of months laid up with vision problems that left me unable to write as much as I'd like and with time on my hand to listen to audiobooks. I've been reading a lot of erotica and romance because that's what I write.

What I've learned:
-- Shorter is better. Maybe not 10 pages, but definitely not more than 100. Longer may be better in romance, but in erotica, I can't find a character I don't want to strangle once they get past page 50. The longer a story runs, the less I like the character. Maybe it's just that I feel I already know all I need to know about them.

-- Darker is better.

-- Rougher is better.

-- Happy endings are overrated. Sometimes, you just have to let your characters be grateful for surviving a story.

I'm not F. Scott Fitzgerald, spinning glorious descriptions of gorgeous parties. I'm Hemmingway, giving short, sharp punches that drive home rough and sometimes dirty actions.

But I'm curious. What do people who regularly read erotica ... and especially those who have given mine a chance ... think?

This video sums up the complicated relationship between erotica authors and readers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjU03...

We look at our stats and see books are selling. We know people are reading them. Nobody leaves reviews. Now a lot of this is probably because Amazon makes you link your review to your account. You'd don't want the people accessing the wish list for your baby shower to see you read "Bred by the Bull IX." I get that. It's the reason I don't review erotica on Amazon.

But just know that if I've read your book and rated or reviewed it here, I would shake your hand on the street in broad daylight.

I might pretend I know you from my church softball league, but I would shake your hand.

My newest novella is live, If you're a fan of younger guys taking control of women in their 30s, I think you'll like this. I tried to not only hit all the tropes of the genre but bludgeon them to death in a good way.