Prurient

By A.J. Llewellyn

Prurient:

1. Inordinately interested in matters of sex; lascivious.
2. 1. Characterized by an inordinate, unwholesome interest in sex: prurient thoughts.
   2. Arousing or appealing to an inordinate interest in sex: prurient literature.

I am guest blogging here for Jerry today so let me briefly introduce myself. My name is A.J. Llewellyn and I write gay erotic romance fiction for eXtasy Books. I have 30 books published with eX - three of these are anthologies, the rest are my own books and also I have two series with D.J. Manly and two series with Stephani Hecht.
It's hard yakka (that's Australian for work) promoting your books and I think I do a pretty good job with blogs, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and author chats, excerpt posting and ads on erotic romance sites.
However...with so many books under my belt and with a bit of a "brand name" to go with it in my flagship M/M series "Phantom Lover" and with sales down everywhere, I've been trying to be proactive in the promo department.
"Phantom Lover" and 99% of my books are set in the Hawaiian Islands and when my new sub of a certain magazine associated with the islands arrived at my door yesterday, I thumbed through it and noticed their 'Marketplace' had a rectangular ad that reads: YOUR AD HERE.
The colors on the page, by the way are lush and gorgeous and I thought my hero, Kimo Wilder, the kumu hula and Keeper of Secrets would look awfully hot on it.
With a readership of quarter of a million people, I went for it.
I called the number listed, but that particular ad exec no longer works for the mag. That surprised me since the issue in my hands is the current one.
That probably should have told me something there.
She forwarded my call to a very nice woman who told me the ad space was $730 for a one time run but said if I advertised in every issue for a single year - that's six issues - she could charge me $620 an ad.
Let me just say, I don't even earn this kind of money in royalties, but I figured I am trying to get my work out there to a wider audience and I asked her point blank if she would run an ad for erotic romance fiction.
She said she wasn't sure. I told her I would email her with my website info since she was having trouble spelling my name over the phone.
I then received, several hours later, a very nasty email from her boss - who also CCd her - saying, "While we respect your right to publish such things we do not allow ads for work of such a prurient nature."
Prurient!
What an unpleasant, antiquated little word. What homophobia!
For a magazine that is supposed to promote ALOHA!
I was not surprised they wouldn't take my ad, frankly, but I WAS surprised by the meanness of the response.
I wrote back and told this ad executive exactly that. I also told him it was nice to know that in this tough economy it's easy for him to sneer at almost $4,000 in revenue from a potential client.
Must be nice, eh?
All the freelance and staff advertising people I know are desperate for clients...but not Mr. Clean. He is squeaky pure and probably never, ever, but never has a single solitary prurient thought.
I might send him a couple of my paper backs you know...just to be polite.
And prurient.

Aloha oe,

A.J.