Once more, pornography drives the technology curve upward… but this time it’s chick porn:
Barnes & Noble abandoned ebooks once, so why are they coming back to them now? Because the format is starting to take off. Why is that? What’s popular on Fictionwise? Well, once again it seems like porn is blazing a path to a new media format. Of the top 10 bestsellers under the “Multiformat” category, nine are tagged “erotica” amd the last is “dark fantasy”. Hey, I’m not judging anyone (one of my dearest friends is an erotic romance author) and yes, I’ve used the most salacious Top 10 list on the site in my example, but this data backs up my anecdotal observations. People who read erotic romance and ‘bodice rippers’ love ebooks because of the privacy they offer, both during purchase and when reading.
The best part is the titles. The Demon’s Librarian. Submission. Sinful Treats. Seducing the Wolf. I wonder why we never hear pastors or anti-porn political activists inveighing against the family-destroying problem of textual porn? Say what you will about the male fixation on visual stimulus, but you have to admit that it seldom involves the seduction of forest creatures.