IN THE SPOTLIGHT

DarkLady.comwww.blackbooks.com

This week’s In The Spotlight is with Darklady of Darklady.com and Blackbooks.com.

YNOT: Which major site are you a webmaster for?

Darklady: When I’m wearing my webmaster hat, it’s for my own site, www.darklady.com and for alternative sexuality book publisher, Black Books at www.blackbooks.com.IN THE SPOTLIGHT

DarkLady.comwww.blackbooks.com

This week’s In The Spotlight is with Darklady of Darklady.com and Blackbooks.com.

YNOT: Which major site are you a webmaster for?

Darklady: When I’m wearing my webmaster hat, it’s for my own site, www.darklady.com and for alternative sexuality book publisher, Black Books at www.blackbooks.com. We’ll be launching a shopping cart on the Black Books site in the very near future. My eternal personal goal on the Darklady site is to put up a gallery with photos of myself, as well as assorted shots I’ve taken over the years. I’d also like to provide excerpts from the adult talk radio show I used to host.

YNOT: How else are you involved with the adult industry?

(www.ncsfreedom.org), Americans United for Separation of Church and State (www.au.org), and a number of other civil liberties organizations. I’m an outspoken First and Second Amendment supporter, and live my life honestly and openly as a responsible sexual being. I have the good fortune to make a living while doing so by working for people and companies that believe in freedom of speech and expression, freedom of conscience — and paying me for my work.

YNOT: Who do you work for?

Darklady: I work for myself and love it. As a free-range writer and editor (etc., etc., etc.) I provide services for a number of clients, including Adult Buzz (www.adultbuzz.com), Exotic Magazine, Adult Video News Magazine (www.avn.com) and a number of other local and national publications. I’m currently negotiating some exciting on and offline projects and have short stories in the Black Books anthologies Guilty Pleasures and Best Bisexual Erotica 2.

YNOT: What is the mission of the company that you work for or manage/own ?

Darklady: I’ve never officially created a mission statement for myself, but my ultimate goal is to be able to live my life as fully and ethically as possible – and make a living while doing so. I want to work with people who are above board, honest, reliable, and ambitious with vision and heart. I believe that I provide services of the highest caliber with an eye toward both profit and entertaining education. I think sexuality can be visceral and smart at the same time.

YNOT: What products or services, if any do you offer that are different from your competitors?

Darklady: To the best of my knowledge, there’s no one else doing exactly what I’m doing. I live and work in many different areas while most other people tend to have a narrower specialization focus. I write fiction and non-fiction on a diverse range of subjects, edit, model, speak publicly, book sex educators and erotic readings/workshops, host parties – I bring people and information together and make sure that a good time is had by all while it happens. I’ve been called intense, a social enzyme, a modern day Dorothy Parker, a catalyst for change. I’m a blending of mind, spirit and body – and I make my deadlines. My first homemade business cards read “Style with substance,” and I believe that still holds true. I have a naturally curious nature and so it’s easy to make it my business to know a little about everything and be able to become an expert overnight. I’ve been graced with the ability to articulate my thoughts and feelings both in spoken and written word while being fairly easy on the eyes.

YNOT: What is your title and how long have you been with your company?

Darklady: I’m the Goddess of All Things here at Darklady Productions.

YNOT: What are your general duties for the company?

Darklady: Do all of the work (including marketing and promotion) — or find someone reliable when I need to subcontract for something like the Black Books shopping cart.

YNOT: What drew you to the industry?

Darklady: I’d say I was drawn to the industry by an unbounded curiosity about sexuality and human nature, along with a singularly uncompromising approach to my own sexual identity and lifestyle. My first ex-husband brought home a copy of the local yellow journalist sex tabloid, suggested I contact them about proof reading, and the rest is history.

YNOT: What type of work were you doing, if any, before you started in the biz?

Darklady: When I first began working in the biz I was a recent college grad and newlywed recovering from critical injuries sustained in a car wreck. I was utterly miserable working as a clerical temp and trying to be the mildly eccentric wife of an administrative assistant in the trust real estate department of a banking institution. By the time I went full-time I was the recently abandoned wife of an administrative assistant in the trust real estate department of a banking institution.

YNOT: When did you get your start in the online adult business?

Darklady: I had a BBS called the Church of Unholy Love (CoUL) for a while. Darklady dot com was brought online in 1998 when I was working as a copywriter at egghead.com and writing for AVN and AVN Online. After I escaped from the smothering anti-creativity morass that was egghead, I worked as an associate editor for AVN Online for about a year. Then Adult Buzz brought me onboard and I’m about to celebrate my first anniversary working with Kath Blackwell, who’s an awesome co-worker and professional.

YNOT: What types of sites and/or targeted business did you start with?

Darklady: I began by reviewing websites for AVN Online(http://www.avnonline.com). As editor of Exotic, I’d occasionally written or hired Internet-related writing and had a developing interest in the subject. Working for AVN Online helped me educate myself more about the industry and meet the people working in the adult area of it. I’m always looking for people within this and other industries who know what they’re talking about. I love to learn about the things I love, so I’ve targeted businesses with specialized knowledge, experience or opportunity. At heart a librarian or museum curator, (just a very kinky one) I’ve been drawn to reference sites. For instance, I wrote an how-to-for-newbies column (“Darklady’s S/M Parlor”) for Good Vibes (www.goodvibes.com), a bisexual Q&A column for TechnoDyke.com and hung out with webmaster resource site folks.

YNOT: Give us your thoughts on how easy or difficult it was for you to get started in this biz.

Darklady: My story is absolutely a case of YMMV. I was staying with Jacklyn Lick (JacklynLick.com) in LA while I was in town meeting with Larry Flynt about a possible job. She encouraged me to call AVN and offer my services as a writer. I very nervously did so and I was thrilled and amazed to be told “yes” on the phone, that the editor was familiar with my work, and had a copy of Exotic on his desk at that moment. I’d been hired by Exotic after the publisher had noticed my work in the yellow tabloid I’d started in. I’d landed the yellow tabloid writing gigs after offering my services as a desperately needed proofreader – and being offered a profile piece when a writer couldn’t make the interview and I was willing to take it over for him. I have no idea how anyone else enters this industry as a writer. My story is one of guts, luck, talent, and hard work.

YNOT: What do you love about the adult Internet industry?

Darklady: The opportunity to work and live openly without needing to hide my interest in sex and my various unique obsessions therein. The freedom to telecommute and not worry about my boss finding out I looked at or read smut during the workday. I like the challenge of producing high-quality, intelligent, interesting, emotive text in an area where some people think it can’t be done. I love giving the First Amendment a healthy dose of exercise and reminding people how precious the right to do so is. I like a surprising number of the people in the biz, too. They may not always understand where I’m coming from, but they’re generally pretty accepting and kind. Although I’ve not become best buddies with everyone I’ve met or worked with, I’ve much preferred the people I’ve met while working with adult industry professionals, online and off. There’s honesty about porn that I haven’t found elsewhere.

YNOT: What do you dislike?

Darklady: There’s some adolescent behavior in the biz that’s tedious. And, as a larger woman who’s grown up with plenty of body negative messages, sometimes it’s kind of intense dealing with so many images of sexuality that don’t resemble me very much. But that just means I have to be my own role model and help promote areas of beauty and sensuality that aren’t being adequately promoted. I especially dislike the fact that the government won’t stop treating mutually consensual adults like criminals and let us do our work and live our lives/love our loves in peace.

YNOT: Any plans for the future?

Darklady: Absolutely and always. I’d love to do online radio, plan on doing some S/M video work, have made some mainstream print pitches, and want to keep learning and doing more while becoming fabulously wealthy.

YNOT: What do you do when you’re not writing or at your computer?

Darklady: I don’t understand the question. What does “when you’re not writing or at your computer” mean? Ok, I admit it. I do occasionally escape the inexorable gravitational pull of my computer. Usually it’s to host parties or sexuality community related workshops or support meetings, though. When it’s absolutely not work related, I go swing dancing, target shooting, out to dinner, or to see a film with one of my boyfriends. I like bookstores and museums, the Oregon coast, sewing, taking walks, having long conversations, watching Junk Yard Wars, Battle Bots, MST3K and Adult Swim while lounging around on my king-sized bed in front of the fireplace with one of my beaus.

YNOT: What are your thoughts on the future of the adult Internet industry?

Darklady: I think that like alcohol, people turn to adult entertainment to celebrate when things go well and for solace when things aren’t so good. The key to surviving the ebbs and flows of the marketplace is to treat your business like a business. Just because we’re dealing with sex doesn’t mean we can slack off and be lazy. People can find all kinds of free content online these days and we have to provide them with a reason to pay for what we have to offer. And then we need to stand behind it, just as any business should stand behind their product. Because we live in “interesting times” we also owe it to ourselves to keep an eye on the political world, especially as relates to Attorney General John Ashcroft.

YNOT: If you had one bit of advice you could offer new webmasters, what would it be?

Darklady: Be for real and keep your word. Even if you’re not working on a project that appeals to one of your personal preferences, research the market and find out what fans of your subject matter desire. You may be able to fake an orgasm with your partner, but if you’re trying to fake out surfers, they’ll know.

YNOT: How did you get into erotic writing?

Darklady: If by “erotic writing” you mean fiction/erotica, then I decided to give it a shot while I was working for Exotic. We were involved in the production of a swingers’ magazine and I’d been asked to contribute some fiction to it. I can’t say it was great art but it was a start. I eventually made contacts with a number of erotica writers and sex educators as a reviewer and become friends with them. This eventually led to my being asked to contribute stories to the anthologies Guilty Pleasures and Best Bisexual Erotica 2. I want to see more of my work in such anthologies, but the majority of my money comes from other forms of writing so they tend to get the majority of my attention. I started writing non-fiction erotic writing because people kept asking me for advice and telling me that they thought my life was interesting. They keep asking and telling, so I keep writing.

YNOT: What led you to explore alternative niches?

Darklady: I’ve never felt really a part of most mainstream trends and “alternative” has always felt like a much better fit for me. Being something of an outsider I naturally was interested in what other outsiders were doing. Above and beyond all of that, my earliest sexual fantasies were pretty non-mainstream. I’ve always loved the “bad boys,” and what I now know is called “power exchange.” I was raised by a sexually repressed Roman Catholic woman and an angry, once sexually active Viet Nam era drill sergeant. I think it was pretty inevitable that my interests rest in the alternative realm.

YNOT: Which alternative niches do you associate yourself with?

Darklady: I love shoes and boots, silk, velvet, vinyl, rubber, corsets, stockings, vampires, goth themes, and the like. I enjoy some of the more gentle fetishes, I suppose. I get hot when I see a man in a stylish suit and hat, for instance. Aspects of sexuality that blend the irrational physical urge with the rational mind turn me on. I love homoerotic images and the blending of strength and softness they can communicate. I like the real world sexiness of amateur. I like the honor and romance of D/s. I’m dedicated to advancing the cause of responsible non-monogamy, particularly as regards polyamorous and polyfidelitous relationships. I want to help make the world a sexier, safer, more loving and more enjoyable place to live.

YNOT: How do you suggest somebody goes about finding a career in erotic writing?

Darklady: I don’t think one finds a career so much as one finds a career path. Like any creative job, it’s not easy to make a living as an erotic writer – whether that be fiction or non-fiction. So the first thing to do is develop realistic goals. Observe the various aspects of the market and direct writing toward those that fit your styles and interests. Learn to spell or use a spell-checker. If you get an assignment, meet your deadline and don’t give your editor a lot of grief. Learn to accept and identify valid criticism and advice. There are a variety of online publications that host excellent erotic writing, although few of them currently pay. ScarletLetters.com and MindCaviar.com are examples. Read books from publishers like Black Books, Cleis (www.cleispress.com), Alyson (www.alyson.com), and the like to get a feel for what’s on the market. And have a day job you can fall back on when times are lean. Mostly, don’t expect to make as much money as your friends in more mainstream markets – but do expect to see more naked people and get invited to way more interesting parties.

YNOT: Has the erotica market grown? If so, how?

Darklady: I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on the erotica market. I just write the stuff. But I’m seeing more books with higher quality writing than I ever have. I’m seeing sexier writing making it into the mainstream, as well. Hopefully some of us who have been in the trenches for years writing about sex will be able to get in on this trend. It’s an irony that publishers in the mainstream want writers who know what they’re talking about but get nervous when they think about hiring writers they don’t know well. Since most of them haven’t been going to the same way more interesting parties that we’ve been going to, they don’t always immediately know us or understand our value.

YNOT: Is erotica a lucrative market potentially for webmasters?

Darklady: I think that quality erotica accompanying quality imagery has great potential. Although the popularity of sex writing has been high on BBS’ and in Usenet, I don’t think that’s always translated into money on the web. Most people are looking for pretty pictures. But I think there are more readers surfing for smut than people may realize. The key is to blend the immediacy of the visual realm with the slower but longer burning heat of the written word. The result seems likely to be a smaller segment of the market than is looking exclusively for visual whacking material, but a very loyal segment. I constantly hear people complaining about how stupid they find much accompanying text, so I can’t help but think that improving its quality will translate into some degree of subscriber retention and overall content satisfaction. I think that sex information writing – including Q&A and how-to – that is entertaining and practical holds promise, as well. People have a lot of sensitive questions and it’s hard to find qualified and open-minded professionals with the answers.