If any industry needs a little help to get business to be booming, it’s publishing. And aid is coming from an unlikely source — erotic books could be the savior of the swiftly sinking business of book publishing, MSNBC’s Brian Alexander reports.

We’re not talking your mama’s Harlequin romance novels anymore either, they of the heaving bosoms and ripped bodices. More like Candy Licker, Thong on Fire, and G-Spot, to name just a few. Authors like Noire, a popular novelist who has sold hundreds of thousands of urban erotic fiction books, have become hot names in publishing, where others struggle to get their tomes off the shelves and into the hands of consumers.

Sure, the lifting of the obscenity ban on James Joyce’s Ulysses might’ve started the ball rolling, but these days its kept going with modern erotica. Or really, porn on a page, aimed at women.

As book sales in general decline or stay stagnant, Karen Auerbach of Kensington publishing says of erotica, “we saw it as a growing opportunity; it has exploded.” )No pun intended, we’re sure!) Cleis Press, a San Francisco Bay area publisher of erotica has seen its sales rise by more than 56 percent over the past three years.

The popularity of dirty, naughty, bad but so good books is also seeing a surge due to book clubs where readers get together and dish on every last sigh, embrace and ah, happy ending.

Pardon me, there’s something I need to read now. With the door closed.

Erotica gives book publishers surprising boost [MSNBC]

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