Why I Write Dinosaur Erotica

The short answer: The porn books sell better than my mystery novels.

To this day, the above image is the most successful piece of art I have ever made. It’s still making its way around the internet, popping up as a new meme once or twice a year, which typically leads to a mini-surge in book sales. I can’t explain it. It’s not even my best dinosaur erotica illustration.

Dino Erotica in the Mainstream Media The year was 2013, and I was a frustrated artist looking for a way to make a living doing what I loved so I could finally stop pretending to be a personal trainer.

I had a realistic understanding of my strengths and limitations and knew that my best bet was to find a niche market to work in. Something where my twisted sensibilities would be an asset rather than a detriment.

That’s when I stumbled upon an article in the Huffington Post about this new phenomenon called dinosaur erotica.

My assumption was that nobody really wanted to fuck dinosaurs, so if this subgenre was getting mentioned in a relatively mainstream publication, there must be some kind of ironic or satirical element to the material.

The article itself was pretty tongue-in-cheek, but the writer didn’t seem to be casting judgment or shaming either the authors or their fans. The two authors showcased in the article were two women in their early twenties who collaborated on stories together, most likely while drunk or stoned.

They seemed just as surprised as anyone that they were making money.

Judging a Book by its Cover What struck me most about the books was how shitty the book covers were. The authors had clearly made them themselves by collaging stock images of dinosaurs and women in bikinis with no consideration of composition or layout.

I’m not much of a graphic designer myself, but I can draw, and I knew a painted illustration would be more interesting than what the other authors were doing. I figured that if these people were selling books, maybe they would be willing to pay me for a decent cover.

My Evolution as an Artist Before I could legitimately claim to be a dinosaur erotica cover illustrator, I first needed to do at least one dinosaur erotica illustration. Considering nobody has ever taken a photo of a dinosaur, there is plenty of reference material out there, but I wanted my dinos to look somewhat anthropomorphic, so they didn’t need to be accurate or realistic.

The important thing was to make it look like the humans and the dinosaurs were actually interacting, occupying the same space, existing in the same world. This is something that can’t be done by collaging stock images, or at least not very convincingly. Here’s my first attempt:

Soon after I added this to my Behance portfolio, it started showing up all over the place. As expected, there were some haters out there, but overall, it seemed to be generating the kind of “what the fuck” response I was hoping for.

The Czech Republic branch of Maxim even contacted me about printing the image in an issue of their magazine. They only paid me in copies of the publication, but at least I got to keep the rights to the image. The painting was only meant to be a sample anyway, and I had never intended on selling it.

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em This was a time before Chuck Tingle had become a household name, and the idea of actually getting famous for writing dinosaur erotica stories was as ridiculous as it should be.

While some authors were making money, they didn’t appear to be taking their success very seriously. None of them had websites, social media profiles, or readily-available contact information. I had a product that I thought I could sell, but I couldn’t find clients.

That’s when I decided to become my own client.

I don’t personally have a dinosaur fetish and wasn’t a fan of erotica in general, but I thought if I could come up with something that would be entertaining for people who get a kick out of weird shit they find on the internet, then I might be able to build an audience.

As for the actual fans of the genre, I figured that, as long as I wasn’t condescending in how I handled the subject matter, they might be into it even if it wasn’t exactly what they were used to.

At the time, I didn’t have all that much experience writing prose, but after checking out one of the books by the authors in the article, I saw just how low the bar was. They were charging $2.99 for a tiny 3,000-word short story, chock full of bad grammar and typos.

It’s possible that they could be decent writers if they applied themselves, but they were clearly phoning it in with this stuff. I wanted to see what would happen if I actually put in some effort.

Prehistoric Passion It’s easy to make fun of people who want to fuck dinosaurs, but I think it’s more interesting to invent characters that are likable and relatable in spite of their kinks. I try to challenge the mainstream idea of sex positivity and push it as far as I can.

Often, I make the dinosaurs sentient, and when I do, the stories are from their point of view. These are underdog stories about life as an outcast, the struggles of being in a body that doesn’t work the way you want it to, and the frustration of trying to be with someone you aren’t physically compatible with.

Don’t get me wrong; these are nasty books full of graphic (deviant) sexual content, but I’m fascinated by the idea of trying to elevate the genre beyond what most people think it deserves. I understand how absurd this sounds; in fact, that’s the whole point. I may not be a good enough writer to pull it off, but it amuses me to try.

The more effort I put in, the more ridiculous it all becomes.

Lust Finds a Way I eventually expanded my erotica material to include creatures of all types. I have a story about a female centaur getting together with a man that has a horse head, and one about horny Paul Bunyan getting it on with the Statue of Liberty and the presidents on Mount Rushmore.

These days, I spend much more time on my novels than I do on erotica. I’m currently working on the fourth book in a mystery series about a randy cat detective who is the son of a museum curator and Bastet, the Egyptian goddess. Tonally, these aren’t all that different from the erotica books, though there’s more focus on character and plot.

I’m having fun writing them, but the books aren’t selling, which is why I keep going back to the erotica.

I just released a book on Valentine’s Day, called A Horny Raptor in King Arthur’s Court. It’s a little darker than the other ones, but it has a happy ending. Here’s a little peek at the cover:

All of my books can be found on Amazon. The erotica stories are published under the pen name R.K. Galaga, while the novels are under R. Klemek. I’ve been publishing the third book in my Mangy Detective series one chapter at a time here on Medium.

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And if you like some intrigue with your smut: