Enterprise: The Rich Pornocopia

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Shorting the Author. The growing mail-order trade is still something of a cottage industry made up of small dealers, many of whom operate out of warehouse offices and lofts. Ads for their wide assortment of items—vibrators, costumes, imitation sexual organs—appeal to every kind of sex fantasy, but the promises are not always matched by the product. Printed matter is still the most common form of porn, much of it supplied by such relatively new publishing houses as Los Angeles' Oxford Bindery and Manhattan's Olympia. San Diego's Greenleaf Classics churns out 36 titles a month, each with a 30,000 print order. "I have never lost money on a sex book," says Bill Hambling, Greenleafs chief. Many smut books are printed in regular union shops during the slack early-morning hours; shops sometimes charge five times as much to print hard-core porn as regular books.

Even so, the average porn paperback costs no more than 25¢ to produce. The publisher then sells it for about $1 to wholesalers like Cleveland's giant Sovereign News Co. The shortest end of the take goes to the authors—some of them teachers, housewives and journalists—who are lucky to clear $250 a book. Chicago's Loop now has about 20 "adult" bookstores, which also sell records, playing cards and other assorted forms of erotica; San Francisco has 60 stores, and Los Angeles 100.

About three years ago, as a result of court decisions liberalizing what could legally be put on sale, the market for salacious magazines picked up swiftly. Total nudity is now common. Some of the more explicit publications, showing sexual acts, sell under the counter for as much as $10 and $15. Sex tabloids are also cashing in —usually at 50¢ a copy. Screw, the genre's prototype, was started by two young journalists and the wife of one of them on a $350 investment. It grossed $650,000 in the first year.

The latest development is the live sex show, in which a naked couple perform before viewers, who pay up to $15 to watch, often in dingy, airless backrooms. At least half a dozen live showplaces have opened in Manhattan. In Los Angeles, four bars and three moviehouses have started live shows within the past two months. One bar owner there sums up the economics of the trend: "I had a regular beer bar here, and I was lucky if I took in $80 a night. Now I get a couple onstage, pay them $10, charge a $3 cover and $1.25 for a glass of tap beer that costs me a nickel. Even on a bad night I come out with $600."