Edgy

At the end of a long day, freelance writer Erica Kennedy often found herself in her tiny Brooklyn apartment, escaping into “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Good in Bed.”

But too often she was bored with chick lit — not transported. Eager to find a book that didn’t stick to some formula, the 31-year-old New York native had an idea: Why not write one?

The result was “Bling,” a close-up look at the sometimes cloistered world of hip-hop.

As hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons’ goddaughter and a writer for celebrity magazines, Kennedy knew she had inside information that could work for a novel. Miramax Books put out an initial print run of 125,000 copies, and she hopes to reach a mainstream audience.

“This book was a violent reaction to all those other chick lit books out there,” the diminutive Kennedy said with a smile in her airy apartment in Brooklyn Heights, where she is surrounded by tall bookshelves stuffed with the likes of a biography of Marvin Gaye and Tom Perrotta’s “Little Children.”

Since Helen Fielding came out with “Bridget Jones’ Diary” in 1996 and sold more than 4 million copies worldwide, chick lit has become big business. Some publishers now have imprints catering specifically to the genre.

In 2001, Harlequin started Red Dress Ink, which specializes in the breezy novels and puts out about 36 titles a year. Last year, Pocket Books started Downtown Press, which publishes three new titles a month out of more than 100 submissions from writers.

Margaret Marbury, executive editor of Red Dress Ink, said she sees basically three different kinds of chick lit.

There’s the “traditional” kind, such as Sophie Kinsella’s many books in which a young woman in the Big City is looking for love.

Then there’s celebrity chick lit, like Plum Syke’s “Bergdorf Blondes” or “The Nanny Diaries” — books that take readers into a flamboyant world they may not see otherwise.

The third is what Marbury calls “breakout” chick lit, which has the basic tenets of the genre with a sharper edge. It’s likely the next step in the evolution of chick lit, she said.

Jardine Libaire, 31, may be ahead of the game. Her book “Here Kitty Kitty” is the story of a woman named Lee who lives in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Lee is a sort of modern-day Holly Golightly, only with far more debt and vices than the character from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Like many characters in traditional chick lit, Lee loves designer clothes and handbags, but she also succumbs to her fair share of booze and drugs and writes about them in often sordid, sad detail.

Libaire said that Lee, admittedly, is a bit of a loser. She’s an irresponsible party girl who’s just cute enough to keep readers’ attention.

She has no one but herself to blame for her romantic and financial gaffes. And at the end of the book, no one saves her.

“I think that in other chick lit books, the women are made out to be a little more lovable,” Libaire said. “But with Lee, she just doesn’t have a sense of liability.”

As she writes: “Gifts out on the foyer table. Red wine, plum lilies, soap in wax paper, a tin of foie gras. Everyone but me brought something. I’d brought the black hole of my misfit personality: Light fell into me. I spent much of the time bent over the cheese plate, hands clasped behind me, avoiding conversation.”

There have been other books that stray from the formula.

In 2003, Alix Strauss came out with “The Joy of Funerals,” a novel told in six stories about women grieving the loss of their men.

The first vignette introduces a widow named Leslie who sprinkles the ashes of photos of her dead husband onto her Rice Krispies, then seduces random mourners she meets at the cemetery.

Harcourt Brace and Co. published Andrew Seigel’s novel “Like the Red Panda,” about a 17-year-old Princeton-bound girl who can’t decide if she wants to kill herself.

HarperCollins plans three less-than-traditional chick lit books this year.

Alisa Kwitney’s “On the Couch” is the story of a woman who plays the role of an escort after a local detective mistakes her for one, all while helping to solve a murder mystery. Kathleen Cross’s heroine in “Schooling Carmen” is angry after learning she has breast cancer and feels that she is too young to die.

Saralee Rosenberg’s “Claire Voyant” is the story of a woman who finds out in her 30s that she is adopted and that her biological mother is an aging starlet who wants to sell the film rights to her daughter’s story to make a quick buck.

Elaine Rapping, an expert on media studies at State University New York at Buffalo, has written extensively about romance novels and sees chick lit as an offshoot.

She said chick lit says something about the fantasies of young women and their desire to have both a career and romance.

“Only if something changes in the world will these types of books not be popular,” Rapping said. “Maybe at some point women may start to write more sour books about these lives. Maybe they’ll be darker stories about the rat race and romance.”

Just as Fabio became almost iconic for the covers of romance novels, chick lit also has its telltale signs. Most titles can be spotted across a bookstore, thanks in part to their pastel covers and line drawings of martini glasses or shoes.

With that in mind, Kennedy made sure that when her book deal went through she had cover approval — something that most first-time writers don’t usually get.

After vetoing Miramax’s first cover suggestion, she designed the cover herself. She made it completely black, with “Bling” written in shiny silver lettering that glistens as readers walk by. Her publisher liked it.

Libaire was of a similar frame of mind, but she made no special requests.

“I was terrified of the cartoon girl with the stilettos,” Libaire said. When she finally saw the cover of her book, she was relieved to see a muted photograph of a young woman who looked eerily like her.

“Here Kitty Kitty” was written over and over again in tiny print from top to bottom.

Marbury said that she thinks readers are ready to move beyond the bubblegum covers, but the transition might be slow.

“Readers want a female-looking book on the outside. They want to know what they’re getting,” Marbury said. She also noted that editorial and marketing are often at odds over cover design: “But the books that have a good story to tell are the ones that are going to survive.”

Not all women writers are pleased with the amount of attention chick lit receives.

“It’s kind of frustrating sometimes to see all these books,” said Claire Zulkey, 25. She independently published “Girls! Girls! Girls!,” a collection of essays about being a young woman.

“As a writer you get kind of jealous. Why do these people get paid and get published?” Zulkey said. “It’s just that sometimes if you’re a woman writer, it seem as if you have to be one way or another.

“You’re either some artsy Iowa Writer’s Workshop woman with wool socks or you’re Plum Sykes,” she said. “I would like to see a blend of the two.”