# Erotica -- short, novella, novel -- what sells best?



## Kit_Kat_Purrr (May 10, 2014)

A very similar thread was asked but not specific to erotica.  I know that short story erotica is very popular and considered an acceptable length, even at a $2.99 price point.  But, the sales do tend to be limited in comparison to the sales people tend to get with mainstream (non-erotica) novels.  

So, in your experience/research/opinion, which story length does the best in terms of # of sales for erotica?  Can you get large # sales with an erotica/erom novel?  If yes, are the #'s large enough to justify the greater amount of time/effort that go into a longer story? 

Thanks all!


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## BlairErotica (Mar 1, 2014)

I'm not clear on what your question is... are you looking to find the length or price point that sells best? Novellas at $2.99 or short stories at $2.99? Few of my stories are less than 15,000 words and most are at $2.99 and I see no difference in sales based on length, if that helps. My longer works, including a 70k novel at $4.99 don't sell much, and usually more in paperback than ebook.


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## Kit_Kat_Purrr (May 10, 2014)

BlairErotica said:


> I'm not clear on what your question is... are you looking to find the length or price point that sells best? Novellas at $2.99 or short stories at $2.99? Few of my stories are less than 15,000 words and most are at $2.99 and I see no difference in sales based on length, if that helps. My longer works, including a 70k novel at $4.99 don't sell much, and usually more in paperback than ebook.


Sorry about the confusion. My question deals with sale trends of the different word lengths -- short story, novella, or novel. It's not really about price point. My question basically comes down to, will an erotica/erom novel or novella sell well enough to justify the extra amount of time and effort you have to put into it beyond a short story? Will they out-perform an erotica/erom short story or short story series?


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

IMHO, the question of what sells best shouldn't even be considered. It's obvious when a writer is writing to their perceived audience and not writing what they love to write.


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## Evan J (Feb 3, 2014)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> IMHO, the question of what sells best shouldn't even be considered. It's obvious when a writer is writing to their perceived audience and not writing what they love to write.


That was helpful.


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## BrentNichols (Mar 18, 2011)

I take Wayne's point - there is a danger in writing something you don't care about because you're chasing a market trend. On the other hand, I'm perfectly capable of writing either a short story, or a novel. I think the OP has a valid question. Will a novel-length work outperform a short story? Will it outperform the short story by a factor of ten, if you assume you could have written and published ten short stories in the time it took to write one novel?


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Short stories are hard sells. Novels sell the best. Check out the top 500 paid in Amazon. How many novellas do you see?  How many short stories?


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## Going Incognito (Oct 13, 2013)

My (beginner) numbers:

Personally, I have two erom novels out under another pen name, one about 100K words, the other about 89,000, both priced at 3.99. The one has been out a year, the second, a month. I recently passed 100 titles sold for that pen name. Took a year.

This jamie pen name is 9 months old, is only shorts, from say 5,000-15,000 words, most titles priced at 2.99 and has sold over 1100 titles. 

Now could be 'cause one name has two titles, and this has twentysomething. I like writing both, and throw out shorts while working on the third novel, but the shorts are doing way better.


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## Kit_Kat_Purrr (May 10, 2014)

BrentNichols said:


> I take Wayne's point - there is a danger in writing something you don't care about because you're chasing a market trend. On the other hand, I'm perfectly capable of writing either a short story, or a novel. I think the OP has a valid question. Will a novel-length work outperform a short story? Will it outperform the short story by a factor of ten, if you assume you could have written and published ten short stories in the time it took to write one novel?


Yes, this is my point exactly. Thank you, Brent.

My question does not pertain to whether or not erotica is ones preferred genre. It is about what length of fiction within the erotica genre has the greatest potential of greatest profitability (taking into consideration how long it takes a person to write a short story versus a novella versus a novel). I feel that this question is much easier to answer with regard to non-erotica short fiction because non-erotica short fiction tends to carry a price point below $2.99 (35% royalties) compared to longer non-fiction which might be priced at $2.99+ (70% royalties). So, it would be very difficult for short story non-erotica to out perform longer non-erotica.

With short story erotica, the answer is not as clear because short story erotica can easily be priced at $2.99 (70% royalties), the same as its longer versions (novellas & novels).

Do the # of sales gained by the longer erotica fiction make up for the fact that you're putting out fewer titles? Which length is the most profitable?

Let's break it down like this--assume 120,000 words written (erotica / erom) broken down in the following formats, each scenario taking equally as long to write, and that the price on everything is $2.99 (although I would price higher for novellas and novels in real life):

24 short stories @ 5,000 words each, or
4 Novellas @ 30,000 words each, or
2 Novels @ 60,000 words.

Which scenario in the erotica/erom genre is likely to give you the most financial gain due to likely # of sales?


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## Kit_Kat_Purrr (May 10, 2014)

Jamie Klaire said:


> My (beginner) numbers:
> 
> Personally, I have two erom novels out under another pen name, one about 100K words, the other about 89,000, both priced at 3.99. The one has been out a year, the second, a month. I recently passed 100 titles sold for that pen name. Took a year.
> 
> ...


Hmmm.. Jamie, you may have captured my question in your real life experience. Thank you! I do hope to hear from some others as well. I do suspect author viability is coming in to play within your experience and that Amazon's algorithm for visibility is also coming into play since you are publishing much more seldom under the author name with just the two novels.


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## jcalloway (Jan 10, 2014)

I don't know if you've been around kboards long enough to be familiar with kmatthews, but check out her (massive and incredibly helpful) thread here:

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,162157.0.html

She's been writing short stories/novellas in the erom/erotica genre for a while now and doing very, very well with it. I'd highly recommend reading through the entire thread to check out her changing strategies in terms of pricing and length. I seem to recall her mentioning in that thread that short stories on their own sold at first but didn't have much staying power, which is why she starting serializing 3-part novels with installments of about 15-20k instead.

I haven't tried standalone shorts, personally, so I can't speak to their success, but the 3-part serial formula works really well in erotica/erom, from my own experience.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

Kit_Kat_Purrr said:


> My question basically comes down to, will an erotica/erom novel or novella sell well enough to justify the extra amount of time and effort you have to put into it beyond a short story? Will they out-perform an erotica/erom short story or short story series?


Yes, they can. No guarantees, of course.

If you're writing erotic _romance_, you'll definitely want to do longer. Novella-length is a good minimum. I usually don't do under 30k or 35k. Short stories in erom don't tend to do nearly as well as longer stories.

In erotica, short stories still can do well, but it's a lot harder to sell 5k for $2.99 than it was a couple of years ago. It needs to be very kink-specific and niche. 10k-15k is pretty common for shorts now. I have no advice on whether or not erotica novellas are wise, because I've never gone above 15k for an erotica story. I do think the stories are trending longer, so I wouldn't personally hesitate to do a 30k story if I had an idea for one.


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## John Van Stry (May 25, 2011)

For erotica the 10K to 13K length has worked very well for me at the $2.99 price point. I've seen shorter works on sale for the same or less, but it appears that most people expect somewhere around 10K or a little more for that price. If you have a much longer story, I'd say to break it up into parts.

For a good erotic story with a lot of 'action' people are more than willing to fork over the 2.99. But understand that the vast majority of people who buy this stuff are women, not men, so you HAVE to have a GOOD story tying it together. You can make it as 'nasty' or 'kinky' as you want, (often that will sell better it seems) but women are a lot more critical than men are on the story side. Yes it's fantasy, but you have to engage a lot more of the mind. Some think it's harder writing erotica for women, but to be honest I enjoy the challenge and the things you learn from it do transfer over to mainstream writing.

anyway, my  $ .02 YMMV


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## Kit_Kat_Purrr (May 10, 2014)

vanstry said:


> For erotica the 10K to 13K length has worked very well for me at the $2.99 price point. I've seen shorter works on sale for the same or less, but it appears that most people expect somewhere around 10K or a little more for that price. If you have a much longer story, I'd say to break it up into parts.
> 
> For a good erotic story with a lot of 'action' people are more than willing to fork over the 2.99. But understand that the vast majority of people who buy this stuff are women, not men, so you HAVE to have a GOOD story tying it together. You can make it as 'nasty' or 'kinky' as you want, (often that will sell better it seems) but women are a lot more critical than men are on the story side. Yes it's fantasy, but you have to engage a lot more of the mind. Some think it's harder writing erotica for women, but to be honest I enjoy the challenge and the things you learn from it do transfer over to mainstream writing.
> 
> anyway, my $ .02 YMMV


Thank you, Vanstry. You make some great points about story. I've written erotica under a different kboards persona and am currently working on a non-erotica novel that will probably run around 90k when done. But, I started toying with the idea of cranking out a 55k erotica novel in a much shorter period of time and wondering if an erotica story of that length would have any real legs substantial enough to make the effort worthwhile. I tend fairly heavy toward story and can dish out the kink. I was actually feeling a little concerned that kink might not go over as well in a longer work but I feel reassured by what you have said. Thank you.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

My novella is out selling my shorter stuff, but I honestly don't pay attention to word count. I just write the story and it is what it is. I love it, so I don't need to justify the time spent. If you are more worried about sales than story, I'd be more concerned about the people who read the story and then ask for a refund. Seems like a lot of people use kindle like a library these days. This only just happened to me yesterday. I hear it happens more in erotica. I write in other genres where this has never happened to me, but I hear it's a growing problem in this genre.


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## Kit_Kat_Purrr (May 10, 2014)

katrina46 said:


> My novella is out selling my shorter stuff, but I honestly don't pay attention to word count. I just write the story and it is what it is. I love it, so I don't need to justify the time spent. If you are more worried about sales than story, I'd be more concerned about the people who read the story and then ask for a refund. Seems like a lot of people use kindle like a library these days. This only just happened to me yesterday. I hear it happens more in erotica. I write in other genres where this has never happened to me, but I hear it's a growing problem in this genre.


When I wrote erotica before, I had someone in another country (there was only one buyer from that country) make their entire way through my whole series, buying one and returning it just to buy the next. I was pissed.


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## Paranormal Piper (Sep 24, 2012)

There was a time (not too long ago, actually) when erotica authors could make good money with 3000 word stories priced at $2.99. That word count has slowly been on the rise. Most of my stories tend to fall within the 4000 to 7000 word range, and they sell decently at $2.99. Oddly enough, when priced lower, they don't move at all.

Longer erotica stories can definitely make higher profits but it depends on a few different things. As mentioned in an earlier comment, a longer erotica novella might sell well... but does it sell as well as those 5/10 shorts you could've written in the same amount of time?

Also, a lot depends on the kink being covered. Pseudo-incest is like a gold mine you create yourself. Sure, it's taboo but the audience is huge and insatiable, and they don't want to spend too much time on story. Intro the characters, toss them together, smexy times. Genderswap and lactation are also specific kinks that don't require a high word count.

Other niches (billionaires, motorcycle clubs, shifters) seem to perform better with higher word counts.

Erotic Romance seems to require the highest number of words because these readers are looking for actual story and characters they can get emotionally invested in. Takes longer to write but the audience will follow you and buy future works if you're good at what you do.


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## Kit_Kat_Purrr (May 10, 2014)

mjshaw said:


> There was a time (not too long ago, actually) when erotica authors could make good money with 3000 word stories priced at $2.99. That word count has slowly been on the rise. Most of my stories tend to fall within the 4000 to 7000 word range, and they sell decently at $2.99. Oddly enough, when priced lower, they don't move at all.
> 
> Longer erotica stories can definitely make higher profits but it depends on a few different things. As mentioned in an earlier comment, a longer erotica novella might sell well... but does it sell as well as those 5/10 shorts you could've written in the same amount of time?
> 
> ...


mjshaw... great post! Excellent info. I've been out of the erotica market for a year+. What you shared is a big help to me (and I am sure others). It gave me new info and help to reaffirm things that I "thought" I knew.


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## Lady TL Jennings (Dec 8, 2011)

I would say short stories, at least in my case.

I write historical erotica/romance and with nearly 15000 sold copies, 
(yey, who would have thought that? *Making a little happy dance*) I like to share some of my numbers.

Number of copies sold to date:

7528 Short stories (In average: 470 sold copies, 16 short stories)
2366 Novelettes (In average 338 sold copies, 7 novelettes)
970 Novellas (In average 485 sold copies, 2 novellas) 
3275 Collections (In average 819 sold copies, 4 collections)

My numbers should be read with a pinch of salt, because it's slightly biased. I used to write more 
short stories when I first started publishing, so a lot of the short stories have been out for a 
longer time than for example my novelettes. 
In additions all novelettes and novellas are M/M (except one novelette, which is an F/F story).

I tend to write whatever I like, for example both of my novellas were meant to be shorter novelettes, but they turned into novellas. 
(-And now some of the characters from "Forbidden Affairs" are _demanding_ that I write a sequence!)

Happy writing!


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## Kit_Kat_Purrr (May 10, 2014)

Lady TL Jennings said:


> I would say short stories, at least in my case.
> 
> I write historical erotica/romance and with nearly 15000 sold copies,
> (yey, who would have thought that? *Making a little happy dance*) I like to share some of my numbers.
> ...


Lady TL,

Congrads on your sales! You have a very nice spread of story lengths and are probably just the person to shed some light on the thread question looking at story length versus selling strength.

Have your longer stories out distanced your short stories in sales (comparing the period of time when each was selling at its' strongest and also taking into consideration how long your sales continued)?

Have the longer stories been more lucrative even when taking into consideration the length of time it took to write them (and not getting out multiple shorter pieces during the same amount of time)?

And, could you give us a break down of your price points? Do you sell everything at $2.99 or do you sell your longer works for more?

Thank you!!!


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## Kit_Kat_Purrr (May 10, 2014)

I must say, all of the information I'm getting back has me thinking I'd like to try my hand at doing a serial, three-part erom.  I switched gear and am working on a non-erotica novel (cozy mystery) and it has taken a LOT longer than I anticipated.  Meanwhile, I could use the income from getting shorter works of erotica out there.  And, because I have experience in the genre, I feel it would go faster than my current project.


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## Lady TL Jennings (Dec 8, 2011)

Kit_Kat_Purrr said:


> Lady TL,
> 
> Congrads on your sales! You have a very nice spread of story lengths and are probably just the person to shed some light on the thread question looking at story length versus selling strength.
> 
> ...


Thank you Kit Kat!

Let me see if I can answere your questions...

This is my total income in percentage:

33.9%	Lust and Lace (collection 21000 words, 8 short stories)	
22.5%	Corsets and Craving (collection 25000 words, 5 short stories)	
5.9% Blackmail (novella 18000 words, M/M)	
7.4% Complicated Affairs (novella 19000 words, M/M)	
13.4%	Different Desire (collection 43000 words, 4 Novelettes (M/M)	
6.3% Secrets and Seduction (collection 35000 words, 5 short stories)

(0.2%	Forbidden Feeling (ongoing 20000 words, two M/M novelettes completed)

Release dates:

Lust and Lace was released in September, 2011 
Corsets and Craving was released in December, 2011 
Blackmail was released in June, 2012 
Complicated Affairs was released November, 2012 
Different Desire was released in February, 2013 
Secrets and Seduction was released September, 2013

I use the following pricing method:

Short stories (3500-7500 words): $0.99
Novelettes (7500-17500 words): $1.49
Novellas (>17500 words): $2.99
Collections (21000-40000 words): $2.99
Collections (>40000 words): $3.99

I'm happy to share my numbers and I hope it helped shed some light over your question. 

If I break it down over time and per word, then Lust and Lace is my most "lucrative" work, followed by Different Desire and Corsets and Cravings (although Secrets and Seduction is catching up nicely). 
For me the most important thing is to write a good story, but sometimes it's fun to play around with numbers too.


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## BlairErotica (Mar 1, 2014)

Lady TL Jennings said:


> Thank you Kit Kat!
> 
> Let me see if I can answere your questions...
> 
> ...


So you don't sell the individual stories from the collections?


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## Kalen ODonnell (Nov 24, 2011)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> IMHO, the question of what sells best shouldn't even be considered. It's obvious when a writer is writing to their perceived audience and not writing what they love to write.


The problem with stock answers like this is, while true, they discount the fact that its not always about chasing a trend or writing to a perceived audience. Sometimes (often in my case at least), its about narrowing down options. I have a ton of story ideas to choose from every time I sit down to start a new project, all of which I'd love to write as I don't waste time cultivating stories that don't appeal to me. Applying other factors to the decision making process (such as marketability and the appeal of certain lengths) is indicative of nothing more than good business sense. I love what I do, but I also like making enough money at it to allow me to continue doing it. Of course all other things being equal (in this case, desire to write certain stories), I'm going to go with the option that I think is most likely to sell best.

Of course you should write what you love to write, and not what you think people want to read. But threads like these are one of the reasons I come to the Writer's Cafe in the first place. I want my stories to be read, not languish at the bottom of the rankings, so yes, before I settle on a new project I look at my choices and then I look at similar stories, genres and lengths to see how they're selling and factor that into my decision.

I think as indies we're all hyperaware that there still exists a certain stigma of self-pub = unprofessional in the eyes of some readers, but letting a fear of being perceived as hacks scare us away from being aware of our market is actually counter productive to fighting that stigma. Market awareness IS a sign of professionalism. Yes, there are and always will be authors who take it too far and only churn out paint by numbers books that they think hit a check list of what readers want, but as you've said, readers can tell when they come across those books. The problem there is the authors in question, not authors asking questions like these.


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## Kit_Kat_Purrr (May 10, 2014)

Lady TL Jennings said:


> Thank you Kit Kat!
> 
> Let me see if I can answere your questions...
> 
> ...


Okay, my math is rusty so I can't promise that what I'm posting is accurate, but I tried to find the weighted value of what you reported, showing which selections were your best performers when making adjustments so that they can be measured equally irregardless of how long they have been out there and published. This doesn't take all factors into consideration, of course. But, it is an interesting picture.

Weighted by Sale
1st 33.9% Lust and Lace (collection 21000 words, 8 short stories) 
2nd 13.4% Different Desire (collection 43000 words, 4 Novelettes (M/M) 
3rd 22.5% Corsets and Craving (collection 25000 words, 5 short stories) 
4th 6.3% Secrets and Seduction (collection 35000 words, 5 short stories) 
5th 7.4% Complicated Affairs (novella 19000 words, M/M) 
6th 5.9% Blackmail (novella 18000 words, M/M)

Given these results, it looks like your best performer is your collection of 8 short stories. I did not factor in an adjustment for the # of words. When you factor in the # of words involved, the earning value of your 8 short stories jumps even higher, out distancing the next runner up by double the word to sale ratio.

But, then I remembered about your pricing scale and I did further adjustments for that, coming out with a Much different result in terms of what were your best earners! This is not going to be completely accurate because it does not take into consideration "collection" sales that would be marked at a higher price. This list assumes that all short stories were sold for $0.99, etc., as described in your price point chart, and no adjustment was made for collections since I don't now how much of your sales for each series occurred from collection sales (at a higher price). This chart does take into consideration the 35%/70% royalty rules.

Weighted by Earning	
1st 7.4% Complicated Affairs (novella 19000 words, M/M) 
2nd 5.9% Blackmail (novella 18000 words, M/M) 
3rd 13.4% Different Desire (collection 43000 words, 4 Novelettes (M/M) 
4th 33.9% Lust and Lace (collection 21000 words, 8 short stories) 
5th 22.5% Corsets and Craving (collection 25000 words, 5 short stories) 
6th 6.3% Secrets and Seduction (collection 35000 words, 5 short stories)

But, if you had everything priced all the same, the top list would be the one that would represent your top performers.

I hope this is helpful to somebody!


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## Kit_Kat_Purrr (May 10, 2014)

Kalen ODonnell said:


> The problem with stock answers like this is, while true, they discount the fact that its not always about chasing a trend or writing to a perceived audience. Sometimes (often in my case at least), its about narrowing down options. I have a ton of story ideas to choose from every time I sit down to start a new project, all of which I'd love to write as I don't waste time cultivating stories that don't appeal to me. Applying other factors to the decision making process (such as marketability and the appeal of certain lengths) is indicative of nothing more than good business sense. I love what I do, but I also like making enough money at it to allow me to continue doing it. Of course all other things being equal (in this case, desire to write certain stories), I'm going to go with the option that I think is most likely to sell best.
> 
> Of course you should write what you love to write, and not what you think people want to read. But threads like these are one of the reasons I come to the Writer's Cafe in the first place. I want my stories to be read, not languish at the bottom of the rankings, so yes, before I settle on a new project I look at my choices and then I look at similar stories, genres and lengths to see how they're selling and factor that into my decision.
> 
> I think as indies we're all hyperaware that there still exists a certain stigma of self-pub = unprofessional in the eyes of some readers, but letting a fear of being perceived as hacks scare us away from being aware of our market is actually counter productive to fighting that stigma. Market awareness IS a sign of professionalism. Yes, there are and always will be authors who take it too far and only churn out paint by numbers books that they think hit a check list of what readers want, but as you've said, readers can tell when they come across those books. The problem there is the authors in question, not authors asking questions like these.


THANK YOU!


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## BlairErotica (Mar 1, 2014)

Anwen Stiles said:


> I've done all three under various pen names. If looking at daily unit sales, my best-selling title is a short story of 8500 words priced at 99 cents. Revenue-wise, my best-seller is an Erom trilogy fronted by a perma-free novella. I charge $3.99 each for the three individual novels, $9.99 for the box set. I make over 80 percent of my income from this one Erom series. Hope this helps.


Are the books in the trilogy novels or novellas?


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## Kit_Kat_Purrr (May 10, 2014)

Anwen Stiles said:


> I've done all three under various pen names. If looking at daily unit sales, my best-selling title is a short story of 8500 words priced at 99 cents. Revenue-wise, my best-seller is an Erom trilogy fronted by a perma-free novella. I charge $3.99 each for the three individual novels, $9.99 for the box set. I make over 80 percent of my income from this one Erom series. Hope this helps.


It does help. Thanks!

What I'm leaning to at this moment (it tends to change from moment to moment, lol) is to do a series of shorts at 99 cents and then combine them for a higher price. I'll keep the word could on the 99 cent shorts low. It will be my goal to get stories out on a pretty regular basis to help my visibility (another reason for keeping the stories short). With my schedule, I believe that I can make it work for me. I have concerns about getting out titles fast enough if I do solely longer pieces.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

My novelette-size (8 - 10K) erom serial sells much better than my shorts (3500 - 5000K), but that's fuelled by a) the permafree on book one, and b) the romance element. With the shorts it's just about the sex, sans romance. And for that reason, buyers don't have to go on to the next book in the series, because they're pretty much standalone. That's why the buy-through isn't as great. It used to be a lot better, but times have changed since I first released them.  

The shorts took about 32 hours to write, in total, whereas the longer serial took double that. Books 2&3 in both are priced at $2.99 each, with the collection at $4.99. 

I'll be sticking to the 10 - 15K range from now on, I think. It gives my readers more incentive to click that buy button after reading and enjoying the permafree, because they know they're getting a decent length for their $2.99.


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## Kit_Kat_Purrr (May 10, 2014)

Lady Vine said:


> My novelette-size (8 - 10K) erom serial sells much better than my shorts (3500 - 5000K), but that's fuelled by a) the permafree on book one, and b) the romance element. With the shorts it's just about the sex, sans romance. And for that reason, buyers don't have to go on to the next book in the series, because they're pretty much standalone. That's why the buy-through isn't as great. It used to be a lot better, but times have changed since I first released them.
> 
> The shorts took about 32 hours to write, in total, whereas the longer serial took double that. Books 2&3 in both are priced at $2.99 each, with the collection at $4.99.
> 
> I'll be sticking to the 10 - 15K range from now on, I think. It gives my readers more incentive to click that buy button after reading and enjoying the permafree, because they know they're getting a decent length for their $2.99.


I don't know how this is going to go over but I'm going to try writing some very, very short stories at 99 cents and then combining them for $2.99. The shorts will focus on getting to the sex fast but there will be a strong serial nature to the short shorts where you get to follow the characters involved. My hope is that the short word count will mean that I can get stories out the door in a pretty consistent manner, and I'm hoping that translates into me remaining more visible to buyers. Fingers crossed.


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