# The 7 Day Erotica Challenge



## Moist_Tissue

For those interested, I asked Harvey if we could create a new thread for the 7 Day Erotica Challenge. This thread is specifically about the challenge, not about individual authors.

Here's the challenge (as created by Amber Rose [poor Wiz]):

1. Write a story, 5k
2. Create a new pen name
3. Post JUST your new pen name and your book title BEFORE you submit for publishing, to keep it honest and verifiable, then post the URL to the book page
4. Let us all watch you rise the ranks, etc.

I'm willing to put a prize behind this challenge. I'm also wondering if we could add another level to the challenge. It seems that series or bundles work best in Erotica (from what I've read here). What if we release four (4) short stories over a 7 day period and track those sold units, too? Okay. That might be too much.

Any takers?


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## wtvr

No thanks, but I'll Paypal $1 to the first one who gets 1-starred because they posted their new pen name.


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## Moist_Tissue

I'll post my new pen name here. I have created it yet and it will be solely used for this challenge. Heck, if someone wants to leave me a 1 star review, it wouldn't be the first (nor will it be the last) time. So you might as well go ahead and send me that dollar.


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## Redacted1111

I'm in the process of starting two new erotica pen names. I don't think I would be comfortable sharing either of them here, even if I didn't care about the one star reviews.


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## Moist_Tissue

Would posters be more comfortable if we posted screenshots of their sales dashboard limited to the 7 day reporting period? This would be instead of posting the new pen name.


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## Moist_Tissue

Pen name: Cleo Marshall

Title: Meet Me at 7

Inspired by the postings of Casual Encounters on Craigslist, this will be an African American and interracial series.


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## Miss Tarheel

No thanks, I'm working on building my own catalogue right now.


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## Moist_Tissue

I think we might need to provide some structure around the challenge or there will be too many variables.

Can we limit the stories to 7.5K words (negotiable)? Can we also limit the sales price?


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## J.B.

Can it be re-explained what participants are hoping to gain from this experiment?

Are we going to be given an insight into the keywords used, or how and why a certain style sub-
genre kink, etc was employed by the author?

Are we going to analyze afterwards, which COVER, BLURB, KEYWORDS and of course CONTENT / KINK, had the best results?

Are we all going to agree to NOT PURCHASE the titles, even if we adore the participant, so results aren't skewed by kboards readers curious about the content of participants rising in the ranks?

Should we ask every participating author create an instafreebie giveaway so anyone who wants to read the content can get the book that way, without again skewing the results?

Is this an experiment still - or just a fun 7 day erotica writing challenge?

Thanks!


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## SabrinaLacey

LisaGloria said:


> No thanks, but I'll Paypal $1 to the first one who gets 1-starred because they posted their new pen name.


Curious about this... I've been hearing about the 1 star reviews left by readers of this forum on other writer's books. Is that really happening, and why on Earth?


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## JessieSnow

I'm hoping to gain some knowledge about what's selling best these days, without the advantage of being an already well-known author or being mid-series, or having a longer book. I suppose the point is to make the guidelines as similar as possible (price, length, genre) so we can analyze that. Also, it's fun.


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## wtvr

SabrinaLacey said:


> Curious about this... I've been hearing about the 1 star reviews left by readers of this forum on other writer's books. Is that really happening, and why on Earth?


It does, and it's a bummer.


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## Moist_Tissue

I think this will be a good challenge to compare experiences with. If there are a slew of 1 star reviews on these works then I think that also supports the experiences that other authors have shared.

We do need to set a price point that we all follow. It won't do if someone has a $.99 title while another has their set at $3.99. We also need to keep word counts controlled. I think what can be played with are covers, blurbs, and keywords.


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## JessieSnow

$2.99? Change the price to whatever you want later?


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## Amber Rose

Thanks Moist Tissue. I've Pm'd you my thoughts about this thread.

I have been in touch with a number of authors who are going to be sending me their results privately, and I can then post them on here.

*If you do not want to associate your name with your pen name, this is a good solution. Please PM me, and I will post it here. *

Regarding the one star reviews - I wouldn't worry too much. Apparently, ratings are not that important in erotica!


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## Amber Rose

Hmm... so this isn't as easy as I thought! I'm writing a story, I am 2,000 words, all the bits have gone into all the slots....and now I have run out of things to say........


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## August8

Amber Rose said:


> Hmm... so this isn't as easy as I thought! I'm writing a story, I am 2,000 words, all the bits have gone into all the slots....and now I have run out of things to say........


Give them a bit more of a backstory? have the tabs go into different slots? Let them do it again and mix up the slots? So many options


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## J.L. Dickinson

Ok, I'm game. I've had a story that's developed in my mind through out the day that I think would be appropriate. I see this as a real challenge that will really grow me as a writer, as I've never written erotica before, and haven't read much of it. In a way my story could be a kind of control study, as I'm no where near as knowledgeable with the genre. Which means it might be wildly successful and original (Shhh, I can dream), or terribly unpopular and way off the mark of what the audience wants.

The whole 7 day thing- well it might take me a bit longer, but I'll do my best to meet it. Meeting the 5k shouldn't be an issue. As the story develops in my mind I think their could be a trilogy here, with the first 5k+ installment only partially resolving an overall larger story arch for the protagonist.

*New Pen-name:* Undecided at this point.

*Story Title: * I won't know until it's written.

*Plot/Theme:* It will include f/f and m/f. It will have adultery, and betrayal between characters. It will be a story that includes sexual exploration that makes a character question their identity (in the psychological sense). While another character is forced to confront unresolved love from the past that leads to obsession... Or, as it is that I'm writing it: it may be as Shakespeare put it, "... a tale told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing." We'll see. In any case I'm excited about the challenge.


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## Donald Rump

I'm in.

I'll be including my entry in the Eight Hour Fiction Challenge as well.

*New(ish) Pen name*: Elexis Avant (I have one very short work already, but it doesn't sell anything)

*Title*: His Cold Touch

*Word Count*: 5,000+

*Price*: $2.99

*Plot/Theme*: Developing...


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## Thatonegirl

Most good erotica that I've read (I've also written two but don't want to publish until the 3rd is finished, and about 50 free stories for fun that are just on the net) has about 2k before the sex even starts. Perhaps more plot and character development. What makes a story sexy isn't just reading about tab A in slot B, that's rather dull. The erotic comes from knowing what the characters are thinking and feeling. There has to be build up tension before the release.

Does she shiver when his hand brushes her cheek, or does she lean into the touch? Does she undress slowly teasing him, is she timid, do her hands shake, or does she rip her clothes off because she is in fever for his touch? Details should help you get to 5k.

Nope writing erotica isn't easy at all, good writers just make it seem effortless. Granted there is a wide range of quality in the genre but I'd be hard-pressed to think of any genre where that isn't the case. All fiction isn't literature after all.


Amber Rose said:


> Hmm... so this isn't as easy as I thought! I'm writing a story, I am 2,000 words, all the bits have gone into all the slots....and now I have run out of things to say........


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## Rachel E. Rice

I'm trying to get in on these challenges but I always have two books I'm working on. I have this thing about completing one book and going on to the next. I hope there is another erotic challenge, at this time I'm researching erotica books because the sex scenes  are difficult to write and I plan to write a few short books in this genre under another pen name. These challenges are a great way to start.


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## EloaBrace

I've got a great anthology idea:
Panic Sex

As the world collapsed around them, the only comfort they could find was in each other's arms.
EMP sex, grid down sex, pandemic sex, you get the picture.


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## Chrisbwritin

So, for those struggling with writing sex, a few tips that always help me when I'm writing: Think ALL the senses. Does her hair smell like lilacs? Are her eyes closed but she can hear his breath hitch when she touches him a certain way? When she takes her clothes off, does the cool bite of the air make her shiver? Second thing, once slots are in parts should be the LAST 1/4 of your scene. The lead up is where you build the tension and it's by far the most important part. Make 'em wait for it p You can do that by having once character trying to draw it out, or through external barriers. Maybe they are in a restaurant and teasing each other but they can't put bits in slots yet. However you do it, even in a short story, get some sort of conflict or tension in there. I find they sell better than just agreed upon plans for sexual encounters (unless they are role-playing encounters, which invariably have that conflict built in. Boss/secretary, law enforcement/cat burglar and so on. Readers want friction. Just my .02! Good luck all!


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## o.gasim

New pen name created: Olivia Gasim
Title: The Random Encounters Series: Third Times A Charm
Blurb and cover pending.


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## kathrynoh

I'd love to join in but have already started writing an erotica series under a pen name and don't want to start another. Good luck everyone


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## Gigi Priest

This sounds like a super fun idea, however I -just- published my first erotica novelette this morning and I think starting over with another pen name would be a bad life choice for me. Haha. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread though! Best of luck, ya'll!


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## kathrynoh

> I keep getting reviews that call my stories "Literary Erotica". I keep asking myself: What is Literary Erotica? How can Erotica be Literary?


I'd consider someone like Anais Nin literary erotica.


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## KayleaEhm

Sounds like a great idea! I currently have a couple of other projects on the go, but I might have time to slot this one in too.


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## J.L. Dickinson

Hit a road block only 200 words in, and could use some feed back. As I got all the broad strokes of the story in place in my mind I realized first person with two POV characters was they way this story was going to need to be told. Now, I've had an issue come up I've never had before: which tense to tell the story in? For some reason I keep shifting into present tense and it actually seems very effective when I reread what I have. Is first person present tense common/acceptable in Erotica?


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## nellgoddin

Love this idea. I'm in!


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## Chrisbwritin

J.L. Dickinson said:


> Hit a road block only 200 words in, and could use some feed back. As I got all the broad strokes of the story in place in my mind I realized first person with two POV characters was they way this story was going to need to be told. Now, I've had an issue come up I've never had before: which tense to tell the story in? For some reason I keep shifting into present tense and it actually seems very effective when I reread what I have. Is first person present tense common/acceptable in Erotica?


Yep.


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## Redacted1111

Though I'm not sharing my info, I published a new 5k word short under a new pen name late yesterday afternoon. I've already had 5 borrows and one sale at $2.99. It was on two charts and at about 18k in the store when I woke up this morning. No promo, no other titles, totally new name. Keywords baby. I already have a second book written. 

Considering I have a romance novel I spent months, literally months writing and rewriting, sent it to ten plus beta readers, wrote several drafts, sent out hundreds of ARCs, paid for editing, etc. and that book has only had four borrows and one sale at $2.99 this month. It's a few months old but the most that book has ever done was about 30 units in a month. It's 75k words long.... I can do simple math. I already have a second short written and will publish it today. If you can produce volume and research the right keywords, erotica is easy money. But as a caveat, I've spent weeks researching keywords. I spent about three hours writing and editing the book I just pubbed. I'm so excited I can barely think straight. All I want to do is work. That's new.


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## Mylius Fox

I'm intrigued to try out this challenge but I've only ever written sex scenes in the context of novels, romance/thriller type stories, and I wouldn't know how to approach a 5k erotica story structurally. Are there any basic tips/pointers for the "arc" an erotica short of this size goes through? Any input (hehe) is greatly appreciated.


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## Guest

Kalypsō said:


> Though I'm not sharing my info, I published a new 5k word short under a new pen name late yesterday afternoon. I've already had 5 borrows and one sale at $2.99. It was on two charts and at about 18k in the store when I woke up this morning. No promo, no other titles, totally new name. Keywords baby. I already have a second book written.
> 
> Considering I have a romance novel I spent months, literally months writing and rewriting, sent it to ten plus beta readers, wrote several drafts, sent out hundreds of ARCs, paid for editing, etc. and that book has only had four borrows and one sale at $2.99 this month. It's a few months old but the most that book has ever done was about 30 units in a month. It's 75k words long.... I can do simple math. I already have a second short written and will publish it today. If you can produce volume and research the right keywords, erotica is easy money. But as a caveat, I've spent weeks researching keywords. I spent about three hours writing and editing the book I just pubbed. I'm so excited I can barely think straight. All I want to do is work. That's new.


Good stuff. I have borrowed a few books today, maybe i borrowed yours. 

I would like to learn how to use keywords properly because I'm reading too much conflicting advice on what types of keywords to use for erotica.


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## LanceGreencastle

C.Saffron said:


> I would like to learn how to use keywords properly because I'm reading too much conflicting advice on what types of keywords to use for erotica.


I too would like to know what keywords to use. I'm assuming that words like "incest", "Taboo" and Babysitter" will send your book straight to the dungeon.


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## Rachel E. Rice

Great thread and great posts. I've learned so much, and I've learned that I can write 3500 words of erotica in one day even if I'm working on two books. I came up with my new pen name but I can't think of a title for my titillating masterpiece.


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## RuthNestvold

This sounds like fun! I've been considering starting an erotica pen name, and this may be just what I need to actually do it! 

I'll play around with some ideas and get back to you all.


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## Sargon

Kalypsō said:


> Though I'm not sharing my info, I published a new 5k word short under a new pen name late yesterday afternoon. I've already had 5 borrows and one sale at $2.99. It was on two charts and at about 18k in the store when I woke up this morning. No promo, no other titles, totally new name. Keywords baby. I already have a second book written.
> 
> Considering I have a romance novel I spent months, literally months writing and rewriting, sent it to ten plus beta readers, wrote several drafts, sent out hundreds of ARCs, paid for editing, etc. and that book has only had four borrows and one sale at $2.99 this month. It's a few months old but the most that book has ever done was about 30 units in a month. It's 75k words long.... I can do simple math. I already have a second short written and will publish it today. If you can produce volume and research the right keywords, erotica is easy money. But as a caveat, I've spent weeks researching keywords. I spent about three hours writing and editing the book I just pubbed. I'm so excited I can barely think straight. All I want to do is work. That's new.


Ha, this is me almost exactly!  Wrote the entire story on Friday (7,600 words). Edited a bit Saturday, added 100 words. Published on Saturday evening, didn't go live until Sunday at maybe 4:00pm. So far 5 borrows and 3 sales! It was 24,000 in the whole store and now is about 25,000. No promo, just keywords. Spent $36 on a photo for a cover I made myself.

I'm basing my efforts almost entirely on the advice from "How Anyone Can Become A Full-Time Erotica Author In 6 Weeks."

What's funny is this is the FIRST THING I'VE EVER PUBLISHED!!

And I just wrote another 5,700 word erotica story yesterday and this morning, hoping to publish today. My goal is to get 1 purchase each day for each book. That's $60/month each. And then write several more, and maybe take a Europe trip next year with the profits, if I'm lucky. I have no clue whatsoever if this is possible.

Keywords are the big mystery. Mine are jammed, as recommended in that book.


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## Redacted1111

EroticaWriter said:


> Ha, this is me almost exactly!  Wrote the entire story on Friday (7,600 words). Edited a bit Saturday, added 100 words. Published on Saturday evening, didn't go live until Sunday at maybe 4:00pm. So far 5 borrows and 3 sales! It was 24,000 in the whole store and now is about 25,000. No promo, just keywords. Spent $36 on a photo for a cover I made myself.
> 
> I'm basing my efforts almost entirely on the advice from "How Anyone Can Become A Full-Time Erotica Author In 6 Weeks."
> 
> What's funny is this is the FIRST THING I'VE EVER PUBLISHED!!
> 
> And I just wrote another 5,700 word erotica story yesterday and this morning, hoping to publish today. My goal is to get 1 purchase each day for each book. That's $60/month each. And then write several more, and maybe take a Europe trip next year with the profits, if I'm lucky. I have no clue whatsoever if this is possible.
> 
> Keywords are the big mystery. Mine are jammed, as recommended in that book.


That's awesome. You don't have to pay so much for stock photos though. Try camstockphoto. They are like $5. Oddly, I wrote my book before I read the book you mentioned. It isn't the most popular niche, but it still moved plenty of copies in less than 24 hrs to convince me that erotic is a good use of my extra time. It's better than sitting around playing WOW or staring at Kboards. I'm still going to write my romance books, but erotica is so easy to write it's just a motivation thing. That book and some advice from DirtiestDevil was extremely motivating. That's one of the reasons I don't want to share my efforts here. Though one star reviews don't really hurt erotica, I still don't need the stress or grief from haters who hate stalk anyone who tries something different.


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## o.gasim

Kalypsō said:


> Though I'm not sharing my info, I published a new 5k word short under a new pen name late yesterday afternoon. I've already had 5 borrows and one sale at $2.99. It was on two charts and at about 18k in the store when I woke up this morning. No promo, no other titles, totally new name. Keywords baby. I already have a second book written.
> 
> Considering I have a romance novel I spent months, literally months writing and rewriting, sent it to ten plus beta readers, wrote several drafts, sent out hundreds of ARCs, paid for editing, etc. and that book has only had four borrows and one sale at $2.99 this month. It's a few months old but the most that book has ever done was about 30 units in a month. It's 75k words long.... I can do simple math. I already have a second short written and will publish it today. If you can produce volume and research the right keywords, erotica is easy money. But as a caveat, I've spent weeks researching keywords. I spent about three hours writing and editing the book I just pubbed. I'm so excited I can barely think straight. All I want to do is work. That's new.


Great Scott!! Fantastic results. Care to share your keywords secrets? I am brand new to erotica but took this challenge as my opportunity to get into it( pun intended).

I 'published' my story last night at 10:45 and it's still sitting in review. Any ideas what's going on?


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## OldGrumpy

o.gasim said:


> Great Scott!! Fantastic results. Care to share your keywords secrets? I am brand new to erotica but took this challenge as my opportunity to get into it( pun intended).
> 
> I 'published' my story last night at 10:45 and it's still sitting in review. Any ideas what's going on?


Yes, as has been said elsewhere. Dont post erotica during weekends. The weekend trolls will sit on it.

Post erotica Monday thru to Friday noon.

Good luck, make it good ...


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## wtvr

o.gasim said:


> Great Scott!! Fantastic results. Care to share your keywords secrets? I am brand new to erotica but took this challenge as my opportunity to get into it( pun intended).
> 
> I 'published' my story last night at 10:45 and it's still sitting in review. Any ideas what's going on?


It's likely fine, just taking a while. Mondays are slow because of the non-weekend rush I suppose. Don't worry just yet.


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## Al Dente

Brianfre said:


> Yes, as has been said elsewhere. Dont post erotica during weekends. The weekend trolls will sit on it.
> 
> Post erotica Monday thru to Friday noon.
> 
> Good luck, make it good ...


Yep. Heck, I'd even say Monday - Thursday just to be safe. Not that I know anything about publishing adult stories. Nope. Not me. *whistles and kicks the dirt*


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## Whitley

I'm still doing this challenge but decided to take down and tweak my info since more than one person is worried about trolls. I read a lot of smut and have for years but I'm hilariously gridlocked trying to write it, so I'm behind the ball already. Plus this is turning into more of a romantic erotica serial than a straight up erotic short.

Can you guys give insights into what types of images you're using for your cover? I have an idea of how mine will look and I think I know enough photo editing basics to make it happen. But I'm worried that the couple on my cover has too much clothing haha. My book falls more in the new adult range in terms of charachter occupations and problems, so I'm trying to capture that essence too.


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## SomethingElse

I'm interested in doing this too. I won't post my info here either. It will be interesting to see if a new story under a new name can do better than the ones I have up already. I'm behind on releasing my next one but I can't pass up a challenge like this. I already have a story in mind (and sequels). And I have the new pen name picked out. Just have to make sure it's still not being used by an author when I go to upload. I checked Amazon on the weekend and didn't find anything by the name I want to use.

Bookmarking this thread to see how everyone does!


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## nellgoddin

Are there category limitations for the challenge? I'm about 3500 words in, finished the cover, hope to publish tomorrow. Can we avoid the dreaded Erotica category?


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## Sassafrazzled

LanceGreencastle said:


> I too would like to know what keywords to use. I'm assuming that words like "incest", "Taboo" and Babysitter" will send your book straight to the dungeon.


I missed if this was answered before, but in case it wasn't, no. So long as the visible stuff (cover, title, description) are clean, you can go crazy with your keywords.


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## o.gasim

Brianfre said:


> Yes, as has been said elsewhere. Dont post erotica during weekends. The weekend trolls will sit on it.
> 
> Post erotica Monday thru to Friday noon.
> 
> Good luck, make it good ...


Thanks for the tip. All my other works, under a separate name, had all been approved in less than 12 hours, so this is a first for me. I was getting paranoid that something was wrong with the submission.


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## Evenstar

Hiya. I wrote one and put it out there. New pen name and all. I got my cover from Fiverr. No promotion or anything. Except that I didn't brand it as Erotica, I branded it as a Bodice Ripper Historical Romance. Was shocked to see six borrows and two sales in the past two days!

I missed how we are supposed to enter if we don't want to put the details here? Not that it matters, if nothing else then this has been a really interesting experiment and for financial reasons I think it is also the start of a brand new series!!


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## SarahWritesSometimes

I've been watching this thread with interest. I have 3 erotica stories under a pen name that are languishing (all published since September 15). They all have a bit of character build up, a HFN ending, but lots of smexy stuff in there. I don't promote at all. I've been wondering if my stories are too "nice". I think I will challenge myself to write 5,000 words by tomorrow that is something more on the risqué side. Like a lot more. And I will *consider* posting my pen name and title before I upload. Why I would worry I don't know, my sales are dreadful anyway.


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## WDR

EelKat said:


> I start editing...and actually READ what I wrote... then it hits me...the characters are the two main characters for one of my established series...ARGH!
> 
> _*bangs head on desk*_


You win, Eelkat. I read that and started laughing so hard I woke up my cat!


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## a_g

nellgoddin said:


> Are there category limitations for the challenge? I'm about 3500 words in, finished the cover, hope to publish tomorrow. Can we avoid the dreaded Erotica category?


Hmmm. I'm not running this but I thought the title of the thread/challenge was 7 Day *Erotica* Challenge. 

But if it's morphing into a 7 Day challenge to write anything short and post it with no fanfare and a new untried pseudonym...I may branch out and try a new genre for myself.


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## SarahWritesSometimes

SarahWritesSometimes said:


> I've been watching this thread with interest. I have 3 erotica stories under a pen name that are languishing (all published since September 15). They all have a bit of character build up, a HFN ending, but lots of smexy stuff in there. I don't promote at all. I've been wondering if my stories are too "nice". I think I will challenge myself to write 5,000 words by tomorrow that is something more on the risque side. Like a lot more. And I will *consider* posting my pen name and title before I upload. Why I would worry I don't know, my sales are dreadful anyway.


I'm quoting myself but whatever 

Just started and I'm 387 words into a story with a vampire/werewolf hybrid shifter searching for a human BBW to give her the best sex of her life, dominate her, impregnate her (no pulling out!) and make her never want to leave him. If this doesn't sell I give up.


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## a_g

SarahWritesSometimes said:


> Just started and I'm 387 words into a story with a vampire/werewolf hybrid shifter searching for a human BBW to give her the best sex of her life, dominate her, impregnate her (no pulling out!) and make her never want to leave him. If this doesn't sell I give up.


If that doesn't sell, _I'm_ giving up. 

Now I'm going to quote _myself_:



anderson_gray said:


> But if it's morphing into a 7 Day challenge to write anything short and post it with no fanfare and a new untried pseudonym...I may branch out and try a new genre for myself.


I may try this with another genre *not erotica*, just to see what happens.


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## Sargon

OK, I just posted story #2 under my new pen name, so maybe that violates the terms of the challenge? Currently at 4 sales and 6 borrows on the first one, but sadly I paid way too much for my covert art ($36) so it'll take a while to recoup. On the new one I only spent $6 thanks to Kalypso's advice, and got a much hotter image to boot.

I tried to keep the new story to 5,000 words. I was around 5,700 and then did my read-through/edit and ended up closer to 7,000...gotta put some extra spice in there to make it as erotic as hell!

Oh, and the advice about not publishing on weekends is a bit counter-intuitive, if you're looking only at time. It takes longer once you submit...but you submit *sooner*, so you're done sooner. If you wait till Monday to submit, and it takes 12 hours, then you're into Monday night. If you had just submitted on Saturday and it took 24 or 36 hours, you'd be ahead of the game. My Saturday submission took about 18 hours to go live. If I'd waited until this morning (Monday) it would still be In Review.

Finally -- what do we get for a borrow? Remember, this was my first-ever publication. Are those 6 borrows worth $1 each? $1.50? $2.00? Thanks.


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## nellgoddin

[quote ]
Hmmm. I'm not running this but I thought the title of the thread/challenge was 7 Day *Erotica* Challenge. 

[/quote]

Yes, but there's a difference between writing erotica and categorizing it as erotica...at least if you want people to see it. The romance category covers a whole lotta steam....


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## WDR

Some questions about digitally publishing under a nom de plume...
[list type=decimal]
[*]Do you use a different account or your primary author account to publish a book under a nom de plume?
[*]Do you bother at all with an ISBN or do you simply use the one offered by Amazon? _(I'll probably go with an Amazon # to conserve my resources)_
[*]Do you file the copyright for the short or just put it out there with a copyright notice on the copyright page?
[*]Pricing suggestions? I figured I'll put it out there for $2.99 and stuff it into KDP/KU and see what happens. That gives me the 70% proceed share, and gives me the flexibility to drop it to 99¢ on occasion.
[*]Good resource to get covers? I have plenty of images I can leverage from my own work, but nothing that counts as "sexy."
[/list]

I'm kind of late to the game, so I won't consider myself in the contest, but I think this will be a good exercise. I'm with Evenstar on that perspective and, like her, I do need the cash rather desperately.

So, I've got a couple of days to do some homework and ruminate on my story idea, then I'll post my data to the board for everyone's amusement.

Neat challenge!


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## a_g

nellgoddin said:


> Yes, but there's a difference between writing erotica and categorizing it as erotica...at least if you want people to see it. The romance category covers a whole lotta steam....


Ah. I thought it was frowned on to categorize erotica as anything else. If it's an ultra steamy romance with lots of juicy erotic bits, then I've heard it's in your best interest to categorize it as romance>erotica. But if it's strictly erotica and there's no romance to be seen, I understood that to be bad form and that it peeves a lot of readers off to label it as anything other than erotica.


----------



## Lionel&#039;s Mom

SarahWritesSometimes said:


> Just started and I'm 387 words into a story with a vampire/werewolf hybrid shifter searching for a human BBW to give her the best sex of her life, dominate her, impregnate her (no pulling out!) and make her never want to leave him. If this doesn't sell I give up.


Sweet mercy, can I be a beta reader?


----------



## M.G. Russell

WDR said:


> Some questions about digitally publishing under a nom de plume...
> [list type=decimal]
> [*]Do you use a different account or your primary author account to publish a book under a nom de plume?
> [*]Do you bother at all with an ISBN or do you simply use the one offered by Amazon? _(I'll probably go with an Amazon # to conserve my resources)_
> [*]Do you file the copyright for the short or just put it out there with a copyright notice on the copyright page?
> [*]Pricing suggestions? I figured I'll put it out there for $2.99 and stuff it into KDP/KU and see what happens. That gives me the 70% proceed share, and gives me the flexibility to drop it to 99¢ on occasion.
> [*]Good resource to get covers? I have plenty of images I can leverage from my own work, but nothing that counts as "sexy."
> [/list]
> 
> I see your questions haven't been answered. God knows I'm no expert but I'll share what I know with you.
> 
> 1. No, you don't use a different account. You publish your book and then go to Author Central and set up a pen name then claim the book for that pen name.
> 2. No ISBN
> 3. I don't file copyright. I can't speak for anyone else. In Canada you are automatically granted copyright if you wrote it.
> 4. Most erotica that is at least 20 pages is priced at $2.99.
> 5. Resources for covers: If you sift through the boards here and try a search for covers/cover art/premade covers and those types of keywords you should come up with someone who might be able to do it for you.
> 
> I'm kind of late to the game, so I won't consider myself in the contest, but I think this will be a good exercise. I'm with Evenstar on that perspective and, like her, I do need the cash rather desperately.
> 
> So, I've got a couple of days to do some homework and ruminate on my story idea, then I'll post my data to the board for everyone's amusement.
> 
> Neat challenge!


----------



## Chrisbwritin

You can also try Fiverr for book covers cheap:
https://www.fiverr.com/categories/graphics-design/ebook-covers/#layout=auto&page=1


----------



## Guest

I don't want to sound like a broken record but can any published erotica authors on here please explain briefly how they use keywords because I have been given two different sets of advice about using keywords.

I read '*How ANYONE Can Become a Full-Time Erotica Author in 6 Weeks*' and it is a good book however I emailed a bestselling author a couple days before I read that book who had some different advice about categories and keywords.

*I was told not to put my book in the erotica category by one bestselling author.* I was also told to not use taboo, step-family, virgin or anything like that in my keywords.

Can someone who writes and sells erotica please tell me what they have done.

*Thanks for any advice. *


----------



## iheartwords

C.Saffron said:


> I don't want to sound like a broken record but can any published erotica authors on here please explain briefly how they use keywords because I have been given two different sets of advice about using keywords.
> 
> I read '*How ANYONE Can Become a Full-Time Erotica Author in 6 Weeks*' and it is a good book however I emailed a bestselling author a couple days before I read that book who had some different advice about categories and keywords.
> 
> *I was told not to put my book in the erotica category by one bestselling author.* I was also told to not use taboo, step-family, virgin or anything like that in my keywords.
> 
> Can someone who writes and sells erotica please tell me what they have done.
> 
> *Thanks for any advice. *


I write PI for a living. I put "taboo", "pseudo incest", "stepfather", "stepdaughter", "virgin", etc. in the keywords and I've never had a problem with that. I've only had problems putting those words in titles and blurbs. (Actually "taboo" is fine for titles and blurbs.) I put all my books in the Erotica section. My books are definitely erotica, though, not romance.


----------



## iheartwords

EroticaWriter said:


> Oh, and the advice about not publishing on weekends is a bit counter-intuitive, if you're looking only at time. It takes longer once you submit...but you submit *sooner*, so you're done sooner. If you wait till Monday to submit, and it takes 12 hours, then you're into Monday night. If you had just submitted on Saturday and it took 24 or 36 hours, you'd be ahead of the game. My Saturday submission took about 18 hours to go live. If I'd waited until this morning (Monday) it would still be In Review.


The advice about not publishing erotica on the weekends is because there is a different set of reviewers working then and they are far more likely to block your book. If you have too many blocked books you could have your entire account suspended. It's not really about the amount of time it takes.


----------



## kathrynoh

Thanks for posting that, EelKat. It's incredibly helpful


----------



## Amber Rose

(As I mentioned previously, when I first posted the challenge, some authors contacted me privately to post their results, so as not to link themselves to the pen name. Some of those authors have now set  up a separate KBoards profile and are posting the results that way, others I will post here.)

Pen name: Kelly Darcy
Title: James (#1 Hot Doctor Series).

Good luck to all


----------



## OldGrumpy

Here is another good page on writing.

http://www.darkwaves.com/sfch/writing/ckilian/#1


----------



## RachelMeyers

Have been lurking on this thread, super interesting and inspiring. Unfortunately I am not an erotica writer at all, but this intrigues me:



anderson_gray said:


> But if it's morphing into a 7 Day challenge to write anything short and post it with no fanfare and a new untried pseudonym...I may branch out and try a new genre for myself.


I'm looking at other genres that might be fun to try.

Good luck with the rest of the challenge!


----------



## Molly Tomorrow

C.Saffron said:


> I read '*How ANYONE Can Become a Full-Time Erotica Author in 6 Weeks*' and it is a good book however I emailed a bestselling author a couple days before I read that book who had some different advice about categories and keywords.
> 
> *I was told not to put my book in the erotica category by one bestselling author.* I was also told to not use taboo, step-family, virgin or anything like that in my keywords.
> 
> Can someone who writes and sells erotica please tell me what they have done.


Put your book in the erotica category if it's erotica. If it's a romance with erotic content, put it in romance instead.

You can put whatever you want in the keywords. Amazon do not filter or block based on keywords (the actual behind the scenes keywords, not the keywords some people apend to titles).


----------



## Ava Glass

EelKat said:


> OH...BIG DANGER WARNING! Not all sites allow photos to be used on Erotica. Remember my Mormon priest husband and his slaving to the whims of the LDS church which decries Erotica and gayness...well, this site is owned by a Mormon and they are NOTORIOUS for running after, hunting down, and suing the daylights out of authors who use their photos on Erotica or Gay Fiction books: http://www.solidstockart.com Beware of this company. DO NOT use their photos for Erotica or any book containing a gay character.
> 
> if anyone plans to use images from SolidStock, *do know that this site has a ANTI-GAY POLICY, you CAN NOT use images bought on their site for same-sex stories*. They spell that right out in their ToS...


Eelkat, this is the second time you've said there is something different about Solid Stock Art, and I don't get it.

SSA's language is similar to most agencies out there.

This is what istock says is prohibited:



> Pornographic, obscene or libelous works
> Use that depicts personal endorsement by model
> Use that depicts model in a sensitive way i.e. mental or physical health issues, substance abuse, criminal behavior, sexual activity or preference without a disclaimer.


Dreamstime:



> you agree not to use Media with sensitive topics without Dreamstime`s separate written agreement. Such sensitive topics include, but are not limited to: models with mental or physical health issues, social issues, sexual activity, sexual orientation or related, substance abuse, crime or other subjects that can be considered to be offensive or unflattering to any of the models included in the image.


Using stock on erotica can have risks. There have been threads here about it.

http://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=177547.0

BTW, this is a picture from Solid Stock Art:


----------



## Mylius Fox

Just wanted to say thanks a lot, Eelkat, for sharing that information, it was definitely very helpful.  
So by that adapted model there's probably about 2000 words or so of actual sex, near the end. Does this hold up pretty well across the genre, or are there other norms for how to approach it as well? 
Either way I think I'm starting to get a nice contour in my head for how to approach an idea I have, very curious to see if I can pull it off well. 
Thanks again!


----------



## nellgoddin

> Ah. I thought it was frowned on to categorize erotica as anything else. If it's an ultra steamy romance with lots of juicy erotic bits, then I've heard it's in your best interest to categorize it as romance>erotica. But if it's strictly erotica and there's no romance to be seen, I understood that to be bad form and that it peeves a lot of readers off to label it as anything other than erotica.


You may be right. I try to have a framework of romance in mine, however flimsy. But check this out: http://amzn.com/B00NZ8VPSU I haven't read it but it sure looks like straight-up erotica with no romance. And selling like crazy. Maybe it's clear enough from the cover/title/blurb what is it, so the category isn't confusing anyone?


----------



## Amber Rose

Boyd said:


> If "Stepbrother Dearest" which is like #3 or #4 in amazon isn't erotica, then none of my stuff is either... by the way, how did that get past the PI filters?


I'd also like to know!



> I missed how we are supposed to enter if we don't want to put the details here? Not that it matters, if nothing else then this has been a really interesting experiment and for financial reasons I think it is also the start of a brand new series!!


You can PM me with your pen name, book title and any other details re sales etc. I will then just pass on those details to the board, without connecting your "full time" profile.


----------



## Guest

iheartwords, Molly Tomorrow and Eelkat,  thank you for your replies. 

Thanks for all the help


----------



## Guest

Boyd said:


> none of my erotica is in erotica  Kind of the nature of the beast now a days. If "Stepbrother Dearest" which is like #3 or #4 in amazon isn't erotica, then none of my stuff is either... by the way, how did that get past the PI filters?


 It's categorized *contemporary romance * and there are a couple step-brother step-sister books that are in the contemporary romance category.

*These similar books are in new adult romance or contemporary romance:
*
Abbi Glines -'Fallen too far' 
Jordan Silver - 'Forbidden' 
Lisa Desrochers -'A little too much'

On Goodreads they are all in the Adult fiction>erotica category.

I was advised to put my books in contemporary romance or new adult college romance but never erotica, regardless if it's a short story or a novel.


----------



## a_g

nellgoddin said:


> You may be right. I try to have a framework of romance in mine, however flimsy. But check this out: http://amzn.com/B00NZ8VPSU I haven't read it but it sure looks like straight-up erotica with no romance. And selling like crazy. Maybe it's clear enough from the cover/title/blurb what is it, so the category isn't confusing anyone?


Looks like all the author's stuff is like that.

I don't know that I want to risk getting into deep water with Amazon over this, though. Then again, there's not a bit of romance in most of my stuff so no matter how hard I squint, I can't justify the risk.

Color me a chicken. If it works for others, I wish them well. I wish I had the nerve.


----------



## Redacted1111

So what is the prize? I'll probably have four shorts out under a new pen name during this seven day period, but I don't see the incentive to share my information publicly or privately. Of course, I already published a book without disclosing my information to a stranger on the internet. That's probably against the "rules" of the challenge.  

I just wrote a PI book, it isn't live yet, it has classical "romance" tropes. It is technically a romance.... But I put it in erotica. It's a 5000 word story that is essentially about sex. Why bother trying to get romance readers? I just don't understand the point. Romance readers want full length novels with well developed characters and interesting plots. They don't want 5000 word sex stories even if there is a HEA at the end. I just don't get it. Putting what is essentially porn into romance just seems like an invitation to get hate reviews. Romance is a totally different readership, and from what I can see, there is no shame in putting your work in erotica. There are plenty of respectable books over there.


----------



## SarahWritesSometimes

Lionel's Mom said:


> Sweet mercy, can I be a beta reader?


LOL, I hope others feel that way. I'm only 1000 words in and now I have to do some of my day-time job stuff, so hopefully I will finish it this evening and upload.

One thing to note - my other 3 erotica shorts I have placed in Romance>Erotica, and Fiction>Short Stories, both with very clear warnings in the blurbs. I was trying to avoid the straight up Erotica category but I wonder if that is hurting sales (ironic, I know.) I may just put this one straight into erotica and see what happens.

Will post again with new pen name and title hopefully later today.


----------



## Redacted1111

I know it's conventional wisdom to put anything with a HEA or HFN in romance, but I don't see it being beneficial. After marketing almost exclusively to romance readers for a year I see their tastes and giving them thinly plotted sex stories is not it. Romance readers are very picky. They want a good story and to love the characters. The sex is just spice for romance readers. Sure they like it, but they want emotional stimulation. They want the relationship to make sense to them. What you can write in erotica is so completely different from what makes romance readers happy. Honestly, my last short story was a "romance" but it had a completely cheesy ending-the kind of ending that wraps up a good porn short, but something that would make a romance reader roll her eyes. Anything I write as "erotica" I'm listing as erotica. I actually think a lot of men read erotica. I know people say most erotica readers are women, but I'm getting the vibe that that isn't necessarily the case. 

Sure there is a difference between "erotica" and "porn" but from what I can see, the smuttier the story, the more you can charge for a shorter word count. If you want to write romance, write novellas or full length novels with likable, well developed characters and an engaging plot. I think knowing what readers you are trying to attract is pretty key to success in either romance or erotica. Just because search engines favor one category over another isn't a reason to confuse and disappoint readers. I really don't care what conventional wisdom is or what some authors say. That' is my opinion as someone who's racked their brain for over a year trying to figure out romance readers. They aren't to be trifled with. They will smack you down as fast as you can hit publish. 

Gosh, I'm in a typy mood. I should probably go write something that will make me money.


----------



## WDR

Thanks, everyone! (EelKat, as comprehensive as ever!!)

I've two ideas in my head duking it out for supremacy. The first could count as NA, the second a bit phantasmagorical in atmosphere.

Today will be a work day: reading and materials. Tomorrow, hopefully I can start writing something. My goal is to have something usable and editable by Saturday and post it by Sunday. I already have a first name for my alter ego, I just need to come up with a matching and plausible surname—my target is to create a name that readers would have to flip a coin to decide if it is a stage name or an actual name. (Just enough ambiguity.)

Game on!


----------



## Amber Rose

*This is not my book*. It is from another author who wishes to remain anonymous, and sent me the info via PM:

pen name: Verily Harden

title: Towed Away

plot: Reporter's car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, on the way to the most important interview of her life.

The tow truck driver who arrives to help is amazingly hot, though a bit cold in the conversation department.

Mutual attraction draws them into a steamy sexual encounter on the trunk of her car before she leaves to make her appointment.

There's a little twist at the end, and I told it in alternating POV. No idea if it's any good, but I'm willing to give it a shot. I hope to get this up later today, or possibly early in the morning.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Amber Rose said:


> (As I mentioned previously, when I first posted the challenge, some authors contacted me privately to post their results, so as not to link themselves to the pen name. Some of those authors have now set up a separate KBoards profile and are posting the results that way, others I will post here.)
> 
> Pen name: Kelly Darcy
> Title: James (#1 Hot Doctor Series).
> 
> Good luck to all


MODERATOR NOTE:

Secondary profiles on Kboards are generally NOT allowed.

The only exception is a BONA FIDE pseudonym that is set up for purposes of promoting, for example, books in a different genre than your usual author name.

If you intend to do this, PLEASE let us know ahead of time. Otherwise you risk the account being summarily deleted or banned as it may appear as nothing more than a sock puppet.

In any case, you may NOT use both personae at the same time -- talking to yourself in a thread for example -- and your alter ego may not post in your other identity's Book Bazaar threads.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Dang.  Ann posted while I was posting... 

What she said.

Betsy


----------



## KBoards Admin

Amber Rose said:


> ...
> Some of those authors have now set up a separate KBoards profile and are posting the results that way, others I will post here.)
> ...


Ann and Betsy both posted while I was drafting my post! What Ann said.
~~~
This has prompted some questions... here's our policy about it:
- Generally, you may not have more than one account per individual
- We make exceptions for authors who wish to have different accounts for their various pen names, BUT: 
- You must contact one of the Writers' Cafe mods (me, Ann, Betsy) to let us know (preferably ahead of time) the two account names;
- You cannot use one account to bump or respond to a post made by the other. That would fall into our definition of sock puppetry.


----------



## Susan in TX

EelKat said:


> I wrote up an altered version of it for myself, which is what I use as a basic outline when writing my 7k Romances and Eroticas. I'll post it here for you, and you can see if it helps you out any. It's the basic skeleton that shows you where to put what, when, and was designed for 5k to 7k stories.
> 
> Here's how I alter is for Romance & Erotica:
> 
> Divide the 6000 word yarn into four 1500 word parts. In each 1500 word part, put the following:


EelKat, adding my thanks. Very helpful and I really appreciate your sharing. I'm gonna do this.


----------



## Sargon

EelKat said:


> (USUALLY) Any time your book hangs in review more then 12 hours, it means more then one reviewer is reviewing it. It means - the first reviewer flagged it as adult content and sent it on to someone else to review it again. (It could also mean there's a glitch in Amazon's system, if it happens to non-Erotica books)


Wouldn't *anything* categorized in "Erotica" be flagged as adult content...by definition?

I'm at 18 hours for my second erotica book. I put it into Erotica and also Short Stories. I noticed at least one big-selling erotic story was in Short Stories.


----------



## wtvr

EelKat, How do you know that?


----------



## ipg69

EroticaWriter said:


> Wouldn't *anything* categorized in "Erotica" be flagged as adult content...by definition?
> 
> I'm at 18 hours for my second erotica book. I put it into Erotica and also Short Stories. I noticed at least one big-selling erotic story was in Short Stories.


It could also take a while if your title matches some free porn out there on the Internet and they have to verify that you're not violating copyright. This probably happens with erotica more than any other genre--I bet there are 4 million free stories out there called "My Boss's BBW Wife."


----------



## Redacted1111

I think you are most likely to get flagged for your cover and title than anything else. I just published my second short in the last three days and I'm waiting for my first borrows to come in.   I've finished my third and I'm about to write my fourth. I'm not in the mood to edit right now. Yes, I'm proofreading. I like to go through it twice, once to fix any Dragon Naturally Speaking weirdness, and the second with text to speech to get as many errors as I can. You probably don't "have to" proofread smut, but old habits die hard. I'm also taking down a bunch of old content and putting it in KU with new titles and covers under a new pen name. My new cover for one of them looks sooo much better. I'm not sure why I didn't do this ages ago. MOTIVATION. It's tricky. The promise of dollars for effort is pretty motivating.


----------



## wtvr

Kalypsō said:


> You probably don't "have to" proofread smut, but old habits die hard.


I think you do.


----------



## Redacted1111

It's debatable. But I do. That's all that matters to me. I'm not going to tell anyone else what to do. Again, going against conventional wisdom and being open minded is the reason I stay anonymous.


----------



## Sargon

Kalypsō said:


> I think you are most likely to get flagged for your cover and title than anything else. I just published my second short in the last three days and I'm waiting for my first borrows to come in.  I've finished my third and I'm about to write my fourth. I'm not in the mood to edit right now. Yes, I'm proofreading. I like to go through it twice, once to fix any Dragon Naturally Speaking weirdness, and the second with text to speech to get as many errors as I can. You probably don't "have to" proofread smut, but old habits die hard. I'm also taking down a bunch of old content and putting it in KU with new titles and covers under a new pen name. My new cover for one of them looks sooo much better. I'm not sure why I didn't do this ages ago. MOTIVATION. It's tricky. The promise of dollars for effort is pretty motivating.


Nice work, Kalypso! My second story went live in the early evening today and I've got 2 borrows so far. The cover's cute but still looks a bit homemade. Not sure how much that matters. No sales rank on the book yet. The first one has slipped to 30,000-something and has 6 sales and 11 borrows in 2 full days.

Finished the 3rd story and am about to proof/edit it. I go through once after writing, adding a bit and proofing. I'm a good proofreader, I think. The cover has me a bit concerned on this one, but I'll figure something out. 2nd book took about 22 hours to get out of "In Review" and I got my first borrow in less than 1 hour.

My author rank is about 1,000 right now with a bullet.

You're about to write your fourth? Damn, I'd better get cracking if I'm going to keep up with you...

Having a blast...


----------



## Evenstar

Um.... Are we going to flood the erotica market with unproofed experimental work and interfere with the earnings of genuine erotica authors? Or is there so much of that anyway that we are a mere drop in the ocean?


----------



## A.C. Nixon

I'm going to select 7 days later in the month and take the challenge. My goal is to write and publish at least two stories.  I'm photoshop challenged, so I may go to fiver for inexpensive covers. Way to go people.


----------



## Guest

Evenstar said:


> Um.... Are we going to flood the erotica market with unproofed experimental work and interfere with the earnings of genuine erotica authors? Or is there so much of that anyway that we are a mere drop in the ocean?


There are tons of short erotic stories on Amazon right now which are poorly written, clearly unedited and not hot enough for my tastes *(this is my personal opinion)*.

I chatted to a new erotica author on another forum yesterday and she admitted she writes her books in no more than 3 hours, she doesn't edit them and she knows her books are below average but she wants to clear her debts before Christmas.

I think this experiment is interesting.

 I just did a search for new erotica. I usually look at the charts. My eyes are hurting with the numerous amounts of butt cheeks on covers and backdoor stories.


----------



## No longer seen

> Wouldn't *anything* categorized in "Erotica" be flagged as adult content...by definition?


Not in the Kindle lexicon, which I believe the poster you quoted meant.

Erotica is simply a category, and of course is for adults only, not children. Erotica books do come up for "All Category" searches, which is when you (or your 
prospective customers) search for you or your type of book in the standard box without narrowing it down to Kindle.

However, in the Kindle lexicon, a book marked by Kindle as "Adult" means it will NOT come for an "All Category" search. And that's what most people use.
Therefore, if a book is marked by Kindle as "Adult" it's effectively dead. People can search for it by name and for you as an author, and it won't come up. I also believe you're eliminated from all Also Boughts.

So, writing stories that fit into the Erotica category is fine, but if a book is marked as "Adult" its sales plummet.


----------



## a_g

Evenstar said:


> Um.... Are we going to flood the erotica market with unproofed experimental work and interfere with the earnings of genuine erotica authors? Or is there so much of that anyway that we are a mere drop in the ocean?


Since it wasn't clear from the beginning, hasn't really been clarified in three pages and many writers have taken their own personal interpretation of the challenge to bring what they want to the table so comparisons for success are going to be highly individualistic, it's hard to say what's being done at this point.

It's an interesting thread, though.



Boyd said:


> Putting stories into an erotica category works the same as an adult filter. you CANNOT search that from anywhere on amazon, only from the books or kindle department. This is why erotica authors have been putting their stories in anything but erotica, usually different flavors of romance, but using erotica keywords.


True, but the true kiss of death is getting slapped with the dreaded *ADULT* tag that doesn't show anywhere except when you search your books on http://www.salesrankexpress.com/

*ADULT* doesn't get slapped on everything. Only on books that have problem covers and/or blurbs.

Those don't seem to show up _anywhere_ and books sink into nothingness in no time at all. The only way to fix that is to change whatever caused it to get tagged that way and send an email to have them reconsider it and have the tag removed.

I'm still not sure how I feel about not appropriately putting erotica works in the erotica category. As I said earlier, I'm not up to the task of playing chicken with Amazon and risk getting my account suspended if they catch on.


----------



## swolf

Boyd said:


> Putting stories into an erotica category works the same as an adult filter. you CANNOT search that from anywhere on amazon, only from the books or kindle department. This is why erotica authors have been putting their stories in anything but erotica, usually different flavors of romance, but using erotica keywords.


That hasn't been my experience. I can search and find my titles from the main Amazon page, and they're all in the erotica category.


----------



## swolf

C.Saffron said:


> I chatted to a new erotica author on another forum yesterday and she admitted she writes her books in no more than 3 hours, she doesn't edit them and she knows her books are below average but she wants to clear her debts before Christmas.


She would have a much better chance of clearing her debts if she edited her stories.


----------



## Amber Rose

Once again, *I am no the author*. This info was Pm'd to me by a writer who wants to stay anonymous. (I do want to say though that I strongly recommend you read her/his blog. It's a great summary of a six week lifespan of a new erotica author. URL at end.)

Name: Trixie Lee

Title: The Naughty Cable Guy

Originally uploaded on 10/3, went live 10/4, in KU/Select, 1 borrow, 0 sales (have not used any free days)
Decided it needed a cover/title change. Initiated on 10/7, live on 10/8, so far no activity (although I realize it's still early).

My original take away from the challenge so far:

Do not upload on Friday nights
Titles really need to be eye-catching for the genre
Nail your keywords
Don't spend stupid amounts of time fiddling with all the technicalities, get it out there and start the next story. It's been four days, I should have another story ready to go. I don't.

Working on my next story now to test out the series aspect of bumping sales.

Conclusion: Right now, it's looking like the "one day out of the gate, hundreds (of downloads, borrows or sales)" isn't in the cards for me, making this a Fail. There could be a lot of things contributing to that. I'm keeping up with a longer challenge here at http://trixieleewritesporn.wordpress.com/


----------



## SarahWritesSometimes

I'm dropping out of the challenge, sorry. I couldn't get into the story and thinking about it was taking away from my other writing, my life, and my pay-the-bills job. Good luck everyone


----------



## nellgoddin

> So, writing stories that fit into the Erotica category is fine, but if a book is marked as "Adult" its sales plummet.


This is my understanding as well. Under another pen name I have 5 books that are romantic erotica, one is categorized as erotica because of the cover (which is a mystery really, there's nothing showing and it's quite tasteful). The erotica title consistently does the worst, and maybe it's my imagination but it seems to slip in sales rank faster.

Anyway, I uploaded my challenge story yesterday afternoon, using romance categories and some erotica keywords. The story is first in a series and has gotten 2 sales and 3 borrows so far.

Maybe my categorization disqualifies me for the challenge, which is fine. I just have better luck sidestepping the adult label.


----------



## Guest

I'm finding this experiment to be so interesting.

Studying the free erotica charts for the past few days, I've noticed most of the books that are sticking around for several days are the Taboo stories. So PI (step-daddy step-daughter _and_ step-brother step-sister stories are still hot property), despite Amazon removing some stories.


----------



## CDForness

Unfortunately I can't join the fun this week, but if this carries on, I hope to start this coming Monday.


----------



## Redacted1111

Twelve borrows and one sale on the first, six borrows on the second since it published yesterday evening. Still have to finish editing the third and the fourth is about half way written. From my understanding, volume is key to making money in erotica. All my stories are just about 5k words. My personal experiment is to get as many out as possible in as short a time as possible. I'll have to go back to writing my romance serial soon, but the amount of borrows I'm getting as soon as I release an erotica short is pretty exciting. 

I have to come up with more interesting scenarios because the sex is already getting a little old. Still, writing erotica is kind of relaxing after writing romance for a romance audience. It really doesn't take a lot of effort to get out 5k words of erotica for me.


----------



## o.gasim

3rd time's A Charm (see below)

1st 24 hours in the books. 1 sale and 1 KU Borrow, not much but still the best first day I've ever had. Working on the follow-up to the series and hope to have it ready before the weekend. This one was uploaded on Saturday but didn't go live until Tuesday morning. I also think I'll be more comfortable playing with keywords when I have 2 out.

Never considered writing erotica before, but it is true what some have said that it is very liberating and at 3k-7k, a nice exercise to warm up the writing muscles.


----------



## Moist_Tissue

From this experience:

Have there been any returns on your short story?

Have there been any 1 star reviews?


----------



## nellgoddin

Kalypso, way to rock it! I was going to go back to writing my mystery, but you're inspiring me to keep going with this.

o.gasim (lol), love your cover!

No returns or reviews yet.


----------



## Redacted1111

No reviews. But that is common. Most erotica titles don't have reviews and from what I can see bad reviews are meaningless. No returns, but I've only had one actual sale. I have a total of 19 borrows from two 5k word titles. One had been live since Sunday evening, the other has been live since yesterday evening. I can see how someone who as keen keywords and a very good understanding of the market could easily get a hundred of borrows on a new title on a new pen name in a week. I'm just not that person. I'm a beginner and don't have inside info about the market. I only know what I've gleaned from searching Amazon and reading a few books. 

Given my experience, I'm very motivated to continue. This is all about motivation and how hard you can work. Some people have the commitment, some don't. I could sit around and not do it, or I can do it. The choice is mine. The only think holding me back is fear. The money is there, waiting to be grasped. As a totally new smut writer, I'm sure I will learn a great deal more after more than half a week. 

I'm not judging anyone who is dropping out. I really need money so it's kind of a no brainer for me. If I had an actual income from something other than writing, I wouldn't bother writing smut. I'd just write what I really wanted to write. IE: full length scifi/fantasy novels.


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## o.gasim

Kalypsō said:


> Given my experience, I'm very motivated to continue. This is all about motivation and how hard you can work. Some people have the commitment, some don't. I could sit around and not do it, or I can do it. The choice is mine. The only think holding me back is fear. The money is there, waiting to be grasped. As a totally new smut writer, I'm sure I will learn a great deal more after more than half a week.


I'm right there with you Kalypso; sticking with it. It's a fun exciting challenge that earns some much need extra income. I too am keyword challenged and am trying to navigate it all as a newbie. What are you doing for research?

@Nell: Thanks! I wanted something simple that I could easily change for new entries in the series. For my next Halloween themed story the highlight will be orange over the same pic.


----------



## Redacted1111

Research is basically trolling the erotica section until my eyes bleed.


----------



## Guest

Last night, I read HOW ANYONE CAN BECOME A FULL-TIME EROTICA AUTHOR IN 6 WEEKS.  Aside from the fact that the book was a lot of fun, it has brought me back into the erotica game.

I researched the type of erotica the author was referring to, and I was shocked at the rankings.  For the most part, this stuff sells.

I used to be an erotica writer.  I wrote literary erotica under my name, and I only wrote the really raunchy stuff, as a ghostwriter, for clients.

So . . . I can write the raunchy stuff.  No problem. I just had no idea those stories are so popular at Amazon.  But now I know!

My plan is to write one story a week starting this month or next under a secret pen name.  I'll do that in addition to what I'm doing under Jolie du Pre. 

Since I'm using a secret pen name that I don't want to reveal, I am unable to participate in the challenge.  But thanks for offering it, and thanks for all the great information in this thread.  

I love Writers' Cafe at Kboards!!


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## Rachel E. Rice

I thought I didn't have time to do this, but I wrote my erotic masterpiece in two days, and came up with a title and pen name the next day. I'm editing it now, however, I can't find a cheap cover. I tried a site that offered to make the cover for $5 dollars and have it back in 24 hours. Now I'm informed that it will not happen. Back to finding the cover. This thread was a great motivator.


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## Moist_Tissue

Rachel E. Rice said:


> I thought I didn't have time to do this, but I wrote my erotic masterpiece in two days, and came up with a title and pen name the next day. I'm editing it now, however, I can't find a cheap cover. I tried a site that offered to make the cover for $5 dollars and have it back in 24 hours. Now I'm informed that it will not happen. Back to finding the cover. This thread was a great motivator.


Don't give up on Fiverr. You can find some newer artists that don't have long queues. They might be able to churn out a cover within a few days.


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## M.G. Russell

o.gasim said:


> 3rd time's A Charm (see below)
> 
> 1st 24 hours in the books. 1 sale and 1 KU Borrow, not much but still the best first day I've ever had. Working on the follow-up to the series and hope to have it ready before the weekend. This one was uploaded on Saturday but didn't go live until Tuesday morning. I also think I'll be more comfortable playing with keywords when I have 2 out.
> 
> Never considered writing erotica before, but it is true what some have said that it is very liberating and at 3k-7k, a nice exercise to warm up the writing muscles.


Can I ask if you price your works at $2.99, which seems to be the standard price for anything over 5k?


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## Al Dente

Joliedupre said:


> Last night, I read HOW ANYONE CAN BECOME A FULL-TIME EROTICA AUTHOR IN 6 WEEKS. Aside from the fact that the book was a lot of fun, it has brought me back into the erotica game.
> 
> I researched the type of erotica the author was referring to, and I was shocked at the rankings. For the most part, this stuff sells.
> 
> I used to be an erotica writer. I wrote literary erotica under my name, and I only wrote the really raunchy stuff, as a ghostwriter, for clients.
> 
> So . . . I can write the raunchy stuff. No problem. I just had no idea those stories are so popular at Amazon. But now I know!
> 
> My plan is to write one story a week starting this month or next under a secret pen name. I'll do that in addition to what I'm doing under Jolie du Pre.
> 
> Since I'm using a secret pen name that I don't want to reveal, I am unable to participate in the challenge. But thanks for offering it, and thanks for all the great information in this thread.
> 
> I love Writers' Cafe at Kboards!!


I also read that book recently, and it was a real eye opener. I've been writing romance for a few months, and it has been selling decently, but I think it's time for me to work on some of these 5k shorts too. I'm also writing under a secret pen name, so I can't formally join the challenge. I'll be happy to upload a picture of my sales graph, though.

Happy writing everyone!


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## Sargon

Kalypsō said:


> No reviews. But that is common. Most erotica titles don't have reviews and from what I can see bad reviews are meaningless. No returns, but I've only had one actual sale. I have a total of 19 borrows from two 5k word titles. One had been live since Sunday evening, the other has been live since yesterday evening.


Nice! You seem to be rocking it.

I've had no returns, and have had 5 borrows so far today. Wish I knew what they were worth! Am assuming around $2.00 or $1.80 or something. Sent up my 3rd title this morning, which I wrote yesterday, includes links to the others and my Author Central page, hoping that will help with discovery. 3rd title is trying to cash in on some very high-ranked erotica stories by being similar. We'll see how that works.

The only downside is I'm literally checking my sales reports a few times an hour...these being the only things I've ever published, I'm still excited by every blip on the charts!

Edit -- Oh, and no reviews of course.


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## Redacted1111

Borrows were $1.54 last month. They might even be less this month. But even if they are a dollar, it's still more than the royalty rate for a 99 cent book.


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## Mr. Sparkle

Just to be clear, does the challenge end on the 11th? Or does it start all over again on the 11th?


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## Sargon

Kalypsō said:


> Borrows were $1.54 last month. They might even be less this month. But even if they are a dollar, it's still more than the royalty rate for a 99 cent book.


Hmm, that sucks. Better than nothing, but I've got my stories at $2.99 so wish I'd see more buys.


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## JessieSnow

I was hoping to start on the 12th and end on the 18th myself, although I've always released books on Tuesdays because people are usually out and about over the weekend. As a side note, does anyone here release on certain weekdays for maximum visibility?


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## JessieSnow

EelKat said:


> But yeah, for me, I'm making this thing more then just a 7-Day Challenge, I'm using it to try to create some long term changes in my career.


Me too. A new m/f pen name to see how it matches up to my m/m pen name.


----------



## Mr. Sparkle

JessieSnow said:


> I was hoping to start on the 12th and end on the 18th myself, although I've always released books on Tuesdays because people are usually out and about over the weekend. As a side note, does anyone here release on certain weekdays for maximum visibility?


I think someone said upthread that it's best not to submit for publication on the weekends because the Europeans vetters are more prudish, but I could be wrong. I'm going to start submitting everything romantically related on weekdays just to be safe.


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## o.gasim

M.G. Russell said:


> Can I ask if you price your works at $2.99, which seems to be the standard price for anything over 5k?


Hi M.G., I started out at 2.99, but realized after 24 hours the price was too high for a less than 5k work. This morning I adjusted the price down to 1.49 and saw a sale within 20 minutes. The next title should hit 5k and go up to 2.99, along with a bundle of the first two for 4.99. I'm still new at this but trying to learn.


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## Mr. Sparkle

Eelkat, I'm so inspired! It's true that diversification is the key, but what I think I was missing from the mindset previously is that this doesn't necessarily mean many different streams of income or even many genres but can mean many books quickly in one genre, IOW erotica.

As someone used to spitting out non-fiction quickly but struggling to finish plotted pieces, this may be what I need to kill the inner editor at last, at least while writing.


----------



## a_g

Mr. Sparkle said:


> Just to be clear, does the challenge end on the 11th? Or does it start all over again on the 11th?


I don't think it is a set thing. Start your clock, look at what happens. Share, if you're feeling generous.


----------



## Sargon

EelKat said:


> I believe the highest borrow rate was $2.11 and the lowest was $1.07 (including pre-KU borrow rates). There's a chart somewhere, but I don't think I had it bookmarked. I know it was posted on one of the big mega KU threads, maybe in about mid-August? It listed every borrow rate for every month since it started.
> 
> Anyways, based on that chart, I came to the conclusion is never goes much over $2 and never goes under $1 and spends a lot of time in the $1.60 to $1.90 range, so I figure on $1.50 when I estimate how much borrows will be.


Great info, thanks EelKat! At 6 borrows so far today, I just might get my Europe trip by the end of next year!


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## Amber Rose

> Just to be clear, does the challenge end on the 11th? Or does it start all over again on the 11th?





anderson_gray said:


> I don't think it is a set thing. Start your clock, look at what happens. Share, if you're feeling generous.


+1


----------



## Babylon Publishing

"Open" an erotic short story by F. M. Love is available now:
US - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OA2WZ8O
UK - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00OA2WZ8O
A job interview leads to erotic entanglements in this short story.


----------



## Will C. Brown

Babylon Publishing said:


> "Open" an erotic short story by F. M. Love is available now:
> US - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OA2WZ8O
> UK - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00OA2WZ8O
> A job interview leads to erotic entanglements in this short story.


5 pages  $2.99?
Let us know how that goes. Seriously.


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## Guest

I spent part of today reading and researching.  All three books I read were around 5K at $2.99 or borrow through Select or Unlimited.  All three books were selling well.


----------



## J.B.

Babylon Publishing said:


> "Open" an erotic short story by F. M. Love is available now:
> US - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OA2WZ8O
> UK - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00OA2WZ8O
> A job interview leads to erotic entanglements in this short story.


I'm just fascinated about the second person POV.


----------



## Sargon

Will C. Brown said:


> 5 pages  $2.99?
> Let us know how that goes. Seriously.


I had the exact same thought. Dying to see the results in a week.

For me, story #3 went live today around 7:00pm Eastern, but no bites yet. I have high hopes: searches under All Departments for various related terms bring up my book along with a couple others that are ranked shockingly high in the overall store (like way under 5,000).

My first story is still the only one really getting any traction. Overall, after 3 full days, I'm averaging 5 borrows and 2 sales per day. Could be worse, I guess. I just now adjusted the keywords and description on book #2 and tweaked the subtitle and also changed the character's age, then republished to see if that helps. It's dropped to 112,000 sales rank, which isn't good.


----------



## Guest

Will C. Brown said:


> 5 pages  $2.99?
> Let us know how that goes. Seriously.





Puzzle said:


> Plus the challenge says at least 5k words. Pretty sure you can get more than 5 pages out of 5k words.
> I'm sure there will be some borrow though.


I was thinking the same thing. 

*Personally I can only read first person erotica*, third person makes me feel like I'm standing outside the house trying to peek through the window.


----------



## Redacted1111

My books are doing pretty well in my estimation. My third book published really quickly today. I was like, "wow!" I'm almost finished writing my fourth. I don't think I'll be able to tell what is producing and what isn't for a week or so. My second book, which I thought would be bigger, has only had seven borrows in 1.5 days. Which isn't that bad.  I spent the evening reworking some older books that weren't really producing. They'd finally unpublished from other vendors so they are getting whole new attitude. I wonder if these books can be revitalized under a new pen name or if they are just way too far off the mark because I wrote them when I was clueless.   But I've got like thirteen of these books. Might as well give it a shot. 
I'm so enjoying the short smut because I can write all kinds of ideas. I have a bit of a series going. It isn't an actual series but they have related themes and similar titles. My next one is going to be historical! 
I also enjoyed creating my slutty avatar, er author profile. I even made a free website. I'll have to do something similar with the second pen name, but it's kind of just fun and frivolous. I don't have to take it all that seriously. I don't feel nearly as "Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr, must be perfect," as I usually do about publishing.


----------



## Guest

Kalypsō said:


> My books are doing pretty well in my estimation. My third book published really quickly today. I was like, "wow!" I'm almost finished writing my fourth. I don't think I'll be able to tell what is producing and what isn't for a week or so. My second book, which I thought would be bigger, has only had seven borrows in 1.5 days. Which isn't that bad.  I spent the evening reworking some older books that weren't really producing. They'd finally unpublished from other vendors so they are getting whole new attitude. I wonder if these books can be revitalized under a new pen name or if they are just way too far off the mark because I wrote them when I was clueless.  But I've got like thirteen of these books. Might as well give it a shot.
> I'm so enjoying the short smut because I can write all kinds of ideas. I have a bit of a series going. It isn't an actual series but they have related themes and similar titles. My next one is going to be historical!
> I also enjoyed creating my slutty avatar, er author profile. I even made a free website. I'll have to do something similar with the second pen name, but it's kind of just fun and frivolous. I don't have to take it all that seriously. I don't feel nearly as "Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr, must be perfect," as I usually do about publishing.


i love your attitude and the way you are just getting on with it. I have read that book on writing erotica but I am still sitting here trying to perfect one story. 
Good luck and I hope your sales and borrows keep increasing


----------



## Amber Rose

**********SPREADSHEET*************

OK, so I have set up a spreadsheet that tracks all the results etc. It's not very populated with info, though

Here is the link. 
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AqUkg_H5bVPeo0Y5t2ex5lPPS8vzgD46bd_YpObzxUE/edit?usp=sharing

If you click on the link, you will be able to edit the spreadsheet.

1. If you are taking part in the challenge, please add yourself on the sheet, together with all details
2. Update as often as you wish
3. If you have MULTIPLE books, it would probably be best to create a separate line for each book
4. If you want to keep your pen name private that is fine. Just put your KBoard profile under "Author"
5. If you are doing this quietly and have not linked yourself to the challenge, please add yourself to the sheet anyway. I hope this won't be abused!

Hopefully, at the end of the month or so we will have a clearer picture of all this......


----------



## alicepattinson

wow! thanks for the link Amber


----------



## Fredster

Did anyone else open this thread about erotica challenges from someone named Moist_tissue expecting it to be about something else entirely?


----------



## Guest

Which sales channels pay within 30 days or are they all quarterly or after 60 days?


----------



## nellgoddin

Kalypsō said:


> it's kind of just fun and frivolous. I don't have to take it all that seriously. I don't feel nearly as "Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr, must be perfect," as I usually do about publishing.


Same thing here. I don't care about it, don't have any expectations, so the inner critic is sound asleep. Ahhhh....

I'm curious about the 2nd person story too. This is the perfect time to experiment and I hope it works.

Amber Rose, thanks for doing the spreadsheet, that's super helpful!


----------



## Amber Rose

EelKat, 

Those are some really interesting observations about the price of erotica works. 

I have always had a great appreciation for the theory of perfect pricing (demand meets supply at the perfect price), and the perfect price for GENERIC erotica has got to be $0,99 (ignoring free, which is a valid price point, but complicates matters).

As long as there are people churning out erotica at $0,99 (and there are plenty of them), the perfect price will trend toward $0,99. Because, duh!

If authors writing in a certain kink charge higher as a group, the price will remain higher. But eventually, someone will drop prices for short term gain, and then everyone plummets. (I suspect the Vaalingrade would say this about the whole concept of KU/Select).

But there is hope (maybe).  I hope that there are enough readers who are willing to pay more than $0,99 for well written erotica. Not the ones that are being written on a word-count basis only, without edits etc. And those will have to cost more than $0,99 to make economic sense for the author, who spends so much more time on them, and who has such stiff competition. 

And then there is KU. Who knows what will happen there? But I can bet you that bottom dollar that Amazon is NOT going to keep on paying the same amount for "smut" that has not been edited, and that can be read by the truckload every month at the same rate it is paying for full length novels. 

And then there is $Free, which might just screw everything up even more.


----------



## Sargon

Amber Rose said:


> **********SPREADSHEET*************
> 
> OK, so I have set up a spreadsheet that tracks all the results etc. It's not very populated with info, though
> 
> Here is the link.
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AqUkg_H5bVPeo0Y5t2ex5lPPS8vzgD46bd_YpObzxUE/edit?usp=sharing
> 
> If you click on the link, you will be able to edit the spreadsheet.
> 
> 1. If you are taking part in the challenge, please add yourself on the sheet, together with all details
> 2. Update as often as you wish
> 3. If you have MULTIPLE books, it would probably be best to create a separate line for each book
> 4. If you want to keep your pen name private that is fine. Just put your KBoard profile under "Author"
> 5. If you are doing this quietly and have not linked yourself to the challenge, please add yourself to the sheet anyway. I hope this won't be abused!
> 
> Hopefully, at the end of the month or so we will have a clearer picture of all this......


Updated. Might break out the books later when more data is in. Kalypso is killing me on borrows! I'm too competitive...


----------



## Redacted1111

Thing is, there is a high demand for smut. There might not be a very high demand for full length novels loosely based on someones boring life. 

I think I might just keep my progress private from now on. I've got a lot of reasons to make money, which I'm not going to list because I'm not hosting a pity party. But there is so much competition and jealousy that runs rampant around here that I don't feel like dealing with it, even anonymously. I've got too much work to do and too much money to focus on making to deflect bad vibes. 

I've been more motivated than I've been in months, and I feel positive about what I can accomplish. If anyone wants to PM me, feel free to do so.


----------



## Guest

EelKat said:


> Okay - this is fascinating input right there.
> 
> I go back and forth between 3rd and 1st in Erotica and I'm never sure which is better weird thing is, as an author I enjoy writing 3rd person over 1st person. But then I find that as a reader, I enjoy reading 1st person over 3rd person, for the same reason you just said.
> 
> I've never noticed, but now I'm wondering: Does 1st person sell better then 3rd person in Erotica? I think my own 1st persons do have more sales them my 3rd persons, and as a reader I certainly buy more 1st person then 3rd person.
> 
> I started out writing this challenge story in 1st person, about 2k into it I changed it to 3rd person. As I neared the end I switched back to 1st person again. I'm right now trying to decide which way to edit it to. I don't like the way it shifts back and forth like this - it just reads weird that way - so when editing I'm going to fix it to all one way or the other, but I'm not yet decided which way to take it.
> 
> I think, I'll edit it into two files - edit one to 3rd and the other to 1st and see how it reads each way. At the moment, I think I'm leaning towards 1st person, and your post here, just gave me another nudge in that direction. I think it's probably going to end out in 1st person.
> 
> I know, I'm over thinking again. I need to just write-publish and stop thinking about it.


Yesterday, I was thinking about this. Do I write my first self-published erotica short in 1st person or third? I think I'm going for 1st person. Of the erotica stories at Amazon that I've researched so far, the best ones were written in 1st person.


----------



## Sargon

Kalypsō said:


> Thing is, there is a high demand for smut. There might not be a very high demand for full length novels loosely based on someones boring life.
> 
> I think I might just keep my progress private from now on. I've got a lot of reasons to make money, which I'm not going to list because I'm not hosting a pity party. But there is so much competition and jealousy that runs rampant around here that I don't feel like dealing with it, even anonymously. I've got too much work to do and too much money to focus on making to deflect bad vibes.
> 
> I've been more motivated than I've been in months, and I feel positive about what I can accomplish. If anyone wants to PM me, feel free to do so.


Sorry, Kalypso. I hope I didn't contribute to this. Best of luck and I totally understand your decision!


----------



## Guest

EelKat said:


> I've never noticed, but now I'm wondering: Does 1st person sell better then 3rd person in Erotica?


I am downloading tons of erotica these days (buying some, downloading free books and borrowing in KU) and I am mostly seeing books written in first person. A lot of the top short story erotica authors seem to write in first person.

As a reader I get a better understanding of how the character feels in first person.

I'm in her head and I understand how much she wants this stranger/step-father/step-brother/professor or whoever, how badly she wants to lose her virginity and when she is in the flow I want to know how it feels to be touched etc.....


----------



## Guest

EelKat said:


> I try to look at is as: What would I pay as a reader? and What word count do I as a reader want to read?


EelKat, yesterday, I downloaded and read three 5K erotica books through Kindle Unlimited. I think KU is perfect for this sort of stuff. I plan on researching a lot of these books. So KU is a good and affordable way for me to do it.

I know that when I publish my first self-published erotica short, this Monday, it will be in KU.


----------



## Guest

Joliedupre said:


> EelKat, yesterday, I downloaded and read three 5K erotica books through Kindle Unlimited. I think KU is perfect for this sort of stuff. I plan on researching a lot of these books. So KU is a good and affordable way for me to do it.


Same here. I have just downloaded 6 more short erotica books in KU. It is an affordable way for me to read more books and research this genre. i hope to have a couple stories ready to publish in the next week.


----------



## Redacted1111

EroticaWriter said:


> Sorry, Kalypso. I hope I didn't contribute to this. Best of luck and I totally understand your decision!


No. Actually. I was writing my reply before you said anything. I'm killing it (in my opinion) with short dirty smut stories, and I feel like there is a lot of push back and judgment about my methods. I previously stated that one did not "have to" edit smut, but I do. And a bunch of people jumped on that as if I said I released my first drafts. Honestly, I probably could and release faster, but I don't. I just don't have the energy to defend myself for wanting to make money. I'm writing the best porn I can, lol, and as an experienced writer with well edited and reviewed romance serials, I think I am qualified to do it. However, I'm making easy borrows and people won't like that. Everything has to be hard, right? Everything has to be agonized over before we make a dime. Whatever. I'm tired of watching other people make money while I stress myself into early aging. Writing as much smut as I have in the last week isn't necessarily easy. I actually have to do the work, and each of my stories is an actual short story with short story structure. Each should be a satisfying read in themselves. They aren't really appealing to be purchased, apparently. Maybe it's the length. Maybe I don't have the right niche. Who knows. Do I care? I don't think I do. Borrows are making up the bulk of my income from my 99 cent romance novellas that I pour my heart into. Why not my dirty smut? 
So anyway. I might keep contributing to this thread, but I'm not sharing numbers anymore. 
All you need to know is, I'm getting plenty of borrows and I'm writing as much as I can every day. It isn't like the gods are just handing me stories or I'm buying them from freelancers. I still have to write...


----------



## Sassafrazzled

C.Saffron said:


> Which sales channels pay within 30 days or are they all quarterly or after 60 days?


I believe most pay quarterly, but if monthly payments are worth a small cut off your profits, D2D pays out monthly and everything is in one place which is convenient.


----------



## Guest

Sassafrazzled said:


> I believe most pay quarterly, but if monthly payments are worth a small cut off your profits, D2D pays out monthly and everything is in one place which is convenient.


Thank you for replying. I'm going to check out D2D


----------



## o.gasim

I'm just curious what percentage of people are going multiplatform (Kindle, Kobo, Nook, etc.) and who is staying with KDP Selects to take advantage of KU/KOLL?

Personally I enrolled in select for the borrows but am considering doing this only for the first three month cycle and then going multiplatform.


----------



## Sargon

Kalypsō said:


> No. Actually. I was writing my reply before you said anything. I'm killing it (in my opinion) with short dirty smut stories, and I feel like there is a lot of push back and judgment about my methods. I previously stated that one did not "have to" edit smut, but I do. And a bunch of people jumped on that as if I said I released my first drafts. Honestly, I probably could and release faster, but I don't. I just don't have the energy to defend myself for wanting to make money. I'm writing the best porn I can, lol, and as an experienced writer with well edited and reviewed romance serials, I think I am qualified to do it. However, I'm making easy borrows and people won't like that. Everything has to be hard, right? Everything has to be agonized over before we make a dime. Whatever. I'm tired of watching other people make money while I stress myself into early aging. Writing as much smut as I have in the last week isn't necessarily easy. I actually have to do the work, and each of my stories is an actual short story with short story structure. Each should be a satisfying read in themselves. They aren't really appealing to be purchased, apparently. Maybe it's the length. Maybe I don't have the right niche. Who knows. Do I care? I don't think I do. Borrows are making up the bulk of my income from my 99 cent romance novellas that I pour my heart into. Why not my dirty smut?
> So anyway. I might keep contributing to this thread, but I'm not sharing numbers anymore.
> All you need to know is, I'm getting plenty of borrows and I'm writing as much as I can every day. It isn't like the gods are just handing me stories or I'm buying them from freelancers. I still have to write...


You *are* killing it, and well done! Short, dirty smut stories -- exactly what I'm writing. Except there's no real story structure to mine, it's just a build-up portion and a sex portion, then it's over. I try to make them fun/funny and entertaining, I suspect you do some of the same.

I could release my first drafts and probably sell the same, but over time I think sales would be lower and I'm a perfectionist and so I spend 1-2 hours going over each story to fix typos and add more hotness. Results in a better product, more repeat business.

I'm sorry you felt attacked by those on this forum...I didn't see people trying to attack you, but clearly that's what you felt, and it's valid.

It IS a lot of work, for sure! I've been working my ass off on it, like you. There is no other way. If we want to be making 10x or 100x tomorrow what we are making today, we have to put in the effort and the time. For me it's about money and fun. These stories are easy to write, they flow out of me at 2000+ words per hour, with no planning, and that's a hell of a lot easier than writing a novel, and then they're done.


----------



## Sargon

o.gasim said:


> I'm just curious what percentage of people are going multiplatform (Kindle, Kobo, Nook, etc.) and who is staying with KDP Selects to take advantage of KU/KOLL?
> 
> Personally I enrolled in select for the borrows but am considering doing this only for the first three month cycle and then going multiplatform.


All Select. With no experience at this, I just went with what the 1 advice book I read said. Might try a story outside Select, just to see what happens.


----------



## Redacted1111

I think "attacked" is too strong a word. But dealing with people's judgments is like having an annoying mosquito in the bedroom at night. It won't really hurt you, but it isn't particularly restful either.


----------



## Guest

Kalypsō said:


> No. Actually. I was writing my reply before you said anything. I'm killing it (in my opinion) with short dirty smut stories, and I feel like there is a lot of push back and judgment about my methods. I previously stated that one did not "have to" edit smut, but I do. And a bunch of people jumped on that as if I said I released my first drafts. Honestly, I probably could and release faster, but I don't. I just don't have the energy to defend myself for wanting to make money. I'm writing the best porn I can, lol, and as an experienced writer with well edited and reviewed romance serials, I think I am qualified to do it. However, I'm making easy borrows and people won't like that. Everything has to be hard, right? Everything has to be agonized over before we make a dime. Whatever. I'm tired of watching other people make money while I stress myself into early aging. Writing as much smut as I have in the last week isn't necessarily easy. I actually have to do the work, and each of my stories is an actual short story with short story structure. Each should be a satisfying read in themselves. They aren't really appealing to be purchased, apparently. Maybe it's the length. Maybe I don't have the right niche. Who knows. Do I care? I don't think I do. Borrows are making up the bulk of my income from my 99 cent romance novellas that I pour my heart into. Why not my dirty smut?
> So anyway. I might keep contributing to this thread, but I'm not sharing numbers anymore.
> All you need to know is, I'm getting plenty of borrows and I'm writing as much as I can every day. It isn't like the gods are just handing me stories or I'm buying them from freelancers. I still have to write...


I loved reading this, Kalypso. Right on!!  (Yeah, my erotica short stories are going into KU. Period. I've been downloading a bunch of erotic shorts through KU, and others are doing the same.) I can't wait to get started with this.


----------



## Donald Rump

Everyone who takes part in this challenge is welcome to have their work posted on the Eight Hour Fiction Challenge website for additional exposure. We've already had quite a few pieces of erotica over the past few months, so it's not a problem. I'll be adding a few of my own pieces once I find time.


----------



## Redacted1111

The universe decided I didn't need any sleep last night so I'm a little snippy. lol. Thanks for the support! 

Hugs.


----------



## Sargon

People -- be careful using the Google spreadsheet. I believe it can reveal your true name if you are logged into any of the Google services and someone else is viewing the spreadsheet at the same time. I will likely stop using it for this reason, since I don't want to log out of Gmail etc., or maybe I'll just update it less often.

10 borrows and 4 sales today...things are looking up...still trying to break 1000 on Author Rank.


----------



## Guest

I'm writing my first 5,000 word erotica short now.  Thank you to everyone, especially EelKat, for all your help!


----------



## Evenstar

C.Saffron said:


> Which sales channels pay within 30 days or are they all quarterly or after 60 days?


Only Google, I understood that D2D was just like Amazon, which pays monthly but is 60 days behind? Google pay a couple of days after the end of that month.


----------



## Al Dente

I'm also about to start working on a 5k erotic short with a slight romantic thread and wizards! The whole thing is going to involve the seduction of someone very holy by a dark, brooding, alpha type. Pretty much, mortal enemies will soon find each other physically irresistible!


----------



## nellgoddin

I'm cheering you on, Kalypso! And everyone else as well. I'm sure I'll get tired of this at some point and be dying to get back to the mystery, which will be a side bonus.

Sounds awesome, Al. lol


----------



## AnyaWrites

Evenstar said:


> Only Google, I understood that D2D was just like Amazon, which pays monthly but is 60 days behind? Google pay a couple of days after the end of that month.


Yes and No.  They do pay monthly but some are 30 and others are 60. The D2D royalties I got yesterday included:
Apple sales in August
Barnes & Noble sales in August
Kobo sales in July
Page Foundry sales in August
Scribd sales in July


----------



## o.gasim

In 3 days I have 2 sales and 1 UK borrow. My story is super short ~3500, so I think that plays a role. I just dropped the price to .99 so hopefully I'll catch some traction for the weekend. I'm hopefully to get my next one up on Monday.

Any critiques would be welcome as I am new at this.


----------



## Erica Conroy

Boyd said:


> Since Monday, 2 sales and 16 borrows.


Congrats. I love how your avatar, coupled with the above statement, makes it seem like Darth Vadar is dancing in glee at your sales/borrows


----------



## Sargon

Boyd said:


> Since Monday, 2 sales and 16 borrows.


Very nice!!


----------



## M.G. Russell

Boyd said:


> Ty. I must admit, I took a long break (almost quit) smut. I was having a hard time juggling life, what I truly wanted to write, with the need to make some $$. I finished a romance novel under one pen, a novel under my real name (going live soon) and now I have "wants" that don't pay me well out of my system, I want to go back to... the smut...
> 
> The 30 day cliff is real.... I've fallen more than I've climbed, but this challenge has proven to me (beat me over the head, more like it) that what I want isn't important if I want to make a living out of it  How many folks want to read about urban farming and the best way to mix your compost....


I hear ya. How many people want to read about antiques and camping? So I'm writing erotica also to make a living. Fortunately, I don't mind writing it so that's a blessing.


----------



## Guest

I'm 1250 words in of my 5K story.  It's going good so far.  More tomorrow.

Now, it's time to work on my non-erotic fiction.


----------



## kathrynoh

> The more taboo topics still are (I've 8,000+ Erotica on my Kindle cloud - a lot of them are in the 5k for $2.99 range - I buy A LOT of Erotica! LOL!  ) - BDSM, DubCon, sex with strangers, public sex, Monster Porn, etc, those are all still going for $2.99 for 5k


Is public sex and sex with strangers considered taboo? I've never labelled my porn as taboo because I'd only consider dubcon. "barely" legal and PI/I as taboo. Pretty much everything I write is public sex and/or sex with strangers -- isn't that what porn is about? LOL. I write BDSM but more into mind games style BDSM rather than just tied up with whips style that I've assumed the 50 shade readers would be more into (I've never read it so just making assumptions).

Maybe I should be playing up the in PUBLIC and with STRANGERS in my blurbs


----------



## batmansero

Okay, count me in.  I have a motorcycle erotic story that's over 8k words long.  I've made the cover, have a title, copyright pages, back matter...just need a blurb and to give it a edit/proofread before I upload it later today.  A quick glance tells me my tenses are all over the freakin' place.  This might take me longer than the hour I have allocated for the edit/proofread 

I'll add myself to the spreadsheet once the book is live.  Wish me luck, although I think I've used the F-word way too many times to be considered erotic


----------



## a_g

April Ryder said:


> Wish me luck, although I think I've used the F-word way too many times to be considered erotic


I'm confused. What would it be considered, then?


----------



## Donald Rump

So...

As recommended, I read "How Anyone Can Become a Full-Time Erotica Author in 6 Weeks" by Mademoiselle D. Bauch (excellent, BTW) and tweaked my keywords as outlined. I also pulled it from the other outlets and put it in KDP Select (at 1,200 words it's a difficult sell). Lo and behold, in less than 24 hours I have my first borrow. Ever. This is significant because the only outlet where I made a sale of this product was ARE, and it's been out for almost a year.

What I've realized about this whole thing is that I suck at keywords. I've been losing money by not developing this skill. K Matthew also eluded to this. If you don't have the right cover with the right blurb with the right title/keywords, it won't work effectively, or in my case, it won't work at all.


----------



## Redacted1111

I published my fourth short today. It isn't live yet but I'm also rebranding some old serials under a new pen name. Today, I've had more borrows than I've ever had before. Those aren't all from my smut. 
I've got to get some of my normal work edited and out to my copy editor like a week ago, lol. And I have an entire three part serial promised for the month of November. I might slow my production schedule, a bit, for my serial. I'm not sure. My motivation is high because I'm getting results so I might be able to sustain this fire into my normal work. At this point, it's still the majority of my income, and I don't really want to switch careers to go into writing erotica full time. 
However, its really easy and its getting me going. I think it's a plus on all accounts. It will be like my normal work is a break from the cheesy porn.   Instead of something I stress over. 

Now, I could go to bed, I had like four hours sleep last night, or I could work. I'm actually going to work for at least a while editing my romance serial. That is what writing smut has done for me.   That drive is priceless.


----------



## Sargon

Kalypsō said:


> I published my fourth short today. It isn't live yet but I'm also rebranding some old serials under a new pen name. Today, I've had more borrows than I've ever had before. Those aren't all from my smut.
> I've got to get some of my normal work edited and out to my copy editor like a week ago, lol. And I have an entire three part serial promised for the month of November. I might slow my production schedule, a bit, for my serial. I'm not sure. My motivation is high because I'm getting results so I might be able to sustain this fire into my normal work. At this point, it's still the majority of my income, and I don't really want to switch careers to go into writing erotica full time.
> However, its really easy and its getting me going. I think it's a plus on all accounts. It will be like my normal work is a break from the cheesy porn.  Instead of something I stress over.
> 
> Now, I could go to bed, I had like four hours sleep last night, or I could work. I'm actually going to work for at least a while editing my romance serial. That is what writing smut has done for me.  That drive is priceless.


That's all awesome! So are you a full-time writer, or do you have a day job? If you don't mind the personal question. 

I'm close to done with my fourth but it won't be going up today, I don't think. Maybe tomorrow. I'm still obsessing over the sales graph. Who knew anyone could get so excited about $1.50? (I mean, when a new borrow shows up). I can't imagine what it would be like doing thousands of sales per month, as some people do.


----------



## Guest

kathrynoh said:


> Is public sex and sex with strangers considered taboo? I've never labelled my porn as taboo because I'd only consider dubcon. "barely" legal and PI/I as taboo. Pretty much everything I write is public sex and/or sex with strangers -- isn't that what porn is about? LOL. I write BDSM but more into mind games style BDSM rather than just tied up with whips style that I've assumed the 50 shade readers would be more into (I've never read it so just making assumptions).
> 
> Maybe I should be playing up the in PUBLIC and with STRANGERS in my blurbs


That's what I was thinking. I don't understand why half the books in the chart have *Taboo* as a sub-title when the book is non-taboo, e.g. girl gets it on with brothers bestfriend and they are both over 18 (similar age) or strangers hook up.

That's not taboo.


----------



## Moist_Tissue

Finally, finally, finally. I uploaded my contribution. It's 11:07 pm on PT. I wonder what time it will be approved.


----------



## batmansero

anderson_gray said:


> I'm confused. What would it be considered, then?


More porny than erotic? Iunno. Just doesn't seem right for a meek housewife to say F... all the time. At least not at first


----------



## Catnip

All these recent challenges have inspired me to have a go at erotica too. I wrote some years ago, but not recently.

I don't want to reveal my pen name publically, but will follow along.

I just finished my first new story. It's over 8k words, which is longer than I planned, but that's ok. Now I just need to tidy it up & do a cover.

Re. the earlier comments about pricing - if some foolish people want to race to the bottom, I don't think we should all feel compelled to follow along. I'll be keeping my erotica shorts at $2.99.


----------



## kathrynoh

One of the advantages of KU that I don't think anyone has mentioned is that you don't get the high returns that often come with erotica sale. I'm happy to take the $1-$1.80 of KU borrows than a sale that will be read and returned.


----------



## nellgoddin

Boyd and MG, I would happily read about urban farming, compost turning, camping, and antiques. And I'm right with you on wishing our interests had giant numbers of book-devouring fans...

I read HACBAFTEAISW last night and am going to spend half of today working on those damn keywords, and the other half back to my mystery WIP. Yep Kalypso, one of the best things about this erotica holiday is that seeing those sales and borrows come in is giving me motivation for my other stuff. I don't want to be a fulltime erotica writer either, but I'm thinking that even if once this burst is over, if I only write one a month, that's still building a catalog. Hope that will work anyway.

wishing you all a productive day!


----------



## a_g

April Ryder said:


> More porny than erotic? Iunno. Just doesn't seem right for a meek housewife to say F... all the time. At least not at first


Ah yes. I get that. Well, I don't since I don't have a problem slinging the fbomb around but there are some things I write that I do from beneath my desk so no one can see me.

The dog does wonder why I'm down there with him, though.


----------



## Guest

Kalypsō said:


> I published my fourth short today. It isn't live yet but I'm also rebranding some old serials under a new pen name. Today, I've had more borrows than I've ever had before. Those aren't all from my smut.
> I've got to get some of my normal work edited and out to my copy editor like a week ago, lol. And I have an entire three part serial promised for the month of November. I might slow my production schedule, a bit, for my serial. I'm not sure. My motivation is high because I'm getting results so I might be able to sustain this fire into my normal work. At this point, it's still the majority of my income, and I don't really want to switch careers to go into writing erotica full time.
> However, its really easy and its getting me going. I think it's a plus on all accounts. It will be like my normal work is a break from the cheesy porn.  Instead of something I stress over.
> 
> Now, I could go to bed, I had like four hours sleep last night, or I could work. I'm actually going to work for at least a while editing my romance serial. That is what writing smut has done for me.  That drive is priceless.


Your enthusiasm is infectious!  

If my erotica (under a secret pen name) takes off, it will take the pressure off of what I write under Jolie du Pre. In other words, I can write what I want under Jolie du Pre and not worry so much about following trends and obsessing about sales.

As far as writing erotica full-time, I can get a 5K erotica story out every week, no problem, and still have time for my Jolie du Pre stuff.


----------



## Redacted1111

EroticaWriter said:


> That's all awesome! So are you a full-time writer, or do you have a day job? If you don't mind the personal question.
> 
> I'm close to done with my fourth but it won't be going up today, I don't think. Maybe tomorrow. I'm still obsessing over the sales graph. Who knew anyone could get so excited about $1.50? (I mean, when a new borrow shows up). I can't imagine what it would be like doing thousands of sales per month, as some people do.


I'm a full time mom. I have a three year old at home. Working around a little kid is a massive challenge, but it's really a challenge of motivation. Little kids constantly interrupt. There is plenty of time in the day but getting myself to get back to work through the interruptions has always been hard for me. I mean, apparently it's not THAT hard, I've written probably close to a million words in the last year. But still, it isn't as if I have a distraction free work life. lol. It would probably be easier to get work done if I had a full time job and no family. But I don't know. It's just projection. I don't know what anyone else's life is like, and I don't know what distractions I'd find if I didn't have a kid.

I honestly think thousands of sales a month is entirely possible at my production rate. I have to spend some time getting back to my serious work for a bit, but I've got two erotica pen names going and every story I've published has gotten sales and borrows almost as soon as it is in the store.


----------



## SomethingElse

I'm about 1,000 words into my story and will publish it under a secret pen name. It's something I hadn't considered writing before (PI) but for the purposes of a challenge I decided to go for it. Also writing it in first person which I don't particularly like to read. And I've never written in first person before. But I'm really liking the story so far.

Already have a few series in mind for this new pen name. If this first one does okay I'll have to think about writing more stories in that series and get started on the others.


----------



## o.gasim

Updated keywords and description early this morning, along with a price drop to 0.99 (the work is just too short) ahead of the second in the series releasing Monday. Within hours of the changes I have an additional 2 borrows!

5 Day Stats:
3 Borrows
2 Purchases
0 Returns
$2.60 Royalty (does not include KU revenue)

Not to diminish my other works but this is already more money than I have made on my 'real' writing in 9 months on the market. Looks like Papa's got a brand new bag


----------



## A.C. Nixon

Okay, my book is at with the editor, so instead of working on the second in the series I've decided to take this challenge. 

My company is offering an early out with cash, and I've decided to take the money and run so my husband and I can play and live in a few different countries before our bodies start falling apart. Of course I'd planned to continue writing my romances, hoping to have that breakout book that makes tons of cash. (don't we all).  But this might be a feasible way to make a steady income pretty easily to take pressure off while I'm working on my masterpiece. 

I've signed up for KU, so for those of you that have already written books that haven't posted them here, if you feel comfortable doing so pm me your title so I can read them. I haven't read much short erotica, so it will be for...ahem research. 

I went to the most boring wedding ever, and my bestie and her hubby helped me come up with my naughty name during the ceremony. (yes, it was that bad). I'll post it with my story titles later. 

Happy writing folks.


----------



## Lady Vine

Definitely going to take a shot at this, but it will have to be on my next holiday, about 6 weeks from now. How exciting. Ideas are already brewing.

Good luck, everyone.


----------



## B&amp;H

I've decided to join in for a lark.

I wrote my first 7.5k mucky book on thursday night at 2.99 and immediately set up my first free day for today.

It's basically a hybrid billionaire exploited college girl CIA rendition pseudo bdsm orgy thriller mystery pulp serial.

25 free downloads so far with no promotion. 

Was surprised how quickly i managed it given the entire book is shorter than one chapter of my thriller books.

I also uploaded a smexy crime new adult story, got my first borrow within 5 hours and charted into a genre bestseller list. Now has 2 sales at 4.99 and one borrow in first 8 hours On a new pen name.

Mainly this was a fun experiment with KU and select to see if using nothing but select days i can out perform my trad published thriller series, i'll do no promotion, no paid advertising, no social media, i purely want to see how much boist select and ku give a title and extract some filthy cash money from the amazon ku subsidy, since i'd get the same lucre for a mucky book that would barely be one scene of my 650 page thriller brick i figured why not,

As jolie said, it removes all angst about missing out on ku payola and select favouritism and if it subsidises my core books then winner winner chicken dinner.

I should also point out that i'm actually making a serious effort to deliver proper smexy times quality literature albeit written to spec length to make the buck fifty seem a fair payout. 

Its very liberating not worrying about all the reviews, promos and just getting quick and fun books done.

What's embarrassing is my smexy times book has already busted past my permafree novella with no promotion at all. Does have a good cover i think.

I'll report back on sales. I'm aiming to do at least 1 or 2 smexy times books a week.

Anyway, im a convert, ku and select rocks.

Sorry 4 messy post. Typing on a ipad sucks. My books arent this bad!


----------



## Susan in TX

April Ryder said:


> More porny than erotic? Iunno. Just doesn't seem right for a meek housewife to say F... all the time. At least not at first


Had to laugh. If throwing an F-bomb makes it porny, we should be shooting videos at my house when I'm cooking or sewing. Start a little side business. But in truth no one would tag me as the 'meek housewife' type. LOL. And NO one would watch those videos!

Your comment resonated. It's interesting how I'm struggling with the female voice in my short smut erotica efforts. Wishing us both good luck.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

I didn't think I could pull this off because I was working on two books, but I published my erotic masterpiece today. I was behind because of the cover. I wrote (5,700 words) in two days, edited it for two days, took one day to get the title, pen name, and write the blurb. The cover took the longest because I don't have the software. I had to purchase the cover for $15, which was the cheapest I could find in time to get it out. I tried the $5 guy but they took $10 and didn't deliver and set me behind schedule by two days.


----------



## batmansero

Susan in TX said:


> Had to laugh. If throwing an F-bomb makes it porny, we should be shooting videos at my house when I'm cooking or sewing. Start a little side business. But in truth no one would tag me as the 'meek housewife' type. LOL. And NO one would watch those videos!
> 
> Your comment resonated. It's interesting how I'm struggling with the female voice in my short smut erotica efforts. Wishing us both good luck.


I'm not a meek housewife either! The character starts off somewhat eloquent but by the end of it is begging to be f-ed


----------



## Redacted1111

I prioritized my "real" work today, and barely got anything done. It's the least I've gotten done in a day all week.   What is wrong with me? lol. I guess the day's not over. But, the good news is my borrows continue to climb higher than ever.


----------



## A.C. Nixon

So, I'm taking a Sleepy Hollow break, but I made my cover using Canva, a free service online. I also wrote 1500 words so far and after a bit of boob tube I'm planing to do another 1500.

For those of you that are Photoshop impaired, try Canva. My cover isn't a masterpiece, but it's not too bad.


----------



## kathrynoh

I love canva. It's very limiting but you can make something half decent.


----------



## Al Dente

I'm almost done planning my series of shorts. I'll probably start writing them tonight or in the morning. Just to throw it out there, though... I've already kind of seen that this method works. My last two books were 10k romance stories. The first one has had almost 60 sales and borrows in 6 weeks and the second one comes out in a few days and has already had 3 readers preorder it. I can't wait to push the envelope even more with some darker, shorter shorts.


----------



## Moist_Tissue

It took over 12 hours for it to be approved. I'd say closer to 14 hours. 

It's been live 6 hours now. Two borrows. 0 sales.


----------



## wtvr

Moist_Tissue said:


> It took over 12 hours for it to be approved. I'd say closer to 14 hours.
> 
> It's been live 6 hours now. Two borrows. 0 sales.


The erotica team is probably overloaded with new titles from new pen names.


----------



## Al Dente

Puzzle said:


> Can I get some thoughts? I'm currently plotting out my erotica monster trilogy (I had to put aside my romance novella for the time being, fixing some parts was like pulling teeth and I need the break) by using the 2k to 10k method (which has been super helpful, A+ guide) but I'm in a pickle.
> 
> Since it's a trilogy, I'd like to release all three at once. Words will be anywhere from 5k-7k. My issue is on how much to charge for each. I was thinking maybe $.99c but as others have pointed out to me before, since it's a niche and well written erotica can do well while priced at $2.99, I'm torn. That means $9 for just three short novelettes. If I do that, should I offer a bundle version at $3.99, and if so, should I have it available right away or like a week later?


My 10k romances are:

Book 1 - .99c
Book 2 - .99c
Book 3 - This one's not out yet, but it'll be $2.99

The 6k erotica shorts I'm going to do will be priced at $2.99. I don't know how well it'll work, but that's what I'm doing.


----------



## Guest

I'm on track.  Halfway done.  Cover is done.

BTW, any new updates on Amazon removing erotica books?


----------



## batmansero

Do you have to do anything special to get your books into KU or will just putting them into Select be enough?  I've not used Select before.  Thanks in advance


----------



## Sargon

Posted story 4 this evening. Getting a bit discouraged, as borrows/sales for today were 8/1 whereas yesterday they were 12/6. Starting to doubt all keywords, covers, etc. But story 4 is second in a "series" from story 1, and story 1 was somewhat popular. So we'll see. Must think of this long term and assume it's a very gradual build-up.


----------



## Guest

EroticaWriter said:


> Posted story 4 this evening. Getting a bit discouraged, as borrows/sales for today were 8/1 whereas yesterday they were 12/6. Starting to doubt all keywords, covers, etc. But story 4 is second in a "series" from story 1, and story 1 was somewhat popular. So we'll see. Must think of this long term and assume it's a very gradual build-up.


Don't get discouraged too quickly. From what I can tell, borrows go up, then down, then back up for many of us.


----------



## nightfire

April Ryder said:


> Do you have to do anything special to get your books into KU or will just putting them into Select be enough? I've not used Select before. Thanks in advance


Just put them in select and they will be in KU.



> BTW, any new updates on Amazon removing erotica books?


Are they still doing this? Just certain types?


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## nellgoddin

EroticaWriter said:


> Posted story 4 this evening. Getting a bit discouraged, as borrows/sales for today were 8/1 whereas yesterday they were 12/6. Starting to doubt all keywords, covers, etc.


I'm in the same boat, EW. I changed up keywords yesterday following the advice in the book, but sales are dropping if anything. The book says if a title's not doing really well right at the start, something's wrong...but maybe it's better just to try something different next time than fiddle with the already published stuff. I think I'm going to try one more in the series and then try a different kink. I probably put too much story in mine. :/

Today it's back to the WIP before I forget who all those people are and what they're up to.


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## Redacted1111

People have mentioned they are having a hard time finding covers at a reasonable cost. You can get cheap stock at http://www.canstockphoto.com/ for as little as five bucks.

If you plan to do this in volume, you probably should learn to make your own covers to me cost effective. I'd suggest gimp or learning photoshop. Adobe has a deal where you can basically rent photoshop and lightroom for $10 a month. https://creative.adobe.com/plans


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## Guest

nightfire said:


> Are they still doing this? Just certain types?


I'm not sure. I've got an erotica book (it's clearly erotic) from 2009, for example, that Amazon never laid a hand on. However, there's no naked bits on the cover.



nellgoddin said:


> I'm in the same boat, EW. I changed up keywords yesterday following the advice in the book, but sales are dropping if anything. The book says if a title's not doing really well right at the start, something's wrong...but maybe it's better just to try something different next time than fiddle with the already published stuff. I think I'm going to try one more in the series and then try a different kink. I probably put too much story in mine. :/
> 
> Today it's back to the WIP before I forget who all those people are and what they're up to.


I'm putting one out EVERY WEEK starting on Tuesday. If one doesn't pick up steam, another one will. I'm confident about that.


----------



## Guest

Micki23 said:


> I'm not finding that site. Maybe canstockphoto? My biggest holdup right now is stock photos for covers. So many of the sites make us buy "credits" or a subscription, so it's difficult to tell how much one stupid picture even costs. I need to see how many free trial offers I can get for a while. LOL


I'm making my own covers. You can find free stock at a place like MorgueFile (http://www.morguefile.com) for example, but you have to be willing to search and to get creative. You may not find exactly what you're looking for. So what type of cover can you create with what you DO find?

Here's a good link for finding other free photo sites - http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2010/02/4-incredible-free-sources-for-photos-to-use-in-your-book-or-blog/


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## Redacted1111

Micki23 said:


> I'm not finding that site. Maybe canstockphoto? My biggest holdup right now is stock photos for covers. So many of the sites make us buy "credits" or a subscription, so it's difficult to tell how much one stupid picture even costs. I need to see how many free trial offers I can get for a while. LOL


Yes, sorry, canstockphoto. You can get stock for five bucks here.


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## Guest

*bigstockphoto *offer a free trial for stock photos.

I just made my first cover using Canva https://www.canva.com/, I'm useless at photoshop but I found canva so easy.


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## o.gasim

Dropped mine free for today to lead into the second book in the series on Monday!

Check it out!


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## Redacted1111

C.Saffron said:


> *bigstockphoto *offer a free trial for stock photos.
> 
> I just made my first cover using Canva https://www.canva.com/, I'm useless at photoshop but I found canva so easy.


Wow. Nice. Talk about easy-peasy.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

I published my erotic masterpiece on Amazon yesterday. It's live today and I have a whopping one sale. It could be worse. Good news, I have an extra $2 and one person wanted to read my smut. Bad news, if they return it, then all my seven days of anguish and research searching for the right words for body parts, thinking of a title and pen name, will have been for naught, and I may never be the same.


----------



## Donald Rump

Ok, just finished one of three works in progress. It's so hot that I'm completely embarrassed about it and cannot post the title here or in the Eight Hour Fiction Challenge. I will post the numbers once I get it up (no pun intended).

The first draft (a good draft, at that) wound up being 3,300+ words. I write thin, so the rewrite will likely expand it to over 4,000 words (yes, I probably could publish it as is, but I'm sticking to my process for now). In all likelihood, it won't hit 5,000, and that's ok. It's just about all sex with very little filler, and is incredibly raunchy, and sure to get someone off. (That's what we're selling, right?)

Now on to the cover, and eventually the editing. It may be wise to hold off on submitting until Monday/Tuesday to avoid the weekend review crew. In the meantime, I'll be finishing off an erotic vampire piece that's already over 1,700 words.


----------



## Jo Clendening

Micki23 said:


> Thanks, everyone. I didn't mean to hijack the thread. I'm just a bit frustrated right now. Chomping at the bit to run with this, and it feels as if I'm being sabotaged by outside influences that I won't get into.


Maybe you should try the "scheduling" trick where you put in your calendar your writing time like it's an appointment. Then, you can tell people you are not available because you have an appointment. They don't need to know what you are doing at your appointment. Good luck!


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## B&amp;H

Lol at eelkat's "having a go on her"

I've taken the same approach with my CIA rendition smut. Its full of group possibly consensual under the influence of drugs gang-bangery but looks quite respectable.

I got 90 free downloads on my free day everywhere from japan to india - No sales or borrows yet.


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## Donald Rump

> I'm sorry if this has already been answered before in this thread, but are there any sites for promoting short erotica fiction??


Here's a Facebook group that might be helpful:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/477663898918826/


----------



## Guest

Emilia Winters said:


> I'm sorry if this has already been answered before in this thread, but are there any sites for promoting short erotica fiction?? I published my first 5k taboo short (some pretty raunchy stuff with PI ), but all my go-to promo sites like What to Read After 50 Shades of Grey don't seem to take shorter works and are more focused on erotic romance. I'm not planning to do as much promotion as I would normally do for my full-length novels, but 1 or 2 sites that promote shorts would be preferable, just to get it out there. Thanks!


You can try these sites for free:

*The naughty list * http://www.naughtylistbooks.com/author-promotion-services.html
*Erotica everyday* http://www.eroticaeveryday.com/submit-your-books/

_I get the naughty list newsletter and I prefer it to freebooksy _


----------



## Al Dente

I got my pen name, title, and cover sorted. I also have descriptions for the two main characters. Now it's time to write!


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## A.C. Nixon

Boyd said:


> I'm thinking I'm going to write another cowboy story today.


If it was that Adam story, please do.


----------



## Guest

Al Dente said:


> I got my pen name, title, and cover sorted. I also have descriptions for the two main characters. Now it's time to write!


Yep! Time to get to it!  Keep us posted!


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## o.gasim

Hello Everyone. I am gathering from a lot of the posts in this thread that people have used Mrs. D. Baunch's book as an impetus to get their feet wet on how to break into the world of erotica. The biggest take away I took from her book was the idea of always having new content on offer and bundling. With this in mind, I wanted to see if anyone would be interested in trying an experiment with their new pen names.

I'd like to partner with 4 additional authors to create an erotica bundle of 5 stories to list in KDP Select for $4.99. This bundle will link to each author's individual Author Central Page and include an also by page with each author's work inside with hyperlinks. Since this is my experiment, I will pay for cover design, format the work, and submit to each author the entire bundle for final approval before the work is submitted (with 5 authors I will go by majority rule if a complete decision cannot be reached on cover design). If the work is successful I would like to reimburse myself for the cover and then split the profits by 5 once a payment threshold has been reached and a check issued.

The thought here is to have more work published, share fans, get more exposure for your work, and hopefully lead to more sales/ borrows for each individual author. With 5 authors planned, I would also like to allow each author to use one of the 5 allowable free days to coincide with their own schedule for marketing/promotion of new works for their non-de-plume.

What does everyone think? If you are interested, send me a PM.


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## Donald Rump

Ok, I just put the finishing touches on my book and submitted it this evening. I did it all in 10-12 hours (two hours last night and the rest today). It's smut-tastic, that's for sure, but is it good trash, bad trash or just plain, old trash? I have no idea. All I know is that I tossed it out the door (with a decent edit, I must say) and don't want to look at it again. If if sells, it sells. If not, oh well. Hopefully the other 164 books I've published will.

I will be happy to share numbers as they become available. Hopefully Amazon doesn't ban this one, but I think I'm all right. It doesn't go into any of the taboo areas, but we'll see. This is Amazon, after all. And yes, I included it in KDP Select/KU. Wish me luck!

Edit: The final draft wound up being a little bit over 4,300 words.


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## Whitley

Well, I finally completed my draft and now I'm going through it for typos and coherency. That took me way longer than I wanted--writing smut is harder than I thought!

I did my cover today for a grand total of $7, though it does help that I'm familiar with some free graphics editing programs. Then I need to get my compiling straight in Scrivner and it'll be ready to go for publication on Monday. I've heard enough from you all to not publish on the weekends.


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## J.L. Dickinson

Has anyone attempted to dual publish an erotica piece as a romance as well? I mean swapping out the title, cover, blurb, and pen name, then taming down the sex scene(s) for the less explicit market. Can you think of a potential downside to doing this?


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## Guest

For FREE stock images you can try two sites:

http://www.bigstockphoto.com/ = you can get a *1-image a month Free Trial*
OR *5 royalty-free images a day, free for 7 days*

*OR* https://stacksocial.com/sales/improve-your-designs-with-100-hi-res-images-free-for-10-days

FREE PLACES TO PROMOTE YOUR EROTICA BOOK:

*Ebookspice * http://ebookspice.com/submissions
*The naughty list * http://www.naughtylistbooks.com/author-promotion-services.html
*Erotica everyday* http://www.eroticaeveryday.com/submit-your-books/
*wanton reads* http://wantonreads.com/tell-us-about-your-book/


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## Guest

C.Saffron said:


> For FREE stock images you can try two sites:
> 
> http://www.bigstockphoto.com/ = you can get a *1-image a month Free Trial*
> OR *5 royalty-free images a day, free for 7 days*
> 
> *OR* https://stacksocial.com/sales/improve-your-designs-with-100-hi-res-images-free-for-10-days
> 
> FREE PLACES TO PROMOTE YOUR EROTICA BOOK:
> 
> *Ebookspice * http://ebookspice.com/submissions
> *The naughty list * http://www.naughtylistbooks.com/author-promotion-services.html
> *Erotica everyday* http://www.eroticaeveryday.com/submit-your-books/
> *wanton reads* http://wantonreads.com/tell-us-about-your-book/


Thanks for this info!


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## Guest

Here is my erotica writing schedule for my 5K stories:

Thursday - 1250 words
Friday - 1250 words
Saturday - 1250 words
Sunday - 1250 words/Edit
Monday - Edit
Tuesday - Publish
Wednesday - Study a new kink/get a cover made for the story

Rinse and repeat. 

~~~~~

Today is Sunday, and I'll be publishing on Tuesday.  My cover is made.  So far I've spent zero dollars, and I want to keep it that way.  

For my Benton books I formatted them using a template I paid for.  But since I don't want to spend any money to publish my erotica, at least right now, do any of you know of a free way for me to format ?  I'll be researching, but I wanted to ask here.  Thanks.  

~~~~

(Eelkat, I sent you a PM a couple of days ago regarding keywords.  However, I sent the same question to someone else, and they answered it. So disregard.)


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## Thatonegirl

The difference between romance and erotica isn't the level of sex. There is plenty of explicit and kinky romance.

The difference has to do with the focus of the story. The developing emotional connection in romance versus the sexual journey in erotica.

Most readers read both, I know I do so. There is a fair chance that people would see your swap, and be annoyed at having paid for the same book twice just with a different cover and title. Hell I read every genre, and just based on style I think I've got the pen names of a few horror writers who write romance. Readers notice.



J.L. Dickinson said:


> Has anyone attempted to dual publish an erotica piece as a romance as well? I mean swapping out the title, cover, blurb, and pen name, then taming down the sex scene(s) for the less explicit market. Can you think of a potential downside to doing this?


----------



## Fredster

So, hypothetically speaking, how do authors get the parenthetical expressions in their Kindle titles?

For example, on the list of books I'm looking at right now, I see:

IT'S SO BIG (Naughty Older Man First Time Younger Woman Pregnancy Romance Story)
COME INSIDE (Naughty Older Man First Time Younger Woman Pregnancy Seduction)
Cherry Turnover (Older Man Younger Woman First Time Pregnancy Romance)

(DON'T JUDGE ME! )

When you're publishing, Amazon clearly states that words that aren't part of the title will result in your book not being published. Does Amazon ignore their own rule on this, or is the parenthetical stuff considered part of the title despite not being on any of the covers, or is it something else entirely?

THIS QUESTION IS HYPOTHETICAL IN CASE MY MOTHER EVER COMES ACROSS THIS THREAD.


----------



## Guest

Joliedupre said:


> For my Benton books I formatted them using a template I paid for. But since I don't want to spend any money to publish my erotica, at least right now, do any of you know of a free way for me to format ? I'll be researching, but I wanted to ask here. Thanks.


I want to find a free way to format too. Any help/links would be helpful.

I found *http://ebook.online-convert.com/ * but I don't know if you can use this site to convert your ebook to a good standard. I know nothing about formatting.


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## Guest

_Another question for the published erotica authors on here:_

Is *Smashwords *(and their distribution channels) or *D2D* (and their distribution channels) better for short erotica books?


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## Guest

bookchick said:


> Hell I read every genre, and just based on style I think I've got the pen names of a few horror writers who write romance. Readers notice.


I started out as an erotica writer back in 2000 before many people here even thought about writing it. Writing about zombies is actually the *new* thing for me. If people discover my secret pen name for my *new* erotica gig, I'm not going to stress about it. I'm just going that route to avoid the crap that happens at Kboards to some authors who write erotica.



C.Saffron said:


> I want to find a free way to format too. Any help/links would be helpful.
> 
> I found *http://ebook.online-convert.com/ * but I don't know if you can use this site to convert your ebook to a good standard. I know nothing about formatting.


Yep, I found that one too. I've got Calibre to convert. So that's taken care of. Just need a simple way to format. Still investigating. I bet I could just do it on Word. Anyway, I'll see.


----------



## Christa Wick

J.L. Dickinson said:


> Has anyone attempted to dual publish an erotica piece as a romance as well? I mean swapping out the title, cover, blurb, and pen name, then taming down the sex scene(s) for the less explicit market. Can you think of a potential downside to doing this?


Down side is angering readers because erotica readers frequently are romance readers, too. Also, using different pen names, you might wind up with a reader who reads both, recognizes them as essentially the same and then reports one or the other for plagiarism to Amazon. Now you're looking at your account being thoroughly reviewed and maybe even blocked.

So, if you want to do this DO NOT change the title/pen name (changing cover is justifiable to reflect market). Instead of changing the title, add a subtitle (Sensual Edition or Sweet Edition or whatever) to one and (Erotic Edition) to the dirteh one.


----------



## Sargon

Boyd said:


> the subtitle?


I've put some in the title and some in the subtitle, depending on the book. If they are in parens, it's part of the title. If there is a colon and no parens, it's the subtitle. Amazon doesn't seem to care, they haven't questioned or rejected anything I've done so far on 5 books, and they all have either the extra-long title or a subtitle.


----------



## Fredster

EroticaWriter said:


> I've put some in the title and some in the subtitle, depending on the book. If they are in parens, it's part of the title. If there is a colon and no parens, it's the subtitle. Amazon doesn't seem to care, they haven't questioned or rejected anything I've done so far on 5 books, and they all have either the extra-long title or a subtitle.


Thank you for this. (hypothetically, mom!)


----------



## Guest

Fredster said:


> When you're publishing, Amazon clearly states that words that aren't part of the title will result in your book not being published. Does Amazon ignore their own rule on this, or is the parenthetical stuff considered part of the title despite not being on any of the covers, or is it something else entirely?


Everyone is doing it. So Amazon is ignoring their own rule.

If I want to follow the rule that Amazon clearly is not following, I can put a subtitle on my cover and then include that subtitle in the subtitle line when I enter my book.


----------



## Guest

EroticaWriter said:


> I've put some in the title and some in the subtitle, depending on the book. If they are in parens, it's part of the title. If there is a colon and no parens, it's the subtitle. Amazon doesn't seem to care, they haven't questioned or rejected anything I've done so far on 5 books, and they all have either the extra-long title or a subtitle.


Yep, that's why I'm not stressing about it. If Amazon decides to have a problem with it, I'll deal with that, then.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Day 2 of publishing my erotica masterpiece. I have 1 sale and 4 borrows. I write erotic romance as well as sweet romance in different genres. I would like to reveal my pen name and title to my erogenous smut on this forum. Is there another way of revealing this information and not have it connected to me?


----------



## nellgoddin

Fredster said:


> THIS QUESTION IS HYPOTHETICAL IN CASE MY MOTHER EVER COMES ACROSS THIS THREAD.


Made me LOL, Fredster! This may the only time I've ever been grateful my mother is dead. 

Jolie: It's super easy to format with scrivener. I love it beyond all reason.


----------



## Thatonegirl

I don't think it's something to stress about. I knew about those pen names I would have read them sooner. If I like a writer I will read everything they write, no matter the genre.

I mentioned that because someone asked if they could change the title, pen name, blurb, and tone down the sex in their erotica and sell it as romance. I think it's unlikely to go unnoticed and I don't think readers will want to pay twice for what sounds like it would be the same book.

As a reader I've never understood why I should care if the author who write the historical fiction, I love also writes erotica. It makes no difference to the books' quality, good writing is good writing. I know people do care and I respect authors wanting different names for a a variety of reasons.


Joliedupre said:


> I started out as an erotica writer back in 2000 before many people here even thought about writing it. Writing about zombies is actually the *new* thing for me. If people discover my secret pen name for my *new* erotica gig, I'm not going to stress about it. I'm just going that route to avoid the crap that happens at Kboards to some authors who write erotica.


----------



## Redacted1111

I've made over a hundred dollars from my four erotica titles and my four rebranded erotic romance titles (which really aren't accounting for much), in the last seven days, if the borrow rate is even a dollar. I guess I'm fine with being a dumb smut peddler if money is pouring out of my ears.


----------



## swolf

My favorite place for stock photos is DollarPhotoClub.  Not only are they only a buck apiece, they're the large size.


----------



## Guest

swolf said:


> My favorite place for stock photos is DollarPhotoClub. Not only are they only a buck apiece, they're the large size.


Isn't their membership limited?

Is it easy to get a membership?


----------



## Guest

exkitteh said:


> Seems to be $10 a month :/ Unless I'm missing something?


This is what it says in the FAQ section:

*Why is membership limited?*

That's a very good question. We decided to limit our membership numbers in order to deliver the very best possible service and benefits to our most active artists, professionals and other stock photo users.
How do I apply?

Membership is limited and requires a formal application process that our Dollar Photo Club Review Committee will carry out. Submit your application now by visiting our application page.

_I prefer to use flickr or bigstock, they seem easier._


----------



## Redacted1111

exkitteh said:


> I can understand avoiding it for Erotic Romance/New Adult/etc, but for straight up erotica/smut isn't it better to be in the proper section? (I'm not sure, hence asking )


Yes.


----------



## Guest

Boyd said:


> I updated my numbers on the spreadsheet. Tomorrow will be the 7th day of the experiment for me. It isn't the 100$ launch in a few days, but I was happy enough to write a second story. I spent 1$ on the photo, about 15 minutes on the cover (it shows, I know, I know)... and it's like 7.5k.
> 
> Thanks guys and gals, having something like this going has helped motivate me.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00O7RN0KE - Book 1


Yes!!!! I'm downloading this in just a few minutes. Congrats! (Screw 'em! I LOVE the cover!  )



Kalypsō said:


> I've made over a hundred dollars from my four erotica titles and my four rebranded erotic romance titles (which really aren't accounting for much), in the last seven days, if the borrow rate is even a dollar. I guess I'm fine with being a dumb smut peddler if money is pouring out of my ears.


I'm MORE than fine with being a dumb smut peddler. I've got my secret pen name, and off I go! 



bookchick said:


> As a reader I've never understood why I should care if the author who write the historical fiction, I love also writes erotica. It makes no difference to the books' quality, good writing is good writing. I know people do care and I respect authors wanting different names for a a variety of reasons.


Yep, I agree. 



nellgoddin said:


> Jolie: It's super easy to format with scrivener. I love it beyond all reason.


Thanks!


----------



## Moist_Tissue

I think I have a borrow that converted to a sale. On my dashboard, it shows a sale from yesterday but on my month to date report, there aren't any sales. Just borrows.

I noticed this with another title. On the dashboard it seems to count the borrow then the sale, but it won't reflect a separate sale on the other reports. Will I be paid for the borrow and the sale?


----------



## Guest

Question about unauthorized use:

Found this at Stock Free Images (http://www.stockfreeimages.com):

Without limitation, Images may not be used as a trademark or service mark (unless the appropriate extended license is being used), for any *pornographic* or unlawful purpose, to defame a person, to violate a person's right to privacy or publicity, to infringe upon any copyright, trade name, trademark, or service mark of any person/entity. Unauthorized use of these Images constitutes copyright infringement and shall entitle StockFreeImages to exercise all rights and remedies under applicable copyright law, including an injunction preventing further use and monetary damages against all users and beneficiaries of the use of such Images. The foregoing is not a limiting statement of StockFreeImages's rights or remedies in connection with any unauthorized use.

Is an erotica book considered "pornographic" purpose? It's clearly not unlawful.


----------



## Sassafrazzled

Fredster said:


> When you're publishing, Amazon clearly states that words that aren't part of the title will result in your book not being published. Does Amazon ignore their own rule on this, or is the parenthetical stuff considered part of the title despite not being on any of the covers, or is it something else entirely?


I don't think they don't care about reasonable parentheticals which are used all over the place in all sorts of genres. Stuff like: "Spanked! (A Dark Erotic Discipline Fantasy)" doesn't seem to bother anyone. It clarifies the kink to readers without looking like word soup. "Spanked! (ANAL DISCIPLINE FIRST TIME MMF ORGY TABOO)" might slip by, but can always be held against you at some point in the future because it looks trashy, they don't like it and they can arbitrarily decide to enforce the cover must match the title rule if they feel like it.


----------



## Al Dente

I bought a block of credit on Depositphotos to make the cover for my erotica story. There's a 15 percent off coupon floating around the internet (just Google Depositphotos coupon) which brought my total to $28 for 32 credits. I spend about 4 credits per image and typically only use one per cover for a short story.


----------



## Guest

I know a few authors like scrivener but is there a *free* site that I can use to format my books easily and quickly.


----------



## Guest

Puzzle said:


> Draft2Digital. Easy, and free.


Great thank you.


----------



## Midnight Writer

*deleted*


----------



## Nicole Dixon

C.Saffron said:


> _Another question for the published erotica authors on here:_
> 
> Is *Smashwords *(and their distribution channels) or *D2D* (and their distribution channels) better for short erotica books?


I'd didn't see that this was answered. I'd like to know too.
This has been an interesting thread. My erotica sales are steady, which is all I can ask considering the limited promotion(I mean no promotion) that I've done.


----------



## Andie

I believe that Taboo is generally used mainly for PI.


----------



## Midnight Writer

*deleted*


----------



## o.gasim

EelKat said:


> Okay...this is weird... as most of you know I'm a 5th generation LDS/Mormon (my family goes back to Smith and Young) and I'm married to a High Priest Quorum Leader who does double duty as a Boston Temple Priest...and today is Sunday also known as the day the Bishop, his counselors, the stake president, and half the congregation plays a little game I like to call "Let's bully the evil little Erotica author and try to convince that poor old priest to get rid of his filthy heathen 30 years younger then him wicked satanic gold digging wife"... gold digger? Seriously? I'm the one with the money around here, not him! *sheesh* ANYWAYS...


Add in a reference to the planet they'll all recieve when they die and you'll be as good as gold. You'll start satiric, religious erotica!


----------



## Dormouse

Truely fascinating thread. I'm very tempted to play as well even though I'm deep in a novel right now. But there are a few ideas swirling around.

Question for those writing PI: I know the term for step-dad is now head of the household, but what about step-brother? 

And I guess a story where several brothers share the same woman (no touching among the brothers but they might watch) is something that Amazon will ban immediately, isn't it?

Also, is gay PI as successful as het? Or is that too much of a niche?


----------



## o.gasim

Thank you to everyone who showed an interest in the erotic anthology I proposed, the response was truly astounding. As it sits now, we have filled the 5 slots for the first edition, but if demand and profit align, I will make it a monthly thing.


----------



## batmansero

For those discussing the parentheticals, I just saw another alternative on Amazon. The descriptor was included in the book series title, eg:



> A Very Curvy Christmas (BBW Erotica - Seasonal Salutations 1)


^^ So there's another option. I just made that title up...might have to write that


----------



## nellgoddin

o.gasim said:


> Thank you to everyone who showed an interest in the erotic anthology I proposed, the response was truly astounding. As it sits now, we have filled the 5 slots for the first edition, but if demand and profit align, I will make it a monthly thing.


Wait, what? I just came on to propose this idea! I guess I missed your post. wah!


----------



## Sargon

Kalypsō said:


> I've made over a hundred dollars from my four erotica titles and my four rebranded erotic romance titles (which really aren't accounting for much), in the last seven days, if the borrow rate is even a dollar. I guess I'm fine with being a dumb smut peddler if money is pouring out of my ears.


Sweet!!!


----------



## batmansero

I think I have a Select Freebie happening at the moment. I'm not entirely sure though as I'm not in America and therefore won't see if it's actually listed as free. Can someone please let me know if it is indeed showing up as free in Americaland? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OD32YOA Thanks in advance 

I'm also not seeing any sales or KU borrows yet, but it has a sales ranking *scratches head*


----------



## Callaghan

Still showing 2.99 for me April.


----------



## Sargon

During 7 full days I got 4 stories and one bundle up, and grossed well over $100. Closer to $200 if the borrow rate is $1.50. My sales skyrocketed today (Sunday, Oct. 12) for whatever reason, going to about 2-1/2 times my previous high day, which had been Oct. 9.

My best-selling book was also the first released, and had 26 borrows and 10 sales ($2.99) during the 7 days. Actually 2 of those sales and 1 borrow came on last Sunday night when it first went live (Oct. 5), so perhaps they don't count. Although on the other hand, no new sales have come through tonight, so if we went Sunday night to Sunday night, we'd be good.

I think it would be quite hard to pass $100 in a week by only releasing 1 book on a new pen name without promotion, although if it were well targeted and caught fire, it would be possible.

I'm still pondering whether to announce my pen name here. I don't know why I hesitate, but it just feels weird still. I also have not updated the Google spreadsheet. I guess I might just be too private or something.

Right now my author rank is about 600 for Erotica (Kindle eBooks), and about 3,300 for Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction.

My highest-ranked book is at about 15,200 in Kindle books store (paid). Two of the others are around 21,000 and two more are around 43,000.

I just published individual story #5 which is longer than the others at 11,500 words and may be the first in a series.

I do not plan to continue releasing 5 books a week, although they are easy and a blast to write. I have a job and family and it's just taking up a huge amount of my feee time. But maybe 1-2 a week could be a good goal.

Edit: These numbers are based on the Sales Dashboard graph and the accompanying Excel spreadsheets it spits out. I gather that the Month-to-Date Unit Sales lag by several days based on payments coming in, etc. Although right now the borrows do seem to match.


----------



## J.B.

Dormouse said:


> Truely fascinating thread. I'm very tempted to play as well even though I'm deep in a novel right now. But there are a few ideas swirling around.
> 
> Question for those writing PI: I know the term for step-dad is now head of the household, but what about step-brother?
> 
> And I guess a story where several brothers share the same woman (no touching among the brothers but they might watch) is something that Amazon will ban immediately, isn't it?
> 
> Also, is gay PI as successful as het? Or is that too much of a niche?


I've seen "Young Man of the House" used to describe a step-brother.


----------



## nightfire

I have a couple of series in mind, is a married man that sleeps around an ok MC or do women just hate him right off the bat?


----------



## Andie

nightfire said:


> I have a couple of series in mind, is a married man that sleeps around an ok MC or do women just hate him right off the bat?


Might fly in erotica, but I'm not sure how well it would do. (But I'm sure others with more knowledge than me will weigh in.) I'm sure it depends on what readers you're targeting and the niche as well.


----------



## Guest

Andie said:


> I believe that Taboo is generally used mainly for PI.


I see *Taboo* used for all sorts of different stories including non-family members (brothers friend, sisters friend, daughters friend, wife's friend), wife's sister, older man - younger woman and professor - student.

I thought Taboo was mainly for PI stories.


----------



## Guest

exkitteh said:


> Agreed and 123rf


123rf has some really nice images. £15 is affordable for 20 credits.


----------



## Guest

Dormouse said:


> Truely fascinating thread. I'm very tempted to play as well even though I'm deep in a novel right now. But there are a few ideas swirling around.
> 
> Question for those writing PI: I know the term for step-dad is now head of the household, but what about step-brother?
> 
> And I guess a story where several brothers share the same woman (no touching among the brothers but they might watch) is something that Amazon will ban immediately, isn't it?
> 
> Also, is gay PI as successful as het? Or is that too much of a niche?


For step-brother step-sister stories I often see this: * the boy she grew up with* OR *the last person she would have expected*

_There are a couple multiple step-brother step-sister stories on Amazon:_

Jade K Scott - Our Household Secret: My Initiation: A Forbidden Taboo Erotic Tale
Felicia Dewald - Banged By My Six brothers

You can do step-dad and step-brother with step-sister too. I quite enjoyed L.J. Andersons - Their little girl.


----------



## A.C. Nixon

I did it, I just pushed publish. I started on Friday and finished up this evening. Figuring out how to compile and format correctly in scrivener took for freaking ever! I still don't know how to use the Kingen thing on my Mac, but whatever.  

Time for bed.


----------



## Guest

April Ryder said:


> I think I have a Select Freebie happening at the moment. I'm not entirely sure though as I'm not in America and therefore won't see if it's actually listed as free. Can someone please let me know if it is indeed showing up as free in Americaland? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OD32YOA Thanks in advance
> 
> I'm also not seeing any sales or KU borrows yet, but it has a sales ranking *scratches head*


That blurb makes me want to one click. I'm going to borrow it so that you get paid.

Good luck


----------



## Whitley

Thank you to everyone who posted here. I just hit publish on my first short and I'm now really excited to get started on future serials. I've been thinking about writing and writing things but not sharing for so long that I didn't think I'd ever publish something, either indie or traditional. I just never thought my first published work would be erotica/erotic romance.


----------



## Guest

EroticaWriter said:


> During 7 full days I got 4 stories and one bundle up, and grossed well over $100. Closer to $200 if the borrow rate is $1.50.


Congratulations!

I can't do 4 stories in 7 days. No way. Not when I also work on what I do under Jolie du Pre. My goal is one story a week. However, that adds up. I publish my first story tomorrow and every Tuesday from here on out. By the end of 2015, for example, that's approximately 64 stories.

That said, I had a heck of a lot of fun writing this first story. The cover is done; I'm editing it today, and I can't wait to publish it tomorrow. 



nightfire said:


> I have a couple of series in mind, is a married man that sleeps around an ok MC or do women just hate him right off the bat?


I'm not trying to be negative or discouraging, but I'm not sure if this is scandalous enough to get people "hot." Married men sleep around all the time.



C.Saffron said:


> For step-brother step-sister stories I often see this: * the boy she grew up with* OR *the last person she would have expected*
> 
> _There are a couple multiple step-brother step-sister stories on Amazon:_
> 
> Jade K Scott - Our Household Secret: My Initiation: A Forbidden Taboo Erotic Tale
> Felicia Dewald - Banged By My Six brothers
> 
> You can do step-dad and step-brother with step-sister too. I quite enjoyed L.J. Andersons - Their little girl.


I plan on covering every hot subject I can cover. There's plenty of taboo topics that Amazon will publish.

~~~~

Good luck and congrats to everyone with the courage, open mindedness and ability to write erotic shorts!!!


----------



## Speaker-To-Animals

> I find it very interesting that your book is doing really well and isn't in the erotica category - something to ponder on!
> 
> Edit: actually it's not just yours... the "leaders" so far are also in the Romance category.


As someone who recently had to wade through a whole bunch of totally miscaterogized erotica to find an actual romance. Please don't do this.


----------



## Guest

Kat S said:


> As someone who recently had to wade through a whole bunch of totally miscaterogized erotica to find an actual romance. Please don't do this.


I have no intention of putting my books in romance, and I'm sure that goes for many of us.


----------



## Donald Rump

My 4,300-word short is finally up. No sales or borrows yet. Will keep you posted.

A piece of erotica comedy that I published back in June just had it's second sale on Kobo. Don't do comedy. It's the kiss of death.


----------



## nellgoddin

C.Saffron said:


> That blurb makes me want to one click. I'm going to borrow it so that you get paid.


I borrowed it too, and nearly sent it to my 14 yo daughter. Bullet dodged just in time!

EW, way to GO! I had a big day yesterday too for some reason, many more sales than before.


----------



## Sargon

Joliedupre said:


> Congratulations!
> 
> I can't do 4 stories in 7 days. No way. Not when I also work on what I do under Jolie du Pre. My goal is one story a week. However, that adds up. I publish my first story tomorrow and every Tuesday from here on out. By the end of 2015, for example, that's approximately 64 stories.


Yes, you have actual things already published, so you're way ahead of me in that regard.

I went a little crazy on it last week. Keep in mind these are the first and only things I've EVER published, so I was caught up in the excitement of getting something out there...seeing actual sales...checking my Dashboard obsessively, etc. And then when I saw the sales coming in, and growing, I just wanted to keep it going.


----------



## nellgoddin

Kat S said:


> As someone who recently had to wade through a whole bunch of totally miscaterogized erotica to find an actual romance. Please don't do this.


OK, I'm convinced. I switched mine to erotica. I'm curious whether there'll be any change in sales.


----------



## Sargon

emilycantore said:


> I'm so excited people are doing this challenge!
> 
> For those taking part, I thought I'd share some figures from my own shorts. My oldest short was published 1065 days ago. It has made $700 to date. So about $0.66 per day average. I haven't updated my sales figures for a while but it's probably up to about $900 by now I'd say.
> 
> Overall, shorts revert for me average $0.60 per day every day from publication over the long term. Series (e.g. five parts and then a bundle) are way more profitable. They hit about $12 per title per day. So a five-part series makes about $60 per day on average.
> 
> I *highly* recommend writing shorts to get into this business. It's what I did and it really got me started. Now I write novels and it takes a lot to keep going with long gaps in releases.
> 
> Series are far more profitable than shorts. However shorts give you a big audience, are quick to write and if you get stuck on WIP, you can write a short pretty quickly.
> 
> My worst performing title is about $0.18 per day since publication. It has been published for 795 days and has earned $140.00. Took me a single day to write (5000-word story) and so for that day I earned $140 thus far. It just took 795 days to get it!
> 
> Good luck everyone participating. It's totally worth it to write some stories in this genre. I think quite eye-opening too. Anyone can write murder, space travel, whatever and get the details wrong and slip on by. But sex? One of the most important human experiences? Get that wrong and people will know.


Emily, this is GREAT and very helpful information, thanks so much!

When you talk about series, I assume you mean, for example, Hot Springs Werewolf where each story might be around 14,000 words? How did you settle on that particular length, vs. say 10,000 or 20,000?


----------



## Evenstar

Just in case that D2D and Smashwords query hasn't been answered!

If you can be bothered it would be best to do both. Smashwords cover more places but D2D seem to have better success with places like ibooks.

The thing to do is to load on to D2D and then when you load to Smashwords you can untick all the places already covered by D2D. I definitely think it's worth going to Smashwords as well though because their own store is quite popular with the erotica crowd.


----------



## Evenstar

Formatting: Get Mark Cokers formatting guide for Smashwords. It's short and free.

The first time you do it it might seem like a faff. But now every single copy I write  (in word) is perfectly formatted without me having to change a thing and loads like a dream to everywhere. On Amazon, on Smashwords and on Google. Never a problem. I just write my very first draft that way, no formatting to be done 

The only change I make for Zon is that I put in a contents page and I put Amazon links in the back.


----------



## Evenstar

Sorry, last thing - does anyone know what page the spreadsheet link is on? Could it be put in the original post?


----------



## LeahEmmaRose

Thank you to everyone who has been posting here. I have been following the thread and considering whether or not I should jump in. I am currently 14,000 words into a nonfiction book that is taking a lot of time to research and fact-check. Frankly, I need a break! I have never written or even read erotica, but I have been doing a lot of reading the past week and today wrote my first 1,600 words. I am pleased with it so far and hope to be ready to publish Friday morning. If this works out, my goal is to take little breaks during or between writing longer works such as my nonfiction and my contemporary romance novellas (I need two in my series out by January! I am so behind!) I am a part time writer, full-time mommy, so my financial goals are small. I am just looking for a part time income doing what I love and improving my craft. So far, so good!


----------



## Al Dente

I'm only 300 words into mine because I took yesterday off. This morning I bought a new guitar and I'm trying REALLY hard not to be excited about it so I can get some work done!


----------



## ketosis

Well, I just got finished yesterday with four stories, all 5-6k words each, and all around a theme.  Have covers being made on Fiverr (going to do my own from now on) and just have to format, upload, and make a bundle, as well as outsource the 3D cover for the bundle on elance.  Going to try Select on all five of the titles, but I think the box set will be the big seller, as those seem to get the most sales.


----------



## Evan of the R.

Al Dente said:


> This morning I bought a new guitar


OT: w00t! Congrats! That's the best reason to be away from writing. What kind?


----------



## legion

A.C. Nixon said:


> I did it, I just pushed publish. I started on Friday and finished up this evening. Figuring out how to compile and format correctly in scrivener took for freaking ever! I still don't know how to use the Kingen thing on my Mac, but whatever.
> 
> Time for bed.


I'm right there with you!  I've been lurking, following along and joined unofficially. I wrote two new shorts over the past week (~7k each) and hit publish on one about 9 hours ago. It's still in review though, worrying me a bit.
Is this why people avoid the straight erotica category (Fiction->Erotica)?

Anyway, I plan to publish the second one either tomorrow or Wednesday--needs one more editing pass.
This pen name is brand new and not connected to any of my others, and for the same reasons listed previously, I'm afraid I won't reveal it here.
I will add to the spreadsheet, though--probably under my forum name.

So exciting! Can't believe two are done already. I have a third one complete also, but I wrote most of it before the challenge, and it's on the longer end (11k). That one will go up this week too.

Thanks, guys, for all the wonderful advice, tips, and insight in this thread! This has been so motivating.


----------



## Al Dente

I'm at 500 words now! I'm still trying to get my mind off the new guitar. I hate waiting for things to ship!



Evan R. said:


> OT: w00t! Congrats! That's the best reason to be away from writing. What kind?


I wanted something a little different from my Gibson SG, so I grabbed a Charvel Skatecaster SK-1 in Trans Blue finish. It's gorgeous!

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitars/charvel-desolation-skatecaster-1-electric-guitar

Believe it or not, Musician's Friend had them on sale for about an hour this morning for $199. I barely got one before they went back up to $649!


----------



## nellgoddin

There's obviously plenty of demand for the non-story erotica, but I don't think I could write more than one or two of those, no matter how good the money is. I can't claim to be churning out Henry James, but I try to get a little characterization in there, some voice, a bit of story. Just so I don't bore myself silly. And also, that way it feels like writing exercise--all the better if it helps pay the bills while I work on WIP.


----------



## Redacted1111

All five stories I've written so far have a full story arc. The characters and plot are thin, but they are stories with a beginning middle and end.


----------



## Al Dente

Mine has a story too. I'm actually trying to do "Epic Fantasy" erotica in 5k - 6k installments.


----------



## Catnip

Published my first story today (and it is a story, though the plot is rather thin, given the length). 

I spent nearly as long on the cover as the story itself. Must improve my Photoshop skills! I'm really happy with it though.


----------



## Redacted1111

emilycantore said:


> I followed (initially) the word counts of established series. Found a billionaire series of seven parts, all 5000-8000, matched that. I think I went over by one book in the end.
> 
> Second series matched a five-book series of 15-20k.
> 
> Since then I've stuck with the 15-20k model.
> 
> Deciding on a strict per book word count up front makes the writing easier. Less rambling.


I wrote two erom serials a year ago and they totally flopped. I'm finding far greater success with short stories. Maybe it was the subgenre I picked. I might try the longer ones again, but I'm leery of the commitment.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

I'm on my second standalone erotic masterpiece. I should complete it by Tuesday, one day of editing, hopefully one day for the cover, and publish by Thursday or Friday. I published the first masterpiece on October 9, 2014 and today I have 1 purchase and 6 borrows, and I was able to publish book 2 in my Werewolf series at the same time. I have a few sales and borrows but who knows?


----------



## Sargon

emilycantore said:


> I followed (initially) the word counts of established series. Found a billionaire series of seven parts, all 5000-8000, matched that. I think I went over by one book in the end.
> 
> Second series matched a five-book series of 15-20k.
> 
> Since then I've stuck with the 15-20k model.
> 
> Deciding on a strict per book word count up front makes the writing easier. Less rambling.


Thanks! Appreciate the info.


----------



## Sargon

legion said:


> I'm right there with you!  I've been lurking, following along and joined unofficially. I wrote two new shorts over the past week (~7k each) and hit publish on one about 9 hours ago. It's still in review though, worrying me a bit.
> Is this why people avoid the straight erotica category (Fiction->Erotica)?


Congrats! But 9 hours is nothing...I posted my latest last night at 9:15pm and it's still "In Review" today at 2:30...17 hours later. I actually think Mondays might be kind of busy at Amazon.  I put it in Romance and Romance > Erotica because it's got a fair amount of non-sex and a plot.


----------



## Sargon

Puzzle said:


> I think I'm incapable of writing 5k Erotica shorts.
> 
> I'm already 1k words into my first book and I'm still on chapter one, with six planned.  Oh well!


My first stretched to 7.7K, it's selling well. It's all good. That said, maybe break up the first chapter somewhere to make the read seem quicker?


----------



## Sargon

emilycantore said:


> I followed (initially) the word counts of established series. Found a billionaire series of seven parts, all 5000-8000, matched that. I think I went over by one book in the end.
> 
> Second series matched a five-book series of 15-20k.
> 
> Since then I've stuck with the 15-20k model.
> 
> Deciding on a strict per book word count up front makes the writing easier. Less rambling.


Oh, and I PM-ed you with more questions, by the way.


----------



## Al Dente

I finally hit 1k words! Only 4.5 to go and then it's time to publish!


----------



## Guest

nellgoddin said:


> I borrowed it too, and nearly sent it to my 14 yo daughter. Bullet dodged just in time!
> 
> EW, way to GO! I had a big day yesterday too for some reason, many more sales than before.


Excellent! I know in the book HOW ANYONE CAN BECOME A FULL-TIME EROTICA AUTHOR IN 6 WEEKS, it said somewhere in there that if your book doesn't sell immediately, or at least by the second day, the book probably won't sell at all. However, I respectfully disagree with that.



EroticaWriter said:


> Yes, you have actual things already published, so you're way ahead of me in that regard.
> 
> I went a little crazy on it last week. Keep in mind these are the first and only things I've EVER published, so I was caught up in the excitement of getting something out there...seeing actual sales...checking my Dashboard obsessively, etc. And then when I saw the sales coming in, and growing, I just wanted to keep it going.


I love your excitement. Enthusiasm like this is great for this board and for this thread!



EelKat said:


> My conclusion is, that "lack of originality" abound because, well, it sells. Most people want the same-old/same-old, thus if your characters are too original, you don't get much by way of sales.


^^^^THIS^^^^

If I want to be original, I can do that with my Jolie du Pre stuff. I'm writing erotica shorts to make money, and if it means I have to follow formulas, so be it. I'm giving the public what they want, based on sales, not, necessarily, what I want.



Kalypsō said:


> All five stories I've written so far have a full story arc. The characters and plot are thin, but they are stories with a beginning middle and end.


Yep, I may be following formulas, but I'm writing complete stories.

~~~~

Ten more pages to edit, and then I'm all ready to publish my first one tomorrow!


----------



## Donald Rump

In less than 24 hours, I have my first borrow. As for my other erotic work (Her/Elexis Avant) I have 1 borrow since redoing the keywords and submitting it to KDP Select.

It's too early to tell if I got it right on either account, but it's nice to a see brand new title contributing. While I should be wrapping up another title, I got sick over the weekend and am still recovering. Will attack this with a vengeance later...


----------



## legion

EroticaWriter said:


> Congrats! But 9 hours is nothing...I posted my latest last night at 9:15pm and it's still "In Review" today at 2:30...17 hours later. I actually think Mondays might be kind of busy at Amazon.  I put it in Romance and Romance > Erotica because it's got a fair amount of non-sex and a plot.


Hope yours is publishing by now! Mine finally went into publishing mode within 12 hours. Page still building I guess, since I still can't pull it up. I'm just so antsy and excited, lol. 
Let me go edit something while I wait!


----------



## Al Dente

I don't know if this will help with everyone's borrows, but I found something that worked pretty well with the Romance title I released a few months ago. I ran a free promotion through Select. It was on day 2, and I was starting to get worried because I'd received less than 100 downloads. At 5 p.m. on day 2, I canceled the promotion and let it go back to paid. The next day, I checked and it had 10 paid sales and borrows. That book went on to get almost 60 borrows in 6 weeks, and it was part one of a trilogy. It was a 10k word story, and part two had not yet been released, so I was pretty happy with those results. I think canceling that promotion in the early evening hours had something to do with the small success it achieved, so you might want to give it a try if your stories aren't selling.


----------



## nellgoddin

I switched a story from romance to erotica and sales stopped dead. I'm going to give it until morning, and if things don't pick up again, I'm moving it. Not back to romance, because it really doesn't belong there, but maybe just fiction>short stories. Check out the categories and rankings of this little number: http://amzn.com/B00O6Y4XSG


----------



## Guest

nellgoddin said:


> I switched a story from romance to erotica and sales stopped dead. I'm going to give it until morning, and if things don't pick up again, I'm moving it. Not back to romance, because it really doesn't belong there, but maybe just fiction>short stories. Check out the categories and rankings of this little number: http://amzn.com/B00O6Y4XSG


I read it. But I like the way Gwendolyn Wilde writes.

Here's one of hers. Her categories are in erotica, and her sales are good.

http://www.amazon.com/Fertility-Clinic-Bareback-Medical-Erotica-ebook/dp/B00KSD463Q


----------



## Sargon

legion said:


> Hope yours is publishing by now! Mine finally went into publishing mode within 12 hours. Page still building, I guess since I still can't pull it up. I'm just so antsy and excited, lol.
> Let me go edit something while I wait!


It switched to "Publishing" after 20 hours! No idea what the holdup was. Maybe Sunday night is a bad time because it gets caught in a team transition overnight or something. It's been "Publishing" now for 3.5 hours. The book is there but I still can't find it via Author Central to link it up and it's not "Live." Crazy.

Antsy is the right word, for sure! And I keep refreshing my Sales Dashboard hoping to make another few borrows or sales appear, but somehow refreshing it like that does not seem to cause anyone else to take action... 

EDIT - Over 24 hours now, and still "Publishing." And this one doesn't even feature an 18-year-old high-school cheerleader.


----------



## batmansero

I think mine turned out to be an erotic romance so I think I put it under both categories. Currently in the top (free) 100 for erotic romance and for short stories.

As for word count it was 8,930 words and Amazon has estimated it to be 28 pages. That includes copyright, thank you reader and author pages as well. I freaked out when I had no sales / borrows after a couple of days and set a couple of freebie days in Select. Doing quite well for free atm. Will see if it translates into sales / borrows afterward and I've started work on the next in the series.



Micki23 said:


> It's free in the U.S. now.


Thanks, time zones and stuff are fun 



C.Saffron said:


> That blurb makes me want to one click. I'm going to borrow it so that you get paid.
> 
> Good luck


Yay! Hope you enjoyed it.



nellgoddin said:


> I borrowed it too, and nearly sent it to my 14 yo daughter. Bullet dodged just in time!


That would have been embarrassing


----------



## Catnip

nellgoddin said:


> I borrowed it too, and nearly sent it to my 14 yo daughter. Bullet dodged just in time!


I was reading erotica when I was 14. Though I'd have been mortified at the thought of my mother reading it too.


----------



## Dormouse

Catnip said:


> I was reading erotica when I was 14. Though I'd have been mortified at the thought of my mother reading it too.


Hehe, me too. I had to hide my books because my mom would sometimes come into my room looking for reading material. I really didn't want to explain to her why I was reading Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty-series.


----------



## nellgoddin

Catnip said:


> I was reading erotica when I was 14. Though I'd have been mortified at the thought of my mother reading it too.


Exactly. My mother walked in me at that age reading _Valley of the Dolls_ and it was mortifying. Let's keep those boundaries, people!

Btw, great job, April. Your book is sweet, funny, and sexy. I don't especially like reading erotica but I enjoyed yours.


----------



## Guest

My mother is a prude.  She's never read my erotica, and she never will.  She doesn't want to.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

nellgoddin said:


> I switched a story from romance to erotica and sales stopped dead. I'm going to give it until morning, and if things don't pick up again, I'm moving it. Not back to romance, because it really doesn't belong there, but maybe just fiction>short stories. Check out the categories and rankings of this little number: http://amzn.com/B00O6Y4XSG


I love that cover. Very suggestive and very sexy. I would buy that book.


----------



## o.gasim

Book 2 in this little experiment should be published a little later today, the deets are below. If anyone is interested, I am in serious need of some blurb help.

The Voyeur's Ball (The Random Encounters Series Book 2)
By Olivia R. Gasim
~7500 words

_When a stunning cougar enters Teddy's costume shop and leaves her iPhone behind with an exclusive invitation to an event that night, Teddy throws caution to the wind for a night of discovery and hot, sex courtesy of The Voyeur's Ball._


----------



## Donald Rump

Another day, another borrow. Not big sales by any means, but it does work.


----------



## Sargon

Holy sh*t! One of my books is ranked in the mid 70s under Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction > Short Stories....literally on the same page as Flannery O'Connor, one of the idols of my youth. Well, it's not a major achievement in life, but it's something I can tell my grandkids about someday. 

What's crazy is that to see this, I had to go to the actual product page, it's not shown anywhere in Author Central. It's amazing the little things they could do better.

I'm stoked! This book has 9 borrows so far today, and only 5 buys since release on Oct. 10. Hoping to crack the top 10,000, it's at 12-something now.

In other news, my latest FINALLY went live sometime overnight. It was still publishing when I checked at midnight, after 26 hours. No bites yet on that one.


----------



## britnidanielle

Before I saw this challenge I decided to write a short erotic romance series (under a new pen name.)

This is just further confirmation, I need to GET IT DONE. 

A few question: what length seems to work best? I was thinking three, 20K words novellas for 99-cents each. 

Thoughts?


----------



## M.G. Russell

britnidanielle said:


> Before I saw this challenge I decided to write a short erotic romance series (under a new pen name.)
> 
> This is just further confirmation, I need to GET IT DONE.
> 
> A few question: what length seems to work best? I was thinking three, 20K words novellas for 99-cents each.
> 
> Thoughts?


From what I've been reading and the research I've done I think the current thinking is that any erotica book over 5K words can be priced at 2.99. If you are writing 20K you could probably go for 3.99. Just my opinion from my extensive research. And there are many erotica authors who are selling tons of books with 5K to 7K or 10K words at 2.99 and making good money.


----------



## Sargon

M.G. Russell said:


> From what I've been reading and the research I've done I think the current thinking is that any erotica book over 5K words can be priced at 2.99. If you are writing 20K you could probably go for 3.99. Just my opinion from my extensive research. And there are many erotica authors who are selling tons of books with 5K to 7K or 10K words at 2.99 and making good money.


^^^ Agree totally: $2.99 all the way for that length (based on research -- no experience at that length).


----------



## britnidanielle

M.G. Russell said:


> From what I've been reading and the research I've done I think the current thinking is that any erotica book over 5K words can be priced at 2.99. If you are writing 20K you could probably go for 3.99. Just my opinion from my extensive research. And there are many erotica authors who are selling tons of books with 5K to 7K or 10K words at 2.99 and making good money.


GOOD TO KNOW!

My "regular" books are 2.99 and up, but I wasn't sure if I should charge as much for a shorter book.

Thanks!

*goes back to typing*


----------



## Guest

britnidanielle said:


> Before I saw this challenge I decided to write a short erotic romance series (under a new pen name.)
> 
> This is just further confirmation, I need to GET IT DONE.
> 
> A few question: what length seems to work best? I was thinking three, 20K words novellas for 99-cents each.
> 
> Thoughts?


There are quite a few 20,000-25,000 word erotic romance novellas. Check out Deborah Bladon, she is hugely successful. Her books go straight to the top of the charts as soon as they are released and she gets great reviews.

Deborah's books are priced quite low at $1.24. Quite a few books in the two hour kindle short reads chart are $0.99. Some are $2.99. 
Check out the bestsellers list

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Two-Hour-Romance-Short-Reads/zgbs/digital-text/8624245011/ref=zg_bs_nav_kstore_3_8584463011

Edited: Maybe start at $2.99, then you can reduce the price if you want


----------



## britnidanielle

C.Saffron said:


> There are quite a few 20,000-25,000 word erotic romance novellas. Check out Deborah Bladon, she is hugely successful. Her books go straight to the top of the charts as soon as they are released and she gets great reviews.
> 
> Deborah's books are priced quite low at $1.24. Quite a few books in the two hour kindle short reads chart are $0.99. Some are $2.99.
> Check out the bestsellers list
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Two-Hour-Romance-Short-Reads/zgbs/digital-text/8624245011/ref=zg_bs_nav_kstore_3_8584463011


THANKS!


----------



## Guest

britnidanielle said:


> THANKS!


You are welcome.

I added this to my last post: _Maybe start at $2.99, then you can reduce the price if you want _


----------



## britnidanielle

C.Saffron said:


> You are welcome.
> 
> I added this to my last post: _Maybe start at $2.99, then you can reduce the price if you want _


Good advice. I'm already at 3500 words. I'm on my way!


----------



## Redacted1111

I'm having a minor milestone moment. It is the first time borrows have exceeded permafrees. The day still isn't over, but, I feel like it's a milestone. It's also my highest borrow day since KU started.


----------



## nellgoddin

Go Kalypso! I'm having a crappy sales day, but at least I got 2000 words on the mystery.


----------



## Redacted1111

I started a new story, but my daughter wanted to go outside and play, so we played monster tag and kicked the ball around. Now I'm trying to get the motivation to write again. The house is kind of messy, and I didn't get much sleep last night through my husband's snoring, but, those numbers make my mouth water. Back to the grindstone.


----------



## batmansero

nellgoddin said:


> Btw, great job, April. Your book is sweet, funny, and sexy. I don't especially like reading erotica but I enjoyed yours.


Thanks  I'm glad I've done something right. The second in the series is proving to be harder to write...

My mother used to pilfer my books when I lived at home. The only adult books I would have read as a teen was The Clan of the Cave Bear at age 13. Otherwise my mother ended up reading a lot of Star Trek. And I do mean a lot. I had hundreds of them 

My mother has no real interest in my writing, erotic or otherwise. Tells me to get a real job. She has stopped saying that though after I shared the number of books I had sold one month...


----------



## legion

Two titles went live today, each has a borrow (1 in the US, 1 in the UK).
Meh. 
I know, I know--patience.


----------



## batmansero

I think I read somewhere that you can have up to five pen names on your author central account.  How do you do that?  Add a second one that is?


----------



## o.gasim

April Ryder said:


> I think I read somewhere that you can have up to five pen names on your author central account. How do you do that? Add a second one that is?


You can have up to 3. Once you have a work published, search the work through author central and then claim it. You'll be prompted to add the new pen name to your dashboard.


----------



## nightfire

April Ryder said:


> I think I read somewhere that you can have up to five pen names on your author central account. How do you do that? Add a second one that is?


I just got off the phone with them about this very thing. I let them know it was very inconvenient to be limited to 3.

To add one you have to try and add a book that you have the pen name listed as author for. Then it will ask if this is you and if it is a pen name. Then you can add it.

I also told the rep to pass on that having to log in and out of accounts between kdp and amazon central was very google-like and that it would be nice if they would consider raising the pen name limit per account. She was very nice and said she would pass it along and that it seemed silly to limit number of pen names and force you to create new author central accounts.


----------



## Sargon

Kalypsō said:


> I'm having a minor milestone moment. It is the first time borrows have exceeded permafrees. The day still isn't over, but, I feel like it's a milestone. It's also my highest borrow day since KU started.


Nice! Do you have permafrees already on your short erotica, or are you talking about your previously published works?


----------



## Redacted1111

EroticaWriter said:


> Nice! Do you have permafrees already on your short erotica, or are you talking about your previously published works?


I've been publishing for over a year now. I had several frees but took them down to rebrand and put in KU. Now I've got two active free associated with a paranormal romance serials. One does pretty okay. I should do a Freebooksy ad for it soon.

However, the new World of Warcraft patch came out today. I'm kind of screwed. I wonder if I can play wow and dictate porn, after my kid goes to bed of course.


----------



## a_g

Kalypsō said:


> However, the new World of Warcraft patch came out today. I'm kind of screwed. I wonder if I can play wow and dictate porn, after my kid goes to bed of course.


Darn it! I'm running out of time. I wanted to get some things written before I was sucked away by the patch. I almost got through the day. Almost.

*eyes the WoW icon on my desktop*


----------



## Douglas E Wright

This thread motivated me. So I just uploaded my story. I already have a name and so forth with two stories attached to it. One was written a couple years ago and the other took six months for me to finish. (A short story) I wasn't planning on entering this competition, but I began to write on Thursday and uploaded the resulting tale 15 minutes ago. It's around 6000 words and we'll see how it does. Neither of my last two had promos either and I didn't do very well with them. This thread pointed out the differences between sizzling romance and erotica. That helped me a lot. When it gets loaded, I'll report the numbers on only the story I completed today.


----------



## Perro Callejero

I've been following this thread, too.  The Fun is Infectious!

A couple quick questions:
Almost all of the books on the google doc are priced at $2.99, and it seems like most of them are in KDP select.  Would a multi-distributor (Smashwords all channels and KDP) release at 99 cents be acceptable for the challenge?


----------



## Sargon

It's been a great day here with 2 of my stories getting into 4-digit overall store ranks: about 9700 and about 7800. The latter hit #52 in Contemporary Fiction > Short Stories, and now is in the mid-50s. It also reached #97 in Short Stories > Single Authors, but has since dropped out of the top 100 there.

In case you're curious, it took 12 borrows and 4 sales today for that book to rank that well, assuming all have been reported on the graph, which they might not be. Yesterday it was at 19,000 and only had 4 borrows and 1 buy that day. Sunday was 6 and 4.

Also my best sales/borrows day overall.

I continue to see a lot of borrows show up right at midnight PST. I wish I knew how Amazon worked. It's not like they are all overseas buyers or something. Maybe they are ones that just passed 10%? Or do those show up as buys instead of borrows? It's all very confusing for a newbie.

On the other hand, my new slightly longer first-in-series has done nothing at all. And I had my first return.


----------



## Al Dente

I hate that I didn't get to write much today. I had a pretty expensive and unexpected car repair today. I think I managed about 400 words while waiting for the mechanics to do their thing. 4k to go! Also, this thread should dispel any doubts about being able to make a career out of writing erotica if one wants. I've been watching everyone's sales progress, and I can only imagine how those numbers could grow for someone who is dedicated enough to keep publishing. Good stuff!


----------



## batmansero

I actually wrote words today.  Combined strolling on the treadmill with a couple thousand words for the second book in my BBW older woman/younger man 1st person pov motorcycle erotic romance series.  Wondering if I should stuff military and shifters in there too.  Don't worry, I wouldn't dare.  Just being silly


----------



## anotherpage

can someone tell me this

1. What category are you placing it in if everyone is avoiding the erotica category? Isn't that counter-intuitive? Aren't people going to be looking in the erotica category?


----------



## anotherpage

C.Saffron said:


> I don't want to sound like a broken record but can any published erotica authors on here please explain briefly how they use keywords because I have been given two different sets of advice about using keywords.
> 
> I read '*How ANYONE Can Become a Full-Time Erotica Author in 6 Weeks*' and it is a good book however I emailed a bestselling author a couple days before I read that book who had some different advice about categories and keywords.
> 
> *I was told not to put my book in the erotica category by one bestselling author.* I was also told to not use taboo, step-family, virgin or anything like that in my keywords.
> 
> Can someone who writes and sells erotica please tell me what they have done.
> 
> *Thanks for any advice. *


Did anyone answer you on this? As I am curious about these two things as well.


----------



## o.gasim

Just wanted to say I just hit publish on my 2nd work in this challenge  The wife and kids are all asleep but I wanted to shout it somewhere!

_Edited to remove reference to removed post. Thanks. --Betsy_


----------



## Alex Owens

Finding this thread super-helpful. It's inspired me to write something more-to-market and I must say, I'm having a blast. I'm rounding the home stretch on the first story and I've already created a wicked cover. All that's left is to finish and edit. I promised myself I'll have it up before Friday! (Now that I've said that, I'm accountable Lol)

ETA: my working blurb, because I suck at them usually (so feedback is appreciated  )

*"Welcome to the greatest collection of Novelties, Oddities and Obscura this side of the Mississippi. If you want it, we have it... and if you didn't know you wanted it, we probably have that too!"*

With those foreboding words, I stepped under the canopy and left my sheltered, naive life behind. In the Strong Man I saw power-- raw, immense and carnal. And in me, he saw a woman that needed breaking out of her shell. My life _had _ to be unraveled from the seams and he was the first one to tug at that errant fiber.

And my life, my body, was never the same.

Freak Show: Strong Man is an erotic short of approx. 8,000 words, which is perfect for an afternoon quickie!


----------



## Guest

JUST UPLOADED MY FIRST EROTICA STORY UNDER THE NEW PEN NAME!! I don't know how long it will take for it to be published, but on Thursday, I start working on the next one!!   

Congrats to everyone who's getting erotica stories written and published!!  

~~~~

Just wanted to add, that when I started in erotica, almost 14 years ago, self-publishing was considered taboo. So when I wrote erotic short stories, the only way for me to publish them for money was to submit them to anthology editors and then cross my fingers and toes that they would be accepted. They paid you a flat fee, and that was it.

I'm glad I don't have to do that anymore.

_Edited to remove reference to deleted post. --Betsy_


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Boyd said:


> Yes, earlier in the thread, first 10 pages in I believe


Boyd, what are you reading on? An iPhone? I'm only showing 9 pages in the whole thread? 

Kalel, I do see one answer here:
http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,196306.msg2767422.html#msg2767422

Betsy


----------



## nellgoddin

Yay! So many new titles coming out of this thread. Please join in on the spread sheet Amber Rose made, see pg. 7.

My sales are drooping so it's time to bang out another...  

Marcus Fenton: yes, put yours at smashwords and report back how it does. The more data the better.

Good luck today everyone. I hope our kboards Porntober takes over the top spots across the categories!


----------



## K. D.

Boyd said:


> oh, and I'm on my laptop, running chrome. 25 posts per page? Am I weird or the only one? ACK
> 
> Hides.


No, You're not the only one ... I get 18 pages, too


----------



## Dormouse

CeeDee said:


> No, You're not the only one ... I get 18 pages, too


On my computer, using firefox and I also get 18 pages.


----------



## nightfire

Sounds like someone has 50 posts per page set   The rest of us have 18 pages.... 

good morning and good night... pulled an all nighter... again.


----------



## Guest

Just published a short that has no sales or borrows.

Used all the popular keywords and niches. Live a few hours now.

The experience of writing it was a scratchingly abysmal affair, even returning little in the way of humor, because the stooping was so far low.

If there are sales or borrows I will let you know. Perhaps someone smarter than me will read the failures instead of the successes and realize this stuff is a waste of time unless you're into it.

Hmmm

Okay

So maybe you can hate it and still write and make money from it.

But Jesus what a gamble it is


----------



## a_g

nightfire said:


> Sounds like someone has 50 posts per page set  The rest of us have 18 pages....
> 
> good morning and good night... pulled an all nighter... again.


I have 9.


----------



## Whitley

No sales or borrows on my end either, although it's only been live for I think 24 hours at the most. I wonder how long I have to wait until I declare this a flop? 

The bright spot is that I am actually getting invested in this story and the characters, so I will continue with the serial anyway and run some promo once I have more books out. I'm aiming for the second one to be longer, around 30k words. Maybe that will help readers feel like its worth their time?


----------



## Redacted1111

Sorry it didn't work out Shane. It's okay. You gave it a shot and now you know.  

I think that there is a misconception among writers, especially on kboards, that erotica is easy and that anyone can write it and make bank. Well, that obviously isn't true. But there's like zero commitment, so, it's worth giving it a whirl. 

Good luck with your real writing.


----------



## Guest

Kalypsō said:


> Sorry it didn't work out Shane. It's okay. You gave it a shot and now you know.
> 
> I think that there is a misconception among writers, especially on kboards, that erotica is easy and that anyone can write it and make bank. Well, that obviously isn't true. But there's like zero commitment, so, it's worth giving it a whirl.
> 
> Good luck with your real writing.


Hold up! Just got a borrow  Cha-ching! A couple more today and I'm there. And the day is young!


----------



## Guest

Kalypsō said:


> Sorry it didn't work out Shane. It's okay. You gave it a shot and now you know.
> 
> I think that there is a misconception among writers, especially on kboards, that erotica is easy and that anyone can write it and make bank. Well, that obviously isn't true. But there's like zero commitment, so, it's worth giving it a whirl.
> 
> Good luck with your real writing.


Yes, it's not as easy as it looks, especially if you're sticking to particular formulas, as I intend to do. (This isn't about trying to be all shiny, new and original, at least for me. This is about writing what sells.) However, I like my story, and I believe I have a strong blurb and keywords. So, we'll see.

Mine is still in review. I'll report back. In any case, I start writing my next story tomorrow.


----------



## Guest

ShaneJeffery said:


> Hold up! Just got a borrow  Cha-ching! A couple more today and I'm there. And the day is young!


Congratulations, but instead of stressing about that particular story - get started on the next one.


----------



## Redacted1111

ShaneJeffery said:


> Hold up! Just got a borrow  Cha-ching! A couple more today and I'm there. And the day is young!


Woohoo!


----------



## Guest

Amber Rose said:


> **********SPREADSHEET*************
> 
> OK, so I have set up a spreadsheet that tracks all the results etc. It's not very populated with info, though
> 
> Here is the link.
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AqUkg_H5bVPeo0Y5t2ex5lPPS8vzgD46bd_YpObzxUE/edit?usp=sharing
> 
> If you click on the link, you will be able to edit the spreadsheet.
> 
> 1. If you are taking part in the challenge, please add yourself on the sheet, together with all details
> 2. Update as often as you wish
> 3. If you have MULTIPLE books, it would probably be best to create a separate line for each book
> 4. If you want to keep your pen name private that is fine. Just put your KBoard profile under "Author"
> 5. If you are doing this quietly and have not linked yourself to the challenge, please add yourself to the sheet anyway. I hope this won't be abused!
> 
> Hopefully, at the end of the month or so we will have a clearer picture of all this......


Once the first one is published, I'll add my info to the sheet.


----------



## Guest

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Are we launching careers here or just having some fun... or doing BOTH?


If my erotica is successful, I'm sticking with it, and I'll happily write under two different names.


----------



## Sargon

M. Frank Parsons said:


> If I'm led to understand correctly, your borrows hit your sales rank on the next algo update, but only show on your sales report when the reader hits 10%.
> 
> Also, don't sweat returns. It has nothing to do with you or your work. Some people read, return, repeat. Ignore it and get back to writing.
> 
> And gratz on your success.


THANKS! I appreciate the kind words and the Amazon info.

One of my other stories hit the 80s in Single Author Short Stories today.


----------



## Guest

Joliedupre said:


> Congratulations, but instead of stressing about that particular story - get started on the next one.


It's well past bedtime in AU. And I have a busy day tomorrow. One thing I can say is that this story got zero effort from me - under 3000 words and I used amazon cover creator. But one borrow is enormous vs no borrows. That means that people can actually see the book. Way cool. 
sleepy time now zzz zzz let the silly keep on coming


----------



## Guest

ShaneJeffery said:


> It's well past bedtime in AU. And I have a busy day tomorrow. One thing I can say is that this story got zero effort from me - under 3000 words and I used amazon cover creator. But one borrow is enormous vs no borrows. That means that people can actually see the book. Way cool.
> sleepy time now zzz zzz let the silly keep on coming


+1


----------



## Redacted1111

I've got to go finish my latest story. No Warcraft until I've written 2000 words or I'm punishing myself.


----------



## Sargon

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Gratz! Now, what does "there" mean in this challenge?
> 
> Are we calling ANY sale/borrow a success in the first 7 days, or is there a $ value or # of borrows/sales in 7 days that constitute success?
> 
> I've been following along since the original thread that sparked this challenge, but have the expectations increased?
> 
> Are we launching careers here or just having some fun... or doing BOTH?


Personally I'm trying to make a bunch of extra money, surprise my wife, and perhaps take a Europe trip end of next year. So far I'm on track to do that if I can keep the sales roughly where they've been. The big question is, how much output do I need to put out to get out of the system as much as I need and want?

Pluswhich, I'm having a blast writing the stories, making the covers, and seeing the sales!

Career-wise, I'm not sure if I would do this long term. I feel like it's short-term thinking since long term I'd rather be selling novels of one kind or another that I can tell my friends and family about, whether it's the YA sci-fi I'm at 105,000 words with, or the techno-thriller where I'm at 72,000 words, or the erotic romance that I'm 15,000 words into. Writing short smut has taken away from all those projects and sucked up all my free time. But, I'm making money at it, so it's hard to stop. But I'll have to if I ever want to get those other projects out into the world.

All right...back to it...got a cheerleader tied up on a bed and need to figure out what's going to happen next...


----------



## A.C. Nixon

Alex Owens said:


> Finding this thread super-helpful. It's inspired me to write something more-to-market and I must say, I'm having a blast. I'm rounding the home stretch on the first story and I've already created a wicked cover. All that's left is to finish and edit. I promised myself I'll have it up before Friday! (Now that I've said that, I'm accountable Lol)
> 
> ETA: my working blurb, because I suck at them usually (so feedback is appreciated  )
> 
> *"Welcome to the greatest collection of Novelties, Oddities and Obscura this side of the Mississippi. If you want it, we have it... and if you didn't know you wanted it, we probably have that too!"*
> 
> With those foreboding words, I stepped under the canopy and left my sheltered, naive life behind. In the Strong Man I saw power-- raw, immense and carnal. And in me, he saw a woman that needed breaking out of her shell. My life _had _ to be unraveled from the seams and he was the first one to tug at that errant fiber.
> 
> And my life, my body, was never the same.
> 
> Freak Show: Strong Man is an erotic short of approx. 8,000 words, which is perfect for an afternoon quickie!


I haven't had my coffee yet, so no blurb help from me,but what a great premise!


----------



## Mr. Sparkle

Boyd said:


> oh, and I'm on my laptop, running chrome. 25 posts per page? Am I weird or the only one? ACK


Neither. I have 19 pages in FF and Chrome. 25 posts per page. A manageable number. 

Hides.
[/quote]


----------



## Sargon

Alex Owens said:


> Finding this thread super-helpful. It's inspired me to write something more-to-market and I must say, I'm having a blast. I'm rounding the home stretch on the first story and I've already created a wicked cover. All that's left is to finish and edit. I promised myself I'll have it up before Friday! (Now that I've said that, I'm accountable Lol)
> 
> ETA: my working blurb, because I suck at them usually (so feedback is appreciated  )
> 
> *"Welcome to the greatest collection of Novelties, Oddities and Obscura this side of the Mississippi. If you want it, we have it... and if you didn't know you wanted it, we probably have that too!"*
> 
> With those foreboding words, I stepped under the canopy and left my sheltered, naive life behind. In the Strong Man I saw power-- raw, immense and carnal. And in me, he saw a woman that needed breaking out of her shell. My life _had _ to be unraveled from the seams and he was the first one to tug at that errant fiber.
> 
> And my life, my body, was never the same.
> 
> Freak Show: Strong Man is an erotic short of approx. 8,000 words, which is perfect for an afternoon quickie!


A good start, but I think it could be improved.

"With those foreboding words, I stepped..." This implies that *she* said the words.

Also the very first words/sentence of the whole thing did not grab me in terms of an erotic story. I'm at the side show, picturing headless chickens and all that. It's just me, but it doesn't arouse me. I would start with something about the woman having some kind of need, possibly sexual in nature. Who is she?

Also most of those that I've seen are not first person. Maybe try something like, "Julie's life is out of control and empty. As a 21-year-old college drop-out, she wanders the side show, looking for something, anything, to make her feel alive. (par.) When she sees six-foot, seven-inch Arnold under the Strong Man canopy, she realizes she may have found just what she's been craving. But can she take his raw power?"

Also yours sounds very literary. I don't know. I guess it depends on whether the story itself is quite literary, or whether it's just a money-making smut story. Words like "naive," "carnal," "errant," "obscura" -- I'm afraid these will turn away a large portion of your potential audience.

Again, I guess it's really dependent on what you are going for. But sales-wise, I think you'd do better to keep it simple and imply lots of sex. Of course if the Look Inside reveals the actual story is written this way, too (literary, unusual words, etc.), then I guess you're on the right track.

Just my $0.02, might not be worth much.


----------



## Catnip

My first story went live last night, and I've had one borrow so far. I'm only going to check my sales once a day, otherwise I'll be hitting refresh every ten minutes


----------



## skyle

Joliedupre said:


> Just wanted to add, that when I started in erotica, almost 14 years ago, self-publishing was considered taboo. So when I wrote erotic short stories, the only way for me to publish them for money was to submit them to anthology editors and then cross my fingers and toes that they would be accepted. They paid you a flat fee, and that was it.
> 
> I'm glad I don't have to do that anymore.
> 
> _Edited to remove reference to deleted post. --Betsy_


Yes, I used to send articles to a magazine for publication. It was a nice little earner, but definitely no guarantees of income. This is much more immediate and satisfying



ShaneJeffery said:


> Just published a short that has no sales or borrows.
> 
> Used all the popular keywords and niches. Live a few hours now.
> 
> The experience of writing it was a scratchingly abysmal affair, even returning little in the way of humor, because the stooping was so far low.
> 
> If there are sales or borrows I will let you know. Perhaps someone smarter than me will read the failures instead of the successes and realize this stuff is a waste of time unless you're into it.
> 
> Hmmm
> 
> Okay
> 
> So maybe you can hate it and still write and make money from it.
> 
> But Jesus what a gamble it is


I got the impression from Madame D Bauch's book that he wasn't getting any pleasure from what he was writing, only that it was a good way to make money. Maybe it is your cover and blurb rather than keywords?


----------



## Donald Rump

Just in case this new subreddit hasn't been mentioned:

http://www.reddit.com/r/KUerotica/


----------



## o.gasim

Updating this thread with my new sig below! Book 2 off and running, and to answer an earlier question, it started as a fun little idea, but I've been having so much fun I figured why not try and chase after it as long as it lasts. I having a blasts cranking out these little stories and editing my WIP. I also feel these quick one-shots are making me a much better story teller.


----------



## DimpDavis

I've been watching this thread and found it just as I was finishing a first draft of a erotica novel I toyed with serializing. 
Now I know I will and will add it to the fun. BTW this will be my first pen name and published work.

I'm getting hung up on the details. Does anyone add front and back matter to these shorts? 
Is it best to look polished or unpolished? Is the consumer looking for a quick brown paper bag read? 

I don't mean to offend anyone, I understand we're all professionals. I'm looking at it from a marketing stance.


----------



## Sargon

DimpDavis said:


> I've been watching this thread and found it just as I was finishing a first draft of a erotica novel I toyed with serializing.
> Now I know I will and will add it to the fun. BTW this will be my first pen name and published work.
> 
> I'm getting hung up on the details. Does anyone add front and back matter to these shorts?
> Is it best to look polished or unpolished? Is the consumer looking for a quick brown paper bag read?
> 
> I don't mean to offend anyone, I understand we're all professionals. I'm looking at it from a marketing stance.


In the front I add the basic copyright, contents list, link to author central page, then right into an excerpt that is long enough for a taste of the hot action. Either in the middle of the excerpt or after, I summarize the story in a few sentences. Then the "warning" part followed by the actual beginning of the book.

At the end I'm putting links to author central, my email address, request for reviews (none yet), and excerpts/links/summaries of other stories of mine.

Seems to be working, but who knows, something else might work better.

For me it's somewhere between polished and a quick read. I naturally write clean copy and I do an edit and I'm sure I catch 99% of typos simply because that's who I am. The formatting has to be nice, of course.

To me, the Look Inside is CRUCIAL. It's gotta be right...suck 'em in...leave 'em wanting more. In chapter 1 I make sure I'm not boring anybody. I try to allude to the sex that is to come (so to speak).

Do the Look Inside for what's selling in your genre, things at 5000 overall rank and lower ideally.


----------



## Sargon

ShaneJeffery said:


> Just published a short that has no sales or borrows.
> 
> Used all the popular keywords and niches. Live a few hours now.
> 
> The experience of writing it was a scratchingly abysmal affair, even returning little in the way of humor, because the stooping was so far low.
> 
> If there are sales or borrows I will let you know. Perhaps someone smarter than me will read the failures instead of the successes and realize this stuff is a waste of time unless you're into it.
> 
> Hmmm
> 
> Okay
> 
> So maybe you can hate it and still write and make money from it.
> 
> But Jesus what a gamble it is


Shane, if you hate it that much, I would say stop or figure out a way to like it. For me, I write about what might be my own fantasies. So it's a blast. And it's not ALL smut. The first 1/3 of the book is a nice little story with amusing stuff happening, a fun narrator's voice, humor, and sexual innuendo.

I will say that after the first 4 stories, it got a bit harder to get into the sex part, but I was enjoying the pre-sex parts more.

Also if you're not enjoying it, I don't think the reader will enjoy it as much as they would if you were.


----------



## Perro Callejero

nellgoddin said:


> Marcus Fenton: yes, put yours at smashwords and report back how it does. The more data the better.


Banged out a quickie (  ) and had a lot of fun doing it. Got a cover image at canstockphoto.com for $7, threw a title and author name on with MSN Paint (looks kind of cheap and trashy, but hopefully in a classy way  ). Uploaded my story to KDP and Smashwords yesterday (Tuesday, 10/14/14) around 3 pm Hawaii time. So far (17 hours later) it's only available on the Smashwords site. Five sample downloads and in one reader library (no idea what that means), but no sales.



M. Frank Parsons said:


> Gratz! Now, what does "there" mean in this challenge?


Don't you know there is no there there? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein#.22There_is_no_there_there.22


----------



## Perro Callejero

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Well played Marcos.


----------



## Donald Rump

In the three days my new erotic story (which shall remain nameless) has been live, I've earned three borrows with zero advertising. I've tweaked the keywords and description in the meantime, but that's the only thing I've done.

And that's good enough for me. I'm sold on this approach. It absolutely works!


----------



## Sargon

Donald Rump said:


> In the three days my new erotic story (which shall remain nameless) has been live, I've earned three borrows with zero advertising. I've tweaked the keywords and description in the meantime, but that's the only thing I've done.
> 
> And that's good enough for me. I'm sold on this approach. It absolutely works!


Nice!! Crank out a few more...


----------



## Guest

Amazon hasn't officially published my book yet, but I've found it already in the search bar, and not just in the Kindle Store.  For its main keywords, it shows up on the second page, and Amazon added it to an erotica category based on one of my keywords.  So that's a good sign.  Anyway, we'll see. (Just finished my new Author Central page.  You can have three pen names under one account.  They'll give you a separate page for each pen name.)


----------



## Donald Rump

> Nice!! Crank out a few more...


I'm working on it. I've been sick for the past few days and haven't done much in terms of writing. Feeling better, though, and will jump back in the thick of things soon.


----------



## legion

Alex Owens said:


> *"Welcome to the greatest collection of Novelties, Oddities and Obscura this side of the Mississippi. If you want it, we have it... and if you didn't know you wanted it, we probably have that too!"*
> 
> With those foreboding words, I stepped under the canopy and left my sheltered, naive life behind. In the Strong Man I saw power-- raw, immense and carnal. And in me, he saw a woman that needed breaking out of her shell. My life _had _ to be unraveled from the seams and he was the first one to tug at that errant fiber.
> 
> And my life, my body, was never the same.
> 
> Freak Show: Strong Man is an erotic short of approx. 8,000 words, which is perfect for an afternoon quickie!


I don't have blurb help for you because it totally worked on me! 
I've been digging the idea of circus erotica since American Horror Story: Freakshow started, so I'll be looking out for your release!


----------



## Donald Rump

> Thanks for this! I've just moved two shorts that weren't selling into Select/KU. I've posted them in that subreddit, and hopefully that'll help me get a few borrows. I'm really looking forward to finishing my erotica piece for this challenge and getting it up. Real life has totally interfered and kept me from finishing it up.


You should submit it to the Eight Hour Fiction Challenge as well once you're done.


----------



## Sargon

Maisy said:


> With 10 borrows & 3 sales since it went live about 24 hours ago, my erotica short is my second highest launch of a book ever. It was ranked under 10k yesterday before I went to bed. My own books usually take 48 hours to get under 10k. Needless to say, I'll be taking the Jolie du Pre route & try to release 1 short a week from now on.


Wow, you must have really nailed everything! That's awesome.


----------



## Whitley

Maisy said:


> With 10 borrows & 3 sales since it went live about 24 hours ago, my erotica short is my second highest launch of a book ever. It was ranked under 10k yesterday before I went to bed. My own books usually take 48 hours to get under 10k. Needless to say, I'll be taking the Jolie du Pre route & try to release 1 short a week from now on.


Do you mind sharing more information like keywords, pricing, subject matter etc?

I just lowered my price to 0.99. I may be jumping the gun but I still have 0 sales and 0 borrows.


----------



## anotherpage

Whitley said:


> Do you mind sharing more information like keywords, pricing, subject matter etc?
> 
> I just lowered my price to 0.99. I may be jumping the gun but I still have 0 sales and 0 borrows.


How many words is it? what sub-genre?


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

I have 1 sale and 8 borrows since I published on October 9, 2014. I'm a happy camper because I thought I wouldn't have anything. And I'm proud to say that I have completed my second 5,000 word smut masterpiece and it's in review. I was finally able to make a cover by buying stock images from the information I received from you guys on KBoards. Thanks again. I didn't think I could do this but after trying, I felt good about it, and I was able to work on other books as well.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Donald Rump said:


> Just in case this new subreddit hasn't been mentioned:
> 
> http://www.reddit.com/r/KUerotica/


Thanks Donald for the link.


----------



## JSViolett

Alex Owens said:


> *"Welcome to the greatest collection of Novelties, Oddities and Obscura this side of the Mississippi. If you want it, we have it... and if you didn't know you wanted it, we probably have that too!"*
> 
> With those foreboding words, I stepped under the canopy and left my sheltered, naive life behind. In the Strong Man I saw power-- raw, immense and carnal. And in me, he saw a woman that needed breaking out of her shell. My life _had _ to be unraveled from the seams and he was the first one to tug at that errant fiber.
> 
> And my life, my body, was never the same.
> 
> Freak Show: Strong Man is an erotic short of approx. 8,000 words, which is perfect for an afternoon quickie!


I love your blurb. I agree with EroticaWriter that you might want to change add something to make it clear the opening quote is on a banner or something. If you don't mind sharing it when ready please either post or PM me. I'll borrow it!


----------



## Douglas E Wright

It looks like my stories are up, but one is saying BDSM (which it's not) and all of them are saying: 

Look for similar items by category
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Erotica
Kindle Store > TEST - eBooks in English

Anyone know what TEST means?

BTW~ I put the challenge book into erotica/ romance, not the other way around.


----------



## Douglas E Wright

My story is live. Now let's see what happens.


----------



## Perro Callejero

It looks like my erotica title is live now--26 hours later--but it's still showing as "in review" on my KDP dashboard.  Seems like it's taking longer to go fully live than I thought it would.


----------



## Guest

Two sales and one borrow since it went live a few hours ago. (Yes, people will pay $2.99 for an erotica short story.  I have no plans to reduce my price to 99 cents.)

So I'm good.


----------



## Alex Owens

legion said:


> I don't have blurb help for you because it totally worked on me!
> I've been digging the idea of circus erotica since American Horror Story: Freakshow started, so I'll be looking out for your release!


That's where I got the spark for the story line. In fact, I'm watching it now 



JMViolett said:


> I love your blurb. I agree with EroticaWriter that you might want to change add something to make it clear the opening quote is on a banner or something. If you don't mind sharing it when ready please either post or PM me. I'll borrow it!


Aww, thanks! That means a lot. I finished it just now, so after edits I should have it done before the weekend. It'll be in KU/ select so I'll def let you know when it's live.



EroticaWriter said:


> A good start, but I think it could be improved.
> 
> "With those foreboding words, I stepped..." This implies that *she* said the words.
> 
> Also the very first words/sentence of the whole thing did not grab me in terms of an erotic story. I'm at the side show, picturing headless chickens and all that. It's just me, but it doesn't arouse me. I would start with something about the woman having some kind of need, possibly sexual in nature. Who is she?
> 
> Also most of those that I've seen are not first person. Maybe try something like, "Julie's life is out of control and empty. As a 21-year-old college drop-out, she wanders the side show, looking for something, anything, to make her feel alive. (par.) When she sees six-foot, seven-inch Arnold under the Strong Man canopy, she realizes she may have found just what she's been craving. But can she take his raw power?"
> 
> Also yours sounds very literary. I don't know. I guess it depends on whether the story itself is quite literary, or whether it's just a money-making smut story. Words like "naive," "carnal," "errant," "obscura" -- I'm afraid these will turn away a large portion of your potential audience.
> 
> Again, I guess it's really dependent on what you are going for. But sales-wise, I think you'd do better to keep it simple and imply lots of sex. Of course if the Look Inside reveals the actual story is written this way, too (literary, unusual words, etc.), then I guess you're on the right track.
> 
> Just my $0.02, might not be worth much.


The feedback is greatly appreciated and I agree with all of it  I fully admit I suck at my own blurbs. I can condense someone else's story down to a catchy teaser, but I think I'm just too close to my own stories-- I have a hard time focusing on an angle.

I wouldn't say it's literary, but it's not quite wham-bam either. So I've got to find a middle ground with my blurb. And I'll switch it to 3rd person... I don't know where my mind was with doing it in first. All that porn this week, my brain is mush


----------



## Alex Owens

Follow up question... I know there is a spreadsheet associated with the challenge itself, but is there a list of the books in the challenge with the links? I've got KU, so I'd like to borrow and check some of them out. Since the pen names are new and not popular, I don't see a downside to a list like that, as long as it wasn't publicized


----------



## Melly Mack

Joliedupre said:


> Question about unauthorized use:
> 
> Found this at Stock Free Images (http://www.stockfreeimages.com):
> 
> Without limitation, Images may not be used as a trademark or service mark (unless the appropriate extended license is being used), for any *pornographic* or unlawful purpose, to defame a person, to violate a person's right to privacy or publicity, to infringe upon any copyright, trade name, trademark, or service mark of any person/entity. Unauthorized use of these Images constitutes copyright infringement and shall entitle StockFreeImages to exercise all rights and remedies under applicable copyright law, including an injunction preventing further use and monetary damages against all users and beneficiaries of the use of such Images. The foregoing is not a limiting statement of StockFreeImages's rights or remedies in connection with any unauthorized use.
> 
> Is an erotica book considered "pornographic" purpose? It's clearly not unlawful.


Well, Amazon's general guidelines state that they do not publish pornography. So by definition I guess you are in the clear  Eye of the beholder. https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A2TOZW0SV7IR1U


----------



## batmansero

First sale!

I added my book (and link) to the spreadsheet.  I noticed some people haven't posted links to their books, which is cool, but I left a note on one (in the spreadsheet) asking what the link was cause I was curious.  As a reader I do not have KU but I do have a gift certificate so I'm a willing buyer   So, if I left a comment on your title in the spreadsheet, please either post the link on it or PM me here and let me know so I can throw money at you!


----------



## nellgoddin

Alex Owens said:


> Follow up question... I know there is a spreadsheet associated with the challenge itself, but is there a list of the books in the challenge with the links? I've got KU, so I'd like to borrow and check some of them out. Since the pen names are new and not popular, I don't see a downside to a list like that, as long as it wasn't publicized


Most of the titles on the spreadsheet (page 7 of this thread, midway down) have links.

And I loved your freakshow idea too! I think it's really fab how people are taking a pretty worked-over genre and managing to add a little of their own spin to it.


----------



## Guest

Melly Mack said:


> Well, Amazon's general guidelines state that they do not publish pornography. So by definition I guess you are in the clear  Eye of the beholder. https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A2TOZW0SV7IR1U


Yeah, "eye of the beholder," exactly. Ha Ha!


----------



## Guest

I'd like to publicly thank Moist Tissue and Amber Rose for this thread.  There's a lot of support and good vibes in this thread, as opposed to other erotica threads that I've seen.  In this thread, we don't have to spend our time defending what we're doing, nor do we have to put up with disparaging comments.  We can just do what we do and be happy for each other.

Thank you so much, everyone.


----------



## CassieL

Alex Owens said:


> Follow up question... I know there is a spreadsheet associated with the challenge itself, but is there a list of the books in the challenge with the links? I've got KU, so I'd like to borrow and check some of them out. Since the pen names are new and not popular, I don't see a downside to a list like that, as long as it wasn't publicized


You should see the links now. I just updated the spreadsheet so the comments column has wrap text. The links were to the right of that but not readily visible because of the comments field taking up so much space.


----------



## Alex Owens

Cassie Leigh said:


> You should see the links now. I just updated the spreadsheet so the comments column has wrap text. The links were to the right of that but not readily visible because of the comments field taking up so much space.


Okay, great! I viewed it the other day from my phone, which is notorious for leaving bits off the edge so I wasn't sure if I was just missing it or what. I'll check out the spreadsheet again (from my desktop  ) Thanks!


----------



## Sargon

Alex Owens said:


> That's where I got the spark for the story line. In fact, I'm watching it now
> 
> Aww, thanks! That means a lot. I finished it just now, so after edits I should have it done before the weekend. It'll be in KU/ select so I'll def let you know when it's live.
> 
> The feedback is greatly appreciated and I agree with all of it  I fully admit I suck at my own blurbs. I can condense someone else's story down to a catchy teaser, but I think I'm just too close to my own stories-- I have a hard time focusing on an angle.
> 
> I wouldn't say it's literary, but it's not quite wham-bam either. So I've got to find a middle ground with my blurb. And I'll switch it to 3rd person... I don't know where my mind was with doing it in first. All that porn this week, my brain is mush


You're welcome, hope it was helpful. Post again if you like.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Week 2, book 2, my standalone 6,000 word erotic masterpiece is available for purchase, however, I was informed that they, meaning Kindle Select people, needed to verify the author. I don't want those books on my author's page. Do I have to set up a new author's page for these books? I tried to find a thread discussing pen names but came up with nothing.


----------



## o.gasim

Pretty dejected right now   

My second short has been out for 24 hours and crickets... Feeling a little  and demotivated.


----------



## Guest

Rachel E. Rice said:


> Week 2, book 2, my standalone 6,000 word erotic masterpiece is available for purchase, however, I was informed that they, meaning Kindle Select people, needed to verify the author. I don't want those books on my author's page. Do I have to set up a new author's page for these books? I tried to find a thread discussing pen names but came up with nothing.


Yeah, I did this yesterday.

When you go to Author Central and claim the book that is under the pen name, Author Central will ask you if that's your pen name. Once you verify that it is, they will set up a separate page for that pen name. After that, a drop down menu, at the right top of the screen, will show all your pen names. Author Central allows you to set up a total of three separate pages from one account.


----------



## o.gasim

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Check your sales rank. If you have one, and no "sales" on your dashboard, then you have an unread borrow. I'm pretty sure you get the sales rank bump on the update, but the "sale" won't show on reports until 10%ed. Unless you have no sales rank, no number at all, then yes, sadly, crickets.
> 
> This "borrow lag" is making me nuts. Sales rank increasing, nothing in the reports. Is it one borrow? Three? 10? DadCat is not amused. :\ and :/


Wait, you kind of blew my mind here. Borrows only hit your report once a day? I knew the 10% part for credit, but I didn't know they only report once a day. What time? Also, borrows impact your sales ranking?

Sadly, my new book does not have a sales ranking, so I guess I really am at crickets.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Joliedupre said:


> Yeah, I did this yesterday.
> 
> When you go to Author Central and claim the book that is under the pen name, Author Central will ask you if that's your pen name. Once you verify that it is, they will set up a separate page for that pen name. After that, a drop down menu, at the right top of the screen, will show all your pen names. Author Central allows you to set up a total of three separate pages from one account.


 Thanks Joliedupre.


----------



## o.gasim

M. Frank Parsons said:


> No, no did NOT mean to imply once a day, just that they lag on your sales reports until they are read 10%.
> 
> I SUSPECT that the rank get bumped before the KU read gets recorded, but that's from others' comments on other threads as well as my observation.
> 
> Sorry to confuse.
> 
> ETA: Yes a borrow counts to sales rank. How much weight it carries (more, less or equal to a sale) is being debated on other threads.


Gotcha. Thanks.


----------



## Perro Callejero

Joliedupre said:


> I'd like to publicly thank Moist Tissue and Amber Rose for this thread. There's a lot of support and good vibes in this thread, as opposed to other erotica threads that I've seen. In this thread, we don't have to spend our time defending what we're doing, nor do we have to put up with disparaging comments. We can just do what we do and be happy for each other.
> 
> Thank you so much, everyone.


Hear, hear! (+1)

My book shows as live on my KDP page now. It's also been approved for premium distribution on Smashwords, but it hasn't shipped to most of the places yet.

No Amazon sales so far, but a copy did sell at Smashwords!


----------



## skyle

Hi all, I'm not in the challenge because I'm not using a new pen name, but I just wanted to say thanks to you all for all the great advice and encouragement offered in general.

I tried writing erotica a back in the spring (the first three books in my signature) but got no great response and dropped the idea. Now having read this thread and similar I have been invigorated to revisit it.

I have redone all my keywords and written two more books, more in line with the current market, and have a bunch of other ideas on the same theme jotted down. Suddenly sales have picked up across all five books and, as mentioned in MDB's very helpful little book, I've also created a couple of bundles already just out of these five.

If I can keep it up then I think I might be on track for a happy Christmas! (I'm assuming I'll get my first decent payment in December as they are all Amazon).

I've learned so much reading this thread and I am really enthusiastic now to make it work. So thank you again one and all


----------



## batmansero

Am behind on my writing, probably won't get the second one up today >.<

I have a question. I've noticed this previously but one of the books I read last night also had it and it's something that personally jerks me out of a story. But instead of using the proper name or even a crude one for certain female genitalia (not sure if the forums will censor me), the author says something like: and he thrust hard into my _sex_ <-- why? Is it self censoring or is that what the author grew up calling that part of their/the body? I'm just wondering as it baffles me every time I encounter it in a book.


----------



## Perro Callejero

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Well done!
> So, who is keeping with KU and who is going wide, and which is better.
> 
> Discuss...


Thanks! 

As for KDP Select versus going wide, I'm guessing Select will be better in the short term (and therefore a better approach to the 7 Day challenge that started this thread) because of the borrows. But from a more long-term perspective, I think there might be a better chance of meaningful sales by embracing the wider approach, especially if the writer does a multi-part serial and sets the first title to free. Kmatthew sure has had incredible success using that tactic, as he mentioned in this thread: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,162157.0.html

Another option might be to sign up for Select for the first 90 days, and then go wide once a larger catalog has been created.


----------



## Guest

M. Frank Parsons said:


> This "borrow lag" is making me nuts. Sales rank increasing, nothing in the reports. Is it one borrow? Three? 10? DadCat is not amused. :\ and :/


Yep, it's a pain-in-the-butt.



M. Frank Parsons said:


> So, who is keeping with KU and who is going wide, and which is better.
> 
> Discuss...


I'm sticking with KU for these short stories. KU is a convenient way for readers to download a bunch of shorts at an affordable price. Plus, I'm not paying to produce mine. So every cent I make is a profit.  (In other words, I don't care about the royalty rate for borrows for these. Even if it drops to $1.00, I'm still fine with that.)

~~~~

I've got 1250 words done on story #2. So far, I've stuck to my schedule.


----------



## kathrynoh

For this pen name I'm using KDP only because I don't want to spend the time updating, formatting and uploading to a heap of other sites.


----------



## Perro Callejero

April Ryder said:


> Am behind on my writing, probably won't get the second one up today >.<
> 
> I have a question. I've noticed this previously but one of the books I read last night also had it and it's something that personally jerks me out of a story. But instead of using the proper name or even a crude one for certain female genitalia (not sure if the forums will censor me), the author says something like: and he thrust hard into my _sex_ <-- why? Is it self censoring or is that what the author grew up calling that part of their/the body? I'm just wondering as it baffles me every time I encounter it in a book.


Might depend on the character narrating the story. If the author is trying to write from the voice of a person who's more prim or inhibited, maybe they'll use "sex" as a euphemism.

Or maybe they're just trying for a bit more variety in words.

I also think it's interesting how certain words, like the C word for example, are considered Very Naughty (at best) or even Terribly Offensive in some places (like America), while in other places those same words are seen as Relatively Benign (like in the UK).


----------



## Shiriluna Nott

Following this thread. Very interesting! 

Also, can any of you answer a (probably dumb) question for me? If a borrow shows up on my sales report, does that mean the person has already read 10% of it? Or do borrows show up regardless of whether the person has yet opened the book? I am new to the self-publishing world and that has been confusing me.


----------



## wtvr

If you're used to reading classical erotica like Anais Nin, "my sex" is a pretty commonplace and yet scintillating term for (usually) girl parts.


----------



## Sargon

o.gasim said:


> Pretty dejected right now
> 
> My second short has been out for 24 hours and crickets... Feeling a little  and demotivated.


Hey O., that sucks! My sales have been down the last couple of days, too. Not sure what can be done except to hit the ol' keyboard. (Typing that is...not punching.)


----------



## Sargon

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Well done!
> So, who is keeping with KU and who is going wide, and which is better.
> 
> Discuss...


Sticking with KU for now, out of either ignorance or laziness. Not sure if I have the time/inclination to branch out, what with the full-time job and family and all. My returns so far are good enough, I guess, assuming KU stays at $1.50.


----------



## Sargon

LisaGloria said:


> If you're used to reading classical erotica like Anais Nin, "my sex" is a pretty commonplace and yet scintillating term for (usually) girl parts.


^^^Exactly.

I'm using whatever word I can think of that fits with the voice. I started listing them here with asterisks instead of some letters, but it looked silly. Basically, my female narrators are the kind of people who have no problem saying whatever word.


----------



## Perro Callejero

> "Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls." -- Anais Nin


----------



## batmansero

Marcos Fenton said:


> Might depend on the character narrating the story. If the author is trying to write from the voice of a person who's more prim or inhibited, maybe they'll use "sex" as a euphemism.


Maybe, but the character is a hooker.

I do recall one book where he put his sex in her sex. I stopped reading at that point...


----------



## ketosis

I uploaded five books today (four volumes and a box set).  They are still in review (uploaded around noon CST), but I'll definitely post any updates as they come along!


----------



## batmansero

loganbyrne said:


> I uploaded five books today (four volumes and a box set). They are still in review (uploaded around noon CST), but I'll definitely post any updates as they come along!


*faints*

*picks self up and throws herself back into writing*

Damn. Go you


----------



## wtvr

April Ryder said:


> Maybe, but the character is a hooker.
> 
> I do recall one book where he put his sex in her sex. I stopped reading at that point...


In the good old books, it wouldn't be someone who was "prim" at all, but perhaps someone who declined vulgarities. It's sort of poetic and urbane. Nowadays I guess it would be antiquated, but I still use it in my books to indicate an educated, classy chick who likes getting it on. I can't really think of a modern equivalent.


----------



## o.gasim

Shiriluna Nott said:


> Following this thread. Very interesting!
> 
> Also, can any of you answer a (probably dumb) question for me? If a borrow shows up on my sales report, does that mean the person has already read 10% of it? Or do borrows show up regardless of whether the person has yet opened the book? I am new to the self-publishing world and that has been confusing me.


Means you have hit the 10% read for your borrow. Aside from that the borrow will only help ranking if it is not read.


----------



## Shiriluna Nott

> Means you have hit the 10% read for your borrow. Aside from that the borrow will only help ranking if it is not read.


Interesting! Very good to know. Thanks!


----------



## Sargon

loganbyrne said:


> I uploaded five books today (four volumes and a box set). They are still in review (uploaded around noon CST), but I'll definitely post any updates as they come along!


Holy crap! Nice. Very curious to see if this works better than dripping them out over a week or so.


----------



## ketosis

Thanks, guys!

I decided to do them all at once instead of one at a time, both hoping it'll result in more visibility in the same categories/keywords, as well as just the ease of it.  I wrote one a day for 4 days (all a little over 6k words), self-edited for 2 days, made the covers with stock photos, and then outsourced the 3D box set cover.  Hopefully they go live soon, and hopefully they do something.  I'm really just aiming for an average of $50 per month from each book, which in comparison to other people's figures, is actually reasonable, when you add the box sets into the mix.  

So, with this publishing schedule, I can do 16 individual stories a month, with 4 box sets, resulting in 20 different titles to upload.  I'm going to wait until the end of the month, though, to see if I'm going to continue on with it.  I need the 5 books to hit a small threshold before I pour time into this that I could spend on my other works under my own name and another pen name.


----------



## Donald Rump

Here's another resource that I stumbled across on Reddit:

http://bedtimereads.com


----------



## Douglas E Wright

Has been 24 hours and so far nothing, however I can't really say, because the graph shows a bought since this afternoon, just not what was sold. But I did check the rank on Amazon and nothing shows.


----------



## Guest

loganbyrne said:


> Thanks, guys!
> 
> I decided to do them all at once instead of one at a time, both hoping it'll result in more visibility in the same categories/keywords, as well as just the ease of it. I wrote one a day for 4 days (all a little over 6k words), self-edited for 2 days, made the covers with stock photos, and then outsourced the 3D box set cover. Hopefully they go live soon, and hopefully they do something. I'm really just aiming for an average of $50 per month from each book, which in comparison to other people's figures, is actually reasonable, when you add the box sets into the mix.
> 
> So, with this publishing schedule, I can do 16 individual stories a month, with 4 box sets, resulting in 20 different titles to upload. I'm going to wait until the end of the month, though, to see if I'm going to continue on with it. I need the 5 books to hit a small threshold before I pour time into this that I could spend on my other works under my own name and another pen name.


Nice work! Keep us posted!


----------



## M.G. Russell

loganbyrne said:


> Thanks, guys!
> 
> I decided to do them all at once instead of one at a time, both hoping it'll result in more visibility in the same categories/keywords, as well as just the ease of it. I wrote one a day for 4 days (all a little over 6k words), self-edited for 2 days, made the covers with stock photos, and then outsourced the 3D box set cover. Hopefully they go live soon, and hopefully they do something. I'm really just aiming for an average of $50 per month from each book, which in comparison to other people's figures, is actually reasonable, when you add the box sets into the mix.
> 
> So, with this publishing schedule, I can do 16 individual stories a month, with 4 box sets, resulting in 20 different titles to upload. I'm going to wait until the end of the month, though, to see if I'm going to continue on with it. I need the 5 books to hit a small threshold before I pour time into this that I could spend on my other works under my own name and another pen name.


Hope this works well for you. I for one would sure be interested in how it works out by uploading all the books in the series at one time. Could you please keep us posted?


----------



## o.gasim

Ranking finally appeared so some people have checked it out, just haven't crossed the 10% mark. That at least makes me feel a little better.


----------



## R. Graystone

I'll throw mine in the mix. Went live today, just over 5,700 words and priced at $2.99.

It's nothing hardcore or kink-filled, so my dreams of being a millionaire might be put on hold. There's been one sale, though, so I'll keep y'all posted.


----------



## Sargon

Exciting to hear everyone's progress and see new people joining the fun each day!  

Uploaded the next story in my little series about a cheerleader who likes to have sex with older men (older than she is -- not, like, geriatric). It ended up being 8000+ words. What's fun is you can keep a story going from book to book and kind of build some characters even when the whole thing is quite farcical, fast, fun, and funny to write. Now that it's In Review I think I forgot to put in the series name and book number. Hmm, have to do that tomorrow I guess.

The 2nd in the series is ranked again in single authors and short stories after a few sales and borrows today. I'm fascinated by how these algorithms work.

Have had only 2 borrows on first book in my other series, which is longer and more erotic romance. Going to make some revisions and re-post it.

Still refreshing that damn sales graph way too often, it's like a hit of crack when it goes up.


----------



## funthebear

*ALL*: What's the best way to contact amazon to get them to remove the ADULT tag? And is there a best time like with publishing? I.e., 9am-5pm PST?

Is it 9am-5pm PST, Mon-Fri for publishing, btw?


----------



## Guest

It's 7:41 a.m., and so far today I got another sale and two more borrows on my first erotica short.  Life is good!


----------



## nellgoddin

EroticaWriter said:


> Still refreshing that d*mn sales graph way too often, it's like a hit of crack when it goes up.


So true. And the Dashboard and the Month-to-Date are mysteriously not always in sync--sometimes stuff registers in one before the other, or the other way around, so there's much back and forthing...

Time to get started on a new one!


----------



## Whitley

I had a dream that I had a couple of sales/borrows. Of course I immediately check out my report when I wake up. Still 0.  It's really discouraging, and making me lose interest in a story that I was so excited about but I'm going to try to pump out the next one by the end of this weekend and possibly look into promo because it's clear for me at least that the kind of erotica/erotic romance I'm writing (pretty vanilla too, actually), isn't what people are searching for. And I don't think I can write what people are looking for in this particular genre.


----------



## Guest

Whitley said:


> I had a dream that I had a couple of sales/borrows. Of course I immediately check out my report when I wake up. Still 0.  It's really discouraging, and making me lose interest in a story that I was so excited about but I'm going to try to pump out the next one by the end of this weekend and possibly look into promo because it's clear for me at least that the kind of erotica/erotic romance I'm writing (pretty vanilla too, actually), isn't what people are searching for. And I don't think I can write what people are looking for in this particular genre.


I'm sorry you're not having any luck. 

I'm too new at this to tell if vanilla will work for this. All I know is that my stories are raunchy and dirty. I'm doing no promotion, and I'm paying nothing to produce them. I rely on my keywords and on the way I format my book descriptions. Refer here for that: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A377RPHW6ZG4D8 (The H2 tag will give you the big orange print that some people have in their book descriptions to introduce their blurbs. )

So the fact that I'm getting sales and borrows is very good news for me. My stories are no more than 5,000 words each, and I'm publishing once a week. Because they are no more than 5,000 words each, I only need to write about 1250 words a day to keep up with everything. I'm pricing my stories at $2.99. Although many people won't pay $2.99 for a 5,000 or less words non-erotic story, they will most certainly do it for erotica.

Are you sure you can't write what people seem to be looking for with this? If you do it under a secret pen name, nobody will know.

If you haven't read HOW ANYONE CAN BECOME A FULL-TIME EROTICA AUTHOR IN 6 WEEKS, I *highly* recommend it.

http://www.amazon.com/ANYONE-Become-Full-Time-Erotica-Author-ebook/dp/B00MT5B1NY


----------



## Whitley

Joliedupre said:


> Are you sure you can't write what people seem to be looking for with this? If you do it under a secret pen name, nobody will know.


When I went to the erotica category before deciding what to write, I saw a lot of 50 Shades and millionaire stuff at the top of the list, but those were mostly full-sized novels. In terms of shorts, I'm only guessing what people want to see based on what people are writing in this thread and which people are having success and which aren't. I don't think I can write, say BBW/werewolf simply because that's not that kind of erotica I personally read and I wouldn't even know where to start. What someone else said in this thread is right about researching the market--it sounds like I need to do some of that. I'm not sure how to start doing that.

For the record, my short involved stranger sex in a semi-public space, voyeurism, and virgin characters which I thought would be sufficient enough to be considered "mild" kink. I'm probably out of date lol.


----------



## Guest

Whitley said:


> When I went to the erotica category before deciding what to write, I saw a lot of 50 Shades and millionaire stuff at the top of the list, but those were mostly full-sized novels. In terms of shorts, I'm only guessing what people want to see based on what people are writing in this thread and which people are having success and which aren't. I don't think I can write, say BBW/werewolf simply because that's not that kind of erotica I personally read and I wouldn't even know where to start. What someone else said in this thread is right about researching the market--it sounds like I need to do some of that. I'm not sure how to start doing that.
> 
> For the record, my short involved stranger sex in a semi-public space, voyeurism, and virgin characters which I thought would be sufficient enough to be considered "mild" kink. I'm probably out of date lol.


Whitley, if I only wanted to write what I personally read, I wouldn't be doing this. LOL! Study the market. Take yourself out of the picture and think about the reader. I'm writing short stories on *every *erotica topic I can find *that sells*.


----------



## Guest

M. Frank Parsons said:


> If you want to ride the BBW/Shape shifter trope (perhaps I should rephrase that), then write it because it will sell, not because you like it. Ask anyone who lives BDSM and they'll tell you that FSOG is how a vanilla perceives BDSM and it isn't close to what they do.
> So, if you ain't a werewolf, don't write werewolf erotica. Isn't that silly? Yes it is. Of course you're not a werewolf.
> And I'm not a BBW Biker chick with a thing for melted candle wax, but that won't stop me from writing that BBW story.


+1


----------



## o.gasim

Can someone point me in the direction of a resource for all these acronyms? BDSM, FOSG, BBW? ROFL I am having a hard time with these


----------



## AnyaWrites

o.gasim said:


> Can someone point me in the direction of a resource for all these acronyms? BDSM, FOSG, BBW? ROFL I am having a hard time with these


Here's a good one, but as a warning the picture at the top of the blog is risque... http://marywhispers.blog.com/?p=729 
Also I didn't see it listed, but FSOG is Fifty Shades of Grey.


----------



## KayleaEhm

Just wondering how much erotica one should read before having a good understanding of how to write good erotica? Do you all read everyday on the most current stuff? How many stories a day do you read?


----------



## Guest

KayleaEhm said:


> Just wondering how much erotica one should read before having a good understanding of how to write good erotica? Do you all read everyday on the most current stuff? How many stories a day do you read?


I subscribed to KU. So for every topic I want to write about, I'll download some stories in that topic and read them. (I read, maybe, 3 or 4 stories per topic. They're all short. So it's no big time chunk.)

~~~~

Note: I've updated the spreadsheet two times so far this morning. This is exciting! BUT NOW, I HAVE TO STOP LOOKING AT MY SALES GRAPH. I'VE GOT WORK TO DO. LOL! I'll look at it again tonight, but today is an excellent day for sales and borrows for my first story.


----------



## KayleaEhm

Joliedupre said:


> I subscribed to KU. So for every topic I want to write about, I'll download some stories in that topic and read them. (I read, maybe, 3 or 4 stories per topic. They're all short. So it's no big time chunk.)
> 
> ~~~~
> 
> Note: I've updated the spreadsheet two times so far this morning. This is exciting! BUT NOW, I HAVE TO STOP LOOKING AT MY SALES GRAPH. I'VE GOT WORK TO DO. LOL! I'll look at it again tonight, but today is an excellent day for sales and borrows for my first story.


Oh! KU! Good idea. I have to look into that. And congrats on your continued success. Thanks for sharing!


----------



## R. Graystone

Well my title's been live for less than 24 hours. So far 2 sales, 0 borrows, 0 returns. Sales ranking is showing up at #136,527 Paid in Kindle Store.

So far, so good?


----------



## o.gasim

AnyaWrites said:


> Here's a good one, but as a warning the picture at the top of the blog is risque... http://marywhispers.blog.com/?p=729
> Also I didn't see it listed, but FSOG is Fifty Shades of Grey.


Thank you Anya!


----------



## o.gasim

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Quick note about expectations.
> If you don't hit a top 100 list with your first short, do NOT quit. This is not about (AFAIK) selling thousands in the first week.
> Its about selling one. Or, as MDB says, recouping the cost of his/her book with a single erotic short.
> The plan is (IMO) to have several titles across popular subgenres selling a few a day. Were talking "1 Year, 100 Title" stuff.
> It might take 2 weeks for your shorts to sell, but that income would have been lost had you not tried, and that story can sell 2 copies a month for YEARS and be a success in my book.
> Why? Because 2 sales a month for 5 years @ $2 each = $240 (or something), for about 2 hours work, maybe 4 hours and a few bucks for a cover.


Well said. My first book has just started to gain traction, but now that it has, I am over $15 in two weeks between sales and an estimate $1.50 for KU borrows.


----------



## Sargon

KayleaEhm said:


> Just wondering how much erotica one should read before having a good understanding of how to write good erotica? Do you all read everyday on the most current stuff? How many stories a day do you read?


I honestly haven't read any of it from Amazon. I checked out covers, blurbs, and Look Insides. I saw what was selling (<5000 rank). And I relied upon the fact that I've read dirty stories previously in life, like _Penthouse Letters_ and some free stuff people have posted online. I actually have no idea what the sex scenes or story lines in the popular current stuff is like...but there's only so much you can do with 5000-7000 words when about 50-70% of it is sex.

To me the fun is enticing the reader and grabbing them from the start with a character and a situation so they keep reading when they do the Look Inside, and keep reading after a borrow, or want another book after a sale and they've read it all. So I hit all the bases quickly -- who the character is, where, what the issue is, and how sex is going to figure into it. That's just me. Wish I could hear from somebody who's read some of my stories to see if they like them.


----------



## Al Dente

I only have 1,900 words left to go and my story will be finished! Unfortunately, I can't publish it until Monday because of the whole weekend review thing.


----------



## Lovelife

Whitley said:


> When I went to the erotica category before deciding what to write, I saw a lot of 50 Shades and millionaire stuff at the top of the list, but those were mostly full-sized novels. In terms of shorts, I'm only guessing what people want to see based on what people are writing in this thread and which people are having success and which aren't. I don't think I can write, say BBW/werewolf simply because that's not that kind of erotica I personally read and I wouldn't even know where to start. What someone else said in this thread is right about researching the market--it sounds like I need to do some of that. I'm not sure how to start doing that.
> 
> For the record, my short involved stranger sex in a semi-public space, voyeurism, and virgin characters which I thought would be sufficient enough to be considered "mild" kink. I'm probably out of date lol.


I see no one answered you on how to research the genre. It's pretty easy once you know what you're looking for. BBW werewolf is in some shorts, but honestly it's more in the regular erotic/erotic romance genre. What this thread originally was talking about was what is mentioned in the book How Anyone Can Become A Full Time Erotica Author In 6 Wks. Which is short works b/w 5-7k which mostly fall under taboo stories tbh. Some people have expanded on this and are writing longer stories or not so kinky. But, it seems if you want faster money and more money faster then you want to stick with the serious kink and shorts. Of course all that matters is what works for you.

To do research look under different categories. What I've done is look under ones I knew about from what certain people have said on this forum and then found new ones. Say you find a book that's selling well.. if you look at the bottom of the sales page you will see the categories it's in... higher up you'll see what categories it ranks high in. That's how you find new categories. I also look for what top ranking authors in Erotic (who write shorts/taboo) are selling/selling well.

Example:

Look under Ebooks>Best sellers>Liturature&Fiction>Erotica>Urban
~This will give you the an excellent starting point. You could even just use these as your research. But if you want to go further...

You'll see number 3 right now Adam's Fall is also under the category Ebooks>Romance>Contemporary 
~Which is interesting and if you go there you'll see new authors you hadn't seen before. 
~If you look at some of their works you'll find yourself other categories like...

Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction > Short Stories
Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories > Single Authors
Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction > Urban

And so on...

You can also google Top 100 erotica Authors... and you can click on authors you find and click their rank and see other authors in that same rank category like Romance or whatever.

Tons of research can be done. It's interesting when you really start getting into it. You start finding who's author rank is high in what categories and how long/how many books they've written. Some categories do better with short works, others medium, and others unless you have a novel you won't sell well.

So, I'd start in erotica-urban so you know what kinks are selling and then move on and you'll find them in other categories as well. Good luck. 

(Now off to figure out how to find the badass keywords.  )


----------



## Sargon

How long are everybody's titles taking from hitting publish to getting "Publishing"? Once again at 16 hours and still In Review. Looks like it might be another 26-hour wait.

Is anyone really getting to Live in 12 hours on erotica?


----------



## R. Graystone

My title went live in about 12 hours.   

But maybe I'm lucky? I submitted at a little past midnight or 1AM PST, and it was live by 12PM.


----------



## legion

D*mn, EelKat. That was eye-opening.
Thank you for that post!


----------



## Donald Rump

So I'm up to 4 borrows in the last 5 days, and, uh... Whoa Eelkat!


----------



## o.gasim

KayleaEhm said:


> Just wondering how much erotica one should read before having a good understanding of how to write good erotica? Do you all read everyday on the most current stuff? How many stories a day do you read?


I didn't read any before 'jumping' in. Just got super excited and passionate from this thread, read the Madmoiselle book and headed for the door. Two books in I am now doing a little reasearch on genre staples etc, but I have found that if I go the research route I will continue to research and never 'do'.


----------



## LeahEmmaRose

Whitley said:


> When I went to the erotica category before deciding what to write, I saw a lot of 50 Shades and millionaire stuff at the top of the list, but those were mostly full-sized novels. In terms of shorts, I'm only guessing what people want to see based on what people are writing in this thread and which people are having success and which aren't. I don't think I can write, say BBW/werewolf simply because that's not that kind of erotica I personally read and I wouldn't even know where to start. What someone else said in this thread is right about researching the market--it sounds like I need to do some of that. I'm not sure how to start doing that.
> 
> For the record, my short involved stranger sex in a semi-public space, voyeurism, and virgin characters which I thought would be sufficient enough to be considered "mild" kink. I'm probably out of date lol.


I am probably out of date, too, Whitley. I've been doing some research and reading, but at this point I am writing what I am comfortable with. It might be vanilla, but I am going to make it the best darn vanilla that I can. I've got 3k of back story and buildup, and working on at least 3k of different things going into different slots in different places and ways. I have low expectations. I honestly just need the practice and feedback. Hopefully I will be successful in a few years. I am looking at it as a marathon. Each short is just one little step.


----------



## Catnip

You should write an autobiography Eelkat.

My first stories are vanilla too, and I think my sales may be suffering for it.  But it's too early to tell yet. I might branch out more when I've got a few more titles under my belt. It does feel a little weird putting this out there. Maybe I'm a bit more prudish than I thought


----------



## bluwulf

I think I read somewhere in this thread (maybe it was another one)  that the sex should start at about 2000K.  Is that right?  If I have it at 2500 for a 5K work is that too late?


----------



## Redacted1111

Ack. I've got adult filter on two of my books. I think it's maybe a combo of cleavage and keywords. Oddly, it isn't hurting sales that much. I have one other book that is filtered that is doing much worse. Not sure if I should change the covers and try to republish or if it's a waste of time.


----------



## Al Dente

bluwulf said:


> I think I read somewhere in this thread (maybe it was another one) that the sex should start at about 2000K. Is that right? If I have it at 2500 for a 5K work is that too late?


I have the sex starting in my story at 3200 words. I think it's way too late in the story, but that was the natural place for it to happen.


----------



## Whitley

Lovelife said:


> I see no one answered you on how to research the genre. It's pretty easy once you know what you're looking for. BBW werewolf is in some shorts, but honestly it's more in the regular erotic/erotic romance genre. What this thread originally was talking about was what is mentioned in the book How Anyone Can Become A Full Time Erotica Author In 6 Wks. Which is short works b/w 5-7k which mostly fall under taboo stories tbh. Some people have expanded on this and are writing longer stories or not so kinky. But, it seems if you want faster money and more money faster then you want to stick with the serious kink and shorts. Of course all that matters is what works for you.
> 
> To do research look under different categories. What I've done is look under ones I knew about from what certain people have said on this forum and then found new ones. Say you find a book that's selling well.. if you look at the bottom of the sales page you will see the categories it's in... higher up you'll see what categories it ranks high in. That's how you find new categories. I also look for what top ranking authors in Erotic (who write shorts/taboo) are selling/selling well.
> 
> Example:
> 
> Look under Ebooks>Best sellers>Liturature&Fiction>Erotica>Urban
> ~This will give you the an excellent starting point. You could even just use these as your research. But if you want to go further...
> 
> You'll see number 3 right now Adam's Fall is also under the category Ebooks>Romance>Contemporary
> ~Which is interesting and if you go there you'll see new authors you hadn't seen before.
> ~If you look at some of their works you'll find yourself other categories like...
> 
> Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction > Short Stories
> Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories > Single Authors
> Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction > Urban
> 
> And so on...
> 
> You can also google Top 100 erotica Authors... and you can click on authors you find and click their rank and see other authors in that same rank category like Romance or whatever.
> 
> Tons of research can be done. It's interesting when you really start getting into it. You start finding who's author rank is high in what categories and how long/how many books they've written. Some categories do better with short works, others medium, and others unless you have a novel you won't sell well.
> 
> So, I'd start in erotica-urban so you know what kinks are selling and then move on and you'll find them in other categories as well. Good luck.
> 
> (Now off to figure out how to find the bad*ss keywords.  )


Thank you, and everyone else who responded. This in particular was helpful. I'm not giving up, I'm just wondering what is the best use of my time. I've always heard that ine should write what they want to see in the market but that was from forums aimed at traditional publishing.

My sex scene started later in the book too, definately after 2500 words.


----------



## Perro Callejero

First copy sold on Amazon! Woohoo! Here's hoping it doesn't get returned.  I'm about 50% done with Part 2.

And here's something I just noticed, which seemed worthy of remark: I just scrolled through the Kindle Bestsellers list--like the general list (http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store/zgbs/digital-text/ref=zg_bs_nav_0#1) not the erotic list or any other sublists--and 17 of the top 100 titles pretty much look like erotica/erotic romance (or at least *very* steamy romance), and several of those titles pretty much look like kink/non-vanilla topics (though many of them are not categorized as such). For example, #6 in the whole Kindle store looks like a PI title! And those 17 books don't include the "softer" looking romance titles, which are nearly as numerous (meaning that romance and erotica combined books probably occupy at least 30 of the top 100 spots).

Here's a breakdown of topics/genres featured the top 100, some of which seem to be combined in one title (and please keep in mind that I'm just taking a quick look at the covers/titles/descriptions and guessing at the content, so I might be a bit off):

Alpha male: pretty much all of them
Dominance (the FSOG-inspired kind, not true BDSM-lifestyle stuff like what Eelkat describes in her post above): 8
Billionaires: 6
Shifters (wolves, bears, and tigers): 3
Rockstars: 1
Pseudo Incest: 1

Who knew that so much of what sells on Kindle is erotic? I don't think I ever realized it before.


----------



## Sargon

bluwulf said:


> I think I read somewhere in this thread (maybe it was another one) that the sex should start at about 2000K. Is that right? If I have it at 2500 for a 5K work is that too late?


For 5K, I think that's a bit late, but I really don't know much. I wouldn't start it any later. What you should do, though, is hint at what's coming. Don't make the reader work too hard to get there. Titillate them a bit with sexy thoughts of the narrator or main character. Maybe they're getting turned on or something...maybe they remember a time when they had sex or got turned on...maybe a one-paragraph flashback...maybe they were in the shower that very morning and the water was warm and sensual as it ran down their body and they reached down between their legs...

Sorry, got carried away. Is it hot in here, or just me? But -- see how you want to read about that? I'm talking about like 2-3 sentences of recent-event flashback. If you want. I mean, maybe the character is currently not sexual, so that wouldn't work too well.

This is what I'm doing. It's working for me. It's what I would want to read as a reader. I don't want to read 2500 pages about some random person doing random things, and then suddenly they are having sex. With so few words, and given the types of readers, I would try to make it all count toward the sexual buildup, in some way or other.

Again, I'm very new at this, so take my advice with a shaker of salt.


----------



## bluwulf

Erotica Writer - LOL you got a good laugh out of me. 

Well I am hinting at it etc.. so I guess I"m on the right track!


----------



## Guest

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Quick note about expectations.
> If you don't hit a top 100 list with your first short, do NOT quit. This is not about (AFAIK) selling thousands in the first week.
> Its about selling one. Or, as MDB says, recouping the cost of his/her book with a single erotic short.
> The plan is (IMO) to have several titles across popular subgenres selling a few a day. Were talking "1 Year, 100 Title" stuff.
> It might take 2 weeks for your shorts to sell, but that income would have been lost had you not tried, and that story can sell 2 copies a month for YEARS and be a success in my book.
> Why? Because 2 sales a month for 5 years @ $2 each = $240 (or something), for about 2 hours work, maybe 4 hours and a few bucks for a cover.


Exactly. No one title has to be some huge (pardon the pun) hit. (My mind is totally in the gutter these days.  ) I'm putting a title out a week. So it's all about volume for me.



o.gasim said:


> Well said. My first book has just started to gain traction, but now that it has, I am over $15 in two weeks between sales and an estimate $1.50 for KU borrows.


Right. That's why we need to stop panicking if one of our titles doesn't get sales or borrows after 24 hours or something. Give it time. 



EroticaWriter said:


> Wish I could hear from somebody who's read some of my stories to see if they like them.


If your stories are in KU, I'd be happy to download and read one of them. Of course, if you're publishing under a secret pen name, like I am, I understand if you can't.



EroticaWriter said:


> How long are everybody's titles taking from hitting publish to getting "Publishing"? Once again at 16 hours and still In Review. Looks like it might be another 26-hour wait.
> 
> Is anyone really getting to Live in 12 hours on erotica?


My first one was a little over the 12 hours. It didn't take forever. Plus, I was able to find it before Amazon sent me the letter that it was ready. So, maybe it only took 12 hours.



bluwulf said:


> I think I read somewhere in this thread (maybe it was another one) that the sex should start at about 2000K. Is that right? If I have it at 2500 for a 5K work is that too late?


Yeah, that's what the book says. However, my sex starts sooner than that. Basically, I'll read a "how to" book and then adjust it to what *I* want to do. The book also said don't go below 4,500 words, but my story is only at around 4000 words, and it's doing just fine.



Marcos Fenton said:


> Here's a breakdown of topics/genres featured the top 100, some of which seem to be combined in one title (and please keep in mind that I'm just taking a quick look at the covers/titles/descriptions and guessing at the content, so I might be a bit off):
> 
> Alpha male: pretty much all of them
> Dominance (the FSOG-inspired kind, not true BDSM-lifestyle stuff like what Eelkat describes in her post above): 8
> Billionaires: 6
> Shifters (wolves, bears, and tigers): 3
> Rockstars: 1
> Pseudo Incest: 1


Hey there, Marcos. This is excellent! Thank you. A list like this helps me with my research.  I'll cover ALL of these in my journey. If any one topic does better than the others, I'll do a series on that topic. 

~~~~

So I'm sitting here at Starbucks, and I just finished my 1250 words for today for my second erotica story. That was fast. LOL! (I'm getting faster at this.) Now time to work on my Jolie du Pre writing.


----------



## Eros

Signed up because this thread has got me excited!  I'd just started getting back into writing again after a decade or so away from it.  OK erotica may not be what I had in mind, but my writing skills are rusty, I like making money and, if I'm honest, I actually like the idea of writing erotica (I read plenty online and never thought of it on the Kindle).

Got just over 1k of words done.  All build up so far, should be getting dirty in about 500 words. Sticking with traditional cougar vs young man (gardener) trope.  No sense in getting too clever early doors.  Like the idea of getting into more werewolf/vamp etc for other stories though.

Aiming to get 2 stories done over the weekend as have a few blocks of spare time (rare with a 1 year old son and my wife looking to take up most of my free time).  Going to go back into the thread to see advice on covers and formatting.

Good to see some going great guns on this!


----------



## Guest

Maisy said:


> I raised my price to $2.99 after 1 day since $0.99 didn't seem to move more units. Up to 6 sales & 22 borrows now but I hope I get a few more over the weekend. Friday night has always been my biggest night on my other erotica.
> 
> I'm with EroticaWriter & Jolie about not needing a super long build up. On a 5k short, I start sex around 1k in.


Yes! Leave them at $2.99. YOU DO NOT NEED TO LOWER YOUR PRICE TO 99 CENTS. People will pay $2.99 for erotic shorts!  

Congratulations and good luck!!!!!


----------



## R. Graystone

Still sitting at two sales on my piece, no borrows and no returns so far. Also got my first review, absolutely thrilled! So while we're at it...

How much do reviews tend to affect your sales? I know there's probably a wide variation, but do you folks see more sales on works that are getting reviewed?


----------



## nellgoddin

R. Graystone said:


> Still sitting at two sales on my piece, no borrows and no returns so far. Also got my first review, absolutely thrilled! So while we're at it...
> 
> How much do reviews tend to affect your sales? I know there's probably a wide variation, but do you folks see more sales on works that are getting reviewed?


I have NO reviews on the 7 day challenge titles or my other erotica series. Zero! Doesn't seem to matter. In researching the last week, I saw several big sellers with terrible reviews, lol.


----------



## Perro Callejero

Joliedupre said:


> Hey there, Marcos. This is excellent! Thank you. A list like this helps me with my research.  I'll cover ALL of these in my journey. If any one topic does better than the others, I'll do a series on that topic.


You're welcome, Jolie!  And thank you for all you've contributed to this thread. I'm having fun following along.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

I'm writing standalone erotica. I've completed the third book at 6200 words. I will edit it, make the cover, write the blurb and publish by Monday. On my second erotic masterpiece, which was live yesterday (Oct. 16, 2014), I sold 1 in the US and 1 in UK. I'm running out of ideas and words to describe positions and body parts and this is only the third book. I guess I'll take another day for research, therefore, the third book will have to wait until Tuesday. I know all of my three fans will be traumatized.


----------



## Rouge Poppy

Hi, I've spent some time lurking and I'm enjoying reading this challenge.

After having spent the best part of a year writing a series (two parts in draft, the third part to be written) around the needs of a full time busy job, I've decided to have a go at this challenge. 

I'm so new at this that I'm having to start setting up an Amazon UK Direct Publishing account to upload the 5,400 word erotica short I've been working on this week (it will be my first ever published story   )  I've had a great time working on this and it is hugely satisfying to complete a draft ready to go through the publication process.

After reading all the great posts and doing the research, I'd decided to put it under the following categories:

Erotica / Urban
Literature & Fiction / Contemporary Fiction / Short Stories

However I can't find these categories in Direct Publishing, I can only find:

Fiction / Erotica
Fiction / Short Stories

Is this all the choice I can have at this time or am I doing something very wrong? (Which I probably am as I'm approaching this very tentatively!)


----------



## batmansero

I just got my first borrow in Germany.  This led to a question, are the sales/borrows on the spreadsheet American sales/borrows only or are they across the board?


----------



## nellgoddin

Rouge Poppy, I think the way to get those other categories in is to put them in your keywords. Even though you can only choose two categories, amazon will put the book in more. And congrats!

April, I just got my first German borrow too! I was cackling with glee. I think the Sales Dashboard counts everything, if that's what you're talking about.


----------



## Rouge Poppy

nellgoddin said:


> Rouge Poppy, I think the way to get those other categories in is to put them in your keywords. Even though you can only choose two categories, amazon will put the book in more. And congrats!
> 
> April, I just got my first German borrow too! I was cackling with glee. I think the Sales Dashboard counts everything, if that's what you're talking about.


Thank you 

So I need to put contemporary and urban in the keyword section and Amazon will pick this up. I'm undergoing a huge learning curve but it is great fun


----------



## DimpDavis

I'm new at this and super excited about publishing soon. I think my book is paced well, but I'm worried about the middle. 
My MC gets 'excited' at about 600 words and performs a blow job and sex with her husband at about 1500 words. Then at 2400 words there is a lull of about 1700 words before the next sex act. 
Should I add a little extra in the middle, so I don't loose anyone or will they stay for the ride? 
Any advice would be appreciated.


----------



## Cege Smith

Rachel E. Rice said:


> I'm writing standalone erotica. I've completed the third book at 6200 words. I will edit it, make the cover, write the blurb and publish by Monday. On my second erotic masterpiece, which was live yesterday (Oct. 16, 2014), I sold 1 in the US and 1 in UK. *I'm running out of ideas and words to describe positions and body parts and this is only the third book.* I guess I'll take another day for research, therefore, the third book will have to wait until Tuesday. I know all of my three fans will be traumatized.


I read a collection of shorts today where in all of the stories the author referred to a couple parts of the male anatomy as "eggs".  I'm all for getting a bit creative with the euphemisms, but why pick something that is so inherently female oriented? It very much disrupted the flow of the "activities" for me.


----------



## Sargon

Joliedupre said:


> Yes! Leave them at $2.99. YOU DO NOT NEED TO LOWER YOUR PRICE TO 99 CENTS. People will pay $2.99 for erotic shorts!


Things are going well but it has occurred to me several times to maybe lower the price of one of the books to $0.99 simply to try to push it further up the ranks and best-seller lists, thereby funneling more sales into the other books in the little 3-book series, and my other books as well.

I haven't done it yet. I find it incredibly annoying that you have to "re-publish" your whole book just to change the price. Before I started doing this, I assumed you could change your price at the drop of a hat, in moments. I guess I was expecting this to be the computer age and all. 

I believe you get just as much on borrows, right? And most of my money seems to be coming from borrows anyway, esp. today I only have 1 sale but quite a few borrows.

Any advice?


----------



## Sargon

DimpDavis said:


> I'm new at this and super excited about publishing soon. I think my book is paced well, but I'm worried about the middle.
> My MC gets 'excited' at about 600 words and performs a blow job and sex with her husband at about 1500 words. Then at 2400 words there is a lull of about 1700 words before the next sex act.
> Should I add a little extra in the middle, so I don't loose anyone or will they stay for the ride?
> Any advice would be appreciated.


I would do _something_, but what exactly it would be would depend on the story and situation. Guess it wouldn't have to be sex, but something related to sex in some way. I'm assuming some readers are skimming the boring parts to get to the sex, but that's just an assumption.


----------



## DimpDavis

Thanks, EroticaWriter for the confirmation.  I'm editing that part right now and I'm bored. I'll add some sex.


----------



## nellgoddin

EroticaWriter said:


> Things are going well but it has occurred to me several times to maybe lower the price of one of the books to $0.99 simply to try to push it further up the ranks and best-seller lists, thereby funneling more sales into the other books in the little 3-book series, and my other books as well.


I don't see any difference between my .99 erotica and the 2.99, although at this point I'm getting over 3 time as many borrows as sales. But of course YMMV and it never hurts to try different stuff and see what happens.



> I haven't done it yet. I find it incredibly annoying that you have to "re-publish" your whole book just to change the price. Before I started doing this, I assumed you could change your price at the drop of a hat, in moments. I guess I was expecting this to be the computer age and all.


Sometimes price changes go through really fast, like under an hour. And the book stays available the whole time.


----------



## R. Graystone

First it was there, and then it was gone. Still sitting at 2 sales, 0 borrows, 0 returns, and Amazon took away my shiny new review for some reason.   Is that a frequent thing with erotica shorts? (the reviews being deleted?) I'm kinda bummed, it came and went so fast.


----------



## Dormouse

cegesmith said:


> I read a collection of shorts today where in all of the stories the author referred to a couple parts of the male anatomy as "eggs".  I'm all for getting a bit creative with the euphemisms, but why pick something that is so inherently female oriented? It very much disrupted the flow of the "activities" for me.


I wonder if the writer maybe wasn't a native speaker because in Germany the German slang word for "balls" aka testicles is actually Eier (eggs) :-D. Might have been a literal translation. And you could argue that some are kind of egg-shaped. :-D


----------



## Cege Smith

Dormouse said:


> I wonder if the writer maybe wasn't a native speaker because in Germany the German slang word for "balls" aka testicles is actually Eier (eggs) :-D. Might have been a literal translation. And you could argue that some are kind of egg-shaped. :-D


And I just learned something new today. That would make perfect sense. Thank you.


----------



## Sargon

DimpDavis said:


> Thanks, EroticaWriter for the confirmation. I'm editing that part right now and I'm bored. I'll add some sex.


Hahahaha!! Can't hurt, right?


----------



## KelliWolfe

EelKat said:


> But I figure, what the heck, I'll write a billionaire story for the challenge. After 2k words, my girl and her billionaire were getting married, all set to have a wedding night sex scene and...out of the blue a pair of monsters crashed the wedding party, kidnap the couple, rape the bride, rape the groom, rape the bride again, eat the groom, rape the bride a third time. Ended after 15k words of rape and murder scenes, for a grand total of 17k words.
> 
> Uhm...OOOOOOkay...that was NOT what I set out to write...it was supposed to be billionaire Erotica not Monster Porn...but at least I did end up with a Monster Eats Billionaire Porn, which was absolutely totally fun to write! LOL! Editing that right now, will publish soon.
> 
> ...
> 
> And basically I've now stopped trying to write 5k shorts for this challenge. As a result of this challenge I started 3 brand new series, and I want to focus on expanding those, instead of trying to do more 5k. Each one is going to be in the 18k to 22k range. Each one is going to be a 26 volume set (one for each letter of the alphabet). Here is the basic of them:
> 
> [list type=decimal]
> [*]Cheating Wife Erotic Romances; different couple each story, wife leaves husband for lover, crisis happens she returns to husband
> [*]Paranormal Erotic Romances set in a saloon run by a vampire drag queen the Yukon Gold Rush; same characters (a troupe of prostitutes) in every story and their various encounters during the gold rush
> [*]a very tame classic style "Sweet Vanilla Erotica" set at a bed and breakfast, with each volume focusing on a different newlywed couple and their honeymoon stay at the bed and breakfast
> [/list]


First, if you take requests I think you could probably drum up some interest in rape/torture porn involving billionaire banksters. Maybe throw in a few billionaire politicians to add some variety. I'd be willing to pony up for that myself. Just sayin'. 

Second, those series sound incredible. I really love the vampire drag queen in the Yukon. That's just seriously freakin' brilliant.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

cegesmith said:


> I read a collection of shorts today where in all of the stories the author referred to a couple parts of the male anatomy as "eggs".  I'm all for getting a bit creative with the euphemisms, but why pick something that is so inherently female oriented? It very much disrupted the flow of the "activities" for me.


 Well you can take my pen name off that list. I'm matured enough to know the names of male parts in several different languages, cultural and otherwise, but I need to keep Amazon from banning my books. If I don't find a creative way of using the words I have, I might resort to saying, "he put his sex in her sex."


----------



## Cege Smith

Rachel E. Rice said:


> Well you can take my pen name off that list. I'm matured enough to know the names of male parts in several different languages, cultural and otherwise, but I need to keep Amazon from banning my books. If I don't find a creative way of using the words I have, I might resort to saying, "he put his sex in her sex."


 
In a way, I think of this like the whole discussion of using "said" too often. I don't mind an author using "said" a lot and it disappears into the dialogue when I'm reading it. There are several very common ways to refer to the male and female lady bits. Using those interchangeably doesn't affect my enjoyment of the story in the slightest. I guess it's because I expect them? I'm focused more on the sensations of the characters. It's when authors start stretching up for less common terms that it becomes jarring to me. But I am but one reader of many. I know that we (as authors) like switching stuff up to make it interesting for us to write too.


----------



## batmansero

Rachel E. Rice said:


> If I don't find a creative way of using the words I have, I might resort to saying, "he put his sex in her sex."


Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!


----------



## Sargon

Maisy said:


> Thank You!
> 
> What nellgoddin said, move the price up. (It changes in about 30 mins even though it takes longer for Amazon to "republish" your story.) If you're selling more than 7 a day, leave it at $0.99 to stay on best seller lists. But I know I only hit the lists because of borrows. I only see 2-3 sales/day at $0.99 but I still get 1-2 sales/day at $2.99. Unless you're selling really well, $0.99 isn't going to help you in short story erotica.


Hey Maisy,

Thanks! They are all $2.99 now with a bundle priced higher just for kicks (and it's sold a few, too). VERY good to know about the quick price updates!! And thanks nellgoddin for confirmation of that as well.

Where do you get your specific recommendations? Selling > 7 a day, etc.? Not doubting, just curious...

I think I'm hitting the lists due to borrows, as well. My thought was maybe $0.99 would somehow just tweak things or get some new eyeballs.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Something you guys need to think about on your pricing is that erotica comes with some serious baggage that other genres don't, and this gives you every right to charge a premium for your work.

I've had my entire catalog of 50-odd books yanked on Kobo three times in the last year. As of right now I only have 22 of 50 titles available there because of unspecified "complaints" made about the stories. I spent almost two months going back and forth with them getting the titles reinstated by their content police the second time, and then they turned right back around less than a month later and started re-blocking them.

I've had to do the same thing with Google. Spent more weeks getting that straightened out. Their content police have actually redefined the English language so that the word "nailing" is sexually explicit. There isn't a rolleyes big enough for that one.

Amazon has been a constant battle for the last two years as they've incessantly redefined what is acceptable and what isn't about once a week, depending on who is working the content police desk that day. They will now block - not put in draft status but actually block - books now because you put a single word into your Author Central blurb for it that they don't like. And good luck guessing what those words are. They're also getting a lot more heavy-handed about just suspending publisher accounts for infractions. Infractions that you didn't even know you were making because they won't tell you what the rules are.

So it's quite possible to wake up one morning and find that your entire body of work was wiped out overnight, and not a damned thing you can do about it. What, you'd quit your day job because you were raking in big piles of smut bucks? Too bad.

Oh, and don't forget that there are people who hate porn (and other writers who want to kill the competition) and will attempt to track you back to your real identity to expose you as a filthy pornographer, too. Which can cause all kinds of problems depending on your day job and whether you have kids.

*That* is why you charge $2.99 for a 5k word short and don't have to feel a moment's guilt over it.


----------



## Alex Owens

Just wanted to thank everyone who helped with my blurb. I *think* it's so much better now, so I had to stop tinkering with it. Here's what I ended up with:

The minute Lila wandered into the Freak Show, she left her sheltered, naïve life behind. In the Strong Man she saw power--raw, immense and carnal. In her, he saw a woman that needed to break out of her rigid shell. Her life _had_ to be unraveled from the seams, and the Strong Man was just the guy to become her undoing.

*Freak Show: Strong Man* is an erotic short of approx. 9,000 words, which is perfect for an afternoon quickie. It contains adult situations and language-- you've been warned.

**
Also, I hit publish on this late last night about 2am eastern, and it went live before noon today... so about a 10 hour turn-around on this one. 
I'm in LURVE with my cover, but I decided not to add it to my siggy here, since the pen name is new. I do wish I could share it though 

Now, I'm off to find the spreadsheet so I can plug in the deets


----------



## Redacted1111

Those risks are very real. I just found out today that two of my titles are behind the adult filter. They aren't my worst selling titles but they are still dwindling compared to my best. They have no also boughts so only sell on the strength of their keywords. I'm not sure if I should republish completely or just try to change the covers. I think maybe because of the cleavage and because I used some words in my titles that might be search terms kids or prudes might use, I got filtered.  

I'm not even sure it matters that much, but I don't think they'll hang on that long by keywords alone.


----------



## KelliWolfe

The adult filter really can be the kiss of death. If you can get it removed it's definitely better to do so. I'm not going to go through 25 pages to see if this has already been posted, but Selena Kitt did a blog post that covers what will get you in trouble at Amazon and the things you can do to get the Adult filter removed.

Corporate Censorship


----------



## Douglas E Wright

48 hours released and no borrows or buys.


----------



## Sargon

Alex Owens said:


> Just wanted to thank everyone who helped with my blurb. I *think* it's so much better now, so I had to stop tinkering with it. Here's what I ended up with:
> 
> The minute Lila wandered into the Freak Show, she left her sheltered, naïve life behind. In the Strong Man she saw power--raw, immense and carnal. In her, he saw a woman that needed to break out of her rigid shell. Her life _had_ to be unraveled from the seams, and the Strong Man was just the guy to become her undoing.
> 
> *Freak Show: Strong Man* is an erotic short of approx. 9,000 words, which is perfect for an afternoon quickie. It contains adult situations and language-- you've been warned.
> 
> **
> Also, I hit publish on this late last night about 2am eastern, and it went live before noon today... so about a 10 hour turn-around on this one.
> I'm in LURVE with my cover, but I decided not to add it to my siggy here, since the pen name is new. I do wish I could share it though
> 
> Now, I'm off to find the spreadsheet so I can plug in the deets


Sounds great!! Best of luck with it. Is he strong enough to pick her up with one hand and...well...you know...?


----------



## Sargon

KelliWolfe said:


> Something you guys need to think about on your pricing is that erotica comes with some serious baggage that other genres don't, and this gives you every right to charge a premium for your work.
> 
> I've had my entire catalog of 50-odd books yanked on Kobo three times in the last year. As of right now I only have 22 of 50 titles available there because of unspecified "complaints" made about the stories. I spent almost two months going back and forth with them getting the titles reinstated by their content police the second time, and then they turned right back around less than a month later and started re-blocking them.
> 
> I've had to do the same thing with Google. Spent more weeks getting that straightened out. Their content police have actually redefined the English language so that the word "nailing" is sexually explicit. There isn't a rolleyes big enough for that one.
> 
> Amazon has been a constant battle for the last two years as they've incessantly redefined what is acceptable and what isn't about once a week, depending on who is working the content police desk that day. They will now block - not put in draft status but actually block - books now because you put a single word into your Author Central blurb for it that they don't like. And good luck guessing what those words are. They're also getting a lot more heavy-handed about just suspending publisher accounts for infractions. Infractions that you didn't even know you were making because they won't tell you what the rules are.
> 
> So it's quite possible to wake up one morning and find that your entire body of work was wiped out overnight, and not a d*mned thing you can do about it. What, you'd quit your day job because you were raking in big piles of smut bucks? Too bad.
> 
> Oh, and don't forget that there are people who hate porn (and other writers who want to kill the competition) and will attempt to track you back to your real identity to expose you as a filthy pornographer, too. Which can cause all kinds of problems depending on your day job and whether you have kids.
> 
> *That* is why you charge $2.99 for a 5k word short and don't have to feel a moment's guilt over it.


Ugh. You just freaked the crap out of me. Going to review my Author Central.


----------



## KelliWolfe

And when you've had half a dozen titles blocked for unspecified content violations and spent a few days trying to figure out why, *then* you can go to the contemporary romance bestseller list and contemplate the fact that the #1 title is "Stepbrother, Dearest" which is a pseudo-incest book with explicit sex, and realize that if you used "stepbrother" in one of your titles or even your blurbs your book would be blocked and your account might be suspended.

But since it's explicit sex between step-siblings in _romance_ and not _erotica_ everything is hunky-dory.


----------



## Perro Callejero

Dormouse said:


> I wonder if the writer maybe wasn't a native speaker because in Germany the German slang word for "balls" aka testicles is actually Eier (eggs) :-D. Might have been a literal translation. And you could argue that some are kind of egg-shaped. :-D


In many Spanish speaking countries it's the same. The most common word for what we call "balls" is "juevos", which literally means "eggs."


----------



## Alex Owens

EroticaWriter said:


> Sounds great!! Best of luck with it. Is he strong enough to pick her up with one hand and...well...you know...?


Of course! Hypothetically of course, he's probably strong enough to say... single-handidly hold up a gal up over his head, pinning her against the side of a caravan while he "has lunch" 

OT: how the heck do you spell single-handidly ? Arrgh.


----------



## Donald Rump

Up to 5 borrows now for my new erotic work, plus another interesting tidbit. KDP sent me two separate e-mails (I don't think they're related), asking me about my KDP experience (they want to speak to me over the phone personally) and inviting me to be participate in a special promotion of Spanish language children's books. They pre-selected two of my titles and offered me very reasonable terms (which I won't publish here because I don't want to anger the powers that be).

I have no idea where any of this is going.

What a weird night!


----------



## Redacted1111

KelliWolfe said:


> And when you've had half a dozen titles blocked for unspecified content violations and spent a few days trying to figure out why, *then* you can go to the contemporary romance bestseller list and contemplate the fact that the #1 title is "Stepbrother, Dearest" which is a pseudo-incest book with explicit sex, and realize that if you used "stepbrother" in one of your titles or even your blurbs your book would be blocked and your account might be suspended.
> 
> But since it's explicit sex between step-siblings in _romance_ and not _erotica_ everything is hunky-dory.


I know, right. The drawback to romance is that the readers can be kind of eh... particular. Probably going to do some billionaire romance in a bit, but I'll have to be way more careful with my copy. Idk. I feel like I have to do a lot of butt kissing in romance. It's almost worth the anxiety of dealing with Amazon not to have to deal with that for a while and still watch my income rise.

That stepbrother book also starts out with the heroine being 17...


----------



## Redacted1111

Donald Rump said:


> Up to 5 borrows now for my new erotic work, plus another interesting tidbit. KDP sent me two separate e-mails (I don't think they're related), asking me about my KDP experience (they want to speak to me over the phone personally) and inviting me to be participate in a special promotion of Spanish language children's books. They pre-selected two of my titles and offered me very reasonable terms (which I won't publish here because I don't want to anger the powers that be).
> 
> I have no idea where any of this is going.
> 
> What a weird night!


Probably don't want you lured to the dark side. I published a romance book recently and I swear to god it published in one hour. It feels like they're going, "Please don't publish that stuff. We know it isn't like we've ever helped you in the past, but just please don't write erotica instead of whatever you were busting your ass on forever."


----------



## KelliWolfe

Kalypsō said:


> It's almost worth the anxiety of dealing with Amazon not to have to deal with that for a while and still watch my income rise.


Most days I'm the opposite. "Please let me make enough on my porn so I can have the time to write romance/urban fantasy full-time and never get another email from Carlos F again!"


----------



## Redacted1111

KelliWolfe said:


> Most days I'm the opposite. "Please let me make enough on my porn so I can have the time to write romance/urban fantasy full-time and never get another email from Carlos F again!"


Well, I just started, and I've already made this month what I made last month. It's just a 100 times easier. All I'm seeing right now are dollar signs, no editing costs, and reviews don't matter. I'm literally in heaven. So, if I can just stay under the radar with Amazon and not stir up any trouble, I'll be happy. I'm probably going to go back into romance. I have a fairly well established scifi/pnr name, but it doesn't pay the bills. My plots are too involved and I can't write them that fast. Plus, I feel the pressure to keep my novellas at 99 cents. I have to finish a series, but I plan to stretch my production schedule out. And I plan to do some billionaire erotic romance, if I can think up the most twisted, emotionally abusive, dis-empowering situation imaginable for my heroine, I think I'll make bank. What I really want to write is female oriented scifi (no romance really) but yeah. I want money to get out of my crappy living situation more. Once I'm stable and happy with my standard of living, I'll start writing books that are really important to me. I'll send them to a developmental editor and a line editor and a copy editor and two proofreaders. I'll do blog tours and Bookbub and use my real name. some day...


----------



## Evenstar

I think it's kind of depressing to see my "challenge piece" outselling (well, out-borrowing anyway) my other books. Those are the books that I spent a lot of time on, that I cared about, that I created story arcs and paid for editing and proofreading and lovely covers.
In the UK they are still selling far more, but in the US my erotic romance is outselling my best other book by about 2 - 1!  

I might take a leaf out of Jolie and Kalypso's books and write both on a regular basis. One genre that I can tell people about and be proud of, and one that will clearly make money but leave me feeling a bit like a dirty sell out. But I think I can live with that if it pays the bills  

Also, no one need know. If I do really well with the erotica I shall just point to my other books and say "Oh yes, they are very popular". Everyone will assume that's where I'm making the money and not question it.


----------



## Eros

Is anyone else thinking of doubling this up with NaNoWriMo?

I'm thinking that getting a few stories out ahead of November to get myself warmed up to how to write these, and then blasting through 50,000 words in November.  Assuming 6,000 words per story that'd be roughly 8 stories done (if the rough maths in my head worked), more if you're doing 4-5k stories.

If I can get out 3 or so stories before November that'd give me in the region of 10 - 15 stories depending on length.  

What I'm thinking is that 10-15 stories would be enough to see if this project is gaining traction, and if I can handle writing Erotica on a continual basis (my guess is that not everyone can).  It also means that, from this point, it'd be roughly 6 weeks (ala that book I've forgotten the name of).

Well I just talked myself into it!  I'm off to sign up for NaNo, anyone else in?


----------



## Evenstar

Eros said:


> Is anyone else thinking of doubling this up with NaNoWriMo?
> 
> I'm thinking that getting a few stories out ahead of November to get myself warmed up to how to write these, and then blasting through 50,000 words in November. Assuming 6,000 words per story that'd be roughly 8 stories done (if the rough maths in my head worked), more if you're doing 4-5k stories.
> 
> If I can get out 3 or so stories before November that'd give me in the region of 10 - 15 stories depending on length.
> 
> What I'm thinking is that 10-15 stories would be enough to see if this project is gaining traction, and if I can handle writing Erotica on a continual basis (my guess is that not everyone can). It also means that, from this point, it'd be roughly 6 weeks (ala that book I've forgotten the name of).
> 
> Well I just talked myself into it! I'm off to sign up for NaNo, anyone else in?


I wish I had the time to try this! I'm full time mother plus moving house in Oct/Noveber, but it would really be interesting to dedicate one month and 50k words to this experiment. You should definitely go for it


----------



## kathrynoh

Yep on nanowrimo. I've actually called my "novel" Ten Sexy Stories - aiming for 10 x 5,000 words. 

My aim is to get around 10-15 stories out under my porn pen name then see if I hit the $$$ threshold I've set before writing more. 

I've actually found I get more writing done on other projects while I'm writing porn. It's like doing a warm up on shorts before handling the longer pieces.


----------



## Catnip

I'd like to do this in conjunction with nanowrimo too. 

I'm going to aim for a total of 15 stories between now and the end of November. I have one published and a second half-written so far.


----------



## Guest

Rouge Poppy said:


> Is this all the choice I can have at this time or am I doing something very wrong? (Which I probably am as I'm approaching this very tentatively!)


If there's a category that you want that is not offered as a choice when you prepare your book, you can email Kindle Direct Publishing and ask them to add it. Copy the category down exactly the way you want it to appear and then send them that information. For example, for my second Benton book, I asked them to add Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teen & Young Adult > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories. Technically, you're only allowed to have two categories. So they may remove one if you're asking for something to be added.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Donald Rump said:


> Up to 5 borrows now for my new erotic work, plus another interesting tidbit. KDP sent me two separate e-mails (I don't think they're related), asking me about my KDP experience (they want to speak to me over the phone personally) and inviting me to be participate in a special promotion of Spanish language children's books. They pre-selected two of my titles and offered me very reasonable terms (which I won't publish here because I don't want to anger the powers that be).
> 
> I have no idea where any of this is going.
> 
> What a weird night!


Donald, your stories make me laugh, they are great. I'm sure when the Amazon people took time to read your short masterpieces they couldn't put them down and they wanted others to read them also. It is going up and you with it. Enjoy.


----------



## Guest

Rachel E. Rice said:


> Well you can take my pen name off that list. I'm matured enough to know the names of male parts in several different languages, cultural and otherwise, but I need to keep Amazon from banning my books. If I don't find a creative way of using the words I have, I might resort to saying, "he put his sex in her sex."


If they're going to ban your book for using certain words *inside* your book, then they're going to have to ban most of them.

None of the many erotica books I've read have resorted to stuff like "he put his sex in her sex." They're much more graphic.


----------



## Redacted1111

I use the c and p words almost exclusively. Heck, I even use the other c word. I'm checking my smut banks to see if I know even dirtier words. If anyone does, please let me know.


----------



## Guest

KelliWolfe said:


> Something you guys need to think about on your pricing is that erotica comes with some serious baggage that other genres don't, and this gives you every right to charge a premium for your work.
> 
> I've had my entire catalog of 50-odd books yanked on Kobo three times in the last year. As of right now I only have 22 of 50 titles available there because of unspecified "complaints" made about the stories. I spent almost two months going back and forth with them getting the titles reinstated by their content police the second time, and then they turned right back around less than a month later and started re-blocking them.
> 
> I've had to do the same thing with Google. Spent more weeks getting that straightened out. Their content police have actually redefined the English language so that the word "nailing" is sexually explicit. There isn't a rolleyes big enough for that one.
> 
> Amazon has been a constant battle for the last two years as they've incessantly redefined what is acceptable and what isn't about once a week, depending on who is working the content police desk that day. They will now block - not put in draft status but actually block - books now because you put a single word into your Author Central blurb for it that they don't like. And good luck guessing what those words are. They're also getting a lot more heavy-handed about just suspending publisher accounts for infractions. Infractions that you didn't even know you were making because they won't tell you what the rules are.
> 
> So it's quite possible to wake up one morning and find that your entire body of work was wiped out overnight, and not a d*mned thing you can do about it. What, you'd quit your day job because you were raking in big piles of smut bucks? Too bad.
> 
> Oh, and don't forget that there are people who hate porn (and other writers who want to kill the competition) and will attempt to track you back to your real identity to expose you as a filthy pornographer, too. Which can cause all kinds of problems depending on your day job and whether you have kids.
> 
> *That* is why you charge $2.99 for a 5k word short and don't have to feel a moment's guilt over it.


I charge $2.99 for my erotica stories not based on fear. I charge $2.99 for my erotica stories because the public will pay $2.99.

As an article writer and a fiction writer, I know that putting all my eggs in one basket is never a good idea for anything, not just erotica.

If they ever decide to pull or ban my erotica, I've diversified. So I'll be just fine.


----------



## Guest

KelliWolfe said:


> And when you've had half a dozen titles blocked for unspecified content violations and spent a few days trying to figure out why, *then* you can go to the contemporary romance bestseller list and contemplate the fact that the #1 title is "Stepbrother, Dearest" which is a pseudo-incest book with explicit sex, and realize that if you used "stepbrother" in one of your titles or even your blurbs your book would be blocked and your account might be suspended.
> 
> But since it's explicit sex between step-siblings in _romance_ and not _erotica_ everything is hunky-dory.


I've seen a heck of a lot of erotica books in the romance category. If you romance readers don't like that, tough. Because I *will* do that if I have to.

~~~~

Anyway, I hope the vibe of this thread doesn't turn into a negative. It was really fun and positive here for awhile. I hope it returns to that.


----------



## Guest

Evenstar said:


> I might take a leaf out of Jolie and Kalypso's books and write both on a regular basis. One genre that I can tell people about and be proud of, and one that will clearly make money but leave me feeling a bit like a dirty sell out. But I think I can live with that if it pays the bills


Actually, that's not how I feel about the erotica. I use a secret pen name because of the *attitudes of some people out there*. It has nothing to do with how I feel about it. If I could go public with my erotica pen name, I would.


----------



## Redacted1111

I feel like a dirty sell out, and it feels oh so good.


----------



## Catnip

Kalypsō said:


> I use the c and p words almost exclusively. Heck, I even use the other c word.


Same here. I like to keep it short and to the point. Euphemisms usually sound silly to me, not sexy. 'He slid his throbbing man-meat into her slick love-tube' - er, no thanks 

I don't think Amazon are going to start censoring profanities inside books. They'd have to pull half the Kindle store.


----------



## Guest

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Its funny how its OK for people to glorify the uber-violent wire-fu movies or the Saw and Hostel movies, but OH MY GOD, you write about people having sex... And they LIKE IT? How sick are you? Why don't you write something normal like on CSI or Criminal Minds?
> 
> Of course we Americans are, I'm told, are the worst at this. What is the TRUE "pornography", Hustler or Grand Theft Auto?
> 
> So yeah, I'd never tell anyone I wrote about people enjoying themselves. Murdering one another, sure. I'll tell Mom I wrote a murder scene or a book about the deaths of thousands, but never that I wrote a sex scene.


Yeah, I travel out of the United States quite a bit. Puritan/religious history and present values define the American response to sex and nudity. However, nudity and sex, in many other countries, is no big deal. You'll see naked people in commercials. You'll see mothers on the beach, nude from the waist up, running into the water with their children.

As a sex-positive woman, I don't have a problem with erotica.


----------



## kathrynoh

I think it is an American thing. I don't know that much about American culture but, from the outside, it does seem to be very much that sex is repressed with all the effects that entails (I'm getting a mental image of those kind of 'moral leaders' who need to keep watching porn so they can confirm how evil it is) and violence is glorified. 

I've had no qualms about inviting workmates along to erotica readings I've taken part in or anything like that.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Joliedupre said:


> I've seen a heck of a lot of erotica books in the romance category. If you romance readers don't like that, tough. Because I *will* do that if I have to.


IIRC it was the romance writers who started passing their steamy stuff as erotica first anyway. 

Here are some handy references for smut slinging

Detailed list of kinks

Sex-Lexis dictionary of sexual terms

Romance novel plots/tropes - great to mix and match to get new story lines

And don't forget to check the bestseller lists for the smaller subcagetories like Western and Victorian. If you can write a Victorian it only needs a rank of 190k to get into the Top 100 list. 87k for a Western. If you can write hot MMF/MFM cowboy stories there's a gold mine out there with your name on it.


----------



## Guest

KelliWolfe said:


> IIRC it was the romance writers who started passing their steamy stuff as erotica first anyway.
> 
> Here are some handy references for smut slinging
> 
> Detailed list of kinks
> 
> Sex-Lexis dictionary of sexual terms
> 
> Romance novel plots/tropes - great to mix and match to get new story lines
> 
> And don't forget to check the bestseller lists for the smaller subcagetories like Western and Victorian. If you can write a Victorian it only needs a rank of 190k to get into the Top 100 list. 87k for a Western. If you can write hot MMF/MFM cowboy stories there's a gold mine out there with your name on it.


This is excellent information, Kelli. Thank you.


----------



## Redacted1111

I was thinking of getting into Victorian, all those dress movies really have left their mark, but it seems like everything in Victorian right now is age play. That's one of those things that makes me go... eh... Why? But who knows. I'm getting really loose these days. 

There's also kind a lack of good stock.


----------



## KelliWolfe

You can get a lot of mileage in Victorian with things like Dr. Denton's Asylum for Little Girls. No age play, and if you're creative with your topic you don't need a Victorian era cover at all. Just have to do a little research to know what the people browsing that category are really after.


----------



## Redacted1111

How did they get away with using Little Girls in an erotica title?  

Plus, I'd put adult diapers into the age play category. lol.


----------



## Dormouse

Joliedupre said:


> Yeah, I travel out of the United States quite a bit. Puritan/religious history and present values define the American response to sex and nudity. However, nudity and sex, in many other countries, is no big deal. You'll see naked people in commercials. You'll see mothers on the beach, nude from the waist up, running into the water with their children.


The first time I was in the US (Florida) I was told not to sunbathe topless at the beach and not even on my own porch. Struck me as totally weird. At the same time co-workers and strangers I'd only met that evening had no problems asking me about whether or not I already had sex with another co-worker.

Otoh a visiting American friend was totally shocked by the amount of nudity found not only on skin and sports magazines but also on serious magazines (similar to times magazine), including one feminist magazine. And these magazines were openly available at a newspaper stand. Not hidden away or covered in any way or form.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Kalypsō said:


> How did they get away with using Little Girls in an erotica title?
> 
> Plus, I'd put adult diapers into the age play category. lol.


Oops. Missed that. Still, there's a lot of domestic discipline/punishment, wayward wards, and hot penniless maids getting it on with the lord of the manor in the category to give you something to work with. Given the attitudes towards women in the period you could probably get some traction by mixing tropes and do something like a cuckold story where the young new wife is getting even with the lord of the manor because he's banging the hot penniless little maid. Bonus points if the wife and maid end up getting it on while the hubby ends up in an asylum.


----------



## Redacted1111

Wow. KDP removed the adult filters on my books after one email. No changes required.   I spent half of last evening redesigning my covers. Glad I didn't bother uploading them.


----------



## Redacted1111

KelliWolfe said:


> Oops. Missed that. Still, there's a lot of domestic discipline/punishment, wayward wards, and hot penniless maids getting it on with the lord of the manor in the category to give you something to work with. Given the attitudes towards women in the period you could probably get some traction by mixing tropes and do something like a cuckold story where the young new wife is getting even with the lord of the manor because he's banging the hot penniless little maid. Bonus points if the wife and maid end up getting it on while the hubby ends up in an asylum.


Given how popular penniless maid and Lord of the Manor is in contemporary billionaire romance, lol, it might translate really well to Victorian.


----------



## Dormouse

Kalypsō said:


> Given how popular penniless maid and Lord of the Manor is in contemporary billionaire romance, lol, it might translate really well to Victorian.


Now I'm thinking about an erotic version of something like Jane Eyre.

Or do the m/m version with a footman being expected to serve the guests of the Lord of the Manor. Thinking Thomas from Downtown Abbey here :-D


----------



## KelliWolfe

Kalypsō said:


> Wow. KDP removed the adult filters on my books after one email. No changes required.  I spent half of last evening redesigning my covers. Glad I didn't bother uploading them.


Whoohoo! Nice! Hopefully that will mean more $$$.

As another FYI, it looks like Amazon is changing their search engine again. While I was doing keyword testing last night I kept getting messages saying "Did you find what you were looking for?" followed by a comments box asking for information on problems with the search, etc. Might be a good time to play around with your keywords on stuff that isn't moving.


----------



## Redacted1111

I was just looking at some 100 erotica lists and found a book with the word Daddy clearly in the title... Eh? What is the world coming to!!!!  

Crap, maybe now I can write My Big Black Daddy.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Daddy in the title generally gets by as long as the story isn't a Daddy-Daughter PI. Something like "My Daddy's Best Friend Took My Cherry" ought to go through.

Sometimes things slip through. I've seen a number of titles in urban lately with stepbrother/stepsister/stepfather/stepdaughter in the titles and blurbs, and that's been a no-no for a while now. And sometimes Amazon changes their policy. At one point "Babysitter" and "Virgin" would trigger a content violation (and I had to change a bunch of covers and titles and series names) but now they're not bothering those. I've been wondering if they decided to loosen up on PI since they don't appear to even be actively Adult filtering it any longer. Your guess on that one is as good as mine.


----------



## skyle

I've done something really stupid, and I need some help please!

My title Capitulating to The Pagans wasn't showing up on my search about 12 hours after going live. So I figured it had been adult filtered and so I sent a very nice email saying that it wasn't covering any taboo subjects and would they mind reviewing it again.

As soon as I pressed send I banged my head on the desk; I had forgotten that it was Friday and the email had gone to India and not America (as it does mid-week). The weekend crew are much more fussy about what passes under the filter and I couldn't believe my stupidity. I crossed my fingers and waited.

I've just had a reply, it basically said that my book had not been showing as it was new, but now that I had brought it to their attention they had decided that it _did_ contain adult content and it has now been dungeoned!

So my plan is to make a few changes and then ask the same question again, but mid-week this time.

Is there anyone here who is experienced in what does or doesn't pass the filters who would mind taking a quick look at it? I don't think you have to read it, my understanding is that the filter is based on cover and blurb?

I'd be extremely grateful, thanks


----------



## Sassafrazzled

Just as a guess, probably the "virginity". People in erotica aren't allowed to be virgins these days.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Sassafrazzled probably got it. Replace "virginity" with "innocence" Monday morning then send an email to title-submissions asking them to remove the filter. If that's not it it might have been "Horny" in the title.

Keep this stuff in mind when you're doing covers/titles/blurbs:

Corporate Censorship: Keeping Your Erotic Books Off Retailer Hit Lists

Corporate Censorship: Amazon Targets Dark Erotic Romance & BDSM


----------



## Redacted1111

I was still getting pretty good sales on the two titles that got filtered. I have one title that wasn't filtered that is languishing pretty badly. You can get sales based on the strength of keywords alone, but the Adult Filter keeps out of also boughts so the title will begin to lose traction as time progresses. If it turns into a massive hassle, you have to ask yourself if  your time would be better spent writing something else. I admit, I was lucky. The rep even apologized to me for my inconvenience. I worded my email very politely and also like maybe it didn't matter that much to me while asking for advice. So, who knows.


----------



## skyle

I wish there was a tab to "thank" people.

Thanks! I'll try that.


----------



## Romanticreed

Hi everybody.

I've been watching this thread for a little while until I finally decided to join. I have three erotica tales and none seems to sell. Once I set up my profile I'll put my books here for everyone to look at, at least that's how I think now.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Boyd said:


> None of my westerns are hitting the top 100, and I'm ranked about 10k to 20k at any given day per book  Maybe my keywords are too stuffed?


The ones I looked at were categorized as Romance, not Erotica. Romance is *far* more competitive. The current #100 title in Romance->Westerns is ranked 5,385.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Romanticreed said:


> Hi everybody.
> 
> I've been watching this thread for a little while until I finally decided to join. I have three erotica tales and none seems to sell. Once I set up my profile I'll put my books here for everyone to look at, at least that's how I think now.


1. The covers are all wrong for short erotica. They look more like literary fiction or horror. They need to be sexy and they need to pop - bright colors. Don't use script fonts. Use BIG BLOCKY TEXT that you can actually read in those dinky Amazon thumbnails.

2. The "subtitles" aren't really good for short erotica either. "New Adult" will get you attention in longer erotic romance, not so much in short erotica. If you're going to use subtitles that way they need to be much more indicative of the content of the story. "A Rough Breeding Menage."

3. Change your prices to $2.99. You're not bargain basement!


----------



## Romanticreed

Thank you, Kelli. now onto your suggestions. I thought the covers might be too dark, but horror or literary didn't cross my mind.   However, I do see literary fiction. I'll brighten the pictures during the next couple of days.   Thanks again.


----------



## skyle

Micki23 said:


> skyle, your Capitulating book is showing up on my end.


Thanks for this, but the email said: We have found your Kindle book contains adult content. Books with adult content will not surface in general product searches, but will surface in general Kindle searches for customers that choose to allow adult content.

Maybe you allow adult content? I don't ever remember making the distinction for my own searching, perhaps I don't allow it?


----------



## KelliWolfe

Look at Boyd's covers. See how you can read every single title on them, even though they're small thumbnails? That's generally what you want to do. Look at the main Kindle eBooks page. Same deal. Practically every single one of those has a title that stands out and is 100% readable in the thumbnail view. If they can't read the title or if the cover isn't massively compelling, they won't click.

Edit: And before someone points at my covers in my sig and says, "But Kelli, yours..." I had a huge fight with my cover designer about that a couple of weeks back and had all of my more recent covers reworked. All of the new release PIs, all of the Punishing Polly series, the Banging the Brats Next Door series have updated covers that are clearly erotica and not erotic romance with nice, big visible fonts.


----------



## ketosis

I thought I'd post an update on my five books out (four volumes and a box set).  It's been 

The first volume has no sales or borrows.
The second volume has one borrow.
The third volume has no sales or borrows.
The fourth volume has no sales or borrows.
The box set has 2 sales and 6 borrows.  

This is since yesterday, 10/17.  No reviews on anything either.  Trying to think of what to do to spur sales on at least the first volume so that it drives people to the box set or other volumes.  I saw one person selling a lot with five volumes I think it was.  She had the first free, the second $0.99, and the other three all $2.99.  Then she had the box set in Select, and she's doing VERY well.  Everything but the first free one is in Select, also.  I thought it was against ToS to have that situation, with the first one permafree and the box set in Select.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Don't expect reviews. I have books which have sold thousands of copies over the last three years that don't have any reviews. Most people won't review erotica because they don't want other people to know they're reading erotica.

As for your sales, it's very hard to analyze without actually seeing your books to look at covers, pricing, blurbs, etc. Did you categorize them as erotica or romance? Which subcategories are they in? Did you pick a popular kink to write about, or did you go more vanilla?

If you did go vanilla, the sad fact is that vanilla doesn't sell. People can get that at home; they're not going to pay $2.99 to read about it. If you go to an amusement park do you want to go for a ride in a 2008 Volvo with a driver who obeys all the speed limits? No, you want to get on the biggest, baddest roller coaster they've got and feel the wind in your hair and scare yourself silly. Right? Same deal here.


----------



## ketosis

They're categorized as erotica.  I'm happy with the overall sales so far, because the money they are bringing in is in like with my monthly goals per book.  I always knew it would be the box set that really made the money.  I'm just wondering if the author I mentioned who has the first volume of her series free and then has that same volume in a Select box set is breaking any rules, or if that's allowed.  If it is, I think that's the way to go for this, but I have a strong feeling it is technically against ToS, though I'm not sure she'll ever face any punishment.  She's making Amazon too much money. 

I am writing MMF/MFF threesome.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Is the book available on other platforms, or has she pulled it and the Amazon spiders just haven't had a chance to catch up yet? It's only a TOS violation if it's still available for sale elsewhere.


----------



## ketosis

KelliWolfe said:


> Is the book available on other platforms, or has she pulled it and the Amazon spiders just haven't had a chance to catch up yet? It's only a TOS violation if it's still available for sale elsewhere.


Here is the person in question. http://www.amazon.com/Nicole-Stewart/e/B00N94E18G/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

As you can see, with both of her series, the first volume of five is free, while the other volumes, as well as the box set, is in Select. Now, having the other volumes in Select obviously isn't a violation, but the box set could be, as it contains that first, free volume. Guess the only way around it is to put volumes 2-5 in the box set and say at the beginning that the first volume is free and available over here and give the Amazon link.


----------



## nellgoddin

KelliWolfe said:


> If you go to an amusement park do you want to go for a ride in a 2008 Volvo with a driver who obeys all the speed limits? No, you want to get on the biggest, baddest roller coaster they've got and feel the wind in your hair and scare yourself silly. Right? Same deal here.


Bahaha! You got that right.


----------



## KelliWolfe

loganbyrne said:


> Here is the person in question. http://www.amazon.com/Nicole-Stewart/e/B00N94E18G/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
> 
> As you can see, with both of her series, the first volume of five is free, while the other volumes, as well as the box set, is in Select. Now, having the other volumes in Select obviously isn't a violation, but the box set could be, as it contains that first, free volume. Guess the only way around it is to put volumes 2-5 in the box set and say at the beginning that the first volume is free and available over here and give the Amazon link.


Technically it is a TOS violation because it appears that the first book in that series is available on Scribd. Since I'm not seeing it anywhere else I'm guessing that she pulled it from all the other distributors after Amazon price matched and their system just hasn't updated to reflect that it's no longer free elsewhere yet. I'm not familiar with Scribd, so I can't tell if she published it directly or through Smashwords. If the latter, they may just be slow pulling it after she unpublished, in which case Amazon would likely let it slide while she contacted Smashwords and asked them to expedite the process.


----------



## Guest

Boyd said:


> I don't have any links in front of me, but I believe no more than 10% of a title in select can't be elsewhere... that way you can send samples, blog teasers etc. If I'm wrong, somebody whack me in the head, lord knows I stick my foot in my mouth enough


I remember reading somewhere that all parts of a series must be in KDP Select at the same time.


----------



## funthebear

skyle said:


> Thanks for this, but the email said: We have found your Kindle book contains adult content. Books with adult content will not surface in general product searches, but will surface in general Kindle searches for customers that choose to allow adult content.
> 
> Maybe you allow adult content? I don't ever remember making the distinction for my own searching, perhaps I don't allow it?


None of your books appear to be filtered: http://www.salesrankexpress.com/

I wouldn't contact customer service again unless you see the ADULT tag pop up on the above site after searching your penname/title


----------



## Sargon

How did everyone do today (Saturday)? It was a crazy day for me. Really good. For those of you who've been doing this a while (KDP generally), are weekends usually better than weekdays?


----------



## Perro Callejero

Just hit publish on the second part in the series.  I know weekends aren't the recommended time for publishing, but I submitted the first part on a weekday and it still took about 30 hours. Hopefully this won't take even longer.

Haven't had any additional sales on the first in the last 24 hours. I'm considering Kelli's advice re: cover font, and might change my covers. Also don't have much of a clue about how to come up with effective keywords. I've been using the list supplied in the KDP help pages (https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A3RTWC5Y4P5391), but I'm not sure if that's all it takes. Is it better to combine several words as a single keyword? For example: instead of just including "billionaire" would it be better to add something like "dominant billionaire"?

If anybody is willing to share any hints, it'd be appreciated!


----------



## Perro Callejero

Marcos Fenton said:


> Haven't had any additional sales on the first in the last 24 hours.


I spoke too soon. There's been a second sale on Smashwords! Woohoo! Ebook millions, here I come!


----------



## Guest

Marcos Fenton said:


> Just hit publish on the second part in the series.  I know weekends aren't the recommended time for publishing, but I submitted the first part on a weekday and it still took about 30 hours. Hopefully this won't take even longer.
> 
> Haven't had any additional sales on the first in the last 24 hours. I'm considering Kelli's advice re: cover font, and might change my covers. Also don't have much of a clue about how to come up with effective keywords. I've been using the list supplied in the KDP help pages (https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A3RTWC5Y4P5391), but I'm not sure if that's all it takes. Is it better to combine several words as a single keyword? For example: instead of just including "billionaire" would it be better to add something like "dominant billionaire"?
> 
> If anybody is willing to share any hints, it'd be appreciated!


"Dominant billionaire" is much better than "billionaire." There are approximately 27, 642 results for "billionaire." However, there are approximately only 1,028 for "dominant billionaire." Your book has a better chance of being found under "dominant billionaire."


----------



## Perro Callejero

Joliedupre said:


> "Dominant billionaire" is much better than "billionaire." There are approximately 27, 642 results for "billionaire." However, there are approximately only 1,028 for "dominant billionaire." Your book has a better chance of being found under "dominant billionaire."


Thanks for the response and the tip, Jolie!


----------



## Cege Smith

I'm working on a story for this challenge (under a new pen name). I am trying out Dollar Photo Club for stock photos for my cover, which I know was mentioned upthread. My membership was approved overnight, and I received 5 invitations to share with colleagues (your membership is automatically approved this way). I figured the authors in this thread might appreciate the chance to pilfer another site for cheap. PM me your email address if interested.


----------



## Guest

cegesmith said:


> I'm working on a story for this challenge (under a new pen name). I am trying out Dollar Photo Club for stock photos for my cover, which I know was mentioned upthread. My membership was approved overnight, and I received 5 invitations to share with colleagues (your membership is automatically approved this way). I figured the authors in this thread might appreciate the chance to pilfer another site for cheap. PM me your email address if interested.


So far, I haven't had to spend money for this. However, I don't mind spending $1 on a photo. I sent you a PM!


----------



## MyraScott

kathrynoh said:


> I think it is an American thing. I don't know that much about American culture but, from the outside, it does seem to be very much that sex is repressed with all the effects that entails (I'm getting a mental image of those kind of 'moral leaders' who need to keep watching porn so they can confirm how evil it is) and violence is glorified.


That's kind of funny. Which country do most of your erotica sales come from?


----------



## Guest

Marcos Fenton said:


> Thanks for the response and the tip, Jolie!


Sure , no problem! Just type whatever keyword phrase you want to use in Amazon's general search bar. (That means "All" and not just the "Kindle Store.") Then, check out the number of searches. The lower, the better. However, you don't want to get too low. If you type in a keyword phrase, but the result is only 10 searches, for example, that means that practically nobody is using that keyword phrase when they search.

Also, keyword phrases (more than one word) are generally better than just a keyword.


----------



## Al Dente

I'm so excited that I get to publish my story tomorrow! I've been taking it slow all weekend and still have a few hundred words left to get just right. After this one is finished, I'll start on 3 or 4 more. I think it's best that I work on a handful of stories at the same time in the future, because I usually can't write more than 800 words before I get bored and want to switch over to another project. Heck, that could work out well. If I concentrate on 3 at a time, I could potentially publish 10 or 12 stories per month. Also, if writing erotic romance and erotica works out for me, I'm probably sticking to that in the future and dropping production drastically on my other projects. It's a lot of fun writing this stuff, and I can still inject bits of my favorite genres into these works.


----------



## Guest

EroticaWriter said:


> How did everyone do today (Saturday)? It was a crazy day for me. Really good. For those of you who've been doing this a while (KDP generally), are weekends usually better than weekdays?


Since my first one was published on the 14th, Friday was the best day so far with 4 borrows and two sales. On Saturday, I got 4 borrows.

Everything is moving along nicely. So far today (Sunday, 10:14 a.m.) I've received 1 borrow.

No complaints.


----------



## Guest

Al Dente said:


> I'm so excited that I get to publish my story tomorrow! I've been taking it slow all weekend and still have a few hundred words left to get just right. After this one is finished, I'll start on 3 or 4 more. I think it's best that I work on a handful of stories at the same time in the future, because I usually can't write more than 800 words before I get bored and want to switch over to another project. Heck, that could work out well. If I concentrate on 3 at a time, I could potentially publish 10 or 12 stories per month. Also, if writing erotic romance and erotica works out for me, I'm probably sticking to that in the future and dropping production drastically on my other projects. It's a lot of fun writing this stuff, and I can still inject bits of my favorite genres into these works.


Congratulations, and I'm happy to read that you're enjoying this!

~~~~

I'm sticking to my schedule of publishing one erotica story a week. It's tempting for me to try and publish more than that, but I know that would be a recipe for disaster. It would be different if erotica were the only stories I'm writing, but that's not the case.

I'm confident that this erotica path will work out *well* for me. However, I'll also continue with everything I'm doing under Jolie du Pre. I want to be in more than one basket. 

My erotica short #2 gets published this Tuesday.


----------



## Sargon

Joliedupre said:


> Since my first one was published on the 14th, Friday was the best day so far with 4 borrows and two sales. On Saturday, I got 4 borrows.
> 
> Everything is moving along nicely. So far today (Sunday, 10:14 a.m.) I've received 1 borrow.
> 
> No complaints.


Awesome! It all adds up....


----------



## Donald Rump

Update time! It's been nearly a week since my latest erotic work went live. In that time, I've had a total of 7 borrows and 1 sale (in Canada, of all places).

As for my other erotic work (Her/Elexis Avant), improving the keywords, adding it to KDP Select and doing a one day promotion resulted in 2 borrows. I'm thrilled since this book only had one sale before this (across all outlets).

I'm working on multiple projects at the moment and will follow up my small success with something naughty.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Marcos Fenton said:


> Haven't had any additional sales on the first in the last 24 hours. I'm considering Kelli's advice re: cover font, and might change my covers. Also don't have much of a clue about how to come up with effective keywords. I've been using the list supplied in the KDP help pages (https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A3RTWC5Y4P5391), but I'm not sure if that's all it takes. Is it better to combine several words as a single keyword? For example: instead of just including "billionaire" would it be better to add something like "dominant billionaire"?


OK, this bears some discussion because *in my personal opinion* no one really knows how it works outside of Amazon, and they're not about to tell.

There are different schools of thought on keywords. One says use the phrases in the Amazon search bar as your keywords, one says use very limited keywords, another says stuff your keywords with every possible relevant word you can think of.

Personally I've gone to fairly extensive lengths to try all three ways, and it hasn't made one iota of difference in my sales. I've spent days at a time putting together sheets of keywords/phrases, testing them, verifying that my books showed up high in the lists in the same searches with the bestsellers, mucked with search rank changes due to the ordering of the keywords and whether it was a single keyword or a phrase, etc.

Not one bit of difference. YMMV. I'm sure there are going to be people who poke their heads in and tell me I'm wrong. I hope they do; I'd love to hear from them because non-performing keywords have been a *huge* source of aggravation for me. 

Really, I just don't think people are using the search to find books except in a very general way - looking for authors and titles they're already aware of. I think the distributors know this, and it's why they haven't put more effort into their search engines. 7 keywords on Amazon that can be entire paragraphs of text each. No keywords at all on Google - GOOGLE!!! - and Kobo. Horribly broken search functions on most of the distributor sites. This is 2014 and people know how to write search engines that don't suck. The only reason for a company like Google not to bother implementing one is because they know it doesn't matter.

When you go to your bookseller of choice, do you start looking for new things to read using the search bar, or do you browse to the category you're in the mood to read and start combing through the new release or bestseller lists? I browse by category. About the only time I don't is when I'm searching for my own stuff to see how my keywords work. As far as I can tell the main use of keywords is to get your books placed in the right categories for browsing.

So that being said, YMMV. Results not typical. Please see reverse side for common side effects. I am not a doctor and I didn't sleep at a Holiday Inn Express Last Night. The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone with sense enough to pour pee out of a boot with instructions printed on the heel...

Edit: And Boyd, that's *awesome*. Good job!


----------



## Whitley

Well, after I dropped my price to .99, changed my categories to romance ones (no erotica), changed my key words and stopped caring about what was happening with this short story, I had one sale on the 18th and one borrow today. I don't know which of those things made the difference but I'll take it and run. Now I have to get my butt back to this serial.

Nice job Boyd!


----------



## Guest

KelliWolfe said:


> Personally I've gone to fairly extensive lengths to try all three ways, and it hasn't made one iota of difference in my sales.


That's not my experience, at all. Appropriate keyword phrases have *always* made a difference for me, and I'll continue to use them.

Maybe my erotica would do just fine without keyword phrases, but I'm not going to find out.


----------



## Guest

Whitley said:


> Well, after I dropped my price to .99, changed my categories to romance ones (no erotica), changed my key words and stopped caring about what was happening with this short story, I had one sale on the 18th and one borrow today. I don't know which of those things made the difference but I'll take it and run. Now I have to get my butt back to this serial.
> 
> Nice job Boyd!


Good job, Boyd! Do what you need to do with *your* categories, and don't worry about what other people think. It's your career, not theirs, and they can mind their own damn business.

Good job!


----------



## Guest

Just checked my graph for my first erotica short.  One sale and two borrows for it for today so far.  Looking good.    Off to go update the spreadsheet again.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Joliedupre said:


> That's not my experience, at all. Appropriate keyword phrases have *always* made a difference for me, and I'll continue to use them.
> 
> Maybe my erotica would do just fine without keyword phrases, but I'm not going to find out.


I'm not suggesting not to use them, I really hope I didn't come across that way. But I'm not sure it's at all obvious how to use them properly, and the various books/articles that talk about it are very contradictory. If you've had good luck with a given technique I'd love to hear about it - without revealing specific keywords or anything, of course. Those are trade secrets.


----------



## Guest

KelliWolfe said:


> I'm not suggesting not to use them, I really hope I didn't come across that way. But I'm not sure it's at all obvious how to use them properly, and the various books/articles that talk about it are very contradictory. If you've had good luck with a given technique I'd love to hear about it - without revealing specific keywords or anything, of course. Those are trade secrets.


I think about what people would type into the search bar to find my book, and then I test it in Amazon's search engine. I also test it by typing in a word and then seeing what comes up. So, for example, if you were to type in "billionaire," look and see if a dropdown menu shows up with keyword phrases that have to do with "billionaire." Then, look at the search volume for any of those phrases that might be appropriate for your book.

So, test your own combinations and also test what Amazon comes up with.

I tested "billionaire" in an Amazon search. "Alpha billionaire" seems to be the smallest, but even that one had over 6,000 searches. So you would need to play with billionaire. "Alpha billionaire bbw romance," for example, is much better at a little over 900 searches.


----------



## Guest

Boyd said:


> When it came to making a living... how is it cheating when everybody on both sides of the categories are engaging in the same practices? It's one of those things that Amazon has left vague (on purpose in my opinion) so they don't ever paint themselves into a corner


+1

(The people who bitch about aren't the ones dealing with it. Let them act all high and mighty. Meanwhile, you do what you need to do. My first one is in the erotica category, and it's doing fine. However,* if* I need to make adjustments with any one of my erotica titles in the future, I will, with no hesitation.)


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

I completed my third erotic masterpiece and published it today. Furthermore, I found more salacious words and reworked some of the old ones. I'm testing the weekend publishing schedule. My previous publications have been on a Thursday or Friday and I was approved the next day. 
Updates on book 1 published on October 9, 2014: 2 sales and 8 borrows; book 2 went live on Saturday October 18, 2014; 2 sales and 2 borrows. On the first book, I didn't have any links or information, nor did I provide information about the author. I just mentioned at the end that there would be more books coming by that author. 
However, on the second and third books I inserted links back to my books in the beginning of the book and ending. I'm not sure if I will change the first book now, maybe later. Book 4 coming soon.


----------



## Redacted1111

There is a big difference between smut and erotic romance. Even though erotic romance could be categorized as erotica, it is also romance. Anything I write that I think romance readers would not blow me up for, I'd put in romance. In fact, I've got some kinky, dirty, freaky ideas for a serial that I'm pretty sure will be put in NA romance. All the short smut, however, is going in erotica.


----------



## Guest

Kalypsō said:


> There is a big difference between smut and erotic romance. Even though erotic romance could be categorized as erotica, it is also romance. Anything I write that I think romance readers would not blow me up for, I'd put in romance. In fact, I've got some kinky, dirty, freaky ideas for a serial that I'm pretty sure will be put in NA romance. All the short smut, however, is going in erotica.


That sounds good!

I'm taking Selena Kitt's advice as to what should be placed in romance. My third erotic story will be a billionaire theme, and I may place it in romance. I'll see.


----------



## o.gasim

Not sure how to update the spreadsheet but it a week and a half I have the following numbers:

Book 1: 3 sales, 2 borrows
Book 2: 2 borrows
Book 3: Anthology not in series; set to publish Monday
Book 4: May publish Tuesday to keep weekly update in series

HAVING A BLAST!!!


----------



## Perro Callejero

KelliWolfe said:


> Personally I've gone to fairly extensive lengths to try all three ways, and it hasn't made one iota of difference in my sales. I've spent days at a time putting together sheets of keywords/phrases, testing them, verifying that my books showed up high in the lists in the same searches with the bestsellers, mucked with search rank changes due to the ordering of the keywords and whether it was a single keyword or a phrase, etc.
> 
> Really, I just don't think people are using the search to find books except in a very general way - looking for authors and titles they're already aware of. I think the distributors know this, and it's why they haven't put more effort into their search engines. 7 keywords on Amazon that can be entire paragraphs of text each. No keywords at all on Google - GOOGLE!!! - and Kobo. Horribly broken search functions on most of the distributor sites. This is 2014 and people know how to write search engines that don't suck. The only reason for a company like Google not to bother implementing one is because they know it doesn't matter.


Thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts regarding keywords, Kelli. I appreciate it.

On another topic: seeing how well people have been doing with borrows has made me start reconsidering the whole "going wide" thing. Maybe I'll switch my books to Select. It makes sense to me that short erotica titles, priced around $2.99, would do well in Kindle Unlimited, and it would be nice to get paid even when readers are getting it free.

Right now I only have two main hesitations regarding it. Hesitation #1: so far I've sold more copies at Smashwords than Amazon (3 at Smashie and 1 at the Zon), and the Smashwords sales give me 81 percent of the sales price. Hesitation #2: after hearing all the Adult Dungeon horror stories, it makes me a bit leery of putting all my eggs in the Amazon basket.

Anybody feel like sharing their reasoning behind going one route or the other?


----------



## Perro Callejero

Puzzle said:


> I keep on wanting to plot out a 15k+ romance novella every time I try writing. I'd really like to try something shorter, 10k and under, but I don't know where to begin. Start with the sex and then flesh out the rest of the story around it?


My two shorts have been taking the "focus on the sex" approach. In my mind, that's sort of what differentiates erotica from erotic romance--the level of focus. I've been throwing in a little (hopefully sexy) dialogue and scene-setting to get things rolling (around 700 words or so, total), and then going straight to the sex (which goes on for 3500 words or longer), and then following up with a very brief resolution/sequel setup (maybe 500 words). I'm keeping the descriptions of setting minimal (like a brief paragraph with just a few key details to give the "sexy penthouse" feel), and not even getting too exact on the physical descriptions of the characters (leaving them somewhat vague in hopes that readers will be able to plug in their own preferences in their respective mind-theaters). Most of the description focuses on the acts and the physical feelings/emotional reactions produced by those acts.

I've found, though, that the larger "relationship story" has been developing/sneaking in as my serial progresses. I've been thinking about continuing this serial as a set of erotic scenes, and then maybe patching them together with a few more story-oriented scenes, and then releasing that as a New Adult Romance novel (making a note in the descriptions so people are aware of the two differing versions). Has anybody ever tried anything like that?


----------



## Perro Callejero

Thank you, Boyd and Maisy, for your feedback re: Select versus Multiple-Channel Distribution.  I'm really starting to feel like Select might be worth trying.  I recently pulled my Fantasy novel out of general distribution, and stuck it in Select, and it seems to have been a good decision--the same amount of sales, but an additional number of borrows that will probably equal the sales earnings if the borrow pay rate remains around $1.50.


----------



## Dormouse

Boyd said:


> http://onehandedwriters.com/2014/04/09/corporate-censorship-keeping-your-erotic-books-off-retailer-hit-lists/
> 
> I take my cues from Selena Kitt, Kmatthew etc... the link above is the more recent one I believe, but she links back to 2013 posts when things first soured horribly.


In that article Selena mentiones retailers like A1 ebooks and Lot's Cave. I was wondering if anyone has any experience with them.

I'm editing my first story right now (1st in a series and publication planned for tomorrow) and so far I plan to go exclusive with amazon and put it into select.

I also plan to publish a short m/m romance novella tomorrow, but with that one I will definitely try out ARe.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Retailer infodump based on *my* experiences. YMMV.

B&N: you can publish just about anything there and they don't screw with you over covers/blurbs/etc. Some people get really good sales, but since you really can publish almost anything there it seems like you need to write really hard-core stuff to get much traction. 

Google: They were actually my top seller last month. Short erotica does really well there because people like to read smut on their phones. Longer erom doesn't seem to be as popular. If you attract their attention they will slap you down over content violations just like Amazon, and their content police seem to be English as a 3rd language types who really don't have a good grasp of the intricacies of the language.

Kobo: Also does well with short erotica. They were my #2 top seller until they nuked my catalog.  Unfortunately they have started going after everyone who keywords stuffs their titles/subtitles, which is the only way to get found there because they don't have keywords and don't index their blurbs for searches. They're also apparently doing a purge of all the dubcon/reluctant stuff from the site. Since this started my sales have dropped 75% there.

Apple: I've never made any significant money there. Some people say that to do so you need to go direct rather than through an aggregator like D2D or Smashwords.

All Romance: The readers don't seem that into short erotica. Longer stuff does much better. And don't screw with their rules or they'll kill your account without blinking.

Smashwords: You'll typically make 90% of your sales the first couple of days after a new release. After that it drops way off.

A1EroticEbooks: Very nice people, but their store and publisher site is something straight out of 1995. They're another site that publishes everything except things like snuff porn, so unless you're writing truly hard-core stuff you're not going to sell anything there. When I was still messing with them they only accepted RTF files.

Oyster and Scribd might be worth messing with at some point, but as of now they don't do borrows on erotica.

If you write PI, put it in Select. You'll almost certainly make more in borrows than you will make on sales on B&N, which is the only place worth mentioning that will accept it besides Amazon. Selena Kitt did it, so it's not just me talking.

One big reason to publish to other sites is to get permafrees. Google is currently the best site for this.  I've had good luck with Google and with Kobo (up untlil last month). Good luck like they were making more money for me than Amazon. But at the time I didn't have any titles in Select, and after republishing my PIs on Amazon and putting them in Select I'm seeing big improvements there and I expect Amazon to slide back into the #1 sales slot this month.

Something to think about - Amazon is going to *have* to cut off borrows on short erotica at some point. The people who read short erotica burn through tons of it. They leave romance readers in the dust. Amazon can't afford to keep shelling out $1.50 a pop when these people are reading a dozen or more shorts in a week. KU makes perfect sense from Amazon's POV for novels, but the short erotica thing will annihilate their profits. When and if that happens it might be a good idea not to have all of your eggs in one basket.


----------



## Redacted1111

I have a feeling there will be a massive drop off of KU payments or something at some point for short erotica. Heck, if it doesn't happen, that would be awesome. Maybe it won't. But I kind of feel like I need to think beyond the present gold mine. I'm feeling that the current situation is too good to be true for long.


----------



## Perro Callejero

Lots of excellent information, Kelli. Massive thanks! 



KelliWolfe said:


> Something to think about - Amazon is going to *have* to cut off borrows on short erotica at some point. The people who read short erotica burn through tons of it. They leave romance readers in the dust. Amazon can't afford to keep shelling out $1.50 a pop when these people are reading a dozen or more shorts in a week. KU makes perfect sense from Amazon's POV for novels, but the short erotica thing will annihilate their profits. When and if that happens it might be a good idea not to have all of your eggs in one basket.





Kalypsō said:


> I have a feeling there will be a massive drop off of KU payments or something at some point for short erotica. Heck, if it doesn't happen, that would be awesome. Maybe it won't. But I kind of feel like I need to think beyond the present gold mine. I'm feeling that the current situation is too good to be true for long.


What you're both saying makes sense to me. But it also further pushes me in the direction of signing up for Select now, in order to reap the rewards while they last. I just hit the unpublish button for my titles on Smashwords, and once I know they're clear I'm going to give Select a try. Hopefully the bottom won't fall out within the net 90 days!


----------



## Guest

Puzzle said:


> Would any of you be so kind as to recommend some erotica writing guides? I keep on wanting to plot out a 15k+ romance novella every time I try writing. I'd really like to try something shorter, 10k and under, but I don't know where to begin. Start with the sex and then flesh out the rest of the story around it?


Here's another one:

How to Write Erotic Fiction and Sex Scenes
http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Erotic-Fiction-Scenes-ebook/dp/B00C1CT59M


----------



## Guest

Maisy said:


> Uploading wide is a pain. Plus, it takes a while to build up sales on other channels. I don't know if I'll be writing under this pen name in a year & don't want to take the time to build it up. Also, at 30+ borrows in 5 days, I know I'll make more in borrows than I would from sales on other channels right now (this may not be true in two months but RIGHT NOW select is a good choice)


I won't go wide for these. KU has been excellent for these erotic shorts.


----------



## Guest

Dormouse said:


> I also plan to publish a short m/m romance novella tomorrow, but with that one I will definitely try out ARe.


When I used to write literary erotica, ARe and Amazon were where I made the money. B&N was a joke.

But for these erotica shorts under my new pen name, I'm not bothering with anything other than Amazon.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Based on the increasing number of 5 page erotic shorts being published (that's Amazon estimated pages *with* a blurb in the front) to take advantage of KU, I would expect Amazon to remove short erotica from KU as part of another pornocalypse type of purge and then blame the whole thing on indie smut peddlers.


----------



## Dormouse

KelliWolfe said:


> Retailer infodump based on *my* experiences. YMMV.


Kelli! Thank you for all that information.

I doubt my stuff is hardcore enough to attract readers to make branching out worth it. Maybe the monster-porn. Not sure about that though.

Right now, Select sounds like the best option until the inevitable KU-changes come. Good point on that.

I also write regular m/m and m/f romance and with that I plan to diversify as much as possible. Like you said; not putting all of my eggs in one basket.


----------



## Guest

KelliWolfe said:


> Based on the increasing number of 5 page erotic shorts being published (that's Amazon estimated pages *with* a blurb in the front) to take advantage of KU, I would expect Amazon to remove short erotica from KU as part of another pornocalypse type of purge and then blame the whole thing on indie smut peddlers.


There's all sorts of theories out there on what's going to happen. Until someone knows for sure, I'll keep doing what I'm doing.


----------



## KelliWolfe

I'm doing the same as you, Jolie. Everything new is going straight into Select to ride the gravy train until it augers in, and as soon as the sales numbers are in for October I'll be pulling more non-performing titles from the other sites and enrolling them as soon as they're down.


----------



## Guest

KelliWolfe said:


> I'm doing the same as you, Jolie. Everything new is going straight into Select to ride the gravy train until it augers in, and as soon as the sales numbers are in for October I'll be pulling more non-performing titles from the other sites and enrolling them as soon as they're down.


Good plan!

~~~

I'm not losing money on any of this stuff, because I'm not spending anything to produce them. Whatever happens, happens. As long as there are human beings, there will be smut. And in the 21st century, you don't have to sell it underground. It's here, forever.

If KU goes away, I go to plan B.

No stress.

~~~

I've decided to bump my production up to two stories a week. But that's it. I can't do more than that.

Thank you for all the advice in this thread and to those who have communicated with me off-list.


----------



## Midnight Writer

*deleted*


----------



## Cege Smith

Boyd said:


> I always put "kindle unlimited" in my titles that are in select. Works wonders


I always forget that!! *Off to update keywords...*

Thanks.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Lanette Curington said:


> I'm still a little foggy on the keywords thing. Still researching.
> 
> Amazon allows 7 keywords. Is it ok to "stuff" those keywords with certain repeated words? Using "Alpha billionaire bbw romance", for example, would it be ok to do this?
> 
> Keywords:
> 1. alpha billionaire bbw romance
> 2. alpha billionaire bbw erotica
> 3. sex with an alpha billionaire
> 4. sex with a bbw
> etc.
> 
> That is, repeating words like "alpha", "billionaire", "bbw", and "sex with" within the seven keywords.


OK, I've been thinking about this since my earlier keywords post and I decided to do some more testing. For the record I am *not* currently using the search phrases for keywords like what you have. But after doing a number of searches using all the words in a given keyword phrase like "alpha billionaire bbw romance" it's clear that what you've got is the most effective way to populate your keywords. I tried doing searches on one of my books using two full keyword phrases to make sure it would show up high in the search results, and then switched the order of the words in ONE of those phrases. Having the words out of order absolutely did drop the book in the search ranks, and in some cases significantly.

Feel free to test this for yourselves with your own stuff. I don't want anyone taking my unsupported word on something as important as keywords. There are some really weird things that Amazon does with partial matches, though, like weighting the second word in a keyword group more highly than the first.


----------



## Cege Smith

I have a secret pen name where I publish the more naughty stuff. Inspired by this thread, I penned a new story over the weekend. (Kicking myself though that I didn't clock my time exactly so that I could use it for the 8-hour challenge too.) I submitted it at 2:30pm this afternoon, and it's in "Publishing" status already and shows up live when I do a search on pen name.    I figured I wouldn't see it until Tuesday since I submitted over the weekend. (The last story I published took about 30 hours.)


----------



## Rouge Poppy

Joliedupre said:


> If there's a category that you want that is not offered as a choice when you prepare your book, you can email Kindle Direct Publishing and ask them to add it. Copy the category down exactly the way you want it to appear and then send them that information. For example, for my second Benton book, I asked them to add Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teen & Young Adult > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories. Technically, you're only allowed to have two categories. So they may remove one if you're asking for something to be added.


Thank you - I didn't know it was possible to do this. This thread is brilliant 

Sorry it has taken me so long to respond, I've spent most of the weekend working on my books. It is sooooo good to be able to say that


----------



## crow.bar.beer

Hello everyone, reading this thread has stoked me up enough to urge me to set aside some time from working on my first novel to participate in the challenge as well.  

I've never published before so I'm waiting for some bank account issues to settle so I can get my Amazon account up and running, in the meantime I'm finishing my first story today, 5k or 6k in total probably, I'll set it at 2.99 and enter it in KU of course. I'm making it a serial, nearly finished with the cover, and I think this might turn out really well.  

I want to thank everyone because all this feedback here was the best kind of practical, positive encouragement to just make it happen. I'm prepared to release one or two per week, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed it won't interfere too much with my novel.  

One quick question i re the adult filter - I was reading a thread yesterday, can't find it now, with someone purportedly from Amazon who said the best way to avoid the filter is to make your keywords and cover as inconspicuous as possible and for the writing itself to not be too pornographic. Well, my cover makes clear it's X-rated, it's very clearly sex-related through and through, and I have no qualms about using dirty words. This is going to trigger the adult filter, isn't it? My question is - is this necessarily a bad thing? Aren't there a lot of people buying erotic that know how to search specifically for the adult stuff? 

Thanks, and I'm looking forward to sharing my progress (I probably won't reveal my pen-name/titles, not sure yet)!


----------



## crow.bar.beer

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Sweet Amber: A bare chested man on the cover is OK, but other than that not too much skin on the cover. The innards can be VERY graphic and not get filtered, but 'Zon is checking and banning some keywords.
> 
> Look upthread for the Selena Kitt info. Learn from her.
> 
> And good luck!


Thanks for the warm welcome!  I think the cover photo I've chosen for the first few episodes of the serial should be kosher then, the man is bare-chested and the only skin showing on the woman is her arms and through some holes on her pants.  I'm presuming the keywords being banned are on the extreme, hardcore/taboo end and that shouldn't be a problem for me.  
I'll look into that info, still on page 25 of the thread but I was too enthused and had to post now.  Thanks again!


----------



## Al Dente

I just finished my first 5.5k short! I'm not officially taking part in the challenge, but I'll probably add my story to the spreadsheet as soon as I publish it.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Sweet Amber said:


> One quick question i re the adult filter - I was reading a thread yesterday, can't find it now, with someone purportedly from Amazon who said the best way to avoid the filter is to make your keywords and cover as inconspicuous as possible and for the writing itself to not be too pornographic. Well, my cover makes clear it's X-rated, it's very clearly sex-related through and through, and I have no qualms about using dirty words. This is going to trigger the adult filter, isn't it? My question is - is this necessarily a bad thing? Aren't there a lot of people buying erotic that know how to search specifically for the adult stuff?


First you need to understand what the adult filter is. When you go to Amazon's main page and look at the search bar, the dropdown on the left side defaults to "All". This is the "all departments" search. If your book is adult filtered it will not show up in an all departments search. It will not show up in the also-boughts for books that are not also adult filtered. When someone goes to the Kindle store and does a search, adult filtered titles are shifted to the bottom. As you can imagine this isn't going to exactly help your sales so you want to avoid it if at all possible.

Selena Kitt on the adult filter.

Don't make your covers too sexy. No hand bras. Butts in thong panties/bikinis are bad. Two people touching in any kind of sexual way is bad. Lots of words in your title/subtitle/series name/description will trip the filter and those words tend to change very rapidly and without notice. Breeding. Virgin and babysitter used to, but they seem to have relaxed on those.

[Edited to fix a brain-dead use of "keywords". Sorry!]


----------



## Redacted1111

I've heard that keywords don't get you blocked or filtered. I've got one series that has dubcon in the keywords and it publishes just fine. I've got another book where I'm using almost exactly the same keywords as several other books but it's filtered. I'm confused.   lol. But I've made some changes to that filtered book so hopefully they will take off the filter. It's annoying because the sales are lower than they should be.


----------



## nellgoddin

KelliWolfe said:


> Lots of keywords will trip the filter and those words tend to change very rapidly and without notice.


Uh oh.

I *just* did some keyword stuffing. I hope it sneaks past the review so I can go back in and fix it....I thought we had to watch out for stuff that is visible (cover, description, and Look Inside) but whatever was inside the book or hidden was all clear. Except for the banned categories like incest and pedophilia. Guess I need to read Selena more carefully!

Jolie du Pre, I'm taking the same approach. Making myself work on other stuff no matter how tempting it is to bang these shorts out. Limiting myself to 2 a week max and not sweating the future.


----------



## KelliWolfe

I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have said keywords. I've got keywords on the freakin' brain right now. I meant words in your title/subtitle/series name/description.

So far Amazon doesn't seem to care much what goes in your keywords, but I'm not going to see how far I can push to try to become the first one. It's possible that there may be keywords that trigger a review, but that's not something anyone outside of KDP can say for sure. Other than a few no-no subjects like straight-up incest, bestiality, rape, and snuff they don't seem to care how hardcore you go in the book itself, either. They *may* be cracking down on some dubcon, but I haven't seen any of the usual suspects get their catalogs gutted so I dunno.

Right now I'm seeing tons of PI going through without being flagged, and I'm seeing titles with stepbrother/stepsister/stepmother/etc. as well, which would have gotten blocked completely a few months ago. I don't know if these are just slip-ups or if Amazon has changed their policies on PI. I do know that *I* am not going to be changing my nice, innocuous PI titles to try to find out. When the purges happen, it's usually the nails sticking out the furthest that get hammered on the hardest. Best to avoid attracting unwanted attention in the first place.


----------



## Guest

nellgoddin said:


> Uh oh.
> 
> I *just* did some keyword stuffing. I hope it sneaks past the review so I can go back in and fix it....I thought we had to watch out for stuff that is visible (cover, description, and Look Inside) but whatever was inside the book or hidden was all clear. Except for the banned categories like incest and pedophilia. Guess I need to read Selena more carefully!


Right. So you can do what I do and take a change with the keywords, or you can play it safe with everything. My cover and my book description are safe. My keywords I'm taking a chance on, except I'm not using obvious keywords I shouldn't include, like "incest" or "pedophilia." If anything of mine gets adult filtered, I'll deal with it then.



> Jolie du Pre, I'm taking the same approach. Making myself work on other stuff no matter how tempting it is to bang these shorts out. Limiting myself to 2 a week max and not sweating the future.


Good approach. Adult short story writing is too risky to throw all your financial goals into one basket, no matter how easy this stuff is to write and make money. Write it. Make the money. Put the money in the bank. But have other stuff going on, also.


----------



## crow.bar.beer

KelliWolfe said:


> Two people touching in any kind of sexual way is bad.


Hmm... as a point of reference, are the books in your signature adult filtered? I ask because the images I've decided to go with aren't any more explicit or sexual than yours... The last book in your signature, the babysitter one, looks down-right appetizing. 

Sorry for another newb question, but in regards to the book title... will the word "sex" directly in the title be a problem in and of itself?


----------



## KelliWolfe

Sweet Amber said:


> Hmm... as a point of reference, are the books in your signature adult filtered? I ask because the images I've decided to go with aren't any more explicit or sexual than yours... The last book in your signature, the babysitter one, looks down-right appetizing.
> 
> Sorry for another newb question, but in regards to the book title... will the word "sex" directly in the title be a problem in and of itself?


The covers in my sig you're talking about are categorized as romance, not erotica. (And yes, they really are sweet, longer erotic romances with plots, character development, relationships, and HEA/HFN endings.) I've pretty much given up on putting couples on my erotica covers unless they're not touching at all.

As far as the word "sex" goes, I don't think it triggers the adult filter. I was able to find lots of books with sex either in the title or subtitle using the general search.


----------



## Al Dente

My story is now in the review process. I've got my fingers crossed!


----------



## nellgoddin

KelliWolfe said:


> I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have said keywords.


You gave me a heart attack! 

It makes sense that they'll give all kinds of leeway in keywords but not descriptions--they want readers to find the books they want, but with a little discretion.


----------



## Redacted1111

I'm starting a new erom pen name today. I wanted to dip my toe into the billionaire genre. Since I'm doing the one a day challenge, and I don't really want to commit too much time to it yet, I'm writing 5000 word stories in a three part serial. Honestly, I don't think this will do as well as my kinky smut, but it's an investment in the future. I'm wondering what everyone's opinion would be on putting a 5000 word short in romance. I'd usually think it wouldn't go over well, especially as a serial, but I figured I'd ask. This story is already at 3600 words and there is no sex happening yet. I've got my poor idiot girl totally broke and in a compromising position, but the billionaire hasn't propositioned her with his dingy yet. So, I'm thinking, romance. (Waves hand through air, leaving trail of rainbows.)


----------



## KelliWolfe

I think this seriously has the potential to be The Next Big Thing.

Readers outside of erotica have been vocal - both in the reviews and with their wallets - about not wanting to pay $2.99 for shorts in their favorite genres. But if they can essentially read the entire series for free via KU, the price obstacle vanishes in a puff of magic Amazon pixie dust. I'd say do it and throw it in Select and see what happens. If nobody buys it you really haven't lost anything.


----------



## Perro Callejero

After 36+ hours in review, the second part of my erotica serial has now gone live!   I also switched out some of the keywords, and enrolled both parts to KDP select in hopes of getting a share of that borrow money.  Ebook Millions here we come!  

On another note, I tried doing a search for my title by the series name, and saw that there are approximately 40 other titles with the same exact name...  And then I clicked through to one of those titles and saw that a different title by the same author has my same exact cover image!    Guess I'm not nearly as original as I thought.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

There is nothing new under the sun, Marcos.

We haven't even started talking about 'story mirroring' yet


----------



## R. Graystone

I think it's day 5 for my short, sitting steady at 2 purchases, 1 borrow, 0 returns. I changed up my keywords today, will let y'all know if it makes a difference. 

In the meantime, I'm making good progress on a sexy novella that I'd like to get up soon. Good luck everyone!


----------



## Al Dente

My standalone erotica story was only in review for about 2 hours and now it's live. That was quick!


----------



## Redacted1111

Al Dente said:


> My standalone erotica story was only in review for about 2 hours and now it's live. That was quick!


Freaking Wow!


----------



## o.gasim

1st published 10/7:

Total of 5 sales and 8 borrows accross 2 titles. 3rd title, an anthology with fellow kboards members, is set to go live any moment, and my 3rd work will publish next week. 

So far I am keeping up with 1 new release a week.


----------



## Midnight Writer

*deleted*


----------



## KelliWolfe

Lanette Curington said:


> Still looking for an answer on this.
> 
> TLR - Is it ok with Amazon to repeat certain words within the 7 keyword phrases?
> 
> Thanks!


Yes, you can repeat words within the phrases. It's perfectly fine.


----------



## Midnight Writer

KelliWolfe said:


> Yes, you can repeat words within the phrases. It's perfectly fine.


Thank you so much!


----------



## Guest

My second one is ready to be uploaded to Amazon tomorrow.  Hope everyone had a good day today.   I'll start writing my third one on Thursday.


----------



## legion

It has been about 1 week since launching my new name. 
So far, this erotica experiment has resulted in 5 sales, 40 borrows over 3 titles (all @2.99). Included in this total are the numbers from another new name launched yesterday, which accounts for 40% of the numbers.
I am currently working on a new short under the newer name, and considering consolidating.


----------



## Al Dente

I just finished a 13 hour study session for a science class, so I'm going to have an alcohol binge head to bed for the night. Tomorrow, I begin research on story number 2!


----------



## o.gasim

legion said:


> It has been about 1-week since launching my new name.
> So far, this erotica experiment has resulted in 5 sales, 40 borrows over 3 titles (all @2.99). Included in this total are the numbers from another new name launched yesterday, which accounts for 40% of the numbers.
> I am currently working on a new short under the newer name, and considering consolidating.


Those are GREAT results!!!


----------



## Catnip

KelliWolfe said:


> The covers in my sig you're talking about are categorized as romance, not erotica. (And yes, they really are sweet, longer erotic romances with plots, character development, relationships, and HEA/HFN endings.) I've pretty much given up on putting couples on my erotica covers unless they're not touching at all.


So if you used those covers for erotica books, you think they'd get filtered?

I've only used men on mine so far, but was thinking of using couples for some future covers. I mean just couples embracing, not blatantly sexual poses. But it sounds like that could get filtered?


----------



## skyle

Kalypsō said:


> I'm starting a new erom pen name today. I wanted to dip my toe into the billionaire genre. Since I'm doing the one a day challenge, and I don't really want to commit too much time to it yet, I'm writing 5000 word stories in a three part serial. Honestly, I don't think this will do as well as my kinky smut, but it's an investment in the future. I'm wondering what everyone's opinion would be on putting a 5000 word short in romance. I'd usually think it wouldn't go over well, especially as a serial, but I figured I'd ask. This story is already at 3600 words and there is no sex happening yet. I've got my poor idiot girl totally broke and in a compromising position, but the billionaire hasn't propositioned her with his dingy yet. So, I'm thinking, romance. (Waves hand through air, leaving trail of rainbows.)


Hi Kalypso
I have one erom under a different name and it outsells my straight erotica 3 - 1. But I find it much harder to write. PM me if you want more details and figures. I know I have to write a few more to see if it is an aberration or if actually where I should be concentrating my efforts.


----------



## Guest

Maisy said:


> My single title has been on sale for 7 days now.
> Results:
> 12 sales (2 at $0.99 & the rest at $2.99)
> 44 borrows
> 
> Not too shabby. I'd hoped to do a story a week but I think I'll only do 2/month until January.
> 
> Unless it's a really sexy pose you probably won't get filtered.


Excellent numbers, Maisy! Congratulations! 

My 7 days for the one title under my new pen name is 5 sales and 15 borrows, so far. My numbers are not as high as yours, but I'm happy with the results for my book one, particularly since I've never published under this pen name, and, it didn't cost me anything.

I plan on writing about every kink I can, including PI, even though the PI kink disgusts me. However, I have no problem taking my issues out of it to write the damn thing, especially since those books are popular. I'm not stupid.

Book two gets uploaded today.


----------



## nellgoddin

Some good-looking numbers out there, people!

I haven't published anything since our first week and sales are starting to flag. I got busy last night but started writing a pirate erom that's turning into a series, so I'm going with it. Sometimes we're not in control.


----------



## pwtucker

I just hit publish on my third title in a series under my new erotica pen name. The first two were submitted yesterday, and #2 in the series went live last night, though #1 is still 'In Review'. I can't help but wonder what's going on.

It's been pretty fascinating studying what sells, and trying to figure out why. There are the quick and obvious conclusions that everybody has already hit upon - key kinks like PI, barebacking, dubcon and the like will always command an audience, length really need not be over 20 pages to justify a $2.99 price, pick your keywords carefully, and so forth, but even then, a whole ton of books that check those boxes still sink, while others rise to the top. Scarlett Skyes 'The Non Withdrawal Method #4', for example, is barely 20 pages, going for $2,99, and ranking around #1,200 on the whole site as of this posting. She's making, what, $150/day on that title alone, for about $4,500 this month if the rank holds? For a mere 20 pages? Incredible!

So obviously you have to do more than just pick a hot kink, write the right number of pages, and charge accordingly. What I've noticed by browsing some of the best sellers through KU is that the ones that are doing great combine transparency of pose (hard to do well) with a unique portrayal of the characters. They're not depicting real people - I think that's where stories tend to stray into erotic romance. In straight erotica, the protagonists are quickly sketched in with a couple of defining details, and then immediately placed in a predicament. Outside their comfort zone, with their boundaries being pushed and events barely if at all under their control. They're not caricatures, but they're not really three dimensional either. They're reduced to their essentials: their base desires, insecurities, and key physical attributes. Enough to get the reader grounded and turned on, and then it's right into the action.

Which is why my handful of erotica stories failed when I wrote them last year - I was writing erotic romance without realizing it, spending too much time on internal motivations, background, setting, plot, etc. None of which is really necessary. 

Maybe this is all obvious to you guys, but I thought I'd share my thoughts since you guys have already shared so much in this thread. I'll let you guys know how many titles fare once they're all live, and thanks for creating this mini-erotica community!


----------



## Guest

pwtucker said:


> It's been pretty fascinating studying what sells, and trying to figure out why. There are the quick and obvious conclusions that everybody has already hit upon - key kinks like PI, barebacking, dubcon and the like will always command an audience, length really need not be over 20 pages to justify a $2.99 price, pick your keywords carefully, and so forth, but even then, a whole ton of books that check those boxes still sink, while others rise to the top. Scarlett Skyes 'The Non Withdrawal Method #4', for example, is barely 20 pages, going for $2,99, and ranking around #1,200 on the whole site as of this posting. She's making, what, $150/day on that title alone, for about $4,500 this month if the rank holds? For a mere 20 pages? Incredible!


Scarlett has a huge library of books. She kept at it, and she's reaping the rewards as an erotica writer.

A year from now, I have a feeling I'll be super happy with the results of my erotica writing.


----------



## Rouge Poppy

I hit publish (the first time ever) Monday afternoon and the publication went live after 7 hours (during in the night in the UK).

I've had my first borrow today and I did the 'happy dance'.  

I've just pressed submit on the second of the series and now I'm about to start writing the third.

Thank you for all the great advice!


----------



## kathrynoh

> I plan on writing about every kink I can, including PI, even though the PI kink disgusts me. However, I have no problem taking my issues out of it to write the damn thing, especially since those books are popular. I'm not stupid.


That's something I couldn't do. I know it sells well but I just don't want that stuff in my head space. Maybe between (step)-siblings would be okay but not cross-generational.

Not saying that to judge anyone but I think for me the challenge is to find a subgenre that sells that I'm comfortable with.


----------



## Redacted1111

PI doesn't bother me at all. Most kinks don't. Although adult diapers and age play, I don't get. I just don't get it. Why is an adult in a diaper sexy? I can _almost_ see why age play is sexy, almost... But diapers. Wow... Who knows though. I've been publishing smut for two weeks, I have no idea what the future holds. I just hope it doesn't get me into diapers.


----------



## kathrynoh

There are a lot of kinks I don't get. Like breeding! It just seems weird to me that getting someone knocked up is sexy.

A few years back, I'd hang around on a few chats where ppl with kinks gathered. I'd always get talking to guys about unusual kinks and they'd think I was into it but I was just curious about what they were into and why they were into it.


----------



## nellgoddin

kathrynoh said:


> There are a lot of kinks I don't get. Like breeding! It just seems weird to me that getting someone knocked up is sexy.


Ikr. Diapers and pregnancy...I sure wasn't feeling it when I was living that stage. I can't seem to write anything that I don't understand. It's not that I have a problem with it, it's that the words don't come. haha


----------



## SawyerPentecost

Keyword help?

10k words, part 1 of an ongoing series. Hero is the new cop in town. His chief is a 25 year old woman who quit the FBI. The first episode deals with a severed head and an altercation with the hero and a water nymph (it's where he get's his powers), but the chief interrupts her before she can kill the cop. There are sparks between the hero and chief, but its going to be awhile before they are together. They like each other, but are actively dating other people, so for now, there's going to be a build towards a HEA. I'm guessing ten episodes until they are together for good. Until then, there's lots of random skin. 

How do I keyword this? It's erotic, has shifters, crime, suspense, conspiracy, romance, and a variety of sci-fi, monster, urban fantasy elements. A bit of a quandry. Thanks! So excited to get this one done. I have four more complete, but since i've never been down the route of actually formatting and pubbing to KDP, it's all brand new and slow for this first one.


----------



## Redacted1111

I get breeding. I mean, what is sex for anyway? It's pretty instinctive to get turned on about getting knocked up. I've had two babies and the idea of a guy wanting to impregnate me, yeah, I get it. I get lactation too. But, I digress. I'm not sure how much of this we can talk about on Kboards. 

I do have to feel it to write it. That's how I know it's working.


----------



## skyle

nellgoddin said:


> Ikr. Diapers and pregnancy...I sure wasn't feeling it when I was living that stage. I can't seem to write anything that I don't understand. It's not that I have a problem with it, it's that the words don't come. haha


I don't think I could effectively write something I didnt get at all. I've been reading a lot of erotica in the name of research that I wouldn't normally  and some of it has me kind of squeamish. One I read yesterday with "milking", proper milking, a woman's breast milk. I was like, "urrgh! that's a turn on?" But that's just me, there might be a massive community that love it, but I don't think I could write it and be at all convincing.


----------



## Smash_Rodz

Joliedupre said:


> Excellent numbers, Maisy! Congratulations!
> 
> My 7 days for the one title under my new pen name is 5 sales and 15 borrows, so far. My numbers are not as high as yours, but I'm happy with the results for my book one, particularly since I've never published under this pen name, and, it didn't cost me anything.
> 
> I plan on writing about every kink I can, including PI, even though the PI kink disgusts me. However, I have no problem taking my issues out of it to write the damn thing, especially since those books are popular. I'm not stupid.
> 
> Book two gets uploaded today.


About the PI, I saw where those were getting banned with the last erotica sweep. Are they allowed now, or are there a lot of hoops to jump through in order to disguise the PI as something different? Thanks!

Oh, and congrats on your numbers. I just started my very first book ever. It's an erotica short. I just need to find time to write it. I work as a psych nurse doing three 12 hour night shifts and I'm basically trying to recover on my days off. I hate my job so much, so the dream of making a living writing is what keeps me going  I can do this!


----------



## Sargon

Al Dente said:


> My standalone erotica story was only in review for about 2 hours and now it's live. That was quick!


Wow! What category(ies) did you put it in? I find erotica can take longer than the others.

Good luck!


----------



## o.gasim

Hi Everyone,

I am thrilled to announce the first volume in an erotic anthology penned by 5 of us kboarders. Erotology (cover) below is now available for Kindle and KU.


----------



## Evenstar

Amber Rose said:


> **********SPREADSHEET*************
> 
> OK, so I have set up a spreadsheet that tracks all the results etc. It's not very populated with info, though
> 
> Here is the link.
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AqUkg_H5bVPeo0Y5t2ex5lPPS8vzgD46bd_YpObzxUE/edit?usp=sharing
> 
> If you click on the link, you will be able to edit the spreadsheet.
> 
> 1. If you are taking part in the challenge, please add yourself on the sheet, together with all details
> 2. Update as often as you wish
> 3. If you have MULTIPLE books, it would probably be best to create a separate line for each book
> 4. If you want to keep your pen name private that is fine. Just put your KBoard profile under "Author"
> 5. If you are doing this quietly and have not linked yourself to the challenge, please add yourself to the sheet anyway. I hope this won't be abused!
> 
> Hopefully, at the end of the month or so we will have a clearer picture of all this......


I've just updated the spreadsheet. But actually I don't know what the purpose of it is? Is it to track what kind of stories do well? Or is there some kind of winner to this challenge by stats?


----------



## Mahalo

Hey all...I'm late to the party but have been reading this thread and completed three stories last week! 

Funny, though, this is the first time one of my stories got flagged by D2D that I need to classify it as erotica even though I have it in erotic romance. Kobo, iTunes, and Scribd won't take it.


----------



## Catnip

I've been thinking about what kinks to write. Most of them I'm not into personally, but could still write about. I think pregnancy (and related topics like lactation) is the only thing I really couldn't do. I'm happily childfree, and the idea of being pregnant has always absolutely horrified me. So I don't think I'd be very convincing if I tried to write a character who loves the idea 



Maisy said:


> Unless it's a really sexy pose you probably won't get filtered.


Thanks Maisy, that was what I was hoping.


----------



## Redacted1111

I'm still trying to get a book unfiltered. Bah! Second attempt, no dice. I've changed EVERYTHING I can possibly think of that could have gotten the filter. Now, I think it is almost certainly because I used a historical reference in the title that could be searched by kids. There is no other explanation. So, if you write erotica, just remember, words like Civil War and Continental Congress might get you filtered...  

Which is too bad because I think the title "Banged By The Continental Congress" is hilarious.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Question about Author Central penname photo: Random design, animal (like a butterfly), your photo, or nothing?

Does it even matter?


----------



## Al Dente

EroticaWriter said:


> Wow! What category(ies) did you put it in? I find erotica can take longer than the others.
> 
> Good luck!


Well, I felt that the story effectively skirted the line between Erotica and Erotic Romance, so I went with the Erotic Romance categories. I'm sure that helped matters, but I have written books in the past that were definitely erotic romance and they each took roughly 24 hours, so I don't pretend to understand the great Amazon.


----------



## Sassafrazzled

Kalypsō said:


> Which is too bad because I think the title "Banged By The Continental Congress" is hilarious.


Is that what you used? Because "banged" will get you filtered.

I'd also like to remind people that Romance>Erotica is a dead end. It exists only in KDP and has no visibility in the Kindle store. I've seen a few people mention it lately. Browse under Romance, Erotica is neither a sub-category nor a theme.


----------



## Redacted1111

Sassafrazzled said:


> Is that what you used? Because "banged" will get you filtered.


That isn't an actual title. That's my attempt at humor.


----------



## Mahalo

My Rogue Alpha got filtered on D2D which is crazy considering all of the werewolf erotic romance out there. Oh, and the fact that I already have an alpha romance series out that didn't get filtered. Whaaaaat? Ridiculous.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Sassafrazzled said:


> Is that what you used? Because "banged" will get you filtered.


If they were doing so, they seem to have stopped. There are lots of titles with banged/banging in them. I've even got a trilogy called "Banging the Brats Next Door" that has passed through review multiple times.


----------



## Redacted1111

But you still probably can't get "Banged By The Continental Congress" past the filter.  
I swear, some of my best titles are a no go.    Ben Franklin was Hawt! 

Honestly, the only thing that it could possibly be at this point is the historic reference in my title. I'm thinking of publishing again and changing it to something generic. But the historic reference was the fun part, so it sucks.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

I will publish my 4th erotic book on Thursday. Book 3 went live on Monday (October 20, 2014). I published it on that Sunday and in less that four hours it went live. However, the sales were not there. My first book went live on a Friday and I was excited that I received 2 sales and 8 borrows. It was the first time I had written strictly erotica if you can call it that. I didn't come to any conclusions concerning publishing on the weekends, compared to the week days. I don't have enough information to formulate a conclusion, nor do I know who my audience is. Who is my audience? That is what I need to determine. 
Nevertheless, I have been writing and publishing my work without considering to whom I am writing for. Therefore, I don't expect to have many sales until I understand who my public is and what they want. 
If the purpose of this challenge is to determine if an individual can write erotica and have some success, then I would consider this a successful venture because I wrote 5,000 words or more, made covers, and formatted my books and published them each week, and I paid less than $10 for all my covers.
Now if I want to make money at this I will need to do more. I have to find out what covers will make a man or woman pick up my books and look inside. I will have to learn to write the words and phrases that will elicit erotic emotions. And I will have to read more in this genre and research words and expressions.  
I understand now that you can write erotica but it may not sell until you discover the formula. And what that is, I don't know.

Up date on my books:
Book 1: 2 sales; 8 borrows
Book 2: 2 sales; 2 borrows
Book 3: 1 sale
Book 4: Publish by Thursday (October 23,2014)


----------



## Lovelife

Stumbled across something I thought I'd share for us newbie writers. I've been having issues with formatting.. basically because I haven't used any kind of formatting or really any word processors since high school which was about 14 yrs ago (Eeek!). It's been a pain to try to focus on formatting when I just want to write. So... I found a wonderful premade template. I'm sure this is information that is everywhere, but I thought I saw a post or two earlier about formatting issues from other first time publishers in this thread. So, thought I'd share. And there is a lovely video that shows you quickly how to use it as well. 

http://www.bmyers.com/public/Kindle_novel_template.cfm


----------



## Redacted1111

Amazon doesn't want the public to know about the founding father's secret sex rituals.


----------



## joncrocker

Hey guys, noob question here...

I was sort of inspired by this thread to goof around with a few erotica shorts. I keep seeing people talk about the "Adult" filter - how do I determine if my book has been filtered, and what impact does it have?


----------



## Redacted1111

The adult filter means that your book will not be found in the general search, but it can be found if searched from the Kindle section or from Books. You can find if your book has been filtered at http://www.salesrankexpress.com/

My filtered book still does better than my two PI books. I suck at PI apparently.


----------



## wtvr

So is it safe to assume that no one has been able to repeat Dirtiest Devil's success? Anyone getting close?


----------



## Redacted1111

I've made about a lot of money since I started publishing smut on the fifth of the month. But Dirtiestdevil has more experience and probably has super secret keywords that work like pixie dust sprinkled on elfin boy/girls. 

It was my book "Bred By Ben Franklin" that did it for me. I don't know what worked for others.


----------



## legion

o.gasim said:


> Those are GREAT results!!!


Thanks! Not bad for a week I guess, but with volume, I'm looking forward to better results.

Meanwhile, I am in LOVE with that Erotology cover. Good luck, guys! 
Looking forward to hearing about the results.


----------



## Sargon

LisaGloria said:


> So is it safe to assume that no one has been able to repeat Dirtiest Devil's success? Anyone getting close?


I'm doing pretty well, but I have 7 stories and 2 bundles out in the last 2 weeks. What do you mean specifically?

Knowing what I know now, I think it WOULD be possible to make $100 in 7 days on your first book under a new pen name, after doing enough research and getting a bit lucky. But I also realize now that it's a silly and pointless goal in the real world. What we all want is reliable income over a long time, and writing one story won't do that. Which is why everyone here is cranking out many more and building those little income generators.

That being said...The 4th book I published, which came out Oct. 10, did 58 borrows and 23 sales ($2.99) in its first 7 full days (not including date of publication). That's about $134 at the current borrow rate. It's the one that was ranked as high as #52 in Short Stories and #97 in Single Author at the same time. I have another, not related, that has sold just a couple fewer.

I'm pondering a post that includes all my results so far. It's hard, because I'm just so damn private. OK...I will say, I'm averaging $66/day gross income and I'm pretty fricking happy about it. That's not including the first week, when things were sort of ramping up. Things took a jump and never went back down, so far. My best day so far has been $95 in gross sales. My second best was yesterday at $82. I'm including borrows in all figures at $1.52 ea. When I get that first $100 day I will be in ecstasy. But not the type of ecstasy my characters are in. 

Some people on these forums have sales of $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 per month. Those are the kinds of numbers I want. And I don't think I want to get there writing these short smut stories, no matter how a) easy and b) fun they are. (I do think my brain is perfectly suited to writing them.) The novels I have written...it's just a hell of a lot harder, as most of us know. And immediate gratification works for me. I have always had a mental hang-up with long time periods (like, multiple months).

But I woke up this morning at 4:30 wide awake thinking about all this, and kind of decided I need to spend my writing time finishing a romance novel with erotic elements, something that could theoretically be the beginning of the road to 5 figures. You know, the kind of book that would become a series and get popular and be in the top 1,000 and all that.

BUT I also don't want to give up my $2,000/month I will be making if I can keep my average at $66/day. I'm not a full-time writer, I have other businesses I run and a family and I don't have tons of time to devote to writing. So, tough choice.

But overall, currently -- I'm pretty damn happy with what's gone on. I think about it pretty much every minute of the day, check my sales graph constantly, note the time of each increase for future reference, and have a big spreadsheet of everything including projections based on current sales. It's kind of taken over my internal life. Not sure if that's good or bad.


----------



## Guest

LisaGloria said:


> So is it safe to assume that no one has been able to repeat Dirtiest Devil's success? Anyone getting close?


I have one title out on a new pen name, and I have no idea who this Dirtiest Devil is. If I'm supposed to be trying to get "close" to whatever success Dirtiest Devil has, that's not my goal.

I plan to do well with this, but I'm not in a competition with anyone. My focus is on my own success.

(In fact, I've decided, just now, that the only title I'm recording on the spreadsheet is my first one. The rest of my erotica numbers and titles I'm keeping to myself.)


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

I think a worst case scenario is an average one borrow per day, per title. Even that is about $550 per year. Perhaps 2 borrows a day is more realistic? That would make $1k per title per year.

So... If done with the right topic, good  keywords and persistence, it should possible to make $X,000 per year, where X is the # of titles you have.

Now, that does not mean $50K a year can be done with 50 titles of 5k words, but I'll wager you can pay a few bills with it. No, it's not a guarantee, its a math equation. But IMO, it's worth trying.

My 7 days on my 2 titles is almost up, I'll post results later this week. My stuff is pretty vanilla in these 2, so nothing spectacular, but this was a "proof of concept". I'm good with the results.


----------



## Emma Waltz

Does anyone know how present tense sells compared to past tense? I've been writing first person present tense because I think it's better for reader immersion and quick reading. I'm wondering, though, if readers might find it unfamiliar and dislike it.


----------



## Redacted1111

EroticaWriter said:


> I'm doing pretty well, but I have 7 stories and 2 bundles out in the last 2 weeks. What do you mean specifically?
> 
> Knowing what I know now, I think it WOULD be possible to make $100 in 7 days on your first book under a new pen name, after doing enough research and getting a bit lucky. But I also realize now that it's a silly and pointless goal in the real world. What we all want is reliable income over a long time, and writing one story won't do that. Which is why everyone here is cranking out many more and building those little income generators.
> 
> That being said...The 4th book I published, which came out Oct. 10, did 58 borrows and 23 sales ($2.99) in its first 7 full days (not including date of publication). That's about $134 at the current borrow rate. It's the one that was ranked as high as #52 in Short Stories and #97 in Single Author at the same time. I have another, not related, that has sold just a couple fewer.
> 
> I'm pondering a post that includes all my results so far. It's hard, because I'm just so damn private. OK...I will say, I'm averaging $66/day gross income and I'm pretty fricking happy about it. That's not including the first week, when things were sort of ramping up. Things took a jump and never went back down, so far. My best day so far has been $95 in gross sales. My second best was yesterday at $82. I'm including borrows in all figures at $1.52 ea. When I get that first $100 day I will be in ecstasy. But not the type of ecstasy my characters are in.
> 
> Some people on these forums have sales of $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 per month. Those are the kinds of numbers I want. And I don't think I want to get there writing these short smut stories, no matter how a) easy and b) fun they are. (I do think my brain is perfectly suited to writing them.) The novels I have written...it's just a hell of a lot harder, as most of us know. And immediate gratification works for me. I have always had a mental hang-up with long time periods (like, multiple months).
> 
> But I woke up this morning at 4:30 wide awake thinking about all this, and kind of decided I need to spend my writing time finishing a romance novel with erotic elements, something that could theoretically be the beginning of the road to 5 figures. You know, the kind of book that would become a series and get popular and be in the top 1,000 and all that.
> 
> BUT I also don't want to give up my $2,000/month I will be making if I can keep my average at $66/day. I'm not a full-time writer, I have other businesses I run and a family and I don't have tons of time to devote to writing. So, tough choice.
> 
> But overall, currently -- I'm pretty damn happy with what's gone on. I think about it pretty much every minute of the day, check my sales graph constantly, note the time of each increase for future reference, and have a big spreadsheet of everything including projections based on current sales. It's kind of taken over my internal life. Not sure if that's good or bad.


I'm having the same problem. Too obsessed with the money I'm making. I can't sleep.


----------



## nellgoddin

Kalypsō said:


> That isn't an actual title. That's my attempt at humor.


I LOL'd.


----------



## nellgoddin

Kalypsō said:


> I'm having the same problem. Too obsessed with the money I'm making. I can't sleep.


Glad it's not just me. Checking the Report page in the middle of the night, bad bad bad.


----------



## o.gasim

Finally got to a real computer and wanted to send details on the compilation myself, and fellow Kboarders, created this Porntober.

Welcome to Erotology. An erotic anthology from the best work of 5 up-and-coming erotica authors, exclusive to Kindle and Kindle Unlimited. 

Molly's In Charge by Jane Danger 
Suburban BBW bakery owner, Molly Slayer discovers her husband's affair and lands herself in a whole heap of trouble because of it. With the help of her Erotic Romance book club friends, Molly discovers a part of herself she never knew existed and tries her newly acquired skills out on an unsuspecting fire investigator with a penchant for voluptuous women and sweet tooth for desire. 

James by Kelly Darcy 
Stacy had her heart broken by her cheating ex and has sworn off men indefinitely. For reals. That’s before she meets James Revelle, a sexy ER doctor in the hospital where she works, who makes her heart race and her body tingle even though she knows he’s no good for her…and for sure, the girlfriends aren't going to approve of what happens next. 

The Voyeur's Ball by Olivia R. Gasim 
A chance encounter with a stunning cougar thrusts Teddy's into an unforgettable night of taboo experiences, forbidden love, and red hot passion. Or in this case, just another night at The Voyeur's Ball. 

The Cheerleader and the Teacher by Roxy Night 
Cheerleader Stephanie is a bad, bad girl. She has a filthy reputation among the boys at her high school and they all love her for it. But when Mr. Grover gives her a bad grade on a test, she knows she’ll get kicked off the cheerleading team…unless she does something to change his mind… 

Biker Babe by April Ryder 
What does a meek, plump housewife in sensible-heeled shoes do when stranded on a desolate highway after running away from home? She hitches a ride back to civilization with a hot biker, that's what! And so what if she has to stay overnight in a disgusting motel room that has half a mirror on the ceiling above the only bed? I'm an adult. I can handle it. I mean, she can! 

Readers should be at least 18 years old, 
and be comfortable with intense sexual liaisons 
including but not limited to manage, domination, 
taboo older men, and BBW.


----------



## Redacted1111

Ben Franklin and George Washington do Philadelphia. 
A gay erotic gangbang. 
Spirit of 1776.

I doubt it would get past the filter, but hot damn. 



Actually, I lust more for Thomas Jefferson.  

"I Was Thomas Jefferson's Sex Slave, An Erotic Memoir"


----------



## Sargon

EelKat said:


> OMG! Amazon is fast tonight! I just published a new title about 2 minutes before that last post on this thread. I just went back to my dashboard to get ready to publish a 2nd title and the 1st one is already live!
> 
> That was like what - 45 minutes ago? or less?
> 
> It was Tuesday last time I had one go through fast too.
> 
> It was put in Romance > Erotica, not Erotica, I wonder if that had anything to do with it?


That's insane! I do think putting into Erotica adds massive amounts of time as they must pull them and hand-check them. But 45 minutes?


----------



## RovingSoul

Hey everyone. I don't hang out here much - reddit has all my people. However, this thread has been discussed much over there, so I decided to check it out. I'm seeing a lot of people struggling with fiverr and covers. I make covers for smut peddlers, and my turn around is *fast*. I have no day job, so... Anyways, my website is www.FiannaBranigan.com. You can check out a bunch of the ones I've made. One caveat - I will be out of town Thursday - Saturday, but as of Sunday I'm back in business. 

Normally I charge $20 a cover, which includes a photo or two from depositphotos (of your choice) and pretty much unlimited changes. I mean, don't take it too far, but I'm easy to work with. I'll give you guys a discount though - $15 per cover, $10 if you order more than five.

Sorry if I'm not supposed to be advertising? I won't mention it anywhere else.


----------



## dirtiestdevil

LisaGloria said:


> So is it safe to assume that no one has been able to repeat Dirtiest Devil's success? Anyone getting close?


Here's one of my latest books

http://i.imgur.com/h9KlIa1.jpg

And to those not in the know -- I claimed a book, released on a random pen name, could move over 100+ units in under a week (much sooner in fact). This isn't even a shining example of what is possible.

This one took about 2 days (excluding that the first day wasn't a full 24 hours, mind you...) to reach that number.


----------



## Charmaine

Kalypsō said:


> Ben Franklin and George Washington do Philadelphia.
> A gay erotic gangbang.
> Spirit of 1776.
> 
> I doubt it would get past the filter, but hot damn.
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, I lust more for Thomas Jefferson.
> 
> "I Was Thomas Jefferson's Sex Slave, An Erotic Memoir"


*You're joking...but I want to read these 
You have a way with words m'Lady *


----------



## KelliWolfe

dirtiestdevil said:


> Here's one of my latest books
> 
> http://i.imgur.com/h9KlIa1.jpg
> 
> And to those not in the know -- I claimed a book, released on a random pen name, could move over 100+ units in under a week (much sooner in fact). This isn't even a shining example of what is possible.
> 
> This one took about 2 days (excluding that the first day wasn't a full 24 hours, mind you...) to reach that number.


Wow. I'm definitely writing the wrong kinks.


----------



## Redacted1111

Using the right keywords makes a huge difference. My PI sucks but my other stuff seems to do pretty well for me, and I'm a newb at this. I obviously don't have the right keywords for PI. I can tell it would be possible if you have the right keyword combos and the right covers/blurbs/titles. It's mostly keywords. That's the trick and that is something you have to figure out yourself.


----------



## wtvr

dirtiestdevil said:


> Here's one of my latest books
> 
> http://i.imgur.com/h9KlIa1.jpg
> 
> And to those not in the know -- I claimed a book, released on a random pen name, could move over 100+ units in under a week (much sooner in fact). This isn't even a shining example of what is possible.
> 
> This one took about 2 days (excluding that the first day wasn't a full 24 hours, mind you...) to reach that number.


OK, that's fab. You have some serious juice.
So with that in mind, everyone else is missing the mark. The secret trove of knowledge hasn't yet been cracked.


----------



## Redacted1111

CeeCeeS said:


> *You're joking...but I want to read these
> You have a way with words m'Lady *


Well, my founding fathers porn jokes had me laughing to myself all day. I really do think historical references are filtered in erotica. It's too bad. I totally want to be Thomas Jefferson's sex slave.


----------



## batmansero

Someone mentioned 'barebacking' as a keyword, so I looked it up as my serial is all bareback.  And found a cover that shows actual genitals.  How did that get past the adult filter


----------



## dirtiestdevil

April Ryder said:


> Someone mentioned 'barebaking' as a keyword, so I looked it up as my serial is all bareback. And found a cover that shows actual genitals. How did that get past the adult filter


Bare baking? Is it some dirty donut erotica?


----------



## Midnight Writer

*deleted*


----------



## dirtiestdevil

LisaGloria said:


> OK, that's fab. You have some serious juice.
> So with that in mind, everyone else is missing the mark. The secret trove of knowledge hasn't yet been cracked.


By quite a margin. The last couple of my books have nearly all been below the top 1,000 in kindle store. Again, all with no marketing or promotion. And they take me less time to write than a trip to the salon.


----------



## Guest

Dudes, I just uploaded my second one.  Now I'm gonna mosey on out.  

I plan on sticking with this erotica writing.  So to those of you who are doing the same, best of luck for the rest of this 2014.


----------



## Sargon

dirtiestdevil said:


> Here's one of my latest books
> 
> http://i.imgur.com/h9KlIa1.jpg
> 
> And to those not in the know -- I claimed a book, released on a random pen name, could move over 100+ units in under a week (much sooner in fact). This isn't even a shining example of what is possible.
> 
> This one took about 2 days (excluding that the first day wasn't a full 24 hours, mind you...) to reach that number.


Wow. Holy crap. You really know what you're doing. We are humbled. (Well, I am.) Thanks for posting this!! 

One question -- let's say I want to do something a bit different from what I've been doing under my pen name for the last 2 weeks. Like let's say I wanted to do gay instead of straight, or werewolves instead of humans. Do you think is *necessary* to start a new pen name? Is it *desirable* to do so? Or just lump them all in the same one that's been doing straight, human smut?

Does the quality of covers matter? By which I mean, really nice looking vs. kinda crappy looking?


----------



## EloaBrace

I've got four ready to go live as soon as I figure out this keyword thing...oh and how to format...too many things to learn!


----------



## dirtiestdevil

EroticaWriter said:


> Wow. Holy crap. You really know what you're doing. We are humbled. (Well, I am.) Thanks for posting this!!
> 
> One question -- let's say I want to do something a bit different from what I've been doing under my pen name for the last 2 weeks. Like let's say I wanted to do gay instead of straight, or werewolves instead of humans. Do you think is *necessary* to start a new pen name? Is it *desirable* to do so? Or just lump them all in the same one that's been doing straight, human smut?
> 
> Does the quality of covers matter? By which I mean, really nice looking vs. kinda crappy looking?


Keep one pen name, start a hundred -- it really doesn't matter. It CAN if you have a related catalog. But to answer your real question... no, having a mixed erotica author catalog won't hurt your sales. If you have similar themed books, keep them under one name so you can link to them inside your books. Other than that, it really doesn't matter.

Covers, don't account for a whole lot. I've done experiments on this to convince people how little they matter -- putting up essentially a single color image with no words or images and selling it on amazon (i.e. a colored rectangle...). A good cover WILL increase sales, but it is not essential. If your books aren't selling, look elsewhere first for where you're going wrong.


----------



## Sargon

dirtiestdevil said:


> Keep one pen name, start a hundred -- it really doesn't matter. It CAN if you have a related catalog. But to answer your real question... no, having a mixed erotica author catalog won't hurt your sales. If you have similar themed books, keep them under one name so you can link to them inside your books. Other than that, it really doesn't matter.
> 
> Covers, don't account for a whole lot. I've done experiments on this to convince people how little they matter -- putting up essentially a single color image with no words or images and selling it on amazon (i.e. a colored rectangle...). A good cover WILL increase sales, but it is not essential. If your books aren't selling, look elsewhere first for where you're going wrong.


THANKS!!! I'm not sure if you can imagine how incredibly helpful these seemingly small bits of information truly are!


----------



## dirtiestdevil

EroticaWriter said:


> THANKS!!! I'm not sure if you can imagine how incredibly helpful these seemingly small bits of information truly are!


My 'proper' selling erotica books move well over 100+ units a DAY pretty soon after release. It is a VERY high ceiling when done correctly


----------



## Midnight Writer

dirtiestdevil said:


> My 'proper' selling erotica books move well over 100+ units a DAY pretty soon after release. It is a VERY high ceiling when done correctly


So...is it the keywords that make or break you? 

(Thanks for all the tidbits, DD!)


----------



## dirtiestdevil

Literally everyone in the world, right now, has in their power (after just 4-6 hours) to release a top 1,000 book on amazon and quite a bit lower at that. Mine have dropped to the low hundreds in the entire kindle store. Again, no marketing, no promotion.


----------



## dirtiestdevil

Lanette Curington said:


> So...is it the keywords that make or break you?
> 
> (Thanks for all the tidbits, DD!)


95% (or more) of your success, mmhmm

Keywords, genre, and blurb are probably the biggest factors. It ALL matters in the end, of course. But for the average joe's purpose, keywords will get you where you need to be.


----------



## Guest

dirtiestdevil said:


> Literally everyone in the world, right now, has in their power (after just 4-6 hours) to release a top 1,000 book on amazon and quite a bit lower at that. Mine have dropped to the low hundreds in the entire kindle store. Again, no marketing, no promotion.


Yeah. If they know the keywords. If they don't, then they don't have the power. I'm pretty sure that's less than everyone.


----------



## ipg69

dirtiestdevil said:


> Literally everyone in the world, right now, has in their power (after just 4-6 hours) to release a top 1,000 book on amazon and quite a bit lower at that. Mine have dropped to the low hundreds in the entire kindle store. Again, no marketing, no promotion.


Haha you really are a dirty devil, teasing us like that...love it!


----------



## Redacted1111

I just did a few hours on my PI keyword research. I realized my keywords pretty much sucked. I'm probably still missing something, but I think it will help. I"d like to avoid completely rebranding them, so this is a good first step. I kind of have my pen names by personality. One is light and funny, one is dark paranormal, and I'm starting new erom billionaire name. Hoping my light and funny name will hold all my stuff without it being a problem. I've got some good keywords for one genre and that is where I'm making most of my income. But you have to have good keywords for each theme or you don't get sales, like, at all.


----------



## dirtiestdevil

ShaneJeffery said:


> Yeah. If they know the keywords. If they don't, then they don't have the power. I'm pretty sure that's less than everyone.


Trust in the lord!


----------



## Guest

Maisy said:


> I see you saying that you have a super awesome penname & can work magic...but that's it. You aren't even saying what your writing about (PI? Dubcon? Lactation? T-Rex porn) You're just doing the same thing you've done in all the other threads, talk about how awesome you are and also regurgitating the same bland advice (blurb, keywords, cover.)
> 
> You're awesome. We get it. But do you have anything helpful to say?


Thank you, Maisy. It's good to see I'm not the *only* one annoyed.


----------



## Sargon

Maisy said:


> I see you saying that you have a super awesome penname & can work magic...but that's it. You aren't even saying what your writing about (PI? Dubcon? Lactation? T-Rex porn) You're just doing the same thing you've done in all the other threads, talk about how awesome you are and also regurgitating the same bland advice (blurb, keywords, cover.)
> 
> You're awesome. We get it. But do you have anything helpful to say?


It is helpful to me. Very helpful. I guess I haven't been around long enough to have heard it all before. He or she answered my specific questions with very clear, very helpful responses. PLEASE don't hound him/her off this thread.

Keep in mind -- it would not be wise for DirtiestDevil to reveal the secrets. Then they wouldn't be secrets any more, and they would no longer work -- for anybody. This is the way of things. We have no idea how long and hard this person worked to discover what they now know.

If I discover the secret sauce, I'm not telling, either. Sorry. It's nothing personal.


----------



## Sargon

Sorry, one more thing. DD might have saved me *many hours* of testing and playing around by explaining the info about pen names and covers. Granted, some of that was touched on in the erotica book we've all mentioned, but sort of...not really...and in that book, you don't know if you can really trust anything.


----------



## Guest

EroticaWriter said:


> If I discover the secret sauce, I'm not telling, either. Sorry. It's nothing personal.


No need to apologize, and I'm not looking for your secrets. I can get my own.


----------



## Redacted1111

I don't share my keywords either. It takes me hours and hours to find them. It's work. As much work as writing. Dirtiestdevil does give good information. He/she just doesn't give everything away. I've talked to Tattooed Writer about his process and he doesn't share his pen names either. You can't expect people to spill in a public forum. It is amazing how much information you can get if you don't expect people to give you their specific information. A lot of times I see people on the board demanding proof, yet when they see complete and utter bs right in front of them, they can't tell what it is. Well, this is the internet, we have to use our gut. Take advice from people or don't. That's all there is to it. 

Gosh that sounded bitchy. I seriously need more sleep.


----------



## Guest

Kalypsō said:


> Gosh that sounded b*tchy. I seriously need more sleep.


I apologize for sounding bitchy, especially when I don't have anything to complain about.

Everything is going good. So it's time for me to leave this thread and run with it.

Later.


----------



## R. Graystone

So in light of the downward, sinking spiral of my first short, I decided to try my hand at a PI piece. It's just under 6K and is in review now, due to go up under a secret pen-name since I'm not gutsy enough to take credit for it in public just yet. I'll keep the thread posted. 

Results for my first week:
- An erotic romance, 6K words, priced 2.99, got 2 purchases, 1 borrow, 0 returns. I've scheduled a couple of free days to see if I can stimulate some movement on it, but right now it's sinking into sad obscurity on the charts. v.v

Let's hope this week is better! If the PI piece moves, I'll expand that pen-name with a handful more pieces and see how well it does.


----------



## pwtucker

I'm happy with my sales so far: one day in, and my three titles have 7 sales and 8 borrows. Going go try and publish another installment this morning and round off the mini-series.


----------



## Mylius Fox

Maisy said:


> I see you saying that you have a super awesome penname & can work magic...but that's it. You aren't even saying what your writing about (PI? Dubcon? Lactation? T-Rex porn) You're just doing the same thing you've done in all the other threads, talk about how awesome you are and also regurgitating the same bland advice (blurb, keywords, cover.)
> You're awesome. We get it. But do you have anything helpful to say?


On the one hand, this might all be a clever marketing ploy for selling that book (also complete with challenge) on writing erotica shorts (I bought it too ) - one Kboard account as the wise and secretive master who's uber-successful, another account for someone following the advice and doing pretty damn good, another who pokes around and has a mild bit of success and is hopeful and trying for more. The book gets name-dropped now and then, the different Kboard accounts form a nice echo chamber to keep things flowing, and at $6 a pop, a lot of eager authors wanting to make some easy cash make someone else offering a few practical tidbits in the book _a lot _of easy cash. 

On the other hand, I'm paranoid and used to to all kinds of shenanigans on the internet, and, even if it's true, it's not really harmful; there's a lot of motivation here for a lot of people to jump in and publish a lot of stuff uninhibitedly, and, like others have said, even if, worst case scenario, you get one borrow a day across all of your shorts, you're up around $500 for the year.

The only question is how much stock to put in the whole keywords without promotion or marketing thing. Amazon doesn't really divulge much when it comes to these matters and most people who are swearing that there's a lot of bank to be had, only if you find the right combination, certainly aren't revealing the keywords OR their books/pen names.


----------



## Mylius Fox

Boyd said:


> And if you truly want help with keywords etc... Many of us don't mind helping out and jumping in. Ask, instead of inferring something... please?


I'm not looking for help with keywords; I was responding to the sentiments about dirtiestdevil repeating how anyone can instantly do that well just by targeting the right keywords, without providing any substantiation. It's quite the specific yet empty claim and I'm suggesting it's probably not best to go into this thinking there are magic keywords and that the most important thing is to just keep trying to find them. Is there any reason to think that the mechanism would for some reason be so different than how it works for any other genre of book? Legitimate question.


----------



## No longer seen

I thought I asked this last night, but I don't see it, so . . .

Earlier, somebody wrote Kindle's keyword field has a 400 character limit. 

I've stuffed the final keyword with as many terms as it let me, but kept the first 6 keywords the normal size  one word or phrase size. And I'm sure I
didn't reach 400 characters just from the backloading.

So, how many characters are allowed between delimited commas, to make 400 in total?

Also, earlier someone inquired about whether it was okay to duplicate terms across the 7 keywords. Example: western romance,western adventure,western thriller  etc. Does the repetition of "western" actually strengthen the value of "western?" That seems too simplistic.

Thank you in advance,


----------



## KelliWolfe

dirtiestdevil said:


> Literally everyone in the world, right now, has in their power (after just 4-6 hours) to release a top 1,000 book on amazon and quite a bit lower at that. Mine have dropped to the low hundreds in the entire kindle store. Again, no marketing, no promotion.


I'm just a smidge skeptical of this claim, since the #100 ranked title in the erotica bestseller list is #3530 in the Kindle store, and there are only two erotica shorts in the entire erotica bestseller list. Practically everything else is novel length. The HNR list is essentially the same - novel length stuff with Jade K Scott and Scarlet Skyes and a couple of other older pen names almost the only representatives of the short erotica subgenre.

The two people with shorts in the top 100 are pen names dating back years with big catalogs and lots of bundled stories with other authors to increase exposure. If you're one of them then you've got advantages that people just starting out don't have. If you're not one of them, you don't have anything ranked as low as you claim - or else you're not publishing in erotica.

Hitting the sub-1000 list with an erotica short has been extremely difficult since Amazon started nerfing the harder kinks in 2011. Even the big names in shorts like Cassandra Zara aren't doing this - and Cass is an SEO goddess with tons of experience and a large popular back catalog made of popular series titles.

You've made a lot of hand-wavey claims with absolutely nothing to back them up. Covers don't matter? Sure, we all see one or two crap covers here and there that for some inexplicable reason do well, but they're the exception and not the rule. Keywords are 95% of the game? That's common wisdom, but there are a lot of people who don't necessarily agree with this. If it was really just a question of keywords then the internet marketers who are SEO experts would own the top 100 lists with their "Made in India" farmed out shorts. Amazon's keyword lists are right there for everyone to see - it's not like they're some hidden magic talisman or something - and it's not that difficult to go through and find the keyword combinations that put you in the same search results as top 100 authors writing in popular kinks. But that doesn't guarantee you sales.

So, sorry dude, but this is one of those "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" situations.


----------



## nellgoddin

dirtiestdevil said:


> Here's one of my latest books
> 
> http://i.imgur.com/h9KlIa1.jpg
> ...
> 
> This one took about 2 days (excluding that the first day wasn't a full 24 hours, mind you...) to reach that number.


Holy crap, that is one beautiful graph! I'm too vanilla. I need to find a kink I can manage to write.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Richard Stooker said:


> I thought I asked this last night, but I don't see it, so . . .
> 
> Earlier, somebody wrote Kindle's keyword field has a 400 character limit.
> 
> I've stuffed the final keyword with as many terms as it let me, but kept the first 6 keywords the normal size one word or phrase size. And I'm sure I
> didn't reach 400 characters just from the backloading.
> 
> So, how many characters are allowed between delimited commas, to make 400 in total?
> 
> Also, earlier someone inquired about whether it was okay to duplicate terms across the 7 keywords. Example: western romance,western adventure,western thriller etc. Does the repetition of "western" actually strengthen the value of "western?" That seems too simplistic.
> 
> Thank you in advance,


The entire keyword textbox length is 400 characters. How you split that up is entirely up to you. You can use single words for the first 6 and then copy as much of the dictionary as will fit into keyword 7 if you want. Duplicated terms in keywords is allowed - how much *difference* it makes is debatable. To some degree Amazon treats the keywords as one big keyword pool. If you have "erotica" as a word somewhere in keyword 1 and "handcuffs" as a word somewhere in keyword 3, you'll still show up in the search results if someone searches for "handcuffs erotica".

If you have keyword 1 = "erotica" and keyword2 = "cop police", you'll rank slightly higher in the search rankings if someone puts in "erotica police" rather than "erotica cop". Don't ask me why, that's just how Amazon's search engine weights keywords. Feel free to test yourself and verify.

Searches on keyword phrases seem to rank higher. So if you have keyword1 = "sex with beanie babys" and someone searches for that phrase you'll rank higher than someone with keyword1 = "sex" and keyword2 = "beanie babys". Although it doesn't *always* work out that way. The thing is that Amazon weights search results by how new your book is and where you're currently ranked along with a bunch of other goodies.

Try this. Take your highest ranking book. Do a search on an exact keyword phrase that you've got, preferably one which returns no more than a few hundred results. Notice how many stories in there are higher in the search results while they're not doing anywhere near as well as yours in terms of sales. You might have a story ranked at 20k and be on page 8 while stories ranked 220k are on the second page.

So no, it's not a simple matter of just picking the right keywords, and the people giving away keyword secrets really aren't giving you that much. How do you find the right keywords? OK, you've got keywords that put you in a 1000 result list with all the stories in your favorite kink and you consistently show up in the top 20%. Why do you still hear the sound of crickets chirping when you open your sales dashboard? There's a lot more going on than *just* keywords or even writing in popular kinks.


----------



## Mylius Fox

KelliWolfe said:


> Amazon's keyword lists are right there for everyone to see - it's not like they're some hidden magic talisman or something - and it's not that difficult to go through and find the keyword combinations that put you in the same search results as top 100 authors writing in popular kinks. But that doesn't guarantee you sales.


Right - there's likely an art to selecting the right _combination_ of keywords to maximize the amount of times you show up in _different_ searches, to make up for not obtaining visibility through other means, but it's probably not like discovering a lost dictionary of hidden, mystically-powerful words or anything.  
I think the idea is to imagine all the different kinks or themes that in any way pertain to your particular story and represent them all through the keywords, so a wider variety of searches will lead to your story. 
And, perhaps for a lark, to enter "secret Amazon magic genie keyword sell lots and lots" as a keyword - you know, like a cheat code for video games that instantly give you 1000 units sold or something.


----------



## skyle

Maisy said:


> I see you saying that you have a super awesome penname & can work magic...but that's it. You aren't even saying what your writing about (PI? Dubcon? Lactation? T-Rex porn) You're just doing the same thing you've done in all the other threads, talk about how awesome you are and also regurgitating the same bland advice (blurb, keywords, cover.)
> 
> You're awesome. We get it. But do you have anything helpful to say?


I for one *do not* find it remotely annoying! I find it helpful and also kind of inspiring to push onward (and in that sense it doesn't even matter if it isn't real, though I happen to believe it is). Please don't stop putting out these posts DD, I've learned so much from this thread generally and I totally think it's absolutely possible to put out a title and make 50 odd sales in a couple of days. After all, I've done it in other categories with my sweet romance pen name. I have not cracked the erotica nut yet, but I'm having fun trying.

It's a big learning curve and I have not discovered which kinks work best or what key words work best, but it's an incredibly interesting experiment as I think I'm getting closer to the secrets each time I try something different. And I relish that kind of challenge 

The only thing that I totally disagree with is that I am a big believer in building a name and a back catalogue. I would never have been able to put out a sweet romance and gain big sales straight out of the gate without already having a fan base, so I'm assuming it will work the same for me in erotica. More books under one name is more exposure and having them link to each other can only help.

I want to keep hearing about success stories please, they push me to write another 1000 words or find another hour in my day, because I want some of the pie  And I shall reiterate the fact that it almost doesn't matter if they are all BS because they are working for me!!

So Yay for everyone making sales and long may the gravy train stay on the tracks (I'm another one who thinks this bubble will burst very soon so we should take advantage of it right now!)


----------



## KelliWolfe

In the interest of putting my money where my mouth is I'll share some of my research from the past two days. This month I've published five PI titles, all stepbrother/stepsister. One of them just went live overnight so I haven't had time to play with it yet. Rankings are from yesterday morning when I started running tests. Keywords 1-6 on each story are identical phrases pulled from the Amazon dropdowns based on PI topics. The 7th keywords are the "everything but the kitchen sink" area where I put in related keywords that weren't in the Amazon dropdowns but that I know are keywords for other top-selling titles in this kink. The 7th keywords are *almost* identical, with only a couple of terms added or removed based on things specific to each story that someone might happen to search on. All four stories have been consistently ranking between 25-75k since release, with dips in either direction. I performed 3 searches for each shared keyword per book - the "all departments" search, books, and Kindle store. None of the books have keywords stuffed in the title or subtitle, and of course since it's PI the description fields are necessarily sparse and vague. All are listed as part of the same "Taboo Temptations" series.

Bikini Bottoms Up (10-7-2014) ranked 68k
Roommates with Benefits (10-9-2014) ranked 40k
What He Wants (10-10-2014) ranked 91k
Hard Choices (10-16-2014) ranked 147k

*All Departments*

 BBURWBWHWHCTotal Search Resultskw1106 56 79 63 340kw2 66 12 53 36 195kw3 -  -  -  - 3849kw5 -  -  -  - 4313kw5 -  -  - 2912516kw6208 92100101 778

*Books*

 BBURWBWHWHCTotal Search Resultskw1 88 44 68 69 194kw2 48 12 38 31 111kw33402683123082185kw53933113803772397kw52922312863081506kw6176 76 81 82 437

*Kindle Store*

 BBURWBWHWHCTotal Search Resultskw1 85 62 61 46 177kw2 81 53 64 21 111kw34942553541782078kw55992582571852374kw53533303331601506kw6147111110 65 428

The oldest title consistently performed the worst on identical keyword searches, despite being the second highest ranked. There was a significant drop off which I believe is due to it having just reached the 2 week mark after publication. Despite having the lowest sales rank, the newest title consistently showed up before the others. So all things being equal it appears that the Amazon search engine is indeed optimized to churn titles, favoring new releases over better sellers. More data points to verify this would be nice, of course. 

I released another PI in this series last night and as a result of this data I changed the underperforming keywords 3, 4, and 5 and replaced them with phrases that generate 1500 or fewer search results. On the keywords which I kept the same I just did a quick check and determined that the new release shows up higher in the search results even though it isn't ranked yet and currently shows no sales/borrows. I'm going to give it until Thursday night or Friday morning and re-test the results, and if it looks better I'll update the underperforming keywords on the original books with the new ones.

I don't know if any of that actually helps anyone, but it's at least some *real* data to play with and think about.

EDIT: For the latest release I did two other things slightly different than the other four. I added a subtitle with keywords and I only used the KDP description rather than updating the description in Author Central. Author Central descriptions are verifiably not indexed by Amazon's search engine, but various authors have claimed that the KDP descriptions are (so long as they're not overwritten by Author Central ones). So I'll be testing out that theory as well.


----------



## pwtucker

KelliWolfe said:


> So no, it's not a simple matter of just picking the right keywords, and the people giving away keyword secrets really aren't giving you that much. How do you find the right keywords? OK, you've got keywords that put you in a 1000 result list with all the stories in your favorite kink and you consistently show up in the top 20%. Why do you still hear the sound of crickets chirping when you open your sales dashboard? There's a lot more going on than *just* keywords or even writing in popular kinks.


I agree with this 100%. Thanks for providing such detailed info, KelliWolfe. It's much appreciated.

Question: with erotica, how soon should you release the boxed set of a mini-series? I've just submitted #4 today, and have the boxed set ready to go. Should I submit immediately? All 4 parts are $2.99 and in KU. I'm thinking of making the Box Set $6.99 and not place it in Select. Maybe even submit it to other channels via D2D. Any advise would be most welcome.


----------



## KelliWolfe

The old answer used to be bundle early, bundle often. However, I've heard big-name authors here who specialize in series say not to bundle because all you're doing is cannibalizing your own sales. I'm coming around to that viewpoint, and I have not been bundling my latest series. As of this point in time the only bundling I would consider would be the inclusion of individual stories in a multi-author mega-box set, and I'll probably do a final one to finish out the Preacher's Daughters series just because I already bundled the first 8.

Your mileage may vary. Results not typical. Some restrictions may apply. I am not a lawyer and I am not your lawyer and I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.  

Oh, and if your individual stories are in Select you *cannot* offer that bundle for sale outside of Select.


----------



## Lovelife

dirtiestdevil said:


> 95% (or more) of your success, mmhmm
> 
> Keywords, genre, and blurb are probably the biggest factors. It ALL matters in the end, of course. But for the average joe's purpose, keywords will get you where you need to be.


I know you don't share certain things which I understand, but I was wondering if you could say whether you've found it better, or makes any difference, to put your books in either Romance categories or Erotica categories?

Though I saw you mention looking under erotica>urban and doing what they do.... I've found recently that other short kink books like PI or Medical are ranking even higher under Romance>Contemporary or >Short Stories or >Single Authors. Any advice there? I don't want to get banned or anything by putting PI in a Romance category, but I do see plenty there that are ranking higher than the Erotica section ones so it's really confusing.


----------



## dirtiestdevil

Maisy said:


> I see you saying that you have a super awesome penname & can work magic...but that's it. You aren't even saying what your writing about (PI? Dubcon? Lactation? T-Rex porn) You're just doing the same thing you've done in all the other threads, talk about how awesome you are and also regurgitating the same bland advice (blurb, keywords, cover.)
> 
> You're awesome. We get it. But do you have anything helpful to say?


Why don't you try asking the people who took my advice, and are now making several thousand dollars a month from writing. 

My posts aren't about how awesome I am - that is already well known - they are about how awesome YOU can become.


----------



## pwtucker

KelliWolfe said:


> Oh, and if your individual stories are in Select you *cannot* offer that bundle for sale outside of Select.


Good catch!

I'll hold off on bundling then. I think with these impulse buys you could be right. If they like one, they'll snap them all up.


----------



## dirtiestdevil

skyle said:


> I for one *do not* find it remotely annoying! I find it helpful and also kind of inspiring to push onward (and in that sense it doesn't even matter if it isn't real, though I happen to believe it is). Please don't stop putting out these posts DD, I've learned so much from this thread generally and I totally think it's absolutely possible to put out a title and make 50 odd sales in a couple of days. After all, I've done it in other categories with my sweet romance pen name. I have not cracked the erotica nut yet, but I'm having fun trying.
> 
> It's a big learning curve and I have not discovered which kinks work best or what key words work best, but it's an incredibly interesting experiment as I think I'm getting closer to the secrets each time I try something different. And I relish that kind of challenge
> 
> The only thing that I totally disagree with is that I am a big believer in building a name and a back catalogue. I would never have been able to put out a sweet romance and gain big sales straight out of the gate without already having a fan base, so I'm assuming it will work the same for me in erotica. More books under one name is more exposure and having them link to each other can only help.
> 
> I want to keep hearing about success stories please, they push me to write another 1000 words or find another hour in my day, because I want some of the pie  And I shall reiterate the fact that it almost doesn't matter if they are all BS because they are working for me!!
> 
> So Yay for everyone making sales and long may the gravy train stay on the tracks (I'm another one who thinks this bubble will burst very soon so we should take advantage of it right now!)


But there is a major difference here. Short smut should not be confused with some longer romancey novel works. If you want to be the 'standard' author, then yes, you'll want to build a catalog and brand yourself to keep fans coming back for each new release.

Smut doesn't work that way. People buy on specific interests at a specific time. Horny is 24/7 and people want to get off when they want to get off. They don't care which author is writing the stories, so long as it serves their purpose. Having a catalog isn't bad, for the reason you listed. Linking to your other books does work. But it is not essential for your stories to do well. Meaning, your new releases aren't being sold because you have X amount of books already on one name.

That's why these threads got started in the first place. My point is, if you want to do well in erotica, every book should be performing on its own... without a catalog built already. That is how you should gauge your smut acumen. The catalog will only bolster sales (to a point).


----------



## Irish Mint

KelliWolfe said:


> Oh, and if your individual stories are in Select you *cannot* offer that bundle for sale outside of Select.


That's not true. You just can't have it outside of Amazon.


----------



## Sargon

Damn, forgot to check the KDP Select box on my latest release. The previous 2 have done well for me in Select. Quick poll: should I try leaving this out out for a couple of days and see what happens? I'm tempted to put it in Select the instant I can edit the info (It's still publishing).


----------



## KelliWolfe

dirtiestdevil said:


> Smut doesn't work that way. People buy on specific interests at a specific time. Horny is 24/7 and people want to get off when they want to get off. They don't care which author is writing the stories, so long as it serves their purpose. Having a catalog isn't bad, for the reason you listed. Linking to your other books does work. But it is not essential for your stories to do well. Meaning, your new releases aren't being sold because you have X amount of books already on one name.
> 
> That's why these threads got started in the first place. My point is, if you want to do well in erotica, every book should be performing on its own... without a catalog built already. That is how you should gauge your smut acumen. The catalog will only bolster sales (to a point).


Then why are almost all of the top sellers in the subcategories where shorts do well like Erotica->Urban and Erotica->Action & Adventure absolutely dominated by series and by the authors who heavily brand their covers to make it apparent that the books are related? And it appears that the majority of the outliers are novel-length books?

I've got 54 books in my catalog and the series/branded ones easily outsell the standalones by an order of magnitude.


----------



## dirtiestdevil

KelliWolfe said:


> Then why are almost all of the top sellers in the subcategories where shorts do well like Erotica->Urban and Erotica->Action & Adventure absolutely dominated by series and by the authors who heavily brand their covers to make it apparent that the books are related? And it appears that the majority of the outliers are novel-length books?
> 
> I've got 54 books in my catalog and the series/branded ones easily outsell the standalones by an order of magnitude.


I'm glad you've found a way to succeed! It's important for all authors to identify the best path for themselves to take.


----------



## o.gasim

KelliWolfe said:


> In the interest of putting my money where my mouth is I'll share some of my research from the past two days. This month I've published five PI titles, all stepbrother/stepsister. One of them just went live overnight so I haven't had time to play with it yet. Rankings are from yesterday morning when I started running tests. Keywords 1-6 on each story are identical phrases pulled from the Amazon dropdowns based on PI topics. The 7th keywords are the "everything but the kitchen sink" area where I put in related keywords that weren't in the Amazon dropdowns but that I know are keywords for other top-selling titles in this kink. The 7th keywords are *almost* identical, with only a couple of terms added or removed based on things specific to each story that someone might happen to search on. All four stories have been consistently ranking between 25-75k since release, with dips in either direction. I performed 3 searches for each shared keyword per book - the "all departments" search, books, and Kindle store. None of the books have keywords stuffed in the title or subtitle, and of course since it's PI the description fields are necessarily sparse and vague. All are listed as part of the same "Taboo Temptations" series.
> 
> Bikini Bottoms Up (10-7-2014) ranked 68k
> Roommates with Benefits (10-9-2014) ranked 40k
> What He Wants (10-10-2014) ranked 91k
> Hard Choices (10-16-2014) ranked 147k
> 
> *All Departments*
> 
> BBURWBWHWHCTotal Search Resultskw1106 56 79 63 340kw2 66 12 53 36 195kw3 -  -  -  - 3849kw5 -  -  -  - 4313kw5 -  -  - 2912516kw6208 92100101 778
> 
> *Books*
> 
> BBURWBWHWHCTotal Search Resultskw1 88 44 68 69 194kw2 48 12 38 31 111kw33402683123082185kw53933113803772397kw52922312863081506kw6176 76 81 82 437
> 
> *Kindle Store*
> 
> BBURWBWHWHCTotal Search Resultskw1 85 62 61 46 177kw2 81 53 64 21 111kw34942553541782078kw55992582571852374kw53533303331601506kw6147111110 65 428
> 
> The oldest title consistently performed the worst on identical keyword searches, despite being the second highest ranked. There was a significant drop off which I believe is due to it having just reached the 2 week mark after publication. Despite having the lowest sales rank, the newest title consistently showed up before the others. So all things being equal it appears that the Amazon search engine is indeed optimized to churn titles, favoring new releases over better sellers. More data points to verify this would be nice, of course.
> 
> I released another PI in this series last night and as a result of this data I changed the underperforming keywords 3, 4, and 5 and replaced them with phrases that generate 1500 or fewer search results. On the keywords which I kept the same I just did a quick check and determined that the new release shows up higher in the search results even though it isn't ranked yet and currently shows no sales/borrows. I'm going to give it until Thursday night or Friday morning and re-test the results, and if it looks better I'll update the underperforming keywords on the original books with the new ones.
> 
> I don't know if any of that actually helps anyone, but it's at least some *real* data to play with and think about.
> 
> EDIT: For the latest release I did two other things slightly different than the other four. I added a subtitle with keywords and I only used the KDP description rather than updating the description in Author Central. Author Central descriptions are verifiably not indexed by Amazon's search engine, but various authors have claimed that the KDP descriptions are (so long as they're not overwritten by Author Central ones). So I'll be testing out that theory as well.


Wow, thank you for this contribution Kelli. While I'm sorry this thread seems to be devolving a little bit to the negative side, it is nice to see some people still bringing the positive energy.


----------



## Mylius Fox

dirtiestdevil said:


> Literally everyone in the world, right now, has in their power (after just 4-6 hours) to release a top 1,000 book on amazon and quite a bit lower at that. Mine have dropped to the low hundreds in the entire kindle store. Again, no marketing, no promotion.





KelliWolfe said:


> I'm just a smidge skeptical of this claim, since the #100 ranked title in the erotica bestseller list is #3530 in the Kindle store, and there are only two erotica shorts in the entire erotica bestseller list.


Unless I'm missing something, these two statements are mutually exclusive, and one of the two definitely seems to be more substantiated.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

KelliWolfe said:


> Then why are almost all of the top sellers in the subcategories where shorts do well like Erotica->Urban and Erotica->Action & Adventure absolutely dominated by series and by the authors who heavily brand their covers to make it apparent that the books are related? And it appears that the majority of the outliers are novel-length books?
> 
> I've got 54 books in my catalog and the series/branded ones easily outsell the standalones by an order of magnitude.


No disrespect, but I believe that expectations and discussions of top ranks and outliers are beyond the scope of the challenge. Long-term, sure, but not a 7-day trial balloon.

I've gotten a few bucks out of this, but I've never tried before, so this is bonus money. Plus, I'm still on training wheels. YES, I think I "beat the challenge" because my 2 stories got sales and borrows. As I get better at the game (and yes, $10/mo or $10K/mo this is a game), I'll create , by luck or skill, an outlier or a bill-payer. Either way, I have more royalties coming than I did before I tried. And for that, I thank you all.

Did I achieve the success DD has mentioned? Not yet, but I will.

This challenge is to see what you can do. Some people made $100 in 7 days on a few stories, some made $10 on one, but I agree with the premise: You can make a living of this game in short time if you focus and learn with every new book.


----------



## britnidanielle

I'm late to the party, but I'm jumping into the fold! Uploading my new short (under a new, but similar, pen name RIGHT NOW!). 

Should I price at 99-cents or $2.99? My story is about 8700 words...I'm thinking 99-cents, but I see you guys selling at 2.99. This is part one of a 3-part serial.


----------



## britnidanielle

dirtiestdevil said:


> Why don't you try asking the people who took my advice, and are now making several thousand dollars a month from writing.
> 
> My posts aren't about how awesome I am - that is already well known - they are about how awesome YOU can become.


Umm...*stalks dirtiestdevil's posts*


----------



## skyle

I don't know if this is remotely helpful but out of my three stories loaded in the last two weeks I have calculated I've earned about $90.

That sure won't pay the bills; after all - a lot of regular jobs can earn that in a day, let alone over two weeks. But like cyanide the effect is accumulative. I'm not disheartened. Like building blocks each new release will take you a little higher on the overall total.


----------



## Sargon

dirtiestdevil said:


> But there is a major difference here. Short smut should not be confused with some longer romancey novel works. If you want to be the 'standard' author, then yes, you'll want to build a catalog and brand yourself to keep fans coming back for each new release.
> 
> Smut doesn't work that way. People buy on specific interests at a specific time. Horny is 24/7 and people want to get off when they want to get off. They don't care which author is writing the stories, so long as it serves their purpose. Having a catalog isn't bad, for the reason you listed. Linking to your other books does work. But it is not essential for your stories to do well. Meaning, your new releases aren't being sold because you have X amount of books already on one name.
> 
> That's why these threads got started in the first place. My point is, if you want to do well in erotica, every book should be performing on its own... without a catalog built already. That is how you should gauge your smut acumen. The catalog will only bolster sales (to a point).


Thanks, DD -- keep the helpful posts "coming"! 

Please don't listen to those who knock you down here or call your claims unsubstantiated. I personally doubt anyone would fabricate a Sales Dashboard graph, and few would even be able to if they wanted.

What I loved about seeing the sales graph was getting a sense of the scale that could be achieved -- in other words, the specific sales numbers on a book. "This is what can be done." Before that, I thought I was doing pretty well. Now, I know what is possible. It's incredibly helpful.

And you're obviously not bragging. You're just telling us what you can do, and have done. It's not bragging if you can do it. Kboards is all about sharing the knowledge and you are a great example of that. I hope to have my own killer graph to show someday, too.


----------



## Sargon

KelliWolfe said:


> In the interest of putting my money where my mouth is I'll share some of my research from the past two days. This month I've published five PI titles, all stepbrother/stepsister. One of them just went live overnight so I haven't had time to play with it yet. Rankings are from yesterday morning when I started running tests. Keywords 1-6 on each story are identical phrases pulled from the Amazon dropdowns based on PI topics. The 7th keywords are the "everything but the kitchen sink" area where I put in related keywords that weren't in the Amazon dropdowns but that I know are keywords for other top-selling titles in this kink. The 7th keywords are *almost* identical, with only a couple of terms added or removed based on things specific to each story that someone might happen to search on. All four stories have been consistently ranking between 25-75k since release, with dips in either direction. I performed 3 searches for each shared keyword per book - the "all departments" search, books, and Kindle store. None of the books have keywords stuffed in the title or subtitle, and of course since it's PI the description fields are necessarily sparse and vague. All are listed as part of the same "Taboo Temptations" series.
> 
> ... snip...


Incredibly helpful, Kelli!! Thanks for posting and sharing.


----------



## KelliWolfe

skyle said:


> I don't know if this is remotely helpful but out of my three stories loaded in the last two weeks I have calculated I've earned about $90.
> 
> That sure won't pay the bills; after all - a lot of regular jobs can earn that in a day, let alone over two weeks. But like cyanide the effect is accumulative. I'm not disheartened. Like building blocks each new release will take you a little higher on the overall total.


That's actually awesome, skyle. Especially when you think that's potentially $180/month or $2160/year on three short stories that took a few hours to write and publish. 

The thing with this money is that it doesn't just go away. It keeps coming in month after month and as you put out new stories you add to it. The process is kind of like a nuclear reaction, where every individual book in your catalog is a uranium molecule. You have one or two books, you're only going to have a couple of neutrons flying around. But the more you add the more sales of one book feed sales into your other books, until you have a nice little chain reaction going. I'll grant that sales drop off over time, but it still adds up to a nice passive income that you can just jog along with a couple of new releases a month.


----------



## KelliWolfe

britnidanielle said:


> I'm late to the party, but I'm jumping into the fold! Uploading my new short (under a new, but similar, pen name RIGHT NOW!).
> 
> Should I price at 99-cents or $2.99? My story is about 8700 words...I'm thinking 99-cents, but I see you guys selling at 2.99. This is part one of a 3-part serial.


Price at $2.99. When you're ready to release the 2nd part look at your sales and see if you think it's worth dropping the price to 99 cents. If you're selling a lot at $2.99 then, leave it there.


----------



## CDForness

Humble apologies for not scanning all 36 pages, if this question was already asked.  But based on the last couple of pages, I've been changing up my keywords.  Is there a way to do this without the book going into KDP Review Mode?  I don't like that my book goes off sale for like 12 hours or more every time I change keywords.


----------



## britnidanielle

CDF said:


> Humble apologies for not scanning all 36 pages, if this question was already asked. But based on the last couple of pages, I've been changing up my keywords. Is there a way to do this without the book going into KDP Review Mode? I don't like that my book goes off sale for like 12 hours or more every time I change keywords.


Nope.


----------



## Midnight Writer

*deleted*


----------



## Midnight Writer

CDF said:


> Humble apologies for not scanning all 36 pages, if this question was already asked. But based on the last couple of pages, I've been changing up my keywords. Is there a way to do this without the book going into KDP Review Mode? I don't like that my book goes off sale for like 12 hours or more every time I change keywords.


The book doesn't go off sale when you change keywords. It stays live and available for purchase in the Amazon store.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

CDF said:


> I don't like that my book goes off sale for like 12 hours or more every time I change keywords.


Your book won't go "off sale", the review process is only for your changes. I changes my Categories OUT of straight erotica on one book and it was just a few hours. The book is always available after the initial publication, unless its gets yanked by 'Zon or you unpublish it.


----------



## CDForness

Yikes, just realized that one of my stories had no keywords for the last year...that explains a few things...

Thanks, Lanette.  Now that I look at it, it does say "Live - KDP Reviewing Your Updates."  When I click on more info, it says that my previous version is still for sale while the changes are being reviewed.


----------



## dirtiestdevil

EroticaWriter said:


> Thanks, DD -- keep the helpful posts "coming"!
> 
> Please don't listen to those who knock you down here or call your claims unsubstantiated. I personally doubt anyone would fabricate a Sales Dashboard graph, and few would even be able to if they wanted.
> 
> What I loved about seeing the sales graph was getting a sense of the scale that could be achieved -- in other words, the specific sales numbers on a book. "This is what can be done." Before that, I thought I was doing pretty well. Now, I know what is possible. It's incredibly helpful.
> 
> And you're obviously not bragging. You're just telling us what you can do, and have done. It's not bragging if you can do it. Kboards is all about sharing the knowledge and you are a great example of that. I hope to have my own killer graph to show someday, too.


You want some graph porn?

Here's my most recent stats for the week http://i.imgur.com/TIEK22f.jpg

None of my books are priced below $2.99 either. Yes, that's over $1,000 per day at the current borrow rate.


----------



## Sargon

EroticaWriter said:


> Damn, forgot to check the KDP Select box on my latest release. The previous 2 have done well for me in Select. Quick poll: should I try leaving this out out for a couple of days and see what happens? I'm tempted to put it in Select the instant I can edit the info (It's still publishing).


Never mind, I'm going to do it. Turns out it happens almost immediately. And also discovered one of my earlier bundles was not in Select and it's only had 2 sales and of course no borrows, which is frustrating BUT also good evidence that borrows are important.

Onward...


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

dirtiestdevil said:


> You want some graph porn?
> 
> Here's my most recent stats for the week http://i.imgur.com/TIEK22f.jpg
> 
> None of my books are priced below $2.99 either.


"Yer a wizard, Harry!"

We done!


----------



## Sargon

dirtiestdevil said:


> You want some graph porn?
> 
> Here's my most recent stats for the week http://i.imgur.com/TIEK22f.jpg
> 
> None of my books are priced below $2.99 either.


Holy God. Let me pick my jaw up...ok, that's better.


----------



## wtvr

M. Frank Parsons said:


> "Yer a wizard, Harry!"
> 
> We done!


LOL... What the heck! So good!


----------



## britnidanielle

dirtiestdevil said:


> You want some graph porn?
> 
> Here's my most recent stats for the week http://i.imgur.com/TIEK22f.jpg
> 
> None of my books are priced below $2.99 either. Yes, that's over $1,000 per day at the current borrow rate.


Good Lord.

*flexes fingers and starts typing*


----------



## Lovelife

dirtiestdevil said:


> You want some graph porn?
> 
> Here's my most recent stats for the week http://i.imgur.com/TIEK22f.jpg
> 
> None of my books are priced below $2.99 either. Yes, that's over $1,000 per day at the current borrow rate.


Sweet Baby Jesus! I think I just fainted. Can't wait for that to be my graph!! Love your posts btw... very helpful.

Not sure if you missed my earlier question Dirty but just in case:

I know you don't share certain things which I understand, but I was wondering if you could say whether you've found it better, or makes any difference, to put your books in either Romance categories or Erotica categories?

Though I saw you mention looking under erotica>urban and doing what they do.... I've found recently that other short kink books like PI or Medical are ranking even higher under Romance>Contemporary or >Short Stories or >Single Authors. Any advice there? I don't want to get banned or anything by putting PI in a Romance category, but I do see plenty there that are ranking higher than the Erotica section ones so it's really confusing.


----------



## Perro Callejero

More grist for the mill:

My first title for this challenge went live on Amazon on October 15, so today is the seventh day.  Maybe the numbers will be slightly different by the time midnight rolls around, but I doubt it (and if somehow I see a sales/borrow burst, I'll be sure to update).

Total sales for the week: 5
Total borrows for the week: 1
Estimated earnings: $4.60 (US)
Money spent: $7 (for the cover image)
Number of titles completed: 2
Word counts for titles: 4.5K and 6K
Prices: 99 cents for Part 1, $2.99 for part 2
Kink/angle: billionaire bondage (FSOG style)

Both titles were originally published on KDP and Smashwords, but I unpublished from Smashwords and went Select on October 20th (so it's only been 2 days in Select so far, during which time I've seen 1 borrow).

I had a lot of fun writing the first two, but I think at least part of that was from the novelty.  After a week of mostly writing erotica, my motivation has started to fizzle (insert "two-pump chump" joke here  ).  If my sales/borrow results had been more exciting, maybe I'd feel differently, but right now the idea of keeping my nose to the smut-stone isn't making me race to my keyboard.  I'm also pretty uninterested in writing about most of the kinks that have been mentioned as potentially lucrative; even BDSM was a bit of a stretch for me.  I might try longer erotic romance in the future, and maybe I'll crank out another few erotica quickies, but I don't think I've got it in me to grind away in this field.  

Oh well.  It's definitely been fun to follow along with this thread, and to hear about everybody's experiences.  Good job, people!  And good luck for future sales.


----------



## dirtiestdevil

Lovelife said:


> Sweet Baby Jesus! I think I just fainted. Can't wait for that to be my graph!! Love your posts btw... very helpful.
> 
> Not sure if you missed my earlier question Dirty but just in case:
> 
> I know you don't share certain things which I understand, but I was wondering if you could say whether you've found it better, or makes any difference, to put your books in either Romance categories or Erotica categories?
> 
> Though I saw you mention looking under erotica>urban and doing what they do.... I've found recently that other short kink books like PI or Medical are ranking even higher under Romance>Contemporary or >Short Stories or >Single Authors. Any advice there? I don't want to get banned or anything by putting PI in a Romance category, but I do see plenty there that are ranking higher than the Erotica section ones so it's really confusing.


That depends what you feel comfortable with. People try to cram their books in every which way and they try to force through 'illegal' content all the time. Some times it goes through, some times it doesn't. You might slip one past the guards, or you might get slapped on the wrist and shoved in time out. Amazon may move your book to erotica, regardless.

They may outright block your book before it ever goes live. They might even suspend your entire KDP account.

It just depends what you're comfortable trying. Best bet, if you don't know the 'rules' of this game yet... then don't try to break them or push the boundaries.

But remember this -- just because it's ON amazon, doesn't mean it's ok or acceptable! The last place you want to look for what's "ok to publish" on amazon... is actually amazon itself! Just recently the top #1 or #2 book ON ALL OF AMAZON was "Stepbrother Dearest". Yes, the story is basically exactly what it sounds like... Could you get away with that in short smut?

One book can get by and another just like it can get banned. You play with fire, you run the risk of being burned.


----------



## Sargon

Hi all,

I was EroticaWriter, now I'm Sargon. Thought y'all should know. The old name seemed limiting, dehumanizing, and silly. Especially if I ever publish any of my non-erotica writings, which should be soon. Sorry to go changing things...I just wasn't thinking clearly when I set up the account.

-Sargon


----------



## KelliWolfe

Lovelife said:


> I know you don't share certain things which I understand, but I was wondering if you could say whether you've found it better, or makes any difference, to put your books in either Romance categories or Erotica categories?
> 
> Though I saw you mention looking under erotica>urban and doing what they do.... I've found recently that other short kink books like PI or Medical are ranking even higher under Romance>Contemporary or >Short Stories or >Single Authors. Any advice there? I don't want to get banned or anything by putting PI in a Romance category, but I do see plenty there that are ranking higher than the Erotica section ones so it's really confusing.


Is your book about finding a way to put people in a situation so they have sex, the end? Then it goes in erotica. Does the story focus on the characters and the plot drive them to develop their relationship where the sex is secondary and you've got a HEA/HFN ending. Then it goes in romance. Putting your smut in romance will annoy the romance readers, and they as a group tend to be quite vocal when they're not happy. You really don't want them complaining about your account to Amazon.


----------



## Lovelife

dirtiestdevil said:


> That depends what you feel comfortable with. People try to cram their books in every which way and they try to force through 'illegal' content all the time. Some times it goes through, some times it doesn't. You might slip one past the guards, or you might get slapped on the wrist and shoved in time out. Amazon may move your book to erotica, regardless.
> 
> They may outright block your book before it ever goes live. They might even suspend your entire KDP account.
> 
> It just depends what you're comfortable trying. Best bet, if you don't know the 'rules' of this game yet... then don't try to break them or push the boundaries.
> 
> But remember this -- just because it's ON amazon, doesn't mean it's ok or acceptable! The last place you want to look for what's "ok to publish" on amazon... is actually amazon itself! Just recently the top #1 or #2 book ON ALL OF AMAZON was "Stepbrother Dearest". Yes, the story is basically exactly what it sounds like... Could you get away with that in short smut?
> 
> One book can get by and another just like it can get banned. You play with fire, you run the risk of being burned.


I don't want to get banned by any means. I saw so much in romance categories I figured it was probably ok. From what you wrote it makes me question even writing PI for erotica even. I didn't prefer that kink, but it seems to sell the best for shorts tbh.

Do you not write any PI? Stepbrother Dearest is obvious, but I figured it's because it was a romance book more than straight smut that it cleared through and got so big. It seems when things get put in Romance and they're longer like novella or novel length you can get away with much more and it can get pretty highly ranked.

So, for someone starting out do you suggest NOT writing in the PI kink?


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Wow EelKat...just wow. Thanks for sharing that. Screw 'em, kid, you owe no one on a message board an explanation.
It's one of my personal dreams to drive a great big orange *whatever* because I'm a Leo and orange kicks arse. 
I cannot fathom an inability to comprehend numbers or math. I work out combinations and permutations for the joy of it.
Your success is truly inspiring. I hope you reach your goals!


----------



## Mahalo

dirtiestdevil said:


> You want some graph porn?
> 
> Here's my most recent stats for the week http://i.imgur.com/TIEK22f.jpg
> 
> None of my books are priced below $2.99 either. Yes, that's over $1,000 per day at the current borrow rate.


Cough, cough. So, uh, you're a fan of KU, I see? 

How many books do you have out? Or has this question been asked?


----------



## britnidanielle

Round of applause for EelKat....because...damn girl. 

I'm with you!


----------



## Sargon

dirtiestdevil said:


> You want some graph porn?
> 
> Here's my most recent stats for the week http://i.imgur.com/TIEK22f.jpg
> 
> None of my books are priced below $2.99 either. Yes, that's over $1,000 per day at the current borrow rate.


Hey DD, you posted at the beginning of Oct. (another thread) that you'd made $5,000 in September. Based on the graph, it looks like you might make anywhere from $15k to $30k in October, depending on when your sales ramped up. Way to go!! What happened...just more books? Or is there some rising tide right now in the 4th quarter?


----------



## dirtiestdevil

Sargon said:


> Hey DD, you posted at the beginning of Oct. (another thread) that you'd made $5,000 in September. Based on the graph, it looks like you might make anywhere from $15k to $30k in October, depending on when your sales ramped up. Way to go!! What happened...just more books? Or is there some rising tide right now in the 4th quarter?


IIRC, I said $5,000+. I don't use the actual number here, just one that was sufficient for a decent showing to let people know big checks are feasible. My numbers are quite a bit higher, yes 

I've had a fairly steady climb from the start. Both from a baseline standpoint and also from more consistent 'mega' seller books (none of which are planned, they just happen).


----------



## Sargon

dirtiestdevil said:


> IIRC, I said $5,000+. I don't use the actual number here, just one that was sufficient for a decent showing to let people know big checks are feasible. My numbers are quite a bit higher, yes
> 
> I've had a fairly steady climb from the start. Both from a baseline standpoint and also from more consistent 'mega' seller books (none of which are planned, they just happen).


Cool, thanks for the info!


----------



## R. Graystone

Well, so far so good. The PI title I uploaded last night is live. So far 0 purchases, 2 borrows, 0 returns. 

Uploaded another kinky title under the same pen name and am finishing the cover art for a third, so I'll keep a tally on those too. In the meantime, still no movement on the erotic romance in my sig. *sigh*


----------



## Catnip

Well, I certainly haven't made $100 in 7 days. I've put two titles out over the last nine days, and had five borrows. No sales so far. 

But I know it's early days yet. I guess I need to get into the kinkier stuff.  In any case, I'm committed to putting out at least 20 titles, and will decide where to go from there.

The silly thing is, I might have considered this an okay start, if I hadn't been reading this thread and comparing my results to others. Especially those posts where people have made way more than me, yet still think they're doing badly. I know it's bad to compare, but hard not to sometimes


----------



## R. Graystone

Don't feel too bad, Catnip. My first title looks like it's tanking good.   

The PI title on my pen name looks to be doing good (i.e. people are perverts   ) - up to 3 borrows, still 0 sales.

Two more titles going live sometime tomorrow hopefully (or today, I guess). Fingers crossed for a good weekend.


----------



## britnidanielle

*Tiny update.* My book is still sort of in review, although it says it's "live - updates publishing." Still, I have 1 borrow so far. Not sure when it hit the store, probably sometimes Wednesday evening, so that's not bad. I'm interested to see how it'll do.


----------



## Catnip

Thanks Rosanne.   I'm glad your PI is doing well. I'm definitely going to have to try dipping a toe into that pool.


----------



## Irish Mint

I can bet dirtiestdevil categorizes his books as romance instead of erotica.  There's no way any smut-writer with all their books in the erotica category can make that much money that quick. It's just not possible anymore thanks to Amazon's throttling.  

You guys should have started this thread in 2011 -- the gold rush era of kindle smut. Ah, the days when you could have fisting and step-brother right in the title


----------



## skyle

Hi, Irish Mint (or anyone who has them) can you explain the helmet things in your signatures?


----------



## Irish Mint

skyle said:


> Hi, Irish Mint (or anyone who has them) can you explain the helmet things in your signatures?


http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,150985.0.html


----------



## skyle

Irish Mint said:


> http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,150985.0.html


Ah ok, thanks!


----------



## No longer seen

KelliWolfe said:


> The entire keyword textbox length is 400 characters. How you split that up is entirely up to you. You can use single words for the first 6 and then copy as much of the dictionary as will fit into keyword 7 if you want. Duplicated terms in keywords is allowed - how much *difference* it makes is debatable. To some degree Amazon treats the keywords as one big keyword pool. If you have "erotica" as a word somewhere in keyword 1 and "handcuffs" as a word somewhere in keyword 3, you'll still show up in the search results if someone searches for "handcuffs erotica".


Thanks, Kelli. Of course, this leaves the issue still up in the air  I have stuffed the 7th keyword to the limit, but I don't believe I reached 400 characters. However, maybe I'm wrong. It didn't occur to me to count them. I heard about this from a Self Publishing Roundtable podcast.

I read the book on making a living writing erotica, and was knocked over the author's advice to stuff EVERY keyword -- that is, the spaces between all commas, not just after the last one. As mentioned, I was skeptical that repeating keywords makes any difference. If not, repeating them is just wasting space.

And could be diluting the strength of the other words combined. For instance, if somebody puts western romance, western thriller, western horse opera the inclusion of 'western' could be diluting the other words. Maybe the book would rank higher for 'horse opera' without western teamed with it. And western would be stronger if just left alone.

Or maybe not.

I'm thinking of publishing 2 similar stories to test keywords, but right now I'm busy with a novel and other stuff.

Dirtiestdevil -- I'll ask the writers you've helped make 2K+ a month writing erotica. Who are they?

I appreciate both Kelli and DD, and everybody else contributing to this thread. Thank you, all of you.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Richard Stooker said:


> Thanks, Kelli. Of course, this leaves the issue still up in the air  I have stuffed the 7th keyword to the limit, but I don't believe I reached 400 characters. However, maybe I'm wrong. It didn't occur to me to count them. I heard about this from a Self Publishing Roundtable podcast.
> 
> I read the book on making a living writing erotica, and was knocked over the author's advice to stuff EVERY keyword -- that is, the spaces between all commas, not just after the last one. As mentioned, I was skeptical that repeating keywords makes any difference. If not, repeating them is just wasting space.
> 
> And could be diluting the strength of the other words combined. For instance, if somebody puts western romance, western thriller, western horse opera the inclusion of 'western' could be diluting the other words. Maybe the book would rank higher for 'horse opera' without western teamed with it. And western would be stronger if just left alone.


If you use Scrivener, it shows character count as well as word count.

Last night I reran the search tests that I had done earlier in the week for my 4 (now 5) PI stories. The first thing I noticed was that the total search result counts that I got were radically different this time - by up to a thousand results on some keywords. After a while I realized that I had done the first searches on one computer logged in on my publisher account, and the second at home using my personal account. The Amazon search engine had drastically altered what it was sending me based on the user viewing history and buying habits. I had always assumed that all it did was alter the display order of less relevant titles, but it appears that it actually prunes less relevant items from the search result list you get as well. I assume the only way to get around this is to make sure that you're logged out of Amazon before you start testing the search keywords.

Based on what I'm seeing in my tests, I don't think stuffing every keyword is the right way to go. It looks like you get better results if you stick to one keyword/phrase for each of the seven keywords, but if you want to stuff then put it in the 7th keyword. DO NOT take that as gospel. I need to do a lot more testing before I can say that with a reasonable degree of certainty. It's very possible that it may turn out not to matter one way or another at all. 

The real problem I'm running into is that the search results themselves appear very inconsistent. In the tests last night it was apparent that other things than keywords were really driving search placement. Keywords might get the book into a list, but having them repeated didn't seem to affect placement much. Since I had altered three of the keywords on the 5th PI title when I published it, I was able to contrast its performance with the first four. In cases where the new book had a serious keyword advantage - keywords repeated in the 7 keyword section, in the title/subtitle/series name, and in the KDP description, it was still ranked lower than books which only had the keywords in the 7 keyword section. And in other cases the opposite happened. I'm not seeing a lot of rhyme or reason to it.

I'll be doing more tests over the weekend to try to play with their weighting system. I republished all of the PIs last night with a few tweaks to try a few more things out.


----------



## a_g

KelliWolfe said:


> The Amazon search engine had drastically altered what it was sending me based on the user viewing history and buying habits. I had always assumed that all it did was alter the display order of less relevant titles, but it appears that it actually prunes less relevant items from the search result list you get as well. I assume the only way to get around this is to make sure that you're logged out of Amazon before you start testing the search keywords.


I hadn't considered this before. I should give it a try.



KelliWolfe said:


> The real problem I'm running into is that the search results themselves appear very inconsistent.


This I suspected for a while now. People would advise to search on certain keywords and say 'see how XXX is really high in the results?' and I just wasn't seeing it. At first I thought I was doing something wrong. Then, I realized that I'm really not that stupid and there had to be something else going on.

Keep us updated to your results, it's very useful and informative.


----------



## Cege Smith

I have a short that went live on Sunday night. So far I've had 3 borrows and 1 sale on it. (So yeah, enough to cover the price of the "How to make a Living" book.) I had an idea for another story that has all the sudden turned into a erotic serial idea (installments being probably 20K each). I think I need to just write an idea as soon as I have it as opposed to marinating on it too long. 

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this book, but I found the essays to be incredibly well-done and insightful. I think as far as resources go, this is one I'll definitely reference often.


----------



## pwtucker

cegesmith said:


> I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this book, but I found the essays to be incredibly well-done and insightful. I think as far as resources go, this is one I'll definitely reference often.


I read the free sample in there, and the first essay was fantastic. All about exploring the uncomfortable and the ugly - truly spot on. If the rest of the book is as good, I'll pick it up.

Also, quick update: Entering day 3 and I now have 4 titles published, with 13 borrows and 16 purchases. Enough profit there after my $28 in covers to splurge on a Massaman curry and spring rolls!


----------



## R. Graystone

Gratz PW, curry and spring rolls are great! 

Still waiting for my next two titles to go live under my super secretz pen name. The PI title that went live yesterday is up to 3 4 borrows, 1 purchase, 0 returns. Still hoping for a rockin' weekend.


----------



## johnaburks

I just wanted to say hi and thanks for the time you've guys spent giving advice and insight in this thread. It's been a very interesting read.


----------



## Sargon

anderson_gray said:


> I hadn't considered this before. I should give it a try.
> 
> This I suspected for a while now. People would advise to search on certain keywords and say 'see how XXX is really high in the results?' and I just wasn't seeing it. At first I thought I was doing something wrong. Then, I realized that I'm really not that stupid and there had to be something else going on.
> 
> Keep us updated to your results, it's very useful and informative.


Are you guys going by "Relevance" or "New and Popular"? The results are totally different.


----------



## KelliWolfe

New and popular. That's the default and I doubt many people bother to change it.

OK, so after last night and today I can say one thing for certain - Amazon's search does not index the description field in *either* KDP or Author Central despite some books' claims to the contrary. It's possible that the search engine may analyze what's in there to weight the 7 magical keywords, but it isn't possible to search on anything in the description. And if the search engine does weight keywords according to whether they appear in the descriptions, hardly any of the top sellers are bothering to mess with it so it probably isn't that important. A lot of the top sellers don't bother to use any relevant keywords in their titles/subtitles/series names, either, and it doesn't seem to hurt their rankings much if any.

Also, almost none of the phrases you see bolded in PI descriptions are actually being used as search keywords by any of the high-ranking sellers in that subgenre. OTOH, with as many of them currently bolding phrases in their PI like "hard and without protection" it wouldn't surprise me at all if they don't train Amazon customers to start using those phrases as keywords. So it might not hurt to throw one or two like that in your list to beat the rush later. I know some of you are dabbling in PI, so it's something to consider.

I don't know that there's just a lot more to discover about this process. It's kind of a long and tedious grind and you basically just have to hope that you get lucky picking keywords that work. Unfortunately for most kinks there's a fairly limited number of good ones to choose from so you're more or less stuck making the best of what you've got.


----------



## Sargon

KelliWolfe said:


> New and popular. That's the default and I doubt many people bother to change it.


Mine always defaults to Relevance. I tried 2 different browsers. Maybe it's a cookie that's holding onto it, but I often change it to New and Popular, and it does not remember that next time. Weird.


----------



## Sargon

pwtucker said:


> I read the free sample in there, and the first essay was fantastic. All about exploring the uncomfortable and the ugly - truly spot on. If the rest of the book is as good, I'll pick it up.
> 
> Also, quick update: Entering day 3 and I now have 4 titles published, with 13 borrows and 16 purchases. Enough profit there after my $28 in covers to splurge on a Massaman curry and spring rolls!


Great, well done! Hey, I used to live in Noho back in 1992. Loved it. How's La Veracruzana doing?


----------



## legion

For those who make their own covers, the Mighty Deals Depositphotos.com bargain is back: 
http://www.mightydeals.com/deal/depositphotos.html?hmref=home

You can get 25 full-size photos for $37 or 100 for $99 (or for even less if you find a MightyDeals coupon).

Each of my covers is costing me 89c as a result of snatching up the deal last time (100 photos for $89--found coupon).
Hope this helps.


----------



## Irish Mint

Sargon said:


> Mine always defaults to Relevance. I tried 2 different browsers. Maybe it's a cookie that's holding onto it, but I often change it to New and Popular, and it does not remember that next time. Weird.


^^THIS. The default is _Relevance_, not New and Popular.

Try searching again in a browser you probably don't use, like Internet Explorer.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

I've just published my 4th erotic masterpiece and so far, I'm the only one who thinks it is a masterpiece. When I began this challenge I thought I couldn't do this because I was working on two books, and now I know I can't. 
Instead of writing my pen name in the erotic book, I copied and paste the copyright page with my name. Then I wrote the wrong title and used the characters names from my romance novel. And I wrote my name on the cover instead of my pen name, but I managed to copy the cover before working on it, and I was able to salvage the cover.  I caught the names of the characters during editing and my name on the title before publishing. The other things I don't know.

Moreover, writing erotica is difficult. I know what individuals can do to and with each other sexually, but if an individual isn't free to write and publish words that best describe what's in his or her imagination, then what's the point? 
I plan to stop at book 5, but who knows because this has been a lot fun, and I've learned so much along the way. First lesson from my book sales and borrows; don't write a strange story even if it is loaded with sex. Second, don't put a man on the cover if he doesn't have some kind of sex appeal. I could be wrong about this but what do I know? One man or woman's trash is another man or woman's treasure.

Up date on my books:
Book 1: 2 sales and 10 borrows
Book 2: 2 sales and 2 borrows
Book 3: 1 sale and 0 borrows
Book 4: published on (10/23/14) waiting for approval.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Irish Mint said:


> ^^THIS. The default is _Relevance_, not New and Popular.
> 
> Try searching again in a browser you probably don't use, like Internet Explorer.


Thank you guys! I've spent most of my time searching using the "all department" top level one which doesn't let you sort, but you're absolutely right that it defaults to relevance. Which of course means that my books/kindle store search results need to be re-examined. *FRUMPLE*


----------



## Sargon

KelliWolfe said:


> Thank you guys! I've spent most of my time searching using the "all department" top level one which doesn't let you sort, but you're absolutely right that it defaults to relevance. Which of course means that my books/kindle store search results need to be re-examined. *FRUMPLE*


And I imagine at least a good chunk of regular people must switch to Books or Kindle at some point during their searching, to stop getting toasters and stuff.


----------



## R. Graystone

Alrighty, I've got 4 titles live under my pen name now. 

1) PI - 7 borrows, 2 sales, 0 returns. Been live in the store ~36 hours and is ranking under 15,000 in the paid store.
2) Rich boss - 1 borrow, 0 sales.
3) BDSM - Nothing yet.
4) Student-teacher - Nothing yet.

The latter three just went live today, so I'm totally looking forward to the weekend. Will keep y'all updated. All are filed under straight erotica right now, but next week I may play around a bit with category to see how it impacts results. Wish me luck!


----------



## wtvr

Rachel E. Rice said:


> I know what individuals can do to and with each other sexually, but if an individual isn't free to write and publish words that best describe what's in his or her imagination, then what's the point?


What do you mean? What's holding you back?


----------



## KelliWolfe

Sargon said:


> And I imagine at least a good chunk of regular people must switch to Books or Kindle at some point during their searching, to stop getting toasters and stuff.


Right, and of course there are tons of people who go directly to the Kindle Store because they're actually shopping on their Kindles.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Yay! Congrats, Jennifer!


----------



## Midnight Writer

*deleted*


----------



## Sargon

emilycantore said:


> Remember to bundle everyone!
> 
> As soon as your have four titles - bundle! Add a buck to the individual price and keep going!
> 
> Also bundle by genre once you have four titles - lesbian, bdsm, etc.
> 
> Bundles can really pull in a lot of money and increase the earnings per title.
> 
> Put your higher selling titles at the front and lower selling at the back. A bundle helps increase the earnings of those lower selling titles. A poor title might only make $100 on its own but end up making $400 as part of a bundle.
> 
> I am so loving this thread. Makes me happy every time I read it.


Thanks, Emily! You rule.


----------



## o.gasim

Jen McVey said:


> I've been a member here for a year, have very few posts, and read almost daily.
> 
> But it took THIS thread to get me to finally push "Publish" at KDP today. The help, the pats on the back, the sharing, the camaraderie - even though I just lurked, I felt like I was part of it all.
> 
> You guys didn't know it, but last Monday I committed to joining this challenge. I missed the "story in a week" goal by a few days, but it's done. I wrote a 6k word erotica romance (planned as a series), made a cover (thanks, Canva!), compiled it all with Scrivener, and, with butterflies in my stomach, uploaded it to KDP this afternoon.
> 
> I have no idea what will happen with it and I'm sure I made some mistakes, but my self-publishing cherry is officially popped!
> 
> So THANK YOU! I may go back into the shadows, but I had to step out into the light for a minute and let you all know that I appreciate you
> 
> Jennifer


Super Congrats Jen, but you know what you have to do know...?

Write the next one!!!!


----------



## o.gasim

Just hit publish on my 4th book in 3 weeks (3 in series, 1 anthology with other kboarders). I have been working with some contributors here to refine my keywords and categories and hope my sales increase with this volume. My plan is to release 2 more over the next two weeks and then make some Random Encounters bundles for November and take a month off to recharge my smut brain.


----------



## R. Graystone

I still can't believe Amazon let your pen name fly. Makes me smile every time I see one of your posts, Ms. O.R. Gasim.   

Updated totals for this evening are:

- Book 1: 11 borrows, 3 purchases, 0 refunds
- Book 2: 4 borrows, 0 purchases
- Book 3: 5 borrows, 1 purchase, 0 refunds
- Book 4: Q.Q (see what I did there?   )

Looks like I've broken even on my cover art cost, hallelujah! Now it's pure profit baby, c'mon smutty riches!


----------



## skyle

R. Graystone said:


> I still can't believe Amazon let your pen name fly. Makes me smile every time I see one of your posts, Ms. O.R. Gasim.
> 
> Updated totals for this evening are:
> 
> - Book 1: 11 borrows, 3 purchases, 0 refunds
> - Book 2: 4 borrows, 0 purchases
> - Book 3: 5 borrows, 1 purchase, 0 refunds
> - Book 4: Q.Q (see what I did there?  )
> 
> Looks like I've broken even on my cover art cost, hallelujah! Now it's pure profit baby, c'mon smutty riches!


What have your covers cost you? I'm useless at design, and you still have to pay for stock art. I had a go with Canva and it was easy, but I still found it faster just to order each one on fiverr. So I have to remember to factor that $5 in for every single one. But they all pretty much cover that cost within 24 hours of going live.


----------



## R. Graystone

I picked up some very nice stock imagery and did the layout/design myself. Each image/cover came out to a little less than $5, and I've got 7 in total. So the 3 stories that are moving have already covered the cost for 7 books (4 out, 1 in the wings, 2 yet to be penned). Suffice to say, I'm a happy camper. I'll be happier still if the weekend goes well, I've heard that's usually the best time for this niche.


----------



## skyle

Yes, I found Saturday night to be optimum smut selling time. I've got another five covers already done and waiting for me to finish the stories but just like you, I have worked out that the cost is covered already. But I break it down by title, so each one must pay for itself and produce a profit too otherwise there is something wrong with it.

It's so different to "real" books, where my second novel took nearly a year to cover it's own cover and editing costs.


----------



## R. Graystone

Yeah, I'm definitely gonna keep track of how well individual titles perform. If something isn't moving, I'mma light a fire under its ass. Strictly proverbially speaking, of course.


----------



## nightfire

CDF said:


> Humble apologies for not scanning all 36 pages, if this question was already asked. But based on the last couple of pages, I've been changing up my keywords. Is there a way to do this without the book going into KDP Review Mode? I don't like that my book goes off sale for like 12 hours or more every time I change keywords.


Your book doesn't go off sale when it is updating.


----------



## Midnight Writer

*deleted*


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

R. Graystone said:


> Yeah, I'm definitely gonna keep track of how well individual titles perform. If something isn't moving, I'mma light a fire under its ass. Strictly proverbially speaking, of course.


I put one title free Wednesday, to 'light a fire'. Got 70 downloads, reached just over 3k rank in the free list and top 25 on 2 sublists and top 50 in the third. Tail? 2 borrows one sale yesterday. Will most likely perform much better which more titles to funnel readers through.

For my 7 days, my 2 titles (both 5K words) had 11 borrows and 3 sales, but they are very vanilla. Published nothing this week, to keep to the spirit of the challenge, but I have 3 more titles in the works. Once I have 5 titles, I'll start the bundling, which will make another 10 titles.

Takeaway: write fast, publish often (at least one title a week, 2 is better), focus on keywords and write in a kink. There's a reason the call it 'vanilla' 

I'm also working on the math, and I think a fair estimate of $1.50-$1.85 per day, per title is a reasonable bottom for non-performers. If you can average that, then leave it up; if not then re-jigger the thing a bit. If that does not work, move along. Write the next one. It might pick up when your catalog increases, might not, but don't waste too much time on it.

On the feasibility of the challenge ($100+ in 7 days on one title, new penname): Yes, it can be done, yes we all have the ability to do it, but I think one must have some knowledge of keywords and market trends. Anyone can ride a bike, but we don't expect to qualify for the Tour de France without the proper training.

I think this is a workable path to follow, I'm happy with my results, but finding the $100-in-7-day recipe will take some tinkering and time. Much less time than other genres, but time nonetheless.

Just keep swimming


----------



## Nicole Dixon

Very entertaining thread.  I appreciate your conclusion.  I don't think writing erotica is easy at all.  It's a hell of a lot of fun.  I've had success staying to the kink and being blunt in my descriptions.  When I say success, selling anything is a success in my opinion.  If people are willing to pay their hard earned money for something you've written, your writing is a success.  when they read the first and come back for the second and third book, that's a great compliment.  That being said, I planned on writing more faster.  My ideas bank is endless.  I only have so much time in the day.  It's so easy to get bogged down in the editing process.  I don't want to release a complete pile of junk.

I will add: series, series, series.  I underestimated how much people get invested in characters and want to see where they go in the next volume.  I sold some of my first book.  I sold some of my second book.  The third one sold fast.  Then I realized it was the continued story from volume one that was causing book three to sell so well.


----------



## pwtucker

Entering day 5 with 4 titles published. 19 borrows and 22 purchases. Looks like things are slowing down a little. Just submitted a bundle. Made enough money thus far to pay back covers and take four people to the movies. They're pricey around my way.


----------



## R. Graystone

Whew! I am on fire this week. 5th story is completed, jacketed and uploaded. Aaaaand, my first bundle! I just stuck 'em all together and created a nice 3D box image, ta da! Currently uploading to the great 'zon. 

Fingers are crossed that everything will be live by the end of the day. Come to me, craven smut fiends! Give me your dollars...


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Shut up and take my money!


----------



## Kassidia

R. Graystone said:


> Whew! I am on fire this week. 5th story is completed, jacketed and uploaded. Aaaaand, my first bundle! I just stuck 'em all together and created a nice 3D box image, ta da! Currently uploading to the great 'zon.
> 
> Fingers are crossed that everything will be live by the end of the day. Come to me, craven smut fiends! Give me your dollars...


 Congratulations on such a great week! If you don't mind me asking, how did you make your 3-d cover? I am a newbie to PS, so if you've found an easier way, I am all ears


----------



## crow.bar.beer

pwtucker said:


> Entering day 5 with 4 titles published. 19 borrows and 22 purchases. Looks like things are slowing down a little. Just submitted a bundle. Made enough money thus far to pay back covers and take four people to the movies. They're pricey around my way.


Congrats, that's a great start. 

I'm posting because I'm frustrated that Payoneer is taking so long to process my application so I can get my KDP account set up, I already have my first story and cover prepared, and I'm itching to *do* something towards this and publish it already. 

So I'll just say it came out at 5k+ words, it's the first in the serial, male POV, present tense... I've decided I'm going to share the books under this pen-name because it's erotica after all and being at risk of negative ratings bombs doesn't really matter, and the pen-name has nothing to do with my serious stuff, so what's there to lose, really? 

Basically I set it it up so that the character is in an ideal position to have all kinds of sex with all kinds of people, added in a bit of a dramatic framework to help propel things forward, but it's not story-heavy at all, it's almost all either sex or specifically sex-focused build-up. I'm hoping some strong characterization and creating a lot of sex-orientated stakes will help hook the reader to keep coming back for more episodes in general, while allowing me to have different episodes focus on different kinks, so I can draw readers in from all sides and hope they join the collective pool of readers. (I will wait to mention specifically what I conjured up in case Payoneer takes weeks and someone else sweeps up my idea before I can put it out there ).

So it all sounds nice and ambitious, but I've never written erotica before and haven't really read a lot of it, so I'm not sure if the writing will flow in the right way to satisfy readers. I'm waiting to write the next one until I publish it so I can gauge how it does, I like the concept itself so if the writing was totally unsatisfactory, I might scrap it and try it again. Or write a few more to see if it benefits from an accumulated effect, then scrap them if it totally sucks... the cool thing here is it's low-risk in terms of time investment and it's not like you're forever bound into something if it doesn't work.

/ramble


----------



## R. Graystone

But then I'd have to share my s3kr3tz name, and then I might just die of embarrassment.   

So far my pre-weekend totals are as follows:

- Book 1: 12 borrows, 4 purchases, 0 returns
- Book 2: 6 borrows, 1 purchase, 0 returns
- Book 3: 4 borrows, 0 purchases
- Book 4: Q.Q (the trend continues...)
- Book 5: Jacketed and submitted. 
- Bundle: All bundled and submitted. 

Of course, titles 2 - 4 just went live the 23rd. Title 1 has been live since early on the 22nd. It's obviously still early, early in the game, but I decided to schedule Sat/Sun free for title 4, both to encourage some momentum for it and hopefully gain some publicity for the other titles. Now I'll try to sit back and play the patience game over the weekend, maybe see how many more of these I can write. For those keeping track, all pieces are 6K or less. The single titles are all in KDP Select for added coverage, the bundle is not at this time (I'm experimenting with that, so if any of you who know better think the bundle should be Select too, feel free to let me know). There's a mixture of PI, paranormal, BDSM, student-teacher, anal play, coercive sex, spanking, toys, etc. A little bit of all the 'tame' kinks, basically, as I test the waters to see what the readers want the most.

I'll keep the thread posted, good luck everyone!


----------



## KelliWolfe

Another PSA. Here's an example of how sometimes what everybody knows just ain't so. So common wisdom says that there's no point in shooting for the Erotica->Romance category because it doesn't exist - it simply doesn't show up as a category when you're browsing on Amazon. I've even seen that stated in this topic, I believe.

Well, it is true _if you're browsing using the amazon.com storefront_. But if you're browsing the Kindle Store categories using a Kindle, it's definitely there.

The question then becomes one of how many people are using Kindles to search/buy/read as opposed to the web-based storefront? For many genres searching/buying is probably weighted towards the storefront. But I'm willing to bet that for short erotica it's very heavily slanted towards the Kindle and phone-based Kindle apps. This becomes more important since it appears that the search results are different between the web-based Kindle Store and the store in the Kindles.

It just gets a little more fun every day.


----------



## Mahalo

So, this is strange. 

I uploaded three stories this week. One is Rogue Alpha under my name. The others are short erotica stories under a pen name. Those under the pen name are showing a ranking, but nothing has showed up on my sales report for two days now. My other sales are coming in for Rogue Alpha and my other books. If I am correct, a book can't be ranked until there are purchases or borrows, right? So...what's going on?


----------



## Redacted1111

Books get ranked if they have KU downloads. Downloads weigh the same as sales, imho.


----------



## Mahalo

Kalypsō said:


> Books get ranked if they have KU downloads. Downloads weigh the same as sales, imho.


Right, but no downloads are showing up either. So, if a book is downloaded, but not read to the 10% or whatever before it shows up on your monthly sales report, it will still get ranked? Is that correct?


----------



## Redacted1111

Ana Munroe said:


> Right, but no downloads are showing up either. So, if a book is downloaded, but not read to the 10% or whatever before it shows up on your monthly sales report, it will still get ranked? Is that correct?


You don't see anything on the sales report until someone reads 10%. That's my take anyway.


----------



## nellgoddin

Ana Munroe said:


> So, this is strange.
> 
> If I am correct, a book can't be ranked until there are purchases or borrows, right? So...what's going on?


I don't know. I'm having some issues too--a big discrepancy between borrows on the Dashboard and borrows on the Month-to-Date chart, and also a boxed set that's had 6 sales for a week but still has no ranking. It's like everything is out of sync. I've emailed to ask, and I'll pass on whatever I learn if it's not specific to me.


----------



## Mahalo

nellgoddin said:


> I don't know. I'm having some issues too--a big discrepancy between borrows on the Dashboard and borrows on the Month-to-Date chart, and also a boxed set that's had 6 sales for a week but still has no ranking. It's like everything is out of sync. I've emailed to ask, and I'll pass on whatever I learn if it's not specific to me.


Okay, thanks. Keep me posted.

I understand that the borrows won't show up on the sales report until 10% is read but I do think it is interesting that the book will still automatically rank even if people haven't read it yet.


----------



## Sargon

Ana Munroe said:


> Okay, thanks. Keep me posted.
> 
> I understand that the borrows won't show up on the sales report until 10% is read but I do think it is interesting that the book will still automatically rank even if people haven't read it yet.


It makes perfect sense. Think of an extreme example: if a million people downloaded a single book all on one day, wouldn't you agree it should get a very high rank on Amazon? Maybe even #1? I know it's preposterous, but the point is that the downloads ought to count for _something_, even if they haven't been read to 10% yet.

My curiosity concerns what I call the "overnights," those borrows that show up at midnight PST. How were they accumulating? Why weren't they showing up one at a time? Doesn't really matter, I guess, but I kind of wish I knew.

EDIT: Sorry, I should rephrase that. They are the new day's borrows, so it makes sense they wouldn't appear until midnight (the new day). But why weren't they there at 11:00pm the night before? Certainly a bunch of people didn't borrow the book or reach 10% all at once at midnight. Maybe they are east coast people for whom midnight was 9pm my time, and so they reached 10% on their "local time"?


----------



## Mahalo

Sargon said:


> It makes perfect sense. Think of an extreme example: if a million people downloaded a single book all on one day, wouldn't you agree it should get a very high rank on Amazon? Maybe even #1? I know it's preposterous, but the point is that the downloads ought to count for _something_, even if they haven't been read to 10% yet.
> 
> My curiosity concerns what I call the "overnights," those borrows that show up at midnight PST. How were they accumulating? Why weren't they showing up one at a time? Doesn't really matter, I guess, but I kind of wish I knew.


Oh, I totally agree that they should count for something. I just had never considered it before this particular instance. It's always interesting to learn something new about amazon 

I agree on the accumulation of borrows at night. Or, if you have a permafree how there is always one singular buy at night and then it goes back to permafree.


----------



## Redacted1111

Sargon said:


> It makes perfect sense. Think of an extreme example: if a million people downloaded a single book all on one day, wouldn't you agree it should get a very high rank on Amazon? Maybe even #1? I know it's preposterous, but the point is that the downloads ought to count for _something_, even if they haven't been read to 10% yet.
> 
> My curiosity concerns what I call the "overnights," those borrows that show up at midnight PST. How were they accumulating? Why weren't they showing up one at a time? Doesn't really matter, I guess, but I kind of wish I knew.


Borrows are batched. I seem to get at least half my borrows over night. They stop reporting at about five or six CST for me while sales continue to report until midnight. I know if I haven't gotten a lot of borrows overnight, I'll probably have a down day. Like today. I was up again yesterday, but dipped again today. Seems to be swinging pretty wildly the last few days for me.


----------



## Sargon

Kalypsō said:


> Borrows are batched. I seem to get at least half my borrows over night. They stop reporting at about five or six CST for me while sales continue to report until midnight. I know if I haven't gotten a lot of borrows overnight, I'll probably have a down day. Like today. I was up again yesterday, but dipped again today. Seems to be swinging pretty wildly the last few days for me.


I guess we should say "some" borrows are batched, or maybe some are after a certain cutoff. But I think the cutoff is more like 9:00pm PST (11 CST). I make note of each jump on my graph and the exact time (crazy, I know, but handy info). Last night I had a borrow at 5:25pm PST, which is 7:25 Central. The night before, I had 5 borrows sometime between 6:21 and 8:59pm PST--I checked at those 2 times and not in between.

It would also make sense for Amazon to stop graph updates for borrows at 9 PST since that is midnight Eastern. This way, they capture that entire 3-hour window in a batch.

And looking back through my logs, I don't think I've had a borrow on the GRAPH after 9pm. BUT I have had borrows on the Month-to-Date Unit Sales report during times when no more borrows were showing on the graph. One day I had 6 during that period on the MtD, not on the graph. Could tell because it was a brand-new story.

I agree that the overnights can predict a good or bad day, but NOT always. I've had bad starts that have gotten great by the end...but no great starts that have ended up being bad days.

And you're right about sales. I've had a sale on the graph as late as 11:38pm PST.


----------



## Redacted1111

I just found another one of my titles is adult filtered. Fuck. I have no freaking idea why.


----------



## Lovelife

Sweet Amber said:


> Congrats, that's a great start.
> 
> I'm posting because I'm frustrated that Payoneer is taking so long to process my application so I can get my KDP account set up, I already have my first story and cover prepared, and I'm itching to *do* something towards this and publish it already.
> 
> So I'll just say it came out at 5k+ words, it's the first in the serial, male POV, present tense... I've decided I'm going to share the books under this pen-name because it's erotica after all and being at risk of negative ratings bombs doesn't really matter, and the pen-name has nothing to do with my serious stuff, so what's there to lose, really?
> 
> Basically I set it it up so that the character is in an ideal position to have all kinds of sex with all kinds of people, added in a bit of a dramatic framework to help propel things forward, but it's not story-heavy at all, it's almost all either sex or specifically sex-focused build-up. I'm hoping some strong characterization and creating a lot of sex-orientated stakes will help hook the reader to keep coming back for more episodes in general, while allowing me to have different episodes focus on different kinks, so I can draw readers in from all sides and hope they join the collective pool of readers. (I will wait to mention specifically what I conjured up in case Payoneer takes weeks and someone else sweeps up my idea before I can put it out there ).
> 
> So it all sounds nice and ambitious, but I've never written erotica before and haven't really read a lot of it, so I'm not sure if the writing will flow in the right way to satisfy readers. I'm waiting to write the next one until I publish it so I can gauge how it does, I like the concept itself so if the writing was totally unsatisfactory, I might scrap it and try it again. Or write a few more to see if it benefits from an accumulated effect, then scrap them if it totally sucks... the cool thing here is it's low-risk in terms of time investment and it's not like you're forever bound into something if it doesn't work.
> 
> /ramble


Are you in the US? I'm curious about your comment on Payoneer. That's like Paypal right? I am in the US, but don't have a checking account... and can't get one anytime soon. I hate having to only get payments in check form so I'd love to get it instantly somehow. What are the requirements to sign up with this for Amazon or is this only for people out of the US?


----------



## Tara Shuler

Boyd said:


> ...because a select few here like to complain that we're clogging up their genre with smut, yet romance is labeled as erotica and does the same.


Bingo.

I started out in YA PNR but also soon started doing erotica under another pen name. With the success of Fifty Shades, suddenly the erotica category was flooded with romance and smutty stuff was suddenly much harder to find. So fine. I'll put my smutty stuff in romance (as long as it has a HEA). Whatevs. LOL


----------



## o.gasim

R. Graystone said:


> I still can't believe Amazon let your pen name fly. Makes me smile every time I see one of your posts, Ms. O.R. Gasim.


I was pretty thrilled myself  Thanks for the compliment and congrats on your success. I just got my 3rd book uploaded and am hoping with more exposure comes more sales. I've used canva for all of my covers so the 5.60 I've made in just sales has already covered my $4 cover expenses.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Tara Shuler said:


> Bingo.
> 
> I started out in YA PNR but also soon started doing erotica under another pen name. With the success of Fifty Shades, suddenly the erotica category was flooded with romance and smutty stuff was suddenly much harder to find. So fine. I'll put my smutty stuff in romance (as long as it has a HEA). Whatevs. LOL


 +1. And after "Stepbrother, Dearest" I'm really tempted to take my stepbrother/stepsister PI eroms and move them to romance.


----------



## Chieftain

dirtiestdevil said:


> IIRC, I said $5,000+. I don't use the actual number here, just one that was sufficient for a decent showing to let people know big checks are feasible. My numbers are quite a bit higher, yes
> 
> I've had a fairly steady climb from the start. Both from a baseline standpoint and also from more consistent 'mega' seller books (none of which are planned, they just happen).


Two questions-- how many words do you write per day? I know you mentioned that 4-5 releases per week (25,000 written words per week?) is what a serious writer would tackle.

Do you ever outsource any of the stories to content farms to hit that amount?


----------



## Tara Shuler

Chieftain said:


> Two questions-- how many words do you write per day? I know you mentioned that 4-5 releases per week (25,000 written words per week?) is what a serious writer would tackle.
> 
> Do you ever outsource any of the stories to content farms to hit that amount?


I can't speak for DD, but I have regularly written 5-10k words a day for a while now. I take days off here and there, writing about 4 days a week, but I've seen 50k word weeks before. Content farms and outsourcing aren't needed. My highest word count day ever was 16k or thereabouts.


----------



## wtvr

Tara Shuler said:


> I can't speak for DD, but I have regularly written 5-10k words a day for a while now. I take days off here and there, writing about 4 days a week, but I've seen 50k word weeks before. Content farms and outsourcing aren't needed. My highest word count day ever was 16k or thereabouts.


Wow I would love to do 16K in a day. I get about 25K-35K on a good week. Farming sounds like more trouble than it's worth.


----------



## LeahEmmaRose

Thanks to this thread I also popped my publishing cherry. My first erotica short (6500 words) has been uploaded and is in review. Considering I haven't read much erotica until recently and I haven't written much fiction at all, I am pretty pleased with my first effort. I plan to write a few more before I go back to my nonfiction WIP. This has been a nice break from that. Once I am done with my book, I plan to write some E-rom novellas. I already have a great series idea!

I will update in a few days if I get any sales or borrows. My expectations are super low. I am hoping all the shorts I write will cover the costs of editing and covers for everything else I write. 

FYI-I made my erotica cover myself with a free stock photo, so anything I make after taxes is profit. I plan to grab some other free stock while my trial is going on so I will have enough covers for the next couple of years. I have already outlined ideas for seven more erotica shorts so I have an idea of what I need.  

Thanks again everyone for all the info and support!


----------



## anotherpage

My results so far

Book 1 2 borrows, zero sales
Book 2 0 for both
Book 3 Stuck in review hell for the past 2 days no idea why

Once your short goes live do you flip it to free for 1 day, then flip it back to paid or just leave it paid and in select?


----------



## Sargon

Tara Shuler said:


> I can't speak for DD, but I have regularly written 5-10k words a day for a while now. I take days off here and there, writing about 4 days a week, but I've seen 50k word weeks before. Content farms and outsourcing aren't needed. My highest word count day ever was 16k or thereabouts.


I don't write that much, since I have a job, and of course I can't speak for DD either, but I must say the idea of "outsourcing" my writing is abhorrent and actually absurd (no offense). The whole point is that few people can do this effectively. For one thing, if they are not a native English speaker, then you're screwed utterly. If they are a native English speaker, they would want to be paid decently, and they could just write and sell the stories themselves on Amazon. Just makes no sense coming or going.

Now, starting an erotica publishing company and recruiting authors -- the way some have done and posted on Kboards -- would be another matter.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Sargon said:


> I don't write that much, since I have a job, and of course I can't speak for DD either, but I must say the idea of "outsourcing" my writing is abhorrent and actually absurd (no offense). The whole point is that few people can do this effectively. For one thing, if they are not a native English speaker, then you're screwed utterly. If they are a native English speaker, they would want to be paid decently, and they could just write and sell the stories themselves on Amazon. Just makes no sense coming or going.


I know for a fact that there has been at least one top 100 erotica author who did this very successfully for over a year - right up until he got caught and then disappeared.

Edit: And the vast majority of people have no wish to sell the stories themselves on Amazon. They have no idea at all what's possible, or they don't want to go to the effort. They're perfectly willing to pick up a $20 payment for a 5000 word short and move on with life.


----------



## Redacted1111

There is A LOT of erotica outsourcing. Believe it. Go look on the freelancing websites and see how many ppl are looking for romance and erotica stories.


----------



## johnaburks

What are you guys experiencing for review times once you hit submit?


----------



## KelliWolfe

I did keyword changes and updated the subtitles on four books Wednesday night and it was well into Thursday afternoon before they went through. Usually those only take a couple of hours. I just assumed whatever they're doing to cause all the titles in KDP to resort themselves had something to do with the slowdown.


----------



## BlairErotica

Kalypsō said:


> There is A LOT of erotica outsourcing. Believe it. Go look on the freelancing websites and see how many ppl are looking for romance and erotica stories.


What do you mean by feelancing websites Elance? Odesk?


----------



## Guest

I'm a ghostwriter, and I've covered a wide range of topics - lawnmowers, cooking, children's clothes, celebrities, jewelry, health and fitness - you name it.  I've also ghostwritten erotic stories. I used to write them for some female client.  I don't know who she was, but she paid me $25 a story.  I'm not some non-English speaking person who doesn't understand how to write an erotic story in English .  So she got decent stories.  I wouldn't be surprised if the stories I wrote are up at Amazon under her name.  In any case, this was all before I had any interest in writing erotic shorts for self-publication at Amazon.  Today, I wouldn't do it again.  I've made more than $25 for the first erotic story I self-published, and I'll hit that soon enough for the second erotic story I self-published.  It makes no sense for me to ghostwrite erotic stories for other people when I can make more money on my own.


----------



## Redacted1111

BlairErotica said:


> What do you mean by feelancing websites Elance? Odesk?


Yes. I forgot their names.


----------



## Redacted1111

Micki23 said:


> I had inquiries on my writing gigs at Elance, oDesk and Fiverr to ghost-write erotica. Why would I do that for a small one-time payment when I can publish the stories myself and have unlimited income potential? So I closed my accounts and wound up lurking here instead. LOL


Not everyone wants to do the work of self publishing.


----------



## o.gasim

johnaburks said:


> What are you guys experiencing for review times once you hit submit?


I saw my quickest turnaround yet today. Submitted last night at 11:30pm and am up and published now.


----------



## Chieftain

Tara Shuler said:


> I can't speak for DD, but I have regularly written 5-10k words a day for a while now. I take days off here and there, writing about 4 days a week, but I've seen 50k word weeks before. Content farms and outsourcing aren't needed. My highest word count day ever was 16k or thereabouts.


So whats the secret sauce to hitting those high word counts? Seems I am "stuck" at 1500 words a day. My mind goes into a fog after I hit that number. I dunno, maybe i should do what Ray Bradbury did and paste a sticky note on my monitor that says "Don't Think!", LOL. Perhaps that's my problem, being a pantser.

Do you outline beforehand? I remember reading Konrath saying he outlined everything which took him two weeks and then the rest was easy peasy, like coloring in the setting, etc. If only I could hit 3k a day I think I'd be a happy camper no matter what my sales were. Any advice? Books? Methods? Links? Thanks


----------



## KelliWolfe

BlairErotica said:


> What do you mean by feelancing websites Elance? Odesk?


Odesk, Elance, take your pick. Also Freelancer.com. Google finds them without any trouble at all.

Edit:


Chieftain said:


> So whats the secret sauce to hitting those high word counts? Seems I am "stuck" at 1500 words a day. My mind goes into a fog after I hit that number. I dunno, maybe i should do what Ray Bradbury did and paste a sticky note on my monitor that says "Don't Think!", LOL. Perhaps that's my problem, being a pantser.
> 
> Do you outline beforehand? I remember reading Konrath saying he outlined everything which took him two weeks and then the rest was easy peasy, like coloring in the setting, etc. If only I could hit 3k a day I think I'd be a happy camper no matter what my sales were. Any advice? Books? Methods? Links? Thanks


2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love.


----------



## Sassafrazzled

KelliWolfe said:


> Another PSA. Here's an example of how sometimes what everybody knows just ain't so. So common wisdom says that there's no point in shooting for the Erotica->Romance category because it doesn't exist - it simply doesn't show up as a category when you're browsing on Amazon. I've even seen that stated in this topic, I believe.


Erotica > Romance exists just fine, it's one of the biggest categories. Romance > Erotica however doesn't show up on the website or my kindle.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

KelliWolfe said:


> I know for a fact that there has been at least one top 100 erotica author who did this very successfully for over a year - right up until he got caught and then disappeared.


Was that the guy who was sock-puppeting his reviews with pennames that only reviewed his own books?

Anyway, it's just being a "publisher" of ghostwritten work, isn't it? You think Snooki wrote that book? What's the difference?


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Sorry, double post. Stupid phone.


----------



## Guest

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Anyway, it's just being a "publisher" of ghostwritten work, isn't it? You think Snooki wrote that book? What's the difference?


There's nothing illegitimate about hiring a ghostwriter. And yes, celebrities do it all the time.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Wow. Triple post...


----------



## KelliWolfe

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Was that the guy who was sock-puppeting his reviews with pennames that only reviewed his own books?
> 
> Anyway, it's just being a "publisher" of ghostwritten work, isn't it? You think Snooki wrote that book? What's the difference?


No, this was someone else. I'm not going to go into it in public; if you're on the erotica authors forum ask about it there.

Ghost-authored celebrity books are nothing new. Neither is having a stable of authors who all write on one series of books under a single pen name. But publicly passing off work-for-hire as something that you personally did, lying through your teeth about it, and then spending large amounts of time giving people totally bogus advice about how you achieved your success is just a smidge dishonest.


----------



## Sargon

johnaburks said:


> What are you guys experiencing for review times once you hit submit?


It's been across the board. Right now they've been sitting on one for 19.5 hours, still "In Review." Getting a bit worried, but I think I've had longer. Somebody had one go to Publishing in 45 minutes, but I think that's a fluke.


----------



## LanceGreencastle

nellgoddin said:


> I don't know. I'm having some issues too--a big discrepancy between borrows on the Dashboard and borrows on the Month-to-Date chart, and also a boxed set that's had 6 sales for a week but still has no ranking. It's like everything is out of sync. I've emailed to ask, and I'll pass on whatever I learn if it's not specific to me.


There's definitely some kind of sync last problems. Last Friday I had a spike in sales of one of my books (9 is a spike for me) but while the dashboard graph showed sales, nothing was shown on either the Month to date, or on the downloadable spreadsheet. On Saturday four sales showed up and the remaining five showed up on Sunday(Dated Saturday).
Now I often have date discrepancies. I assume it's because my local time is BST(GMT From tomorrow night) but the sales are logged on an American time zone.
Of course there's been no corresponding spike in sales today so I can't say if things have been fixed


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

KelliWolfe said:


> No, this was someone else. I'm not going to go into it in public; if you're on the erotica authors forum ask about it there.
> 
> Ghost-authored celebrity books are nothing new. Neither is having a stable of authors who all write on one series of books under a single pen name. But publicly passing off work-for-hire as something that you personally did, lying through your teeth about it, and then spending large amounts of time giving people totally bogus advice about how you achieved your success is just a smidge dishonest.


Ah.
Agreed, not cool.


----------



## Sargon

Eclectic Authoress said:


> I'm a ghostwriter, and I've covered a wide range of topics - lawnmowers, cooking, children's clothes, celebrities, jewelry, health and fitness - you name it. I've also ghostwritten erotic stories. I used to write them for some female client. I don't know who she was, but she paid me $25 a story. I'm not some non-English speaking person who doesn't understand how to write an erotic story in English . So she got decent stories. I wouldn't be surprised if the stories I wrote are up at Amazon under her name. In any case, this was all before I had any interest in writing erotic shorts for self-publication at Amazon. Today, I wouldn't do it again. I've made more than $25 for the first erotic story I self-published, and I'll hit that soon enough for the second erotic story I self-published. It makes no sense for me to ghostwrite erotic stories for other people when I can make more money on my own.


Thanks everyone who chimed in, I stand corrected. Now it's off to Elance to farm out my next 5 stories and really make some serious dough... (just kidding (maybe)).


----------



## Sargon

o.gasim said:


> I saw my quickest turnaround yet today. Submitted last night at 11:30pm and am up and published now.


WTF?? That just demonstrates they are not doing them in order or that mine is getting extra scrutiny for some reason, even though it's relatively tame and similar to an existing story out there. I don't know what time zone you are in, but I hit publish at like 4:45pm PST and it's 1:25pm the next day, still nothing. Maddening.


----------



## anotherpage

KelliWolfe said:


> Odesk, Elance, take your pick. Also Freelancer.com. Google finds them without any trouble at all.
> 
> Edit:2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love.


I wouldn't advise that.

1. Most writers ( decent ones ) aren't going to write 5,000 words for $25, $50 or even $200. Its chump change and slave labor. You will get indians who can barely string 2 words together or zero bids, or people bailing on you.

2. Most likely they are selling your work as well. That way they get paid and they post it under another pen name boom they make double the cash.

Be smart. it's only 5,000 words write it yourself or get out of the game and get a real job


----------



## johnaburks

o.gasim said:


> I saw my quickest turnaround yet today. Submitted last night at 11:30pm and am up and published now.


I'm sitting at around 16 hours right now. The long waits always make me nervous, like I screwed something up.


----------



## anotherpage

Sargon said:


> WTF?? That just demonstrates they are not doing them in order or that mine is getting extra scrutiny for some reason, even though it's relatively tame and similar to an existing story out there. I don't know what time zone you are in, but I hit publish at like 4:45pm PST and it's 1:25pm the next day, still nothing. Maddening.


You are in the same boat as me. I published on Tuesday and its still in review. I have emailed them as on wednesday i uploaded 2 and they are live. Someone is holding up the line or holding my book.


----------



## KelliWolfe

kalel said:


> I wouldn't advise that.
> 
> 1. Most writers ( decent ones ) aren't going to write 5,000 words for $25, $50 or even $200. Its chump change and slave labor. You will get indians who can barely string 2 words together or zero bids, or people bailing on you.
> 
> 2. Most likely they are selling your work as well. That way they get paid and they post it under another pen name boom they make double the cash.
> 
> Be smart. it's only 5,000 words write it yourself or get out of the game and get a real job


1. There are people right now making a lot of money doing this. To them this is not about quality - they don't care. It's purely a numbers game. Put out a massive number of titles under many different pen names. I've seen a lot of the work that has been published this way and while much of it is "Dick and Jane" quality, a lot of it is no worse than stuff "real" writers are publishing, and because they're savvy internet marketers they know how to get it to rank. For instance, I've seen a raft of 1k word stories posted in the last few weeks that are ranking below 20k.

2. Most people have no desire to self publish. They want to write, they want to get paid, and then get on with their lives.

On one level I don't have any problem with this. It's really not any different than hiring a stack of action/adventure writers to crank out a series like Mack Bolan or something. What I have a problem with is the ones who are deliberately screwing over their customers and doing the kinds of things that are guaranteed to generate a lot of customer complaints which will have Amazon coming down on all of us in this genre like they did last October, such as putting hardcore PI dubcon shorts into Romance->YA and Romance->Inspirational.


----------



## Sargon

kalel said:


> I wouldn't advise that.
> 
> 1. Most writers ( decent ones ) aren't going to write 5,000 words for $25, $50 or even $200. Its chump change and slave labor. You will get indians who can barely string 2 words together or zero bids, or people bailing on you.
> 
> 2. Most likely they are selling your work as well. That way they get paid and they post it under another pen name boom they make double the cash.
> 
> Be smart. it's only 5,000 words write it yourself or get out of the game and get a real job


That's all pretty much what I was thinking. Plus I love writing these stories! It's damn fun, and super easy. It's like walking across my house vs. running a marathon (compared to writing a novel).


----------



## Tara Shuler

Chieftain said:


> So whats the secret sauce to hitting those high word counts? Seems I am "stuck" at 1500 words a day. My mind goes into a fog after I hit that number. I dunno, maybe i should do what Ray Bradbury did and paste a sticky note on my monitor that says "Don't Think!", LOL. Perhaps that's my problem, being a pantser.
> 
> Do you outline beforehand? I remember reading Konrath saying he outlined everything which took him two weeks and then the rest was easy peasy, like coloring in the setting, etc. If only I could hit 3k a day I think I'd be a happy camper no matter what my sales were. Any advice? Books? Methods? Links? Thanks


I am 100% pantser on short stories, but I do some outlining on novels over 30k-40k. I guess it's just a natural thing to me, but it does come after years of practice writing a ton of articles , reports, ebooks and such for clients as a ghostwriter for years.

I basically just have a formula that I follow for my short erotic stories. I released a how-to guide on how I do my erotic stuff, but I can't really link to it because (a) I don't like self promotion and (b) it's under my erotica name which I'm trying to kind of keep disconnected from my YA name for obvious reasons.

But basically I do 3000-5000 word stories that are a chapter or two of plot setup and then one chapter of sex.


----------



## Perro Callejero

johnaburks said:


> I'm sitting at around 16 hours right now. The long waits always make me nervous, like I screwed something up.


Both of the titles I published last week took 36+ hours to go live.


----------



## Sargon

kalel said:


> You are in the same boat as me. I published on Tuesday and its still in review. I have emailed them as on wednesday i uploaded 2 and they are live. Someone is holding up the line or holding my book.


Since Tuesday! Oh, man.


----------



## anotherpage

Sargon said:


> Since Tuesday! Oh, man.


Ok great now they have taken it out of review and have placed it in draft ?


----------



## o.gasim

Sargon said:


> WTF?? That just demonstrates they are not doing them in order or that mine is getting extra scrutiny for some reason, even though it's relatively tame and similar to an existing story out there. I don't know what time zone you are in, but I hit publish at like 4:45pm PST and it's 1:25pm the next day, still nothing. Maddening.


I also live in PST and will say this has to be some kind of fluke. My previous 3 works all took a minimum of 15 hours, with the longest taking 36, to go live. I uploaded thinking I wouldn't make the weekend, due to the European Weekend Reviewers, but wanted to be sure I had a week 3 entry on my dashboard.


----------



## anotherpage

Any ideas why a book that was sitting in review for 48hrs ends up back in draft status and no email is sent to me?


----------



## Redacted1111

kalel said:


> Ok great now they have taken it out of review and have placed it in draft ?


That means you've made some no-noes. You'll have to make serious changes to your cover, blurb, and title before republishing. Be careful with that.


----------



## anotherpage

It was a


Kalypsō said:


> That means you've made some no-noes. You'll have to make serious changes to your cover, blurb, and title before republishing. Be careful with that.


It was a werewolf shapeshifter title. Had the word

Beast

in the title

don't think that would hold it up would you? Them thinking that its about beastility? as its not.

Werewolf erotica isn't considered beastiality is it?

Wouldnt they send an email telling you what was wrong


----------



## Redacted1111

kalel said:


> It was a
> It was a werewolf shapeshifter title. Had the word
> 
> Beast
> 
> in the title
> 
> don't think that would hold it up would you? Them thinking that its about beastility? as its not.
> 
> Werewolf erotica isn't considered beastiality is it?
> 
> Wouldnt they send an email telling you what was wrong


Could be. One never can tell. I'm dealing with adult filtered titles. I really don't know why some are filtered and others aren't. It seems completely arbitrary. I don't have enough experience to tell you what it is.

Does anyone else's sales chart look like a heartbeat monitor over the last few days. It's like my readers on every single pen name, don't buy or borrow books during the World Series. Either that, or they only buy books every other day. What is the deal?


----------



## Mahalo

johnaburks said:


> What are you guys experiencing for review times once you hit submit?


For my shorts - 12 hours or so. I uploaded a boxed set last night around 10:00 (probably around 400 pages) and it is still in review without even an asin assigned to it.

Edited to add: The boxed set just switched to publishing...so around 21 hours or so.


----------



## skyle

I'm waiting until Monday now before I submit anything new, I have another one ready to go, and also a couple of changes I want to make to an existing title, but I'm not risking it. The weekend reviewers are way too strict!


----------



## Sargon

Kalypsō said:


> Could be. One never can tell. I'm dealing with adult filtered titles. I really don't know why some are filtered and others aren't. It seems completely arbitrary. I don't have enough experience to tell you what it is.
> 
> Does anyone else's sales chart look like a heartbeat monitor over the last few days. It's like my readers on every single pen name, don't buy or borrow books during the World Series. Either that, or they only buy books every other day. What is the deal?


Haha, I had the heartbeat on 18th-19th-20th-21st-22nd. Up-down-up-down-up. Now it's staying up, thank the stars. Just talking borrows. Sales on the 19th were my best ever, even though that was a down day for borrows. Weird.


----------



## Redacted1111

Sargon said:


> Haha, I had the heartbeat on 18th-19th-20th-21st-22nd. Up-down-up-down-up. Now it's staying up, thank the stars. Just talking borrows. Sales on the 19th were my best ever, even though that was a down day for borrows. Weird.


I had one of my best days yesterday. Today is looking like one of the the worst days this month. I just don't get it. It's so weird. It makes me think that sales and borrows aren't reported in real time, like, at all.

With the sudden massive swings and this stupid adult filter thing and the fact that I can't sleep, I'm getting really stressed out. All I can do is keep going. Maybe the adult filter doesn't even matter. Just have to keep chugging along.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Kalypsō said:


> I had one of my best days yesterday. Today is looking like one of the the worst days this month. I just don't get it. It's so weird. It makes me think that sales and borrows aren't reported in real time, like, at all.
> 
> With the sudden massive swings and this stupid adult filter thing and the fact that I can't sleep, I'm getting really stressed out. All I can do is keep going. Maybe the adult filter doesn't even matter. Just have to keep chugging along.


Go easy, hon. This is a marathon, not a sprint. You're going to burn yourself out before you've gotten warmed up good. Sometimes bad days/weeks/months just happen. Everybody gets them. I know the money is really important to you, but you can't make yourself crazy. <3

Have you shown your covers/titles/blurbs to someone else to get a second opinion on why you got adult flagged? I'm sure there are lots of people on the erotica forum or here who'd be happy to help you figure it out offline where you don't have to broadcast your pen name.


----------



## Guest

Micki23 said:


> Agree. I seriously considered it for a while. I'd rather have $5-10 now versus unknown income 90 days out.
> 
> There are some well-qualified freelancers on many of the sites. I'm no dummy, and I worked out there for a while. Times get tight, and regular work often goes in peaks and valleys. My spouse is out there, too, for design work. It just got frustrating bidding against low-ballers for legit work.


Micki, of course you're no dummy.  You don't need to defend your work as a ghostwriter, or defend the amount of money you've been paid as a ghostwriter, to anyone here at Kboards.

~~~~

As far as I'm concerned, I've worked as a ghostwriter, but now my focus is on self-publishing fiction. To each his or her own. Follow your own path.


----------



## o.gasim

I apologize for reposting the question but can't find it through the 40+ pages of thread we have created. Earlier someone had linked to a site that provided definitions for all the abbreviations erotica tends to use. 

Can anyone drop here again or send me a PM?


----------



## Redacted1111

Yes. I've gotten some feedback. Some thought it was perhaps the word "breeding" in my subtitle. But it doesn't make sense because I use that word in literally all my subtitles on that pen name. After modifying that word I just got a letter back from them and they said one of my titles still contains "adult content." I just can't imagine what it is at this point.


----------



## Guest

Kalypsō said:


> I had one of my best days yesterday. Today is looking like one of the the worst days this month.


My October has been fairly decent. Yesterday was a great day. However, today's sales have sucked so far.

You're not alone.


----------



## Redacted1111

Eclectic Authoress said:


> My October has been fairly decent. Yesterday was a great day. However, today's sales have sucked so far.
> 
> You're not alone.


I'm blaming baseball.

Don't get me wrong. I've already doubled my income from last month, which took me a year to work up to. But I just want it faster, faster, faster, now, now, now!!!


----------



## KelliWolfe

Kalypsō said:


> Yes. I've gotten some feedback. Some thought it was perhaps the word "breeding" in my subtitle. But it doesn't make sense because I use that word in literally all my subtitles on that pen name. After modifying that word I just got a letter back from them and they said one of my titles still contains "adult content." I just can't imagine what it is at this point.


It is absolutely "breeding". Take it out. The other books may have slipped through, but they'll get dinged at some point if someone notices them. Most of the erotica titles that now read "Fun with..." and such were originally titled "Breeding...". I had to change mine that was "Bred by My Dad's New Boss" to get it unflagged.


----------



## Redacted1111

KelliWolfe said:


> It is absolutely "breeding". Take it out. The other books may have slipped through, but they'll get dinged at some point if someone notices them. Most of the erotica titles that now read "Fun with..." and such were originally titled "Breeding...". I had to change mine that was "Bred by My Dad's New Boss" to get it unflagged.


It is all so arbitrary. I had one title that had Breeding in the title and they unflagged it, but didn't unflag the other book. I seriously do not get it.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Yeah, that's life as an erotica writer. The content reviewers don't know or follow their own rules, and just about the time you get a handle on what they expect they change the rules on you without notice. That's a big reason why so many people don't stick with it and end up jumping over to romance.


----------



## Redacted1111

KelliWolfe said:


> Yeah, that's life as an erotica writer. The content reviewers don't know or follow their own rules, and just about the time you get a handle on what they expect they change the rules on you without notice. That's a big reason why so many people don't stick with it and end up jumping over to romance.


Even with the filter, the money is easier and faster in erotica. But we'll see, I've already written a story slated for romance, but this last month, I've kind of abandoned my pnr because the amount of work and money to produce it doesn't seem worth it by comparison. I'd much rather be taking my time to write something meaningful and something I would actually want to read.

What's funny is my husband is finally being supportive. It's like, fuck man, I've been publishing for over a year. Couldn't you have been supportive before I started writing PORN.  But nothing gives value like cash.


----------



## Sargon

skyle said:


> I'm waiting until Monday now before I submit anything new, I have another one ready to go, and also a couple of changes I want to make to an existing title, but I'm not risking it. The weekend reviewers are way too strict!


Is this definitely, definitely proven with evidence? Or is it more anecdotal? Just curious. I haven't had any weekend issues yet.


----------



## Sargon

Kalypsō said:


> I had one of my best days yesterday. Today is looking like one of the the worst days this month. I just don't get it. It's so weird. It makes me think that sales and borrows aren't reported in real time, like, at all.
> 
> With the sudden massive swings and this stupid adult filter thing and the fact that I can't sleep, I'm getting really stressed out. All I can do is keep going. Maybe the adult filter doesn't even matter. Just have to keep chugging along.


I'm sorry to hear about how stressful it is! I think mathematically, the more total titles are out, the lower any one day's swings ought to be...maybe that's not true, but it seems like it ought to be. DD's chart is certainly very flat.

The adult filter thing is concerning. I can't remember -- is it affecting the sales of those books, do you think? Are they overall any lower than the others?


----------



## o.gasim

Sargon said:


> Is this definitely, definitely proven with evidence? Or is it more anecdotal? Just curious. I haven't had any weekend issues yet.


I had one weekend submission go 72 hours.


----------



## Redacted1111

Those books do better than some unfiltered books I've released, but they do tend to fall faster. Who knows. I haven't been doing this long enough to really say. I've probably got more than twenty titles out over all my pen names, so yeah, still swinging like crazy. But maybe the difference between 26 borrows and 48 borrows and 16 sales and 37 sales isn't that big a swing. Shrug. Still, my graph looks like a heart monitor over the past three days. Before the it was holding much more steady. The thing is that the sales and borrows are swinging on the same days. Doesn't make sense. Unless it's baseball. I'm going with baseball. I can't deal with conspiracy theories or analyzing the aglos right now. 

Well, I put on my noise canceling headphones and put on some Glitch Mob. Time to go pop some girl's cherry.


----------



## Sargon

Eclectic Authoress said:


> My October has been fairly decent. Yesterday was a great day. However, today's sales have sucked so far.
> 
> You're not alone.


Seems like yesterday was a banner day for everyone -- it was my best day yet. The day right before (Wed) was a close 2nd, but the day before that (Tues) sucked. Today has been fine, although not quite as good so far. I thought today would be awesome due to the title I published 24 HOURS AGO but alas...


----------



## KelliWolfe

Sargon said:


> Is this definitely, definitely proven with evidence? Or is it more anecdotal? Just curious. I haven't had any weekend issues yet.


Everything is anecdotal when it comes to the inner workings of KDP's content police. There do seem to be a few names that show up more consistently on blocked titles, and they're generally only seen on the weekends. And when you get a sweet little erom blocked - perfectly consensual, all the characters explicitly stated to be over 18, no step relationships or gangbangs or anything except vanilla M/F sex - you can bet that you tried to publish or edit it on the weekend and that the email from KDP informing you that it's blocked has Carlos F's name on it.


----------



## Redacted1111

I finished my latest smut story, and was thinking I'd publish my billionaire romance this weekend. Now I'm not so sure. I've never had any problems publishing romance on weekends before. It's the weird kinky stuffy that seems to be a problem. My account is probably marked now and will never be clean again.


----------



## Tara Shuler

Kalypsō said:


> I finished my latest smut story, and was thinking I'd publish my billionaire romance this weekend. Now I'm not so sure. I've never had any problems publishing romance on weekends before. It's the weird kinky stuffy that seems to be a problem. My account is probably marked now and will never be clean again.


I've published a ton of kinky smut and my romance stuff doesn't take long to get through. Only the erotica. So your account is probably fine.


----------



## Nicole Dixon

They don't have the same strict standards for DVD's.


----------



## Sargon

KelliWolfe said:


> Everything is anecdotal when it comes to the inner workings of KDP's content police. There do seem to be a few names that show up more consistently on blocked titles, and they're generally only seen on the weekends. And when you get a sweet little erom blocked - perfectly consensual, all the characters explicitly stated to be over 18, no step relationships or gangbangs or anything except vanilla M/F sex - you can bet that you tried to publish or edit it on the weekend and that the email from KDP informing you that it's blocked has Carlos F's name on it.


Wow. That's mind boggling. Appreciate the details! My latest finally went live, 25 hours, not too terrible I guess.


----------



## KelliWolfe

I still think the long delays have something to do with the rearranging everyone is seeing in their KDP book lists. I can't remember the last time it took 24 hours to get something through the system. Usually it's publishing within 12 hours and live within 18.


----------



## Navigator

KelliWolfe said:


> I still think the long delays have something to do with the rearranging everyone is seeing in their KDP book lists. I can't remember the last time it took 24 hours to get something through the system. Usually it's publishing within 12 hours and live within 18.


Agreed. Been over 24 hours now since I updated my bundle cover, took nearly two days for my other books to also be updated. Longest ever. @[email protected]


----------



## anotherpage

Kalypsō said:


> It is all so arbitrary. I had one title that had Breeding in the title and they unflagged it, but didn't unflag the other book. I seriously do not get it.


I think its a case of they have people who know there job and people who dont.

It's like emailing them over categories. I will go through 3 people until i get someone who says. Oh sorry let me do that for you lol


----------



## Redacted1111

kalel said:


> I think its a case of they have people who know there job and people who dont.
> 
> It's like emailing them over categories. I will go through 3 people until i get someone who says. Oh sorry let me do that for you lol


Thing is, it was the same person...


----------



## R. Graystone

Considering what some of you have said re: sales figures appearing on your graphs, tonight's numbers may be subject to slight change, but so far things stand at:

- Book 1: 12 borrows, 6 purchases, 0 returns
- Book 2: 12 borrows, 2 purchase, 0 returns
- Book 3: 4 borrows, 0 purchases
- Book 4: Q.Q 
- Book 5: 1 borrow, 0 purchases
- Bundle: Q.Q

Book 4 will be free for over the weekend, so hopefully that will drive some more borrows/sales to the other titles. The 5th title and the bundle are both filed under the more general romance headings, everything else is straight in erotica. 1 - 5 are KDP Select, the bundle is currently out in an effort to encourage individual borrows or a straight sale on the collection.

So far so good? After the weekend numbers come in, I'll probably tamper with some things next week. Right now, though, I'm back to smut-land for another night of work. Cheers everyone and good luck!


----------



## LeahEmmaRose

Book 1 was published last night. Took about 10 hours. 6,500 words, priced at $2.99. Kind of vanilla stuff because that's what I am comfortable with at this point. And I already got my first borrow! Woo hoo! I told you I have low expectations. I am already pleased.


----------



## Fredster

There is a certain disappointment in finding that your porn author rank is less than half your "serious" author rank, and that your porn quickie stories sell 5:1 over your well-thought-out, highly-rated novels.

However, in the end it all spends the same and one of them takes a whole lot less time and thought to produce.


----------



## johnaburks

It was a little over 24 hours on the last review process, but it went through.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Catnip said:


> My first two titles don't seem to be doing much. Hopefully they'll pick up a bit as my catalogue grows. In the meantime, I'm going to stop checking my sales every day.


The ones in this game longest, with large back cataloged, consider 1 sale/borrow a day for this genre a good thing. Relax about sales, they will come. Write the next one and don't forget to bundle.


----------



## Guest

Just a note. For one of my stories, I changed the category from erotica to romance. After the category was approved, my sales for that story improved overnight. So I'm echoing what other erotica writers here at Kboards have said.

So basically, now that I have *my own* proof, if I have a story that will fit in a romance category, that's exactly where it will go. Period.


----------



## R. Graystone

That's good to know, EA. I have 5 titles and a bundle up right now, with 1 - 4 straight into erotica. Two of the titles have been moving well, the third has 4 borrows (a bit meh) in 2 days, and the fourth didn't move until I made it free today (granted, it'd been live only 1.4 days).

Sooo.... fifth title and bundle are in romance, but so far only one borrow on the fifth title. All 5 titles are in KDP Select of course.   

I'm working on the debut shorts for two new series. Busy weekend ahead, best wishes to everyone else on this erotic journey.


----------



## britnidanielle

*I think I need some keyword help* for my short erom book.

I published it on Wednesday and have 1 sale, 3 borrows, and one really good review (which...was surprising, not because the story isn't well written. It is. But I wasn't expecting reviews).

*Anyway, here are my current categories:*

Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Coming of Age
Books > Romance > Multicultural
Books > Romance > New Adult & College
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction > Romance
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Coming of Age
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Multicultural & Interracial
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > New Adult & College

I'm thinking I'm having a problem finding my audience. I know DirtiestDevil said KWs are IT....so, maybe I need some new ones (or additional ones)?

*Here's my synopsis: *

_Tish has a secret. Her parents think she has a drinking problem, her friends think she has it all figured out, and her heart thinks falling in love is the worst thing in the world. When she meets Stefan in an AA meeting her life gets thrown for a sexy, mind-blowing loop.

After they tumble into a steamy affair, Tish has to decide if Stefan is just a gorgeous distraction, or if he's part of her future. _

*Are there other categories I should think about? *


----------



## Redacted1111

So I released a erotic billionaire romance last night at 2 a.m. and it is already publishing with an sales page and everything. Yippy! We'll see if it moves. In the mean time, I've still got dungeoned titles, but I'm about to make a bundle (my first), so hopefully that will offset the adult filtered titles decline. My "serious" work is calling me to come back from the dark side, but I'm having a hard time hearing. This crap is too easy and too lucrative... But I do have a series that fans are expecting. Yeah, I have fans. Weird huh? And a mailing list and all that. I think it is probably a good idea to keep working on my serious work because erotica is so volatile, and I need to continue to challenge myself. I was checking out some of Abby Weeks' books. We used to know that person here, lol.  S_he_ really did it right. I think. Erotic romance is much more stable if you can do it right. I wonder if I can do that with my paranormal romance. I kind of doubt it because it just doesn't fit the mold and I'm only charging 99 cents per novella. I don't know. It seems that the stuff you really believe in is so much harder to sell. The stories I want to write are not what people seem to want to read. Not in massive droves that pay $2.99 per short book.

But now that I'm selling smut and feel unmotivated to work on my paranormal romance, I will raise my prices. I now have the confidence. (Raises eyebrow.) Then I'll do a Freebooksy ad. That ought to bring me back to it.


----------



## Sargon

Kalypsō said:


> So I released a erotic billionaire romance last night at 2 a.m. and it is already publishing with an sales page and everything. Yippy! We'll see if it moves. In the mean time, I've still got dungeoned titles, but I'm about to make a bundle (my first), so hopefully that will offset the adult filtered titles decline. My "serious" work is calling me to come back from the dark side, but I'm having a hard time hearing. This crap is too easy and too lucrative... But I do have a series that fans are expecting. Yeah, I have fans. Weird huh? And a mailing list and all that. I think it is probably a good idea to keep working on my serious work because erotica is so volatile, and I need to continue to challenge myself. I was checking out some of Abby Weeks' books. We used to know that person here, lol.  S_he_ really did it right. I think. Erotic romance is much more stable if you can do it right. I wonder if I can do that with my paranormal romance. I kind of doubt it because it just doesn't fit the mold and I'm only charging 99 cents per novella. I don't know. It seems that the stuff you really believe in is so much harder to sell. The stories I want to write are not what people seem to want to read. Not in massive droves that pay $2.99 per short book.
> 
> But now that I'm selling smut and feel unmotivated to work on my paranormal romance, I will raise my prices. I now have the confidence. (Raises eyebrow.) Then I'll do a Freebooksy ad. That ought to bring me back to it.


Hey Kalypsō, it's cool to hear what you're up to. At least you _have_ serious work out there, and fans, etc.; some of us haven't even gotten that far yet. Hope the billionaire does well for you. Mine went nowhere but I didn't put my best foot forward on that one.


----------



## o.gasim

For those of you bundling, can you give some details on how? 

Are you waiting for a set number, theme, or just throwing 2 together?


----------



## Redacted1111

Sargon said:


> Hey Kalypsō, it's cool to hear what you're up to. At least you _have_ serious work out there, and fans, etc.; some of us haven't even gotten that far yet. Hope the billionaire does well for you. Mine went nowhere but I didn't put my best foot forward on that one.


I'm excited. It already has a borrow and it isn't even fully live yet.  Yeah. I have serious work. I'm thinking I'm going to end out my serial series with one longish novella and tie up all the loose ends. Then I can write something else under that pen name that is more fun. I'm thinking space opera with sex.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

o.gasim said:


> For those of you bundling, can you give some details on how?
> 
> Are you waiting for a set number, theme, or just throwing 2 together?


For me it's Yes, No, Yes.
Waiting on a specific # of titles: 5
Waiting on theme: Not yet - but when I get a few in one niche/kink/fetish, then yes.
So it's just putting two titles together for now.

The math (permutations) get extraordinarily interesting at 20+ stories.


----------



## Guest

Kalypsō said:


> So I released a erotic billionaire romance last night at 2 a.m. and it is already publishing with an sales page and everything. Yippy! We'll see if it moves. In the mean time, I've still got dungeoned titles, but I'm about to make a bundle (my first), so hopefully that will offset the adult filtered titles decline. My "serious" work is calling me to come back from the dark side, but I'm having a hard time hearing. This crap is too easy and too lucrative... But I do have a series that fans are expecting. Yeah, I have fans. Weird huh? And a mailing list and all that. I think it is probably a good idea to keep working on my serious work because erotica is so volatile, and I need to continue to challenge myself. I was checking out some of Abby Weeks' books. We used to know that person here, lol.  S_he_ really did it right. I think. Erotic romance is much more stable if you can do it right. I wonder if I can do that with my paranormal romance. I kind of doubt it because it just doesn't fit the mold and I'm only charging 99 cents per novella. I don't know. It seems that the stuff you really believe in is so much harder to sell. The stories I want to write are not what people seem to want to read. Not in massive droves that pay $2.99 per short book.
> 
> But now that I'm selling smut and feel unmotivated to work on my paranormal romance, I will raise my prices. I now have the confidence. (Raises eyebrow.) Then I'll do a Freebooksy ad. That ought to bring me back to it.


Kalypso, for me it doesn't have to be one or the other. It's all fiction writing, and I'm enjoying it. I don't have plans to give up the erotica/erotic romance writing no matter how successful I may get with my other writing. My erotica/erotic romance writing gives me a new income. Therefore, I'm no longer stressed about my other writing. I can take my time with it (within reason) and not obsess over sales.

(I like the badges, because they help my motivation. I had a bronze badge. Then I moved up to silver. Then I lost the silver in September, before I started the erotica writing. Now I'm back to the silver due to the erotica writing.  No matter how I make the money - erotica/erotic romance or the other - it all goes into the same bank account.  )


----------



## Redacted1111

Eclectic Authoress said:


> Kalypso, for me it doesn't have to be one or the other. It's all fiction writing, and I'm enjoying it. I don't have plans to give up the erotica/erotic romance writing no matter how successful I may get with my other writing. My erotica/erotic romance writing gives me a new income. Therefore, I'm no longer stressed about my other writing. I can take my time with it (within reason) and not obsess over sales.
> 
> (I like the badges, because they help my motivation. I had a bronze badge. Then I moved up to silver. Then I lost the silver in September, before I started the erotica writing. Now I'm back to the silver due to the erotica writing.  No matter how I make the money - erotica/erotic romance or the other - it all goes into the same bank account.  )


I have a tendency to obsess, self sabotage and basically freak out over my creative work. I've been publishing for over a year. Technically a year and a half because I published my first non-fiction book in June of 2013. I've tried so many different things and have had varying levels of success with each. At this point, I'm all about diversifying. I'm not even sure how many active pen names I have at this point and most of them were born in the last three weeks. I'm actually planning to finish up the serial series under my most established pen name and start writing stuff that's just fun under that one. I use my actual face as my author picture so it's really the most "me" pen name I have. But you are right, the erotica makes it way easier to relax. Though, I can't freaking relax at all. I basically can't even sleep because I have all these ideas and to do lists running through my head. I REALLY want to move out of my neighborhood and start living a lifestyle that I find acceptable. So, now that I see the money flowing in, it makes me even more manic driven about it. Oh well. That's life.


----------



## o.gasim

M. Frank Parsons said:


> For me it's Yes, No, Yes.
> Waiting on a specific # of titles: 5
> Waiting on theme: Not yet - but when I get a few in one niche/kink/fetish, then yes.
> So it's just putting two titles together for now.
> 
> The math (permutations) get extraordinarily interesting at 20+ stories.


So there is precedent for a 2 story bundle on Kindle? I want more product but don't want to dilute the sales.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

o.gasim said:


> So there is precedent for a 2 story bundle on Kindle? I want more product but don't want to dilute the sales.


Damn. KBoards ate my reply.  I timed-out on the last one. Go figure. 

Anyway, the TLR version is this:

To loosely quote KKR/DWS... If the Rolling Stones can simultaneously release their entire catalog (Albums and singles) on Itunes, why is it a problem for an author to create bundles (albums) from their singles, and offer both for sale, allowing the consumer to chose the way they consume their entertainment.

If they don't want Story A & B in a bundle because they read story A already, then they can look for story B as a single. Or, if you bundle 2 stories at the price of one ($2.99) it wont matter, because that's how much story B costs as a single.

I would not, however, bundle more than two stories for $2.99, countdown deals excluded (thought I have no idea how effective countdowns work on this genre). I've heard elsewhere that your bundles should cost $X.99, where X is the number of stories. 7 stories, $7.99.


----------



## KelliWolfe

M. Frank Parsons said:


> To loosely quote KKR/DWS... If the Rolling Stones can simultaneously release their entire catalog (Albums and singles) on Itunes, why is it a problem for an author to create bundles (albums) from their singles, and offer both for sale, allowing the consumer to chose the way they consume their entertainment.


Because it's an utterly horrible analogy? People don't consume books and music in anything like the same way. It's like saying that since people consume both water and steak, it makes perfect sense to liquefy steak and sell it in 24 packs of 16 ounce bottles just like bottled water.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

KelliWolfe said:


> Because it's an utterly horrible analogy? People don't consume books and music in anything like the same way. It's like saying that since people consume both water and steak, it makes perfect sense to liquefy steak and sell it in 24 packs of 16 ounce bottles just like bottled water.


The analogy holds.

The liquefied steak is available, they just call it a protein shake and make it taste like chocolate.


----------



## BlairErotica

M. Frank Parsons said:


> The analogy holds.
> 
> The liquefied steak is available, they just call it a protein shake and make it taste like chocolate.


Good plan. I intend to release all my stories as one story bundles that taste like chocolate.


----------



## Sargon

Anyone getting decent/good borrows but almost no sales today? Maybe a delay in sales reporting? Having my best borrows day but my worst sales day in two weeks with a really lower number.


----------



## Redacted1111

Sargon said:


> Anyone getting decent/good borrows but almost no sales today? Maybe a delay in sales reporting? Having my best borrows day but my worst sales day in two weeks with a really lower number.


Thank god. I thought I was the only one. My PNR series isn't showing hardly any sales and this series has been consistent for months. I was like, "Wha... No one is buying 99 cent serials with a perma free lead in today? Is this the Twilight Zone?"

But who knows. Reporting is stupid lately. I kind of don't believe it at all right now. I think all the shuffling they are doing is interfering with reporting.


----------



## R. Graystone

I'm also hoping the numbers start to pick up this evening. The title I have running free this weekend is at 80 downloads so far, but there's only been a handful of borrows today and one sale.


----------



## Sargon

Looking back over my absurd logs, I see that I've had very few borrows after about 4:30pm but continued sales, often adding several sales during the evening/night hours. So I'm still hopeful it will pick up. I suspect it's some kind of credit-card settlement thing.

Kalypso -- good to know it's not just me, and let's hope it's reporting and not reality.

Unrelated...I wish we could see how many people landed on a book's page, and how many did the Look Inside. I wonder if they have any idea how helpful that would be. I don't know if 50% who do the Look Inside are borrowing, or .01% or what. In this day and age, it's absurd to not have this data.


----------



## Perro Callejero

Figured I'd post an update on the titles of mine that were spawned from this challenge.:

I ran a BKnights ad for the first in the series yesterday, but by the afternoon it had only sold two copies.  Considering my previous experience using BKnights to promote an Erotica title--in which I saw 19 sales--I decided something must be turning people away from the newer book.  The main thing I'd been wondering about was the blurb--which was basically just a bit of dialogue lifted from the actual text of the book itself.  So I wrote a new blurb that felt appropriate for the genre and included several keywords (blah blah billionaire penthouse blah blah young woman blah blah first steps down a dark path blah blah domination and overwhelming sensual experience blah blah blah).  Since uploading that new blurb yesterday evening, I've sold 6 copies and earned 1 borrow, lifting the book to a rank of 20K in the dot com store!  

Apparently my last blurb sucked pretty bad, and maybe a dialogue-only blurb is just a bad idea in general.  Now I'm off to replace the blurb for the second part, and to write a third part, and then to bundle the three.

eBook millions here we come!


----------



## nellgoddin

Sargon said:


> Anyone getting decent/good borrows but almost no sales today? Maybe a delay in sales reporting? Having my best borrows day but my worst sales day in two weeks with a really lower number.


Yup, same deal here.


----------



## Tara Shuler

Sargon said:


> Anyone getting decent/good borrows but almost no sales today? Maybe a delay in sales reporting? Having my best borrows day but my worst sales day in two weeks with a really lower number.


Same here, exactly.


----------



## J.B.

Marcos Fenton said:


> Figured I'd post an update on the titles of mine that were spawned from this challenge.:
> 
> I ran a BKnights ad for the first in the series yesterday, but by the afternoon it had only sold two copies. Considering my previous experience using BKnights to promote an Erotica title--in which I saw 19 sales--I decided something must be turning people away from the newer book. The main thing I'd been wondering about was the blurb--which was basically just a bit of dialogue lifted from the actual text of the book itself. So I wrote a new blurb that felt appropriate for the genre and included several keywords (blah blah billionaire penthouse blah blah young woman blah blah first steps down a dark path blah blah domination and overwhelming sensual experience blah blah blah). Since uploading that new blurb yesterday evening, I've sold 6 copies and earned 1 borrow, lifting the book to a rank of 20K in the dot com store!
> 
> Apparently my last blurb sucked pretty bad, and maybe a dialogue-only blurb is just a bad idea in general. Now I'm off to replace the blurb for the second part, and to write a third part, and then to bundle the three.
> 
> eBook millions here we come!


Congrats - blurs matter


----------



## JSViolett

Is it safe to make keyword / blurb / title etc. changes on the weekend or does it raise the possibility of extra scrutiny by the tougher weekend review team?  I know publishing a new piece is unadvised,  but what about these incremental changes to already published works?  I ask because every time I make changes the Dashboard status shows "Reviewing"  or "In Review" type messages and many hours go by before it switches to "Publishing".  

Thoughts?


----------



## KelliWolfe

Any time you touch *anything* in KDP and hit "publish," even if it's just to update keywords, it can trigger a full review by the content team. And just because they go in to review one title doesn't mean they won't give your other titles a once-over while they're in there. I've had it happen before, and I've had them block titles I hadn't touched in months as a result.


----------



## JSViolett

Thanks, Kelli. This is what I was afraid of but it's good to have confirmation as I'm always itching to make changes.  
But better to wait a few days than tempt the dungeon masters.

I'll go sit on my hands again.


----------



## KelliWolfe

I hear ya. I've got a bunch of updated MOBI files for a bunch of titles as well as shiny new blurbs/keywords for my Brats Next Door series that I did this morning and I hate having to sit on them all weekend. *sigh*


----------



## Sargon

Tara Shuler said:


> Same here, exactly.


Sounds like it's happening to a few people. I got a couple more buys...I think it's just a random quirk of the market. My best day for buys was last Sunday, so I've got my fingers crossed for tomorrow (or "today" if you are reading this "tomorrow").


----------



## Midnight Writer

*deleted*


----------



## GUTMAN

KelliWolfe said:


> <snip>
> 
> Oh, and don't forget that there are people who hate porn (and other writers who want to kill the competition) and will attempt to track you back to your real identity to expose you as a filthy pornographer, too. Which can cause all kinds of problems depending on your day job and whether you have kids.
> 
> *That* is why you charge $2.99 for a 5k word short and don't have to feel a moment's guilt over it.


Curious about this: has anyone here actually been outed against your will?


----------



## skyle

I bundle in lots of three. Out of my five books already available I have created two bundles as well.

Individual books: $2.99
Bundles of 3: $3.99

and when I have enough books to do it- 
Bundles of 5: $4.99

I think those prices are pretty tempting considering the cost of singles, and yet my singles still outsell the bundles. But that suits me too


----------



## skyle

From bitter experience I will not be loading anything until Monday evening at the earliest, or making any changes at all.  Even though I desperately want to update one of my titles, I too shall be sitting on my hands until we are safely back from India to the American reviewers.


----------



## skyle

I really really hope there is something wrong with the reporting, because my permafree PNR under my other name is shifting about 400 a day but I'm seeing no follow on to book two.


----------



## Fredster

I was curious how Amazon felt about taking stories that are in Select and bundling them into books that are sold outside of Select, but still exclusively on Amazon. I'd seen a post that indicated Amazon was okay with that, but as many posts as I've also seen about Amazon suspending and/or canceling accounts, I decided to ask them directly, because I'd like to start bundling but to keep the bundles out of Select. This is the relevant portion of the response they sent:



Amazon KDP Support said:


> You may certainly combine the contents of the four books and publish it as a new submission right away. It is not necessary to enrolled the new submission in KDP Select.
> 
> Keep in mind that the content of the four books must remain exclusive to Amazon.


So, in case anyone other than me wanted to know, there's the answer to that particular question.


----------



## Catnip

M. Frank Parsons said:


> The ones in this game longest, with large back cataloged, consider 1 sale/borrow a day for this genre a good thing. Relax about sales, they will come. Write the next one and don't forget to bundle.


Thanks, you're right 

I didn't check sales today, and feel happier already.


----------



## Catnip

GUTMAN said:


> Curious about this: has anyone here actually been outed against your will?


 I was curious about that too. I'm wondering how people discover who's behind a pen name. Only Amazon knows mine, so the only ways I could see it getting out are if an employee leaked that info, or they got hacked.


----------



## Sargon

Fredster said:


> I was curious how Amazon felt about taking stories that are in Select and bundling them into books that are sold outside of Select, but still exclusively on Amazon. I'd seen a post that indicated Amazon was okay with that, but as many posts as I've also seen about Amazon suspending and/or canceling accounts, I decided to ask them directly, because I'd like to start bundling but to keep the bundles out of Select. This is the relevant portion of the response they sent:
> 
> So, in case anyone other than me wanted to know, there's the answer to that particular question.


Great info! What's your reason for keeping the bundle out of Select?


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Sargon said:


> Great info! What's your reason for keeping the bundle out of Select?


Speaking for myself, I'd kelp the bundles above $2.99 out of select to keep from getting a buck fifty for a 4story bundle.


----------



## BlairErotica

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Speaking for myself, I'd kelp the bundles above $2.99 out of select to keep from getting a buck fifty for a 4story bundle.


I don't get this. Are you saying you'd make more at Amazon with them out of Select? How would that work? Do you mean because of KU borrows?


----------



## Fredster

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Speaking for myself, I'd kelp the bundles above $2.99 out of select to keep from getting a buck fifty for a 4story bundle.


^THIS.

If your stories are in Select individually, KU readers can get them that way. If your bundle is outside Select, it's a way of giving a nice discount to the non-KU readers, while still getting a good royalty from it.


----------



## Tara Shuler

I kept my erotic bundles IN select for the rankings boost, which has made me WAY more money than the bundles I have out of Select. They just rank better in Select. Just a personal choice, though.


----------



## nellgoddin

Tara Shuler said:


> I kept my erotic bundles IN select for the rankings boost, which has made me WAY more money than the bundles I have out of Select. They just rank better in Select. Just a personal choice, though.


Good to know. I only have one bundle so far, out of Select for the reasons people gave above. Maybe when I get another bundle, I'll put it in Select and compare. I thought, apart from the royalty loss, that if the bundle were in Select, borrows for the individual stories would pretty much dry up? I know people don't act rationally, but jeez.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

BlairErotica said:


> I don't get this. Are you saying you'd make more at Amazon with them out of Select? How would that work? Do you mean because of KU borrows?


At this point, its a strategy I am going with based on math and anecdotal evidence. I have no proof one way or the other.

However, I would maybe try Select with a bundle or two, and non-select with a bundle or two and let the data drive the decision.


----------



## Sargon

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Speaking for myself, I'd kelp the bundles above $2.99 out of select to keep from getting a buck fifty for a 4story bundle.


I guess that makes sense. Hard to say, though. Guess experimentation is the only way.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

nellgoddin said:


> I know people don't act rationally, but jeez.


In a society where people gladly pay $50+ per pound for coffee (in those K-Cups), this cannot be overstated.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Today I published my first erotica bundle. Maybe I should have waited until I read all the arguments for or against bundling for Select. However, I read in an earlier thread that it is good to bundle if you have at least four or five stories so I went with that. I priced it at $4.99 and I'm waiting for approval. Last Sunday I published, and within six hours it was approved, therefore, I surmised, without any viable data, that Sunday was a good day to publish, as well as Thursday. We'll see if it works again this week. Now for the update on my books.

Book 1: 2 sales 10 borrows (no changes for two or three days)
Book 2: 1 sale 2 borrows (no changes)
Book 3: 1 sale 2 borrows (new)
Book 4: 1 sale (This book has cover and story issues) It's not that the story isn't any good in my opinion, but it could be a bit odd and that depends on who the readers are.


----------



## o.gasim

skyle said:


> From bitter experience I will not be loading anything until Monday evening at the earliest, or making any changes at all. Even though I desperately want to update one of my titles, I too shall be sitting on my hands until we are safely back from India to the American reviewers.


Thanks Skyle. That's extremely helpful. My current series has 3 stories released so I may do this, the next 2 stories intertwine so I may be able to do some more interesting things once it is released.


----------



## KelliWolfe

That cover should be just fine, especially if you're putting the story in romance categories rather than erotica.


----------



## Dormouse

skyle said:


> From bitter experience I will not be loading anything until Monday evening at the earliest, or making any changes at all. Even though I desperately want to update one of my titles, I too shall be sitting on my hands until we are safely back from India to the American reviewers.


I'm so tempted to hit publish right now. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO tempted :-D. I'm trying to talk myself out of it though. So far I was lucky (knock on wood) and none of my stories have been adult filtered, but I really don't want to tempt fate.

Guess it might be a good idea to just focus on writing for the rest of Sunday.


----------



## skyle

Dormouse said:


> Guess it might be a good idea to just focus on writing for the rest of Sunday.


That's my plan too, I keep telling myself to focus on writing and then maybe I can publish _two_ titles on Monday evening instead of just one


----------



## Fredster

I will say that every time I've published, it's been late on a Sunday afternoon (and I'll be doing another one in an hour or so), and I haven't had any problems yet. It seems to take until Tuesday to get published, anyway. Of course, maybe Carlos F has just been busy with other people and I've been lucky so far! 


(hypothetically, I mean, Mom, in case you ever see this)


----------



## Guest

An erotica author PM'd me and told me not to give up on erotica categories so fast.  (She saw my posts here at Kboards. I'm not saying who she is, but she's one of the top 100 in Erotica.)  She said volume is the key and that everything needs to be taboo kinks.  Vanilla stuff isn't for this.

Giving it some thought.  Her stuff is 3K to 5K.  I can get five of those out a week.  It looks like I'm going to have to write longer if I do romance categories.


----------



## Sargon

Eclectic Authoress said:


> An erotica author PM'd me and told me not to give up on erotica categories so fast. (She saw my posts here at Kboards. I'm not saying who she is, but she's one of the top 100 in Erotica.) She said volume is the key and that everything needs to be taboo kinks. Vanilla stuff isn't for this.
> 
> Giving it some thought. Her stuff is 3K to 5K. I can get five of those out a week. It looks like I'm going to have to write longer if I do romance categories.


3 to 5k? Anything under 5 is so short. Guess whatever works, works.


----------



## Lovelife

Eclectic Authoress said:


> An erotica author PM'd me and told me not to give up on erotica categories so fast. (She saw my posts here at Kboards. I'm not saying who she is, but she's one of the top 100 in Erotica.) She said volume is the key and that everything needs to be taboo kinks. Vanilla stuff isn't for this.
> 
> Giving it some thought. Her stuff is 3K to 5K. I can get five of those out a week. It looks like I'm going to have to write longer if I do romance categories.


I'm glad you shared this. I've been having a rough time deciding where to put mine/where to write for. Volume always seemed key and unless you write like 15-30k (at least) vanilla seemed pointless to me.... But I still was noticing that with short taboo smut the ones in any romance categories and not erotica ones have the higher rankings. Like PI in eroitca categories are often in the 2,000-3,500 range, but the ones in romance categories are all like 1,000-1,500 or better range. So, I was having a serious inner fight with myself. It stressed me worrying about putting PI in romance cats, but at the same time it seems the most bang for your buck. 
Ramble ramble.. sorry. I'm just glad to hear this. Now maybe I can stop stressing and start writing more and just put it in erotica. Or maybe I'll do two pen names and put one in each and see which one wins. LOL


----------



## Redacted1111

I was lucky to stumble on a couple of kinks that work for me. I've just been trying to write variations on the same story formula ever since. It seems to work. If freaking Amazon didn't insist on filtering my stories for no apparent reason. *grumble, grumble* 

I plan to email them all week until they do something. I'm just annoyed so I plan to be annoying.


----------



## Guest

Lovelife said:


> But I still was noticing that with short taboo smut the ones in any romance categories and not erotica ones have the higher rankings. Like PI in eroitca categories are often in the 2,000-3,500 range, but the ones in romance categories are all like 1,000-1,500 or better range.


Yeah, I know. But my titles won't all be ranking the same no matter what category they're in. Some will rank high, some low. Also, this is about volume. Let's say I want to make $10,000 a month with this. If I had 100 titles out, each of my titles needs to pull in 3 dollars and 33 cents a day. So 3 dollars and 33 cents a day x 100 is $333. Then take $333 x 30 days in a month. That equals $9,990. Close enough.

All you need is two borrows per title at $1.50 per borrow per day. Write a 3K to 5K story a day, starting November 1. (Morning: write it. Afternoon: edit it. Evening: Make a cover, write your blurb, choose your keywords, publish.) By the end of March, you'll have 100 titles. And just increase from there. (You'll have to sell a bit more per day if you want to take your weekends off.)

(None of the titles I have out so far are over 5K, and they're selling.)

If my math is wrong, someone can correct me. But this is totally doable in the erotica categories if you focus on the taboo kinks. Sell at $2.99, not 99 cents.



EelKat said:


> Yep...that's what I've been saying right along. Volume. Taboo. Kink. Toss vanilla out the window.
> 
> I'm fast closing in on 700 titles. My battle cry is now and forever: VOLUME! VOLUME! VOLUME!  Why? Because it works. Kinks go for more more money. More taboo the better.


Yep, that's exactly what you said, EelKat.


----------



## anotherpage

Eclectic Authoress said:


> Yeah, I know. But my titles won't all be ranking the same no matter what category they're in. Some will rank high, some low. Also, this is about volume. Let's say I want to make $10,000 a month with this. If I had 100 titles out, each of my titles needs to pull in 3 dollars and 33 cents a day. So 3 dollars and 33 cents a day x 100 is $333. Then take $333 x 30 days in a month. That equals $9,990. Close enough.
> 
> All you need is two borrows per title at $1.50 per borrow per day. Write a 3K to 5K story a day, five days a week (weekends off) starting November 3. (Morning: write it. Afternoon: edit it. Evening: Make a cover, write your blurb, choose your keywords, publish.) By the end of March, you'll have 100 titles. And just increase from there.
> 
> (None of the titles I have out so far are over 5K, and they're selling.)
> 
> If my math is wrong, someone can correct me. But this is totally doable in the erotica categories if you focus on the taboo kinks. Sell at $2.99, not 99 cents.
> 
> Yep, that's exactly what you said, EelKat.


Interesting stuff.

I have 4 out, 1 publishing tommorow and 3 more publishing in a week.

I have all mine set at $2.99 though i notice some folks have theirs set at 99 cents. Whats the point of that? 99 cents isn't going to make any money. Im going by what others have said. So far borrows every day, but few. Initially when my first batch published i got 6 borrow, next day 8 borrows, next 5 borrows. It goes up and down. Rankings also are up and down. It's crazy stuff.

But as you said. Its just plain math. Hell I would be happy with 1/3 of that 9,000. I would like at a bare minimum to get to $3,000 a month within the next two to three months. If it's higher wonderful. But i hope its not lower lol.

Once get to that, I wont keep writing one a day as that is exhausting. ( so far I think i can get 5,000 done ever 2 days, i could do every day but thats alot of tapping ) I will write say 3 a week, and get back to my main novels ( i got into this to write decent novels, not just to write erotica as all those tools and keyholes gets boring fast lol, only thing that is keeping my head above the water is seeing some borrows otherwise I would quit immediately and go back to main novels.


----------



## anotherpage

MegCooper said:


> I'm working on my next story, and have a question about the stock photo that I've already downloaded (a month ago) for the cover. It's a naked male torso, and he has a nipple ring. Is that kosher with Amazon? Or should I plan on covering it up? It's an erotic romance, and I don't plan on putting it into any erotica categories. Didn't know if that made a difference at all with the cover.
> 
> My experience with this challenge: I can't write pure erotica. The one I wrote I scrapped (but still saving it in case it can be fixed). I'm more of a romance/erotic romance gal. Looking at my also-bots, I'm getting the erotica readers just fine. I do want to change the price for my bundle down to $3.99, based on what folk in this thread have said, but wanted to wait until the weekend was over. I'm happy with my sold/purchases overall thus far, and have high hopes for my next series.


I think a lot of us are that ( romance, trying to write erotica lol ) So far mine are sexy romance. But I will dabble this coming month in some freaky stuff, and see how they pan out.


----------



## anotherpage

Dormouse said:


> I'm so tempted to hit publish right now. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO tempted :-D. I'm trying to talk myself out of it though. So far I was lucky (knock on wood) and none of my stories have been adult filtered, but I really don't want to tempt fate.
> 
> Guess it might be a good idea to just focus on writing for the rest of Sunday.


I published over the weekend twice without problems on fri and sat.


----------



## anotherpage

Eclectic Authoress said:


> An erotica author PM'd me and told me not to give up on erotica categories so fast. (She saw my posts here at Kboards. I'm not saying who she is, but she's one of the top 100 in Erotica.) She said volume is the key and that everything needs to be taboo kinks. Vanilla stuff isn't for this.
> 
> Giving it some thought. Her stuff is 3K to 5K. I can get five of those out a week. It looks like I'm going to have to write longer if I do romance categories.


Anything under 5k i would imagine would be 99 cents not $2.99 but i guess if all your stuff is borrows and not sales who cares lol


----------



## anotherpage

Here's a question i have.

If its posted ONLY in romance

And no erotica categories

Aren't readers going to think its vanilla?

If its not vanilla, shouldn't it go in the erotica category?


----------



## anotherpage

EelKat said:


> Yep...that's what I've been saying right along. Volume. Taboo. Kink. Toss vanilla out the window.
> 
> I'm fast closing in on 700 titles. My battle cry is now and forever: VOLUME! VOLUME! VOLUME!  Why? Because it works. Kinks go for more more money. More taboo the better.


700 HOLY COW. You must be raking in like $70,000 a month or something. If 100 titles gets nearly 10,000?


----------



## Redacted1111

Eclectic Authoress said:


> Yeah, I know. But my titles won't all be ranking the same no matter what category they're in. Some will rank high, some low. Also, this is about volume. Let's say I want to make $10,000 a month with this. If I had 100 titles out, each of my titles needs to pull in 3 dollars and 33 cents a day. So 3 dollars and 33 cents a day x 100 is $333. Then take $333 x 30 days in a month. That equals $9,990. Close enough.
> 
> All you need is two borrows per title at $1.50 per borrow per day. Write a 3K to 5K story a day, starting November 1. (Morning: write it. Afternoon: edit it. Evening: Make a cover, write your blurb, choose your keywords, publish.) By the end of March, you'll have 100 titles. And just increase from there. (You'll have to sell a bit more per day if you want to take your weekends off.)
> 
> (None of the titles I have out so far are over 5K, and they're selling.)
> 
> If my math is wrong, someone can correct me. But this is totally doable in the erotica categories if you focus on the taboo kinks. Sell at $2.99, not 99 cents.
> 
> Yep, that's exactly what you said, EelKat.


I like those numbers a lot. I can see it as very realistic with the current climate. I have one title that made me over $200 this month in just a few weeks. A few have only made a couple bucks. You never know with each one, so you have to keep producing them. I made about a grand last month and I'm on track to make over $1700 this month with just eight erotica shorts out. I shuffled around some old stuff, but that doesn't account for a very big portion. A seven hundred plus dollar increase in one month, after a year of pounding away, is pretty amazing. I can definitely see that a hundred titles could earn $10000 a month. But, it's hard for me to put all my eggs in the smut basket. It's so volatile. A few of my titles that had the same keywords and blurbs and titles as the best sellers got filtered. God only knows why. Those titles ended up not making as much money as they could have. Kink erotica is a huge risk, albeit a very lucrative risk. 
I've started several pen names and plan to be more productive in general. I'm going to try to avoid getting to attached to any one thing, which is what makes writing and making money easiest for me.


----------



## R. Graystone

Wow Kalypso, congratulations. You give me hope! I'd like to be pulling in 1K+ per month within 3 months. Lofty goals, so we'll see. Weekend numbers for the five titles I have up are coming soon...


----------



## Lovelife

Kalypsō said:


> I like those numbers a lot. I can see it as very realistic with the current climate. I have one title that made me over $200 this month in just a few weeks. A few have only made a couple bucks. You never know with each one, so you have to keep producing them. I made about a grand last month and I'm on track to make over $1700 this month with just eight erotica shorts out. I shuffled around some old stuff, but that doesn't account for a very big portion. A seven hundred plus dollar increase in one month, after a year of pounding away, is pretty amazing. I can definitely see that a hundred titles could earn $10000 a month. But, it's hard for me to put all my eggs in the smut basket. It's so volatile. A few of my titles that had the same keywords and blurbs and titles as the best sellers got filtered. God only knows why. Those titles ended up not making as much money as they could have. Kink erotica is a huge risk, albeit a very lucrative risk.
> I've started several pen names and plan to be more productive in general. I'm going to try to avoid getting to attached to any one thing, which is what makes writing and making money easiest for me.


This is another reason I was leaning towards the romance cats instead of the erotica ones. The adult filter thing seems to be a bitch. When they're in romance I don't think that happens.

@Eclectic Volume is what I'm going for as well. But that doesn't mean that putting in romance excludes that. I was thinking if I'm already writing a ton of words doesn't it make more sense to put it in the cats that will give me the highest rank (ie the most money). On the other hand I don't want to be banned. But I see quite a bit of short PI and Doctor Play in the Romance cats. that are often ranked higher than the ones in Erotica cats. Of course they could crack down again and pull all the erotica out of romance and that could cause problems if all my stuff was in there. So, idk.


----------



## Guest

kalel said:


> Anything under 5k i would imagine would be 99 cents not $2.99 but i guess if all your stuff is borrows and not sales who cares lol


Since I started this erotica gig, my stories are between 3.5K and 4K. None of them are 5K. I would never pay $2.99 for this stuff, but plenty of people do it. Today, two of mine sold for the $2.99, but most of what I get are borrows.


----------



## Guest

Kalypsō said:


> I like those numbers a lot. I can see it as very realistic with the current climate. I have one title that made me over $200 this month in just a few weeks. A few have only made a couple bucks. You never know with each one, so you have to keep producing them. I made about a grand last month and I'm on track to make over $1700 this month with just eight erotica shorts out. I shuffled around some old stuff, but that doesn't account for a very big portion. A seven hundred plus dollar increase in one month, after a year of pounding away, is pretty amazing. I can definitely see that a hundred titles could earn $10000 a month. But, it's hard for me to put all my eggs in the smut basket. It's so volatile. A few of my titles that had the same keywords and blurbs and titles as the best sellers got filtered. God only knows why. Those titles ended up not making as much money as they could have. Kink erotica is a huge risk, albeit a very lucrative risk.
> I've started several pen names and plan to be more productive in general. I'm going to try to avoid getting to attached to any one thing, which is what makes writing and making money easiest for me.


I'm keeping my erotica stories between 3.5K and 4K. For me, that's not a lot of words. So I can also do about 1.5K to 2K a day on my other fiction. So about 6K a day, at most. This way I'm working on more than just the erotica. My goal is also to take two days a week off. (I'm thinking Friday and Saturday. So I'd work hard Sunday through Thursday.)


----------



## Guest

Lovelife said:


> @Eclectic Volume is what I'm going for as well. But that doesn't mean that putting in romance excludes that. I was thinking if I'm already writing a ton of words doesn't it make more sense to put it in the cats that will give me the highest rank (ie the most money). On the other hand I don't want to be banned. But I see quite a bit of short PI and Doctor Play in the Romance cats. that are often ranked higher than the ones in Erotica cats. Of course they could crack down again and pull all the erotica out of romance and that could cause problems if all my stuff was in there. So, idk.


Yes, I've seen the same thing as you. Some PI and Doctor Play stuff ranks high in romance, and that's great for those authors.

But as far as I'm concerned, I had a title in erotica; I pulled it out of erotica and put it in romance, but tonight I pulled it out of romance and put it back in erotica.

Everyone needs to do what feels comfortable for them and what works for them. I'm focusing on volume rather than focusing on ranking high. Volume takes a lot of work, but I'd rather go that route now.


----------



## Redacted1111

Eclectic Authoress said:


> I'm keeping my erotica stories between 3.5K and 4K. For me, that's not a lot of words. So I can also do about 1.5K to 2K a day on my other fiction. So about 6K a day, at most. This way I'm working on more than just the erotica. My goal is also to take two days a week off. (I'm thinking Friday and Saturday. So I'd work hard Sunday through Thursday.)


As a housewife and a mom of three year old, I can usually publish between 30-60k words per month. That's still a lot. Erotica is "easier" to write. But I have to balance it with other stuff. I'm actually just really motivated and excited. This is all going to change my life.  I'm moving on up. Out of the ghetto... Maybe preschool is in my future. Yay!


----------



## R. Graystone

Erotica in first person.

Is this a done thing? I'm going to experiment with a piece (slated to be PI Menage) and it's first person FMC-POV with two brothers. Think this will fly with the readers, or do the smutty hoards prefer a little more distance in their fantasies?


----------



## Sargon

R. Graystone said:


> Erotica in first person.
> 
> Is this a done thing? I'm going to experiment with a piece (slated to be PI Menage) and it's FMC-POV with two brothers. Thing this will fly with the readers, or do the smutty hoards prefer a little more distance in their fantasies?


First person. Absolutely. All my best-selling ones are first person. In fact I've only published one (of 9) that is not first person. So go for it!


----------



## batmansero

I've put the second one up in my erotic romance series and have lowered the price of the first to 99c.  I figure it's a safe risk as I'll still be earning more for borrows (starting price being $1.40) anyway 

I have a small mailing list and all but one have opened the email containing the first newsletter.

Question regarding the spreadsheet.  Is it only to record the first 7 days of the book being live or is it ongoing?


----------



## batmansero

Damn...just noticed I got a review on the second one.  Mind is blown and humbled.  They want me to write the next one quickly.  I've already said I'll be releasing something else first.  I hope they don't mind waiting a couple of weeks


----------



## R. Graystone

Congratulations April! Reviews rock, all the moreso when they've got something nice to say.


----------



## R. Graystone

Maybe the narration starts to drag a little on longer stories? *ponder*

In any case, that's good news for me. I usually write exclusively in 3rd, so I was starting to feel a little uncertain about this piece. And in other news, here are my 4-day results:

- Title 1: 19 borrows, 6 sales
- Title 2: 16 borrows, 3 sales
- Title 3: 5 borrows, 0 sales
- Title 4: 2 borrows, 182 free downloads over Sat/Sun
- Title 5: 2 borrows, 0 sales
- Bundle: Q.Q

I've had a mailing list set up since the start, no sign-ups so far. Only 2 sales over the weekend, so I'm not sure my freebie has translated into any further coverage yet. So far my best day was Friday, with 17 borrows and 4 sales. Not bad for 4 days of activity, and I think I'm already seeing a trend in which of my titles moves fastest. If I'm right, then my somewhat lackluster covers are holding me back, and I should be doing even better by the end of next week when I release a few more titles with *much* better covers.


----------



## R. Graystone

Thanks! I'm pretty pleased so far.   Now I just gotta get more work up, because I am so determined to be making 1K+ a month by ~ Christmas. I'm going to test a couple of themed series next, with PI as the uniting theme on one series and paranormal erotic-romance on another.


----------



## batmansero

R. Graystone said:


> I've had a mailing list set up since the start, no sign-ups so far.


My suggestion for if you want sign ups is to put the link to it immediately following the end of the story. Sign up to find out when the next ones out!, kind of thing. I decided I wanted reviews though, so put a thank you for reading note and request for reviews immediately after the story, then a sign up to newsletter spiel following it. I think readers that enjoyed the book are most likely to take the first action presented to them immediately following the story.


----------



## R. Graystone

Heehee, that's just what I've got.   The link for the list is at the front, then at the end is a 'Thank you so much, if you enjoyed this story, please review' spiel, followed by the sign-up spiel and link again. I'm sure it's just a patience game, which is fine by me.


----------



## R. Graystone

Well, the week looks to be off to a great start. Took a bit of a break, but finished my sixth piece this weekend and designed covers for a 3-part piece that is coming up. Title six is formatted, jacketed and uploaded, damn I feel good.   

Aiming for at least 3 more pieces this week, maybe four. I'll stay tuned with my 1 week totals on Wednesday, good luck everyone.


----------



## o.gasim

Quick status update. I think the tide is starting to turn a little bit for my titles. I have had at least one sale or borrow for the last 5 days straight. It is definately true that it's all about quantity. I try to get one story published a week and they range from 3500-7500 words.

BOOK 1 ~3500 words (Released October 7th): 6 Borrows / 6 Sales
BOOK 2 ~7200 words (Released October 15th): 4 Borrows / 1 Sale
BOOK 3 ~3500 words (Released October 24th): 2 Borrows / 2 Sales

BOOK 4 (Anthology w/ 4 other writers; released October 21st): 5 Borrows / 0 Sales

TOTAL: 17 Borrows / 9 Sales

I've found my shorter (3500) works tend to move a little quicker but no real difference between length of the work and sales. After my current long work is completed, which I am shifting into two shorter works to round out this series at 5, I think I will try to focus on 3-4k shorts for the month of November.


----------



## LeahEmmaRose

Here's my update. Only one 6.5k word story published so far, but it's had 1 sale and 4 borrows in just three days. It's vanilla, so it's definitely meeting my expectations.

I am 1.5k words into my next one, which shares a similar theme, but very different story from the first. I plan to do a third story then bundle them and move on. I have a MILF story idea I am itching to write after that! Words are really flowing fast on this new one, so I hope to publish Thursday night at the latest.

Thanks everyone for sharing your numbers. It is really giving me hope that I can make a nice part time income writing erotica and erotic romance novellas, and then have time to work on what I really want, which is contemporary romance with less steam and my nonfiction travel series.


----------



## BlairErotica

Question for those of you successful with erom... When I look at the categories at Amazon (the ones on the dashboard) there is no such thing. There is romance/erotica, but erotica has no subcategories except those accessed through keywords. So, to avoid the depths of despair, I mean the dungeon, do you categorize erom as romance/erotica? Or do you use erotica and the keywords for romance?


----------



## KelliWolfe

BlairErotica said:


> Question for those of you successful with erom... When I look at the categories at Amazon (the ones on the dashboard) there is no such thing. There is romance/erotica, but erotica has no subcategories except those accessed through keywords. So, to avoid the depths of despair, I mean the dungeon, do you categorize erom as romance/erotica? Or do you use erotica and the keywords for romance?


If it's an actual romance then list it in the appropriate romance categories - contemporary, new adult, etc. I always make sure and include the fact that it's an erotic romance in the blurb so people who prefer "clean" romance have a warning before they buy. Categorizing it as romance->erotica is nothing but a waste of a category, though, as was pointed out to me recently a few pages back.


----------



## BlairErotica

KelliWolfe said:


> If it's an actual romance then list it in the appropriate romance categories - contemporary, new adult, etc. I always make sure and include the fact that it's an erotic romance in the blurb so people who prefer "clean" romance have a warning before they buy. Categorizing it as romance->erotica is nothing but a waste of a category, though, as was pointed out to me recently a few pages back.


Thanks, I missed that comment. The fun is in deciding what constitutes an "actual" romance. A lot of my erotica has a strong romantic theme, the plot often involves people looking for real love and has a HFN ending. But if their misadventures follow kinky paths, it's hard to refer to those as EROM. It seems it's easier to "dirty" a romance with Zons blessing, than to get a clean bill of health for erotica. So I struggle onward.


----------



## johnaburks

If it goes in erotica instead of romance/erotica isn't that a straight trip to the adult dungeon?


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

johnaburks said:


> If it goes in erotica instead of romance/erotica isn't that a straight trip to the adult dungeon?


Nope. That depends on (among other things) blurb or title with "banned words" or a cover with too much skin, or some dude named Carlos F gets his hands on it in review.


----------



## KelliWolfe

BlairErotica said:


> Thanks, I missed that comment. The fun is in deciding what constitutes an "actual" romance. A lot of my erotica has a strong romantic theme, the plot often involves people looking for real love and has a HFN ending. But if their misadventures follow kinky paths, it's hard to refer to those as EROM. It seems it's easier to "dirty" a romance with Zons blessing, than to get a clean bill of health for erotica. So I struggle onward.


The sex can be kinky as long as you have a romantic relationship between the characters (that doesn't simply revolve around them hooking up for sex) and a HEA/HFN ending. I'd say that you're safe from Zon on this unless you're pushing stories that are obvious porn into romance and they get complaints. So if your story is a 3500 word short titled "Licking My Adorable Teen Stepdaughter" it should probably go in erotica.


----------



## johnaburks

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Nope. That depends on (among other things) blurb or title with "banned words" or a cover with too much skin, or some dude named Carlos F gets his hands on it in review.


Thanks. I literally learn new stuff in this thread every day.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

KelliWolfe said:


> "Licking My Adorable Teen Stepdaughter" it should probably go in erotica.


OK, THAT'S a title that would get you dungeoned if you're lucky, but probably get your account shut down. Possibly arrested.

Yes, I know you're being facetious.


----------



## R. Graystone

To the untrained eye, this thread must look like the stomping ground of deviants.   

I'm powering through my seventh title, might even submit it this evening. Yay for productive Mondays!


----------



## KelliWolfe

M. Frank Parsons said:


> OK, THAT'S a title that would get you dungeoned if you're lucky, but probably get your account shut down. Possibly arrested.
> 
> Yes, I know you're being facetious.


Have you browsed the Erotica->Urban category lately? "My Bikini Clad Squealing Stepdaughter: Licking with Delight." Real title, not filtered. Lots more just like it.


----------



## BlairErotica

I've never figured out why location becomes a subcategory. Is sex in the city that much different than down on the farm? And how come they don't have erotica>urban>back alley or erotica>fancy house in the middle of nowhere? Too many niches.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

KelliWolfe said:


> Have you browsed the Erotica->Urban category lately? "My Bikini Clad Squealing Stepdaughter: Licking with Delight." Real title, not filtered. Lots more just like it.


I... Have... No words...

Perhaps I should stop being coy with my titles.


----------



## Mahalo

Can you use Taboo in a title or description? I see it a lot but wondering if it will get filtered in a title.

Nevermind - they really are all over. Look at this: http://www.amazon.com/Taboo-Losing-My-Erotica-ebook/dp/B00OMN9TIA/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1414448969&sr=8-4&keywords=taboo+erotica

It says erotica on the cover - is ranked at like #3,000 and the categories are literature and fiction - short stories and contemporary romance.


----------



## KelliWolfe

M. Frank Parsons said:


> I... Have... No words...
> 
> Perhaps I should stop being coy with my titles.


Yeah... This is the kind of thing that goes on for a little while and then the complaints start to pile up and Amazon starts another Pornacalypse.

On the other hand, at one time "babysitter" and "virgin" would get you filtered, but they quit worrying about those. It may be that they dropped the "step-relation" words from the naughty list as well after "Stepbrother, Dearest." I'm not going to change my titles to experiment, though.

<Igor>Wait, Master. It could be dangerous. You go first.</Igor>


----------



## Guest

You guys, I can't believe that thread Kalel started was locked.  This is why a private forum for erotica writers is always helpful.  When, not if, I make it as an erotica writer of taboo shorts, I may start my own private forum, and I'll invite all of you guys.  That way no prudes or Bible thumpers or any of those people can shut down intelligent conversations regarding erotica and sex.


----------



## Lovelife

Ana Munroe said:


> Can you use Taboo in a title or description? I see it a lot but wondering if it will get filtered in a title.
> 
> Nevermind - they really are all over. Look at this: http://www.amazon.com/Taboo-Losing-My-Erotica-ebook/dp/B00OMN9TIA/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1414448969&sr=8-4&keywords=taboo+erotica
> 
> It says erotica on the cover - is ranked at like #3,000 and the categories are literature and fiction - short stories and contemporary romance.


This is what I've been talking about! I've found quite a lot of these and they often have better rank than the erotica>urban ones. Also, no adult filter issues (as far as I know). I've seen pen names in those categories with only 2-5 books published in the last month or two that are all ranked below 5,000. I think one I found with only 2 books and both were ranked under 1,200! It's very tempting to just put them in the Romance/LitFic cats instead. Seems they shoot to the top much easier.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

I've heard that the weekends are not a great time to publish erotica. However, I have published on Sunday and Thursday, and each time it only took six or twelve hours before my books went live. I completed my box set and published it Sunday (Oct. 26, 2014), and to my surprise I had two borrows.  Furthermore, I used the dreaded word Taboo in the title. I didn't know that you shouldn't use that word for fear of being Adult filtered. My box set contains the strange story I wrote that no one wants to read. If I write three more erotic masterpieces, I will throw in that strange story with that bundle. I'm not sure it's a good idea but this is an experiment.  

I have completed book 5 and my cover is ready. I will take two days to edit my work because of the mishaps I had before; I wrote my name instead of my pen name. I will publish my 5th book on Thursday.  

Up date on my books:
Book 1: 2 sales 11 borrows
Book 2: 3 sales 2 borrows
Book 3: 2 sales 2 borrows
Book 4: 2 sales 1 return  0 borrows (strange story; strange cover)
Box set: ? sale 2 borrows; price $4.99


----------



## Guest

Lovelife said:


> This is what I've been talking about! I've found quite a lot of these and they often have better rank than the erotica>urban ones. Also, no adult filter issues (as far as I know). I've seen pen names in those categories with only 2-5 books published in the last month or two that are all ranked below 5,000. I think one I found with only 2 books and both were ranked under 1,200! It's very tempting to just put them in the Romance/LitFic cats instead. Seems they shoot to the top much easier.


The best way to decide is to try it out.  I have a billionaire one I'm sticking in Romance. However, I'm not putting my PI or some of my other really kinky stuff in Romance. Yeah, other people are getting away with it, and I hope it continues to work for them. However, if Amazon ever decides to remove them from the Romance categories, I won't be surprised.


----------



## Mahalo

Lovelife said:


> This is what I've been talking about! I've found quite a lot of these and they often have better rank than the erotica>urban ones. Also, no adult filter issues (as far as I know). I've seen pen names in those categories with only 2-5 books published in the last month or two that are all ranked below 5,000. I think one I found with only 2 books and both were ranked under 1,200! It's very tempting to just put them in the Romance/LitFic cats instead. Seems they shoot to the top much easier.


I just saw that her actual pen name is: Taboo Erotica. Interesting.

I know, I am tempted to pull my shorts from erotica to romance too. But, they are taboo and there is not a lot of romance. Sooooo. I know that they are in the right place for now.



Eclectic Authoress said:


> You guys, I can't believe that thread Kalel started was locked. This is why a private forum for erotica writers is always helpful. When, not if, I make it as an erotica writer of taboo shorts, I may start my own private forum, and I'll invite all of you guys. That way no prudes or Bible thumpers or any of those people can shut down intelligent conversations regarding erotica and sex.


This forum has a lot of positive reviews: http://eroticauthorforum.com/viewforum.php?f=15&sid=ff9b2cfdd9ffa86d2d40588f84255a43

It costs $10 to join. There was a thread on it here and a lot of people said they learned a lot from being a member.


----------



## Guest

Ana Munroe said:


> This forum has a lot of positive reviews: http://eroticauthorforum.com/viewforum.php?f=15&sid=ff9b2cfdd9ffa86d2d40588f84255a43
> 
> It costs $10 to join. There was a thread on it here and a lot of people said they learned a lot from being a member.


Yeah, I'm taking care of my grandmother right now, but I fly home tomorrow. Once I get home, I plan on paying the money and finishing my application to the forum. I look forward to participating.


----------



## R. Graystone

Heya everyone, just checked on my 4th title, the one put up for free from Sat - today, and I'm proud to say it's broken the top 2K in the free store. It's also gaining traction in two of the erotica subcategories (it's in the top 40 in BDSM   ) and has moved 200+ copies. 

I know it's a freebie, but woohoo! I decided to extend its free run, using up the rest of my days for this KDP period but what the heck. I hope it keeps climbing.


----------



## Guest

R. Graystone said:


> Heya everyone, just checked on my 4th title, the one put up for free from Sat - today, and I'm proud to say it's broken the top 2K in the free store. It's also gaining traction in two of the erotica subcategories (it's in the top 40 in BDSM  ) and has moved 200+ copies.
> 
> I know it's a freebie, but woohoo! I decided to extend its free run, using up the rest of my days for this KDP period but what the heck. I hope it keeps climbing.


Awesome!

Congratulations to everyone!!


----------



## Mahalo

Eclectic Authoress said:


> Yeah, I'm taking care of my grandmother right now, but I fly home tomorrow. Once I get home, I plan on paying the money and finishing my application to the forum. I look forward to participating.


I am going to join as well. Not that I am trying to fill up my time with more distractions...but I do think that this forum is worth joining. But, if I get hooked in and read it for a week straight...ugh. And then I'll probably write some kick butt erotica afterwards


----------



## KelliWolfe

Ana Munroe said:


> I am going to join as well. Not that I am trying to fill up my time with more distractions...but I do think that this forum is worth joining. But, if I get hooked in and read it for a week straight...ugh. And then I'll probably write some kick butt erotica afterwards


You'll like it. Some of the most honestly helpful people on the internet hang out there. Great bunch to kick back with.


----------



## Mahalo

KelliWolfe said:


> You'll like it. Some of the most honestly helpful people on the internet hang out there. Great bunch to kick back with.


Nice! Thanks, Kelli!


----------



## Guest

Ana Munroe said:


> Can you use Taboo in a title or description? I see it a lot but wondering if it will get filtered in a title.
> 
> Nevermind - they really are all over. Look at this: http://www.amazon.com/Taboo-Losing-My-Erotica-ebook/dp/B00OMN9TIA/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1414448969&sr=8-4&keywords=taboo+erotica
> 
> It says erotica on the cover - is ranked at like #3,000 and the categories are literature and fiction - short stories and contemporary romance.


This person's pen name was genius for the Amazon search engine.


----------



## Mahalo

Eclectic Authoress said:


> This person's pen name was genius for the Amazon search engine.


Right? Actually - it could be one of us. I just clicked on their name and all of their titles were published in October. Kudos if it's one of you!


----------



## KelliWolfe

Eclectic Authoress said:


> This person's pen name was genius for the Amazon search engine.


That's a very, very interesting account. Brand new - oldest story published on October 11. Four out of seven stories ranked under 5k and the rest under 40k. Three out of seven stories already have reviews - when we all know how hard it is to get reviews on hardcore erotica. Very generic, bland covers. Very generic, bland titles.

Seems just a little bit odd, doesn't it? Think maybe somebody found a way to game KU, kind of like the guy who was in here offering to buy five KU downloads for $5?

If you notice, most of the accounts with hardcore porn categorized under romance and such are new accounts, often with only one or two stories. They're throwaways. Amazon shuts them down and they pop up with a set of new ones under brand new accounts.


----------



## Mahalo

KelliWolfe said:


> That's a very, very interesting account. Brand new - oldest story published on October 11. Four out of seven stories ranked under 5k and the rest under 40k. Three out of seven stories already have reviews - when we all know how hard it is to get reviews on hardcore erotica. Very generic, bland covers. Very generic, bland titles.
> 
> Seems just a little bit odd, doesn't it? Think maybe somebody found a way to game KU, kind of like the guy who was in here offering to buy five KU downloads for $5?
> 
> If you notice, most of the accounts with hardcore porn categorized under romance and such are new accounts, often with only one or two stories. They're throwaways. Amazon shuts them down and they pop up with a set of new ones under brand new accounts.


I agree, reviews are not easy to come by in erotica.

Even more interesting is that when I click on the reviewer for the first exam one - she has quite the account of reviews. As in she seems to be reading and reviewing 5-6 stories a day. Not that that isn't possible with the length of short erotica, but, things that make you go hmmmm?

ETA: And one of the other reviewers with the low stars gives all low stars to like six stories a day. A competing account?


----------



## Guest

KelliWolfe said:


> That's a very, very interesting account. Brand new - oldest story published on October 11. Four out of seven stories ranked under 5k and the rest under 40k. Three out of seven stories already have reviews - when we all know how hard it is to get reviews on hardcore erotica. Very generic, bland covers. Very generic, bland titles.
> 
> Seems just a little bit odd, doesn't it? Think maybe somebody found a way to game KU, kind of like the guy who was in here offering to buy five KU downloads for $5?
> 
> If you notice, most of the accounts with hardcore porn categorized under romance and such are new accounts, often with only one or two stories. They're throwaways. Amazon shuts them down and they pop up with a set of new ones under brand new accounts.


I'm just going to do what feels right. If my instinct tells me something bad will happen down the road for a story if I place it in Romance, I won't do it. So I'll continue to put my really kinky stuff in Erotica. I'm confident I'll make money with this, regardless. I don't need to play games.

Also, you don't need reviews for Erotica. It sells with or without reviews.


----------



## Mahalo

Eclectic Authoress said:


> I'm just going to do what feels right. If my instinct tells me something bad will happen down the road for a story if I place it in Romance, I won't do it. So I'll continue to put my really kinky stuff in Erotica. I'm confident I'll make money with this, regardless. I don't need to play games.
> 
> Also, you don't need reviews for Erotica. It sells with or without reviews.


Oh yeah, I agree. My erotica goes straight into erotica.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Suppose you're an internet marketer. You get together with 9 of your buddies from your internet marketing forum and you each kick in $500 for KU accounts. That's 500 accounts you hand out to people you recruit to download all of the stories your little gang of ten publishes. Each of those 500 people then downloads one of your stories. Congratulations, you just made $750. Instant 50% profit.

If you had two stories you made $1500. If you just happened to have, say, seven, well, you made $5250 for October. Congratulations.

Oh, and thanks to those 500 downloads your story is ranked in the top 5000 and is getting tons of also-bought pickups. This helps muddy the waters and keeps you from getting picked up by Amazon's fraud detection algos.


----------



## Mahalo

KelliWolfe said:


> Suppose you're an internet marketer. You get together with 9 of your buddies from your internet marketing forum and you each kick in $500 for KU accounts. That's 500 accounts you hand out to people you recruit to download all of the stories your little gang of ten publishes. Each of those 500 people then downloads one of your stories. Congratulations, you just made $750. Instant 50% profit.
> 
> If you had two stories you made $1500. If you just happened to have, say, seven, well, you made $5250 for October. Congratulations.


Yeesh. That's crazy to think about.


----------



## Lovelife

KelliWolfe said:


> Suppose you're an internet marketer. You get together with 9 of your buddies from your internet marketing forum and you each kick in $500 for KU accounts. That's 500 accounts you hand out to people you recruit to download all of the stories your little gang of ten publishes. Each of those 500 people then downloads one of your stories. Congratulations, you just made $750. Instant 50% profit.
> 
> If you had two stories you made $1500. If you just happened to have, say, seven, well, you made $5250 for October. Congratulations.
> 
> Oh, and thanks to those 500 downloads your story is ranked in the top 5000 and is getting tons of also-bought pickups. This helps muddy the waters and keeps you from getting picked up by Amazon's fraud detection algos.


Exactly! This is a black hat gold mine. I used to do IM and came here from it actually. I've been out for awhile now so this wasn't on my radar, but damn that's a nice racket while it lasts.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Apropos of nothing, I take off my headphones to go grab more coffee and my middle daughter is belting out Zeppelin's _Kashmir_ on her cello in the next room. For school? No. "Just because it sounds cool." I am so freakin' proud.


----------



## Mahalo

KelliWolfe said:


> Apropos of nothing, I take off my headphones to go grab more coffee and my middle daughter is belting out Zeppelin's _Kashmir_ on her cello in the next room. For school? No. "Just because it sounds cool." I am so freakin' proud.


She rocks!

Funny - this was on NPR Today: http://www.npr.org/2014/10/26/347724682/maya-beiser-shreds-the-cello?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=2051 - She also covers Kashmir on her cello.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Oh, wow. That's very cool. I'll have to pass that along.


----------



## legion

*2-WEEK RESULTS for Pen name #1*: 4 sales, 14 borrows since 10/13/14 (its birthday).
This is over 2 titles (numbers equally divided, in fact).
No sales/borrows in about a week. 
Of course I haven't published anything new under this name in over a week either.
I'll see what happens when I publish another piece!

*1-WEEK RESULTS for Pen Name #2*: 17 sales, 93 borrows since 10/19/14 (its birthday).
This is over 2 titles and the reason why I didn't bother with Pen name #1 this past week.
I hit publish today on title #3 for this one, and I prepared the boxed set for the 3 parts, but feel bad about those who paid full price for the individual pieces, so I haven't hit publish yet. :/
(Also, KDP is being weird, and I still haven't decided if I should put the boxed set in KU or not).


----------



## Perro Callejero

It's already been mentioned on this thread, but I wanted to mention it again: The Naughty List: http://www.naughtylistbooks.com/

They recently promoted one of the titles I created for this challenge, and I got 9 sales and 6 borrows from it. Definitely recommended!

The only catch is that they only promote 99 cent or free titles.


----------



## Soulkiss

legion said:


> *2-WEEK RESULTS for Pen name #1*: 4 sales, 14 borrows since 10/13/14 (its birthday).
> This is over 2 titles (numbers equally divided, in fact).
> No sales/borrows in about a week.
> Of course I haven't published anything new under this name in over a week either.
> I'll see what happens when I publish another piece!
> 
> *1-WEEK RESULTS for Pen Name #2*: 17 sales, 93 borrows since 10/19/14 (its birthday).
> This is over 2 titles and the reason why I didn't bother with Pen name #1 this past week.
> I hit publish today on title #3 for this one, and I prepared the boxed set for the 3 parts, but feel bad about those who paid full price for the individual pieces, so I haven't hit publish yet. :/
> (Also, KDP is being weird, and I still haven't decided if I should put the boxed set in KU or not).


Kudos on 93 borrows


----------



## Will C. Brown

Marcos Fenton said:


> It's already been mentioned on this thread, but I wanted to mention it again: The Naughty List: http://www.naughtylistbooks.com/
> 
> They recently promoted one of the titles I created for this challenge, and I got 9 sales and 6 borrows from it. Definitely recommended!
> 
> The only catch is that they only promote 99 cent or free titles.


Glad to hear it worked out for you. I have a free promo scheduled for next week on the first in my series. I hope to have book 3 in the series up by Friday.


----------



## legion

Kiss Wilder said:


> Kudos on 93 borrows


Thanks! I keep trying to get it through my thick head that I should be putting a short out every 2 days, no problem.
The numbers are fairly encouraging, and when the math is broken down, it really is a matter of volume to bring in a fairly good haul.
Anyway, I'm planning to write a short a day for NNWM, so hopefully that gets things going.


----------



## KayleaEhm

Does anyone worry that the market might become saturated with all of these juicy erotica shorts? Or do you think that the market is unlimited and we will always have an audience to sell to? OR do you think that new kinks will come along and thus, we can all write new stories?


----------



## batmansero

Marcos Fenton said:


> It's already been mentioned on this thread, but I wanted to mention it again: The Naughty List: http://www.naughtylistbooks.com/


Sweet! Thanks for this. I've just had two books (different pen names) accepted into the newsletter and have also submitted for FB inclusion--which have already been posted! Quick as


----------



## Guest

KayleaEhm said:


> Does anyone worry that the market might become saturated with all of these juicy erotica shorts?


No.


----------



## batmansero

Just found this one and had to share. Great cover. Count the kinks... Talk about keeping up with current events 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OX2Y7J6


----------



## skyle

April Ryder said:


> Just found this one and had to share. Great cover. Count the kinks... Talk about keeping up with current events
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OX2Y7J6


That's fantastic, I'm jealous of her creativity!


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

KayleaEhm said:


> Does anyone worry that the market might become saturated with all of these juicy erotica shorts? Or do you think that the market is unlimited and we will always have an audience to sell to? OR do you think that new kinks will come along and thus, we can all write new stories?


This is inconceivable (and yeah, it means what I think it means  ).

Why? Because there has been more printed PER YEAR than can ever be read by one person in a lifetime, and this has been happening for decades, in and out (snicker) of erotica.

This is like asking if the internet can get too full of websites. Not possible.

So there


----------



## Catnip

I don't worry about saturation either. Readers in this niche seem pretty voracious, and short stories take hardly any time to read.


----------



## anotherpage

legion said:


> *2-WEEK RESULTS for Pen name #1*: 4 sales, 14 borrows since 10/13/14 (its birthday).
> This is over 2 titles (numbers equally divided, in fact).
> No sales/borrows in about a week.
> Of course I haven't published anything new under this name in over a week either.
> I'll see what happens when I publish another piece!
> 
> *1-WEEK RESULTS for Pen Name #2*: 17 sales, 93 borrows since 10/19/14 (its birthday).
> This is over 2 titles and the reason why I didn't bother with Pen name #1 this past week.
> I hit publish today on title #3 for this one, and I prepared the boxed set for the 3 parts, but feel bad about those who paid full price for the individual pieces, so I haven't hit publish yet. :/
> (Also, KDP is being weird, and I still haven't decided if I should put the boxed set in KU or not).


Interesting you got way more borrows.

I have 4 titles and 2 more going up today and I'm only averaging between 4 to 8 sales a day across those 4 titles. Freaking weird. ( one pen name )

What are your books priced at?

Mine are set a $2.99


----------



## Guest

Catnip said:


> I joined the erotica forum. There's lots of good info, and the people seem very nice.


Good. 

I'm looking forward to it, because I'm tired of people who don't write erotica, and, *more importantly*, who have *no genuine interest* in it, sticking their noses into an erotica thread to complain about some word they don't like.

I'm looking forward to chatting with people who write what I write.


----------



## johnaburks

I joined that forum, sent the paypal bit, but still haven't heard back from them. I've emailed them again, this morning. We shall see.


----------



## bluwulf

Johnaburks- I think it takes a couple of days to get approved.


----------



## KelliWolfe

johnaburks said:


> I joined that forum, sent the paypal bit, but still haven't heard back from them. I've emailed them again, this morning. We shall see.


There's one person who handles approving the new accounts and she's quite busy, so it can sometimes take a while to get a new account activated.


----------



## johnaburks

I'm patient. I'll give it to the end of the week and, if I don't hear anything, shoot them another email. 

Thanks guys.


----------



## legion

kalel said:


> Interesting you got way more borrows.
> 
> I have 4 titles and 2 more going up today and I'm only averaging between 4 to 8 sales a day across those 4 titles. Freaking weird. ( one pen name )
> 
> *What are your books priced at?*
> 
> Mine are set a $2.99


Also $2.99. You're doing quite well--daily sales are nothing to sneeze at! 
I'm always amazed when someone buys one.


----------



## Dormouse

In the name of research, I've been reading a lot of erotica lately  .

I've come across one thing I find very odd. Several writers have taken their het-erotica, changed the pronouns and a few other bits and then sell the same story as gay-erotica (under a different pen-name).

Some reviewers have even commented on it, but that didn't seem to affect the sale-numbers.

What do you think about this practice? With the majority of the stories I've read, it didn't really work and yet... is that idea genius or just another way to game the system?


----------



## SnarkyMommy

Thinking about jumping in on this Nov. 1, but trying to finish up a new romance serial first, so might be Dec. 1. If you had to start this challenge *today*, what are the specific kinks would write? I've been checking out the top-sellers and it's kind of all over the place.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Dormouse said:


> In the name of reserach, I've been reading a lot of erotica lately .
> 
> I've come across one thing I find very odd. Several writers have taken their het-erotica, changed the pronouns and a few other bits and then sold the same story as gay-erotica (under a different pen-name).
> 
> Some reviewers have even commented on it, but that didn't seem to affect the sale-numbers.
> 
> What do you think about this practice? With the majority of the stories I've read, it didn't really work and yet... is that idea genius or just another way to game the system?


People have been doing something similar with PI for a long time (mirror editions). I don't think it's gaming the system, it's just getting the most out of a given story. A lot of people who don't read PI might read the story if it was a "dad's best friend" or "brother's best friend" instead. Or if someone doesn't read M/F, if it was re-written as M/M they might. I don't see the harm, although I think it would probably take more work to properly "fix" a M/F->M/M story than writing a new one from scratch.


----------



## Redacted1111

KelliWolfe said:


> People have been doing something similar with PI for a long time (mirror editions). I don't think it's gaming the system, it's just getting the most out of a given story. A lot of people who don't read PI might read the story if it was a "dad's best friend" or "brother's best friend" instead. Or if someone doesn't read M/F, if it was re-written as M/M they might. I don't see the harm, although I think it would probably take more work to properly "fix" a M/F->M/M story than writing a new one from scratch.


I've tried this, I stared one anyway, and found it more trouble than it was worth. I hate rewritting passionately. Mirroring is rewritting. I'd rather just write a new story.


----------



## Dormouse

KelliWolfe said:


> People have been doing something similar with PI for a long time (mirror editions). I don't think it's gaming the system, it's just getting the most out of a given story. A lot of people who don't read PI might read the story if it was a "dad's best friend" or "brother's best friend" instead. Or if someone doesn't read M/F, if it was re-written as M/M they might. I don't see the harm, although I think it would probably take more work to properly "fix" a M/F->M/M story than writing a new one from scratch.


Huh, I didn't know that.
I write both m/f and m/m and somehow I can't see my m/f stories work as m/m (except for one, maybe, but even that one would call for massive rewrites). My male characters simply are too different from my female characters. I could imagine using the same setting, but that is it. Writing a new story also sounds more plausible to me.


----------



## Dormouse

Kalypsō said:


> I've tried this, I stared one anyway, and found it more trouble than it was worth. I hate rewritting passionately. Mirroring is rewritting. I'd rather just write a new story.


 I hear you. I hate rewriting, too.

I have a ton of PWP-fanfiction, that I thought I could rewrite. Nope, didn't work. Writing something new turned out to be much easier.


----------



## anotherpage

KelliWolfe said:


> People have been doing something similar with PI for a long time (mirror editions). I don't think it's gaming the system, it's just getting the most out of a given story. A lot of people who don't read PI might read the story if it was a "dad's best friend" or "brother's best friend" instead. Or if someone doesn't read M/F, if it was re-written as M/M they might. I don't see the harm, although I think it would probably take more work to properly "fix" a M/F->M/M story than writing a new one from scratch.


While i dont see anything wrong with it you have to be very careful I read an article online of a guy who did that, he got reported and Amazon shut his account down. I must find the article for you all. He had a lot of titles as well, now his income is completely gone. Amazon views it as the story is not different enough even if the gender is changed.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Which leads me to: how many bundles can one story be in before Amazon says its not "different" or discernable from another bundle?


----------



## KelliWolfe

kalel said:


> While i dont see anything wrong with it you have to be very careful I read an article online of a guy who did that, he got reported and Amazon shut his account down. I must find the article for you all. He had a lot of titles as well, now his income is completely gone. Amazon views it as the story is not different enough even if the gender is changed.


I'm not certain about this; I converted three of my old PI titles to "friends to lovers" eroms this year, but the PIs are no longer for sale. swolfe might be a good source of information on this. I believe he was doing a lot of PI mirrors at one point with his Jean-Luc Cheri pen name.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Micki23 said:


> I don't see how one person would get away with this. They'd get turned in to Amazon for plagiarism if the stories are that similar, right? You also have to watch out for people blatantly stealing the work of others and republishing, with or without making changes. There are a couple of lawsuits in progress right now over this exact occurrence.


How is it plagiarism if you take one of your own stories and release an altered version of it? I did mirror editions of all of my PI stories that I released on Apple, Google, and All Romance which don't accept PI. It's a common practice. Some people release both editions on Amazon because it lets them pick up sales they would miss because PI squicks some readers out.


----------



## Guest

Yeah, I'd rather just write a new story.


----------



## Dormouse

Uploaded my first story for this experiment (new penname) last night and it's still in review. It's been over 12 hours by now. I know, still pretty normal for erotica but I don't even pretend to be a patient person.

Following some of the advice in this thread I've gone for kinky. Much more kinky than the stuff that I normally write (aside from fanfic) and I had a blast writing it  . I already have a sequel finished (just needs another editing pass) and even a third one done and a fourth and fifth planned. 

I will report on the numbers once it goes live. If it ever goes live *stares impatiently at the bookshelf*.


----------



## Rouge Poppy

I submitted my third book on Monday, it spent 24 hours in review. It then spent almost 24 hours in publish.

I then found it had published on the UK Amazon and not the US site. 

It's now up and running but it was a bit nail-biting as I thought perhaps I'd done something wrong.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Not you... 'Zon was ALL messed up yesterday. Still a bit funky today, according to others on KB.


----------



## Rouge Poppy

Amazon publishing has been a huge learning curve for me. I seem to have started publishing just as it all started to become a bit wobbly  

I do tend to think when these things go wrong that it's something I've done


----------



## Dormouse

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Not you... 'Zon was ALL messed up yesterday. Still a bit funky today, according to others on KB.


I had the feeling it was a bit wonky the whole week. Or at least things started on the weekend and then got progressively worse with the error message yesterday.

And erotica always takes ages. I only had one erotica-story go live within the 12 hour time-frame they mention. Even my erotic romance stuff took close to 30 hours.


----------



## o.gasim

Rouge Poppy said:


> I submitted my third book on Monday, it spent 24 hours in review. It then spent almost 24 hours in publish.
> 
> I then found it had published on the UK Amazon and not the US site.
> 
> It's now up and running but it was a bit nail-biting as I thought perhaps I'd done something wrong.


You'll be fine on the publishing side. I've had one take a full 72 hours to go through review and publish before.

PS: I love your covers for the series and the dress change from book to book!!


----------



## Rouge Poppy

o.gasim said:


> You'll be fine on the publishing side. I've had one take a full 72 hours to go through review and publish before.
> 
> PS: I love your covers for the series and the dress change from book to book!!


**Blush*** Thank you  it's lovely to get feedback. I bought just one stock image and I change the dress colour using Photoshop.

I'm trying to keep my costs as low as possible at the moment.


----------



## Catnip

Just published book three, and made a start on #4. 

My fourth is a menage story, which I haven't written before. So I read a bunch of menage shorts for research. Then I spent 20 minutes on Depositphotos looking for scantily clad men for the cover. This is such a tough job


----------



## o.gasim

Rouge Poppy said:


> **Blush*** Thank you  it's lovely to get feedback. I bought just one stock image and I change the dress colour using Photoshop.
> 
> I'm trying to keep my costs as low as possible at the moment.


You don't have to tell me. I'm hoping to keep my image for as many gradiant changes I can manage 

Where did you get your stock image at? I have a sister (to my current not relationship) series I am interested in but won't hit publish if I can't find a cover I can iterate on the same way.


----------



## Rouge Poppy

o.gasim said:


> You don't have to tell me. I'm hoping to keep my image for as many gradiant changes I can manage
> 
> Where did you get your stock image at? I have a sister (to my current not relationship) series I am interested in but won't hit publish if I can't find a cover I can iterate on the same way.


I got it at canstockphotos - they allow single image purchases which suits me at the moment. If I can use an image several times it's very cost effective.


----------



## Susan in TX

Catnip said:


> So I read a bunch of menage shorts for research. Then I spent 20 minutes on Depositphotos looking for scantily clad men for the cover. This is such a tough job


This is certainly my favorite quote of the day.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Just as an FYI, every once in a while it doesn't hurt to do some searching on Google for random blocks of text from your stories to see what comes up. Like plagiarists. I just found a brand new one with 5 stories all published the last couple of weeks who is apparently using a slightly altered mishmash from several different stories inside each of his/hers to avoid detection.

This is another one of those cases where I really don't understand *why*. It had to take ten times more effort to sift through the original stories, shuffle scenes from them around so they still made sense, change all the names to be consistent, and then go through line by line and rewrite it all subtly to make the plagiarism harder to detect than it would have to just sit down and write her/his own 6k short story. It's utterly crazy.


----------



## Evenstar

KelliWolfe said:


> Just as an FYI, every once in a while it doesn't hurt to do some searching on Google for random blocks of text from your stories to see what comes up. Like plagiarists. I just found a brand new one with 5 stories all published the last couple of weeks who is apparently using a slightly altered mishmash from several different stories inside each of his/hers to avoid detection.
> 
> This is another one of those cases where I really don't understand *why*. It had to take ten times more effort to sift through the original stories, shuffle scenes from them around so they still made sense, change all the names to be consistent, and then go through line by line and rewrite it all subtly to make the plagiarism harder to detect than it would have to just sit down and write her/his own 6k short story. It's utterly crazy.


I don't think I could bare to look, it would be too upsetting to find someone had mashed up one of my stories. I guess the people doing it don't feel they have the talent to write a story but maybe have the skills to edit and rebrand?


----------



## KelliWolfe

Jack; said:


> If someone went through all that trouble, I'd say let them plagiarize me. It almost feels like a compliment.


I'd probably feel more charitable if they weren't ranked far higher than the originals.


----------



## Cege Smith

I just published my 2nd short under my super secret pen name. It was "In Review" for about 19 hours after the big Zon fail yesterday and is "Live-Publishing Updates" now and I've already had my first borrow! It ended up being a 10K PI erotic story, and I've already started work on the sequel (there will be 3 in all that I have planned for these characters). Writing these stories are a nice break in-between the other regular stuff I'm doing. I think I will be able to knock out 1-2 of these a week for sure. The one I released on the 19th has had 1 sale (in France!) and 4 borrows.


----------



## batmansero

So far I've managed to write erotic romances for this challenge.  Today I'm going to attempt to write a full on erotic short and if it turns into an erotic romance as well I'll be miffed


----------



## Lovelife

KelliWolfe said:


> Just as an FYI, every once in a while it doesn't hurt to do some searching on Google for random blocks of text from your stories to see what comes up. Like plagiarists. I just found a brand new one with 5 stories all published the last couple of weeks who is apparently using a slightly altered mishmash from several different stories inside each of his/hers to avoid detection.
> 
> This is another one of those cases where I really don't understand *why*. It had to take ten times more effort to sift through the original stories, shuffle scenes from them around so they still made sense, change all the names to be consistent, and then go through line by line and rewrite it all subtly to make the plagiarism harder to detect than it would have to just sit down and write her/his own 6k short story. It's utterly crazy.


Actually it probably didn't take them much time at all. Depending on what they mixed and mashed it could be as easy as a click of the button. A really good Spinbot will spin articles (or books) for you in minutes. If you want it done really well you can help it out with a little manual work, but even that wouldn't take very long. Probably just an IMer. I haven't messed with these bots in a few yrs so I can only imagine how much better they are now than when I used them.


----------



## Guest

Once again, the Erotica Forum is down.  I didn't get a chance to pay yesterday.  Today, when I went to the forum, it's down.  With the rules at Kboards the way they are, I'd like to get into the forum.  If anyone has any information on why it's down again, please let me know.


----------



## R. Graystone

Updated totals coming in later tonight when my first title hits the 'live for 1 week' mark. Until then, I just wanted to add that I think cover art makes a huge difference in bought/borrow rates. One of my titles barely moved in the days after its release, then I updated the cover art mid-Monday and the changes finally went live late, late last night. Today? Three borrows and a sale on that title by midday. YMMV.


----------



## batmansero

EelKat said:


> text only covers, barely make traction - 1 or 2 sales a week, few if any borrows
> object/item covers, do okay - 1 or 2 sales a day, few borrows
> smexy guy on cover, is a little better - 4 or 5 sales a day, same for borrows
> smexy gal on cover is best - spike in sales and borrows
> and purple lingerie seems to result in highest sales


Why purple? Have you tried other coloured lingerie?


----------



## KelliWolfe

April Ryder said:


> Why purple? Have you tried other coloured lingerie?


Now that's a loaded question if I ever heard one.


----------



## anotherpage

I have seven out. So far results have been very low.

Priced all at $2.99 as directed by two erotica make money books. Put all of them in KU accept my box set.

Initially 8 borrows on one day, 5 on another, 3 on another, zero on one day, 3 again today.  ( zero regular sales, that must be to do with the fact that no one in their right mind wants to pay $2.99 for an erotic 5,000 word piece, hence why people borrow for free LOL ) 

Zero refund as most are borrowing, they give it back anyway lol.

Guessing there could be any number of reasons why its low

1. Kinks might be bad choice ( too generic )
2. Keywords might be grab even though I'm stuffing it with a bunch
3. Price might need changing to 0.99 cents

Who the heck knows. I will examine things again when I have 15, then when i have 30. If it's still only making 3 to 5 borrows a day, i might toss it in the can and go back to writing my full novels. I was hoping it would be making at least 10 borrows a day. What is the average?


----------



## anotherpage

Eclectic Authoress said:


> Once again, the Erotica Forum is down. I didn't get a chance to pay yesterday. Today, when I went to the forum, it's down. With the rules at Kboards the way they are, I'd like to get into the forum. If anyone has any information on why it's down again, please let me know.


I paid yesterday and still don't have access.


----------



## R. Graystone

Yes. It's being pruned I think, to abide by the KB new 'family' guidelines.


----------



## Guest

exkitteh said:


> There's always reddit
> 
> http://www.reddit.com/r/eroticauthors/


Thanks! I forgot about that one.


----------



## R. Graystone

Alright, it's 30 minutes to midnight so I'm gonna call time on my totals. It's been one week exactly since my first title went live, so results thus far are:

- Title 1: 29 borrows, 9 purchases, 1 return
- Title 2: 2 borrows, 0 purchases
- Title 3: 24 borrows, 3 purchases, 0 returns
- Title 4: 8 borrows, 1 sale, 0 returns
- Title 5: 8 borrows, 0 purchases, 400+ copies free
- Collection: Q.Q
- Title 6: 3 borrows, 0 purchases 

Titles 2 - 5 and the collection have only been out 5 days. The sixth title went live today. Not a bad first week.


----------



## legion

R. Graystone said:


> Alright, it's 30 minutes to midnight so I'm gonna call time on my totals. It's been one week exactly since my first title went live, so results thus far are:
> 
> - Title 1: 29 borrows, 9 purchases, 1 return
> - Title 2: 2 borrows, 0 purchases
> - Title 3: 24 borrows, 3 purchases, 0 returns
> - Title 4: 8 borrows, 1 sale, 0 returns
> - Title 5: 8 borrows, 0 purchases, 400+ copies free
> - Collection: Q.Q
> - Title 6: 3 borrows, 0 purchases
> 
> Titles 2 - 5 and the collection have only been out 5 days. The sixth title went live today. Not a bad first week.


Not bad at all! Awesome production and results!


----------



## R. Graystone

Thanks, I'm finishing my 7th piece tonight and making good headway on an 8th. 

 <----- determined to be a smut-lord!


----------



## nightfire

R. Graystone said:


> Yes. It's being pruned I think, to abide by the KB new 'family' guidelines.


New guidelines? What did I miss? I've been off the grid traveling for a few days.


----------



## Midnight Writer

nightfire said:


> New guidelines? What did I miss? I've been off the grid traveling for a few days.


Tightening up our "Family Friendly" rules on KBoards
http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,198417.0.html


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

kalel said:


> Who the heck knows. I will examine things again when I have 15, then when i have 30. If it's still only making 3 to 5 borrows a day, i might toss it in the can and go back to writing my full novels. I was hoping it would be making at least 10 borrows a day. What is the average?


Slow your roll, friend, and adjust your expectations. These are good numbers for a long term plan. You' hit one out of the park eventually, but to average 2 or 3 borrows/sales per day is more common than the title that hits 75 per day.

You've got a good start! Keep writing! Tweak your titles but don't trash something that sells 5 per day. Do the math.


----------



## nightfire

Lanette Curington said:


> Tightening up our "Family Friendly" rules on KBoards
> http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,198417.0.html


I guess I should have archived some info.

I have a forum that doesn't use Adsense for income that I am in the midst of relaunching. Not that I actually expect any of you would "jump ship" totally. but it could be a place to go to supplement your discussions. It is also very easy to implement a private forum for even more open "author only" discussions there.


----------



## Guest

exkitteh said:


> Pruned is the nice word for it... seriously why don't they just ban the lot of us if were so detrimental.
> 
> Oh and dont forget to get rid of the man nipples, guns, horror and gore, anything pertaining to religion, and politics JUST IN EF'IN CASE it offends someone's 1950s sensibilities.


I absolutely love the way you changed your avatar!


----------



## Guest

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Slow your roll, friend, and adjust your expectations. These are good numbers for a long term plan. You' hit one out of the park eventually, but to average 2 or 3 borrows/sales per day is more common than the title that hits 75 per day.
> 
> You've got a good start! Keep writing! Tweak your titles but don't trash something that sells 5 per day. Do the math.


+1


----------



## anotherpage

R. Graystone said:


> Alright, it's 30 minutes to midnight so I'm gonna call time on my totals. It's been one week exactly since my first title went live, so results thus far are:
> 
> - Title 1: 29 borrows, 9 purchases, 1 return
> - Title 2: 2 borrows, 0 purchases
> - Title 3: 24 borrows, 3 purchases, 0 returns
> - Title 4: 8 borrows, 1 sale, 0 returns
> - Title 5: 8 borrows, 0 purchases, 400+ copies free
> - Collection: Q.Q
> - Title 6: 3 borrows, 0 purchases
> 
> Titles 2 - 5 and the collection have only been out 5 days. The sixth title went live today. Not a bad first week.


Not bad!

May i ask two things.

1. Are yours priced at $2.99 or $0.99? ( I haven't tested the 99 cents price point that might get more borrows? )

2. Are yours still at 5,000 words?


----------



## anotherpage

Lanette Curington said:


> Tightening up our "Family Friendly" rules on KBoards
> http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,198417.0.html


Depends how friendly the family is


----------



## anotherpage

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Slow your roll, friend, and adjust your expectations. These are good numbers for a long term plan. You' hit one out of the park eventually, but to average 2 or 3 borrows/sales per day is more common than the title that hits 75 per day.
> 
> You've got a good start! Keep writing! Tweak your titles but don't trash something that sells 5 per day. Do the math.


Ok good to know. I wasn't sure what to expect.

Today I have had 6 borrows so it has gone up from 3 yesterday.

I'm thinking if someone gets 10 borrows a day at $1.50 that is $15 a day x 7 that is $105 bucks a week x 4 that is $420.

Now if i can get that on 10 books in my account steadily and i keep writing and get 100 books. That would be a nice pay day per month.


----------



## KBoards Admin

R. Graystone said:


> Yes. It's being pruned I think, to abide by the KB new 'family' guidelines.


Just to clarify... no pruning has been done by our moderators. One member objected to our Family Friendly rules and deleted his past posts. That's his right to do so, of course. I think he's trying to make a point, but that action really only serves to disrupt the thread and his fellow authors.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

kalel said:


> Ok good to know. I wasn't sure what to expect.
> 
> Today I have had 6 borrows so it has gone up from 3 yesterday.
> 
> I'm thinking if someone gets 10 borrows a day at $1.50 that is $15 a day x 7 that is $105 bucks a week x 4 that is $420.
> 
> Now if i can get that on 10 books in my account steadily and i keep writing and get 100 books. That would be a nice pay day per month.


You're on the right track, but start thinking in terms of days, not weeks. More accurate.

Your $15 on 10 borrows is closer to $450 per month. Not a big difference when you're talking about one title, but a large discrepancy when you're talking about 50 titles.


----------



## Rouge Poppy

M. Frank, I love your posts on this subject. 

I'm bobbing along with good days and bad in terms of loans/sales but your thoughtful posts put everything in perspective and I keep working. 

One bite at a time. One bite at a time.

However, I really, really, do need to stop pressing that sales chart refresh button


----------



## R. Graystone

kalel said:


> Not bad!
> 
> May i ask two things.
> 
> 1. Are yours priced at $2.99 or $0.99? ( I haven't tested the 99 cents price point that might get more borrows? )
> 
> 2. Are yours still at 5,000 words?


Thanks, I'm reasonably pleased with my success so far. It's not the $100 in a week from a single title that DD was boasting about, but it's a decent amount I think. At any rate, yes, titles are all still 5 - 6K in length. I just submitted a smutty little 3K short though, so that'll be my 7th piece. Title 8 is already jacketed and well under way, need to go over it with fresh eyes before I submit it this evening. I'm also gonna watch my under-performing titles and will tweak them here and there as necessary. Titles must move!

ETA: Oh, and yes, all the regular titles are in KU and priced at 2.99. The collection is not in KU, and is priced at 3.99.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Rouge Poppy said:


> M. Frank, I love your posts on this subject.
> 
> I'm bobbing along with good days and bad in terms of loans/sales but your thoughtful posts put everything in perspective and I keep working.
> 
> One bite at a time. One bite at a time.
> 
> However, I really, really, do need to stop pressing that sales chart refresh button


I love math. Sometimes more than i love writing. Just trying to help people keep it sane. And I refresh too much myself  You're welcome!



R. Graystone said:


> Thanks, I'm reasonably pleased with my success so far. It's not the $100 in a week from a single title that DD was boasting about, but it's a decent amount I think. At any rate, yes, titles are all still 5 - 6K in length. I just submitted a smutty little 3K short though, so that'll be my 7th piece. Title 8 is already jacketed and well under way, need to go over it with fresh eyes before I submit it this evening. I'm also gonna watch my under-performing titles and will tweak them here and there as necessary. Titles must move!
> 
> ETA: Oh, and yes, all the regular titles are in KU and priced at 2.99. The collection is not in KU, and is priced at 3.99.


Remember, that $100 on a new title/new name in a week can be done, IF you know the secret sauce. That's what were looking for, and I'll wager it's painfully obvious once you find it. And , no, I haven't found it yet...


----------



## Oaklandish

Chiming in here a bit late. 

I started a new pen name this month just because my old erotica pen name saw terrible sales. I really had no idea what I was doing back then. Armed with some better ideas of form and pacing, I launched five stories this month under the new pen name and have sold/borrowed hundreds of books. It's been great.

It's no so great that this forum has effectively banned showing you the covers or mentioning what they're about. So let's just say that there are women on the covers who look relaxed and happy. 

I plan to go ahead with my three pen names from now on, feeding the erotica beast once a week if possible.


----------



## ER Pierce

I'm almost ready to hit publish on my first NA erotica under a brand new pen name. Just waiting for beta approval then it will go live. I have three planned for this mini-series.(all covers all ready done, outlined stories) I'm not going to out my pen name but I might make a new account her under her name. Just wanted to join the fun. 

I already write a lot of erotic romance, but this is something more for me. Should be fun to see what happens.


----------



## Dormouse

So, my story finally went up (after almost 36 hours) and it already has three borrows on it, but no sales.

I also hit publish on the sequal. Should be interesting to see how long that takes and how one influences the sale of the other. Working on the third installment in that series now  . I just have to remember to focus on the sex, which isn't always as easy as it sounds. 

Sometimes my characters are supposed to have kinky sex and instead end up having philosophical discussions about poverty and slavery. Not really what one wants to read in Monster erotica, is it?


----------



## LBrent

I've been following this thread and watching everyone's progress with great interest.

Congratulations!

You're making me feel energized and motivated to write even more erotica shorts in addition to trying to write even longer erotic romance.


----------



## KelliWolfe

It's very weird today. I'm on track to have a record number of borrows, but not one single sale so far.


----------



## Sargon

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Remember, that $100 on a new title/new name in a week can be done, IF you know the secret sauce. That's what were looking for, and I'll wager it's painfully obvious once you find it. And , no, I haven't found it yet...


Yes, it can be done. I released a story on a new pen name in the last 2 weeks and it crossed $100 sometime during day 4.


----------



## Dormouse

Sargon said:


> Yes, it can be done. I released a story on a new pen name in the last 2 weeks and it crossed $100 sometime during day 4.


Wow, that's AMAZING. That gives me hope . Maybe I'll stumble across the secret as well, soon.


----------



## Guest

Harvey said:


> Just to clarify... no pruning has been done by our moderators. One member objected to our Family Friendly rules and deleted his past posts. That's his right to do so, of course. I think he's trying to make a point, but that action really only serves to disrupt the thread and his fellow authors.


Thank you for the clarification, Harvey.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Sargon said:


> Yes, it can be done. I released a story on a new pen name in the last 2 weeks and it crossed $100 sometime during day 4.


Well, you may not win the interwebs today, but you're a challenge winner in my book, Sargon.

Well played!


----------



## Sargon

M. Frank Parsons said:


> You're on the right track, but start thinking in terms of days, not weeks. More accurate.
> 
> Your $15 on 10 borrows is closer to $450 per month. Not a big difference when you're talking about one title, but a large discrepancy when you're talking about 50 titles.


I don't think the books will continue to sell at the same rate they are selling now. So you can't take whatever your sales/borrow rate is now, or during the first 1-2 weeks, and assume it will average out to that. I believe each new title will have its own upside-down U curve followed by a long tail.


----------



## Rouge Poppy

Sargon said:


> Yes, it can be done. I released a story on a new pen name in the last 2 weeks and it crossed $100 sometime during day 4.


  You've just made my day. Fantastic.

This thread has made a huge difference to me. I've been tinkering with two parts of a three part series for almost a year and not quite getting the confidence to publish.

I now have three erotica shorts on Amazon and about to publish a fourth. Getting over that nail-biting hurdle is all due to the great support here.

I'm still looking for M Frank's secret sauce but I'm sure having fun trying to find it


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

I began this challenge because I thought I couldn't do this. I was writing and editing two books at once. So far I have published one book, and I'm completing the writing of my second book and editing my third. 

Today I published my 5th erotica short of 5,000 words more or less. I chose Thursdays because I've had luck with that day and my books took 6 to 12 hours before they went live. Sundays proved easy for publishing as well. However, maybe  my covers are not that threatening or over the top. I'm one of those individuals who like to play by the rules.  Playing by the rules haven't paid off. Now I'm going to experiment by changing my story line and covers. My next four books will be more risque because after all this is an experiment. Let's see what happens.

Up date on my books:
Book 1: 3 sales 0 returns 11 borrows
Book 2: 2 sales 0 returns 2 borrows
Book 3: 1 sale 0 returns 0 borrows (strange story, bad cover)
Book 4: 2 sales 0 returns 3 borrows
Box set: 0 sales 3 borrows
Book 5 published today


----------



## Aimster

I'm pretty late in joining in, but I posted an 8k short a couple of days ago, and the only feedback I have so far is a 1* from someone complaining that there was a lack of character development...do you think this is something that needs to be addressed, or is it a common complaint when writing erotica?


----------



## Rouge Poppy

Rachel E. Rice said:


> I began this challenge because I thought I couldn't do this. I was writing and editing two books at once. So far I have published one book and I'm completing the writing of my second book and editing my third book. Today I published my 5th erotica short of 5,000 words more or less. I chose Thursdays because I have had luck with that day and my book only took 6 to 12 hours before it went live. Sundays proved easy for publishing as well. However, it maybe that my covers are not that threatening or over the top. I'm one of those who like to play by the rules. Playing by the rules haven't paid off. Now I'm going to experiment by changing my story line and covers. My next books will be more risque because after all this is an experiment. Let's see what happens.
> Up date on my books:
> Book 1: 3 sales 0 returns 11 borrows
> Book 2: 2 sale 0 returns 2 borrows
> Book 3: 1 sale 0 returns 0 book (strange story, bad cover)
> Book 4: 2 sales 0 returns 3 borrows
> Box set: 0 sales 3 borrows
> Book 5 published today


Rachel I think I have the same problem. I have sales / borrows along the same lines as you. I do have a great conversion rate once the books are read (or it seems that way), as book 1 got 10 borrows and book 2 got 7 (with a similar conversion ratio on the sales). Poor book 3 got caught up in the problems Amazon had on the 28th and think it may have suffered from a lack of visibility for a while.

However, I think the covers are too tame and I'm going to take a totally different approach on book 5. If I'm proved right with books 5 onwards I'm going back to my short 1-4 series and changing the covers on those.


----------



## Sargon

Aimster said:


> I'm pretty late in joining in, but I posted an 8k short a couple of days ago, and the only feedback I have so far is a 1* from someone complaining that there was a lack of character development...do you think this is something that needs to be addressed, or is it a common complaint when writing erotica?


It's not common for the smutty shorts that most of us are putting out. I have had NO reviews of any kind, and I'm well over 1000 borrows+sales (combined). So I think something about your cover/description/look inside triggered that person to think this was a "real story" and as such, they were disappointed.

Maybe you need to make it more obviously smutty!!


----------



## KelliWolfe

You don't have to have lurid covers and titles to be successful at this. Pick your kink. Put together a cover that fits that kink. Use keywords that fit the kink and get your book into the appropriate categories. Write a good blurb. This person got everything right and hit it out of the ballpark.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Sargon said:


> I don't think the books will continue to sell at the same rate they are selling now. So you can't take whatever your sales/borrow rate is now, or during the first 1-2 weeks, and assume it will average out to that. I believe each new title will have its own upside-down U curve followed by a long tail.


An excellent point. I'll probably work out the decay rate for my own purposes, but I think (just me thinking no proof yet),that a title might be good for a sale/borrow a day in the long-tail. Again, just anecdotal at this point.


----------



## Sargon

M. Frank Parsons said:


> I think (just me thinking no proof yet),that a title might be good for a sale/borrow a day in the long-tail.


I don't think so. Guess we'll see. If that were true, then writing 100 stories would guarantee you $4500/month in perpetuity, and I really, really, really don't believe that.


----------



## KelliWolfe

M. Frank Parsons said:


> An excellent point. I'll probably work out the decay rate for my own purposes, but I think (just me thinking no proof yet),that a title might be good for a sale/borrow a day in the long-tail. Again, just anecdotal at this point.


What I've found is that 10% of my titles account for 80% of my sales long term. This is largely a result of the interest in various kinks fading out over time. PI and eroms have overall been much more consistent over time.


----------



## Oaklandish

Sargon said:


> I don't think so. Guess we'll see. If that were true, then writing 100 stories would guarantee you $4500/month in perpetuity, and I really, really, really don't believe that.


I have some stories that didn't sell well at all for the first six months, but now with KU are doing gangbusters. One title literally sold three copies a month until KU and this month alone 50 people have borrowed it and ten have bought it. No reviews. No promo.

*Some* books will have a long tail. Most won't. As always, the best thing you can do is to write more books, to help readers who like the stuff you write find your work. And when your work clicks with someone, they will buy all of it. It's beautiful to behold.


----------



## Oaklandish

In the spirit of sharing--because I've learned so much from these boards and it's only right to give a little back. Here are some actual numbers. All books written this month. Average of 5k. Filed in erotica. Brand new pen name. Roughly one book per week. Ten dollars spent on promo. Four dollars spent on book covers.

Book 1: 8 sales. 32 borrows.
Book 2: 4 sales. 15 borrows.
Book 3: 3 sales. 45 borrows.
Book 4: 16 sales. 79 borrows.

Total: 31 sales. 151 borrows. Not bad.

PS this isn't the order they were released, but rather the order they appear on my KDP bookshelf.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

KelliWolfe said:


> You don't have to have lurid covers and titles to be successful at this. Pick your kink. Put together a cover that fits that kink. Use keywords that fit the kink and get your book into the appropriate categories. Write a good blurb. This person got everything right and hit it out of the ballpark.


Kelli, I see what you mean by the cover. However, the blurb reads like a straight romance, if there's such a term, as well as the cover. The author's covers indicate romance. I haven't read her books, but are these books erotica?


----------



## R. Graystone

Great to know others are getting those results, Sargon. I don't suppose you'd be willing to share some information about the kink(s) you targeted, eh? First or third-person? Inquiring minds are eager to know.


----------



## Guest

KelliWolfe said:


> You don't have to have lurid covers and titles to be successful at this. Pick your kink. Put together a cover that fits that kink. Use keywords that fit the kink and get your book into the appropriate categories. Write a good blurb. This person got everything right and hit it out of the ballpark.


Her covers are sweet and vanilla and white and rosey and scream romance. I'm not a romance writer, nor do I wish to be. I would post a link to an *erotica writer* who is doing well as an alternative, but, we've got family friendly rules now.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

R. Graystone said:


> Great to know others are getting those results, Sargon. I don't suppose you'd be willing to share some information about the kink(s) you targeted, eh? First or third-person? Inquiring minds are eager to know.


Yes. Please tell us.


----------



## Aimster

Sargon said:


> It's not common for the smutty shorts that most of us are putting out. I have had NO reviews of any kind, and I'm well over 1000 borrows+sales (combined). So I think something about your cover/description/look inside triggered that person to think this was a "real story" and as such, they were disappointed.
> 
> Maybe you need to make it more obviously smutty!!


After looking back on it, I think that might be the exact problem. More smut required!


----------



## KelliWolfe

Rachel E. Rice said:


> Kelli, I see what you mean by the cover. However, the blurb reads like a straight romance, if there's such a term, as well as the cover. The author's covers indicate romance. I haven't read her books, but are these books erotica?


The books are all short (6-8k) erotica. They're "sweet," but there's no relationship-building or anything to make it a "true" romance. _"I broke up with my boyfriend so now I'm going to more-or-less inexplicably give my virginity to you, older neighbor."_ But the writer picked a specific kink - older man younger woman/first time with a romance twist - and picked all the right covers/titles/etc. to cater to the readers of that kink. If you're writing dubcon PI or tentacles, that's obviously not the direction for you. But several people here have said that they're writing stuff that's more erom, and I wanted them to be aware that it's not necessarily better to push the limits on their covers and titles.


----------



## Guest

KelliWolfe said:


> If you're writing dubcon PI or tentacles, that's obviously not the direction for you. But several people here have said that they're writing stuff that's more erom, and I wanted them to be aware that it's not necessarily better to push the limits on their covers and titles.


Thanks for the explanation. I get what you mean now.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

KelliWolfe said:


> The books are all short (6-8k) erotica. They're "sweet," but there's no relationship-building or anything to make it a "true" romance. _"I broke up with my boyfriend so now I'm going to more-or-less inexplicably give my virginity to you, older neighbor."_ But the writer picked a specific kink - older man younger woman/first time with a romance twist - and picked all the right covers/titles/etc. to cater to the readers of that kink. If you're writing dubcon PI or tentacles, that's obviously not the direction for you. But several people here have said that they're writing stuff that's more erom, and I wanted them to be aware that it's not necessarily better to push the limits on their covers and titles.


Thanks Kelli.


----------



## KelliWolfe

I've got to say that I'm disappointed with the performance of my new PI titles. I really thought they'd do a lot better. I don't know if it's just that the market for siblings isn't there, of if I'm just not hitting something right. It's not that they're doing horribly or anything; I just figured they would do better. Guess I'll try something different in November. Maybe see if I can give Penelope a run for her money in the short erom market.

Why yes, I'd love some cheese to go with my whine, thanks!


----------



## batmansero

My results on 8k - 9k erotic romance serial.  Only providing the US results, have had some borrows / sales in UK and DE too, but not many.  Release dates included.

Book 1 (9 October): 7 sales, 26 borrows, 3 reviews
Book 2 (25 October): 2 sales, 4 borrows, 1 review

I have done some unpaid promos as well as 3 free days for the first book.  Lining up the same for the second book.  Third in the serial does not have a release date, nor have I even started writing it.  I'm halfway through the first in another erom serial though.


----------



## Sargon

Aimster said:


> After looking back on it, I think that might be the exact problem. More smut required!


Lay on the smut as thick as heavy whipping cream, and you can't go wrong. And I'm not violating the new guidelines.


----------



## Sargon

Rouge Poppy said:


> You've just made my day. Fantastic.


Yay! Glad to hear it.



M. Frank Parsons said:


> Well, you may not win the interwebs today, but you're a challenge winner in my book, Sargon.
> 
> Well played!


Thanks, M. Frank!


----------



## Aimster

April Ryder said:


> My results on 8k - 9k erotic romance serial. Only providing the US results, have had some borrows / sales in UK and DE too, but not many. Release dates included.
> 
> Book 1 (9 October): 7 sales, 26 borrows, 3 reviews
> Book 2 (25 October): 2 sales, 4 borrows, 1 review
> 
> I have done some unpaid promos as well as 3 free days for the first book. Lining up the same for the second book. Third in the serial does not have a release date, nor have I even started writing it. I'm halfway through the first in another erom serial though.


Impressive results, very nice! 
Did you find that releasing book 2 boosted the sales much for book 1?


----------



## Sargon

R. Graystone said:


> Great to know others are getting those results, Sargon. I don't suppose you'd be willing to share some information about the kink(s) you targeted, eh? First or third-person? Inquiring minds are eager to know.





Rachel E. Rice said:


> Yes. Please tell us.


Hi all,

I've been talking to my wife a lot about what to say in response to these requests. It's difficult. I want to help out and spread the love (lust?) but I also don't want to give away any secret sauce I may have discovered. I'm sorry about that. Please know that I'm a nice person but also very competitive so the idea of saying what I've done, specifically, doesn't appeal to me. So I'll make some general statements. I'm not going to go into specific kinks, keywords, or anything like that.

Like I said, I'm a competitive person and I like a challenge, so I went at this pretty aggressively. I don't just mean writing a lot, but trying to figure out what to do and what not to do. That said, my first few books did OK but not great. During my first 7 days my sales/borrows (gross income) were $6, $12, $9, $17, $31, $14, $18 (assuming $1.52/borrow and all priced at $2.99). And I had 4 books and a bundle out by then. Starting on day 8, I was making a lot more, for whatever reason. I think things just started to click.

Someone asked about POV, my first several stories are all first person from the woman's POV, except 1 that's from the man's. My more recent ones, including the one I mentioned that hit $100 on day 4, are third person limited to the woman, with an occasional on-purpose head-jump into the man's POV, that readers will simply interpret as getting a quick shot of what he's thinking/feeling. Normally it would be a "mistake" in good writing; here, it's an asset.

My stories are fairly vanilla, as those things go. Nothing "out there." Nothing real kinky. Nobody is getting hurt. No animals, nothing like that. But also no married people, not that vanilla.

After my first few stories, I spent time doing my research. If you're not, then you're sort of wasting your writing time.

I make sure each part of my product is as good as it can be. I'm naturally a good writer and I've done quite a bit of writing, editing, and proofreading, so I'm able to create an opening that pulls people in and a story that ends up being satisfying with nothing to jar them out of the fantasy or annoy them (like crappy writing, mistakes, awkward phrasing, ambiguities, weird metaphors, pointless description, etc.). No typos. Hinting at sex in the beginning. Not boring; going somewhere fast but not too fast.

I made sure my covers fit the bill, although they are basic and kind of amateurish. They match what is expected in the marketplace.

I linked from one book to the others at the back. Kind of obvious. I set up a mailing list and linked to that, but NOBODY has signed up.

I spent time on my blurbs and matched them to what I've seen out there. In some I put the page count, in others I did not. In some I described the plot in some detail (briefly), in others I did not.

And after the first few books, I spent more time on keywords and started doing more research there. It's work, time, effort. I made some minor discoveries.

I'm scientifically minded, so I set myself a goal to sort of "crack" this whole thing using logic and reason. I don't think I have yet, but I've clearly made some inroads.

Frankly, I'm getting burned out a bit. I started on Oct. 4. I can see the potential to make a lot more with this than I am, but I'm not sure if I can keep up production. And I think there's more money to be made with longer works, novels, serials, etc., and I want to be able to tell my child(ren) and parents and friends, etc., what I'm writing. So I'm probably going to switch to those longer works (not smut) while putting out maybe 1 smut story a week, or two.

I love seeing the money, the sales, the borrows. I'm obsessive about it. It's on my mind all the time. I think about it at night and first thing in the morning. I want to stay up till 12am to see the "overnights" as I call them. Maybe this obsessiveness is part of my success, as it has driven me to try to break through each goal I have set. At first I wanted $20/day. Then was $50/day possible? Etc.

Also I've enjoyed it a lot, the actual writing. It's been very satisfying to get things completed and published, something I'd never done before. I've tried to make my stories amusing and fun as well as sexy. My wife has read several and commented on the little details.

Whew! Well, mildly epic post. I'm sorry I'm not going to tell you any of my actual discoveries. It's nothing too earth shattering, but more stories in any given area will flood the market somewhat as there are only so many buyers out there.


----------



## Sargon

Oh, and I am writing more than 1 book in related groupings. Like, a theme where the covers and titles are sort of similar. In one they have the same main character. In others they don't. So they can more easily funnel into each other. Not all are that way, but most are. Just makes good sense.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Thanks for sharing what you felt you could. I understand your reluctance to give more details, although I'm always going to maintain that the market for short erotica is effectively a bottomless pit and we're really not in competition. But I know it doesn't feel that way to everyone.


----------



## Sargon

KelliWolfe said:


> Thanks for sharing what you felt you could. I understand your reluctance to give more details, although I'm always going to maintain that the market for short erotica is effectively a bottomless pit and we're really not in competition. But I know it doesn't feel that way to everyone.


You're welcome, Kelli!

I agree that *overall* it's bottomless, but within specific narrow areas at certain times, it's clearly not. Let's pick a type of book I'm *not* writing: gay virgin bikers. At any one time, there can be only a handful of gay virgin biker stories that are getting 20-25 borrows/day and ranking <5000 overall. If that's what I'm writing, and I'm making bucks, and I tell the world, then other people might jump into that area. Someone will, for sure, believing that gay virgin bikers are the key to riches.

A week later, there are several more gay virgin bikers coming up in the search results, pushing mine down. More gay virgin biker covers showing up everywhere, pushing mine out of the also-boughts. Etc.

I really hope people won't end up thinking of me as some kind of jerk for not spilling the sauce.

Finding the "gay virgin bikers" of Amazon is not necessarily easy.


----------



## batmansero

Aimster said:


> Impressive results, very nice!
> Did you find that releasing book 2 boosted the sales much for book 1?


Thanks. I'm quite happy with it, but of course I want moar!

Initially I was going to say that there was no boost to the first book when the second came out, but I looked at the sales graph and...I was wrong. The day book two came out book one had the most borrows its ever had. More than double what I had seen previously. The following day, nothing. Not a sale nor a borrow. No idea why. Will be interesting to see what happens when I get around to book 3


----------



## Rouge Poppy

Sargon said:


> Hi all,
> 
> I've been talking to my wife a lot about what to say in response to these requests. It's difficult. I want to help out and spread the love (lust?) but I also don't want to give away any secret sauce I may have discovered. I'm sorry about that. Please know that I'm a nice person but also very competitive so the idea of saying what I've done, specifically, doesn't appeal to me. So I'll make some general statements. I'm not going to go into specific kinks, keywords, or anything like that.
> 
> Like I said, I'm a competitive person and I like a challenge, so I went at this pretty aggressively. I don't just mean writing a lot, but trying to figure out what to do and what not to do. That said, my first few books did OK but not great. During my first 7 days my sales/borrows (gross income) were $6, $12, $9, $17, $31, $14, $18 (assuming $1.52/borrow and all priced at $2.99). And I had 4 books and a bundle out by then. Starting on day 8, I was making a lot more, for whatever reason. I think things just started to click.
> 
> Someone asked about POV, my first several stories are all first person from the woman's POV, except 1 that's from the man's. My more recent ones, including the one I mentioned that hit $100 on day 4, are third person limited to the woman, with an occasional on-purpose head-jump into the man's POV, that readers will simply interpret as getting a quick shot of what he's thinking/feeling. Normally it would be a "mistake" in good writing; here, it's an asset.
> 
> My stories are fairly vanilla, as those things go. Nothing "out there." Nothing real kinky. Nobody is getting hurt. No animals, nothing like that. But also no married people, not that vanilla.
> 
> After my first few stories, I spent time doing my research. If you're not, then you're sort of wasting your writing time.
> 
> I make sure each part of my product is as good as it can be. I'm naturally a good writer and I've done quite a bit of writing, editing, and proofreading, so I'm able to create an opening that pulls people in and a story that ends up being satisfying with nothing to jar them out of the fantasy or annoy them (like crappy writing, mistakes, awkward phrasing, ambiguities, weird metaphors, pointless description, etc.). No typos. Hinting at sex in the beginning. Not boring; going somewhere fast but not too fast.
> 
> I made sure my covers fit the bill, although they are basic and kind of amateurish. They match what is expected in the marketplace.
> 
> I linked from one book to the others at the back. Kind of obvious. I set up a mailing list and linked to that, but NOBODY has signed up.
> 
> I spent time on my blurbs and matched them to what I've seen out there. In some I put the page count, in others I did not. In some I described the plot in some detail (briefly), in others I did not.
> 
> And after the first few books, I spent more time on keywords and started doing more research there. It's work, time, effort. I made some minor discoveries.
> 
> I'm scientifically minded, so I set myself a goal to sort of "crack" this whole thing using logic and reason. I don't think I have yet, but I've clearly made some inroads.
> 
> Frankly, I'm getting burned out a bit. I started on Oct. 4. I can see the potential to make a lot more with this than I am, but I'm not sure if I can keep up production. And I think there's more money to be made with longer works, novels, serials, etc., and I want to be able to tell my child(ren) and parents and friends, etc., what I'm writing. So I'm probably going to switch to those longer works (not smut) while putting out maybe 1 smut story a week, or two.
> 
> I love seeing the money, the sales, the borrows. I'm obsessive about it. It's on my mind all the time. I think about it at night and first thing in the morning. I want to stay up till 12am to see the "overnights" as I call them. Maybe this obsessiveness is part of my success, as it has driven me to try to break through each goal I have set. At first I wanted $20/day. Then was $50/day possible? Etc.
> 
> Also I've enjoyed it a lot, the actual writing. It's been very satisfying to get things completed and published, something I'd never done before. I've tried to make my stories amusing and fun as well as sexy. My wife has read several and commented on the little details.
> 
> Whew! Well, mildly epic post. I'm sorry I'm not going to tell you any of my actual discoveries. It's nothing too earth shattering, but more stories in any given area will flood the market somewhat as there are only so many buyers out there.


This is why I think we need a "thank you" button. All the way throughout this thread we've had fantastic snippets of advice that are invaluable.

This is from someone who analyses her sales reports. I love this sort of information


----------



## anotherpage

Dormouse said:


> Sometimes my characters are supposed to have kinky sex and instead end up having philosophical discussions about poverty and slavery. Not really what one wants to read in Monster erotica, is it?


lol


----------



## anotherpage

Oaklandish said:


> In the spirit of sharing--because I've learned so much from these boards and it's only right to give a little back. Here are some actual numbers. All books written this month. Average of 5k. Filed in erotica. Brand new pen name. Roughly one book per week. Ten dollars spent on promo. Four dollars spent on book covers.
> 
> Book 1: 8 sales. 32 borrows.
> Book 2: 4 sales. 15 borrows.
> Book 3: 3 sales. 45 borrows.
> Book 4: 16 sales. 79 borrows.
> 
> Total: 31 sales. 151 borrows. Not bad.
> 
> PS this isn't the order they were released, but rather the order they appear on my KDP bookshelf.


Where was the $10 spent on promo may I ask?


Eclectic Authoress said:


> Her covers are sweet and vanilla and white and rosey and scream romance. I'm not a romance writer, nor do I wish to be. I would post a link to an *erotica writer* who is doing well as an alternative, but, we've got family friendly rules now.


I also wonder if she might be taking some risk there placing it only in romance. I wonder if she will get bumped to erotica.


----------



## anotherpage

April Ryder said:


> My results on 8k - 9k erotic romance serial. Only providing the US results, have had some borrows / sales in UK and DE too, but not many. Release dates included.
> 
> Book 1 (9 October): 7 sales, 26 borrows, 3 reviews
> Book 2 (25 October): 2 sales, 4 borrows, 1 review
> 
> I have done some unpaid promos as well as 3 free days for the first book. Lining up the same for the second book. Third in the serial does not have a release date, nor have I even started writing it. I'm halfway through the first in another erom serial though.


Are those priced at $2.99 or $0.99?


----------



## Sargon

Rouge Poppy said:


> This is why I think we need a "thank you" button. All the way throughout this thread we've had fantastic snippets of advice that are invaluable.
> 
> This is from someone who analyses her sales reports. I love this sort of information


Wow, Rouge! I appreciate the kind words. Glad to be of at least some assistance or encouragement!


----------



## anotherpage

Sargon said:


> Hi all,
> 
> I've been talking to my wife a lot about what to say in response to these requests. It's difficult. I want to help out and spread the love (lust?) but I also don't want to give away any secret sauce I may have discovered. I'm sorry about that. Please know that I'm a nice person but also very competitive so the idea of saying what I've done, specifically, doesn't appeal to me. So I'll make some general statements. I'm not going to go into specific kinks, keywords, or anything like that.
> 
> Like I said, I'm a competitive person and I like a challenge, so I went at this pretty aggressively. I don't just mean writing a lot, but trying to figure out what to do and what not to do. That said, my first few books did OK but not great. During my first 7 days my sales/borrows (gross income) were $6, $12, $9, $17, $31, $14, $18 (assuming $1.52/borrow and all priced at $2.99). And I had 4 books and a bundle out by then. Starting on day 8, I was making a lot more, for whatever reason. I think things just started to click.
> 
> Someone asked about POV, my first several stories are all first person from the woman's POV, except 1 that's from the man's. My more recent ones, including the one I mentioned that hit $100 on day 4, are third person limited to the woman, with an occasional on-purpose head-jump into the man's POV, that readers will simply interpret as getting a quick shot of what he's thinking/feeling. Normally it would be a "mistake" in good writing; here, it's an asset.
> 
> My stories are fairly vanilla, as those things go. Nothing "out there." Nothing real kinky. Nobody is getting hurt. No animals, nothing like that. But also no married people, not that vanilla.
> 
> After my first few stories, I spent time doing my research. If you're not, then you're sort of wasting your writing time.
> 
> I make sure each part of my product is as good as it can be. I'm naturally a good writer and I've done quite a bit of writing, editing, and proofreading, so I'm able to create an opening that pulls people in and a story that ends up being satisfying with nothing to jar them out of the fantasy or annoy them (like crappy writing, mistakes, awkward phrasing, ambiguities, weird metaphors, pointless description, etc.). No typos. Hinting at sex in the beginning. Not boring; going somewhere fast but not too fast.
> 
> I made sure my covers fit the bill, although they are basic and kind of amateurish. They match what is expected in the marketplace.
> 
> I linked from one book to the others at the back. Kind of obvious. I set up a mailing list and linked to that, but NOBODY has signed up.
> 
> I spent time on my blurbs and matched them to what I've seen out there. In some I put the page count, in others I did not. In some I described the plot in some detail (briefly), in others I did not.
> 
> And after the first few books, I spent more time on keywords and started doing more research there. It's work, time, effort. I made some minor discoveries.
> 
> I'm scientifically minded, so I set myself a goal to sort of "crack" this whole thing using logic and reason. I don't think I have yet, but I've clearly made some inroads.
> 
> Frankly, I'm getting burned out a bit. I started on Oct. 4. I can see the potential to make a lot more with this than I am, but I'm not sure if I can keep up production. And I think there's more money to be made with longer works, novels, serials, etc., and I want to be able to tell my child(ren) and parents and friends, etc., what I'm writing. So I'm probably going to switch to those longer works (not smut) while putting out maybe 1 smut story a week, or two.
> 
> I love seeing the money, the sales, the borrows. I'm obsessive about it. It's on my mind all the time. I think about it at night and first thing in the morning. I want to stay up till 12am to see the "overnights" as I call them. Maybe this obsessiveness is part of my success, as it has driven me to try to break through each goal I have set. At first I wanted $20/day. Then was $50/day possible? Etc.
> 
> Also I've enjoyed it a lot, the actual writing. It's been very satisfying to get things completed and published, something I'd never done before. I've tried to make my stories amusing and fun as well as sexy. My wife has read several and commented on the little details.
> 
> Whew! Well, mildly epic post. I'm sorry I'm not going to tell you any of my actual discoveries. It's nothing too earth shattering, but more stories in any given area will flood the market somewhat as there are only so many buyers out there.


I think you just HIT THE NAIL on the head for me.

"Frankly, I'm getting burned out a bit. I started on Oct. 4. I can see the potential to make a lot more with this than I am, but I'm not sure if I can keep up production. And I think there's more money to be made with longer works, novels, serials, etc., and I want to be able to tell my child(ren) and parents and friends, etc., what I'm writing. So I'm probably going to switch to those longer works (not smut) while putting out maybe 1 smut story a week, or two."

After having done this for 2 weeks now and will have out close to 10 titles by the end of this week I am already feeling a bit of a burn out. Consuming my time and while its nice to see borrows daily.

I think the real LONG TERM money is in writing full novels or series. ( That might only be 80 pages or it might be 300 pages ) either way.

I came into writing FIRST to write and tell a good story, SECOND to make money. I have done that quite well with a few full novels and I want to get back to that.

I may just write one or two of these a week and thats it but my focus is going back to the main novels.


----------



## anotherpage

EelKat said:


> The books are all short (6-8k) erotica. They're "sweet," but there's no relationship-building or anything to make it a "true" romance. _"I broke up with my boyfriend so now I'm going to more-or-less inexplicably give my virginity to you, older neighbor."_ But the writer picked a specific kink - older man younger woman/first time with a romance twist - and picked all the right covers/titles/etc. to cater to the readers of that kink. If you're writing dubcon PI or tentacles, that's obviously not the direction for you. But several people here have said that they're writing stuff that's more erom, and I wanted them to be aware that it's not necessarily better to push the limits on their covers and titles.
> 
> I'm both a reader and writer of this kink. Short Dec/May with lower heat level sells well. (Mine are 7k to 12k, 1st person, $2.99) There are not many authors who write it, which makes it sell big if you write it well, because the people who want it, have a hard time finding it and will buy up your entire collection.
> 
> I know this genre VERY well. I started writing it because my husband is 30 years older then me and I like to read Romance that I can identify with, and hot young bucks are not something I can easily identify with. It can sell better then taboo kinky Erotica. I don't know if it always does or not, but my Dec/May eroms outsell my Eroticas...of course it could be that I'm just good at this genre and crappy at Erotica. LOL!
> 
> Outside of Monster Erotica, I do have a hard time keeping my stories from going down the erom or less road. And I do find it easier to write sweeter shorts then spicier, so I often start out to write Erotica and end up with something far tamer. Only way I seem to be able to keep the heat level up is to toss in monsters. Oh well.


One question about that.

I thought that MONSTERS ( Sasquatch etc ) was not allowed anymore? I know i see some titles referencing them but I heard that Amazon went nuclear on some lady who was making good money in her sasquatch erotics. And so she no longer writes them. Don't they class monsters and sasquatches as animals? Bestiality not allowed on amazon right?


----------



## Sargon

Crayola said:


> Nope, wasn't my intention. Instead, I wanted to remove myself from the discussion.
> 
> Ok, since this thread and my participation has gone live........
> 
> 26 sales and 157 ku's. 2.99 price point.


How many books is that for? I just published #11 right now.


----------



## Sargon

kalel said:


> I think you just HIT THE NAIL on the head for me.
> 
> "Frankly, I'm getting burned out a bit. I started on Oct. 4. I can see the potential to make a lot more with this than I am, but I'm not sure if I can keep up production. And I think there's more money to be made with longer works, novels, serials, etc., and I want to be able to tell my child(ren) and parents and friends, etc., what I'm writing. So I'm probably going to switch to those longer works (not smut) while putting out maybe 1 smut story a week, or two."
> 
> After having done this for 2 weeks now and will have out close to 10 titles by the end of this week I am already feeling a bit of a burn out. Consuming my time and while its nice to see borrows daily.
> 
> I think the real LONG TERM money is in writing full novels or series. ( That might only be 80 pages or it might be 300 pages ) either way.
> 
> I came into writing FIRST to write and tell a good story, SECOND to make money. I have done that quite well with a few full novels and I want to get back to that.
> 
> I may just write one or two of these a week and thats it but my focus is going back to the main novels.


Yeah, I'm probably going to be mostly working on my romance novel now. Glad to hear you've done well with your longer works!


----------



## Sargon

Crayola said:


> Just the 2.


Wow! You're killing it!


----------



## Perro Callejero

A question: why is $2.99 generally recommended as the best price point?  I know that the royalty rate for purchased titles is much better at $2.99, but it seems like people are getting the lion's share of their earnings from borrows, not from buys.  Considering that, wouldn't there be a potential benefit to pricing at 99 cents?  That way, you might get a few more sales and a subsequently higher-ranked/more-visible title, which would hopefully result in more borrows too.  I'm guessing that people who are enrolled in KU will still borrow a 99 cent book, instead of buying it.

Anybody have any thoughts?


----------



## Sargon

Marcos Fenton said:


> A question: why is $2.99 generally recommended as the best price point? I know that the royalty rate for purchased titles is much better at $2.99, but it seems like people are getting the lion's share of their earnings from borrows, not from buys. Considering that, wouldn't there be a potential benefit to pricing at 99 cents? That way, you might get a few more sales and a subsequently higher-ranked/more-visible title, which would hopefully result in more borrows too. I'm guessing that people who are enrolled in KU will still borrow a 99 cent book, instead of buying it.
> 
> Anybody have any thoughts?


I've had the exact same thought. Buys account for only 22% of my income (assuming $1.52/borrow). Therefore, it does seem like maybe switching some to $.99 might be a good play. But then again, maybe people don't borrow them as much at that price for some psychological reason. Once my current titles settle down a bit, I'm going to experiment. I'm also planning to set one of my lesser-selling books to free to see what happens and whether it perks up the sales for the ones it links to.

For all I know, the key to mega riches may be some bizarre combination of free/$.99/$2.99 such that a funnel is created.


----------



## Sargon

Crayola said:


> At .99 cents, you might get more buys... but it's a .34$ royalty... is 7 buys at .99 worth the rankings of 1 priced at 2.99 (2$ royalty)? It's all subjective depending on your opinion... are the rankings worth it when KU is sending us $$$$?


But he's not really talking about buys. He's saying since borrows are making us most of our money, and we still get the full borrow amount on a $.99 title, why not try $.99 and maybe get even MORE borrows than we were at $2.99, also covering the buys that are being lost/discounted. My stories don't "sell" all that many, so this is possibly accurate thinking for me.


----------



## wtvr

Don't be the cheapest hooker under the bridge, yo.


----------



## batmansero

kalel said:


> Are those priced at $2.99 or $0.99?


Book 1 was $1.49 but is now 99c. Book 2 is $1.49. I decided that since I am seeing more borrows than sales it wouldn't matter if I priced lower.


----------



## Mahalo

LisaGloria said:


> Don't be the cheapest hooker under the bridge, yo.


^ love.


----------



## KelliWolfe

EelKat said:


> The books are all short (6-8k) erotica. They're "sweet," but there's no relationship-building or anything to make it a "true" romance. _"I broke up with my boyfriend so now I'm going to more-or-less inexplicably give my virginity to you, older neighbor."_ But the writer picked a specific kink - older man younger woman/first time with a romance twist - and picked all the right covers/titles/etc. to cater to the readers of that kink. If you're writing dubcon PI or tentacles, that's obviously not the direction for you. But several people here have said that they're writing stuff that's more erom, and I wanted them to be aware that it's not necessarily better to push the limits on their covers and titles.
> 
> I'm both a reader and writer of this kink. Short Dec/May with lower heat level sells well. (Mine are 7k to 12k, 1st person, $2.99) There are not many authors who write it, which makes it sell big if you write it well, because the people who want it, have a hard time finding it and will buy up your entire collection.
> 
> I know this genre VERY well. I started writing it because my husband is 30 years older then me and I like to read Romance that I can identify with, and hot young bucks are not something I can easily identify with. It can sell better then taboo kinky Erotica. I don't know if it always does or not, but my Dec/May eroms outsell my Eroticas...of course it could be that I'm just good at this genre and crappy at Erotica. LOL!
> 
> Outside of Monster Erotica, I do have a hard time keeping my stories from going down the erom or less road. And I do find it easier to write sweeter shorts then spicier, so I often start out to write Erotica and end up with something far tamer. Only way I seem to be able to keep the heat level up is to toss in monsters. Oh well.


The vast majority of my titles are the older man/younger woman trope, often first time. My problem has always marketing the more romantic ones, which is where most of mine tend to end up. I've been categorizing everything as erotica when it probably would have done better in romance, and apparently I have a knack for picking the world's most underperforming keywords. 

However, I've been slowly re-categorizing eroms as romance and I've been swapping out erotica covers for romance covers and I think I'm finally getting the keywords/blurbs right to move them. I hope so, because I'd much rather write those than pure erotica.


----------



## Guest

Marcos Fenton said:


> A question: why is $2.99 generally recommended as the best price point? I know that the royalty rate for purchased titles is much better at $2.99, but it seems like people are getting the lion's share of their earnings from borrows, not from buys. Considering that, wouldn't there be a potential benefit to pricing at 99 cents? That way, you might get a few more sales and a subsequently higher-ranked/more-visible title, which would hopefully result in more borrows too. I'm guessing that people who are enrolled in KU will still borrow a 99 cent book, instead of buying it.
> 
> Anybody have any thoughts?


I'm keeping mine at $2.99, because people will pay $2.99. Yeah, most of my sales are borrows, but I do get buys. For me, if a book is 99 cents, I may buy it rather than borrow it. As an author, I'd rather get the royalty for the borrow than the 99 cent buy.


----------



## Sargon

Eclectic Authoress said:


> I'm keeping mine at $2.99, because people will pay $2.99. Yeah, most of my sales are borrows, but I do get buys. For me, if a book is 99 cents, I may buy it rather than borrow it. As an author, I'd rather get the royalty for the borrow than the 99 cent buy.


Totally makes sense. However, I'm trying it with 1 poor-selling title. We'll see if anything happens.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Sales update:
Its been just over 2 weeks with my 2 titles and I'm within spitting distance of $100, generated solely from these little 5k gems of pure genius. They are not PI or anything really kinky, but none of the characters are married.

I'm sitting on 3 more little kink-fests (not shape-shifters or  billionaires) because I wanted to see how much gloriously filthy lucre I could generate from an afternoon's work (on the original two) and $2 for Canva covers.

DadCat is pleased.  

I will not claim "Challenge Winner", but will claim personal victory. I'd also like to thank everyone for their participation and encouragement, as well as KBoards staff for putting up with all this.

Here's to a Glorious November, Comrades!


----------



## KelliWolfe

Great results. And I love reading your posts.


----------



## Guest

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Sales update:
> Its been just over 2 weeks with my 2 titles and I'm within spitting distance of $100, generated solely from these little 5k gems of pure genius. They are not PI or anything really kinky, but none of the characters are married.
> 
> I'm sitting on 3 more little kink-fests (not shape-shifters or billionaires) because I wanted to see how much gloriously filthy lucre I could generate from an afternoon's work (on the original two) and $2 for Canva covers.
> 
> DadCat is pleased.
> 
> I will not claim "Challenge Winner", but will claim personal victory. I'd also like to thank everyone for their participation and encouragement, as well as KBoards staff for putting up with all this.
> 
> Here's to a Glorious November, Comrades!


Congratulations, and yes, November will be glorious!!


----------



## ER Pierce

mine is still in publishing hell, with no end in sight... sighs. It's been over 24 hours.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Same here. Posted updates to two of my romances yesterday morning and they're still stuck in review. Glad it wasn't my PIs or dubcon.


----------



## BlairErotica

To add to the melee, I published one 8k story under a new pen name on Tuesday and it went live Wednesday. One sale so far at $2.99 (no borrows). I uploaded a second (11k) yesterday and still waiting for it to go live.


----------



## Dormouse

ER Pierce said:


> mine is still in publishing hell, with no end in sight... sighs. It's been over 24 hours.


Me too and it's the second part of a series. 

The first part is doing really well, though: 3 sales and 8 borrows so far since yesterday.

I now have the curious situation where my new pen name (gay BDSM) is doing better than my old one (het vanilla and mild BDSM).

ETA: I just saw that the story made it into the Top 100 erotica/gay . Now I'm completely floored. I never thought I would make a Top100-list.


----------



## BlairErotica

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Sales update:
> Its been just over 2 weeks with my 2 titles and I'm within spitting distance of $100, generated solely from these little 5k gems of pure genius. They are not PI or anything really kinky, but none of the characters are married.
> 
> I'm sitting on 3 more little kink-fests (not shape-shifters or billionaires) because I wanted to see how much gloriously filthy lucre I could generate from an afternoon's work (on the original two) and $2 for Canva covers.
> 
> DadCat is pleased.
> 
> I will not claim "Challenge Winner", but will claim personal victory. I'd also like to thank everyone for their participation and encouragement, as well as KBoards staff for putting up with all this.
> 
> Here's to a Glorious November, Comrades!


Is this with no promo? Nice results regardless, congratulations.


----------



## Guest

For November, I'm investing in Photoshop.  I'm redoing my covers and titles for the erotica, so if anyone knows of any Photoshop discounts, please let me know.


----------



## Dormouse

Eclectic Authoress said:


> For November, I'm investing in Photoshop. I'm redoing my covers and titles for the erotica, so if anyone knows of any Photoshop discounts, please let me know.


Try Photoshop Elements. I still need to install mine, but from what I've read you get most of the same functions for a percentage of the price.


----------



## SomethingElse

I use PhotoShop Elements and love it. It was much cheaper than buying PhotoShop. In the new year though I'm going to do the $10/month PhotoShop. It's the full version from what I understand and I can afford $10/month. I got the KD Cover Kit and while I can use it with PSE I can't use it the way it's meant to be used because it was created with PhotoShop. I can't see all the layers when I open the files in PSE.


----------



## Guest

SerenaBiggs said:


> I use PhotoShop Elements and love it. It was much cheaper than buying PhotoShop. In the new year though I'm going to do the $10/month PhotoShop. It's the full version from what I understand and I can afford $10/month. I got the KD Cover Kit and while I can use it with PSE I can't use it the way it's meant to be used because it was created with PhotoShop. I can't see all the layers when I open the files in PSE.


Thanks for the information, guys. 

Serena, do you have the link for the $10/month PhotoShop? Unless I'm blind, all I see is a yearly payment of something like $100 or so. So if you have a link, I'd really appreciate it.


----------



## Censored

Adobe Photoshop CS2 is available 100% free, albeit without support.

http://www.techspot.com/downloads/3689-adobe-photoshop-cs2.html


----------



## anotherpage

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Sales update:
> Its been just over 2 weeks with my 2 titles and I'm within spitting distance of $100, generated solely from these little 5k gems of pure genius. They are not PI or anything really kinky, but none of the characters are married.
> 
> I'm sitting on 3 more little kink-fests (not shape-shifters or billionaires) because I wanted to see how much gloriously filthy lucre I could generate from an afternoon's work (on the original two) and $2 for Canva covers.
> 
> DadCat is pleased.
> 
> I will not claim "Challenge Winner", but will claim personal victory. I'd also like to thank everyone for their participation and encouragement, as well as KBoards staff for putting up with all this.
> 
> Here's to a Glorious November, Comrades!


$100 for 2 titles what within one month? Are they eroticas?


----------



## anotherpage

Dormouse said:


> Me too and it's the second part of a series.
> 
> The first part is doing really well, though: 3 sales and 8 borrows so far since yesterday.
> 
> I now have the curious situation where my new pen name (gay BDSM) is doing better than my old one (het vanilla and mild BDSM).
> 
> ETA: I just saw that the story made it into the Top 100 erotica/gay . Now I'm completely floored. I never thought I would make a Top100-list.


Is it priced at $2.99?


----------



## anotherpage

ER Pierce said:


> mine is still in publishing hell, with no end in sight... sighs. It's been over 24 hours.


Same here, I have 3 in review hell ( 1 over 48hrs and two over 24hrs )


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

BlairErotica said:


> Is this with no promo? Nice results regardless, congratulations.


I ran them each one day free (after they had a rank), but did not announce the freeness. One did about 100,d/l the other about 75 d/l.
NO links for other works/AC page/email list in the books.
I will fix this once I have more works to hawk.


----------



## SomethingElse

Eclectic Authoress said:


> Thanks for the information, guys.
> 
> Serena, do you have the link for the $10/month PhotoShop? Unless I'm blind, all I see is a yearly payment of something like $100 or so. So if you have a link, I'd really appreciate it.


When I clicked on the link I had I found this link:

https://creative.adobe.com/plans/photography?store_code=us

Looks like you can do $10 a month or pay for a yearly plan.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

kalel said:


> $100 for 2 titles what within one month? Are they eroticas?


Yes, erotica, and 18 or 19 days.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Dormouse said:


> : I just saw that the story made it into the Top 100 erotica/gay . Now I'm completely floored. I never thought I would make a Top100-list.


 Very nice ! Gratz!


----------



## Dormouse

kalel said:


> Is it priced at $2.99?


Yes, it's priced at $2.99. I basically just followed the advice given here in the thread.



M. Frank Parsons said:


> Very nice ! Gratz!


Thanks. I'm still all completely surprised by that.


----------



## Guest

Thanks so much for the Photoshop help!


----------



## ER Pierce

I use gimp and it's free to download. It can use most photoshop brushes or psd files.


----------



## o.gasim

Publishing Book 5, ~14 hours in review and the title is Sumber Party: Baby's First Time.

Taking a chance with the title in hopes it spurs some more sales/ borrows. Will post details as soon as the page is up and live.


----------



## legion

Book #6 still in review mode--36 hours and counting.

I know the month isn't over yet, and also-boughts/viewed haven't kicked in for my latest release (published 10/29), but here are my numbers (all 5-8k, priced $2.99):
Book 1 (10/13/14)/Pen Name 1: 3 sales, 17 borrows
Book 2 (10/14/14)/Pen Name 1: 3 sales, 14 borrows
Book 3 (10/19/14)/Pen Name 2: 18 sales, 81 borrows
Book 4 (10/22/14)/Pen Name 2: 11 sales, 55 borrows
Book 5 (10/29/14)/Pen Name 2: 4 sales, 21 borrows

18-day Grand Total: 39 sales, 188 borrows. About $366, using the last borrow payout.
Clearly, I haven't discovered any secret sauce, but this is okay for something on the side.
I definitely need to stick to my bread and butter (romance novellas), but I will continue to put out erotic shorts since they don't take much time.

My latest submission is a bit kinkier, and I'll see how that goes (if it ever comes out of review mode!) and where to go from there.


----------



## KelliWolfe

You just made $360 in about 2 weeks from writing 25 - 40k words. That means you just beat 99% of the rest of the writing world, who might see $360 in their first YEAR putting out multiple 60-120k novels - _if_ they're lucky. You have to keep things in perspective.


----------



## Guest

Just letting you guys know that the book I uploaded last night (late last night) is almost ready.  It's 3:28 p.m. in Chicago right now.  So I didn't have to wait long.  And no, this book is FAR from vanilla.  It's filthy erotica, placed in the erotica category.  So it's good to know they didn't sit on it.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

KelliWolfe said:


> You just made $360 in about 2 weeks from writing 25 - 40k words. That means you just beat 99% of the rest of the writing world, who might see $360 in their first YEAR putting out multiple 60-120k novels - _if_ they're lucky. You have to keep things in perspective.


+1
Doubleplusgood, this!


----------



## Callaghan

(Was responding to book leaf's post)
From my limited experience:

Last week, as an experiment, we hit publish on a book at Midnight Friday night and it was live by 9am Saturday. We are careful with covers and titles and usually blurbs, but this one we got a little more descriptive. It was M/M.

I just saw some advice elsewhere that said go ahead and publish a pretty clean blurb on the weekend, then on Monday you can edit your blurb description from Author Central. (I had no idea you could do that!)

As for the $100 in a week. I know it is possible, though like I said we are still newbies and in the learning process so we don't always get hits. I'm working on my research and keyword selection every day. The book we published last week should do $50 for the 1st 7 days. 

Our best producing book was $172 for the first 7 days. (Found out yesterday it had been Adult Dungeoned. Probably happened 3 days ago. KDP was kind enough to remove the Adult tag after I sent them an email requesting that they reevaluate the cover/title/blurb.)

We are just going to keep plugging along until we hit more $100 weeks


----------



## batmansero

MistyMNB said:


> I just saw some advice elsewhere that said go ahead and publish a pretty clean blurb on the weekend, then on Monday you can edit your blurb description from Author Central. (I had no idea you could do that!)


I did that last weekend. Got antsy and couldn't wait so opted for mild, yet still accurate, keywords and then raunched them up later in the week


----------



## o.gasim

Bump for my updated sig. 

C'mon smutty, smutty, smut, smut. Let's get me to 100 KU borrows!


----------



## Douglas E Wright

I stopped reading this thread around page 38 or so. I already had a couple stories and wrote another for this challange. The challenge story went online Oct 15th. I did not have a sell or borrow and it is October 31. I've reduced the price and changed the cover, still nothing. However, my horror stories are averaging  one a day.


----------



## Dormouse

o.gasim said:


> C'mon smutty, smutty, smut, smut. Let's get me to 100 KU borrows!


Hehe, that's my aim for Naughty November.


----------



## britnidanielle

After re-reading my book one of my serial, I ended up switching the pen name on the title to my own name because 1) I wanted to save it from obscurity (it was doing NOTHING), and 2) it's pretty in line with my other books, so it's not "smutty", but rather an interesting romance w/ a good dollop of sex.

Maybe I can't write proper smut LOL. Either way, I've gotten about 10 sales & 5 borrows since making the switch on the name yesterday. Yay! Check it: http://www.amazon.com/DISTRACTION-Distraction-Book-Britni-Danielle-ebook/dp/B00OT2RPXA


----------



## Sargon

book leaf said:


> I finished the first installment of my erotic romance serial and am so excited to put it up! I wanted to put it up now...but then I realized today was Friday. Since my serial is definitely also a romance with an HEA, I'm putting it in the "Romance" category. However, it does have a "captive" theme. Is it stupid to upload right now/over the weekend, or should I wait until Monday? How strict are Amazon's Weekend Moderators?


Welcome aboard! I personally wouldn't worry about this, especially with what it sounds like you've written. I've published over the weekend a few times with no problems.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Guys, if you're publishing erom with no dubcon or PI or anything like that you're probably fine to publish over the weekend. If you're keeping it more or less within the bounds of what you'd see in mainstream erom covers/blurbs you should be good to go. Just make sure you've got a disclaimer in the front that all characters are over 18.


----------



## britnidanielle

KelliWolfe said:


> Guys, if you're publishing erom with no dubcon or PI or anything like that you're probably fine to publish over the weekend. If you're keeping it more or less within the bounds of what you'd see in mainstream erom covers/blurbs you should be good to go. Just make sure you've got a disclaimer in the front that all characters are over 18.


So I had to finally google "dubcon" to see WTH it was. Now I know!


----------



## Midnight Writer

*deleted*


----------



## batmansero

Lanette Curington said:


> *QUESTION:* I really liked one title and want to do a couple of sequels, making it a trilogy. Now, if I change the title to the first book by adding a 1 or Part 1 after the title but before the parentheses (where I put the words of the main trope and either Forbidden/Taboo Erotica), it won't affect the book, will it? I've never changed the title of a book before, by adding something to it. I don't think it does, but want to make sure it doesn't make it a new book with a new ASIN or flags something in KDP.


It's fine to do. I've made multiple changes to titles and nothing untoward has happened. You might want to add a series name and include the volume number instead of just adding a number to the end of the title itself.


----------



## Midnight Writer

*deleted*


----------



## DimpDavis

Are serials titled the same way? I have one book, one title, but ten one word titles to differentiate the parts. 
Where do I add those? To make it harder, my title is a question.
I had thought it would be 
Book title? Serial word: Erotic subtitle here.
Is the series the book title again and then book number? It's not a series yet, only one book told in parts.

So confusing because of the choices and no right way.


----------



## Ghostwalk

This thread prompted me to sign up -- I've been really blocked for a while and I thought the freedom of writing erotica might be helpful. And also, potentially lucrative. 

It took me most of last week to write my first story; I had to work on it after coming home from the day job and my progress was much slower than I would have liked. But I'm pleased I completed it, and I found that for the first time in a long while I was excited about getting back to writing every day, so even if sales are awful I think I'll stick with erotica for a bit.

Uploaded a cover that might not be the best but it's pretty good considering, filled in what I hope are decent keywords, and now I'm kind of sitting on my hands waiting for Monday so I can upload the story without fearing the gaze of the weekend content reviewers.

Should probably use the time to write the next story, come to think of it. Or start Nanowrimo, which I promised myself I'd do.

Anyway, just wanted to say that this thread has been really useful and I appreciate the constant updates that people have been doing. I'm definitely feeling a lot more motivated to get going on my writing than I was before I read it.


----------



## anotherpage

Today I awoke to 17 borrows: 5 sales and it's only midday

The more volume the better

Also appears to be that 20% of the uploaded work accounts for the large majority of the sales while the other 80% gets anywhere from 1 to 2 borrows a day. Go figure!

I just wish I could DUPLICATE myself. Have one of me writing erotica non stop and one writing my regular novels and series non stop lol


----------



## anotherpage

EelKat said:


> Now that November's here and the first month of testing this challenge out is over (for me) I'm gonna start dissolving my secret pennames and moving titles to this penname instead (which means all new covers and changing front/back matter for each one too), while continuing to add new titles. Well, I have a busy month. I've decided not to do NaNoWriMo because I'm gonna be too busy with this. That means the second phase is about to start - comparing sales of new pen-name with no other titles, to sales on older penname with other titles, as well as to compare, how having Erotica and non-Erotica titles on the same penname effects sales of each. My second 30 days of experimenting with the Erotica Challenge begins today.
> 
> For the month of November, I'm continuing with the 100% zero promotion - with one minor exception - the fact that some of the titles will be added to my sig here on KB (meaning the coming soon titles, will be activated as live in a few days)...due to the new sig policy, I will not be putting the Erotica Shorts in my sig, only the "erotic but not Erotica" novella titles, because of their tamer covers.
> 
> Phase 3 starts in December, when I will be setting up a month long series of promos, to compare the difference in sales with and without promotions. Until December there will be no Select Free Days on any of the new books, either. Trying to keep this 2nd month of my 90 day self test as promoless as possible.
> 
> Final results will be posted here on this thread in January at the end of all 3 phases.
> 
> And seeing how it looks like I'm gonna be snowed in by this afternoon, looks like I have nothing else to do today until it stops snowing. Not the first snow of the season, but looks to be the first deep enough to have to be out shoveling tomorrow.


Sounds good EelKat. I wish you all the best with that.

November for me is a month to finish a standalone novel in the romance/thriller market

And continue writing erotica ( Won't be one a day like i did this past week ). More like two a week.


----------



## legion

First things on my dashboard for November are the works of my three brand new (Oct) pen names. Ha!
I have to turn my attention back to my bird-in-the-hand main name (romance), but will continue to work on shorts under the new names. I'm a full-time writer because of the romance pen name and I have no kids, so all I have is time. 
You guys all inspire me--each and every one; I get constant reminders that I have no excuse not to be more productive!

Today is also my 2-year self-pub anniversary. I'm up to 38 total titles (over 8 names), and I want to hit 100 titles by the next anniversary, so I definitely have to keep at the shorts! My horror and literary stuff constantly flop, so erotica/e-rom it is.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

The erotica challenge is over for me, at least for now. But I will never say never because I began writing another erotica title and will publish it on Thursday(11/6/14). I have to finish what I start.

I made a lot of mistakes, for example, just when my individual titles were beginning to sell, I boxed them and received less money as well as fewer potential buyers for now. And I became frustrated with a title that didn't sell because of the story and cover, therefore, I gave it away for free for five days and so far 80 individuals in four countries have downloaded it  since 10/31/14. Now they will decide whether they want to buy one of my erotica shorts based on this title. I didn't take time to think things through because I should have put my best selling title for free. 

I've learned that publishing on Thursday is OK. My fifth title took a little longer this time before it went live, maybe 24 hours and now I have one sale on that one. Furthermore, by keeping my pen name a secret, and the title of my books a secret, that didn't help with sales. The challenge was indeed positive. It caused me to improve on my word count on all my books. I discovered that I can create a cover, which I never attempted before this challenge. And I may need another pen name. I haven't checked for reviews.

There is not enough data or enough time has passed to come to any conclusions, other than I need to understand the genre before I attempt to make a living with erotica. 

Update on my books
Book 1: 3 sales  0 returns 11 Borrows since (10/9/14)
Book 2: 3 sales  0 returns 3 borrows
Book 3: 2 sales 1 return 0 borrows ( strange story; strange cover) 80 free since 10/31/14
Book 4: 2 sales 0 returns 3 borrows
Box set: 0 sales 3 borrows
Book 5: 1 sale since it went live 10/31/14


----------



## BlairErotica

Rachel E. Rice said:


> The erotica challenge is over for me, at least for now. But I will never say never because I began writing another erotica title and will publish it on Thursday(11/6/14). I have to finish what I start.
> 
> I made a lot of mistakes, for example, just when my individual titles were beginning to sell, I boxed them and received less money as well as fewer potential buyers for now. And I became frustrated with a title that didn't sell because of the story and cover, therefore, I gave it away for free for five days and so far 80 individuals in four countries have downloaded it since 10/31/14. Now they will decide whether they want to buy one of my erotica shorts based on this title. I didn't take time to think things through because I should have put my best selling title for free.
> 
> I've learned that publishing on Thursday is OK. My fifth title took a little longer this time before it went live, maybe 24 hours and now I have one sale on that one. Furthermore, by keeping my pen name a secret, and the title of my books a secret, that didn't help with sales. The challenge was indeed positive. It caused me to improve on my word count on all my books. I discovered that I can create a cover, which I never attempted before this challenge. And I may need another pen name. I haven't checked for reviews.
> 
> There is not enough data or enough time has passed to come to any conclusions, other than I need to understand the genre before I attempt to make a living with erotica.
> 
> Update on my books
> Book 1: 3 sales 0 returns 11 Borrows since (10/9/14)
> Book 2: 3 sales 0 returns 3 borrows
> Book 3: 2 sales 1 return 0 borrows ( strange story; strange cover) 80 free since 10/31/14
> Book 4: 2 sales 0 returns 3 borrows
> Box set: 0 sales 3 borrows
> Book 5: 1 sale since it went live 10/31/14


Rachel are these standalone books or series?


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

These books are all standalone. Why do you ask?


----------



## BlairErotica

Just looking for patterns. If they were in a series, I'd expect to see the later books getting noticed and perhaps quicker borrows, but that's just based on some of the results people have reported. And some people were talking about doing series or even serials for this challenge, so it was just a sanity check. 

My second book went live on the 31st (under the new penname) and the first (out the 28th) now has two sales and one borrow. Oddly, one sale is in the US and the other sale is France and the borrow is UK. I've never had a sale in France before.


----------



## Sargon

Have had 1 book free the last 2 days. It's had 400 downloads so far and has been ranked around 1000 in the free store and very, very high for free short stories. So far I don't think it's affected anything else, although I did get my first newsletter sign-up!

The upside: unknown. Well, it's kind of cool to have so many people reading something I wrote, and from various countries, too.

The downside: it's skewing my graph so everything else is pushed down.  

Have had another book at $.99 a couple days, no increase in sales or rank. Seems pointless.

And to anyone struggling with Gimp and/or Canstockphotos, please switch to Photoshop and Dollar Photo Club as I did today. It's like going from a Corolla to a Ferrari, at least as far as Photoshop is concerned. I feel like an idiot, Gimp was so hard to use by comparison. I re-did all my bundle covers and a couple other covers today and re-uploaded them all.

And generally I'm pretty burned out. This is all a lot of work, to say the least. Sales since last weekend have been lackluster (I mean, relatively speaking -- if I sold this much every day of the year I'd be freaking happy, but not if it takes this much work).


----------



## Midnight Writer

*deleted*


----------



## JSViolett

Sargon said:


> And to anyone struggling with Gimp and/or Canstockphotos, please switch to Photoshop and Dollar Photo Club as I did today. It's like going from a Corolla to a Ferrari, at least as far as Photoshop is concerned.


I already use Photoshop but would love to hear your thoughts on why you chose Dollar Photo Club over Canstock.


----------



## dirtiestdevil

Amazon is churning them out tonight! Had one book go from in review to publishing in about 3-4 hours today. Happy writing!


----------



## skyle

I never thought of that, how fun! I could take my Regency romance and stuff it with keywords about cowboys and pick up a whole new reader group? (Just kidding! lol)


----------



## Guest

April Ryder said:


> It's fine to do. I've made multiple changes to titles and nothing untoward has happened. You might want to add a series name and include the volume number instead of just adding a number to the end of the title itself.


This is good to know regarding titles. I plan on a major overhaul this week.



Sargon said:


> Welcome aboard! I personally wouldn't worry about this, especially with what it sounds like you've written. I've published over the weekend a few times with no problems.


I took a chance and updated all of my erotica (non-erom) Friday. I woke up this morning and they've all been updated. (Although I plan on more changes.)



JSViolett said:


> I already use Photoshop but would love to hear your thoughts on why you chose Dollar Photo Club over Canstock.


I just started with Photoshop on Friday. I love it, but there's a learning curve with that too. So for anyone who is interested in Photoshop, beware of that.



emilycantore said:


> I hope everyone here who is keyword stuffing is at least sticking with what the book is *actually* about because if not, it's a good way to have your title killed.


What other people do is not my concern, but *yes*, my keywords match my content.


----------



## Redacted1111

Hi! I'm back. Things are going great for me so far this month and I couldn't be more thrilled. I just paid off an entire credit card. Squee. Those zeros look damn good. And, I bought a new pair of Puma tennis shoes and a pair for my daughter. New shoes, that's big for me. They didn't even come from Goodwill.


----------



## Sargon

JSViolett said:


> I already use Photoshop but would love to hear your thoughts on why you chose Dollar Photo Club over Canstock.


1. It's $1/photo instead of $6. That adds up. I would have saved >$60 so far.
2. I feel more free to download something and not worry if it won't work out
3. The "similar" search is much better -- seems like a ton of truly, truly similar things would come up.

In reality I might use both, if I don't find the perfect image at DPC.


----------



## Sargon

Kalypsō said:


> Hi! I'm back. Things are going great for me so far this month and I couldn't be more thrilled. I just paid off an entire credit card. Squee. Those zeros look damn good. And, I bought a new pair of Puma tennis shoes and a pair for my daughter. New shoes, that's big for me. They didn't even come from Goodwill.


Sweeeet!! Welcome back. Glad it's going well.


----------



## Sargon

dirtiestdevil said:


> Amazon is churning them out tonight! Had one book go from in review to publishing in about 3-4 hours today. Happy writing!


Awesome, DD! It has been quick...I updated 3 covers and uploaded 2 bundles yesterday afternoon and they are all Live or Live - Updates Publishing. I had found that one of my related books was doing better than the other 2 and it seemed like it was because no sexy woman on the cover, just a guy. So I remedied that so all 3 have sexy women now.

By the way, do you ever talk about a) how many titles you have out and b) how many you publish each week/month?


----------



## Lovelife

Kalypsō said:


> Hi! I'm back. Things are going great for me so far this month and I couldn't be more thrilled. I just paid off an entire credit card. Squee. Those zeros look damn good. And, I bought a new pair of Puma tennis shoes and a pair for my daughter. New shoes, that's big for me. They didn't even come from Goodwill.


That's great Kalypso! I was wondering if you would say how many books you've put out by now? I see your little badge in your sig keeps changing for the better so things must be going well.  I'm just curious how many titles/bundles you have out now to be pulling in the 100-250/day.


----------



## Redacted1111

I have under thirty titles and I just hit over a hundred units yesterday for the first time. Today is looking like it will also easily be over a hundred units, so I changed my sig for motivation. My "I need to write" button has been pushed. I feel giddy and freaking good. But I've been publishing for over a year and have a backlist that I've rebranded and republished. I'm also messing with promos more. I have pretty healthy fan base on one of my pen names. And I'm going to start a new pen name with some other stuff I hadn't published yet. You have to understand, I have A LOT of writing. I'm just finally capitalizing on it. I've been in a brain vise mindset for a long time. No more.


----------



## Tasman

KalypsÅ said:


> I have under thirty titles and I just hit over a hundred units yesterday for the first time. Today is looking like it will also easily be over a hundred units, so I changed my sig for motivation. My "I need to write" button has been pushed. I feel giddy and freaking good. But I've been publishing for over a year and have a backlist that I've rebranded and republished. I'm also messing with promos more. I have pretty healthy fan base on one of my pen names. And I'm going to start a new pen name with some other stuff I hadn't published yet. You have to understand, I have A LOT of writing. I'm just finally capitalizing on it. I've been in a brain vise mindset for a long time. No more.


Congratulations, KalypsÅ. Brilliant that you've found the pointy stick that motivates you! I jumped on the wagon and published two shorts on October 30 and have had 26 borrows and 8 sales so far. I can see how this can work and it's certainly motivated me, too. I'm going to put out a few more then drop to one a week and bet back to my other pen name/longer stuff.

Something I've discovered about this exercise is that it's made me a faster writer (almost doubled my output so far), and even more important is that it's made me BELIEVE I can write fast. Now I expect it rather than sabotaging any 'fluke gains' I experience with wordcount.


----------



## Redacted1111

Tasman said:


> Congratulations, KalypsÅ. Brilliant that you've found the pointy stick that motivates you! I jumped on the wagon and published two shorts on October 30 and have had 26 borrows and 8 sales so far. I can see how this can work and it's certainly motivated me, too. I'm going to put out a few more then drop to one a week and bet back to my other pen name/longer stuff.
> 
> Something I've discovered about this exercise is that it's made me a faster writer (almost doubled my output so far), and even more important is that it's made me BELIEVE I can write fast. Now I expect it rather than sabotaging any 'fluke gains' I experience with wordcount.


It's made me believe in myself.


----------



## Lovelife

Kalypsō said:


> I have under thirty titles and I just hit over a hundred units yesterday for the first time. Today is looking like it will also easily be over a hundred units, so I changed my sig for motivation. My "I need to write" button has been pushed. I feel giddy and freaking good. But I've been publishing for over a year and have a backlist that I've rebranded and republished. I'm also messing with promos more. I have pretty healthy fan base on one of my pen names. And I'm going to start a new pen name with some other stuff I hadn't published yet. You have to understand, I have A LOT of writing. I'm just finally capitalizing on it. I've been in a brain vise mindset for a long time. No more.


That's really awesome! So the 30 titles are not all from when you started this challenge in October right? Some are from your previous romance work correct? I feel you on the brain vise too. Glad things are going so much better for you.


----------



## Redacted1111

Lovelife said:


> That's really awesome! So the 30 titles are not all from when you started this challenge in October right? Some are from your previous romance work correct? I feel you on the brain vise too. Glad things are going so much better for you.


Like I said, *I've been publishing for OVER A YEAR*. I just started thinking differently this last month. I wrote ten 5k erotica titles and one 8k erom title last month. That's 58k words written and published last month. I also republished and rebranded old content. I'm also publishing previously unpublished work that I'd already written. More than anything, it is the mindset that has allowed me to have the greater level of success.

Part of me thinks I shouldn't even talk about this here for fear of being tracked down and lynched.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Kalypsō said:


> It's made me believe in myself.


I am so happy this is all coming together for you!


----------



## Oaklandish

Thanks to a new erotica pen name and five new titles, I hit four figures for the first time in October. A healthy four figures, too.

And that's with five erotic titles supplementing my dozen non-erotica titles. Sadly, new erotica is vastly outselling the other stuff I write. But I don't plan to stop writing either. Why would I?


----------



## Redacted1111

KelliWolfe said:


> I am so happy this is all coming together for you!


Thank you! I'm really hoping to break 3k this month. If I can get the debts paid off by the end of the year, I'm planning to move to a three bedroom townhouse in the county. (Out of south STL) Maybe I might even be able to entice my 15 year old son to come back to live with me. The pool might be as nice as the beach in California, right? Maybe? lol. At least he'll have somewhere nice to be when he's here in the summer. That's important.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Kalypsō said:


> Thank you! I'm really hoping to break 3k this month. If I can get the debts paid off by the end of the year, I'm planning to move to a three bedroom townhouse in the county. (Out of south STL) Maybe I might even be able to entice my 15 year old son to come back to live with me. The pool might be as nice as the beach in California, right? Maybe? lol. At least he'll have somewhere nice to be when he's here in the summer. That's important.


I think that at the rate you've been going $3k is a very achievable goal. We're all rooting for ya!


----------



## Redacted1111

KelliWolfe said:


> I think that at the rate you've been going $3k is a very achievable goal. We're all rooting for ya!


----------



## KelliWolfe

Oaklandish said:


> Thanks to a new erotica pen name and five new titles, I hit four figures for the first time in October. A healthy four figures, too.
> 
> And that's with five erotic titles supplementing my dozen non-erotica titles. Sadly, new erotica is vastly outselling the other stuff I write. But I don't plan to stop writing either. Why would I?


Congrats! That's awesome! The four figure milestone is the big one. Once you've seen you can do that it gives you a big incentive to keep going. Most people can shrug off making a couple of hundred extra dollars a month, but when you hit the point where you're paying your rent/mortgage with writing money it gets real.


----------



## bluwulf

Kalypsō said:


> Thank you! I'm really hoping to break 3k this month. If I can get the debts paid off by the end of the year, I'm planning to move to a three bedroom townhouse in the county. (Out of south STL) Maybe I might even be able to entice my 15 year old son to come back to live with me. The pool might be as nice as the beach in California, right? Maybe? lol. At least he'll have somewhere nice to be when he's here in the summer. That's important.


I'm so happy for you! I lived in the ghetto in Great Falls, MT. Who'd think there was a ghetto in such a small town?

I am anxiously awaiting my daughter to finish my cover on my first story so I can finally publish something.


----------



## Redacted1111

bluwulf said:


> I'm so happy for you! I lived in the ghetto in Great Falls, MT. Who'd think there was a ghetto in such a small town?
> 
> I am anxiously awaiting my daughter to finish my cover on my first story so I can finally publish something.


I'm sure there is. But I doubt it's like living in south St. Louis. lol. I'm from MT, but I lived on a 200 acre ranch on the Troy River. Kinda different I'm sure.

There's nothing like going from rural Montana to urban St. Louis in one lifetime.  I'm calling myself "well rounded".


----------



## KelliWolfe

Kalypsō said:


> I'm sure there is. But I doubt it's like living in south St. Louis. lol. I'm from MT, but I lived on a 200 acre ranch on the Troy River. Kinda different I'm sure.
> 
> There's nothing like going from rural Montana to urban St. Louis in one lifetime.  I'm calling myself "well rounded".


LOL. I should say so. I'm trying to go the opposite direction and get the writing to pay for a nice, quiet place in Idaho or Montana. Probably not 200 acres, but 20 would be just about right.


----------



## Redacted1111

KelliWolfe said:


> LOL. I should say so. I'm trying to go the opposite direction and get the writing to pay for a nice, quiet place in Idaho or Montana. Probably not 200 acres, but 20 would be just about right.


I've been bouncing between urban and rural all my life. And when I say rural, I mean RURAL. Like not even a real town rural. I don't think I could take that nowadays. My dad ran his business in the SF Bay Area and we lived up in the boondocks. Weird. That's one hell of a commute. My poor dad was insane.

I'd like to find a nice old farmhouse with maybe 20-50 acres to rehab and make beautiful somewhere close enough to town that it feels normal, and I can get good internet. By a river, with a well and solar panels and a big workshop. But also maybe a little studio apartment in the middle of the city. That'd be awesome.

But right now, I just want to move to a well maintained apartment complex where I feel comfortable and solidly middle class.


----------



## dirtiestdevil

Sargon said:


> Awesome, DD! It has been quick...I updated 3 covers and uploaded 2 bundles yesterday afternoon and they are all Live or Live - Updates Publishing. I had found that one of my related books was doing better than the other 2 and it seemed like it was because no sexy woman on the cover, just a guy. So I remedied that so all 3 have sexy women now.
> 
> By the way, do you ever talk about a) how many titles you have out and b) how many you publish each week/month?


I've got over 100 titles out now. The publishing schedule just depends on my laziness level. Some times I might be publishing 4 a day, some times I won't publish any for a week!


----------



## Fredster

This may be a dumb question, but is the consensus that if you completely change erotica styles (particularly going from something like older man / younger woman to gay bikers) that you should also change monikers to write under?


----------



## anotherpage

Kalypsō said:


> I have under thirty titles and I just hit over a hundred units yesterday for the first time. Today is looking like it will also easily be over a hundred units, so I changed my sig for motivation. My "I need to write" button has been pushed. I feel giddy and freaking good. But I've been publishing for over a year and have a backlist that I've rebranded and republished. I'm also messing with promos more. I have pretty healthy fan base on one of my pen names. And I'm going to start a new pen name with some other stuff I hadn't published yet. You have to understand, I have A LOT of writing. I'm just finally capitalizing on it. I've been in a brain vise mindset for a long time. No more.


Yeah but are those 100 borrows purely from your erotica or from your backlist of serials? Or are you saying you made your first $100 day?


----------



## Midnight Writer

Sargon said:


> 1. It's $1/photo instead of $6. That adds up. I would have saved >$60 so far.
> 2. I feel more free to download something and not worry if it won't work out
> 3. The "similar" search is much better -- seems like a ton of truly, truly similar things would come up.
> 
> In reality I might use both, if I don't find the perfect image at DPC.


What is the URL for Dollar Photo Club?


----------



## ER Pierce

brand new pen name, no promotion, only one story out so far (but two more coming)

Just published Nov 1.

Day : 1 sale, 2 borrows


----------



## Redacted1111

kalel said:


> Yeah but are those 100 borrows purely from your erotica or from your backlist of serials? Or are you saying you made your first $100 day?


I said a hundred units. Sales + borrows. And they are evenly distributed across all my titles. I'm at a hundred units already today and it's not even 2 pm where I am.


----------



## anotherpage

Sargon said:


> Have had 1 book free the last 2 days. It's had 400 downloads so far and has been ranked around 1000 in the free store and very, very high for free short stories. So far I don't think it's affected anything else, although I did get my first newsletter sign-up!
> 
> The upside: unknown. Well, it's kind of cool to have so many people reading something I wrote, and from various countries, too.
> 
> The downside: it's skewing my graph so everything else is pushed down.
> 
> Have had another book at $.99 a couple days, no increase in sales or rank. Seems pointless.
> 
> And to anyone struggling with Gimp and/or Canstockphotos, please switch to Photoshop and Dollar Photo Club as I did today. It's like going from a Corolla to a Ferrari, at least as far as Photoshop is concerned. I feel like an idiot, Gimp was so hard to use by comparison. I re-did all my bundle covers and a couple other covers today and re-uploaded them all.
> 
> And generally I'm pretty burned out. This is all a lot of work, to say the least. Sales since last weekend have been lackluster (I mean, relatively speaking -- if I sold this much every day of the year I'd be freaking happy, but not if it takes this much work).


Yes a lot of work. That's why i have returned to my main novels and serials. I will ONLY put out 2 eroticas a week. I kind of find this is a bit like chasing wind. You get good days then low days. Short term benefits are good but long term I have found come from longer works. 25k and above.


----------



## legion

I started to worry about the newest pen name (launched 10/31) when only 2 borrows came in its first day (1 in Germany), and began thinking about doing a freebie run for also-bought benefits. Then I remembered I needed to wait until I have other titles available under it to maximize benefits of exposure.
Then I noticed borrows have picked up a little today, so I just need to hold my horses, and concentrate on fulfilling this pre-order for erotic name #1 (part 2 in serial)!



kalel said:


> Yes a lot of work. That's why i have returned to my main novels and serials. I will ONLY put out 2 eroticas a week. I kind of find this is a bit like chasing wind. You get good days then low days. Short term benefits are good but long term I have found come from longer works. 25k and above.


I agree. I plan on putting out two romance novellas under my main name this month, so two erotic pieces a week is probably what I'll be able to manage. Definitely sticking with it because I see the potential--I'm up to 50 borrows for the erotic stuff for the month so far (over 3 names, 6 titles).


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Drew Gideon said:


> Rachel, I'm curious to find out what you mean by this. Do you mean not sharing the pen name and title here in the challenge thread? Because most of the challenge participants kept their stuff a secret.
> Or were you keeping it a secret from someone/something else?
> 
> I don't think there would've been a gain from sharing it here in the thread. I doubt there were too many erotica readers skimming through a thread in a writer's forum looking for new kinky stuff to read - but then again, I could be completely wrong.


What I wrote on the thread were honest inner thoughts I happen to share with others. I knew my limitations as far as writing in this genre or any genre, but there was something in the back of my mind saying: what if I had done this or that, could I have sold more books? I took this challenge because it was a fun endeavor and meaningful and it still is. I wrote about my sales, or lack of sales because to me, this was a great experiment and something I wouldn't normally have done on my own.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Thaddeus Wainwright said:


> This may be a dumb question, but is the consensus that if you completely change erotica styles (particularly going from something like older man / younger woman to gay bikers) that you should also change monikers to write under?


I would say it depends a lot more on whether you're moving between hard-core erotica and sweet/classy erotic romance rather than just different story types. Look at Selena Kitt. She has a very broad catalog, and it makes her work a lot easier to find since there's a lot of very different stuff in there.


----------



## Fredster

KelliWolfe said:


> I would say it depends a lot more on whether you're moving between hard-core erotica and sweet/classy erotic romance rather than just different story types. Look at Selena Kitt. She has a very broad catalog, and it makes her work a lot easier to find since there's a lot of very different stuff in there.


Thanks!

I'm pretty much talking about hardcore stuff all around, I just thought maybe the m/m and m/f material should be kept separate. Branding, and all that.


----------



## Guest

Kalypsō said:


> Hi! I'm back. Things are going great for me so far this month and I couldn't be more thrilled. I just paid off an entire credit card. Squee. Those zeros look damn good. And, I bought a new pair of Puma tennis shoes and a pair for my daughter. New shoes, that's big for me. They didn't even come from Goodwill.


Congratulations Kalypso!!


----------



## Perro Callejero

Eclectic Authoress said:


> Congratulations Kalypso!!


+1
Very inspiring to hear of your success, Kalypso! Keep kicking butt and dreaming big!


----------



## skyle

Kalypsō said:


> Hi! I'm back. Things are going great for me so far this month and I couldn't be more thrilled. I just paid off an entire credit card. Squee. Those zeros look damn good. And, I bought a new pair of Puma tennis shoes and a pair for my daughter. New shoes, that's big for me. They didn't even come from Goodwill.


You're my new role model. I want to pay off my credit card too


----------



## Redacted1111

Eclectic Authoress said:


> Congratulations Kalypso!!


Thank you. Kisses. 



Marcos Fenton said:


> +1
> Very inspiring to hear of your success, Kalypso! Keep kicking butt and dreaming big!


Thanks.  I'm doing my best. I have five titles to publish tomorrow.



skyle said:


> You're my new role model. I want to pay off my credit card too


I have credit cardsss. But it isn't all that much debt. I've got a three month plan for paying them off. That's all my money is going towards except editing and promos until they're paid. It feels really, really good. My husband and I really need a new mattress set, but I couldn't justify spending the money while I was still buried in debt. Soon. Very soon.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

emilycantore said:


> It took me six months to go from $15 a month to $10,000. Once I got there I made just over $30,000 in the next three months.
> 
> You can do it!


Now you've done it. H8Rs gon' call BS and flood your inbox with calls for proof.


----------



## Redacted1111

emilycantore said:


> It is completely achievable! Keep going!
> 
> My family and I moved this year away from a big city to a much smaller beachside town. Spectacular weather, cheap housing, fruit trees that only grow in this climate... freedom.
> 
> It was only possible because of eBooks and writing erotica. Otherwise I'd be stuck in a city in some creative-adjunct job wanting to kill myself.
> 
> Keep working, keep moving - amazing things can happen. It took me six months to go from $15 a month to $10,000. Once I got there I made just over $30,000 in the next three months.
> 
> You can do it!


That is seriously inspirational. Thank you.  



Drew Gideon said:


> Kalypsō you are kicking AS... err, wait. Family friendly.
> Kalypsō you are punting rear!!!
> 
> Don't forget to put a big chunk of it to the side for taxes next spring. It would truly suck to get completely out of debt and then have the IRS gnawing at your neck and charging all kinds of fees, penalties, and interest.


I'm not sure if pounding rear is more family friendly. 

Thank you though.  I love some good rear pounding.


----------



## Sargon

dirtiestdevil said:


> I've got over 100 titles out now.


Thanks. That's what I thought the answer would be, based on your success. Good to have it confirmed. In many ways it does sound like a numbers game.



dirtiestdevil said:


> The publishing schedule just depends on my laziness level. Some times I might be publishing 4 a day, some times I won't publish any for a week!


I sent you a PM.


----------



## Sargon

Lanette Curington said:


> What is the URL for Dollar Photo Club?


https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/

You do have to pay in advance, $10/month for 10 images.


----------



## Sargon

emilycantore said:


> It is completely achievable! Keep going!
> 
> My family and I moved this year away from a big city to a much smaller beachside town. Spectacular weather, cheap housing, fruit trees that only grow in this climate... freedom.
> 
> It was only possible because of eBooks and writing erotica. Otherwise I'd be stuck in a city in some creative-adjunct job wanting to kill myself.
> 
> Keep working, keep moving - amazing things can happen. It took me six months to go from $15 a month to $10,000. Once I got there I made just over $30,000 in the next three months.
> 
> You can do it!


Emily, you're an inspiration for sure! And you too, Kalypso! 100 units a day is huge! (I think.)

I only just did it for the first time TODAY and only about 5 minutes ago based on my latest refresh of the silly ol' graph. I'm at 83/18, seems like the sales trickle in and the borrows peter out as the day wears on. I was super depressed about all this on Friday when my sales were lower than expected, and now I'm back up and happy. Sigh...terrible, being to affected by these ups and downs.


----------



## DimpDavis

So I'm going to try something a little different. An idea I snagged from the guys on the self publishing podcast. 

I'm joining deposit photos. On this site you can download five images a day for a monthly price. 
I'm going to have fun picking random erotica cover images and create a story to go with the photo. 
They say a pictures worth a thousand words, well I'm challenging myself to stretch it to 5k. 
Anyone else want to try?


----------



## Midnight Writer

Sargon said:


> https://www.dollarphotoclub.com/
> 
> You do have to pay in advance, $10/month for 10 images.


Thank you!


----------



## Sargon

OK all, I said I was trying $0.99 and some free days and that I'd report back. Here's the report, but not too much to say I don't think.

The $0.99-er was not a great selling story to begin with, although I actually think it's good. During the couple of days I had it free I got a total of 3 sales and 3 borrows. I just put it back to $2.99. Seems like it was a waste of time/effort. And now it's thrown my spreadsheet off because I'm a few dollars below where my spreadsheet says I am.

The 3 free days on one book yielded 616 downloads (with a few hours left). They were from various Amazon stores, which was kind of fun to see. (Japan, etc.)

I did also happen to have my best overall day today with 83 borrows and 25 sales. This could have been a coincidence, or it could have been a slight bump from people who got the free book. There's no way to know, because I didn't do anything clever like track the links in the back or anything. I tend to think it was a coincidence, because Sundays are generally a good day and of course I have more stuff out today than ever before, as all of you do too, I'm sure.

The ONE cool thing I got out of all this is my first fan! This person joined my mailing list and I sent them a personal email and they wrote back telling me they'd read the free story and REALLY liked it!! That made me feel good. This is the only feedback I've gotten, aside from my wife's. It makes me want to write longer, more mainstream stuff to get some actual reviews and fans.

Maybe free days are a long-term play in this game, to raise overall awareness. But I tend to think they might be pointless. DD? Emily? Someone else with longer experience...do you ever make your shorts free?


----------



## batmansero

Kalypsō said:


> I'm not sure if pounding rear is more family friendly.


I may have written something along those lines just a few hours ago 

Congrats on the success


----------



## KelliWolfe

Sargon said:


> Maybe free days are a long-term play in this game, to raise overall awareness. But I tend to think they might be pointless. DD? Emily? Someone else with longer experience...do you ever make your shorts free?


I have three perma-free stories. All of them are the first story in a series of at least four stories. I think perma-frees are extremely important, and if you look at the catalogs of all the top 100 writers doing short erotica you'll see that almost all of them offer one or more free stories. I think Cassandra Zara has 95 of the top 100 free stories in erotica right now. 

I've never found the 99 cent price point to be useful. You've got to get six sales at 99 cents to make up a single sale at 2.99, and almost everyone I talk to says they never get close to that. I've managed to increase sales 2-4 times depending on the title by dropping to 99 cents, but money-wise that's a disaster and I get a lot more exposure through my perma-frees. If you can make it work for you then more power to you, but most of us can't and that's why almost everything ends up stuck at $2.99.


----------



## Sargon

KelliWolfe said:


> I have three perma-free stories. All of them are the first story in a series of at least four stories. I think perma-frees are extremely important, and if you look at the catalogs of all the top 100 writers doing short erotica you'll see that almost all of them offer one or more free stories. I think Cassandra Zara has 95 of the top 100 free stories in erotica right now.
> 
> I've never found the 99 cent price point to be useful. You've got to get six sales at 99 cents to make up a single sale at 2.99, and almost everyone I talk to says they never get close to that. I've managed to increase sales 2-4 times depending on the title by dropping to 99 cents, but money-wise that's a disaster and I get a lot more exposure through my perma-frees. If you can make it work for you then more power to you, but most of us can't and that's why almost everything ends up stuck at $2.99.


Thanks, Kelli! Very helpful. But what do you mean by "stories in a series"? Are you talking about 5-7k short smuts? Or are you talking about a series/serial made up of ~15k stories? I don't really have that situation yet.

P.S. -- Are you all/mostly in KU? Clearly your free stories are not. So do you keep those out, and put everything else in? Or are you a believer in staying out of KU so you can get the wide exposure to Google, B&N, etc.? I'm working on longer stuff now and having a very hard time deciding how to play it; there are people with mega-success both ways.


----------



## funthebear

DimpDavis said:


> So I'm going to try something a little different. An idea I snagged from the guys on the self publishing podcast.
> 
> I'm joining deposit photos. On this site you can download five images a day for a monthly price.
> I'm going to have fun picking random erotica cover images and create a story to go with the photo.
> They say a pictures worth a thousand words, well I'm challenging myself to stretch it to 5k.
> Anyone else want to try?


Try this instead: https://stacksocial.com/sales/improve-your-designs-with-100-hi-res-images-free-for-10-days

It's free, and has same quality as deposit, maybe a bit more too.


----------



## nightfire

emilycantore said:


> Link to your catalogue in the back and use Amazon Affiliates.


PLEASE be careful with this. Amazon actually does not allow affiliate links in books. You can get removed from the affiliate program as well. I was using them for tracking in a book that had a large number of links (an affiliate marketing resource book) and was told about this restriction. It took days to redo the links.


----------



## Midnight Writer

*deleted*


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Lanette Curington said:


> Thoughts on putting bundles in Select or not?


On the one hand, you'd want to keep your bundles out of select to reap the higher payment.

On the other, you've already written them and are just doing a copy & paste and increasing the size of your catalog, so who cares? There's no effort involved so just go for the borrow.

I'm sure there's a third (or fourth) option.

Best bet: try both. Whichever makes YOU the most money/gains the most exposure is the one you stick with.

Which fits your business plan? Your expectations? Your goals?


----------



## Midnight Writer

*deleted*


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

My apologies for misunderstanding. I thought your books were single shorts. To me, "Bundle" has come to mean 'a bunch of stories sold en masse at a discount'. A series changes the way I'd do it.

I'd go with the old logic of the loss leader #1 at perma-free and out of select, #2 and #3 in select, but keep the omnibus (which to me means 'all parts of a series') out of select while still exclusive to 'Zon.

This way your select readers can borrow the individual parts (and you get 2 borrows), and those not in KU can get a taste with #1, then get the other two in the omnibus at a discount to buying them as singles and you get $2-$3.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Sargon said:


> Thanks, Kelli! Very helpful. But what do you mean by "stories in a series"? Are you talking about 5-7k short smuts? Or are you talking about a series/serial made up of ~15k stories? I don't really have that situation yet.
> 
> P.S. -- Are you all/mostly in KU? Clearly your free stories are not. So do you keep those out, and put everything else in? Or are you a believer in staying out of KU so you can get the wide exposure to Google, B&N, etc.? I'm working on longer stuff now and having a very hard time deciding how to play it; there are people with mega-success both ways.


I'm talking about series of related 5-7k short stories. I've got some series of longer stories, but with only 2-3 books each they're really not worth setting up a permafree. I'm not saying that's the only way to do it, I'm just saying that's how I did it since I had the series. Just pick a title that you think is one of your better ones - that's important, this is how you hook other people to come in and buy the rest of your catalog - and get it up on Google Play. That's the best place to get Amazon to price match from right now.

I only have 10 stories (out of about 50) in KU, and the biggest chunk of them are PI stories that I can't publish anywhere else except Barnes & Noble. Those tend to sell really well on Amazon and I knew I could make more than make up any lost sales on B&N with KU borrows. I put my Banging the Brats Next Door series in, but those haven't done significantly better in KU than they were doing when I had them up everywhere, so unless something changes in the next couple of months I'll probably pull them from Select. I've got a longer erom in KU that I put in as soon as I wrote it and it has been outselling the PIs, so I'll probably be putting more of those in.

I think KU has the potential to be a gold mine for short romance and erom, because the readers are absolutely voracious and since they're not having to shell out $2.99 for a short story (when they're used to paying that for full novels in the same genre) they're finally willing to give the shorter stuff a try.


----------



## Sargon

KelliWolfe said:


> I'm talking about series of related 5-7k short stories. I've got some series of longer stories, but with only 2-3 books each they're really not worth setting up a permafree. I'm not saying that's the only way to do it, I'm just saying that's how I did it since I had the series. Just pick a title that you think is one of your better ones - that's important, this is how you hook other people to come in and buy the rest of your catalog - and get it up on Google Play. That's the best place to get Amazon to price match from right now.
> 
> I only have 10 stories (out of about 50) in KU, and the biggest chunk of them are PI stories that I can't publish anywhere else except Barnes & Noble. Those tend to sell really well on Amazon and I knew I could make more than make up any lost sales on B&N with KU borrows. I put my Banging the Brats Next Door series in, but those haven't done significantly better in KU than they were doing when I had them up everywhere, so unless something changes in the next couple of months I'll probably pull them from Select. I've got a longer erom in KU that I put in as soon as I wrote it and it has been outselling the PIs, so I'll probably be putting more of those in.
> 
> I think KU has the potential to be a gold mine for short romance and erom, because the readers are absolutely voracious and since they're not having to shell out $2.99 for a short story (when they're used to paying that for full novels in the same genre) they're finally willing to give the shorter stuff a try.


Thanks, Kelli, that's all really helpful info!

I have to amend my post yesterday about the free book having no impact. By the end of the day Sunday I had more sales (Paid Units) than any other day by a long shot, almost doubling my previous best day's Paid Units, and about 7 times more than Saturday. My graph has a huge spike in it. So I'd say of the 600 freebies, maybe a couple percentage points went ahead and bought something. But again, I have no direct evidence and it still could have merely been a great Paid Units day.


----------



## Tasman

KelliWolfe said:


> I think KU has the potential to be a gold mine for short romance and erom, because the readers are absolutely voracious and since they're not having to shell out $2.99 for a short story (when they're used to paying that for full novels in the same genre) they're finally willing to give the shorter stuff a try.


On a slightly different note I see on her FB page that HM Ward has pulled all of her books out of KU a month early citing the program's kinks like paying the author peanuts. I'm not surprised that it didn't work financially for somebody who does the sort of numbers Holly does.


----------



## BlairErotica

If most of her books are longer, and higher priced (I think that's the case) then KU costs her money. $1.50 per borrow is not as good as 70% of $4.99 or $6.99. What is winning for the moment are shorter stories that readers are bothering with because of the flat rate.


----------



## WDR

Eclectic Authoress said:


> For November, I'm investing in Photoshop. I'm redoing my covers and titles for the erotica, so if anyone knows of any Photoshop discounts, please let me know.


If you have a Mac, I highly recommend Pixelmator instead of Photoshop. It's a helluva lot cheaper and it works just as well at manipulating images.


----------



## Guest

WDR said:


> If you have a Mac, I highly recommend Pixelmator instead of Photoshop. It's a helluva lot cheaper and it works just as well at manipulating images.


I'm on the free trial. Then I'll either do the $10 a month or pay the $29.99 for Pixelmator.


----------



## Redacted1111

Tasman said:


> On a slightly different note I see on her FB page that HM Ward has pulled all of her books out of KU a month early citing the program's kinks like paying the author peanuts. I'm not surprised that it didn't work financially for somebody who does the sort of numbers Holly does.


She hasn't pulled all her books. I just borrowed a bunch of her Arrangement series last night.


----------



## Ghostwalk

Here's a basic question -- is anybody bothering to note in the description of their releases if they're short stories? I assumed there would be the estimated page count thing after my story was published, but I've just realised from looking at another thread that my story isn't showing that -- I don't want people to think they're getting a full book or anything.


----------



## BlairErotica

I put in the word count. A lot of mine are around 20k and from what I've read in the threads, many readers don't know novellas from noels, and even if I say "short story" I've had people say, "I didn't know it was so short" (this for an 8k story). I want to give them some sort of heads up, so I put in the word count.


----------



## Catnip

I include the word count and also specify that it's a short story. Word count might not mean much to some readers.


----------



## Ghostwalk

BlairErotica said:


> I put in the word count. A lot of mine are around 20k and from what I've read in the threads, many readers don't know novellas from noels, and even if I say "short story" I've had people say, "I didn't know it was so short" (this for an 8k story). I want to give them some sort of heads up, so I put in the word count.


Thanks, I think I'll add in a line about the wordcount/a rough page count to the description. And then feel really guilty if anybody buys a copy before the change goes live.


----------



## KelliWolfe

I quit including the word count on mine because it doesn't really mean anything to anyone except another writer. Page counts are better, but readers aren't looking at the very bottom of my blurb (which is usually hidden) to get those. They're looking at the Amazon estimates up at the very top of the page.


----------



## anotherpage

Tasman said:


> On a slightly different note I see on her FB page that HM Ward has pulled all of her books out of KU a month early citing the program's kinks like paying the author peanuts. I'm not surprised that it didn't work financially for somebody who does the sort of numbers Holly does.


In her case Im sure its a case of deciding. outside of KU I sell X units. Inside of KU i sell X units. If outside makes more for her, yes pull out. But for some it makes sense to be inside.


----------



## anotherpage

Unless people moan about it being short. I don't bother.

If it was a different market maybe.

But no one in erotica gives a rats BEEP. Their eyes are filled with smut thats all they care about


----------



## BlairErotica

kalel said:


> Unless people moan about it being short. I don't bother.
> 
> If it was a different market maybe.
> 
> But no one in erotica gives a rats BEEP. Their eyes are filled with smut thats all they care about


In another thread several erotica writers mentioned complaints about length until they added word counts. If you're right and they don't care, then putting them in shouldn't matter either.


----------



## AboutLastNight

Hi all. Quick question- to those who have series with the first book perma-free, are you contacting amazon to get it that way? I've been trying to get mine free for a week now by reporting it and posting here in the 'Make it free' thread but haven't had any luck yet. Or does it just take a while?


----------



## Sargon

Ghostwalk said:


> Here's a basic question -- is anybody bothering to note in the description of their releases if they're short stories? I assumed there would be the estimated page count thing after my story was published, but I've just realised from looking at another thread that my story isn't showing that -- I don't want people to think they're getting a full book or anything.


I used to but I stopped, because it's generally not done that much and the buyer can see the estimated page counts. Sometimes those take a while to populate I've found.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Lana_ said:


> Hi all. Quick question- to those who have series with the first book perma-free, are you contacting amazon to get it that way? I've been trying to get mine free for a week now by reporting it and posting here in the 'Make it free' thread but haven't had any luck yet. Or does it just take a while?


Mine have always been automatically price-matched by Amazon's spiders. Do you have your book in the Google Play store? That seems to be the best place right now.


----------



## Redacted1111

KelliWolfe said:


> Mine have always been automatically price-matched by Amazon's spiders. Do you have your book in the Google Play store? That seems to be the best place right now.


You can email them through the KDP Help/ Contact Us button. I emailed them yesterday and was price matched this morning.


----------



## o.gasim

Just checking in with some results.

October: 21 KU / 10 Sales
November: 11 KU / 4 Sales

After spending some time in DD and making some changes to my existing catalogue, things look like they are trending upwards  

PS: DD is $10 well spent for anyone looking to get into this genre.


----------



## Midnight Writer

*deleted*


----------



## AboutLastNight

Kalypsō said:


> You can email them through the KDP Help/ Contact Us button. I emailed them yesterday and was price matched this morning.


I went ahead and did that, thank you!


----------



## AmandaL

Ok November is the month! I've been holding off finishing my stories and hitting the publish button for too long. Watching everybody on this thread get it done is just the kick in the pants I need! Plus there has been a lot of good information that's helped me get past some hurdles.

Now that I've told you all I'm doing this, I have to actually do it now.

Too bad you can't make money procrastinating. I'd be a gazillionaire!


----------



## KelliWolfe

AmandaL said:


> Too bad you can't make money procrastinating. I'd be a gazillionaire!


And then I'd write a bestselling serial about you.


----------



## R. Graystone

I'm rolling along nicely. Updated totals going into this week are:

Title 1: 36 borrows, 12 sales, 2 returns
Title 2: 31 borrows, 8 sales, 0 returns
Title 3: 10 borrows, 2 sales, 1 return
Title 4: 513 free, 18 borrows, 2 sales
Title 5: 123 free, 5 borrows, 1 sale, 0 returns
Bundle: 1 sale
Title 6: 15 borrows, 3 sales, 0 returns
Title 7: 6 borrows, 0 sales

Haven't cracked the code yet, but I'm working on it. All work 5 - 7K except title 7, which is shorty short at ~4K. All classed straight into erotica. I might tinker more with keywords later, currently working on titles 8 - 10. It's been almost 2 weeks since I started.


----------



## Guest

kalel said:


> Unless people moan about it being short. I don't bother.
> 
> If it was a different market maybe.
> 
> But no one in erotica gives a rats BEEP. Their eyes are filled with smut thats all they care about


This.


----------



## Eros

I wanted to talk covers.  With plenty of people on here experimenting in the erotica niche I wanted to see what sort of results people were getting with their covers.

I'm just finishing up my first story, about 9k words, political erotica trilogy planned.  The two main characters are a large, muscular, black man and a tall, busty, white brunette.

Have people found that they get better results from

a) just the man (topless?  Maybe suited as it's political.  Open to suggestions)
b) just the woman (either in enticing undergarments or suited, again open to suggestions)
c) both the man and the woman

I'm figuring a) as reportedly the main audience is women.  As a bloke I know I'd be looking for a sexy woman on the cover, the rest not mattering - do women think the same way (and so want to see a sexy man) or would they like to see a woman on the cover as well/instead that they could identify with?

I've been reading this thread religiously over the last few days, and when I'm home this evening I intend to sign up for the DD forum as well, so a BIG thank you for all the information and inspiration you have given so far!


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

For this story: Both. Lingerie for the woman, bare chested man. 

Manly McChesty sells (so I've been told). Gotta have a six-pack!


----------



## AboutLastNight

Hello my fellow erotica writers!  So last night I decided to try my hand at writing a PI story and... well, it's easily the filthiest thing I've ever written. I mean holy crap. I was going over it this morning and I just have no idea where the hell _that_ came from.

Does anyone else have those moments when they re-read something they wrote?


----------



## Rouge Poppy

Absolutely  

My husband doesn't believe it either


----------



## pwtucker

Quick update on my four titles:

Part 1, pubbed on 10/22, 21 Borrows, 7 Sales
Part 2, pubbed on 10/23, 15 Borrows, 10 Sales
Part 3, pubbed on 10/23, 9 Borrows, 6 Sales
Part 4, pubbed on 10/24, 11 Borrows, 5 Sales

Total: 56 borrows, 28 sales

Sales have slowed, but I'm still getting a couple of borrows/day.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

pwtucker said:


> Quick update on my four titles:


Well done, publish the next one!

Speaking of which, anyone else stuck In Review for a long time?


----------



## Rouge Poppy

Yes, Frank.

My box set has been stuck in review for almost 35 hours (can you tell I'm counting every minute   ). I have emailed but no response.

It's really frustrating as I hoped it would increase the visibility of my existing titles. I'm busy writing the next story hoping that it will all clear shortly.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Ah. Not quite that long for me, but I guess even KDP gets "The Monday's".


----------



## legion

M. Frank Parsons said:


> ...Speaking of which, anyone else stuck In Review for a long time?


Yup--submitted my latest title yesterday morning, so about 24 hours in review for me.


----------



## Catnip

Eros said:


> Have people found that they get better results from
> 
> a) just the man (topless? Maybe suited as it's political. Open to suggestions)
> b) just the woman (either in enticing undergarments or suited, again open to suggestions)
> c) both the man and the woman
> 
> I'm figuring a) as reportedly the main audience is women. As a bloke I know I'd be looking for a sexy woman on the cover, the rest not mattering - do women think the same way (and so want to see a sexy man) or would they like to see a woman on the cover as well/instead that they could identify with?


I'm female, and I'd rather just see a man on the cover. A couple is ok, but a woman by herself doesn't really appeal to me. However, I've seen other authors say they get better results if there's a woman on there. And there are some subgenres, like PI, where a single female seems to be the norm.

I'd be interested to hear more about people's experiences with this too.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Oh BOY! 

KU in .ES and .IT

Let the borrows roll in


----------



## legion

Eros said:


> I'm just finishing up my first story, about 9k words, political erotica trilogy planned. The two main characters are a large, muscular, black man and a tall, busty, white brunette.
> 
> Have people found that they get better results from
> 
> a) just the man (topless? Maybe suited as it's political. Open to suggestions)
> b) just the woman (either in enticing undergarments or suited, again open to suggestions)
> c) both the man and the woman
> 
> I'm figuring a) as reportedly the main audience is women. As a bloke I know I'd be looking for a sexy woman on the cover, the rest not mattering - do women think the same way (and so want to see a sexy man) or would they like to see a woman on the cover as well/instead that they could identify with?


I vote both in this case, to make it easier to spot for those looking for WWBM/BMWW.


----------



## Dormouse

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Speaking of which, anyone else stuck In Review for a long time?


Me. I uploaded one last night, still stuck. Okay, it's gay PI so it might take some time.

I also changed two others. One went through within ten hours, the other is still stuck.


----------



## Redacted1111

Ahhh. My books are moving all over my dashboard again! And the sequel episode of the serial that just went permafree yesterday is still in review. *shakes fist angrily*

In other news, KDP customer service does everything I ask in a very timely manner.  

Love you guys.


----------



## Sargon

Eros said:


> a) just the man (topless? Maybe suited as it's political. Open to suggestions)
> b) just the woman (either in enticing undergarments or suited, again open to suggestions)
> c) both the man and the woman


I have a "group" of related books (not really a series or serial). The 2nd one outsells the other 2 and the only big difference is that it has a sexy woman on the cover, whereas the other 2 only have men. But who knows, YMMV.

Sales bad for everyone today, or just me?


----------



## Sargon

Kalypsō said:


> Ahhh. My books are moving all over my dashboard again! And the sequel episode of the serial that just went permafree yesterday is still in review. *shakes fist angrily*


Me, too! It's very weird. Also the reports page was down for a minute saying they were changing it. And my sales suck, which could ONLY be caused by a glitch on their end, right?


----------



## anotherpage

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Well done, publish the next one!
> 
> Speaking of which, anyone else stuck In Review for a long time?


Yes


----------



## Sargon

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Aye, matey. The winds of fortune have declined to fill me sails today. Me chart is as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. Methinks thar be a ghost in the machine, me hardies.


"Arrrrrrrrrr!"

Methinks people should be buying dirty stories 24/7 and at voluminous rates every single day of the week!!! Buying them all on Sundays and Mondays makes Tuesday feel slighted!


----------



## Tasman

KalypsÅ said:


> She hasn't pulled all her books. I just borrowed a bunch of her Arrangement series last night.


This from her FB page yesterday:

_Last chance to grab stuff in KU. They're being pulled out as we speak. Go grab Trystan Scott-he'll like it.

And remember that all my books are lendable so u can already get them for FREE w/o kindle unlimited. You don't have to pay to borrow my books.

From the authors POV my income has dropped 75% since KU rolled out. With a child in the hospital, I can't pay his bills (never mind ours) like that. _

Perhaps the process is taking longer than anticipated.


----------



## KelliWolfe

I gathered she hadn't put them all in at exactly the same time and some of them haven't been in the full 90 days yet.


----------



## anotherpage

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Aye, matey. The winds of fortune have declined to fill me sails today. Me chart is as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. Methinks thar be a ghost in the machine, me hardies.


LOL you make me laugh. I am right there with you my friend.


----------



## Tasman

KelliWolfe said:


> I gathered she hadn't put them all in at exactly the same time and some of them haven't been in the full 90 days yet.


I'm not sure...this was her post from November 2:

_
You guys know my stuff has been in KINDLE UNLIMITED for a few weeks now. It's ending TODAY. I'd planned on leaving them in there for another month, but it's not possible. Since this was a beta program, it's got kinks (like paying the author peanuts, which makes it difficult to pay my boy's medical bills that cost more than my house :/).

-->So, if you wanted any of the serials and was thinking about trying them out, GRAB THEM NOW.<--

Series include: THE ARRANGEMENT, TRYSTAN SCOTT, PROPOSITION, SECRETS, SECRETS & LIES, and more. Dude, it's over $100 worth of books for free for the 1st month._


----------



## batmansero

Kalypsō said:


> Ahhh. My books are moving all over my dashboard again! And the sequel episode of the serial that just went permafree yesterday is still in review. *shakes fist angrily*


^^ I think this is Amazon people looking in again for random spot checks or something, which means when they're finished on their end, it moves that book to the top of your dashboard. That's just my opinion on what that's about.


----------



## funthebear

Tasman said:


> I'm not sure...this was her post from November 2:
> 
> _
> You guys know my stuff has been in KINDLE UNLIMITED for a few weeks now. It's ending TODAY. I'd planned on leaving them in there for another month, but it's not possible. Since this was a beta program, it's got kinks (like paying the author peanuts, which makes it difficult to pay my boy's medical bills that cost more than my house :/).
> 
> -->So, if you wanted any of the serials and was thinking about trying them out, GRAB THEM NOW.<--
> 
> Series include: THE ARRANGEMENT, TRYSTAN SCOTT, PROPOSITION, SECRETS, SECRETS & LIES, and more. Dude, it's over $100 worth of books for free for the 1st month._


What happened to her son?


----------



## Redacted1111

I have this theory that erotica authors are all actually closet comedians.


----------



## Fredster

I have five stories out now. The first four are a series (M/f) and the fifth is currently a standalone (M/M) I'm thinking about expanding into a series. These are the results so far, as release date (R), sales (S), and borrows (B) :

1. R: 10/14, S: 9, B: 15
2. R: 10/23, S: 6, B: 17
3. R: 10/29, S: 2, B: 3
4. R: 11/3, S: 1, B: 2
-------------  released a bundle of all four here with 0 sales so far
5. R: 11/4, S:0, B:2

Kind of underwhelming, all in all -- but they far outsold my non-erotica in the same time period so maybe I should just shut up and take the money. They're certainly easy to write (with what appears to be a terribly short shelf life).


----------



## crow.bar.beer

I'm happy to report that I got everything with Payoneer situated and I've published my first book! I want to give a big thanks to everyone in this thread because, if not for this thread, I'd never have pulled together the quick resolve to just make this happen, and the excitement of actually having published something already and the ease with which I can publish many more is really giving my work on my novel as well a big shot in the arm.  

I'd also really like to thank Kalypso in particular because the combination between your pragmatic determination to make bank and sharing your results has motivated me more than anything else.  

It took less than twelve hours to publish, but I don't think it's finished because it's currently priced at $3.71 instead of $2.99, it's not showing the "free with KU" next to it, etc. etc. 

I'll get it up in my signature as soon as my update passes review - I'd arranged material in the front-end poorly and there wasn't actually any preview of the story itself waiting in the look inside this morning.   I sent the blurb, ToC, etc. to the back now and included a juicy sample too.


----------



## anotherpage

Thaddeus Wainwright said:


> I have five stories out now. The first four are a series (M/f) and the fifth is currently a standalone (M/M) I'm thinking about expanding into a series. These are the results so far, as release date (R), sales (S), and borrows (B) :
> 
> 1. R: 10/14, S: 9, B: 15
> 2. R: 10/23, S: 6, B: 17
> 3. R: 10/29, S: 2, B: 3
> 4. R: 11/3, S: 1, B: 2
> ------------- released a bundle of all four here with 0 sales so far
> 5. R: 11/4, S:0, B:2
> 
> Kind of underwhelming, all in all -- but they far outsold my non-erotica in the same time period so maybe I should just shut up and take the money. They're certainly easy to write (with what appears to be a terribly short shelf life).


You've got that right. SHORT SHELF LIFE

I am losing my enthusiasm for writing these. I love the borrows etc but I need to dig my teeth into writing real stories. I find talking crap for 20 pages and saying the same things again about tools and keyholes is boring.


----------



## Redacted1111

kalel said:


> You've got that right. SHORT SHELF LIFE
> 
> I am losing my enthusiasm for writing these. I love the borrows etc but I need to dig my teeth into writing real stories. I find talking crap for 20 pages and saying the same things again about tools and keyholes is boring.


Then stop doing it.


----------



## nellgoddin

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Aye, matey. The winds of fortune have declined to fill me sails today. Me chart is as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. Methinks thar be a ghost in the machine, me hardies.


LOL. I'm working on a historical pirate 3-part erotica series (where the hell did _that_ come from? No idea.) I'm planning to try the publish-all-3-at-once strategy with them, with a boxed set out of KU a few weeks later.

Hey can somebody give me some instruction on how to search erotica effectively? I'm trying to find the top 100 erotica authors and top 100 paid erotica titles, but somehow whatever I think to try is not taking me there.

My report from the 7-Day Challenge is that the vanilla series I've written 3 parts to isn't doing well anymore--the first book did fine but there's barely any sell-through (although I screwed up but not having even a hint of a cliffhanger). I think categories are wrong too. Anyway, I had planned to do 4 but am bailing on it for now unless the later two titles pick up. I want to try something way raunchier. Just a writing exercise. 

And---so glad to read about everyone's successes! Cheers!


----------



## Chieftain

kalel said:


> You've got that right. SHORT SHELF LIFE
> 
> I am losing my enthusiasm for writing these. I love the borrows etc but I need to dig my teeth into writing real stories. I find talking crap for 20 pages and saying the same things again about tools and keyholes is boring.


Is that short shelf life true for all erotica books or just certain kinks? And how short is it? 7 days? a month?


----------



## Tasman

nellgoddin said:


> Hey can somebody give me some instruction on how to search erotica effectively? I'm trying to find the top 100 erotica authors and top 100 paid erotica titles, but somehow whatever I think to try is not taking me there.


Amazon.com
Choose: Kindle eBooks link in your top menu ribbon
Next you should see a menu like: *Kindle Unlimited | Kindle Book Deals | Best Sellers* etc. Pick Best Sellers.
Sidebar menu left: Choose Literature & Fiction
Then you are presented with Erotica, and off you go to sub-cats.

So that's the top 100

To find the authors I simply pick a high-ranking book, scroll down the book description page and see if the author ranks in the top 100, if they do, select their rank link and scroll on by.
http://www.amazon.com/author-rank/Erotica/digital-text/157057011/

I'm sure there are other ways to skin this cat


----------



## o.gasim

kalel said:


> You've got that right. SHORT SHELF LIFE
> 
> I am losing my enthusiasm for writing these. I love the borrows etc but I need to dig my teeth into writing real stories. I find talking crap for 20 pages and saying the same things again about tools and keyholes is boring.


I'm kinda on the opposite side of the shelf life. My titles did little early but have jumped to life these last few days. For the entire month of October my 4 titles did 21 KU and 8 Sales. 5 days into November and with a 5th book I am already at 21 KU and 6 Sales.

Use the feeling of bordem to push yourself to get more creative with how you match they keys and holes. Sometimes 2 keys can try the same lock, or 2 locks can get together


----------



## Kallie

I am seriously considering giving this a go. At first, I thought I might be too much of a prude to write erotica, but after taking a little trip down memory lane, I realized that I'm not so prudish after all. A few years ago I worked for a texting/PSO company. Men would send text messages over their phones thinking they were talking to hot girls that wanted nothing more than to meet up and have some wild smexy times, when in reality they were talking to a bunch of harried housewives or struggling single moms typing away on their laptops in between cooking dinner and folding towels.

Those conversations taught me a lot about kinks...especially infant/diaper play and food play. So my question is, can you put those kinks up on Amazon, and if so, what keywords would you not be allowed to use? I know the whole infant/diaper/bath time thing sounds so bizarre, and it is, but it was also, dare I say, kinda fun to write about.


----------



## Redacted1111

KimberW said:


> I am seriously considering giving this a go. At first, I thought I might be too much of a prude to write erotica, but after taking a little trip down memory lane, I realized that I'm not so prudish after all. A few years ago I worked for a texting/PSO company. Men would send text messages over their phones thinking they were talking to hot girls that wanted nothing more than to meet up and have some wild smexy times, when in reality they were talking to a bunch of harried housewives or struggling single moms typing away on their laptops in between cooking dinner and folding towels.
> 
> Those conversations taught me a lot about kinks...especially infant/diaper play and food play. So my question is, can you put those kinks up on Amazon, and if so, what keywords would you not be allowed to use? I know the whole infant/diaper/bath time thing sounds so bizarre, and it is, but it was also, dare I say, kinda fun to write about.


That's the great thing about writing erotica. You don't have to interact directly with the dirty old men.


----------



## KelliWolfe

KimberW said:


> I am seriously considering giving this a go. At first, I thought I might be too much of a prude to write erotica, but after taking a little trip down memory lane, I realized that I'm not so prudish after all. A few years ago I worked for a texting/PSO company. Men would send text messages over their phones thinking they were talking to hot girls that wanted nothing more than to meet up and have some wild smexy times, when in reality they were talking to a bunch of harried housewives or struggling single moms typing away on their laptops in between cooking dinner and folding towels.
> 
> Those conversations taught me a lot about kinks...especially infant/diaper play and food play. So my question is, can you put those kinks up on Amazon, and if so, what keywords would you not be allowed to use? I know the whole infant/diaper/bath time thing sounds so bizarre, and it is, but it was also, dare I say, kinda fun to write about.


ABDL (adult baby diaper lover) and ageplay are definitely allowed on Amazon, and based on the story rankings can make a lot of $$$ if you can write them well. They're not as massively popular as pseudo-incest, but there is a hard-core group of fans who will purchase every story you write if they're any good.


----------



## batmansero

Sweet Amber said:


> It took less than twelve hours to publish, but I don't think it's finished because it's currently priced at $3.71 instead of $2.99, it's not showing the "free with KU" next to it, etc. etc.


Sweet Amber are you in Australia or New Zealand (or even another country outside of America)? If so then the amount you are seeing instead of $2.99 is to do with the exchange rates and stuff. I'm from NZ and I regularly see $2.99 books listed anywhere between $3.70 - 3.91 whenever I look on the American Amazon store. So rest assured, it is $2.99 for Americans


----------



## batmansero

Update (American store only) Erotic Romance serial, priced under $2.99

Book 1 (10/9) 9 sales / 34 borrows / 323 free / 3 reviews
Book 2 (10/25) 2 sales / 10 borrows / 1 review


Decided to try again with something more erotic and less romance under a new pen name, although looking at it now I think it's gonna end up erotic romance as well...(American store only) $2.99

Book 1 (11/4) 1 sales / 1 borrow


----------



## RaeC

Kalypsō said:


> I have this theory that erotica authors are all actually closet comedians.


I do think of myself as quite the pun star.


----------



## Guest

I've spent the last couple of days reformatting my content.  Now I like my format, and I'll be using it going forward.  I've also spent these same last couple of days changing and branding my covers via Photoshop.

Done and ready to move to the next level.


----------



## Sargon

emilycantore said:


> You have to think long term. If the book takes a single day to write and earns $1500 over the next five years then that one day of work was worth $1500. That's better than almost any job out there.
> 
> All those books earning a dollar a day start to add up and the more you produce the more the individual titles earn. I have one title that used to earn $0.50 per day and now it's up to $0.75. Coming up on three years and it's around $800 of lifetime earnings.
> 
> I have books I wrote in a single day earn me $2000+.


Emily, I love hearing your numerical analyses!! The 1s and 2s and 3s and 4s do add up. And they definitely last at least a month.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Crayola said:


> I dunno, 26 months later, my first story is still one of my strongest sellers... I guess it depends?


Exactly right. Kinks come and go. A couple of years ago babysitters were totally hot. Last year everything was monster sex. If you chase after the trends you run the risk of having a big spike in initial sales which drops off to essentially nothing a few months down the road if the trend peters out. The big ones that seem to have the most staying power are dubcon, PI, and BDSM, but of course there's a lot more competition to get noticed in those.

A good way to beat these problems is to combine multiple kinks. Even if one goes stale you've got the other(s) in there to buoy sales, and having the extra can give you an edge over other people who are just writing about one.


----------



## crow.bar.beer

April Ryder said:


> Sweet Amber are you in Australia or New Zealand (or even another country outside of America)? If so then the amount you are seeing instead of $2.99 is to do with the exchange rates and stuff. I'm from NZ and I regularly see $2.99 books listed anywhere between $3.70 - 3.91 whenever I look on the American Amazon store. So rest assured, it is $2.99 for Americans


I am in Europe but I've always thought it was through the American store... at any rate it seems my update has cleared so I might as well post the link (I'll add it to my sig tomorrow). Is it showing $2.99 for anyone from the States?

http://www.amazon.com/sex-Therapist-Episode-01-ebook/dp/B00P8OE86U%3FSubscriptionId%3D1QZMGW0RRJC2PX87HDR2%26tag%3Dsalranexp-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB00P8OE86U

It's been live for over 24 hours now and zero units moved of any sort, pretty sure my keywords suck and I'm still on the fence if I should feel the same about the book itself.


----------



## Guest

kalel said:


> You've got that right. SHORT SHELF LIFE
> 
> I am losing my enthusiasm for writing these. I love the borrows etc but I need to dig my teeth into writing real stories. I find talking crap for 20 pages and saying the same things again about tools and keyholes is boring.


Ha Ha! I don't mind if people leave erotica. That's less competition for me.

Do romance writing with the rest of them.


----------



## RaeC

Drew Gideon said:


> 45 and 50 confuse me.
> Same book, different authors.
> Plagiarism?


I think they're co-authors.


----------



## crow.bar.beer

Sweet Amber said:


> I am in Europe but I've always thought it was through the American store... at any rate it seems my update has cleared so I might as well post the link (I'll add it to my sig tomorrow). Is it showing $2.99 for anyone from the States?
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/sex-Therapist-Episode-01-ebook/dp/B00P8OE86U%3FSubscriptionId%3D1QZMGW0RRJC2PX87HDR2%26tag%3Dsalranexp-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB00P8OE86U
> 
> It's been live for over 24 hours now and zero units moved of any sort, pretty sure my keywords suck and I'm still on the fence if I should feel the same about the book itself.


Nm, it's including a VAT tax. Apparently when I created the account I use for buying stuff through the Kindle, I set it up with a U.S. address, because it's never included a VAT tax and everyone's books I've looked at from here are always at 2.99 or .99 or whatever.

Still no sales or borrows and it's obvious the blurb isn't configured in the way people look for when searching for erotica, and when I look at the writing that shows up in the look inside, the language just isn't formulated in a way I think is standard for erotica shorts. I still have the impression that the cover was catchy enough, but maybe I'm mistaken? I'm going to leave it up for now and completely redo it because I think the idea I have for the serial might still have some merit... *shrugs

Maybe I better join that erotica author forum and get some assistance in setting off in the right direction... I feel like I can do this well if I just get orientated correctly.


----------



## pwtucker

Quick question about your tactics with keywords:

When searching for a niche, do you have a search results number you try to stay below? 

For example (these are bad examples), say 'cougar erotica' gives you 20,000 results. Is that good enough? Or do you drill down to 'cougar erotica bareback' which might have only 5,000? Or drill even harder to a term that has less than 1,000 or 500, like say 'cougar erotica bareback pregnancy'?

Please note, those examples are terrible, and only meant to serve to illustrate my question.


----------



## BlairErotica

M. Frank Parsons said:


> ETA: A lot of searchers will click the "New" switch, so ranking first isn't like Google. Being newest is. (Feel free to refute - this was related to me by an avid reader who may be an outlier.)


What does this mean? What new switch? What do you mean that ranking first isn't like Google? Google what? Being newest is what? (Idiot questions I'm sure, but it's all gibberish to me and sounds important to understand.)


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

book leaf said:


> Story #1
> 
> Day 1: 3 sales
> Day 2: 10 sales / 14 borrows
> Day 3: 26 sales / 10 borrows
> 
> I should note that right now my book is priced under $2.99. I did this because this is the first in a serial and I just wanted to get as many readers as possible. I'm going to try to finish the next one as soon as possible.


Well done!

Speaking of which, has anyone run a countdown deal on their short erotica singles? Did it work?
What about your bundles, was that more effective?


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Today is the day I publish my 7th erotica masterpiece, which includes my box set. It appears Wednesday and Thursday are good days to publish because the time is less than 12 hours for my books to go live. Nevertheless, my books are not selling as well as I would like, but then I didn't expect them to sell at all. As I said before, I made a few mistakes, for example, making a box set when I had only a few titles out, and putting my worst selling title for free for 4 days. This is only my opinion and it is relevant only to my books.

I'm going to try a series with the 7th title. I'm not sure when I will stop writing these erotica shorts because they have their advantages; these books have increased my writing speed, they have provided a respite from writing and editing my other books, I pay little to nothing to publish them, and I make a few dollars here and there. And who knows, one day I may find the key, but for now, I'm still looking, and still making mistakes. My book update shows I may have the same 3 fans borrowing different books (What do I know) and on the free book giveaway, the countries included were : US, UK, Japan, Italy, Denmark, and Canada.

Up Date:
Book 1:  2 sales 12 borrows
Book 2: 3 sales 2 borrows and 1 return
Book 3: 1 sale 3 borrows
Book 4: 1 sale 0 borrows (Strange cover Strange story: 174 free downloads)
Book 5: 1 sale 3 borrows
Book 6:  0 sale 3 borrows (Box Set)
Book 7: Published Today


----------



## pwtucker

Thanks for the help with keywords.

Another question: what do you listen to while you write your erotica? I've found that I get stuck on a song for a few days, listen to it on repeat, and then eventually move onto the next one after two or three stories.

Here's what I'm currently hooked on:


----------



## pwtucker

Silence? Egads!


----------



## Dormouse

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Apparently, I'm odd; I write in silence.


Not so odd. I also prefer silence. Or documentaries, especially when they have one of these really calm, almost monotone narrators.

I find music, especially music with lyrics too distracting. The only time I use music is when I write action scenes or fantasy/SF and then it's mostly soundtracks. But for emotionally charged secenes or erotica I prefer silence. I've even thought about getting noise-cancelling head-phones just for writing.


----------



## KelliWolfe

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Apparently, I'm odd; I write in silence.


I'm with you. Either dead quiet or one of those hours-long rain videos on Youtube for white noise.


----------



## Dormouse

KelliWolfe said:


> I'm with you. Either dead quiet or one of those hours-long rain videos on Youtube for white noise.


Oh, rain is nice too. Have you ever tried the Star Trek white noise? It's basically just the ship's noise. Weirdly soothing.


----------



## BlairErotica

M. Frank Parsons said:


> "New" switch is a colloquial term for sorting search by newest release.
> 
> Ranking first in Google (the search engine) is the holy grail of SEO.
> 
> Being newest (for some readers) is the equivalent of ranking first in a Google search. Ranking first in Amazon for a search term may not have the same 80% click through as it does on Google search.
> 
> Hope that helps


It does. Thanks. Somewhere along the line in traveling constantly I missed out a lot of this sort of terminology, so appreciate translations into standard English. I was reading an article on "ten things you need to know about SEO" and read it three times without understanding a thing. Not even sure where the "optimization" comes into anything, since you choose among a finite number of things to attract a seeming infinite assortment of needs and wants. Or maybe I'm just slow. Better stick to writing.


----------



## Fredster

I usually listen to RDIO while I write. Currently, it's the one-hit wonder station, though I'm perplexed as to why they consider Rick Astley to be a one-hit wonder.


----------



## pwtucker

So when picking your keywords, do you keep an eye out for which categories you want to enter? Or do you just email KDP after to get into urban or action & adventure or whatever? How important have you guys found categories to be with your erotic shorts? I've been defaulting to erotica and romance>erotica, and sales are slow. Am I missing out by not being more selective with my cats?


----------



## Steph Ran

Hi, all. First post from a semi-long-time lurker 

I want to eventually read this entire thread, but I have to do it at home, obviously. Anyway, I'd like to be in on the "challenge", if I may. I've written a few sex scenes in my WIPs and my wife reads nothing but smutty fanfic literally about 10 hours a day (no joke), and she seems to like my steamy scenes. I thought I'd give actual erotica a try since I know it sells if it's done right—and since Sweet Lesbian Hard Sci-Fi Romance doesn't seem to sell horribly well lol.

I know a bit about editing, SEO, and keyword scouting due to my day job, so I'm hoping I can pull off some realistic-seeming MilFic erotica (realistic in the sense that I've done the mil part and can research what I don't know). I'm 1.2k into my first try, so I'll update when I have a finished piece and an erotica author name pre-publishing, and we'll go from there.

Nice to meet you all! Talk to you soon.


----------



## R. Graystone

Welcome to the fray. 

I'm proud to say that my eighth title has steam-rolled past the $100. mark on its 5th day live (10 sales, 74 borrows).   I think its success is down to a combination of snazzy cover art, the niche, a strong blurb, and decent keywords. And oh yeah, good writing and steamy sex.

So more confirmation, it can be done!   

Now I just need to work on repeating that success.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Welcome, Steph. And congrats, Rosanne! That's seriously awesome!


----------



## bellabentley

I would just like to say this thread is so fun and encouraging. I shall join you all!  I have a few erotica shorts under a pen name. Around 8. I bought the book that was recommended on writing and selling erotica by Mademoiselle D Bauch and found it very helpful. You see, I've written erotica, but perhaps not in the right niche. I'm looking forward to testing the waters with my new knowledge. I love writing erotic romance...and I write other books under other pen names...and they can be stressful sometimes...especially the novels I'm querying agents on...(not for pubbing..but for film and tv series). These little shorts give me a rush of excitement and happiness to see a new story published. And to see $$ . Okay, wish me luck and good luck to all of you, too! <3 xoxox BB


----------



## ER Pierce

just posted my second story with my new pen name

So far:

title one (12K): released Nov 1 - 7 borrows, 2 sales
title two (10K): released Nov 6, - 0 borrows, 2 sales

I'm outlining #3, and hope to be around 5-7K. (I get wordy lmao)


----------



## o.gasim

Hi Everyone,

This will be my final 'big' sales update on this thread now that I have officially closed out the shorts I wrote for this challenge and am working on Naughty November. I'm going to share my approach to the challenge so anyone who is looking for some guidance can have one person's road map.

Release to Date Numbers
BOOK 1 (3500 words): 7 KU/ 5 Sales - 10/7
BOOK 2 (7000 words): 7 KU/ 1 Sale - 10/15
BOOK 3 (Collection w/ 4 other writers): 10 KU/ 1 Sale - 10/21
BOOK 4 (4200 words): 8 KU/ 2 Sales - 10/24
BOOK 5 (3300 words): 19 KU/ 7 Sales - 10/31
BOOK 6 (Collection of Books 1,2,4, & 5): 2 KU/ 2 Sales - 11/6
TOTAL: 53 KU/ 18 Sales

Not horrible results, but not as stellar as some of the other authors on this thread have achieved. Looking at the trends, it became apparant that my works do very well for their first 4 days and then fall relatively flat with a few sporadic borrows. As a result, moving forward, I will have new content ready to go every 4 days to avoid flatlines on my sales chart.

I started this challenge having never written a single word of erotica but wanted to challenge myself creatively to try something new and outside of my comfort zone. I created this pen-name and the idea for a series based on random encounters which would allow me to try a smattering of erotic genres but still keep a link between them. I released 1 series work a week with a range of 4-8 days between releases and 2 collections.

Free days did nothing to help spur sales. I ran 3 free days on my stories and paid for a Fivrr gig to coincide with one of them. While almost 300 people downloaded the stories, there was no tail tied to the promo. I wouldn't waste the days on free. At the end of the month I have 3 Kindle countdowns scheduled and hope I see different results.

After joining DD it became apparant that my Random Encounters Series was suffering low numbers, as compared to many of the other authors in this challenge, due to an identity crisis. My covers did say erotica and the stories were in different kinks as opposed to one unified theme for readers to come into, enjoy, and stick with. 

Next week I will be rebranding my most popular story (Slumber Party: Baby's first Time) with a new cover, blurb, and publishing the sequel to it.

I absolutely LOVE what I am doing here. I love the outlet writing these stories provide me. I also feel these short stories are making me a more conscice storyteller and stregthening my longer form fiction as well.

Not sure if this will help anyone else, but this is my story and my path to what I feel has been sucess and I wanted to be sure to share it with you all as I am grateful to everything this forum has given me.

-O


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## KelliWolfe

o.gasim said:


> Free days did nothing to help spur sales. I ran 3 free days on my stories and paid for a Fivrr gig to coincide with one of them. While almost 300 people downloaded the stories, there was no tail tied to the promo. I wouldn't waste the days on free. At the end of the month I have 3 Kindle countdowns scheduled and hope I see different results.


Before you completely disregard free you need to realize that a *lot* of people go through the umpteen free erotica lists and download dozens or even hundreds of titles at a time and they may not get to your particular story for weeks or months. This is something that you really need to look at on a long timeline, not just over a couple of weeks. I know for a fact that a free story as 1st in a series can drive sales to the other stories in the series, and I see a lot of the big-name short erotica authors who know very well what they're doing pushing singles as freebies. They wouldn't be doing it if the numbers didn't work out.


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## o.gasim

KelliWolfe said:


> Before you completely disregard free you need to realize that a *lot* of people go through the umpteen free erotica lists and download dozens or even hundreds of titles at a time and they may not get to your particular story for weeks or months. This is something that you really need to look at on a long timeline, not just over a couple of weeks. I know for a fact that a free story as 1st in a series can drive sales to the other stories in the series, and I see a lot of the big-name short erotica authors who know very well what they're doing pushing singles as freebies. They wouldn't be doing it if the numbers didn't work out.


I don't disregard the notion of FREE alltogether, but do think Kindle Free Days are a waste of time. Setting a title to perma-free to steer eyes to the others in a series is a great marketing tool, but it is different from having a loss leader permanently in your catelogue.


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## KelliWolfe

o.gasim said:


> I don't disregard the notion of FREE alltogether, but do think Kindle Free Days are a waste of time. Setting a title to perma-free to steer eyes to the others in a series is a great marketing tool, but it is different from having a loss leader permanently in your catelogue.


OK, now that I agree with, and it's why I never bothered with Select before KU.


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## Dormouse

I just thought I would do a tiny update.

New pen-name for this challenge.
Story 1 - 30 borrows / 10 sales
Story 2 - 12 borrows / 2 sales
Story 3 - 1 borrow / 2 sales

Story 1 and 2 are part of a BDSM-series. Story 3 was published this week and an attempt at PI.

If sales/borrows don't pick up on story 3 over the weekend I might have to tweak the keywords, blurb, and title some more. 

Together with a erotic romance story that I published last month (my current bestseller) I've actually made slightly over $100 this week which is absolutely amazing! 

Plan for next week: Working on the next installment of the erom-series and writing/publishing more installments to the BDSM-series.


----------



## Fredster

Does anyone else wonder if the grunts at Amazon sit around laughing at our desperate attempts to find keywords that work?

(and possibly at the keywords themselves)


----------



## Lovelife

I was wondering if someone with a some experience in erotica (even if just for this challenge) could lay out good ground rules to follow for covers to keep your out of the Adult Dungeon? 
Like how much skin can show with females and for males on covers.
Women in lingerie ok? 
Hand bras?
BDSM items like whips, handcuffs, ect?

Stuff like that. I'm looking at more of the smutty smut vs the erom or regular erotica. Thinking more PI, Milf, OMYW, ect. Not sure if that changes what's okay or not. I know it's been talked about many times and of course some is just opinion, but I was hoping for a guideline for what's okay at this point in time as I'm looking at pics right now and I'm SO not a prude and don't trust myself on what I think is okay vs Amazon. 

Thanks guys.


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## o.gasim

Lovelife said:


> I was wondering if someone with a some experience in erotica (even if just for this challenge) could lay out good ground rules to follow for covers to keep your out of the Adult Dungeon?
> Like how much skin can show with females and for males on covers.
> Women in lingerie ok?
> Hand bras?
> BDSM items like whips, handcuffs, ect?


WOMEN
Lingerie should be ok, same with nightgowns, and teddies as long as they offer full and complete coverage.
Hand bras have become a quick ban recently.
Whips, handcuffs, etc are not an issue, but how they are used can be.

MEN
Bare chest is ok but hands in belt loops/ pulling waist down is not.


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## Dormouse

o.gasim said:


> WOMEN
> Lingerie should be ok, same with nightgowns, and teddies as long as they offer full and complete coverage.
> Hand bras have become a quick ban recently.
> Whips, handcuffs, etc are not an issue, but how they are used can be.
> 
> MEN
> Bare chest is ok but hands in belt loops/ pulling waist down is not.


On the lingerie-front: Thongs are not okay though. Should be full panties.


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## gswright

Okay, I'm jumping into this with you guys too... except I'm not starting a new pen name. I'm going to use one I began back in 2012 before I received all of those fun letters from Amazon "Blocking" my books. I've released one new erotica book this week, and am going to try and shoot for 2 to 3 new titles a week.

However, starting Monday I'm also going to reformat all of my blocked books to be a bit more subtle and rerelease them with new covers, titles, and blurbs that hopefully won't get them banned this time around. In full disclosure, I still have 13 (of 31!!!) titles that weren't banned, though I only sell a couple a month. When I report my results, I'll keep those separate, though I hope returning to writing under this pen name will get the backlog selling again too.


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## Perro Callejero

o.gasim said:


> Not sure if this will help anyone else, but this is my story and my path to what I feel has been sucess and I wanted to be sure to share it with you all as I am grateful to everything this forum has given me.


Thanks, o.gasim, for sharing your results and thoughts, and for the positive attitude you've had throughout this thread thus far. Your contributions have been encouraging for me. 

I did a 7-day summary earlier in this thread, but I've continued to work on the series I started for this challenge, and I figured I'd post an update:

Title 1 (published Oct 16): 23 sales, 19 borrows
Title 2 (published Oct 20): 1 sale, 5 borrows
Title 3 (published Nov 1): 0 sales, 4 borrows
Title 4 (published Nov 7): 1 sale, 0 borrows
Bundle of 1 - 4 in review (I just hit the publish button a few minutes ago)
totals: 25 sales, 28 borrows

I've got all four titles priced at 99 cents, and I set the bundle price at $2.99. There's been good advice on this thread about pricing everything at $2.99 or higher, but my reasoning was that the borrows were where the money would come in, and the sales would mainly serve to boost rank/visibility to hopefully bring in more borrows.

I've changed keywords around at least four times, trying a different strategy each time (keyword stuffing, going for categories, searching for uncrowded search terms, etc) but haven't seen any real effect.

The biggest results came from promoting the first title on The Naughty List--nine copies sold that day. I've signed up other titles for their service, but they haven't run yet.

After the bundle goes live and I've added its link to the other titles, I'm planning on trying a few free days for the first in the series.

My results have been a bit lackluster compared to some of the other people participating with this thread, which makes me think that maybe I'm not a natural at writing erotica. I don't really feel passionate about the kink I chose to write about either, and I suppose that might come through in the writing. But on the bright side, I have had a lot of fun with this project so far, and I've had three people sign up for my pen-name's mailing list, and the first title recently got its first review (a 5-star  ). So even though the money hasn't been rolling in, I consider this a success. 

Right now my plan is to write a few more scenes and release them as additional parts in the series. And then to write a few plot-oriented fill-in scenes, and see if I can assemble all of the parts into a short novel.

Personally, what I think I've enjoyed most about this is the satisfaction that comes from working in miniature (each part is less than 7K words) and releasing frequently. I'm wondering if I can apply this approach to a non-erotica serial, and if that would be a marketable idea.

Anybody have any thoughts?


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## Dmotley

Sargon said:


> I don't write that much, since I have a job, and of course I can't speak for DD either, but I must say the idea of "outsourcing" my writing is abhorrent and actually absurd (no offense). The whole point is that few people can do this effectively. For one thing, if they are not a native English speaker, then you're screwed utterly. If they are a native English speaker, they would want to be paid decently, and they could just write and sell the stories themselves on Amazon. Just makes no sense coming or going.
> 
> Now, starting an erotica publishing company and recruiting authors -- the way some have done and posted on Kboards -- would be another matter.


Could you please point me to that post? I probably do the same and would like to read others experience. Thanks.


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## Dormouse

For my erotica I don't expect reviews so I was completely floored to see a very nice 4* review for one of my new stories. That was my first erotica-review and somehow I'm very pleased by it. It's rather motivating. Just like this whole challenge and thread. 

Thank you, guys!


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## Kohl_Porter

*waves hi*

This is my very first post.

10-days ago, while I was goggling something else, serendipity landed me in the middle of this thread. I scanned a few posts down, then immediately started reading from post one/page one.

I finally finished late last night.

This morning, over coffee, I scribbled a short bullet list of things I've learned and hope to incorporate, when writing to the 5k story legnth.

Here's my list:

*jump, feet first, into the action
*soft focus setting; keep the lens trained on the principles
*judiciously weave in small snippets of back story and characterization
*make every word work
*keywords are key
*kink sells well. more kink sells even better

The wealth of collective knowledge on this board is amazing.

Thank you all for sharing.

/kohl


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## Fredster

Hi, Kohl -- welcome! 

----------------------------------

Today has been good to me, everybody. I think maybe my last round of keywords were good, because they went in yesterday and today I've moved 11 books so far today, making it my best day as a PORNOGRAPHER yet. I know that's not much for most people, but nineteen bucks is nineteen bucks (assuming $1.50 per KU). That more than paid for lunch at Firehouse Subs for my wife and I. 

I'll just say that my keywords this time tended to the very crude end of the spectrum, and that may have helped. My books have all been just a little beyond vanilla so far. My current project is an attempt at true PI, and I sure do feel skeevy while I'm writing.


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## Rouge Poppy

Hi Khol  

Welcome to the fun, we are having a great time with this challenge. For many of us, me included, it has given us the confidence to get out there and get published.

Sometime very soon I'm going to brush off the 30+ thousand words I've been working on for the last year and look at it again. I'll probably have to rewrite it, I've learned so much from doing short stories.


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## Lovelife

Hey everyone. Another quick question about photos. Btw thanks for the previous photo answers. I haven't had the chance to comment back yet. I used the free subscription to Bigstock that someone posted on here. Before that I was desperately searching for good pics that were free. Let me just say it's slim pickings. LOL

Anyways, I just downloaded my first set of 10 and I'm a little confused. Some of the pics offered an "Extended License" while others didn't. I read (okay skimmed) the license agreements and I'm worried. Does anyone know if you have to have the extended license for use as a cover? Or is the standard okay?

Here's the verbiage they use...

Reg. Agreement: Use Content in eBooks, including multi seat license electronic textbooks, provided that the sales or distribution of any such eBook does not exceed two hundred fifty thousand (250,000) copies in the aggregate;

Extended: This Agreement grants you the right to:
Incorporate Images on tangible products for resale, including shirts, hats, mugs, calendars, stationery items, cards and other small items;
Print, paint or otherwise render a licensed Image on canvas, paper or other mediums for distribution, provided that the print, painting or rendering combines the Image with words and/or other graphics or images and/or credit to the Bigstock contributor;
Incorporate Images within an offline, distributed software program;
Incorporate images into online software and electronic templates such as electronic greeting cards, content management software, presentation templates, web page builders, at a resolution no greater than the display resolution of the intended viewing device(s).
Incorporate Images into advertising materials, posters and tradeshow signage for use in promoting the sale of other products or services (as opposed to promoting the sale of the prints, posters, etc. containing the Images), including Out-of-Home advertising, provided that the Image is an integrated, supportive part of your project or product and not the definitive part of such prints and/or posters and/or other reproductions.
Use Images in magazines, newspapers, books, book covers and/or textbooks, for editorial and/or advertising purposes;
Use Images in the artwork for the packaging of any product;
Incorporate Images on letterhead and business cards, pamphlets, brochures, and catalogs provided that Images are not used as a logo or trademark;
Incorporate Images into set design and dressing for public performance;
Use Images for a purpose not described by any of the above but pertaining to the manufacture, resale and distribution of a product so long as such product does not violate any other clause hereunder, in particular those clauses under Part III.
All other rights in the Images are expressly reserved by Bigstock for itself and its Contributors


Anyone understand this


----------



## Lovelife

Drew Gideon said:


> You want the extended license. It allows book covers, unlimited copies, and you can still use it if you decide to offer your book in paperback form.
> The regular license only allows the use of the picture INSIDE an ebook - not as a cover, and limits copies to 250k.


Well that pretty much ruins my day. Extended is like $99 or something. This is ridiculous.

Edit: Oh thank ****ing god! I just found this on the big stock site: Under our Standard Content Usage Agreement, you may use our images for your eBook covers, as well as in the contents of the book (including multi-seat license electronic textbooks) as long as it is supporting the text and is not a primary feature of the book (such as a coffee table book or a child's book of mostly images). In addition, the sale or distribution of the eBook cannot exceed 250,000 copies in the aggregate. If you expect this will be the case, the images will require an Extended License.

250k is quite a bit of sales so I'll just worry about changing the covers when I get paid. Crisis averted!


----------



## R. Graystone

Heehee, yeah the prices on extended licenses can cause a bit of sticker shock. I think most stock sites allow for ebook usage under the standard license, fortunately, but always be sure to double check.   

In the meantime, I just wanted to say that the first week of November has been really good on the erotica front for me. I need to get another couple titles released next week, but I paused to put out the first part of a erotic-romance that's been kicking around in my head for a while. 

Good luck to everyone else, and now to pop in at the Naughty November thread...


----------



## Dormouse

It seems I made a mistake by trying to upload a story (second in a series, similar cover to part one) on Friday and fell foul of the puritanical weekend-crowd. After almost 36 hours in review the story now is blocked. 

Guess I'll have to contact the KDP-service now. But I won't do that before Monday. And of course then I have to figure how to contact them because why make it easy.

Should be interesting to see what the issue is or if there even is an issue. Or if Amazon stays as vague as they always do.


----------



## Sargon

Dormouse said:


> It seems I made a mistake by trying to upload a story (second in a series, similar cover to part one) on Friday and fell foul of the puritanical weekend-crowd. After almost 36 hours in review the story now is blocked.
> 
> Guess I'll have to contact the KDP-service now. But I won't do that before Monday. And of course then I have to figure how to contact them because why make it easy.
> 
> Should be interesting to see what the issue is or if there even is an issue. Or if Amazon stays as vague as they always do.


They won't tell you ANYTHING. Join Dirty Discourse and post your details there, then you'll know. Blurb/cover.


----------



## Guest

Sargon said:


> They won't tell you ANYTHING. Join Dirty Discourse and post your details there, then you'll know. Blurb/cover.


Yes, all erotica authors should join Dirty Discourse.

Plus, at least you know you'll get valid information from qualified erotica authors who are making it in the industry. Often times the stuff that's posted here at Kboards, for erotica authors, is not correct or it's based on the opinions of non-erotica authors.

(Let's see if that last part survives the moderator.  )


----------



## Dormouse

Just looking at the Drty Discourse registration form and moving some money to my paypal account.


----------



## o.gasim

Marcos Fenton said:


> Thanks, o.gasim, for sharing your results and thoughts, and for the positive attitude you've had throughout this thread thus far. Your contributions have been encouraging for me.
> 
> The biggest results came from promoting the first title on The Naughty List--nine copies sold that day. I've signed up other titles for their service, but they haven't run yet.


Glad some people have been following along 

How did you find your experience with The Naughty List? I haven't done any real pub beside the Fivrr and am interested once I get more steam behind this new series.

Also, how many people have used mailing lists in their work? I haven't but am interested in extending my reach.


----------



## Perro Callejero

o.gasim said:


> How did you find your experience with The Naughty List? I haven't done any real pub beside the Fivrr and am interested once I get more steam behind this new series.


My experiences with The Naughty List have been great. It's free, it's easy to submit your story (a well laid out form, with clear info about which dates are available), the person running the site responds quickly, and I've gotten results both times I've used them (8+ sales on two separate 99 cent titles).

Highly recommended!


----------



## Perro Callejero

Eclectic Authoress said:


> Yes, all erotica authors should join Dirty Discourse.
> 
> Plus, at least you know you'll get valid information from qualified erotica authors who are making it in the industry. Often times the stuff that's posted here at Kboards, for erotica authors, is not correct or it's based on the opinions of non-erotica authors.
> 
> (Let's see if that last part survives the moderator.  )


Is that where everybody went? Or did everybody go to the eroticaauthorforum.com?

This thread is starting to feel like when you're at a party and you step outside to make a phone call, and then you come back to music blaring in an empty room.


----------



## Guest

Marcos Fenton said:


> Is that where everybody went? Or did everybody go to the eroticaauthorforum.com?
> 
> This thread is starting to feel like when you're at a party and you step outside to make a phone call, and then you come back to music blaring in an empty room.


Dirty Discourse is where it's at.


----------



## Lovelife

Drew Gideon said:


> Lovelife - be sure to get a screenshot of the page where you found that exception, and print out the license they give you and make sure it matches.
> 
> You also might want to check out DollarPhotoClub.com. Their images are a buck, and this is the standard license:


The page it's on was on their site in the Help/FAQ section. Someone asked that question and that was their answer. So, I assume it was correct. Why would I need a screenshot?


----------



## TabooReads

R. Graystone said:


> Welcome to the fray.
> 
> I'm proud to say that my eighth title has steam-rolled past the $100. mark on its 5th day live (10 sales, 74 borrows).  I think its success is down to a combination of snazzy cover art, the niche, a strong blurb, and decent keywords. And oh yeah, good writing and steamy sex.
> 
> So more confirmation, it can be done!
> 
> Now I just need to work on repeating that success.


Congrats


----------



## R. Graystone

TabooReads said:


> Congrats


Thanks, it's a bit of a shrimpy victory compared to many of the big shots who have shared their numbers, but it gives me hope.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

R. Graystone said:


> Thanks, it's a bit of a shrimpy victory compared to many of the big shots who have shared their numbers, but it gives me hope.


Perspective, friend. You made "$X" on a work of "Y" words that took "Z" hours to write. How many can say they made $100 on their book last month, not last week?

Comparatively speaking, you've hit a home run!

Now go do it 10 more times!


----------



## Sargon

Marcos Fenton said:


> Is that where everybody went? Or did everybody go to the eroticaauthorforum.com?
> 
> This thread is starting to feel like when you're at a party and you step outside to make a phone call, and then you come back to music blaring in an empty room.


Yeah, I kind of stopped posting here. Sorry. I've put quite a few details on the DD forums. Page counts, results for October, etc. I'm currently averaging $157/day in November...recently had a $213 day...but join DD if you're really serious about all this.


----------



## ER Pierce

Where is dirty disclosure?

Stats so far:

Title 1: Released Nov 1: 12 sales, 13 borrows (12K novelette) 
Title 2: Released Nov 7: 2 sales, 2 borrows (10K)


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Since I began this challenge on October 12, 2014  I have written and published 7 erotic books at 5K each, and boxed my first four. As of today I have sold 21 books and have 31 borrows. On Thursday (November 13,2014), I will publish my 8 th book, which is the 3rd book in the series. I decided on a series because of the advice on this thread. I'm sure my success will depend on many variables, nevertheless, I find this to be a worthwhile venture and thanks to everyone who took the time to give advice and start this thread.

I have noticed that my writing speed has increased, where my previous word count was 2 K a day, I'm up to 5K. Moreover, I discovered that I can publish two 5K erotic books a week. Whether anyone would want to read them is another story. But I do suspect I may have at least 3 fans waiting for my next book.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

I guess this thread is dying a slow death, nevertheless, anyone who is interested, or if you need a good laugh, I published my 9th erotica short on Thursday and my 10th today. As I stated earlier, Thursdays and Sundays are good days to publish. I changed the cover on my strange erotica story and still it isn't selling. I can't give it away.

It appears my 2 or 3 fans are buying my books.  

With 9 books including a box set since 11/01/2014, my total sales are: 15; total borrows: 26, and 1 return  for 16 days.


----------



## batmansero

Random update

Erotic romance

Series one
Book 1 (10/9) 47 sales / 64 borrows / 323 free / 3 reviews
Book 2 (10/25) 11 sales / 36 borrows / 1000+ free / 2 reviews

Series two
Book 1 (11/11) 9 sales / 15 borrows


Erotica

Book 1 (11/4) 2 sales / 2 borrows


----------



## RaeC

Hopefully, I can go full tilt over Thanksgiving break and gain some momentum.


----------



## o.gasim

Marcos Fenton said:


> Is that where everybody went? Or did everybody go to the eroticaauthorforum.com?
> 
> This thread is starting to feel like when you're at a party and you step outside to make a phone call, and then you come back to music blaring in an empty room.


That's where I went. Packed it all in. Still lurking here but few and far between on comments.

With 8 titles out now I am firmly in the hundreds.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

o.gasim said:


> That's where I went. Packed it all in. Still lurking here but few and far between on comments.
> 
> With 8 titles out now I am firmly in the hundreds.


Its difficult to hang out somewhere you're not wanted, so...


----------



## Moist_Tissue

Before anyone else leaves, I should probably present the prize to the person who won the challenge. So who won?


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

Moist_Tissue said:


> Before anyone else leaves, I should probably present the prize to the person who won the challenge. So who won?


You did for starting the thread


----------



## Moist_Tissue

Sweet. I'm treating myself to a coffee and cinnamon roll.


----------



## Kassidia

M. Frank Parsons said:


> You did for starting the thread


Yes! Thank you so much. You have inspired me and lots of other authors to make the leap


----------



## LBrent

M. Frank Parsons said:


> Its difficult to hang out somewhere you're not wanted, so...


Hmmm...

Not necessarily.

Depends on motivation, expectation and level of boredom. (WTFery, Batsh*ttery and Wankfests can be quite...entertaining?)

Of course, your mileage may vary.


----------



## M. Frank Parsons

LBrent said:


> Hmmm...
> 
> Not necessarily.
> 
> Depends on motivation, expectation and level of boredom. (WTFery, Batsh*ttery and Wankfests can be quite...entertaining?)
> 
> Of course, your mileage may vary.


Just quoting this so when the original is deleted, there will be proof it existed


----------



## A.C. Nixon

I also joined DD, there's a lot of good info there. So... I only wrote the one story, but it's chugging along getting borrows everyday. Once I clear my plate, I'm shooting for the dirty thirty in January.


----------



## legion

A.C. Nixon said:


> ... Once I clear my plate, I'm shooting for the dirty thirty in January.


I'm with you on the dirty thirty in January. I'm up to 11 stories since starting in October, and could theoretically hit thirty by December, but I have novellas for my main romance name to write!
That cliff is no joke.


----------



## Steph Ran

Finally! Just hit publish on my first erotica piece with a new pen name:

_His Crew Chief_ by Autumn Ran

Okay, no link. I assume sfw titles are still allowed, but new terms are tl;dr.

Huge thanks to Amber from Ambercovers.com!


----------



## a_g

Steph Ran said:


> _His Crew Chief_ by Autumn Ran
> 
> (Linked when I have it)


Hate to be a killjoy here but you can't link it. Against forum rules.


----------



## KelliWolfe

I finally hit my Filthy Fifty milestone last night. The story had been sitting on my hard drive about 80% done all month, and I finally cracked the whip and made myself sit down and finish the last couple of thousand words yesterday. That also brought me to 180k words for the year, which isn't a *lot* but it's better than last year and I've still got about 6 weeks or so left of 2014 to improve it.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

KelliWolfe said:


> I finally cracked the whip


so to speak...


----------



## a_g

KelliWolfe said:


> I finally hit my Filthy Fifty milestone last night. The story had been sitting on my hard drive about 80% done all month, and I finally cracked the whip and made myself sit down and finish the last couple of thousand words yesterday. That also brought me to 180k words for the year, which isn't a *lot* but it's better than last year and I've still got about 6 weeks or so left of 2014 to improve it.


Grats, Kelli. You're a writing machine.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

KelliWolfe said:


> I finally cracked the whip


so to speak...


----------



## Redacted1111

Moist_Tissue said:


> Before anyone else leaves, I should probably present the prize to the person who won the challenge. So who won?


I would say Sargon is the clear winner. He went from 0 to multiple four figures in two months.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Sargon makes me feel like a total slacker.


----------



## o.gasim

Spot check as I have just crossed a major milestone in this endeavor and wanted to share with the thread that started it all.

I joined this challenge when it was originally created in October and have published 8 works between original stories and 2 bundles. In October I made $30 with sporadic borrows and purchases. Now, in November, I have had consistent sales and borrows every day of the month more than quadrupled my income!

I continue to pump out at least 1 work a week and hope my upward trend continues. My goal fo October was $25. In November I started out with a goal of only $50. Fingers crossed I can keep this momentum at close the year out with my first $1000 month 

_*October: 7sales / 17borrows (~$30)
November MTD: 21 sales / 110borrows (~$180 if 1.33 KU holds)
TOTAL: 28sales / 127borrows*_

Not too bad for a newbie  For anyone lurking who is considering this challenge, I am perfect proof that anyone can make this work. It's all about diligence and keeping your eye on the prize.


----------



## Steph Ran

My _His Crew Chief_ by Autumn Ran got a paid sale from a stranger before KDP even emailed me that it's live (it's still publishing) lol


----------



## J.B.

Steph Ran said:


> My _His Crew Chief_ by Autumn Ran got a paid sale from a stranger before KDP even emailed me that it's live (it's still publishing) lol


Good sign - sure there will be more to come. Congrats!


----------



## Sargon

Half Pint said:


> I would say Sargon is the clear winner. He went from 0 to multiple four figures in two months.


Thanks, Half Pint! I appreciate that. I did well through a combination of hard work, luck, and mild obsession. But I have to say that someone private-messaged me and was doing quite a bit better than I, and I've since seen at least one other person on Dirty Discourse who also did better. I think I was just more vocal with my results.

I got really into it from the start, and got a fair amount of things out in short order and they did pretty well. Over the 6 weeks I was really into it I wrote 92,000 words of short smut. Nothing did amazing, but I had a few hits and things just add up. My technique was mostly to find things that were selling well and make something in the same general concept. So if I saw a BWWM with a super high rank (under 1000 or under 2000) I would make my own. Lots of cross-linking, good excerpts, and of course incredibly good, well-written, thoroughly researched stories! That last bit was a joke, of course.

I started Oct. 4 and by the end of Oct. I grossed $1,600 basically, which I know now that the actual Amazon numbers are out. So far in November I'm at $2,700 and averaging $129/day this month. But I have utterly slacked off. In fact, I've stopped writing short smut and switched to a romance novel. I got very burned out, there's a long post on Dirty Discourse that got a ton of attention at one point (on the Making Bank thread).

Anyway, I haven't written or released anything since the 11th and the smutbux are still coming in at over $100/day average. I'm curious what the drop-off will be. I have about 12 stories and 3 bundles out. Bundles are at $3.99, PI is at $3.99, others are at $2.99. That's just me. Bundles just keep going, very steady.



KelliWolfe said:


> Sargon makes me feel like a total slacker.


Ha! And you've put out over 50 stories!! I'm the slacker in that comparison.


----------



## Steph Ran

Thank you for the update!


----------



## KelliWolfe

Sargon said:


> Ha! And you've put out over 50 stories!! I'm the slacker in that comparison.


Yeah, but I've been doing it just a tad longer. It's okay, though. You guys coming in and rocking it this way have pushed me to up my game. It's been a while since I actually felt excited about this.


----------



## Sargon

KelliWolfe said:


> Yeah, but I've been doing it just a tad longer. It's okay, though. You guys coming in and rocking it this way have pushed me to up my game. It's been a while since I actually felt excited about this.


Hope we didn't steal all your business!

I don't see you on DD. Come on over. You will love it.


----------



## dotx

o.gasim said:


> Thank you to everyone who showed an interest in the erotic anthology I proposed, the response was truly astounding. As it sits now, we have filled the 5 slots for the first edition, but if demand and profit align, I will make it a monthly thing.


I'd be interested too.


----------



## J.B.

I'm doing an anthology as well, if you haven't read about it - here's the post.

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,201330.0.html

Still accepting submissions. Today's the deadline (I'll consider tomorrow submissions).

1000 word flash fiction - theme - holiday PI - Gay and Straight anthologies, need Gay!


----------



## crow.bar.beer

Well, I definitely didn't win the challenge, but this thread inspired me and kicked me in the butt, so I think the least I can do is post my results. 

I published the first episode of my serial exactly three weeks ago, and the second episode five days ago. 
Episode 01: *4* borrows, *2* sales. 
Episode 02: *1* borrow, *1* sale.

The cool thing is that the three sales all happened in the last 24 hours. 

My covers aren't the greatest but I'm planning on fixing them soon, I heavily rewrote the first episode after publishing it initially because it was far too lazily-done and the language sucked.

The way I've done the serial is keeping it from getting a lot of visibility right now; I know if I'd have chosen just one niche or kink and completely targeted it with the cover, story, and keywords, I'd have likely seen a lot better numbers. 
But I love the idea too much and seeing it actually out there and knowing some people are reading it is makes me want to make it exactly the way I want it to be.  I think it's just going to take a lot of time to slowly build an audience - in the meantime I'll write a bunch of other stories targeting specific kinks and try to get the moolah that way, same pen-name to help get the serial out there too.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Sweet Amber said:


> Well, I definitely didn't win the challenge, but this thread inspired me and kicked me in the butt, so I think the least I can do is post my results.
> 
> I published the first episode of my serial exactly three weeks ago, and the second episode five days ago.
> Episode 01: *4* borrows, *2* sales.
> Episode 02: *1* borrow, *1* sale.
> 
> The cool thing is that the three sales all happened in the last 24 hours.
> 
> My covers aren't the greatest but I'm planning on fixing them soon, I heavily rewrote the first episode after publishing it initially because it was far too lazily-done and the language sucked.
> 
> The way I've done the serial is keeping it from getting a lot of visibility right now; I know if I'd have chosen just one niche or kink and completely targeted it with the cover, story, and keywords, I'd have likely seen a lot better numbers.
> But I love the idea too much and seeing it actually out there and knowing some people are reading it is makes me want to make it exactly the way I want it to be.  I think it's just going to take a lot of time to slowly build an audience - in the meantime I'll write a bunch of other stories targeting specific kinks and try to get the moolah that way, same pen-name to help get the serial out there too.


I read your blurbs and I immediately thought it would make an awesome series on HBO. I think you've got a good strategy going with this. Write it the way you want and put out some stories outside of the series to get some more eyes on your catalog. Keep writing new installments and let the interest build. I think you'll probably see a jump in borrows/sales after you've got a couple more episodes up. People tend to be leery of new series/serials these days until there are at least three episodes up.


----------



## Steph Ran

After seven days, my results weren't staggering, but still more than my other works sell, so I intent to keep going Eelkat-style.

_His Crew Chief_ by Autumn Ran, seven day results:
Day 1: 1 Sale
Day 2: 3 Borrows (I assume from DD forum where I'm active)
Day 3: 2 Borrows
Day 4: 1 Borrow
Day 5: 1 Borrow
Day 6: 0
Day 7: 0

I spent $10 on edits, $5 on the cover, and worked about five-eight hours writing (I'd like to think I'm worth $15-$20 an hour, an aspect many authors don't figure into earning out), formatting, producing, and publishing it, so it hasn't earned out yet. I'm sure once I continue the series it'll probably be my biggest earner.


----------



## o.gasim

Steph Ran said:


> _His Crew Chief_ by Autumn Ran, seven day results:
> Day 1: 1 Sale
> Day 2: 3 Borrows (I assume from DD forum where I'm active)
> Day 3: 2 Borrows
> Day 4: 1 Borrow
> Day 5: 1 Borrow
> Day 6: 0
> Day 7: 0


What this says is that you need to have a new release every 5 days. It will take a few titles before your works start to gain traction and "earn out". IMHO though, spending $10 on edits is needless and only slows down your publishing time. A few self-passes should make any work more than passable for smut. Hit publish and move onto the next.


----------



## Steph Ran

o.gasim said:


> What this says is that you need to have a new release every 5 days. It will take a few titles before your works start to gain traction and "earn out". IMHO though, spending $10 on edits is needless and only slows down your publishing time. A few self-passes should make any work more than passable for smut. Hit publish and move onto the next.


Thank you, and I absolutely agree. I let someone else edit it and still had reported typos from a reader. Definitely self-editing shorts from now on. And these are great to do and feel like I got something done. I'm working on my third short, about to publish it, and really enjoying the feeling of regular releases.


----------



## o.gasim

Steph Ran said:


> Thank you, and I absolutely agree. I let someone else edit it and still had reported typos from a reader. Definitely self-editing shorts from now on. And these are great to do and feel like I got something done. I'm working on my third short, about to publish it, and really enjoying the feeling of regular releases.


+1


----------



## crow.bar.beer

KelliWolfe said:


> I read your blurbs and I immediately thought it would make an awesome series on HBO. I think you've got a good strategy going with this. Write it the way you want and put out some stories outside of the series to get some more eyes on your catalog. Keep writing new installments and let the interest build. I think you'll probably see a jump in borrows/sales after you've got a couple more episodes up. People tend to be leery of new series/serials these days until there are at least three episodes up.


Wow, that's so cool you thought that.  
I think your advice is solid. It makes sense that people would wait and see if it's going to actually have something they can sink their teeth into, and I know visibility has been low for it too.
I have some new concepts for covers and titles, stuff that should be more representative what the serial as a whole is. I'm hoping maybe I'll be able to upload a new cover tonight. 
I'm planning on combining the first two episodes into one installment because I want them to end up being at least 10,000 words, still at $2.99.

I'm really happy I published.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

For any interested parties and maybe my three fans,   my numbers for November 1 through November 30, 2014 are:
41 Borrows, 20 Sales, and 1 Return. These numbers are for 13 titles including 2 Box sets. I wrote two series with three books each. The first series sold more books than the second. I think I may have lapsed into boredom or edited the second series too much, thus turning it into a romance instead of erotica. 

I publish twice a week, Thursdays and Sundays, with the exception of this Thursday. I'm not making much money and I'm tired but I'll continue writing until the cheap covers run out, which will be soon. I observed as someone stated earlier, that series do sell, which would be great but I don't know if my three fans want more story or more sex because no one leaves a review. 
I think this is going well because I didn't advertise, I don't have a newsletter, and it's a new pen name. Furthermore, I can still work on other books and pay for covers with the money.


----------



## crow.bar.beer

Hello, quick question for anyone still following this thread.  
Would a cover with a backside shot of a sexy woman wearing a thong be too explicit for Amazon to let through? 
I'm really hoping so because the cover I have around it seems to be a good one.


----------



## Steph Ran

As long as there's no crack, lips hanging out, or camel toe, it should be alright. YMMV extremely.


----------



## Callaghan

Sweet Amber said:


> Hello, quick question for anyone still following this thread.
> Would a cover with a backside shot of a sexy woman wearing a thong be too explicit for Amazon to let through?
> I'm really hoping so because the cover I have around it seems to be a good one.


You can publish it, but they'll put the Adult Filter on it so it doesn't show up in general search results. Any exposed butt cheek is risky.


----------



## o.gasim

Saw Rachel post a status update for November and wanted to share as well. I took the last two weeks off from publishing to give my mind a break and enjoy the holidays but am gearing back up to close the year out strong. My hope is to have at least 20 works completed and live by the end of December.

*For November:
8 titles: 187 Borrows / 25 Sales / 0 Returns*

Not too bad at all. If I keep the 1.33 KU payout from October, November will have been a $300.00+ month for me which is a 1000% increase over the $30.00 from October


----------



## crow.bar.beer

Hmm... by the sounds of it, my cover might be right on the edge. If anyone wants to take a look at it in rough draft form here's the link, just take the space out between the two t's in http.  

ht tp://i1378.photobucket.com/albums/ah114/ashleysnowfire/600_zps3388baa6.jpg


----------



## crow.bar.beer

o.gasim said:


> Saw Rachel post a status update for November and wanted to share as well. I took the last two weeks off from publishing to give my mind a break and enjoy the holidays but am gearing back up to close the year out strong. My hope is to have at least 20 works completed and live by the end of December.
> 
> *For November:
> 8 titles: 187 Borrows / 25 Sales / 0 Returns*
> 
> Not too bad at all. If I keep the 1.33 KU payout from October, November will have been a $300.00+ month for me which is a 1000% increase over the $30.00 from October


Congratulations!  Following your progress has been a nice motivator for me.


----------



## o.gasim

Sweet Amber said:


> Congratulations!  Following your progress has been a nice motivator for me.


Aw thanks Amber. As someone who leaned on the boards a lot to get started it's nice to know I am paying it forward a little bit.

PS: I love the branding you have for your covers


----------



## crow.bar.beer

o.gasim said:


> PS: I love the branding you have for your covers


Cool, I really like them too. But then they started looking more like DVD covers or something than book covers, not sure if I was just getting paranoid but, either way, they certainly aren't the best. I'm hoping to get better versions up this week. The prospective cover I linked to up above is for the next installment I'll publish, the one I have for the two installments in my sig (which I'll combine) is along the same lines.


----------



## Callaghan

Sweet Amber said:


> Hmm... by the sounds of it, my cover might be right on the edge. If anyone wants to take a look at it in rough draft form here's the link, just take the space out between the two t's in http.
> 
> ht tp://i1378.photobucket.com/albums/ah114/ashleysnowfire/600_zps3388baa6.jpg


That is Adult Filter all the way. 

I had a title dungeoned last week because I got a little raunchy with the title words, thought I could slide it thru. Was okay for a couple of days but I had KDP fix the HTML issues in the blurb, they looked at it again and threw it into the dungeon. Rank plummeted, borrows stopped. My catalog isn't big enough to absorb that so now I'm spending time trying to fix it when I should have known better in the first place!


----------



## ScarlettFoxx

Just thought I'd stick my head in and say hi. This thread inspired me to have a go at erotica. I've only released the two stories so far (slow writer), and they're not doing very well, but every little helps and writing them was a good experience for me. So I'm not discouraged.

Anyway, thanks to all who contributed!


----------



## crow.bar.beer

ScarlettFoxx said:


> Just thought I'd stick my head in and say hi. This thread inspired me to have a go at erotica. I've only released the two stories so far (slow writer), and they're not doing very well, but every little helps and writing them was a good experience for me. So I'm not discouraged.
> 
> Anyway, thanks to all who contributed!


Hi Scarlett!  Looking forward to your contributions! 



MistyMNB said:


> That is Adult Filter all the way.
> 
> I had a title dungeoned last week because I got a little raunchy with the title words, thought I could slide it thru. Was okay for a couple of days but I had KDP fix the HTML issues in the blurb, they looked at it again and threw it into the dungeon. Rank plummeted, borrows stopped. My catalog isn't big enough to absorb that so now I'm spending time trying to fix it when I should have known better in the first place!


Darn, figures.  I'm definitely not in a place either where I could absorb the adult filter or extra hassle from them scrutinizing the story too much. Ultimately what I'll have to do is find someone who can take the basic sketch of a cover that I can do and make it a lot better - my Photoshop abilities are too weak to get the covers the way I want them to be.


----------



## o.gasim

ScarlettFoxx said:


> Just thought I'd stick my head in and say hi. This thread inspired me to have a go at erotica. I've only released the two stories so far (slow writer), and they're not doing very well, but every little helps and writing them was a good experience for me. So I'm not discouraged.
> 
> Anyway, thanks to all who contributed!


Welcome to the PG Smut Peddling Room 

I think it took me 4 titles before I could say things were going 'good', meaning at least a borrow every other day, but now that I have 9 released I am usually 'good' for 4-7 borrows a day with a sales every other.


----------



## J.B.

fellow smutsters -

from menage, to foursome and now fivesome

there's another word for fivesome, starts with quint...? anyone know it?

I've got to fix my latest Saddle Up and Ride Me Hard story, cause it currently says (m/m/m/m/f  bi***ual foursome) and that's just not right.

should I just say fivesome and skip that quint word?


----------



## ScarlettFoxx

Thanks for the welcome, guys 

Yeah, I know I really need to get some more stuff out there soon.



JullesBurn said:


> should I just say fivesome and skip that quint word?


I can't think what the "quint" word might be, but I think fivesome is probably better. At least everyone should know what it means.


----------



## Steph Ran

I believe after a foursome it's no longer quaint and becomes a "gangbang". It's also a great keyword apparently.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

If this helps, quinque is the Latin prefix for five. And quint does mean five and a few other things as well. Is fivesome a word?


----------



## DimpDavis

This thread got my but in the chair and encouraged me to publish my first 7000 word naughty piece. 
It's the first of a twelve part serial and I managed to stay on schedule and get the second one out a week later. 

I've only had one borrow so far and have been chanting 'don't get discourage' with every word I write. 
Thank you again everyone for reiterating that it takes a catalog of titles to make a good day. 

I will keep going! I will publish all twelve parts and I will say I did it, what's next?


----------



## o.gasim

DimpDavis said:


> This thread got my but in the chair and encouraged me to publish my first 7000 word naughty piece.
> It's the first of a twelve part serial and I managed to stay on schedule and get the second one out a week later.
> 
> I've only had one borrow so far and have been chanting 'don't get discourage' with every word I write.
> Thank you again everyone for reiterating that it takes a catalog of titles to make a good day.
> 
> I will keep going! I will publish all twelve parts and I will say I did it, what's next?


Hi Dimp. Congrats and welcome.

If I may ask, how did you go about planning your serial? One large story broken into chuncks or a series of self contained tales?


----------



## Guest

If your erotica is in KU, how's your December so far?  My borrows were excellent today and yesterday.


----------



## Steph Ran

Eclectic Authoress said:


> If your erotica is in KU, how's your December so far? My borrows were excellent today and yesterday.


If KU is $1 I made $5 so far this month for three titles. I think I'm doing it wrong.


----------



## DimpDavis

O.gasim, it's one large story arch. 
The premise is the mc is drawn into a world of sexual games planned by a Boss. 
So each serial has its own different sex game and tells part of the story of the mc and the Boss getting acquainted and falling in love.  
Thanks for asking.


----------



## legion

I'm definitely going to keep this up. 
I haven't put out anything new since mid-November, but I'm hoping to get at least 5 new stories out this month and get back on track (current title count: 13, including 2 'boxed sets'). 
Since starting 7 weeks ago, I've garnered over 1200 sales & borrows so far--pretty good considering the short time commitment, but I'm chasing the folks in the 5-figure monthly income territory!
Meanwhile, these erotic shorts have saved my overall income (my usual bread-and-butter has declined in sales alarmingly).


----------



## Tasman

Okay, here are my numbers for November

Book 1: (pub late Oct so entire month) 22 sold : 128 borrows
Book 2: (pub late Oct so entire month) 27 sold : 120 borrows
Book 3: (pub Nov 19 so 11 days on sale) 21 sold : 74 borrows
Book 4: (pub Nov 21 so 9 days on sale)  32 sold : 94 borrows

1 & 2 are part of a series; ditto 3 & 4. Have another ready to publish in the next 24 hours. Book 4 pops in and out of #1 spot in its erotica sub-genre so I'm pretty pleased. Odd that more sales on book 4 (which is #2 in a series) than the first book in the series. I've updated the MS to reitereate at the start that it is the second book in the series. Honestly, I don't know how the readers who haven't read the first book understand what's going on. Guess they're skipping to the smut and don't care about the tiny story!

Happy with these results and will keep at it for a while...but really want to get back to romance series writing.


----------



## SomethingElse

I finally finished and uploaded a story under a new pen name. It's been in review for fourteen hours. It's got me a bit worried. It's a PI story. The cover has no people. The title has no objectionable words. In the blurb I mention the man of the house. 

Fingers crossed that it goes live soon. I'm anxious to see how it does.


----------



## ScarlettFoxx

SerenaBiggs said:


> I finally finished and uploaded a story under a new pen name. It's been in review for fourteen hours. It's got me a bit worried. It's a PI story. The cover has no people. The title has no objectionable words. In the blurb I mention the man of the house.
> 
> Fingers crossed that it goes live soon. I'm anxious to see how it does.


I've had non-erotica titles take ages before, and yet my own PI story took about 5 hours, which amazed me. I think it's just pot-luck, to be honest. Hope it goes live soon!


----------



## Steph Ran

SerenaBiggs said:


> I finally finished and uploaded a story under a new pen name. It's been in review for fourteen hours. It's got me a bit worried. It's a PI story. The cover has no people. The title has no objectionable words. In the blurb I mention the man of the house.
> 
> Fingers crossed that it goes live soon. I'm anxious to see how it does.


Don't worry. I think erotica is "when you finish all the other review work for the day, do those." All three of mine took 24 hours each.


----------



## J.B.

DimpDavis said:


> This thread got my but in the chair and encouraged me to publish my first 7000 word naughty piece.
> It's the first of a twelve part serial and I managed to stay on schedule and get the second one out a week later.
> 
> I've only had one borrow so far and have been chanting 'don't get discourage' with every word I write.
> Thank you again everyone for reiterating that it takes a catalog of titles to make a good day.
> 
> I will keep going! I will publish all twelve parts and I will say I did it, what's next?


Are you in KU for this? Except for on permafree so far, I'm in KU all the way. If you do a free promotion and add a $5.50 Bknights promotion, you should get 200-400 downloads, and follow up sales/borrows. If it's a series, maybe keep book 1 out of KU and if Book 2 sells well (after promo) then make book 1 perma-free, eventually, if not immediately.

The only thing is, perma-free isn't like it used to be. You'll get <100 downloads per day, sometimes <30


----------



## o.gasim

legion said:


> I'm definitely going to keep this up.
> I haven't put out anything new since mid-November, but I'm hoping to get at least 5 new stories out this month and get back on track (current title count: 13, including 2 'boxed sets').
> Since starting 7 weeks ago, I've garnered over 1200 sales & borrows so far--pretty good considering the short time commitment, but I'm chasing the folks in the 5-figure monthly income territory!
> Meanwhile, these erotic shorts have saved my overall income (my usual bread-and-butter has declined in sales alarmingly).


Great success Legion! I'm chasing those 4 figures right now, but am hoping for a high 3 figure December!


Tasman said:


> Okay, here are my numbers for November
> 
> Book 1: (pub late Oct so entire month) 22 sold : 128 borrows
> Book 2: (pub late Oct so entire month) 27 sold : 120 borrows
> Book 3: (pub Nov 19 so 11 days on sale) 21 sold : 74 borrows
> Book 4: (pub Nov 21 so 9 days on sale) 32 sold : 94 borrows
> 
> 1 & 2 are part of a series; ditto 3 & 4. Have another ready to publish in the next 24 hours. Book 4 pops in and out of #1 spot in its erotica sub-genre so I'm pretty pleased. Odd that more sales on book 4 (which is #2 in a series) than the first book in the series. I've updated the MS to reitereate at the start that it is the second book in the series. Honestly, I don't know how the readers who haven't read the first book understand what's going on. Guess they're skipping to the smut and don't care about the tiny story!
> 
> Happy with these results and will keep at it for a while...but really want to get back to romance series writing.


Those are phenomenal for your first 4 stories!


----------



## Tasman

o.gasim said:


> Those are phenomenal for your first 4 stories!


If it wasn't for this challenge, I'd never have known I could write such smut! With the first story I was stuck for three days trying to make strangers screw. "They can't do this," I kept thinking. "They don't even know each other!" So I had half a bottle of wine, sat down at the keyboard and pretended everyone was drunk. Next minute...Percy Filth.


----------



## KelliWolfe

I'll take a bottle or six of whatever you were having.


----------



## LeahEmmaRose

Steph Ran said:


> If KU is $1 I made $5 so far this month for three titles. I think I'm doing it wrong.


I think I'm doing it wrong, too.


----------



## Steph Ran

I want to team up with someone who knows what she/he's doing as their dark apprentice until I'm out of fledglinghood. Anyone making bank want a dark apprentice? I'll format for you for the duration of your tutelage.


----------



## SomethingElse

Thanks for the reassurances. It finally went live. Took 32 hours. 

Now I need to start work on the next one while I see how this first one does.


----------



## sandy27

Hey guys!

I've been really inspired by this lovely thread so I decided to join! Both the challenge and the boards .

I've published my first story on the 2nd and it's been live for about 48 hours. I'm happy to report I have 2 sales and 2 borrows so far .

I also have a question if you don't mind... I wrote a couple of short stories under a diferent pen name a few years back and they're live on Smashwords (and through them on bunch of other sites). They're still making a bit of money, too, though I haven't published anything new in almost 3 years. So I was wondering if I could take those 2 stories down and republish them under this new name a bit down the road? Is that allowed? I'm writing the same genre now so they'd fit right in but I don't want to piss off customers or something.


----------



## crow.bar.beer

I'm a bit bummed because I took a step back this week instead of one forward, and the sales graph reflects that.   I felt the need to go back and combine the first two installments into one because I wanted the first installment of the serial to more completely show what kind of story it is, hopefully to not let any readers hanging in terms of what they can expect out of it.  Got a new cover up too, not completely satisfied with it but it'll work for now.  

Now I need to get back to work on the next installment, a taller order since i doubled the word count for each. I'm looking forward to publishing it next week, ahead of a free promotion I have for the first installment that I've got on a couple mailing lists.  

From next week I want to start writing some stories that are kink and keyword specific to start rolling in the dough.


----------



## pleiades

Hi everyone. I wanted to thank you for all the inspiration you have given me on Kboards to write.

I have a bit of a situation with Amazon. I have 3 short erotic/romance shorts that were published recently. They pulled all 3 titles out of Romance and placed them into Erotica without me choosing to be placed in Erotica.  When confronting Amazon about this, they just keep redirecting me to a page to choose appropriate keywords to get into the subcategories of Romance, which have nothing to do with my books such as menage or love triangle, etc.

Is there a way to avoid being in the Erotica category and being placed in a Romance category instead for better exposure or do I just need to suck it up and stick with Erotica. There are other authors in Romance categories that have the keywords I used, as I checked on searches and they are far more erotic than the terms I used, as I see their books coming up.

Thanks for all your help.

Bottom line is I just want to find out if I can get out of the erotica category and put back into a Romance category and if so how do I adjust the keywords where people can find me?


----------



## o.gasim

Sweet Amber said:


> I'm a bit bummed because I took a step back this week instead of one forward, and the sales graph reflects that.  I felt the need to go back and combine the first two installments into one because I wanted the first installment of the serial to more completely show what kind of story it is, hopefully to not let any readers hanging in terms of what they can expect out of it.  Got a new cover up too, not completely satisfied with it but it'll work for now.
> 
> Now I need to get back to work on the next installment, a taller order since i doubled the word count for each. I'm looking forward to publishing it next week, ahead of a free promotion I have for the first installment that I've got on a couple mailing lists.
> 
> From next week I want to start writing some stories that are kink and keyword specific to start rolling in the dough.


Got a borrow out of me on the new edition. I loved the covers before but the new one is awesome-sauce. I can see it on the shelves now 

Just out of curiosity though, why not leave 1 and 2 up and also have the bundle? I did this with my Slumber Party series and have a huge success with each title. Just some food for thought.


----------



## crow.bar.beer

o.gasim said:


> Got a borrow out of me on the new edition. I loved the covers before but the new one is awesome-sauce. I can see it on the shelves now
> 
> Just out of curiosity though, why not leave 1 and 2 up and also have the bundle? I did this with my Slumber Party series and have a huge success with each title. Just some food for thought.


Cool, I'm _so_ glad you like it.  I did a lot of editing and revising too since it was first released so I hope you like the story itself too.  I never really read a lot of erotica at all, and if I did it was when I was a teenager, so if it works as erotica at all then I'm going to consider myself extremely lucky. 

I think the biggest reason I combined them and wiped the smaller installments is I was worried that the first one didn't give a full enough view of how the story as a whole goes, and that I might lose some readers. Basically afraid that it wouldn't solidly hook them. And as the story goes forward I'll be juggling a lot of separate plots that happen at the same time and it just feels like I need a longer word count per installment to do this well.


----------



## AnyaWrites

pleiades said:


> Hi everyone. I wanted to thank you for all the inspiration you have given me on Kboards to write.
> 
> I have a bit of a situation with Amazon. I have 3 short erotic/romance shorts that were published recently. They pulled all 3 titles out of Romance and placed them into Erotica without me choosing to be placed in Erotica. When confronting Amazon about this, they just keep redirecting me to a page to choose appropriate keywords to get into the subcategories of Romance, which have nothing to do with my books such as menage or love triangle, etc.
> 
> Is there a way to avoid being in the Erotica category and being placed in a Romance category instead for better exposure or do I just need to suck it up and stick with Erotica. There are other authors in Romance categories that have the keywords I used, as I checked on searches and they are far more erotic than the terms I used, as I see their books coming up.
> 
> Thanks for all your help.
> 
> Bottom line is I just want to find out if I can get out of the erotica category and put back into a Romance category and if so how do I adjust the keywords where people can find me?


Once you are in Erotica it's pretty hard to get out. Are you in the adult dungeon too? As long as you aren't in the adult dungeon you will still reach readers.

What are the categories that you added manually? Does your description have any adults only or words that lead to Erotica? What about your title? Besides your book cover those are the normal things they look at.


----------



## Steph Ran

Yea, blurbs are very important to Amazon as far as erotica. You have to make it sound like you're implying the dirty things without actually saying them if you ever want to stay out of the pit of no sales. Pretend you're at church trying to tell your friend about a recent rendezvous you had without getting the people around you ready to exercise your demons or stone you in the street


----------



## sandy27

sandy27 said:


> I also have a question if you don't mind... I wrote a couple of short stories under a diferent pen name a few years back and they're live on Smashwords (and through them on bunch of other sites). They're still making a bit of money, too, though I haven't published anything new in almost 3 years. So I was wondering if I could take those 2 stories down and republish them under this new name a bit down the road? Is that allowed? I'm writing the same genre now so they'd fit right in but I don't want to p*ss off customers or something.


Can someone help with this, please? I thought republishing would be fine if I mentioned my previous pen name somewhere (blurb, book itself), but I'm not sure. I have no idea what I'm doing here XD.


----------



## ScarlettFoxx

sandy27 said:


> Can someone help with this, please? I thought republishing would be fine if I mentioned my previous pen name somewhere (blurb, book itself), but I'm not sure. I have no idea what I'm doing here XD.


I think you'd PROBABLY be OK if you made it really clear, but there might be someone who doesn't notice the warning and then complains. Alternatively, you could simply mention in your books that you have another pen name. Something like: _If you enjoyed this story then check out my other stories written under the pen name XXX_


----------



## Steph Ran

If you don't have dedicated fans, it shouldn't make a difference if you mention your old pen name or not. And revamping books is almost always a good thing.


----------



## o.gasim

sandy27 said:


> Can someone help with this, please? I thought republishing would be fine if I mentioned my previous pen name somewhere (blurb, book itself), but I'm not sure. I have no idea what I'm doing here XD.


It would be very similar to how Stephen King wrote as Richard Bachman until he was found out. Now all of the books have been re-issued as King novels. You'll be fine.


----------



## sandy27

Okay, thank you everyone !

OT -  I got another sale today which  puts me at 3/2. Might not be much, but it makes me happy . Have to get started on my second one and stop getting disctracted by random rl stuff.


----------



## ScarlettFoxx

sandy27 said:


> Okay, thank you everyone !
> 
> OT - I got another sale today which puts me at 3/2. Might not be much, but it makes me happy . Have to get started on my second one and stop getting disctracted by random rl stuff.


Congrats!

I finally managed to get started on my next story. 1k words in so far. Oh, and I set my shorter story (Santa + bondage!) free today, just so I could see some activity on my sales graph.


----------



## pleiades

Thanks for the responses!  I used Romance - Contemporary and Short Stories.

My second book got labeled adult because I didn't realize how see-through the top was, but I got that removed, but it is strictly labeled erotica and will not move anywhere no matter what category I choose.  My first and third books were never labeled adult and were in the categories I chose until one day I signed on and they were both yanked into Erotica by Amazon. I even removed every POSSIBLE erotica related keyword, which has not helped. The titles have no erotic themes. I had some explicit keywords, but those were removed.  Those keywords were used often when I did my research to pull up similar books. I have erotica in the blurb, but the e-mails have never mentioned anything about the blurbs ever. I feel like I have been slapped with an Erotica label that they refuse to remove. I'm not sure if someone complained since they pulled all my books the same day from the categories they were in.

Thanks again!


----------



## sandy27

ScarlettFoxx said:


> Congrats!
> 
> I finally managed to get started on my next story. 1k words in so far. Oh, and I set my shorter story* (Santa + bondage!)* free today, just so I could see some activity on my sales graph.


Damn, I wouldn't mind reading that XD.

And good work starting on the next one! Gonna try to follow your lead today.


----------



## SomethingElse

Well, my new title under the new pen name has been live since December 4 and crickets. Obviously I did something wrong with it because my titles at least sell. And the new one is PI. I'm wary of changing anything for it for fear of it being blocked or sent to the adult dungeon. 

I purposely kept the cover people free and the blurb, I thought, conveyed what it was (PI) without being obvious. Maybe my keywords need work.

I will finish another one for the new pen name and publish that. Maybe sales will start to happen.


----------



## Designist7

Hi Everyone,

I had a question for the more experienced Erotica writers.

When I first publish my short erotica stories (5-7k) at $2.99 I get decent borrows and a few sales out of the gate, but those borrows dwindle as time goes on.

From reading these pages, I presume that this occurs for other posters as well. That being said, I'm wondering how do erotica authors
build up to large monthly income amounts if the only books that are really selling is one (or two) published within the last several weeks?

So far my sub-genres have been Fertile Bareback Pregnancy, Threesome and BBW. All my titles are in Select and I tend to get more borrows than sales. I've got 4 books out so far.

Thanks!


----------



## ketosis

Designist7 said:


> Hi Everyone,
> 
> I had a question for the more experienced Erotica writers.
> 
> When I first publish my short erotica stories (5-7k) at $2.99 I get decent borrows and a few sales out of the gate, but those borrows dwindle as time goes on.
> 
> From reading these pages, I presume that this occurs for other posters as well. That being said, I'm wondering how do erotica authors
> build up to large monthly income amounts if the only books that are really selling is one (or two) published within the last several weeks?
> 
> So far my sub-genres have been Fertile Bareback Pregnancy, Threesome and BBW. All my titles are in Select and I tend to get more borrows than sales. I've got 4 books out so far.
> 
> Thanks!


Are you making box sets with same genre stuff? I'm writing 4-6k stories and bundling 3-4 of them in a box set. People still borrow and buy the individual volumes, but the box sets get way more attention in terms of borrows and sales.


----------



## o.gasim

Designist7 said:


> Hi Everyone,
> 
> I had a question for the more experienced Erotica writers.
> 
> When I first publish my short erotica stories (5-7k) at $2.99 I get decent borrows and a few sales out of the gate, but those borrows dwindle as time goes on.
> 
> From reading these pages, I presume that this occurs for other posters as well. That being said, I'm wondering how do erotica authors
> build up to large monthly income amounts if the only books that are really selling is one (or two) published within the last several weeks?
> 
> So far my sub-genres have been Fertile Bareback Pregnancy, Threesome and BBW. All my titles are in Select and I tend to get more borrows than sales. I've got 4 books out so far.
> 
> Thanks!


I have some of the opposite luck with my bundles; guess I just suck with keywords on those  But with my singles I find that even my first works see a handful of sales/borrows a week. The general idea is that if you have 30-40-50 titles out and get a few handfuls across all of them, plus find a kink that works and stick it in *to it* your sales really grow.

I went from $30 my first month to $350 last month and have cleared $100 easily this month.

I'd love to know the secret sauce on bundles though if anyone is open to sharing.


----------



## Designist7

Thanks Logan!

I was considering doing bundles myself and wasn't sure if I should come up with entirely new stories and keep them exclusive to the bundle. 
I figured by doing so, I could sell it outside of Amazon as well, without being restricted because the individual stories were still in Select.

Do you guys still price your individual stories at $2.99? If so, what price do you have for the same titles in a 3 story bundle?

Thanks!


----------



## crow.bar.beer

o.gasim said:


> I went from $30 my first month to $350 last month and have cleared $100 easily this month.


That settles it, *opens Word and stops procrastinating


----------



## Dormouse

Sweet Amber said:


> That settles it, *opens Word and stops procrastinating


I'm almost done with my current story and what am I doing instead of finishing it? Right, hello procrastination .

Question for those who have experience with bundles. When's the best point to bring one out? I plan to bundle four stories in a series and four or five that have a the same kink but I'm not sure when exactly to publish the bundle. Right after I've published story 4 in the series? Or would it be better to wait a week and then publish the bundle? Any suggestions?


----------



## sela

I've read this thread from the first post and am inspired! 

I'd like to try this over the holiday season. I have a new release on the 22nd but my book is with the editor so I am free to write whatever I want as production doesn't start on my next novel until January 2nd! I'd like to get a 5 part erotica series done and published by January 1st. My novels are pretty erotic anyway so I hope I can do shorts with more sex and less plot. 

A question for the more experienced here -- does a 5,000-word erotic story do better or worse than one that is 15,000 words long with a bit more plot? Is 5,000 words optimal? Are 15K word stories more for the romance reader than the erotica reader? I have a few kinks picked out after some research -- we'll see how they do.


----------



## ScarlettFoxx

I'm currently working on a wife-sharing story where the men involved are brothers, and it just occurred to me that Amazon might have an issue with this and class it as incest. The guys obviously don't do anything to each other, but they watch each other with the girl. Anyone know if this is a problem? Would I be safer changing the story so the men are best friends rather than brothers?


----------



## Steph Ran

ScarlettFoxx said:


> I'm currently working on a wife-sharing story where the men involved are brothers, and it just occurred to me that Amazon might have an issue with this and class it as incest. The guys obviously don't do anything to each other, but they watch each other with the girl. Anyone know if this is a problem? Would I be safer changing the story so the men are best friends rather than brothers?


You can get away with it if it's pseudo, just leave it out of the title and blurb. If they do things together, gay PI, it'll sell better (so I've heard).


----------



## KelliWolfe

ScarlettFoxx said:


> I'm currently working on a wife-sharing story where the men involved are brothers, and it just occurred to me that Amazon might have an issue with this and class it as incest. The guys obviously don't do anything to each other, but they watch each other with the girl. Anyone know if this is a problem? Would I be safer changing the story so the men are best friends rather than brothers?


Cassandra Zara has an entire series about a guy with his wife's sister. I think you're safe.


----------



## ScarlettFoxx

Thanks for the answers, guys!


----------



## crow.bar.beer

Bummed out because I have a 5-day free promotion coming up from Sunday to Thursday on the first in my series and I was hoping to get my second published today as well, no way that was going to happen since I doubled the word count for each installment, so I figured I could just put up a preorder for it, for next week, so I could get the link in the first book and everything... and found out today that the finished version of the book to be preordered has to be posted to them like nine days in advance.    

Ahh well, learning as I go.  At the very least I'm updating the first one with a message at the front and back that it'll be available by the end of next week, with a link to the mailing list. Maybe I'll net a few subscribers... 

I'm excited because The Naughty List (don't think I can post links 'cause I would) will be promoting it being free on the 15th and Prettyhot com on the 17th. Anyone have any experience/results with these? I'm curious to see if I can get enough downloads to bump it up high enough in Amazon's free list to become visible to the readers who scour it...


----------



## crow.bar.beer

Ahh, also I set up a Twitter account to go with my Author Central page, and I was curious if anyone else has one going for their pen name? We could follow each other and branch out that way.  Mine is @ashleysnowfire.


----------



## RuthNestvold

So, after mostly lurking on this thread for a while, I finally published my first erotica story last night -- but it's still in review.  

Catching up and reading some of the more recent posts, though, I'm a little worried about my description. Is there a resource online anywhere that goes into the terms to be avoided so as not to be thrown into the adult ghetto? 

I'm also curious as to what kind of online presence you guys create for your smut pen names. How little can we get away with? I haven't started working on that at all, figure it's more important to get a few more stories out first. 

Finally, this first story is only 4K, and I couldn't bring myself to price it at $2.99. But it looks like a lot of you have stories at that word count too. Those who do, do you price the book at 2.99 regardless? 

Thanks in advance for the help!


----------



## o.gasim

Crayola said:


> I'm kind of waiting to see where the KU payouts are going to be. For me, bundles make sense when its a multi author deal for exposure.. bundling my own works and raising the prices doesn't make sense if it's in KU... they can get 1 book with x number of stories for whatever our payout is... or for free, they can download the first 247 editions for free and you make 247 ku payouts... (I know, dramatic here) but that's where I'm at...
> 
> Waiting to see...


Hi Crayola,

I understand your reasoning here but the audience for singles and bundles are two different demographics. It's like saying I don't need to sell my product in Costco and Walmart cause Walmart has everything Costco does. One's a bulk shopper and ones not.

Make sense?

Don't cut off a potential cash stream.


----------



## Sarah09

How's everyone doing saleswise now that it is the middle of December? Are you still writing erotica or are you burned out? Any more advice for newbies?


----------



## o.gasim

Sarah09 said:


> How's everyone doing saleswise now that it is the middle of December? Are you still writing erotica or are you burned out? Any more advice for newbies?


Confirmation today, $396.00 for November. I'm still 'cranking' it out


----------



## Steph Ran

Sarah09 said:


> How's everyone doing saleswise now that it is the middle of December? Are you still writing erotica or are you burned out? Any more advice for newbies?


November is my first >$20 month and if KU holds steady (Hahahaha) I'm well on track to having my first $100 month from the three titles I have out! Already broke $55 this month.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Since Sarah asked for an update, here it is: From December 1, 2014 I have 14 or 15 titles out including box sets in erotica. 
I have a total of 72 borrows and 10 sales in the U.S. and U.K. with the majority of my sales coming from the US. I gave away last week over 400 books in several countries, which I advertised with Bknights. I don't know how many resulted int sales or borrows. I have doubled my borrows from last month and it is just the middle of the month. 

I have now added 3 more fans which makes a total of 5 fans , to which I'm sorry to say to my fans who bought my second series, that there will be only 2 books because my last book in that particular series was banned in review.  I was never informed why it was banned. I asked to take it down and I was not allowed to do that. 
However, my next series went through OK and book2 in the series went live today. Keeping on schedule, I will publish book 3 tomorrow (Thursday).

Lessons learned: take time and do research on what is permitted to write in erotica. Don't write on a subject you hear about on a popular television show, and find someone to edit your work or take more time on editing.


----------



## WDR

JullesBurn said:


> fellow smutsters -
> 
> from menage, to foursome and now fivesome
> 
> there's another word for fivesome, starts with quint...? anyone know it?
> 
> I've got to fix my latest Saddle Up and Ride Me Hard story, cause it currently says (m/m/m/m/f bi***ual foursome) and that's just not right.
> 
> should I just say fivesome and skip that quint word?


Quintette


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Rachel E. Rice said:


> If this helps, quinque is the Latin prefix for five. And quint does mean five and a few other things as well. Is fivesome a word?


This topic was discussed earlier. I hope this helps.


----------



## Nomadwoman

kalel said:


> Did anyone answer you on this? As I am curious about these two things as well.


THis book that all are mentioning seems to have disappeared from Amazon - anyone know where it's available? 
And this thread really is the empty room at the party - What do you have to do to get into DD? I applied, posted on FB - nothing. I've got $10 burning up my fingertips and I feel like the uninvited guest


----------



## crow.bar.beer

Nomadwoman said:


> And this thread really is the empty room at the party - What do you have to do to get into DD? I applied, posted on FB - nothing. I've got $10 burning up my fingertips and I feel like the uninvited guest


You can post in their thread here for assistance: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,199937.125.html
I think you're supposed to pay and register, and then they'll plug you in. I see they've been saying that they get a lot of people who either register and not pay or pay and not register.


----------



## legion

Sarah09 said:


> How's everyone doing saleswise now that it is the middle of December? Are you still writing erotica or are you burned out? Any more advice for newbies?


Like a fool, I haven't put out anything new in a month, but since starting this whole thing mid-October, erotica has brought in ~$1700 (mid-Oct through November).

Still getting borrows and sales somewhat steadily on 11 of the 13 titles I managed to put out in that month.
I'm not burned out so much as I need get back to my main romance name; I still plan to write both and publish something new for all those names this month.
My only advice: keep writing and publishing--when I put out the first few titles, things went super slowly and didn't look promising at all, but the next few did well out of the gate. The boxed sets have been doing even better (also enrolled in KU).


----------



## Nomadwoman

Sweet Amber said:


> You can post in their thread here for assistance: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,199937.125.html
> I think you're supposed to pay and register, and then they'll plug you in. I see they've been saying that they get a lot of people who either register and not pay or pay and not register.


Thanks Amber - the link was different when I went again to try to register - now you have to register, wait to be approved then they'll accept your money. Unless this was an old link or something. I'll try the link you gave and ask
Any ideas about that instruction manual "How to write erotica in 6 Weeks" anyone - every link on this HUGE thread goes 404


----------



## o.gasim

legion said:


> Like a fool, I haven't put out anything new in a month, but since starting this whole thing mid-October, erotica has brought in ~$1700 (mid-Oct through November).


Great results Legion! Congrats on hitting the 4-figures club. I am hoping to get there myself next month. I completely agree with you saying it's all about keeping the momentum up. I published 5 right out of the gate and took 2 weeks off to re-charge around Thanksgiving. My sales tanked and are just now starting to rebound.


----------



## Sargon

Sarah09 said:


> How's everyone doing saleswise now that it is the middle of December? Are you still writing erotica or are you burned out? Any more advice for newbies?


Honestly, I kind of got burned out/lazy. I have other sources of income so my writing earnings were all just frosting anyway, which allows the laziness to creep in. Also switching to romance and erotic romance. Haven't released anything new since end of November, and December sales/borrows are trending down, down, down. Making less than half what I was at my peak in November. As one would expect. But still doing around $50/day with no effort expended so I can't complain too much.


----------



## raminar_dixon

Nomadwoman said:


> Thanks Amber - the link was different when I went again to try to register - now you have to register, wait to be approved then they'll accept your money. Unless this was an old link or something. I'll try the link you gave and ask


All you have to do is go here: http://dirtydiscourse.com/forum/index.php and register, and then go here: http://dirtydiscourse.com/product/dirty-discourse-forum-access/ and pay $10 (don't forget to include the username you registered under at DD somewhere on the form when you checkout).

Either Scarlet is online or I am, at just about any given time. I usually do most of the account activations, though. If I'm awake, I can usually have your account activated a few minutes after you finish the above steps.


----------



## naughty kim

HI!  First time posting.  I registered about three weeks ago and received the reply email advising me to wait for approval.  So far, I have yet to receive any response.  Not sure if I should post my email here, but it was under the user id Kim Hardwick.  Thanks in advance!


----------



## raminar_dixon

naughty kim said:


> HI! First time posting. I registered about three weeks ago and received the reply email advising me to wait for approval. So far, I have yet to receive any response. Not sure if I should post my email here, but it was under the user id Kim Hardwick. Thanks in advance!


I don't wanna clog up the thread here with DD stuff, but your account was deleted since it sat unactivated for more than 5 days.

So, you'll need to re-register (you should be to use the same name again) and pay. Then, you'll be granted access.

Everyone else, please forward your DD-related questions either to the DD thread or shoot a PM to me or Scarlet Cox. Thanks!


----------



## MouseEscape

Hi everyone,

I am new to Kboards - I came here lurking from Marla's 100 titles in One Year My Results thread which I found a month ago, and I started writing erotic fiction from that. I was looking for more threads to read about this and then I found this one. This is an awesome thread - I looked at the rules, so I guess I lucked out. Otherwise I would have put down my own name. 

Great thread!


----------



## Steph Ran

Nomadwoman said:


> THis book that all are mentioning seems to have disappeared from Amazon - anyone know where it's available?
> And this thread really is the empty room at the party - What do you have to do to get into DD? I applied, posted on FB - nothing. I've got $10 burning up my fingertips and I feel like the uninvited guest


If you followed the steps exactly, you should get in as soon as Scarlett checks her email, if not, sooner. I got in within like an hour of the PayPal notice going to out (tho got in at like #44 and it's now at like 500 members). DD is much bigger than this thread, obviously, but many of the important bits of info in this huge thread are more or less repeated there and vice-versa. This is like the Novices' DD forum. If you can follow what you learn here, you're ready to pay for the rest. If not, you will quickly get lost over there.


----------



## crow.bar.beer

Update time... 

I moved over 800 copies of the first installment during a free five-day promotion. Had a lot of fun with that and reached the top of the Erotica > Lesbian, Thriller, and Suspense, and the first page of the main Erotica category, #16, about #660 in the entire store. It's translated into four new newsletter subscriptions and my first review (four stars). 

The review is actually what pushed me to update: 
_"This book is a good example of why women authors rule the genre of "erotica" books. If you are a man, you would likely enjoy this read. But as a woman, well, I found the women in the book unrealistic. Unless the women in this book are all prostitutes or being drugged&#8230; which, maybe later on in the series there's a plot twist and we find out they are all prostitutes. Could be."_

I love it!  In my mind it's a good thing, I don't want that much realism. Interestingly, half my subscribers are women and one of them specifically commented that they love that it's from a male POV.

Borrows/sales since Nov. 5
#1 - 16/3
#2 - 1/1

Not so great but the serial isn't really targeting any specific kink or anything... just me having fun with my story.  By the end of Christmas break I want to start publishing something unrelated, kink-targeted. I'll publish them under the umbrella of the same publisher and use them to promote the serial too...


----------



## MouseEscape

Sweet Amber said:


> Update time...
> 
> I moved over 800 copies of the first installment during a free five-day promotion. Had a lot of fun with that and reached the top of the Erotica > Lesbian, Thriller, and Suspense, and the first page of the main Erotica category, #16, about #660 in the entire store. It's translated into four new newsletter subscriptions and my first review (four stars).
> 
> The review is actually what pushed me to update:
> _"This book is a good example of why women authors rule the genre of "erotica" books. If you are a man, you would likely enjoy this read. But as a woman, well, I found the women in the book unrealistic. Unless the women in this book are all prostitutes or being drugged... which, maybe later on in the series there's a plot twist and we find out they are all prostitutes. Could be."_
> 
> I love it!  In my mind it's a good thing, I don't want that much realism. Interestingly, half my subscribers are women and one of them specifically commented that they love that it's from a male POV.
> 
> Borrows/sales since Nov. 5
> #1 - 16/3
> #2 - 1/1
> 
> Not so great but the serial isn't really targeting any specific kink or anything... just me having fun with my story.  By the end of Christmas break I want to start publishing something unrelated, kink-targeted. I'll publish them under the umbrella of the same publisher and use them to promote the serial too...


That's cool you got a review. I don't have one yet, but just starting to see more borrows - I used to have my books out of KOLL, but then reading this thread now put them all in. Also, the infomation about keywords heaps me also - also from this thread. I'm going to keep going - I just updated my covers also.

Can't wait until I get a review. That's awesome to see your progress


----------



## MouseEscape

hi everyone,

I'm pretty new to this writing erotica stuff - but I have been doing this for a month and 10 days - so far my numbers are 50 sales for the last month and 30 borrows - everything I have is 2.99 and I followed that book people in the thread were talking about. I am getting more sales but am doing bundles at the moment to take a week break. I had a question about bundles if someone can help me - I have my singles in KOLL, but not my bundles - can I put my bundles in KDP also if both the singles inside the bundles are already in KDP?

I have been wondering about this for awhile. I was wondering if anyone knew or could tell me . . . 

EM


----------



## Going Incognito

Crayola said:


> The author pulled it down sometime during the hateraide when folks here were pearl clutching over erotica and complaining... and google adsense and..... Timing and coincidence I'm sure, but I still have my copy....


It's not the same one, but I did see this:
http://www.amazon.com/Get-Rich-Writing-Guide-Profiting-ebook/dp/B00R8N5RO6/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419091476&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=profiting+erotica+laurie+smuts

How to get rich writing porn.
Oh, and before anyone asks, I just saw it, I'm not one of the authors.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

I thought it was time to thank my 5 wonderful fans  for finding my erotica books, which remains a mystery to me.
I have 17 titles out including box sets. My numbers from December 1, 2014 to December 27, 2014 are as follows:

Borrows: 110 and 21 purchases. I still haven't found the key although I'm still looking and still writing. I discovered that you can give away a large amount of books and just get a few sales on the following books. Maybe my style of writing and the fact that I'm a novice at writing pure erotica is evident, and the readers don't want to waste time reading the remainder of the series. Or it could be any number of variables. Furthermore, to my 5 fans I have the final book in a series I'm publishing tomorrow and should be live Monday.  

I've learned that with every book published, the borrows and sales go up each month, which I'm sure isn't news to most of you.


----------



## Sargon

MouseEscape said:


> hi everyone,
> 
> I'm pretty new to this writing erotica stuff - but I have been doing this for a month and 10 days - so far my numbers are 50 sales for the last month and 30 borrows - everything I have is 2.99 and I followed that book people in the thread were talking about. I am getting more sales but am doing bundles at the moment to take a week break. I had a question about bundles if someone can help me - I have my singles in KOLL, but not my bundles - can I put my bundles in KDP also if both the singles inside the bundles are already in KDP?
> 
> I have been wondering about this for awhile. I was wondering if anyone knew or could tell me . . .
> 
> EM


Hey MouseEscape,

Your question is a bit confusing because you seem to be using terms like KOLL and KDP incorrectly. (KDP is just the entire system of Amazon allowing people to upload and sell books.) I think you are asking, if you have individual stories in KDP Select (so they will show up in Kindle Unlimited for readers), can you then also put the bundles containing those stories in KDP Select. The answer is, absolutely! You almost certainly should do so. But a 2-story bundle won't do much, 3 stories is a good minimum. I price mine at $3.99 or $4.99 and count on mostly the borrows for income.

Good luck.


----------



## Guest

All I have to say about this erotica writing is that it has COMPLETELY replaced the money I lost by not getting my third zombie book out by now.  I don't know that I'll continue forever with erotica, but for now I'm sticking with it until I can get my other stuff back on track.


----------



## legion

Eclectic Authoress said:


> All I have to say about this erotica writing is that it has COMPLETELY replaced the money I lost by not getting my third zombie book out by now. I don't know that I'll continue forever with erotica, but for now I'm sticking with it until I can get my other stuff back on track.


^
This! I am quite behind on my romance pen name release schedule, but in the meantime, the erotic shorts have filled in some gaps. In my case, erotica hasn't completely replaced projected income from a new romance novella release, but until I can get my act together...


----------



## MouseEscape

Sargon said:


> Hey MouseEscape,
> 
> Your question is a bit confusing because you seem to be using terms like KOLL and KDP incorrectly. (KDP is just the entire system of Amazon allowing people to upload and sell books.) I think you are asking, if you have individual stories in KDP Select (so they will show up in Kindle Unlimited for readers), can you then also put the bundles containing those stories in KDP Select. The answer is, absolutely! You almost certainly should do so. But a 2-story bundle won't do much, 3 stories is a good minimum. I price mine at $3.99 or $4.99 and count on mostly the borrows for income.
> 
> Good luck.


Yes, that is what I was asking - thank you heaps. I was worried - because I had stories in KDP, and was wondering if I could put them in twice - but thanks heaps! I have been reading your success and it is very inspiring as well for people like me!

EM


----------



## Sarah09

Are Monday's notoriously slow for getting through review?


----------



## Going Incognito

Erotica is notoriously slow, in general, for getting through review. Plus add to that everyone who is afraid of getting smacked down by Carlos F waiting until Monday to even try. I wouldn't sweat it at least til 48 hours in review has passed. Sometimes even that doesn't mean anything.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

On several of my posts on this thread, I stated that I discovered Thursdays and Sundays were the best days for me to publish. I kept to that schedule but then I decided to test my theory and publish on a Monday and then a Wednesday, and it took two or three days before the book went live. Since then I have published on those days(Thursday and Sunday) and have not had a problem.

However, I've had an erotica book blocked in review on a Monday, which could be because of many reasons. Nevertheless, it wasn't because of the cover because I used the same cover but took out several explicit words and published the book yesterday and in 12 hours readers could purchase it.


----------



## Sarah09

Thanks for the responses : D. I'll stay patient and keep myself occupied writing. If it gets nixed then I'll just change things up to try it get it through again.



Rachel E. Rice said:


> However, I've had an erotica book blocked in review on a Monday, which could be because of many reasons. Nevertheless, it wasn't because of the cover because I used the same cover but took out several explicit words and published the book yesterday and in 12 hours readers could purchase it.


That's great to hear about the cover. I love the cover for this particular book. It isn't scandalous, but the man's eyes are so intense it is quite sexy and it would be a shame to not be able to use the cover.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Sarah09 said:


> Thanks for the responses : D. I'll stay patient and keep myself occupied writing. If it gets nixed then I'll just change things up to try it get it through again.
> 
> That's great to hear about the cover. I love the cover for this particular book. It isn't scandalous, but the man's eyes are so intense it is quite sexy and it would be a shame to not be able to use the cover.


The cover you maybe commenting on is one of my new adult novellas. It is strictly romance. I am using different covers for my erotica books under a new pen name. I never wrote erotica before until I started this challenge and I continue because it has certain benefits.


----------



## Sarah09

Awesome. I don't know if it will go through. It is still in review while part of two of one of my series went through in about two hours. Only time will tell. Probably shouldn't have put dubious consent as one of the keywords.


----------



## Dormouse

Rachel E. Rice said:


> However, I've had an erotica book blocked in review on a Monday, which could be because of many reasons. Nevertheless, it wasn't because of the cover because I used the same cover but took out several explicit words and published the book yesterday and in 12 hours readers could purchase it.


On a Monday, I had a book where I only changed the cover (just a font change to tie in a series) suddenly end up in the Adult Dungeon. So annoying because it was one of my bestsellers.

It might be because I was doing this early Monday morning European time and still ended up with the weekend crowd.

In general Mondays are slow and take ages. Thursdays and Fridays (early Friday) work well for me.

Does anyone have the email-address handy for asking to remove the adult filter? I've looked through the thread and a few others but haven't been able to find it. Thanks!


----------



## RuthNestvold

Okay, I am now officially a convert. I have now published 2 short stories, one the middle of the month and one a couple of days ago, and I already have 18 borrows and one sale -- with absolutely no advertizing or anything. Woot! I don't want to give up my fantasy and science fiction for this, but some supplemental income is very welcome.  I think I will shoot for trying to get at least one new erotica piece out a month.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

I thought I would stay true to this thread because it helped me in so many areas of writing and publishing. I sold 4 of my erotica shorts today and I published my 20th erotica book as well, but I received my first 1 star, however, I've received 4 stars on my other erotica works, and I laughed so much, only because one of my few fans thought to voice his or her displeasure with me because the book didn't turn out the way she or he expected.  

It was the book that was banned, so I rewrote it and got an infuriated fan and 1 star. I was even asked to write part 4.


----------



## MouseEscape

Hi,

Well I wanted to share my months results - they probably are not that great since I have 25 books out LOL- I did not write any PI since I started but just wrote my first one - and it passed the Amazon adult filter thanks to the infomation I got on this thread! thx - I probably should have started with that PI and stuck with it - but I don't know I just kind of wrote what I thought might sell but it did not really sell at all. Anyway today, I have been doing this since mid November. It looks like I am selling more at the moment - at least since the last week I reworked my keywords. Anyway, I am going to keep going. Here are my results so far. I have 13 short stories out - and 10 bundles of 2 and 3 stories. I was following the way it said to do them in the book that everyone recommend (everything is now: "Hard and without protection" LOL in my blurbs lol ). I also redone my covers after I got a bit better at doing them. They look better to me, but not sure they sell better. Anyway you can see my covers at my profile: http://www.amazon.com/Vanessa-Von-Vine/e/B00PTRYAD2/ref=la_B00PTRYAD2_pg_3?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_82%3AB00PTRYAD2&page=3&ie=UTF8&qid=1420344275

I just followed the book with my book names - I try to make them as risky as possible. I still would rather be writing fantasy but don't seem to ever be able to sell any fantasy books. So am writing erotica. I'm trying my best but not sure how well it is working LOL

I use BOX Set 3d for my box set bundles, and photoshop for everything else. I get my stock photos from dollarphotoclub.com - for $1 - it costs like $12 dollars a month though. But I try to keep reusing them - like make close up shots and then wide shots on different covers. It probably is not worth it for me at the moment to pay that much - since I don't sell much, but I like making covers more than I do writing erotica lol

I done a lot of writing in november until mid Dec like 10 stories then got lazy and just made bundles, but am going to do more now - i find it really makes me tried writing what I don't want to write lol - but I'm going to stick with it, because I hate my job so much LOL

These are my results from Dec 3rd to Jan 3rd (only put out maybe 4 or so stories (the rest were bundles):

sales = 54
borrows = 37

Here are my results from November 13th to Dec 3rd:

sales = 37
borrows - 13

TOTALS since Nov 14 - Jan 4:

SALES = 91
Borrows =50

I don't get many borrows, but not sure how to get more - I did put the kindle unlimited keyword in, as it said in the book. Anyway, not sure if I am going to be selling more or less - my sales for the first month were only from 13th to Dec, so it is hard to tell if this month I would have sold more. I will have to do it again when the 13th of this month comes to tell for sure - but I don't think it is that much more. Maybe 5 more books. I'll keep going though - I'm going to do this for a year. Hopefully then I might be able to quit my day job - just maybe, if there is just a thread of hope out there for me lol

here is my sales charts:

from 12 november till 4th jan - http://www.tiikoni.com/tis/view/?id=8923e1a

from dec 4th to jan 4th - http://www.tiikoni.com/tis/view/?id=e569ebe

PS - if anyone has any tips on how I can improve, please do let me know - or even message me. I take feedback well!

Thank you,

EM


----------



## batmansero

I've not released anything since November (due to personal circumstances) but my totals for December are below:

Erotic Romance
Serial 1 (2 ebooks total): 40 sales / 75 borrows / 1,895 freebies
Serial 2 (1 ebook): 19 sales / 79 borrows / 164 freebies

Erotica (1): 1 sale

Seems I totally suck at erotica 

Gonna get back into the erotic romance serials this month


----------



## MouseEscape

April Ryder said:


> I've not released anything since November (due to personal circumstances) but my totals for December are below:
> 
> Erotic Romance
> Serial 1 (2 ebooks total): 40 sales / 75 borrows / 1,895 freebies
> Serial 2 (1 ebook): 19 sales / 79 borrows / 164 freebies
> 
> Erotica (1): 1 sale
> 
> Seems I totally suck at erotica
> 
> Gonna get back into the erotic romance serials this month


Those are awesome romance numbers (awesome borrows!!) - I want to write romance erotica - I think to be honest, I would enjoy that more than where I am right now. I think I would like to move there when I get a few more titles behind me like what Kmathew done and stuff.

Also - about what you said about sucking at erotica - I bet you would do really good. But it is hit and miss with erotica I have found. Some of my stories sell 1 or two copies or more, some sell nothing - mostly nothing LOL

Its funny though - the stories that sell more than 1 or 2 copies are always the ones I don't think will sell anything. The stories I write and think "yes, this might work, because it seems to have worked for others" - sells nothing LOL

About your borrows - it seems everyone gets much higher borrows than sales - but not me. I think I have done something wrong. I did have Kindle Unlimited in my keywords for each book, but it might be the rest of my keywords idk. But I will have to try and fix it. Not sure what is up.


----------



## batmansero

MouseEscape said:


> Those are awesome romance numbers (awesome borrows!!) - I want to write romance erotica - I think to be honest, I would enjoy that more than where I am right now. I think I would like to move there when I get a few more titles behind me like what Kmathew done and stuff.


I found it easier to write erotic romance as opposed to erotica. I'm not even sure they could be considered erotic romances, they're more romances with a pay off at the end 



MouseEscape said:


> Also - about what you said about sucking at erotica - I bet you would do really good. But it is hit and miss with erotica I have found. Some of my stories sell 1 or two copies or more, some sell nothing - mostly nothing LOL


I didn't do my homework beforehand so my sub-genre or something didn't work. That's okay. I do have something else in mind to try later.



MouseEscape said:


> Its funny though - the stories that sell more than 1 or 2 copies are always the ones I don't think will sell anything. The stories I write and think "yes, this might work, because it seems to have worked for others" - sells nothing LOL


Totally get what you're talking about. I just put them out and cross my fingers now. I've no idea if they'll be liked and at the same time I fear they won't be. I think this holds me back at times, so I'm just going to suck it up (ooer) and write through it.



MouseEscape said:


> About your borrows - it seems everyone gets much higher borrows than sales - but not me. I think I have done something wrong. I did have Kindle Unlimited in my keywords for each book, but it might be the rest of my keywords idk. But I will have to try and fix it. Not sure what is up.


Maybe it's your prices? Higher ones might encourage people to borrow more...? I have Kindle Unlimited in my keywords but I include them with the genre or other info, like: kindle unlimited romantic suspense. Gets a bit more bang for my keyword buck.

Anyway, I wrote words today! Hooray for hubby--finally--going back to work 

PS: Love your covers


----------



## MouseEscape

April Ryder said:


> I found it easier to write erotic romance as opposed to erotica. I'm not even sure they could be considered erotic romances, they're more romances with a pay off at the end
> 
> I didn't do my homework beforehand so my sub-genre or something didn't work. That's okay. I do have something else in mind to try later.
> 
> Totally get what you're talking about. I just put them out and cross my fingers now. I've no idea if they'll be liked and at the same time I fear they won't be. I think this holds me back at times, so I'm just going to suck it up (ooer) and write through it.
> 
> Maybe it's your prices? Higher ones might encourage people to borrow more...? I have Kindle Unlimited in my keywords but I include them with the genre or other info, like: kindle unlimited romantic suspense. Gets a bit more bang for my keyword buck.
> 
> Anyway, I wrote words today! Hooray for hubby--finally--going back to work
> 
> PS: Love your covers


Hey thanks - I did not include Kindle Unlimited + genre in the one keyword. I'm going to try that! That makes sooo much sense! Also about higher prices - I never thought of that - but that would make sense, when they see it it discounted - I'm going to try that with some new bundles I am going to put up - try them at 4.99 or something. Thank you!

And thankyou about what you said about my covers! It was a HUGE learning curve for me LOL - the first set I done a month ago were like just black with red font on them and two people kissing - but then I just read what I could and got some tips here and there - the golden key was like contast - what designers I read said everything had to be a contast on the cover. Font, picture, colours etc. I am still learning, but slowly getting the hang of it LOL - I try not to spend too much time on them as well, because I try to write, edit, do cover, in one day - at the moment though, I am soooooo lazy!! LOL New Years has made me just sit and look at the computer screen, and then instead of opening MS Word, open Youtube LOL and look at random things while telling myself after this video I will get started - then bingo, the day is over! No writing done lol


----------



## MouseEscape

Just a question - like when your book is submitted, and when it is in review for more than 12 hours, does Amazon like unrank all your other books, and take them out of view for awhile to check them or something? My last book was in review for 48 hours + and my sales dropped away to nothing for three days while it was in review. 

Anyway - this seems to happen each time I submit a book. Not sure why this is or if it is just a coincidence lol


----------



## Davina Hart

I'm coming late to the party - but I just submitted my first short story.      

Can't believe I finally did it!  

Congrats to everyone who is still moving forward with their writing!  

And now...I wait 12 hours...lol.


----------



## Sarah09

NothingsShocking said:


> I have ten titles out since December 10th. Sales and borrows not so great - about five sales and six borrows. I think my stuff is way too vanilla though so I am trying to spice things up a bit. Covers also need to be better, more sexy.
> 
> I am doing this with the sole intention of making a bit of cash - plus I can find out how KDP really works when I release my great novel.
> 
> I was aiming to write three short stories a week but now find that I start to forget my other writing stuff, so now I just release one short a week and spend more time on the novel and serious writing.


To be honest, those are not even decent results for ten titles out since December 10th. Those are really bad results to put it bluntly.

You definitely need sexy covers. You are right that vanilla doesn't sell unless it is a step relationship. If you are writing vanilla things, you may as well just make it a longer romance rather than a straight erotica piece. I still have romance in most of my erotica shorts.

If you want to stick to vanilla stuff and not add any romance then at least make the situations more risqué (if they aren't already) or just write shapeshifter things haha. For vanilla, make it weird situations, which might help a little, such as a girl having her first time with two pilots in the cockpit as they fly over the pacific ocean in a 757. Use some of the equipment that it is in a cockpit to heighten the experience. Have a stewardess interuppt them saying that there are strange noises over the intercom that is worrying the passengers. Might as well have the stewardess join in. Make the two pilots bi and have them do things to each other as the girl watches. Have the stewardess and the girl do things together, so not just her first time with a man, but also a woman.Etc...

Or just write BBW billionaire shapeshifter alpha male things hehe.


----------



## Davina Hart

Not sure if anyone here can help me - I'm not sure what to do.

I uploaded my second book on Tuesday around 5-6pm.  It is still IN REVIEW.  

I uploaded my third book on Wednesday around 4pm and it was live by 3am.  

The book i uploaded on Tuesday is different from my others, and it is PI.  

How long do I wait it out before I contact amazon?  And - if they won't publish it, will it just sit "In Review" forever or with they actually let me know that there is a problem and they won't publish it?

Thank you!!


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Davina Hart said:


> Not sure if anyone here can help me - I'm not sure what to do.
> 
> I uploaded my second book on Tuesday around 5-6pm. It is still IN REVIEW.
> 
> I uploaded my third book on Wednesday around 4pm and it was live by 3am.
> 
> The book i uploaded on Tuesday is different from my others, and it is PI.
> 
> How long do I wait it out before I contact amazon? And - if they won't publish it, will it just sit "In Review" forever or with they actually let me know that there is a problem and they won't publish it?
> 
> Thank you!!


I try to publish twice a week on the same two days. It worked out fine until last week, where it took about three days before the book went live. I published Thursday morning and the book is still in review. If they blocked your title, it probably wouldn't take long before it states that it is blocked. I hope this helps.


----------



## Alice_Avarice

So where do I go to make sure I'm not using the wrong words in the blurb, title, or wrong photo for the covers?

I too would love a copy of the book everyone knows about but me, because I can't find it.


----------



## MarilynVix

I've been watching this thread on and off, and was wondering if I tried it, what would happen. I'm guessing, that a new pen name is worthy since I don't want other titles to get mixed up with previous titles. 

I guess one short story couldn't hurt. You never know until you try.

Is it too late to join in?


----------



## KelliWolfe

Davina Hart said:


> Not sure if anyone here can help me - I'm not sure what to do.
> 
> I uploaded my second book on Tuesday around 5-6pm. It is still IN REVIEW.
> 
> I uploaded my third book on Wednesday around 4pm and it was live by 3am.
> 
> The book i uploaded on Tuesday is different from my others, and it is PI.
> 
> How long do I wait it out before I contact amazon? And - if they won't publish it, will it just sit "In Review" forever or with they actually let me know that there is a problem and they won't publish it?
> 
> Thank you!!


There has been something flaky going on all week from what I've heard outside of KBoards. I updated a title Sunday night and the changes only went live about an hour ago. It's not just you, and apparently the titles are percolating through. Slowly.


----------



## MarilynVix

I've really got some time on my hands to start something. And the something is starting to gel.
I just started a story that involves some girls getting backstage at a concert and rockin' some rock stars hard.
Could just see where it goes. Any advice? This is a long thread, like 64 pages. I've been combing through the really good advice.
I've been writing the spicy romance, and it's been fun. I've been planning in my mind to try erotica.
This might be the opportunity.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Throw it out under a new pen name and see what it does. Can't hurt anything to try.


----------



## Davina Hart

Well, it took 73 hours - but it is live - FINALLY!  Good lord!  

And I'm sure it will go straight into the adult dungeon with the one I published on Wednesday.  -_-  

I have no idea why - there is no nudity on the cover - maybe the blurb was too explicit - who knows.  

Where's the vodka  I need a drink...


----------



## KelliWolfe

I would tone down that blurb, Davina. I'm pretty sure that's what's causing the problem. Clean it up and then email them to remove the adult flag. And make sure you add both the other books to your Author Central page to make it easier for people to find all three.


----------



## MarilynVix

A. Kelly said:


> It's never too late.


Frickin' awesome! I've just cranked out over 1,000 words tonight. Even thought up a pen name and title to get started.

Pen Name: Lynda Bell
Title: Rockin' Him Hard
Plot: Two college girls find their way backstage of a musical festival. Drawing the eye of one of the lead singers, they spend a night they'll never forget. Sharing always brings two friends together.

It's kind of a new adult erotica, if there is such a thing, with one friend being wilder and pulling her other friend along. Couldn't hurt. First try at this. ;-)

Just to note: Up to 2,500 words now. Writing first draft over the weekend. Also picked up book: Six Figures Erotica Author: How I Made Six Figures Self-Publishing Erotica. It's been pretty helpful.


----------



## Davina Hart

KelliWolfe said:


> I would tone down that blurb, Davina. I'm pretty sure that's what's causing the problem. Clean it up and then email them to remove the adult flag. And make sure you add both the other books to your Author Central page to make it easier for people to find all three.


Yeah, I got a little carried away with the blurb, lol. I'll tone it down and give it another go. Hopefully it'll get out of the dungeon.

I added the books on author central - hopefully they'll show up on my page soon.

Thank you!!!


----------



## MarilynVix

Hi guys!
I had a few questions as I continue to get my first story done.

Does anybody have good recommendations for erotica covers? I know that Fiverr was mentioned earlier. Is there anyone in particular anybody would recommend? 

Anybody using a betareader(s) for this experiment?

Plus, I've been reading about how to do an author page. Somewhere on the thread it said we get three pen names with an account. Do we have to publish the ebook and then hook up the author's central page to it? 

Then, there is the info links in the back. Which came first, the authors page or the publishing of your book? I'd imagine I'd have to put the link in the book too. 

I think an on-line formater would work to get me started, or even Vellum. 

Anything else I forgot? 

I've been trying to check through this massive thread, but I get to about page 25, and it's daunting. 

Anyway, I've got a few more days before I hit the 7 day mark. It will be fun to see how this experiment turns out.


----------



## Davina Hart

I'm new to the game myself, but here are my answers to some of your questions:



MarilynVix said:


> Does anybody have good recommendations for erotica covers? I know that Fiverr was mentioned earlier. Is there anyone in particular anybody would recommend?


I'm doing my own covers - so I don't have any to reccommend, sorry.



> Anybody using a betareader(s) for this experiment?


No, just writing, editing, catching errors when I read on my kindle, making changes etc - lather, rinse, repeat.



> Plus, I've been reading about how to do an author page. Somewhere on the thread it said we get three pen names with an account. Do we have to publish the ebook and then hook up the author's central page to it?


Yes, once published, you can create your author central page and search for your book and claim it/add it to your page. You have to do this with every title you publish if you want it to appear on your page.



> Then, there is the info links in the back. Which came first, the authors page or the publishing of your book? I'd imagine I'd have to put the link in the book too.


Publish first, then you get your link, then you edit your book and add the links, and upload the changes. Not sure if there is an easier way or not.



> I think an on-line formater would work to get me started, or even Vellum.


I use Scriviner for writing & formatting. I think there is a free trial to try it out, but it is $25 to buy I believe.

Hope that helps, I'm learning too! Congrats on your first week!


----------



## MarilynVix

Thank you Davina. I'm almost ready to publish by the end of the week. I ended up picking a person off of Fiverr to get started. I may do my own covers later once I get an idea for the erotica style. I was checking into Vellum for formatting. I guess after you publish, putting up your author page and then add to republish is the way to get the link in. I hope it doesn't slow down any sales. 

Any suggestions for keywords? I'm starting to see that this is a new adult erotica story. Anything that you find is helping and keeping you out of the adult dungeon?

By the way, just finished the rough draft this afternoon. I'm cooking with gas. Got blog/website and newsletter ready to link at the end of the story. This will be exciting to launch this at the end of the week.


----------



## Davina Hart

Hey,

When you republish, your book still stays live, then it takes a day or so for changes to go into effect - so it shouldn't be too big a deal as far as sales go - I'm just getting ready to update mine with links.  That part is a pain.  Have to publish it first - then get the new link, then update the others and republish.  

Two of my titles stayed out of the adult dungeon.  One was put in there immediately because of my blurb.  Going to update that today as well and ask them to take it out of its adult time-out.  What's funny is that I submitted my PI story last Tuesday and it wasn't live until 5pm on Friday.  I was freaking out.  I published my other story on Wednesday, and it was live in 11 hours - I was shocked- then I realized they just published it and threw it in the dungeon.  

Oh well...I am 99% sure it was my blurb that did it, lol.  Got a little carried away!!  Ha!

Ugh...keywords.  I'm toying with mine as well, I'm a total noobie so I have no advice about keywords - it would be the blind leading the blind there!  

Good luck!


----------



## SomethingElse

I put a box set up on a Friday and it was live Saturday. I put stories up during the week and they're spending over 40 hours in review. I put my most recent up on Monday around 9:30PM. It's still sitting in review.  I think for the next one I'll put it up on Friday. I've never had a problem uploading erotica on weekends. I know others have said it's not a good idea but so far, the ones I upload during the week take the longest.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Tommy Donbavand said:


> I'm certain this has been discussed before, but I've scoured the thread and can't find the info I'm after.
> 
> Can anyone recommend a couple of cheap stock photo sites with images that can be used for erotica covers? I've decided to dip my toe (if not other body parts) in the water and give it a try - but I want to keep costs low to begin with, hence doing my own covers.
> 
> Or, can anyone recommend a designer they've been using on Fiverr? Feel free to PM me if you'd rather not discuss it here.
> 
> Thanks in advance


Hi, try Deposit Photos and Shutter Stock if you are going to design your own covers. I hope this helps.


----------



## MarilynVix

Tommy Donbavand said:


> I'm certain this has been discussed before, but I've scoured the thread and can't find the info I'm after.
> 
> Can anyone recommend a couple of cheap stock photo sites with images that can be used for erotica covers? I've decided to dip my toe (if not other body parts) in the water and give it a try - but I want to keep costs low to begin with, hence doing my own covers.
> 
> Or, can anyone recommend a designer they've been using on Fiverr? Feel free to PM me if you'd rather not discuss it here.
> 
> Thanks in advance!


Here is the Fiverr designer I'm using for my first cover. 
Visual Effect
https://www.fiverr.com/visualeffect

I noticed Shutterstock watermarks on the picture in the proofs. I'm guessing they'll buy the one design I like the best. He gave me two designs to choose from, and two redos. To add an image, it's $10 extra. So, there are different ad-on options that makes the price go up, but $15 seemed reasonable for what I'm getting.

Excited to be publishing soon. I even have a newsletter sign-up and website on Wordpress to add as links in the back matter. Hopefully this will give me a good launch in the next few days. I'm planning on doing KDP Select/Unlimited too.

Anybody else going to do sales on Valentine's Day? I was thinking about that as an opportunity.


----------



## MarilynVix

Update: Big moment for me. I have pushed the publish button. OMG! I wrote an erotica short story in a week, and have published. Now, just the dreaded 12 hour waiting period to see what happens. *Positive thoughts I don't end up in the dungeon.

I'm guessing once it's published, I can put it in KDP select. This will be my first book in select.

Taking a break rest of day to prepare for the next story in the series.   For now, a little celebration. 

Info to note:

Rockin' Him Hard
by Lynda Belle

Brief Description:
Two college girls go after the dream of getting back stage and hooking up with their rockstar idols. Sweet Fire has come to town, and being in the front row isn't enough. Michelle dares Shelly to get them backstage. She delivers, and more. They take the limo with the band to the after party. What can happen? The best night of their lives, and there's nothing stronger for friends than sharing a secret. Shelly and Michelle discover that being a groupie is a lot more fun than just doing midterms.


----------



## MarilynVix

A. Kelly said:


> This week, it's been taking 36-48 hours for me. I've hit the button on 2 new ones and updates on 3 others. Nail biting nervousness that none of them run into the weekend and Carlos F.....


OK, so I just checked the report, and it says that it is live-updates publishing
But there is a link, and it's up.
I'm guessing that means it is up and running. Never seen the live-updates publishing before. I pushed the button at 4pm, and it's 9:15pm now. So that's 5 hours. I'm on the West Coast of the US. Don't know it that made a difference or not.

_sorry -- direct links to erotic content is not allowed. Please review Forum Decorum_


----------



## Huldra

alawston said:


> I really have no idea what I'm doing, but I had a go anyway. This link and indeed post may disappear very quickly, I'm being very British and anxious about the whole thing. But if anyone would like to take a look and tell me what I'm doing wrong:


I'll give it a go.

Your cover is not particularly sexy. The colors are bland, and the font nondescript. Play around with the background a bit, though it might be difficult to swap it out because of the way she's sitting. Make the font more romance-y.
The blurb is too short - it doesn't convey any of the raunchy things to be found inside. The point is to get the readers a bit hot before they even click the look inside.


----------



## Huldra

alawston said:


> Yes, yes, yes (so to speak)!
> 
> You're absolutely right. I was so determined to get the whole thing out of the door last night to avoid the weekend review problems I've read about in this thread. It got to about half midnight and I felt the clock was ticking if I was going to get a decent night's sleep.
> 
> I'll take another look tonight, particularly at the font. Are there any (free) fonts that come across as particularly romancey?
> 
> Thanks for the feedback


Swirly fonts are usually good. I like Alex Brush from fontsquirrel, and A. Kelly's suggestions too, but there are many, many more out there. There are ofc other ways to convey erotic romance, but a swirly font for at least one of the words in your title is a safe bet.


----------



## MarilynVix

Since we've been doing all of this erotica writing, anybody up for a Valentine's Day promo? I'm wondering whether a free day promo on Valentine's Day would work to get up on the rankings. Or if there are any websites to promote erotica shorts? A lot of the regular promo websites don't allow erotica. Any thoughts?


----------



## MarilynVix

MarilynVix said:


> Since we've been doing all of this erotica writing, anybody up for a Valentine's Day promo? I'm wondering whether a free day promo on Valentine's Day would work to get up on the rankings. Or if there are any websites to promote erotica shorts? A lot of the regular promo websites don't allow erotica. Any thoughts?


Anyone out there tonight? Rainy day Saturday has me all over the board tonight. Trying to celebrate some sales and a KU borrow. Wahoo!


----------



## katrina46

Rachel E. Rice said:


> Hi, try Deposit Photos and Shutter Stock if you are going to design your own covers. I hope this helps.


Deposit photos is great they're like 1 dollar. eroticastockphotos.com is also good. Great pics for 10 bucks.


----------



## Evenstar

katrina46 said:


> Deposit photos is great they're like 1 dollar. eroticastockphotos.com is also good. Great pics for 10 bucks.


But if you are going to pay $10 for a picture, why not just have a designer on Fiverr do the whole thing for you for for $5? Saving you time and effort?


----------



## KP

Anybody having problems with review time? A couple of my vanilla books are sitting 48 hrs in review?


----------



## bluwulf

I think they are backup or something.  Took 2 days for updates on already published books.


----------



## kliu888

I just found this thread and was inspired by all the messages and very thankful for everyone here for the helpful information. I published a few erotica shorts a couple of years ago without success. I really want to give it another shot but have a few concerns/questions.

Does anyone have books blocked in their account? I mean it's marked as "Blocked" in status & you can't edit it at all. Last year when KDP started censoring erotica, one of my titles was put in Draft & I got an email from them saying it violates content policy & I have 5 days to change & resubmit. Since it was an old title & not making any sales, and I really didn't know what to change, I decided to do nothing and let it sit in Draft. Two weeks later, KDP moved it to "Blocked" automatically.

Then, a month ago, I decided to change price of another old title. It went into review then went straight to "Blocked" without putting it to Draft and without giving me a chance to edit it. I am guessing it's because I've already had one book "Blocked" and this is the 2nd strike so KDP gave no chance for editing.

After reading this thread, I think my 1st title was blocked because of the word "virgin" in title, and the 2nd book because of the cover featuring a female in handcuff - this was OK when I published 2 years ago but now a no-no.

My concern is another slip up, which could very well happen if KDP changes their policy again, would make it 3rd strike and my entire account would get banned.

Does anyone have more than 2 books "Blocked" in their account? Any thoughts on this? I would really appreciate the help/insight.

Thank you all.


----------



## KP

Hi kliu888, no another block will not put your account in jeopardy. Almost all regular Erotica authors have a bunch of blocked books in their account. KDP really don't terminate your account unless you are obviously trying to break it's clear rules (rape, incest for example). Join the party...


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

kliu888 said:


> I just found this thread and was inspired by all the messages and very thankful for everyone here for the helpful information. I published a few erotica shorts a couple of years ago without success. I really want to give it another shot but have a few concerns/questions.
> 
> Does anyone have books blocked in their account? I mean it's marked as "Blocked" in status & you can't edit it at all. Last year when KDP started censoring erotica, one of my titles was put in Draft & I got an email from them saying it violates content policy & I have 5 days to change & resubmit. Since it was an old title & not making any sales, and I really didn't know what to change, I decided to do nothing and let it sit in Draft. Two weeks later, KDP moved it to "Blocked" automatically.
> 
> Then, a month ago, I decided to change price of another old title. It went into review then went straight to "Blocked" without putting it to Draft and without giving me a chance to edit it. I am guessing it's because I've already had one book "Blocked" and this is the 2nd strike so KDP gave no chance for editing.
> 
> After reading this thread, I think my 1st title was blocked because of the word "virgin" in title, and the 2nd book because of the cover featuring a female in handcuff - this was OK when I published 2 years ago but now a no-no.
> 
> My concern is another slip up, which could very well happen if KDP changes their policy again, would make it 3rd strike and my entire account would get banned.
> 
> Does anyone have more than 2 books "Blocked" in their account? Any thoughts on this? I would really appreciate the help/insight.
> 
> Thank you all.


I began in the middle of October and just when my second series was taking off, book 3 was blocked. To answer your question, I only had one book and I couldn't remove it. I rewrote it and took out some of the risqué stuff, where it didn't resemble erotica but more romance, and it was accepted. Now my recent books are more erotic romance than erotica.

I now have 26 titles after 3 month, of which 3 are box sets. Because I don't know what will sell, I'm writing across the board, trying to gauge what I'm good at and what my 5 fans want to read. By some miracle one title made it to # 5 in a sub genre I lucked into. It stayed there for two days, until I received a one star from the same individual who had given me 1 star on previous books. She stated: I don't know why I keep buying this stuff. 

Nevertheless, January results were:
289 Borrows and 60 paid. I only have my erotica stuff in KU. Furthermore, lesson learned: I need better covers and I shouldn't box a series until the sales or borrows drop.


----------



## Evenstar

Rachel E. Rice said:


> I began in the middle of October and just when my second series was taking off, book 3 was blocked. To answer your question, I only had one book and I couldn't remove it. I rewrote it and took out some of the risque stuff, where it didn't resemble erotica but more romance, and it was accepted. Now my recent books are more erotic romance than erotica.
> 
> I now have 26 titles after 3 month, of which 3 are box sets. Because I don't know what will sell, I'm writing across the board, trying to gauge what I'm good at and what my 5 fans want to read. By some miracle one title made it to # 5 in a sub genre I lucked into. It stayed there for two days, until I received a one star from the same individual who had given me 1 star on previous books. She stated: I don't know why I keep buying this stuff.
> 
> Nevertheless, January results were:
> 289 Borrows and 60 paid. I only have my erotica stuff in KU. Furthermore, lesson learned: I need better covers and I shouldn't box a series until the sales or borrows drop.


Or charge more for box sets and don't put them in KU


----------



## kliu888

KP said:


> Hi kliu888, no another block will not put your account in jeopardy. Almost all regular Erotica authors have a bunch of blocked books in their account. KDP really don't terminate your account unless you are obviously trying to break it's clear rules (rape, incest for example). Join the party...





Rachel E. Rice said:


> I began in the middle of October and just when my second series was taking off, book 3 was blocked. To answer your question, I only had one book and I couldn't remove it. I rewrote it and took out some of the risque stuff, where it didn't resemble erotica but more romance, and it was accepted. Now my recent books are more erotic romance than erotica.


Thank you both! Ready to jump in...


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

Thanks, everyone who contributed to this thread. I discovered it in December and I've published more than 20 erotica eBooks here since then. 

My first series didn't do very well. My second series moves pretty steadily and the third and fourth series outsell everything else. No huge days, yet it adds up, and I've been hitting paid subcat bestseller lists. January was my first full month: 53 sales and 247 borrows. About five books published the last day of the month and this week didn't contribute to that total. 

I was concerned about the adult dungeon but it hasn't happened. I read everything in this thread and some blog posts. I just take care with my covers and blurbs. From what I can tell, you can be suggestive as long as you watch your language. 

I've had a few take two to three days to go live. For me, it seems random. I've uploaded at night, in the wee hours, in the afternoon, weekdays, weekends -- sometimes it comes out in a few hours, sometimes more than two days later. 

The second half of January was far stronger than the first, then the past couple days it all slowed down. My last two releases haven't moved at all. I have a new series in a different niche and another episode of my most popular series in progress. I'm hoping those will get my numbers back up.

I stopped in here wondering if anyone else had a sudden slow down. 

Congrats to everyone on your progress and welcome to those just starting. 
Thanks for the blurb previewer.


----------



## MeghanScott

OK...a little late to the party...but I'm up for a challenge...meet George Scott and his first story, Gift Wrap Girls. Just went live today. Interested to see what George can accomplish...(giggle).


----------



## alawston

I added my entry to the spreadsheet at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AqUkg_H5bVPeo0Y5t2ex5lPPS8vzgD46bd_YpObzxUE/edit?usp=sharing but I notice that there's not been much activity on it since October. Has it been abandoned? And if so, is it time to resurrect it?


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Secret Pen Pal said:


> Thanks, everyone who contributed to this thread. I discovered it in December and I've published more than 20 erotica eBooks here since then.
> 
> My first series didn't do very well. My second series moves pretty steadily and the third and fourth series outsell everything else. No huge days, yet it adds up, and I've been hitting paid subcat bestseller lists. January was my first full month: 53 sales and 247 borrows. About five books published the last day of the month and this week didn't contribute to that total.
> 
> I was concerned about the adult dungeon but it hasn't happened. I read everything in this thread and some blog posts. I just take care with my covers and blurbs. From what I can tell, you can be suggestive as long as you watch your language.
> 
> I've had a few take two to three days to go live. For me, it seems random. I've uploaded at night, in the wee hours, in the afternoon, weekdays, weekends -- sometimes it comes out in a few hours, sometimes more than two days later.
> 
> The second half of January was far stronger than the first, then the past couple days it all slowed down. My last two releases haven't moved at all. I have a new series in a different niche and another episode of my most popular series in progress. I'm hoping those will get my numbers back up.
> 
> I stopped in here wondering if anyone else had a sudden slow down.
> 
> Congrats to everyone on your progress and welcome to those just starting.
> Thanks for the blurb previewer.


I had two books in a series waiting for three days to go live and on those days, I had no sales. As soon as the books went live one after the other, I got borrows and sales on those books as well as some other books. It is true that you have to constantly publish when you have a few books. And 20 or so books are considered a small catalogue, from what I have read on this forum.


----------



## KayleaEhm

alawston said:


> I added my entry to the spreadsheet at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AqUkg_H5bVPeo0Y5t2ex5lPPS8vzgD46bd_YpObzxUE/edit?usp=sharing but I notice that there's not been much activity on it since October. Has it been abandoned? And if so, is it time to resurrect it?


Maybe. We've all moved over to the Dirty Discourse forum.


----------



## alawston

KayleaEhm said:


> Maybe. We've all moved over to the Dirty Discourse forum.


I may or may not have already moved with you... but I don't like putting my eggs in one basket when it comes to seeking and sharing advice


----------



## MarilynVix

I've got a few borrows and sales to report. After having my story up for the weekend, excited it's getting noticed.

Sales: 2
Borrows:2

Link: http://www.amazon.com/Rockin-Him-Hard-Hot-Groupies-ebook/dp/B00T8O66L6

Looks like people are coming back to this thread during the week. Any ideas for Valentine's Day?


----------



## alawston

MarilynVix said:


> I've got a few borrows and sales to report. After having my story up for the weekend, excited it's getting noticed.
> 
> Sales: 2
> Borrows:2
> 
> Link: http://www.amazon.com/Rockin-Him-Hard-Hot-Groupies-ebook/dp/B00T8O66L6
> 
> Looks like people are coming back to this thread during the week. Any ideas for Valentine's Day?


Gosh, well done! And I see we're in each other's "also viewed" 

At the moment I'm just hoping to have my second short out in time for Valentine's Day - my writing time is being compressed in the evenings for various reasons, and given the subject matter I can't really use my lunch hour at work as I used to on my translation projects...


----------



## MarilynVix

alawston said:


> Gosh, well done! And I see we're in each other's "also viewed"
> 
> At the moment I'm just hoping to have my second short out in time for Valentine's Day - my writing time is being compressed in the evenings for various reasons, and given the subject matter I can't really use my lunch hour at work as I used to on my translation projects...


Thank you. It's good to hear from fellow writers. You know what goes into just one story. ;-)

We could combine in efforts in promo? I don't think I'll be done with the second in time for Valentine's Day. I'm happy to have the first one done in time. Which one are you that are the also boughts? With all the writing going on in this thread, it seems a shame not to combine some efforts. I've managed to get a blog up as well. We could do a mentions list, just to let people know what we've done. The last thing I would have expected was to be able to do this. Thanks you all for kickin' my butt.


----------



## WDR

I have to laugh, I have certainly failed at the 7-Day part of the challenge. I've been working on my erotic shorts as a break from writing my mainstream stuff, so my work on it has been relatively erratic. One piece, however, has really begun to stand out. What was supposed to be a short piece has grown and will be a full-length novel by the time I'm done with it—albeit a short one by my standards. 

I will say that this has been an excellent writing exercise and I will continue doing it on the side. I think the focus on trying to be concise in the story helps me improve my writing skills and story development. It already has be reviewing my second book, Dragon, with an emphasis on cleaning up the narrative.

When I finally do release the little monster, I'll start posting the numbers as they start appearing.


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

Rachel E. Rice said:


> I had two books in a series waiting for three days to go live and on those days, I had no sales. As soon as the books went live one after the other, I got borrows and sales on those books as well as some other books. It is true that you have to constantly publish when you have a few books. And 20 or so books are considered a small catalogue, from what I have read on this forum.


Rachel, Thanks for the perspective. Glad to know your sales resumed after the stall. Being down 20 percent for the beginning of February put me behind on my goal for the month.

Yesterday was back to normal. One of the new books is popping between 42k to 62k and in the top 100 in two sub cats after a couple zero days. The other new release still has no action.

I tinkered with the listing and republished it. Doing my best to stick to my projects and not get hung up over one eBook. I might redo the cover if it continues to hang at zero, but I take a long time with my covers and have a lot of other work to get through this week. Getting some perspective helps.

That's a good point about catalog size. I saw mention of the "Dirty Thirty" and aim to hit it this month.

Marilyn, Congrats on your launch and reaching readers!

alawston, I agree about having more than one venue. This thread gave me my start, so I'd like to see it continue. Yeah, better not to write these at work. A friend of mine got fired for that and I suspect the sexual content might be why they fired him outright.

About the spreadsheet, I got the impression that after the beginning of the challenge people started keeping their cards closer to their vests. Even though I sometimes have the impulse to show people what I'm doing, keeping it secret has been freeing.

WDR, Starting at any pace beats not starting. Best wishes with your monster. BTW, I prefer to write novels. With short erotica, I get a chance to try many things without a huge time investment.

As for Valentine's day, I've been thinking of launching a new series and doing a couple of free promotions. I'm wondering if launches and free lists will be higher than usual and make it more difficult to rank. Any thoughts?


----------



## alawston

Secret Pen Pal said:


> alawston, I agree about having more than one venue. This thread gave me my start, so I'd like to see it continue. Yeah, better not to write these at work. A friend of mine got fired for that and I suspect the sexual content might be why they fired him outright.


Ouch. Yes, I've done some of my "set-up" text for these stories at work, but none of the, um, mechanical sections  I should have a bit more writing time over the weekend, projects are starting to back up...


----------



## MarilynVix

I've been doing a little digging, and found some Facebook groups that except erotica mentions. Still having trouble finding websites for Erotica. I know they're out there. Here's what I found so far:

Korner Cafe Exposed: https://www.facebook.com/KornerKafeX
Who To Read After Fifty Shades of Grey: https://www.facebook.com/WhatToReadAfter50ShadesOfGrey

I started the second short in my series, and got a few sales this week. I'm guessing it will pick up once I finish and publish #2. It's hard to keep the momentum going. Hope everyone has a Happy Valentine's Day!


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

alawston said:


> Ouch. Yes, I've done some of my "set-up" text for these stories at work, but none of the, um, mechanical sections  I should have a bit more writing time over the weekend, projects are starting to back up...


I chuckled about your tactic of refraining from the "mechanical sections" at work. 
I hope you're getting in your weekend writing time. I've been getting better at squeezing in short stints. I prefer writing the whole thing at one go, yet it's working okay to crack out 1k+ whenever I can.

MarilynVix, Thanks for sharing what you found. I've been meaning to post in the erotica Reddits that allow it but haven't gotten to it yet. I do no outside promo at all.

I only did one free promotion on Valentine's and it made it into the top 10 in more than one subcat, so my concern about there being too much competition on the holiday was unfounded.

I haven't started the new series, unless watching erotic movies as research counts. Finished a new episode for my most popular series. I'll publish that one and a bundle this week and get on with writing the first episode of the new series. I want to write the next episode of my first series this week, too. It's not as popular as the second two series, yet it still moves pretty steadily. I read somewhere that the third and fifth episodes of a series can improve momentum. I have three to four episodes out in each and I'm curious if reaching a 5th episode in each series will have a good effect.


----------



## dianapersaud

MarilynVix said:


> I've been doing a little digging, and found some Facebook groups that except erotica mentions. Still having trouble finding websites for Erotica. I know they're out there. Here's what I found so far:
> 
> Korner Cafe Exposed: https://www.facebook.com/KornerKafeX
> Who To Read After Fifty Shades of Grey: https://www.facebook.com/WhatToReadAfter50ShadesOfGrey
> 
> I started the second short in my series, and got a few sales this week. I'm guessing it will pick up once I finish and publish #2. It's hard to keep the momentum going. Hope everyone has a Happy Valentine's Day!


Help with Korner Kafe. I did the required stuff (like FB etc. and didn't hear a peep from them.) How do you get them to post your stuff?


----------



## Rin

So I put my first up for pre-order today (just waiting to get it back from my editor).

Canva-made cover, spent a whole dollar on it.


----------



## alawston

Best of luck with it!


----------



## eleanorberesford

I forgot to report back here.  

Wrote a five thousand word short. Nothing kinky as such, but BBW older woman lesbian with an emphasis on building self esteem through being found desirable by another woman. This was a way in for me: rather than picking a kink I had no interest in, I picked a heroine headspace that I could get into (low self confidence, the realisation of desire for another woman) and trusted some other readers would want the same.

It's been chugging along quietly being borrowed every day or couple of days ever since, and a small handful of sales. In terms of time invested versus returns, I can see how this would work for me. 

I didn't write another in any case because even a few hours of writing time is hard fought for me, but it has encouraged me to start working on a longer erotic romance novella, with the emphasis on romance.


----------



## alawston

My effort has really not done much, but I've noticed a massive increase in the number of 'also viewed' titles since I changed the keywords. I've no idea whether I've got the keywords "right" or not, but it's certainly made a difference.


----------



## MarilynVix

dianapersaud said:


> Help with Korner Kafe. I did the required stuff (like FB etc. and didn't hear a peep from them.) How do you get them to post your stuff?


I'm still waiting to have my books posted. I went away for the weekend, and have been checking to see if it was posted while I was gone. There wasn't really a time saying when they would post. I'd give it some time, and most than likely, it will show up.


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

Congrats on getting started, Grace and Eleanor!

My numbers are up today, my third highest day since I started in December after a series of lower-than-usual days. A new release and popular recent bundle are helping and nearly all of my backlist move at least 1 unit a day, except for the weird few days when they didn't. 

Whipped out most of the first episode of the new series yesterday and rebranded a lagging series.


----------



## hayley

I've written 6 shorts so far, I started my 7th and loved it so much turned it into a novella and removed the rude bits is now a new novella series lol.

My shorts are with my editor and hoping to launch all at once. I took a month off writing my YA books to write the rude short, goal was to have 20 by end of feb running a bit behind.

I have to say I find writing the rude ones a hell of a lot of fun!


----------



## LolaLightwood

I'm going to give this a try!  I have a story more or less finished (want to give it a once over, maybe add 500 words to get it to 5k) but I'm curious about the cover.

I plan to have a series of these short stories, all with the same character, and I wondered if it would be alright if I have the same cover image but change up the color scheme and what not.  I wouldn't think people would care too much since it's erotica but I'm worried about it.  The colors will be very different, of course, not just a different shade of the same color.


----------



## Stephanie Marks

This seems like such an awesome challened. I SUCKS at writing short stories and let me tell you, trying to write short erotica did NOT make it any better. As in "People will avoid my full length work like it has VD because my shorts suck so much" bad. 

I think that it's amazing you guys are rocking at this challenge. Short erotica stories are something that I would love to be able to do well, under my own name. Oh well, maybe I just haven't found my groove with it yet. *shrug*.


----------



## alawston

LolaLightwood said:


> I'm going to give this a try! I have a story more or less finished (want to give it a once over, maybe add 500 words to get it to 5k) but I'm curious about the cover.
> 
> I plan to have a series of these short stories, all with the same character, and I wondered if it would be alright if I have the same cover image but change up the color scheme and what not. I wouldn't think people would care too much since it's erotica but I'm worried about it. The colors will be very different, of course, not just a different shade of the same color.


After a longer delay than I would have liked, I'm hoping to hit publish on my second instalment this evening. I'll probably be using the same cover image with different text and colours, as I'm really still testing the water here.


----------



## LolaLightwood

My story hasn't even gone officially live yet and I already have a borrow on it!  I find this very encouraging, especially after my longer, more prose-y erotica failed to do anything this month.

As for covers, I think I'll stick to my 'change the color scheme' play for the series I'm working on.  If it seems to be effecting sales, I'll change up the cover image.


----------



## MarilynVix

Stephanie Marks said:


> This seems like such an awesome challened. I SUCKS at writing short stories and let me tell you, trying to write short erotica did NOT make it any better. As in "People will avoid my full length work like it has VD because my shorts suck so much" bad.
> 
> I think that it's amazing you guys are rocking at this challenge. Short erotica stories are something that I would love to be able to do well, under my own name. Oh well, maybe I just haven't found my groove with it yet. *shrug*.


I'd say give it a try, but use an erotica pen name. I'd wanted to try this, but wasn't sure if my following of paranormal romance readers would be into it. But I launched the first short story, and sent out as a BIG secret to my subscribers I was writing erotica under a new pen name. I had some people click the link. So, I think if you try writing with a new name, you can do it. Here are some books I picked up on my Kindle to help me:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OPE4M2Y/?tag=kbpst-20

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00M27OZ64/?tag=kbpst-20


----------



## Stephanie Marks

Thanks. I'm totally willing to practice writing short stories, it's just not a skill that I have ever EVER had. And maybe with time I'll get better at writing shorts, and then who knows, maybe I'll write some decent erotic short stories. But at the moment I'm just pretty terrible, lol. And I wouldn't want to release that on the unsuspecting public just yet.


----------



## NoBlackHats

I had looked through the books about writing erotica, and wondered which ones people would recommend:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/12027/


----------



## NoBlackHats

LolaLightwood said:


> My story hasn't even gone officially live yet and I already have a borrow on it! I find this very encouraging, especially after my longer, more prose-y erotica failed to do anything this month.
> 
> As for covers, I think I'll stick to my 'change the color scheme' play for the series I'm working on. If it seems to be effecting sales, I'll change up the cover image.


congratulations!


----------



## eleanorberesford

Been battling with sick toddler and sick self and my productivity went by the wayside, but I have another story to go for my erotica pen name, because that felt far less demanding and got me back into the writing groove. Waiting until after the weekend to upload.

Meanwhile, the erotic romance that went serious got bogged down in research (it's historical). 

I don't have the focus to become a full time erotic author, but as a subsidiary thing where I upload every now and then, hell yeah. Because I don't have to labour over getting every detail perfect, just be visceral and body positive. And that's freeing.


----------



## MarilynVix

eleanorberesford said:


> Been battling with sick toddler and sick self and my productivity went by the wayside, but I have another story to go for my erotica pen name, because that felt far less demanding and got me back into the writing groove. Waiting until after the weekend to upload.
> 
> Meanwhile, the erotic romance that went serious got bogged down in research (it's historical).
> 
> I don't have the focus to become a full time erotic author, but as a subsidiary thing where I upload every now and then, hell yeah. Because I don't have to labour over getting every detail perfect, just be visceral and body positive. And that's freeing.


I hear you on the time thing. I'm bouncing back between revising my paranormal romance and my next erotic story. Factor in I've been writing a rough draft of a new adult romance on Wattpad, my writing time gets booked up real fast. I'm trying to battle my medical issues that have put me on medical leave from my day job. Keeping that writing pace up is helping me get through this. So keep in mind, if other things get in the way, you can count on the writing to still be there.
Life gets in the way sometimes. But you can pick up again once you get through the latest drama.


----------



## alawston

MarilynVix said:


> I hear you on the time thing. I'm bouncing back between revising my paranormal romance and my next erotic story. Factor in I've been writing a rough draft of a new adult romance on Wattpad, my writing time gets booked up real fast. I'm trying to battle my medical issues that have put me on medical leave from my day job. Keeping that writing pace up is helping me get through this. So keep in mind, if other things get in the way, you can count on the writing to still be there.
> Life gets in the way sometimes. But you can pick up again once you get through the latest drama.


Me too - most of the demands on my time have been extremely positive (a weekend of amazing acting auditions, for one thing), but they still add up to getting no work done at a point where I just NEED to get another book out. Very frustrating.


----------



## joebananas

I have been trying this on my own now for four weeks and I feel like I could be doing better. Would anyone be willing to look at my pen name and give me any tips or pointers?

Please PM if you're interested, I'm still kind of shy about my pen name to just post it here in the open.

Just looking for some guidance as I move into my second month of writing erotica.


----------



## KelliWolfe

NothingsShocking said:


> I often hear that longer works have more success than short stories.
> 
> Novella-ettes of 15k to 20k words selling more than short stories.
> 
> Anyone have any luck with this?


They are two vastly different markets.

There is a market for short erotica in the 4-8k word range that very much focuses on sex, sex, sex - the kinkier and hotter the better. This is porn, pure and simple. Plot and characters are highly optional. The readers don't really care.

Then there is a market for longer erotic fiction in the 12-20k+ range where the readers want a story and characters but they want the explicit sex as well. It's really the short story version of the erotica or steamy romance novel. This market has only really taken off since the introduction of KU.

In my experience the latter seems to perform a bit better title for title, with higher sales and more staying power. However you can probably write 2-3 porn shorts in the time it would take you to do one of the longer titles, so there's a tradeoff much like the one between writing shorter erotica and longer romance novels. It's fairly widely accepted that full-length romance/erotic romance novels are far more lucrative in the long run than short erotica, but there's a much bigger up front investment of time required and if the novel tanks you've wasted a lot more effort. So you have to decide which area will work best for you based on what your long and short term goals are.


----------



## katrina46

Thatonegirl said:


> Most good erotica that I've read (I've also written two but don't want to publish until the 3rd is finished, and about 50 free stories for fun that are just on the net) has about 2k before the sex even starts. Perhaps more plot and character development. What makes a story sexy isn't just reading about tab A in slot B, that's rather dull. The erotic comes from knowing what the characters are thinking and feeling. There has to be build up tension before the release.
> 
> Does she shiver when his hand brushes her cheek, or does she lean into the touch? Does she undress slowly teasing him, is she timid, do her hands shake, or does she rip her clothes off because she is in fever for his touch? Details should help you get to 5k.
> 
> Nope writing erotica isn't easy at all, good writers just make it seem effortless. Granted there is a wide range of quality in the genre but I'd be hard-pressed to think of any genre where that isn't the case. All fiction isn't literature after all.


It's the dialogue in my opinion. All the tabs go in the same slots eventually. The trick to a steamy story is in the dirty talk. Make your main character reluctant in the beginning and then begging for it in the end as it's hot. I edited to say by reluctant I don't mean dubcon. I mean like oh I"m such a prude I could never do that, but in the end she just can't resist doing that. I also add outside motivation to help them get over the initial reluctance. Like you have to do this if you want this job. But it's always clear they'd do it anyway. But adding the outside motivation can get you through a thousand words or so, since they have to go through somewhat of an inner struggle before agreeing. It works for me so I thought I'd throw it out there.


----------



## katrina46

KelliWolfe said:


> They are two vastly different markets.
> 
> There is a market for short erotica in the 4-8k word range that very much focuses on sex, sex, sex - the kinkier and hotter the better. This is porn, pure and simple. Plot and characters are highly optional. The readers don't really care.
> 
> Then there is a market for longer erotic fiction in the 12-20k+ range where the readers want a story and characters but they want the explicit sex as well. It's really the short story version of the erotica or steamy romance novel. This market has only really taken off since the introduction of KU.
> 
> In my experience the latter seems to perform a bit better title for title, with higher sales and more staying power. However you can probably write 2-3 porn shorts in the time it would take you to do one of the longer titles, so there's a tradeoff much like the one between writing shorter erotica and longer romance novels. It's fairly widely accepted that full-length romance/erotic romance novels are far more lucrative in the long run than short erotica, but there's a much bigger up front investment of time required and if the novel tanks you've wasted a lot more effort. So you have to decide which area will work best for you based on what your long and short term goals are.


This is what I always thought, but the other day I got a 1 star because my 5k story didn't have enough plot and did have too much smut. I was like, how much story can I do in 5k without sacrificing the reason most readers are buying this? I've also been told my 15k stuff belongs in romance because it has a story, so I guess it's all about what each reader is expecting. Most of my readers seem to appreciate me not slowing my 4-5k stuff down with too much story, though. I write these the most because I can be more prolific and I believe the smut sells more. My biggest seller is 3500k words with very little story at all. I think my problem is that I write both depending on my mood. People who enjoyed my 15k story are like oh, she has this new short story. I loved the characters in the last one. Wait, this is pure smut. Then the smut lovers are like oh, she has a longer one. I bet it's ten times more smutty. Wait, what the hell? Is this a love story I'm reading?


----------



## batmansero

katrina46 said:


> This is what I always thought, but the other day I got a 1 star because my 5k story didn't have enough plot and did have too much smut. I was like, how much story can I do in 5k without sacrificing the reason most readers are buying this? I've also been told my 15k stuff belongs in romance because it has a story, so I guess it's all about what each reader is expecting. Most of my readers seem to appreciate me not slowing my 4-5k stuff down with too much story, though. I write these the most because I can be more prolific and I believe the smut sells more. My biggest seller is 3500k words with very little story at all. I think my problem is that I write both depending on my mood. People who enjoyed my 15k story are like oh, she has this new short story. I loved the characters in the last one. Wait, this is pure smut. Then the smut lovers are like oh, she has a longer one. I bet it's ten times more smutty. Wait, what the hell? Is this a love story I'm reading?


Have you considered creating another pen name? You could set up one pen name for the longer stories and keep the smut with the other pen name. This way those who expect there to be an actual story/romance aren't put off by the short smut and vice versa.


----------



## crow.bar.beer

KelliWolfe said:


> In my experience the latter seems to perform a bit better title for title, with higher sales and more staying power. However you can probably write 2-3 porn shorts in the time it would take you to do one of the longer titles, so there's a tradeoff much like the one between writing shorter erotica and longer romance novels. It's fairly widely accepted that full-length romance/erotic romance novels are far more lucrative in the long run than short erotica, but there's a much bigger up front investment of time required and if the novel tanks you've wasted a lot more effort. So you have to decide which area will work best for you based on what your long and short term goals are.


This is _exactly_ where I'm at right now, this specific crossroads you're discussing.  I'm trying to push myself so that, in three months time, I'll be making enough to cover all the costs of living and then a little bit more on top, and to do it it'll be necessary to break into longer works to make more income to be capable of achieving it, because the sheer volume of short works that would be required is just too insane. 

Or if there were a way to pull in more money per short story, that'd work too I suppose... I've found a pretty nice niche for me to work in but the upper end it would seem for a single 5k story to pull in is about $100 over two months (it's still earning well, still on the first page of search results for the main keyword). The lower end would seem to be about $40 (actually that story has only been available for a month and a half but the sales/borrows have already pretty much tapered off). I have two more stories that have each been available for only a week (I've been upping the daily word count like mad to fulfill my goal ) and they've each already brought in $20.

So my guess is that for my niche I can expect to average at least around $50 per 5k story (I do expect to refine my marketing/writing skills to boost that average a bit per story, but I'm also comparing to how the other competing titles perform in sales rank + keyword search stickiness), which is something I'm immensely happy about but life says it's not enough.  I'd have to make 10-14x as much each month and not only would that take like 50 new titles every month, it's hard to imagine that the niche would support such an influx and the sales would cannibalize each other. 

My thought is perhaps other niches can bring in a higher average per story, but the problem I've observed in targeting some of the other much bigger keyword sets (with the same stories, my niche plus bondage for example) is that I simply can't get enough visibility in the keyword search results to start getting sales through that audience. One possible avenue I'm considering is to try to take a series approach with the first permafree and the rest in KU of course because I've noticed that the permafree titles are more able to launch up to the top...

But ultimately I don't want to get stuck in an endless cycle of having to churn out so many short stories each month, so I've started a romance novel and have a solid idea for a thriller series, but like you say it's a much bigger, riskier time investment and, being new to this and not an expert in romance, it's pretty daunting. But now I'm intrigued by what you've said about novellas... I had stumbled across a few erotic romance novella series through Bookbub, both were billionaire + BDSM style, and judging by the amount of reviews they'd amassed, they must've been pretty lucrative (not to mention the authors considered it worthwhile to pipe them through Bookbub).

I figure if I was able to make happen what I've already made happen, there's no reason I can't get to this next stage, build a nice solid base camp, and then prepare to triple the income from there.  My three areas of focus to make all this happen are 1.) *Write to market*, 2.) Write prolifically (right now I'm averaging 2-3k a day when I'm in full productive swing, I'm trying to get up to 10k a day), and 3.) Hone my marketing skills to Don Draper-level.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Amber, I've got an MFM erom short that I wrote back in 2012 as a PI and then rewrote last June as a more vanilla story with all the PI elements removed that still pulls in over $300 a month, and the friends-to-lovers erom I put into KU in September is beating the hell out of the PIs that went in a month later. Longer eroms now form a consistent part of my writing effort because they do add much more consistently to my income every month.

As for income / book, I've found that long term the average is around $100 / month, but it's extremely unequal. The "hits" tend to do most of the work, while the other titles do maybe a copy a day across all sales channels. The overall number rises as you get more titles in your catalog as sales tend to feed each other and you show up in more searches, but the effect is much, much less consistent than it was a year or two ago because there are so many more titles already in the market and a thousand new ones a day. The hardest part is making your work stand out from everything else out there.


----------



## MarilynVix

Sweet Amber said:


> This is _exactly_ where I'm at right now, this specific crossroads you're discussing.  I'm trying to push myself so that, in three months time, I'll be making enough to cover all the costs of living and then a little bit more on top, and to do it it'll be necessary to break into longer works to make more income to be capable of achieving it, because the sheer volume of short works that would be required is just too insane.
> 
> Or if there were a way to pull in more money per short story, that'd work too I suppose... I've found a pretty nice niche for me to work in but the upper end it would seem for a single 5k story to pull in is about $100 over two months (it's still earning well, still on the first page of search results for the main keyword). The lower end would seem to be about $40 (actually that story has only been available for a month and a half but the sales/borrows have already pretty much tapered off). I have two more stories that have each been available for only a week (I've been upping the daily word count like mad to fulfill my goal ) and they've each already brought in $20.
> 
> So my guess is that for my niche I can expect to average at least around $50 per 5k story (I do expect to refine my marketing/writing skills to boost that average a bit per story, but I'm also comparing to how the other competing titles perform in sales rank + keyword search stickiness), which is something I'm immensely happy about but life says it's not enough.  I'd have to make 10-14x as much each month and not only would that take like 50 new titles every month, it's hard to imagine that the niche would support such an influx and the sales would cannibalize each other.
> 
> My thought is perhaps other niches can bring in a higher average per story, but the problem I've observed in targeting some of the other much bigger keyword sets (with the same stories, my niche plus bondage for example) is that I simply can't get enough visibility in the keyword search results to start getting sales through that audience. One possible avenue I'm considering is to try to take a series approach with the first permafree and the rest in KU of course because I've noticed that the permafree titles are more able to launch up to the top...
> 
> But ultimately I don't want to get stuck in an endless cycle of having to churn out so many short stories each month, so I've started a romance novel and have a solid idea for a thriller series, but like you say it's a much bigger, riskier time investment and, being new to this and not an expert in romance, it's pretty daunting. But now I'm intrigued by what you've said about novellas... I had stumbled across a few erotic romance novella series through Bookbub, both were billionaire + BDSM style, and judging by the amount of reviews they'd amassed, they must've been pretty lucrative (not to mention the authors considered it worthwhile to pipe them through Bookbub).
> 
> I figure if I was able to make happen what I've already made happen, there's no reason I can't get to this next stage, build a nice solid base camp, and then prepare to triple the income from there.  My three areas of focus to make all this happen are 1.) *Write to market*, 2.) Write prolifically (right now I'm averaging 2-3k a day when I'm in full productive swing, I'm trying to get up to 10k a day), and 3.) Hone my marketing skills to Don Draper-level.


I'm with you on getting that writing speed up. I've just finished the first draft of my second short. I figure putting them all together into a box set will sell as well. I'm noticing tons of anthology shorts selling big too. I'm only about that 1k-2k a day mark. And working on other projects with my paranormal romance pen name. So, it's a big experiment. I figure more titles will feed onto each other. I did send out the secret to my newsletter I'm writing erotica under another pen name. Got some interest clicks that way. I wonder if there is a half way mark. 50% story/50% sex. Hmm. Makes you wonder.

Of course, sometimes I just write and let it just flow. Might work better in the long run to just get some stories under my belt and see what happens. But after 3 weeks at this, I'm hoping to have a pick up of sales when the next story releases at the end of the week.


----------



## alawston

I finally got my second short finished, and it's "in review" with our friends at Amazon. I've seen 4 borrows and 1 sale so far on the first episode, so I'm hoping to at least equal that, and hopefully see some more interest in the first book. Once the third one is out, I think that's the point at which I'll review and decide whether this is really for me.


----------



## crow.bar.beer

KelliWolfe said:


> Amber, I've got an MFM erom short that I wrote back in 2012 as a PI and then rewrote last June as a more vanilla story with all the PI elements removed that still pulls in over $300 a month, and the friends-to-lovers erom I put into KU in September is beating the hell out of the PIs that went in a month later. Longer eroms now form a consistent part of my writing effort because they do add much more consistently to my income every month.


That's really interesting... have you found that it's harder to get visibility with the novellas that aren't targeting a specific kink, that you have to fight for it more? That's the one concern I'm having about transitioning to longer, more romance-orientated stories, if keywords alone are enough to get visibility or if it requires a more complex strategy.


----------



## crow.bar.beer

MarilynVix said:


> I'm with you on getting that writing speed up. I've just finished the first draft of my second short. I figure putting them all together into a box set will sell as well. I'm noticing tons of anthology shorts selling big too. I'm only about that 1k-2k a day mark. And working on other projects with my paranormal romance pen name. So, it's a big experiment. I figure more titles will feed onto each other. I did send out the secret to my newsletter I'm writing erotica under another pen name. Got some interest clicks that way. I wonder if there is a half way mark. 50% story/50% sex. Hmm. Makes you wonder.


It definitely isn't the easiest to make the adjustment to consistently writing a lot more every day; there's a lot of individual processes the brain has to juggle to make it all happen and it takes time for it even chemically to make the right connections and pathways to support that kind of constant output.  I just try to feed it plenty of coffee and hope for the best. 

I think with my stories, I usually get them around 5 or 6k, it's probably a ratio of 25% story/75% sex. I use the first quarter to set the stage, develop the characterization and the circumstance, build up some tension and then get to the sex. It's important to get the first quarter right so you've immersed the reader enough in the character that the story obtains a decent degree of realism. Without that, the sex isn't really going to do much for anyone, it'll be lifeless.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Sweet Amber said:


> That's really interesting... have you found that it's harder to get visibility with the novellas that aren't targeting a specific kink, that you have to fight for it more? That's the one concern I'm having about transitioning to longer, more romance-orientated stories, if keywords alone are enough to get visibility or if it requires a more complex strategy.


No. If it's a straight-up erom/romance I just put it into the appropriate categories and let it go. The readers don't seem to have any trouble finding me at all. Romance readers seem to be very good about going out and finding what they want; with their insatiable reading habits they pretty much have to be.


----------



## crow.bar.beer

KelliWolfe said:


> No. If it's a straight-up erom/romance I just put it into the appropriate categories and let it go. The readers don't seem to have any trouble finding me at all. Romance readers seem to be very good about going out and finding what they want; with their insatiable reading habits they pretty much have to be.


Nice! I'd been keeping my fingers crossed that this is the case, that their voraciousness would do the heavy lifting.  Time to get the e-rom novella ball rolling as well.  Thanks for the encouraging feedback, I'll check back when I complete some stuff and get results.


----------



## alawston

My alter ego appears to have another book out, how very enterprising of her (ahem).


----------



## Dormouse

Sweet Amber said:


> I think with my stories, I usually get them around 5 or 6k, it's probably a ratio of 25% story/75% sex. I use the first quarter to set the stage, develop the characterization and the circumstance, build up some tension and then get to the sex. It's important to get the first quarter right so you've immersed the reader enough in the character that the story obtains a decent degree of realism. Without that, the sex isn't really going to do much for anyone, it'll be lifeless.


I admire writers who manage to get their stories at 5 or 6 k. Even when I try, mine usually come out at 8 to 10 K now matter what I do. My current bestseller even has almost 19 K but also 2.5 sex scenes in it.

I usually do have a bit of back story and I tend to draw out the sex scenes a bit (too much practice writing erotic romance and not pure smut). Maybe I should cut down on that?


----------



## skyle

alawston said:


> I finally got my second short finished, and it's "in review" with our friends at Amazon. I've seen 4 borrows and 1 sale so far on the first episode, so I'm hoping to at least equal that, and hopefully see some more interest in the first book. Once the third one is out, I think that's the point at which I'll review and decide whether this is really for me.


And has it paid for itself yet? How much did you spend on the cover in the end?


----------



## katrina46

April Ryder said:


> Have you considered creating another pen name? You could set up one pen name for the longer stories and keep the smut with the other pen name. This way those who expect there to be an actual story/romance aren't put off by the short smut and vice versa.


I've thought about it, but I have one for thrillers and am starting one for romance suspense, so I don't know how many I could keep up with. Plus, it's like starting all over and it took me forever to start making sales. Of course, if readers keep getting confused about what they're getting from me I could lose sales anyway.


----------



## skyle

Dormouse said:


> I admire writers who manage to get their stories at 5 or 6 k. Even when I try, mine usually come out at 8 to 10 K now matter what I do. My current bestseller even has almost 19 K but also 2.5 sex scenes in it.
> 
> I usually do have a bit of back story and I tend to draw out the sex scenes a bit (too much practice writing erotic romance and not pure smut). Maybe I should cut down on that?


I've found the sweet spot to be 7k. It gives enough of everything to get only positive reviews


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## katrina46

Sweet Amber said:


> This is _exactly_ where I'm at right now, this specific crossroads you're discussing.  I'm trying to push myself so that, in three months time, I'll be making enough to cover all the costs of living and then a little bit more on top, and to do it it'll be necessary to break into longer works to make more income to be capable of achieving it, because the sheer volume of short works that would be required is just too insane.
> 
> Or if there were a way to pull in more money per short story, that'd work too I suppose... I've found a pretty nice niche for me to work in but the upper end it would seem for a single 5k story to pull in is about $100 over two months (it's still earning well, still on the first page of search results for the main keyword). The lower end would seem to be about $40 (actually that story has only been available for a month and a half but the sales/borrows have already pretty much tapered off). I have two more stories that have each been available for only a week (I've been upping the daily word count like mad to fulfill my goal ) and they've each already brought in $20.
> 
> So my guess is that for my niche I can expect to average at least around $50 per 5k story (I do expect to refine my marketing/writing skills to boost that average a bit per story, but I'm also comparing to how the other competing titles perform in sales rank + keyword search stickiness), which is something I'm immensely happy about but life says it's not enough.  I'd have to make 10-14x as much each month and not only would that take like 50 new titles every month, it's hard to imagine that the niche would support such an influx and the sales would cannibalize each other.
> 
> My thought is perhaps other niches can bring in a higher average per story, but the problem I've observed in targeting some of the other much bigger keyword sets (with the same stories, my niche plus bondage for example) is that I simply can't get enough visibility in the keyword search results to start getting sales through that audience. One possible avenue I'm considering is to try to take a series approach with the first permafree and the rest in KU of course because I've noticed that the permafree titles are more able to launch up to the top...
> 
> But ultimately I don't want to get stuck in an endless cycle of having to churn out so many short stories each month, so I've started a romance novel and have a solid idea for a thriller series, but like you say it's a much bigger, riskier time investment and, being new to this and not an expert in romance, it's pretty daunting. But now I'm intrigued by what you've said about novellas... I had stumbled across a few erotic romance novella series through Bookbub, both were billionaire + BDSM style, and judging by the amount of reviews they'd amassed, they must've been pretty lucrative (not to mention the authors considered it worthwhile to pipe them through Bookbub).
> 
> I figure if I was able to make happen what I've already made happen, there's no reason I can't get to this next stage, build a nice solid base camp, and then prepare to triple the income from there.  My three areas of focus to make all this happen are 1.) *Write to market*, 2.) Write prolifically (right now I'm averaging 2-3k a day when I'm in full productive swing, I'm trying to get up to 10k a day), and 3.) Hone my marketing skills to Don Draper-level.


I write thrillers and erotica. Yesterday, I had a bestselling romance author who is a member of kboards tell me romance/suspense might be a perfect fit for me. She says the niche is smaller and it's much easier to get on the best seller list and stay there. She definitely knows what she'd doing if you want to consider that.


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

KelliWolfe, Thanks for your posts. I'd been planning to wait on trying longer works and other genres. A couple new stories kept coming at me so I surrendered and wrote the beginning of something that will probably be a novella. I've been checking these boards, reading blogs and following the top 100 here in my favorite genres and my main question has been whether it would be worth spending time on longer works. 

I was so into the new story that my writing pace doubled. It would be great if the longer ones have higher sales and more staying power. I'm going to try it and see. 

Stephanie, practice helps. My first efforts were genre stories with a lot of sex. They still move, but more much slowly than the smuttier smut. The next series under my second secret pen name did much better than those first stories. My third and fourth series bring in most of my self-publishing income. Also, don't be so sure the public doesn't want something you think is bad. Based on the Amazon erotica shorts I've attempted to read, including from authors on the top 100 list, many readers don't care about quality as long as the content hits their buttons.


----------



## MarilynVix

alawston said:


> Me too - most of the demands on my time have been extremely positive (a weekend of amazing acting auditions, for one thing), but they still add up to getting no work done at a point where I just NEED to get another book out. Very frustrating.


This sounds like a good


alawston said:


> I finally got my second short finished, and it's "in review" with our friends at Amazon. I've seen 4 borrows and 1 sale so far on the first episode, so I'm hoping to at least equal that, and hopefully see some more interest in the first book. Once the third one is out, I think that's the point at which I'll review and decide whether this is really for me.


This sounds like a good plan. I mean, I enjoy a lot of my writing to be story based, but it has been fun just having characters play with the idea of getting it on with no strings attached. It is fun to write erotica. I want to finish the Hot Groupie series, and sell it as a box set too. It might sell with all three shorts as one book. I think trying lots of different things works too.

Luckily, I found someone to do my covers at a good rate, and I'm proofreading and formatting it myself. That's keeping costs down. The return is better too. I sold 12 copies of Never Marry at $0.99 with 2 copies of my short, and got the same amount of royalties. In the long run, more erotica titles are going to pay back better.


----------



## Stephanie Marks

Secret Pen Pal said:


> Stephanie, practice helps. My first efforts were genre stories with a lot of sex. They still move, but more much slowly than the smuttier smut. The next series under my second secret pen name did much better than those first stories. My third and fourth series bring in most of my self-publishing income. Also, don't be so sure the public doesn't want something you think is bad. Based on the Amazon erotica shorts I've attempted to read, including from authors on the top 100 list, many readers don't care about quality as long as the content hits their buttons.


Thanks. I just don't want to put out any work that I don't take pride in because I really respect the genre. Especially since I have no clue what will hit there buttons! Lol. I would feel like crap to put out something that I didn't even think was that good and then have it fail to do its job on top of that. 

There is another erotica thread going on right now and it raised the question of serials. So I think that I might try looking into doing serials as s format, or a series. I think it will be a matter of finding my perfect "click" to do with well. The right topic and size that works for me. I don't have the skill to write blindly to market, so I'm going to try to keep looking for my niche.


----------



## Stephanie Marks

Asked this in the other erotica thread but do you guys know if you can use the word "wh*re" in your title on axon without being slapped with the Adult label?


----------



## alawston

MarilynVix said:


> This sounds like a good
> This sounds like a good plan. I mean, I enjoy a lot of my writing to be story based, but it has been fun just having characters play with the idea of getting it on with no strings attached. It is fun to write erotica. I want to finish the Hot Groupie series, and sell it as a box set too. It might sell with all three shorts as one book. I think trying lots of different things works too.
> 
> Luckily, I found someone to do my covers at a good rate, and I'm proofreading and formatting it myself. That's keeping costs down. The return is better too. I sold 12 copies of Never Marry at $0.99 with 2 copies of my short, and got the same amount of royalties. In the long run, more erotica titles are going to pay back better.


I'm an absolute idiot - my second title was finally out, and I put a link in the new releases section of a certain other forum, proudly proclaiming it was in KU. But of course, I'd failed to actually enrol it properly, and by the time I realised, the book was back "in review" again following some blurb tweaks I'd put through  So I feel like I basically flubbed the second launch, given that forum posts is about the only promo I can do without inventing a whole fictional social media platform...


----------



## skyle

alawston said:


> I'm an absolute idiot - my second title was finally out, and I put a link in the new releases section of a certain other forum, proudly proclaiming it was in KU. But of course, I'd failed to actually enrol it properly, and by the time I realised, the book was back "in review" again following some blurb tweaks I'd put through  So I feel like I basically flubbed the second launch, given that forum posts is about the only promo I can do without inventing a whole fictional social media platform...


I'm pretty sure you can sign it up even in review. Go to your bookshelf and then about halfway along the line there is a KDP Select column and you can click Enroll.


----------



## alawston

skyle said:


> I'm pretty sure you can sign it up even in review. Go to your bookshelf and then about halfway along the line there is a KDP Select column and you can click Enroll.


Thanks, but sadly while updates are being reviewed, the Select column is blank. I've got two blanks there as I've got a "clean" book publishing at the moment as well, so it's doubly frustrating!


----------



## crow.bar.beer

katrina46 said:


> I write thrillers and erotica. Yesterday, I had a bestselling romance author who is a member of kboards tell me romance/suspense might be a perfect fit for me. She says the niche is smaller and it's much easier to get on the best seller list and stay there. She definitely knows what she'd doing if you want to consider that.


I think I know who you're talking about because they told me the same exact thing.  I am interested in trying out suspense romance but I think I'll have to read more books from the genre before I attempt it, to better understand how to merge the two. The romance I'm writing now is contemporary and it comes a little more naturally to me, I think. Now if I could just write it faster...


----------



## crow.bar.beer

alawston said:


> So I feel like I basically flubbed the second launch, given that forum posts is about the only promo I can do without inventing a whole fictional social media platform...


I wouldn't worry too much about having to do promotion for erotica shorts; if you are writing to a specific niche and put the corresponding keywords and a representative cover, the readers will do the rest. The trick is to hone in on that specific niche and deliver the goods.


----------



## alawston

Sweet Amber said:


> I wouldn't worry too much about having to do promotion for erotica shorts; if you are writing to a specific niche and put the corresponding keywords and a representative cover, the readers will do the rest. The trick is to hone in on that specific niche and deliver the goods.


So far I don't feel much like I'm hitting a niche, to be honest. That's something I hope to address with future series, but at the moment my toe is being dipped in the water very furtively. So to speak. I got 1 sale and 4 borrows on the first title, and still nothing on the second (though hoping that picks up once I can enrol it in Select/KU).


----------



## Stephanie Marks

Well I did it! I finally wrote my first erotic short story that I'm actually proud of. 
Question though, do you guys think that 3,000 words is TOO short of a short story? There's no way that I can make this one longer but I'm a bit worried that it may seem TOO short.


----------



## alawston

Stephanie Marks said:


> Well I did it! I finally write my first erotic short story that I'm actually proud of.
> Question though, do you guys think that 3,000 words is TOO short of a short story? There's no way that I can make this one longer but I'm a bit worried that it may seem TOO short.


My first was 3,500 and no one's commented that it's too short so far.


----------



## Stephanie Marks

alawston said:


> My first was 3,500 and no one's commented that it's too short so far.


Thanks, that's SO good to hear. I can't tell you how many false starts I've had, lol, erotica is HARD, but I think I've finally found something that works for me. I'll know for sure if I'm actually able to write another story, haha!


----------



## crow.bar.beer

Stephanie Marks said:


> Well I did it! I finally wrote my first erotic short story that I'm actually proud of.


Congrats!  Best of luck with your brand-new, smutty journey!


----------



## Stephanie Marks

Sweet Amber said:


> Congrats!  Best of luck with your brand-new, smutty journey!


Thank you! I couldn't have done it without everyone's constant encouragement. Turns out that my "thing" seems to be "diary style" serials! Who knew? Lol.


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## eleanorberesford

Ah,* alastow*, I did exactly the same thing just then, I feel your pain! Only I didn't promote. And I swear, publishing the damn thing takes longer than writing it and making the cover. (6,000 word BBW with voyeurism, this time.) Sales and borrows are still trickling in on the first after nearly a month, looks like BBW is my niche, and a niche I am happy to inhabit.

*Sweet Amber*, the diary serial sounds like fun. Good luck with sales, and enjoy it!

Due to health issues, mine and my son's, I have written very, very little in the last week or so. But the longer historical erom has gotten bogged down in research about segregation and amusement parks in Seattle in WWII. This one is going to come out under my main pen name--it's historical BBW interracial lesbian/genderqueer steamy romance rather than pure erotica, and it is taking so much more time to get right. But I wouldn't have had the courage to even think about publishing itwithout this 7 day experiment. And it's so nice to have something--anything--to upload in February despite a hellish month.


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## Stephanie Marks

eleanorberesford said:


> *Sweet Amber*, the diary serial sounds like fun. Good luck with sales, and enjoy it!


Sooo I'm going to assume that you actually meant me lol, so thanks!


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## vivwoman77

Hi all, this is my first post. 

I recently found this thread (maybe in the last 2 or 3 weeks?) and saved the first 60 something pages or so for offline reading before I ask any question that may have already been addressed.

I've been following the recent discussion on length, and I thought to chime in. I appreciate thought-provoking non-fiction and novels that I consider pure art. Some examples: Non-Fiction - David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster" and Irvin Yalom's "Love's Executioner". Fiction: Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and Dostoyevsky's "Notes from Underground" -- this one close to being my favorite book ever.

I say that to let you know I enjoy well-written works, the kind with "substance" that live on long after you turn the last page (or flick the screen one last time). Now... I must say as a smut reader... I like it short and hot! I love the 20-25 minute reads that deliver as promised: peak arousal from beginning to end! I tend to buy stuff in the 5K to 7K-word range. I know there are others like me who prefer this type of smut (or call it p*rn, as it is written with one purpose in mind...) and that know what they are buying when we pay $2.99 for a short story. I pretty much (as a reader) ignore the 1-star reviews that complain about length, or the ones that say the book was too kinky (that actually prompts me to buy it).

I am not a great writer myself, and with zero titles to my name I have nothing to back my claim one way or the other.  I do have a very vivid imagination and have, for as long as I can remember, been writing down a bunch of my wildest fantasies. I became interested in self-publishing short stories, which brought me to this forum.

So I guess there's room for every story or book length. Personally, if I will read something that is 200+ pages, I want it to be meaningful and worth my time. When it comes to erotica I always go for the "quickies", that way I can get what I crave, and still have plenty of time to pursue my interests.

I'll stop rambling now. I hope I take the leap and publish a few stories (my self-doubts are my worst enemies).

It's been fun and enlightening to read your posts here, and I intend to stick around.
Cheers!


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## eleanorberesford

Stephanie Marks said:


> Sooo I'm going to assume that you actually meant me lol, so thanks!


Lol, yes. Sorry--matched the right post to the wrong name.


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## LolaLightwood

It's been a week since I put up my first story and a few days since I put up the second.

I've gotten about 19 borrows and 2 sales.  

Which I'm more than happy about since it's basically all I've gotten all month!  Hoping I get a few more before the end of the month.


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## katrina46

Sweet Amber said:


> I think I know who you're talking about because they told me the same exact thing.  I am interested in trying out suspense romance but I think I'll have to read more books from the genre before I attempt it, to better understand how to merge the two. The romance I'm writing now is contemporary and it comes a little more naturally to me, I think. Now if I could just write it faster...


That's what I'm doing. I bought a few romance/suspense books for research.


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## alawston

eleanorberesford said:


> Ah,* alastow*, I did exactly the same thing just then, I feel your pain! Only I didn't promote. And I swear, publishing the damn thing takes longer than writing it and making the cover. (6,000 word BBW with voyeurism, this time.) Sales and borrows are still trickling in on the first after nearly a month, looks like BBW is my niche, and a niche I am happy to inhabit.


Thanks! I finally enrolled the second, and I have a single borrow, and another on the first, so my smut tally is 1 sale and 6 borrows for the first month. So, not a runaway success, clearly, but enough to show there's potential here for me.


----------



## katrina46

Stephanie Marks said:


> Well I did it! I finally wrote my first erotic short story that I'm actually proud of.
> Question though, do you guys think that 3,000 words is TOO short of a short story? There's no way that I can make this one longer but I'm a bit worried that it may seem TOO short.


My biggest seller is 3,500. I know Selena Kitt suggest 99 cents for anything under 3500k, but I also know some writers still charge 2.99 for them and do okay. I was always torn on this, but I figure Selena should know best so that's the advice I follow. 99 cents can be a good leader to get people to try your other stuff anyway, so that's what I do and put a link to my other stories in the back.


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## Stephanie Marks

katrina46 said:


> My biggest seller is 3,500. I know Selena Kitt suggest 99 cents for anything under 3500k, but I also know some writers still charge 2.99 for them and do okay. I was always torn on this, but I figure Selena should know best so that's the advice I follow. 99 cents can be a good leader to get people to try your other stuff anyway, so that's what I do and put a link to my other stories in the back.


Last night I decided to price them at $2.99 for the branding. They series is getting professional covers and editing and I'm trying to put out my best product possible. So I'm making them $2.99. I don't want people to see them and think "discount", I want the subliminal message of "pay for a quality product" to be beaten over their head. 
After I have the first 5 out I'll drop #1 to $0.99. Then once the first 10 are out I'll drop #1 to free for a while before puting it back to $0.99


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## Rachel E. Rice

I began this erotic journey in October, 2014, where my first sale had me giddy.  I smiled all day because I couldn't believe anyone would want to read these books. Nevertheless, I had a few admirers. I counted three to be exact.  I wrote for those three individuals, two erotica shorts a week, and managed to get ten more individuals to buy my short books (5,000 words).

It is now the end of February, 2015 and I have 34 titles of which 3 or 4 are box sets. I can't remember. January was my best month, however, the trend didn't continue and February wasn't as great, but I am satisfied all the same. With 34 titles, I still haven't reached $1000 a month. I think I know one of my problems and it is because I write in too many subgenres because I get bored easily. 

Lessons learned: If a series is doing well continue adding to that series, and listen to the individuals who like your work. They are the ones who are tuned into your voice.


----------



## katrina46

Stephanie Marks said:


> Last night I decided to price them at $2.99 for the branding. They series is getting professional covers and editing and I'm trying to put out my best product possible. So I'm making them $2.99. I don't want people to see them and think "discount", I want the subliminal message of "pay for a quality product" to be beaten over their head.
> After I have the first 5 out I'll drop #1 to $0.99. Then once the first 10 are out I'll drop #1 to free for a while before puting it back to $0.99


I think I actually mentioned here somewhere I started a new pen name, and I'm publishing the first story this weekend. I'm listing my shorts at 2.99 and I'll see which name gets the most income. That way my current readers won't say hey, you usually only charge 99 for the super short stuff. I get the bargains shoppers and the ones willing to pay 2.99 for 3500 words that way. KU makes up my royalties on the 99 ones anyway.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

katrina46 said:


> I think I actually mentioned here somewhere I started a new pen name, and I'm publishing the first story this weekend. I'm listing my shorts at 2.99 and I'll see which name gets the most income. That way my current readers won't say hey, you usually only charge 99 for the super short stuff. I get the bargains shoppers and the ones willing to pay 2.99 for 3500 words that way. KU makes up my royalties on the 99 ones anyway.


This is the first time I've set my short at .99 and it's longer (8,000) than all my other books, and I had only one person to buy it. I haven't had any borrows. I read somewhere that I should advertise my .99 short, which I plan to do.


----------



## katrina46

Rachel E. Rice said:


> This is the first time I've set my short at .99 and it's longer (8,000) than all my other books, and I had only one person to buy it. I haven't had any borrows. I read somewhere that I should advertise my .99 short, which I plan to do.


I don't know if you're a keyword ninja, but I spent all day yesterday studying the boards over at dirtydiscourse and then updating keywords in all my stories. I got some instant visibility when they updated. Stuff the words and get down and dirty if you haven't already. It really does help.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

katrina46 said:


> I don't know if you're a keyword ninja, but I spent all day yesterday studying the boards over at dirtydiscourse and then updating keywords in all my stories. I got some instant visibility when they updated. Stuff the words and get down and dirty if you haven't already. It really does help.


Since the cover was tame, and my story was more of an erom, I got creative and placed it in a different category.


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## alawston

skyle said:


> And has it paid for itself yet? How much did you spend on the cover in the end?


Sorry, I didn't see this at first. A very lovely person knocked up a cover for me and gave me a crash course on technique into the bargain. So far, my outgoings have been $20 across the two books ($10 to join "the other forum" and $10 to subscribe to a photo archive for cover images) and my income, assuming KU is about the same next month, has been around $12. Taking a long view, I know I'll make it back sooner or later, but not quite in the black yet.


----------



## Perro Callejero

Stephanie Marks said:


> Last night I decided to price them at $2.99 for the branding. They series is getting professional covers and editing and I'm trying to put out my best product possible. So I'm making them $2.99. I don't want people to see them and think "discount", I want the subliminal message of "pay for a quality product" to be beaten over their head.
> After I have the first 5 out I'll drop #1 to $0.99. Then once the first 10 are out I'll drop #1 to free for a while before puting it back to $0.99


I price everything at $2.99. Most of the money my stories earn--80% or so--comes from borrows. I started halfway through October and have pretty much written one 5K story a week since then. In February I made about $700.



Rachel E. Rice said:


> I began this erotic journey in October, 2014, where my first sale had me giddy.  I smiled all day because I couldn't believe anyone would want to read these books. Nevertheless, I had a few admirers. I counted three to be exact.  I wrote for those three individuals, two erotica shorts a week, and managed to get ten more individuals to buy my short books (5,000 words).
> 
> It is now the end of February, 2015 and I have 34 titles of which 3 or 4 are box sets. I can't remember. January was my best month, however, the trend didn't continue and February wasn't as great, but I am satisfied all the same. With 34 titles, I still haven't reached $1000 a month. I think I know one of my problems and it is because I write in too many subgenres because I get bored easily.


My experience has been similar, except I haven't managed to write as much. I admire your productivity!


----------



## MarilynVix

I'm still stuck on which cover designs to go with for my rockstar short story series. I got pretty good feedback on my last debate. So, I've put up the second set of covers on my Lynda Belle blog to get feedback. It's almost become a fun event for people to participate in. On Facebook, it's been interesting since people like to do games and such on the pages while at work.

Here's the link to see them on my Lynda Belle blog:
http://lyndabelle.com/2015/03/03/second-cover-debate-cover-a-or-b-for-rockin-him-harder/

Any feedback will be welcomed. Feel free to comment on the blog or on this thread. Thanks!


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## J.B.

Good to see this thread still alive and kicking.


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## joebananas

I haven't tried pricing any or my stories at $0.99 all of them are $2.99 and range from 3.7k to 9k words. I also haven't tried a series yet, I have only stand alones. I am having a hard time coming up with a series and I am afraid to waste time writing one only to have the first one fail. I know that is a stupid reason. I do want to try out a new niche though so I may just give a series a shot on that pen name.

Oh I also got my first review on Amazon and it was 4 stars. They called my story hot so that made my day today. They also mentioned the plot didn't play out like usual for the genre. I can't tell if that is a good thing or not.

I've also only been at this for a month so far but I have 14 stories out. One I wrote for fun and tossed it on its own pen name has only had one borrow in 2 and a half weeks. That is my worst one.

My older stories still do some what well thanks to back matter and running the free promo days you get and so far this month I'm already at 28% of the total borrows I had in February. I know I need to play around with keywords more. I did have one story hover between #55 and #90 for a couple days in it's sub category but its steadily dropping now.

I make all my own covers with CC images I can dig up so I am sure that doesn't help too much. I will say that I have gotten a lot better compared to when I started. I also played around with blurbs and, for me at least, shorter ones are more effective than longer ones.

But that is where I am at so far, started with nothing, no experience and I've picked up a review on amazon a couple rankings on goodreads(one 4 star and  the other a 5 star). I've invested no money just time so far and I am proud of where I've gotten. Oh I have also picked up three followers on twitter. I have n idea how to take advantage of twitter though. I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to social media but from most of the information I've read time is better spent writing.

What is a good way to minimize risk when you write a series? An do you need to have a consistent naming scheme for them or can you rely on the book series name to tie them together?


----------



## Stephanie Marks

When my story finishes publishing it looks like I'm going to have to go in and remove a couple keywords because they put me in a sub category that won't work. *sigh*,gotta tweak those babies and get it right before book 2 goes up.


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## joebananas

Changing keywords around after the book goes live takes a lot less time than when you first publish it. Now changing covers and the actual text of the book takes a while, some times as long as when you first publish. 

Also you can change and update your blurb with out getting the book in review if you set up an Author Central page for your pen name. Just be aware that if your book is going through review/updates and you make changes to your blurb in AC it will revert back to the blurb you had when your book went into review because it will overwrite the changes you made. That one confused me the first time around.


----------



## Stephanie Marks

joebananas said:


> Changing keywords around after the book goes live takes a lot less time than when you first publish it. Now changing covers and the actual text of the book takes a while, some times as long as when you first publish.
> 
> Also you can change and update your blurb with out getting the book in review if you set up an Author Central page for your pen name. Just be aware that if your book is going through review/updates and you make changes to your blurb in AC it will revert back to the blurb you had when your book went into review because it will overwrite the changes you made. That one confused me the first time around.


Thanks, this is great to know. After more digging in the kindle store (I never realized how confusing that place is!) it turns out that I'm actually everywhere I was trying to be, I just accidentally put myself in thrillers & suspense as well. This was of course AFFER I updated my keywords *facepalm!* so I'm hoping that I didn't just bugger myself too badly. The only thing I REMOVED was the thriller keywords, other things were just shuffled around a bit.


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## joebananas

You should be fine. The worst that could happen would be a random person finds your story in the wrong category and you either get a return or a bad review  in a worse case scenario,but the chances of that happening right away will be pretty slim. Especially on your first story and in either case it's not the end of the world.


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## katrina46

Stephanie Marks said:


> Thanks, this is great to know. After more digging in the kindle store (I never realized how confusing that place is!) it turns out that I'm actually everywhere I was trying to be, I just accidentally put myself in thrillers & suspense as well. This was of course AFFER I updated my keywords *facepalm!* so I'm hoping that I didn't just bugger myself too badly. The only thing I REMOVED was the thriller keywords, other things were just shuffled around a bit.


Something similar happened to me a couple days ago. Not in the wrong category, but a certain phrase pulled up a bunch of erotica books with mine right next to a very NON erotica book. I asked another erotica author and she said that happens all the time. I was freaking out because I thought Amazon might freak out, but apparently not.


----------



## lyndabelle

joebananas said:


> I haven't tried pricing any or my stories at $0.99 all of them are $2.99 and range from 3.7k to 9k words. I also haven't tried a series yet, I have only stand alones. I am having a hard time coming up with a series and I am afraid to waste time writing one only to have the first one fail. I know that is a stupid reason. I do want to try out a new niche though so I may just give a series a shot on that pen name.
> 
> Oh I also got my first review on Amazon and it was 4 stars. They called my story hot so that made my day today. They also mentioned the plot didn't play out like usual for the genre. I can't tell if that is a good thing or not.
> 
> I've also only been at this for a month so far but I have 14 stories out. One I wrote for fun and tossed it on its own pen name has only had one borrow in 2 and a half weeks. That is my worst one.
> 
> My older stories still do some what well thanks to back matter and running the free promo days you get and so far this month I'm already at 28% of the total borrows I had in February. I know I need to play around with keywords more. I did have one story hover between #55 and #90 for a couple days in it's sub category but its steadily dropping now.
> 
> I make all my own covers with CC images I can dig up so I am sure that doesn't help too much. I will say that I have gotten a lot better compared to when I started. I also played around with blurbs and, for me at least, shorter ones are more effective than longer ones.
> 
> But that is where I am at so far, started with nothing, no experience and I've picked up a review on amazon a couple rankings on goodreads(one 4 star and the other a 5 star). I've invested no money just time so far and I am proud of where I've gotten. Oh I have also picked up three followers on twitter. I have n idea how to take advantage of twitter though. I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to social media but from most of the information I've read time is better spent writing.
> 
> What is a good way to minimize risk when you write a series? An do you need to have a consistent naming scheme for them or can you rely on the book series name to tie them together?


The fact you got a review is really good. I've been reading up on other erotica threads, and erotica doesn't usually get reviews. As far as series writing, I usually think in terms of series. I seem to not be able to write stand alones. So, it could just what you do. But you could have characters related somehow, like friends or related, to make a series. Like if you have a character and then write about their sister/brother, friends, etc. Depends what the first story was about, of course.

Writing fast seems to be good for you though. 5 stories is great. I wish I would write faster. I seem to be pumping out a story a month, but I am writing under other pen names in other genres. I have an ebook coming out under another pen name, and have been going through final revisions and promo set ups for that. SO, I've been slowed down because of that. But I think having an erotica pen name can be great. You can switch between projects when you feel burned out. I've got that "What am I going to write today?" feeling when I wake up now. It can be anywhere from new adult romance, spicy romance or erotica. Luckily, I got places to channel all three of those.


----------



## Stephanie Marks

Sorry guys my phone froze and my brilliant post was lost. But basically, it's all good now.


----------



## crow.bar.beer

joebananas said:


> I haven't tried pricing any or my stories at $0.99 all of them are $2.99 and range from 3.7k to 9k words. I also haven't tried a series yet, I have only stand alones. I am having a hard time coming up with a series and I am afraid to waste time writing one only to have the first one fail. I know that is a stupid reason. I do want to try out a new niche though so I may just give a series a shot on that pen name.


I wouldn't suggest pricing at $0.99 for erotica shorts, as long as you're targeting a specific kink and deliver the goods, readers will definitely pay $2.99 and that makes all the difference for you royalty-wise. 

Personally, based on the way you describe where you're at regarding writing a series, I just wouldn't worry about it right now. It'd probably be better to wait until you have a story that does exceptionally well, and then contrive a sequel to that. Kind of like mining for gold - you only strike deeper once you found a vein of the good stuff.


----------



## joebananas

Sweet Amber said:


> Personally, based on the way you describe where you're at regarding writing a series, I just wouldn't worry about it right now. It'd probably be better to wait until you have a story that does exceptionally well, and then contrive a sequel to that. Kind of like mining for gold - you only strike deeper once you found a vein of the good stuff.


I have actually been struggling doing just that. I am working on another story similar to the the one that sat the highest in the rankings for me. So far I am now on day three. Only my first short I wrote has taken longer. I am having a hard time hitting the same feel with out sounding like a copy. It's much easier to try something new for me, but I am committed to finishing this follow up to see if I found that sweet spot or if that story was a fluke.



lyndabelle said:


> The fact you got a review is really good. I've been reading up on other erotica threads, and erotica doesn't usually get reviews. As far as series writing, I usually think in terms of series. I seem to not be able to write stand alones. So, it could just what you do. But you could have characters related somehow, like friends or related, to make a series. Like if you have a character and then write about their sister/brother, friends, etc. Depends what the first story was about, of course.


This sounds so obvious now, but I never thought of building out with other characters. That sounds like it would fit me perfectly, so far I've been focused on continuing with the same characters.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Sweet Amber said:


> I wouldn't suggest pricing at $0.99 for erotica shorts, as long as you're targeting a specific kink and deliver the goods, readers will definitely pay $2.99 and that makes all the difference for you royalty-wise.
> 
> Personally, based on the way you describe where you're at regarding writing a series, I just wouldn't worry about it right now. It'd probably be better to wait until you have a story that does exceptionally well, and then contrive a sequel to that. Kind of like mining for gold - you only strike deeper once you found a vein of the good stuff.


 I decided to experiment with a price of .99 and then I got creative and put it under romance and nothing happened. I changed the price back to $2.99, changed the key words, and people started borrowing and buying the book. However, my covers are a bit tame for erotica and that may affect my sales and borrows.

When a fan suggested that I write another part to a book that sold well, I did and it worked out fine.  Now I'm writing part 5.


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## ccruz

Just wanted to drop by and mention this thread inspired me to release my first erotica short. It's a bit over 5k words. My pen name is Sophie de la Rue, and the short is called "Undressed." I already have one borrow!


----------



## joebananas

ccruz said:


> Just wanted to drop by and mention this thread inspired me to release my first erotica short. It's a bit over 5k words. My pen name is Sophie de la Rue, and the short is called "Undressed." I already have one borrow!


Well congratulations! It's fun and exciting wait till you get your first sale. Oh and don't let the first return get to you either. There will be tons of firsts ahead of you.


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## ccruz

Thanks, joebananas! I'm kind of thrilled. I used to write erotica as a kid(!) for the kicks of it, but since then have lost all means of retrieving those stories. They must be posted somewhere on the Internet. I finished the short in exactly two days, in two sittings. This is way easier than busting my butt writing fantasy.


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## crow.bar.beer

ccruz said:


> Just wanted to drop by and mention this thread inspired me to release my first erotica short. It's a bit over 5k words. My pen name is Sophie de la Rue, and the short is called "Undressed." I already have one borrow!


Congrats!  I tried searching for your book on Amazon and it didn't return any results... hmm...


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## ccruz

edited to remove link (Just search under my real name, Claudette Cruz, to find the erotica short)

That's the link. For some reason it only shows up when I search by my real name. So much for a pen name, huh? My mom's embarrassed but hilariously amused by how I messed this up.


----------



## crow.bar.beer

ccruz said:


> That's the link. For some reason it only shows up when I search by my real name. So much for a pen name, huh? My mom's embarrassed but hilariously amused by how I messed this up.


Ahh, when you went through the page to add a new title, underneath the Description field where you input the blurb, there's the one for Contributors. That's where you should put the author name as you intend for it to be listed with the product; I think you must've put your real name there.  If you go to the dashboard and click the name of the title, it'll take you to edit its information and you can remove your real name from there and put the pen name instead. 

BTW, did you do the cover yourself? I really love that font and am curious how to find it. 

Ahh, also you should probably edit the link out of your post. Linking to erotic content on Kboards will cause problems with their Google ads account.


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## ccruz

Sweet, I hired a fiverr.com guy to do my cover. I put in as little money on this as possible. His name is Jimmy Gibbs. 
As suggested, I removed the direct link. 
I'm going to go to my dashboard to see how to untangle my name from any association to the erotica. I think I added my name as contributor because it required a contributor and I had none apart from the cover artist. And it benefits me to have my name in there as editor, just not as the writer, lol. What will my mom's friends think when they try to search for my other books through my name and that shows up?


----------



## crow.bar.beer

ccruz said:


> I'm going to go to my dashboard to see how to untangle my name from any association to the erotica. I think I added my name as contributor because it required a contributor and I had none apart from the cover artist.


Yep, there will be a remove button once you click there next to your real name, and just type in your pen name and select author. 



> What will my mom's friends think when they try to search for my other books through my name and that shows up?


Well you could write another erotica short and use them all as characters. 
But once your update clears it shouldn't show up anymore, so you'll be all set.


----------



## katrina46

Stephanie Marks said:


> Last night I decided to price them at $2.99 for the branding. They series is getting professional covers and editing and I'm trying to put out my best product possible. So I'm making them $2.99. I don't want people to see them and think "discount", I want the subliminal message of "pay for a quality product" to be beaten over their head.
> After I have the first 5 out I'll drop #1 to $0.99. Then once the first 10 are out I'll drop #1 to free for a while before puting it back to $0.99


A couple days ago I raised everything under all my pen names to 2.99. I wanted to see what would happen. I get the same amount of sales and borrows went up, so they will pay 2.99 for 3500k. I do think some of that is due to the hours I spent researching keywords. I used every single character allowed. Literally, when Amazon wouldn't let me type anymore I left the last half typed word in there. I'm sure that helped.


----------



## Stephanie Marks

katrina46 said:


> A couple days ago I raised everything under all my pen names to 2.99. I wanted to see what would happen. I get the same amount of sales and borrows went up, so they will pay 2.99 for 3500k. I do think some of that is due to the hours I spent researching keywords. I used every single character allowed. Literally, when Amazon wouldn't let me type anymore I left the last half typed word in there. I'm sure that helped.


That's Fantastic. I uploaded book 2 of the series today. I decided to just upload them every couple of days instead of one a week. I really hope they start selling.


----------



## katrina46

Stephanie Marks said:


> That's Fantastic. I uploaded book 2 of the series today. I decided to just upload them every couple of days instead of one a week. I really hope they start selling.


Good luck.


----------



## joebananas

Stephanie Marks said:


> That's Fantastic. I uploaded book 2 of the series today. I decided to just upload them every couple of days instead of one a week. I really hope they start selling.


I would just upload them as you finish them instead of hanging on to them. The longer they sit on your hard drive the less time they're out there possibly earning you money.


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## lyndabelle

I don't know what happened, but I'm wanting to check out our recent efforts and there aren't links on a lot of the posts. I want to check out your blurbs, covers, and how your doing with keywords. After hearing all the stories, I want to see the finished product.

So Stephanie Marks, please post a link. I saw the cover, and want to read a sample.

To lead the charge, here's the titles I've published so far over the last two months. I'm trying to get faster in writing. Like today, I cranked out a Historical Scottish Taboo story. I feel sequel coming on when I'm done with the last chapter. I might need you all's help in figuring keywords. Scottish 16 year old lass, 500 years ago, 81 year old lord, young gorgeous son-in-law, wedding night. What could happen? ;-) Evil grin.

Here's my rockstar groupies series thus far:

Rockin' Him Hard
Rockin' Him Harder

I've used the keywords, rockstar, erotica, multiple partners, ffm, intimate. Not sure if people are finding it or not. Did schedule a Fiverr promo for next week. Had the cover dilemma, and I went with the sexier cover over the girls with the guitar. It came down which was better as a thumbnail. I had a lot of people liking both.

_sorry -- direct links to erotic content is not allowed. Please review Forum Decorum_


----------



## ccruz

I forgot to mention I edit erotica shorts of up to 10k words for $25 and offer a two-day turnaround. Just email me with questions.


----------



## alawston

lyndabelle said:


> I don't know what happened, but I'm wanting to check out our recent efforts and there aren't links on a lot of the posts. I want to check out your blurbs, covers, and how your doing with keywords. After hearing all the stories, I want to see the finished product.


There was a bit of a cull, in line with Google advertising policies, I think, and many went to a private forum to carry on the conversation. We're not supposed to link directly to smutty stories now on pain of moderation 

But there's a spreadsheet of stories with quite a few links to members' books at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AqUkg_H5bVPeo0Y5t2ex5lPPS8vzgD46bd_YpObzxUE/edit?usp=sharing

It doesn't get updated much any more, but I put mine up because I was so late to the party


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## Stephanie Marks

lyndabelle said:


> I don't know what happened, but I'm wanting to check out our recent efforts and there aren't links on a lot of the posts. I want to check out your blurbs, covers, and how your doing with keywords. After hearing all the stories, I want to see the finished product.
> 
> So Stephanie Marks, please post a link. I saw the cover, and want to read a sample.
> 
> To lead the charge, here's the titles I've published so far over the last two months. I'm trying to get faster in writing. Like today, I cranked out a Historical Scottish Taboo story. I feel sequel coming on when I'm done with the last chapter. I might need you all's help in figuring keywords. Scottish 16 year old lass, 500 years ago, 81 year old lord, young gorgeous son-in-law, wedding night. What could happen? ;-) Evil grin.
> 
> Here's my rockstar groupies series thus far:
> 
> Rockin' Him Hard
> Rockin' Him Harder
> 
> I've used the keywords, rockstar, erotica, multiple partners, ffm, intimate. Not sure if people are finding it or not. Did schedule a Fiverr promo for next week. Had the cover dilemma, and I went with the sexier cover over the girls with the guitar. It came down which was better as a thumbnail. I had a lot of people liking both.


Okay, since I guess we can't link directly to the books here's the link to my Author Central page instead. *LAWYERED!*

amazon.com/author/isabelleday


----------



## Stephanie Marks

joebananas said:


> I would just upload them as you finish them instead of hanging on to them. The longer they sit on your hard drive the less time they're out there possibly earning you money.


Well my stories also go to an editor first so either way there is some down time. I'm not uploading all five at once because if one gets flagged I don't want them all getting flagged if it a mistake I made when uploading them all. Last thing I need is to get locked out of my account. My stories won't be witting around doing nothing for weeks, I've already changed up that plan. But I also don't just write and publish. I write then send to editor then publish. I MAY, start self-editing my erotica to save on funds though. Though I really hate that idea.


----------



## alawston

Stephanie Marks said:


> Okay, since I guess we can't link directly to the books here's the link to my Author Central page instead. *LAWYERED!*
> 
> Http://www.amazon.com/author/IsabelleDay


Your link wouldn't work for me, though I did a search for your penname.

Clearly, this author page is nothing to do with me: http://www.amazon.com/Satin-Hollander/e/B00TCH7LTK/


----------



## Stephanie Marks

alawston said:


> Your link wouldn't work for me, though I did a search for your penname.
> 
> Clearly, this author page is nothing to do with me: http://www.amazon.com/Satin-Hollander/e/B00TCH7LTK/


There we go link is corrected!


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## Secret Pen Pal

Katrina -- I agree. The 2.99 price works for erotica. I dropped some titles in a lagging series to 99 cents a couple of times and it didn't help.

The royalties are so low at 99 cents, I'm mystified why so many erotica authors have a lot of books out at that price.

Lyndabelle, I wish you well with your new stories. This got addressed in another thread, so just for anyone else, erotica about people under 18 isn't allowed. I notice many erotica writers even add a notice that all their characters are over 18.

I started a new serial with much longer episodes that would probably fit in erotic romance, but I'm squeamish about it. I've been following posts by writers doing well there, yet I have the impression that it's a lot harder to break into.

If Kelli Wilde or any of other romance mavens are around, I'm wondering if a series of novellas under an unknown pen name has a shot in romance without promotion.

A big attraction with erotica is I write it and let it go. I'd like to write longer works with a shot at more staying power and increase my potential readership. I'm also having a blast writing a more involved story after two months of short erotica. I write full-time so I'm working at capacity. Taking on promotion on top of everything else isn't going to happen within the next few weeks. Today I set aside client work to write part of the second novella. I'm wondering if I should hold off on publishing it until I have time and a budget to give it promo and a better shot at a successful launch, or just put it in erotica.

Any thoughts?

[Edited to correct name]


----------



## katrina46

Secret Pen Pal said:


> Katrina -- I agree. The 2.99 price works for erotica. I dropped some titles in a lagging series to 99 cents a couple of times and it didn't help.
> 
> The royalties are so low at 99 cents, I'm mystified why so many erotica authors have a lot of books out at that price.
> 
> Lyndabelle, I wish you well with your new stories. This got addressed in another thread, so just for anyone else, erotica about people under 18 isn't allowed. I notice many erotica writers even add a notice that all their characters are over 18.
> 
> I started a new serial with much longer episodes that would probably fit in erotic romance, but I'm squeamish about it. I've been following posts by writers doing well there, yet I have the impression that it's a lot harder to break into.
> 
> If Kelly Wilde or any of other romance mavens are around, I'm wondering if a series of novellas under an unknown pen name has a shot in romance without promotion.
> 
> A big attraction with erotica is I write it and let it go. I'd like to write longer works with a shot at more staying power and increase my potential readership. I'm also having a blast writing a more involved story after two months of short erotica. I write full-time so I'm working at capacity. Taking on promotion on top of everything else isn't going to happen within the next few weeks. Today I set aside client work to write part of the second novella. I'm wondering if I should hold off on publishing it until I have time and a budget to give it promo and a better shot at a successful launch, or just put it in erotica.
> 
> Any thoughts?


I'm starting work on one I'm putting in erom. My smutty super short stories tend to get 4 and 5 star reviews, while my longer ones more plot heavy get the 1 stars. Someone pointed out my longer ones aren't bad stories so much as they should really be in romance, since a lot of erotica readers are not looking for such a plotted story. I'm not sure if the 2.99 works so well in romance for a short read, though. Maybe 99 cents is better there? I think I'll try 2.99 first and see what happens. I'm keeping my same pen name for this experiment. I'm hoping my erom might move some of my similar erotica. I don't worry about getting complaints since the story has enough actual story to belong in that category.


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

katrina46 said:


> I'm starting work on one I'm putting in erom. My smutty super short stories tend to get 4 and 5 star reviews, while my longer ones more plot heavy get the 1 stars. Someone pointed out my longer ones aren't bad stories so much as they should really be in romance, since a lot of erotica readers are not looking for such a plotted story. I'm not sure if the 2.99 works so well in romance for a short read, though. Maybe 99 cents is better there? I'm keeping my same pen name for this experiment. I'm hoping my erom might move some of my similar erotica.


Interesting about the difference in reviews. Matching reader expectations counts. My first series didn't catch on -- it's genre fiction with extensive sex scenes -- long on plot and characterization even though they're 5-8k. They still move, just slower than the three series I have out under a different pen name I started for smuttier smut. I have thirty titles out across three pen names and only one under my official byline has reviews. My smut puppies sell far better than my genre work, so I let go of the lack of feedback.

Sounds like we had a similar experience with a less than warm reception for work strong on plot. I moved the first series out of erotica. It's still my favorite of everything I've published here. I'm publishing two new series under that pen name to see if it might take take off. It took 10 releases for my smuttier pen name to gain momentum.

Yes, I don't think romance readers, or readers of any genre other than erotica, pay more than 99 cents for single short stories. It's tricky to analyze because there's a lot of smut crammed in romance. It might be possible to go with 2.99 on novellas. I'm noticing some writers work it with serials that are one story chopped up with 99 cents for the first one or two partial bits, then raising the price for the rest, but a lot of readers hate that. So far I've steered clear of cliff-hangers, but I'm considering it for the new line.

You're wise to keep pen names to a minimum. Many writers create diverse catalogs under one name. Now that I'm close to two dozen titles under my erotica name units move steadily. Unless there's a risk of offending readers or the work is drastically different, there's no need to change names. You may do well with readers crossing over. Let us know how it goes.

I keep studying categories and subcategories and following authors who are doing well in zones I'm interested in. No way around taking risks.


----------



## katrina46

Secret Pen Pal said:


> Interesting about the difference in reviews. Matching reader expectations counts. My first series didn't catch on -- it's genre fiction with extensive sex scenes -- long on plot and characterization even though they're 5-8k. They still move, just slower than the three series I have out under a different pen name I started for smuttier smut. I have thirty titles out across three pen names and only one under my official byline has reviews. My smut puppies sell far better than my genre work, so I let go of the lack of feedback.
> 
> Sounds like we had a similar experience with a less than warm reception for work strong on plot. I moved the first series out of erotica. It's still my favorite of everything I've published here. I'm publishing two new series under that pen name to see if it might take take off. It took 10 releases for my smuttier pen name to gain momentum.
> 
> Yes, I don't think romance readers, or readers of any genre other than erotica, pay more than 99 cents for single short stories. It's tricky to analyze because there's a lot of smut crammed in romance. It might be possible to go with 2.99 on novellas. I'm noticing some writers work it with serials that are one story chopped up with 99 cents for the first one or two partial bits, then raising the price for the rest, but a lot of readers hate that. So far I've steered clear of cliff-hangers, but I'm considering it for the new line.
> 
> You're wise to keep pen names to a minimum. Many writers create diverse catalogs under one name. Now that I'm close to two dozen titles under my erotica name units move steadily. Unless there's a risk of offending readers or the work is drastically different, there's no need to change names. You may do well with readers crossing over. Let us know how it goes.
> 
> I keep studying categories and subcategories and following authors who are doing well in zones I'm interested in. No way around taking risks.


Yeah, the big question for me is will .99 make it worth while to keep it out of erotica? Some readers do enjoy my longer stories and I don't have to sell nearly as many to have income. But like you said, we have to take risk and try new things.


----------



## Stephanie Marks

I just sold a 2.99 (actually on Amazon it shows as $3) 5,600 word short story. It was my first sale. So people are willing to pay that price. I don't know if many will but I have evidence that it's possi and so could happen again. 
These are in romance and women's fiction.


----------



## katrina46

Stephanie Marks said:


> I just sold a 2.99 (actually on Amazon it shows as $3) 5,600 word short story. It was my first sale. So people are willing to pay that price. I don't know if many will but I have evidence that it's possi and so could happen again.
> These are in romance and women's fiction.


Yeah, I'm going to start at 2.99. I can lower anytime I want. Congratulations on your sale.


----------



## lyndabelle

I saw the notice about the direct links not being allowed now. I was trying to keep up with all of the changes with erotica on the board, but there was tons all at once. So, now I understand about all the Amazon Page links. Makes a little more sense to me now.

As far as the new Scottish story, I'm guessing an 18 year old virgin is more exceptable as a story. Won't make as much sense in a historical story, because 16 would be old then. But for a story written in the 21st century about virgins, I guess they got to be 18 now.   So, that character trait change should help with any problems. 

It's good to see some of the erotica writers stayed. I'd been watching the threads here for awhile, even way back when the dino and Big Foot erotica was featured on Colbert. It is interesting to see what you can do. I have noticed a lot of erotica writers have left or been on the board a lot less after the Google Sign-Up Changes in the Fall. Kind of a shame, because there was a lot of good info shared before. It seems a lot moved to other writing boards. 

But, it's good to see a new crop of writers still around so if a question is asked, I don't feel all alone. Really helps to see support for a genre when first starting out.


----------



## Stephanie Marks

It sucks, because I don't know if I'm allowed to link to my books in my signature or not. They're erotic romance, is that still a no no? They're categorized under romance and women's fiction.


----------



## lyndabelle

Stephanie Marks said:


> It sucks, because I don't know if I'm allowed to link to my books in my signature or not. They're erotic romance, is that still a no no? They're categorized under romance and women's fiction.


Good question. Romance sometimes is spicy, but isn't erotica. Depends on what you'd call it. But erotica romances would have a kink in it somewhere. So, I'm not sure how that would be.


----------



## Stephanie Marks

lyndabelle said:


> Good question. Romance sometimes is spicy, but isn't erotica. Depends on what you'd call it. But erotica romances would have a kink in it somewhere. So, I'm not sure how that would be.


What do you mean it would have a kink in it somewhere? Do you mean that all eroms are kinky? That can't be right.


----------



## lyndabelle

Stephanie Marks said:


> What do you mean it would have a kink in it somewhere? Do you mean that all eroms are kinky? That can't be right.


Well, I guess you would have some kind of one that is not as pronounced. It would be a little less obvious. Like Fifty Shades is totally got BDSM. Whether it's done well is up to the author. Same was true with Twilight series. Vampire fans wouldn't necessarily like the changes Stephanie Myers put into the genre. But then, she made paranormal romances big. Eroms might be the new thing now that the movie for FSOG has come out.


----------



## Fictionista

lyndabelle said:


> Eroms might be the new thing now that the movie for FSOG has come out.


Eroms have already been a "thing" for a long time now.


----------



## Stephanie Marks

lyndabelle said:


> Well, I guess you would have some kind of one that is not as pronounced. It would be a little less obvious. Like Fifty Shades is totally got BDSM. Whether it's done well is up to the author. Same was true with Twilight series. Vampire fans wouldn't necessarily like the changes Stephanie Myers put into the genre. But then, she made paranormal romances big. Eroms might be the new thing now that the movie for FSOG has come out.


But ermoms don't have to be kinky to be eroms, they just have to have hot hot hot more graphic sex. Though I suppose if we're splitting hairs, everyone has a different definition of what kinky is. But erom = kink seems like an unfounded correlation. I mean, the missionary position can be erotic. And isn't that the whole point of the genre? EROTIC Romance, not necessarily KINKY Romance?


----------



## lyndabelle

Stephanie Marks said:


> But ermoms don't have to be kinky to be eroms, they just have to have hot hot hot more graphic sex. Though I suppose if we're splitting hairs, everyone has a different definition of what kinky is. But erom = kink seems like an unfounded correlation. I mean, the missionary position can be erotic. And isn't that the whole point of the genre? EROTIC Romance, not necessarily KINKY Romance?


Maybe the line is just getting blurry. If erotica becomes mainstream, it won't be kinky.


----------



## Stephanie Marks

lyndabelle said:


> Maybe the line is just getting blurry. If erotica becomes mainstream, it won't be kinky.


Ok wait. "Erotica" and "erotic romance" are two completely different things, so which one are you actually talking about?

And yes, a lot of "erotica" deals with different kinks or taboos, but the definition of erotica itself is a story whose main purpose is to explore the main characters sexual evolution. The story is progressed THROUGH sexual experiences. ANY kind of sexual experiences, so that doesn't automatically equal "kink". It could simply be a girl going from being a virgin to not. Do some people fetishize that? Yes. And that can be emphasized, expanded on and exploited. But that comes down the the authors style choices not the genre itself. The theme in and of itself isn't necessarily kinky.

Romance is when the story is progressed through the EMOTIONAL relationship of the two main characters that finishes in a HEA or a HFN ending.

They are differentiated by the two different driving forces of the story.

The key thing to remember about erotic romance isn't just the erotic but the "romance". Writers are expected to stick to the tropes of the romance genre. Which means HEA/HFN and the romantic emotional progression of the main characters. Just with hot hot hot sex. But once again that does NOT automatically = kink.

You can show the most vanilla of sex in erotica/erotic romance/romance. How peg A gets around to fitting into slot B is NOT the basis of genre classification.


----------



## katetanner

MODIFIED

Stephanie Marks is right.

If you are talking about erotic romance then the focus is on the romance with some sex. The sex can be quite light sprinkled throughout the book. The sex can be heavy and take up half or more of the story but there has to be a connection and emotions involved (Romance). Also there could be just a couple sex scenes in a novel. I've just read a bestselling erotic romance novel which only has 2 sex scenes, however they are hot and descriptive sex scenes.

Kink is something associated more with erotica.

Some erotic romance novels include kinky sex and BDSM. No way are my books kinky and most of the contemporary romance or new adult romance books i read have no kinky sex in them.

Some of the erotica stories i read are taboo or are kinky but not all of them are.

i agree with whoever said Erotic-romance should be moved to the romance category on Amazon because it is essentially romance with steamier sex.


----------



## Stephanie Marks

katetanner said:


> Stephanie Marks is right.
> 
> If you are talking about erotic romance then the focus is on the romance with some sex. The sex can be quite light sprinkled throughout the book. The sex can be heavy and take up half or more of the story but there has to be a connection and emotions involved (Romance).
> 
> Kink is something associated more with erotica.
> 
> Some erotic romance novels include kinky sex and BDSM. No way are my books kinky and most of the contemporary romance or new adult romance books i read have no kinky sex in them.
> 
> Some of the erotica stories i read are taboo or are kinky but not all of them are.
> 
> i agree with whoever said Erotic-romance should be moved to the romance category on Amazon because it is essentially romance with steamier sex.


This is why I put my erotic romance under romance and women's fiction. Maybe women's fiction isn't the BEST place for it but I think it fits. I mean, some people may feel they don't have enough romance to be in romance *shrug*. I classified under what I felt was right.


----------



## katrina46

katetanner said:


> MODIFIED
> 
> Stephanie Marks is right.
> 
> If you are talking about erotic romance then the focus is on the romance with some sex. The sex can be quite light sprinkled throughout the book. The sex can be heavy and take up half or more of the story but there has to be a connection and emotions involved (Romance). Also there could be just a couple sex scenes in a novel. I've just read a bestselling erotic romance novel which only has 2 sex scenes, however they are hot and descriptive sex scenes.
> 
> Kink is something associated more with erotica.
> 
> Some erotic romance novels include kinky sex and BDSM. No way are my books kinky and most of the contemporary romance or new adult romance books i read have no kinky sex in them.
> 
> Some of the erotica stories i read are taboo or are kinky but not all of them are.
> 
> i agree with whoever said Erotic-romance should be moved to the romance category on Amazon because it is essentially romance with steamier sex.


I'm doing a menage I'm putting in romance. I don't think that's a kink so much as an alternative life style. A lot of the difference is in how you write the sex, too. In romance there isn't a lot of ramming and pounding, and people don't do things in a hard and unprotected sort of way. They might be doing the same things, but those wouldn't be the words used.


----------



## lyndabelle

Haven't done an update in awhile. So far here are sales:

Rockin' Him Hard: 5 Sales 2 KU Borrows
Rockin' Him Harder: 3 Sales

I'm working on a Scottish Erotic Tale which will start a new series. Plus, I'll write the third rockstar menage story soon. I'm feeling it's a slow start, but at least it's something. Weird thing is getting the word out. Or is it all about the keywords. I'm guessing keywords helps the best. Or does rockstar erotica not sell? Wondering how the Scottish Historical erotica will do. 

Just to note: still having a lot of fun writing erotic stories. My paranormal romance under another pen name is having a release soon. So, this is a nice distraction. Hoping the traction will pick up on this pen name.


----------



## alawston

Book 1: 3 sales, 5 borrows
Book 2: 1 sale, 4 borrows
Book 3: 1 sale, 4 borrows (released on Monday, though, so let's give it a chance)

They are selling, and they're selling without me actually doing anything. But they're not selling much. It's a lot of fun, but I don't know how much longer I'll carry on.


----------



## alawston

Thanks, Angela!

The headline figures may be a bit misleading - sales that I'm getting are from all over the world, so I can see for a fact that it's not the same people reading through. For example, the three sales for Book 1 were all in the UK, where I've yet to sell (or borrow) a single copy of Book 2.

Thanks to your advice, I'm in the black and making a few quid, so I'll be plugging away a while longer - any sign of an upturn in sales and trust me, I'll be totally committed!


----------



## lyndabelle

A. Kelly said:


> It is a marathon, not a sprint  PS, you realize that your buy through is 80% right?!?!?!?!!?!!!!!!
> 
> 80%


I have to admit, the $2.99 price with 70% is good. I sell one erotica short to 12 of my paranormal romances. Though, I guess I could up the price of my paranormal romance some. Who knows. I want to get enough for a box set. Than, hopefully, sales will fly. Moral of the story=keep writing.


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## KelliWolfe

lyndabelle said:


> I have to admit, the $2.99 price with 70% is good. I sell one erotica short to 12 of my paranormal romances. Though, I guess I could up the price of my paranormal romance some. Who knows. I want to get enough for a box set. Than, hopefully, sales will fly. Moral of the story=keep writing.


How long is your paranormal romance compared to the erotica short?


----------



## lyndabelle

KelliWolfe said:


> How long is your paranormal romance compared to the erotica short?


My paranormal romance is 40 pages long. The short is about 18 pages long. With a preview of the next ebook, it's 25 pages. So, the short is a little less than half the novelette length. I plan to put all three together to make a boxed set that will be over 150 pages. Might be able to finally list the paranormal romance as a novella then. I just write short. It's what I do.


----------



## Perro Callejero

lyndabelle said:


> I sell one erotica short to 12 of my paranormal romances.


I probably sell close to 10 erotica shorts for 1 of anything else I've written. (Well, I'm counting a borrow as a sale, so bear that in mind.) My catalog is currently about 40 titles, with erotica accounting for 20 of them. I've had much more success selling erotica than anything else.

Maybe it's just easier to sell erotica, but I also have a growing suspicion that I'm better at writing erotic shorts than I am at writing other things. Plotting and characterization are not my strong suits, but description (of appearance, but also of sensation and emotion) come more naturally to me. (I started out as a poet, and that might relate to why this is so.) In my experience, my strong suits are better suited to erotica than to other forms of writing.

Doesn't mean I'm giving up on the rest of the prose I write (horror, fantasy, mystery, etc), but after I finish my current non-erotica project (which is set up through Amazon pre-order, so I have to finish it or I'll lose that pre-order option), I'm putting erotica at the forefront. I want to earn a living as a writer, and my experience tells me that I have the greatest chance of achieving that by focusing on erotica.

(Plus... I like the topic.)


----------



## katrina46

Perro Callejero said:


> I probably sell close to 10 erotica shorts for 1 of anything else I've written. (Well, I'm counting a borrow as a sale, so bear that in mind.) My catalog is currently about 40 titles, with erotica accounting for 20 of them. I've had much more success selling erotica than anything else.
> 
> Maybe it's just easier to sell erotica, but I also have a growing suspicion that I'm better at writing erotic shorts than I am at writing other things. Plotting and characterization are not my strong suits, but description (of appearance, but also of sensation and emotion) come more naturally to me. (I started out as a poet, and that might relate to why this is so.) In my experience, my strong suits are better suited to erotica than to other forms of writing.
> 
> Doesn't mean I'm giving up on the rest of the prose I write (horror, fantasy, mystery, etc), but after I finish my current non-erotica project (which is set up through Amazon pre-order, so I have to finish it or I'll lose that pre-order option), I'm putting erotica at the forefront. I want to earn a living as a writer, and my experience tells me that I have the greatest chance of achieving that by focusing on erotica.
> 
> (Plus... I like the topic.)


I really want to write thrillers before anything else, and definitely want to do some suspense/romance. My goal is to put up 30 stories under my two erotica pen names, then back off some and concentrate on other genres. I was surprised that a thriller I recently published is actually getting some sales, so it gives me hope.


----------



## Stephanie Marks

I just wanted to pop in to say thank you so much. This challenge has kind of... well, changed my life. It taught me how to write short stories, which meant that I was FINALLY able to get one written to supplement my urban fantasy novels. Now people will have something that they can read in order to get to know the world im building.

Not only that but my erom short stories are actually making me money! I've made just over $100 in my first week of being published. And while I know that's small change to some, my original goal for the entire MONTH was $50! So I'm THRILLED! I was able to put so much of what this forum teaches us into use with this challenge, like optimal keyword, etc.

So thanks guys, just... Thanks!


----------



## katetanner

Stephanie Marks said:


> I just wanted to pop in to say thank you so much. This challenge has kind of... well, changed my life. It taught me how to write short stories, which meant that I was FINALLY able to get one written to supplement my urban fantasy novels. Now people will have something that they can read in order to get to know the world im building.
> 
> Not only that but my erom short stories are actually making me money! I've made just over $100 in my first week of being published. And while I know that's small change to some, my original goal for the entire MONTH was $50! So I'm THRILLED! I was able to put so much of what this forum teaches us into use with this challenge, like optimal keyword, etc.
> 
> So thanks guys, just... Thanks!


Congrats. Thats a good result. $100 in your first week is a good start.


----------



## katetanner

Can any erotica authors tell me, if you avoid putting your erotica book in the erotica or e-rom categories, do you not make it harder for new readers to discover your book? I've just noticed one erotica author who has her books in other categories (women's fiction and contemporary romance) but not in erotica and e-rom. 

I am thinking of trying my hand at writing an erotic series, i have an idea and i think it would be kind of exciting to try something a little different. my romances are steamy but not as steamy as the erotica books i read.


----------



## MarilynVix

Stephanie Marks said:


> I just wanted to pop in to say thank you so much. This challenge has kind of... well, changed my life. It taught me how to write short stories, which meant that I was FINALLY able to get one written to supplement my urban fantasy novels. Now people will have something that they can read in order to get to know the world im building.
> 
> Not only that but my erom short stories are actually making me money! I've made just over $100 in my first week of being published. And while I know that's small change to some, my original goal for the entire MONTH was $50! So I'm THRILLED! I was able to put so much of what this forum teaches us into use with this challenge, like optimal keyword, etc.
> 
> So thanks guys, just... Thanks!


Did you do any promo? $100 is good for a first month. I'm very prawnie. My series might make that in a year. I've got an erom in the works though. Anything you found working well so far?


----------



## Stephanie Marks

MarilynVix said:


> Did you do any promo? $100 is good for a first month. I'm very prawnie. My series might make that in a year. I've got an erom in the works though. Anything you found working well so far?


Thank you. It's actually $100 for my first week, so I've bumped my goal up to $250 for the month. I haven't done any promo. I'm actually not even sure what places promote stories this short. I've been at this for less than 2 weeks, so not long enough to know if it's actually working.


----------



## alawston

Stephanie Marks said:


> Thank you. It's actually $100 for my first week, so I've bumped my goal up to $250 for the month. I haven't done any promo. I'm actually not even sure what places promote stories this short. I've been at this for less than 2 weeks, so not long enough to know if it's actually working.


Well, I've been going about 5 weeks now and I've made maybe $25, so I'm pretty sure it's working


----------



## Stephanie Marks

alawston said:


> Well, I've been going about 5 weeks now and I've made maybe $25, so I'm pretty sure it's working


Aaaaarg just lost my whole response!! *sigh*. Basically I need to wait and see if this is all just a fluke. I may have figured out how to get people to snag that first book, but it's too soon to see if I have decent buy through. I don't even know what a decent buy through percentage is? 50%? 75%? 30%? How many sales of Books 2 and 3 should you have compared to Book 1 to know if you have a decent retention rate? A crap retention rate won't help me in the long run. I need people wanting to come back to buy more books.


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## lyndabelle

New short is up! Didn't take 12 hours. More like 5 hours. Weekday uploads work so much faster.

New title: Highlander Bride Taken
New Series: Scottish Erotic Tales

Nothing better than pushing that button. Now, going to celebrate with a nice Zin port. *raises shot glass*

Will be interesting to see how historical erotica sells.


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## alawston

Good work! I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!


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## lyndabelle

lyndabelle said:


> New short is up! Didn't take 12 hours. More like 5 hours. Weekday uploads work so much faster.
> 
> New title: Highlander Bride Taken
> New Series: Scottish Erotic Tales
> 
> Nothing better than pushing that button. Now, going to celebrate with a nice Zin port. *raises shot glass*
> 
> Will be interesting to see how historical erotica sells.


So, the new Scottish Erotic tale is officially published on Amazon. 
Here are the results after two days:

Sales: 3
Borrows: 5

I'm noticing having it in Kindle Select and having Kindle Unlimited available helps a lot. I'm already getting more borrows than sales on the other books as well. What have others seen? Same results?


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## alawston

That's broadly in line with the proportions of sales to borrows that I see, and broadly the same numbers as well, though you seem to have racked them up pretty quick! Good work!


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

Congrats on the new releases, all.

Sophie -- Welcome. That's a good start. My blurbs run a bit more suggestive, yet you've covered that there's sexual content in your warning note. Good hook, putting the competition in the first line.

About keywords, I run search terms in Amazon Kindle and watch the suggestions that come up. I check the numbers of results -- and whether the results are close to what I'm doing -- and drill down to long-tail keywords with fewer than 500 results. It's an ongoing process. Broad single keywords are often a waste of space (erotic, erotica, romantic, affair) but can work in the right string. Amazon has a list of erotica keywords to use to get in the right categories: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A3RTWC5Y4P5391 Based on your blurb, you might include romance, yet that's one of the toughest erotica subcats to rank in, so check the link and subcat lists to get a sense of where your story fits.

I put my two top category targets in my first two keyword strings. My seventh keyword string continues until the field cuts off at 400 characters. Evenstar's monster keyword thread is a good resource. I've only been at this for three months, so I'd be interested to hear how others are working with keywords.

lyndabelle -- My borrows run 4.1 to 1 sale. January was my first full month in KU and my borrows ran 4.6 per 1 sale.

I've started releasing in other genres ahead of schedule. I was getting fried on short erotica. Have a trilogy made up of longer episodes coming out soon and I'm working on my first erom serial. The erotica works for fast results. I just prefer longer, more in-depth stories and more action aside from the sex. These aren't taking as long to produce as I expected -- It's such a rush to write fiction closer to my preferences that the work's going fast.


----------



## lyndabelle

Now that I've got three shorts, I'm curious to see how the end of month sales report will be. The whole borrows to sales ratio is interesting.
Mine right now is for all three shorts:

Sales: 7
Borrows: 12

Ratio: approx. 1 sale to 2 borrows. That's for all three shorts. Hmm, beginning to wonder now.

I wonder how soon I can get to the "Dirty Thirty", if it will pay off. I'm at a two week turn-around with beta readers/editor/cover designer with each short right now. With two shorts a month x 15 weeks=Should reach 30 in almost 4 months. So, if I set the goal to be there in four months, that will see if this challenge works. I think you got to have that 30 to prove or not if you can do it.

So, going to keep at this, by August there should be some real, money coming in. Of course, I've got to keep up the pace. 

First part of the challenge is to see if you can write. I'd say the second part of the challenge is to see if you can keep going


----------



## Happy chick

The keyword thing seems like it could be really hard to crack but I guess it is going to be a case of trial and error.

Are you planning to box up your 'shorts' once you have a few out there?  Does that kind of thing work?


----------



## Holland d&#039;Haas

How have I not seen this thread until now with all my lurking here? haha.

I've been wanting to put something out prior to starting my serials so I can get used to all the quirks with KPD, and I think this challenge is the perfect opportunity. ♥

I flipped through my plot book and found a few related (albeit really weird) erotica concepts lying around that I'd love to put out. I think I'll do a few daily shorts as a miniseries and bundle when they're all out like the OP suggested. I'm taking care of the covers first but will update here with the info once they're out under the new penname.


----------



## Happy chick




----------



## Stephanie Marks

Congrats!! It's a great feeling isn't it.

When I told my mom I was doing the challenge she said she loved me but she would pass on reading it. I told her "thank God". I would be mortified for my mom to read that. She then promptly turned around and told my step-dad about the challenge. So we were sitting around her dining table talking about the erotica challenge. Lol.
Because they're totally cool with the idea of me writing it, and that's awesome. We are just all more comfortable with neither of them actually READING them, hahaha.


----------



## alawston

Stephanie Marks said:


> Congrats!! It's a great feeling isn't it.
> 
> When I told my mom I was doing the challenge she said she loved me but she would pass on reading it. I told her "thank God". I would be mortified for my mom to read that. She then promptly turned around and told my step-dad about the challenge. So we were sitting around her dining table talking about the erotica challenge. Lol.
> Because they're totally cool with the idea of me writing it, and that's awesome. We are just all more comfortable with neither of them actually READING them, hahaha.


Congrats, Sophie!

You're lucky, Stephanie - one day in a few months' time, I'll have to go proper scorched earth over any of my posts that even hint at me being involved with this branch of writing. For the moment, though, it's fun to write regardless of how much (or how little in my case) it sells.


----------



## s.tenderbaum

This thread is amazing!


----------



## Stephanie Marks

alawston said:


> Congrats, Sophie!
> 
> You're lucky, Stephanie - one day in a few months' time, I'll have to go proper scorched earth over any of my posts that even hint at me being involved with this branch of writing. For the moment, though, it's fun to write regardless of how much (or how little in my case) it sells.


Why do you have to go Code Black? One of those day jobs that will kick you to the curb?
I actually write erotic romance really but that's more about the story line. When it comes right down to it my kissy face scenes are...


----------



## WDR

My sister thinks my writing in this genre is hysterical. My parents got a big laugh out of it, too. So, I usually garner some ribbing during family dinners about my "paying gig".

So far, my attempts at writing erotica have been an absolute failure. Each of my shorts has evolved into something larger. So, when I've finally finished a couple of them, my alter ego will be releasing a couple of erotic romance novels. We'll see what pops out when I go to editing on these. There are probably enough scenes I could cut out and use at erotic shorts, perhaps under yet another pen name.

Overall, I use the pen name to avoid the usual reader issues that can happen when an author jumps genres. I decided in the end that I didn't mind if someone with enough curiosity discovered my actual identity. I think the significant majority of readers don't really care to dig all that deeply into an author's identity. A good story is a good story. Of those that do, well, it will be our "private" joke.


----------



## Happy chick

s.tenderbaum said:


> This thread is amazing!


----------



## AYClaudy

Stephanie Marks said:


> Congrats!! It's a great feeling isn't it.
> 
> When I told my mom I was doing the challenge she said she loved me but she would pass on reading it. I told her "thank God". I would be mortified for my mom to read that. She then promptly turned around and told my step-dad about the challenge. So we were sitting around her dining table talking about the erotica challenge. Lol.
> Because they're totally cool with the idea of me writing it, and that's awesome. We are just all more comfortable with neither of them actually READING them, hahaha.


HA your parents are cool. My dad texted me while I was at target to tell me my bj scene was hot. I almost choked and died. And that wasn't even erotica, but still I didn't want him reading it!!

You ladies rock though. I keep watching this thread, thinking I might take the plunge soon!!


----------



## Happy chick

AYClaudy said:


> HA your parents are cool. My dad texted me while I was at target to tell me a my bj scene was hot. I almost choked and died. And that wasn't even erotica, but still I didn't want him reading it!!
> 
> You ladies rock though. I keep watching this thread, thinking I might take the plunge soon!!


That is hilariously gross! I get embarrassed when I'm watching TV with my dad and the characters start kissing!!!!


----------



## Stephanie Marks

AYClaudy said:


> HA your parents are cool. My dad texted me while I was at target to tell me my bj scene was hot. I almost choked and died. And that wasn't even erotica, but still I didn't want him reading it!!
> 
> You ladies rock though. I keep watching this thread, thinking I might take the plunge soon!!


I just about wet myself laughing when I read this. There are sex scenes in my urban fantasy novels but they are much less graphic, and I'm STILL terrified of the idea of my parents reading them! It's like, "Just skip over that part! Nothing to see here, move it along!"

If my dad ever text me and said that I would drop dead on the SPOT! And then need thirty thousand years of therapy.
If my step-dad did I would be mortified but would probably fall out of my chair with uncontrollable laughter. But that's probably because my step-dad is 30 thousand times more chill than my dad so it wouldn't seem AS horrifying.

Either way, I NEVER want to find out though. My God.... *shudder*


----------



## alawston

Stephanie Marks said:


> If my step-dad did I would be mortified but would probably fall out of my chair with uncontrollable laughter. But that's probably because my step-dad is 30 thousand times more chill than my dad so it wouldn't seem AS horrifying.


From what I gather of the current trends in the market, that could be the opening of your next series...


----------



## Stephanie Marks

alawston said:


> From what I gather of the current trends in the market, that could be the opening of your next series...


----------



## alawston

Yeah, that does look kind of horrific now I read it back. Sorry.

There's some eye-watering stuff out there, though.


----------



## lyndabelle

Totally excited! I just got a 4 star rating and full review on Goodreads. I have been submitting my new short for review, and one of the reviewers requested it. Great to hear what they said since I'm writing the second one right now. This has totally made my day. I'm posting the link so you can see who did the review and what it says. It was a fantastic job. So excited! 

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25176285-highlander-bride-taken


----------



## Happy chick

lyndabelle said:


> Totally excited! I just got a 4 star rating and full review on Goodreads. I have been submitting my new short for review, and one of the reviewers requested it. Great to hear what they said since I'm writing the second one right now. This has totally made my day. I'm posting the link so you can see who did the review and what it says. It was a fantastic job. So excited!
> 
> Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25176285-highlander-bride-taken


That was a great, very detailed review!


----------



## alawston

Stephanie Marks said:


> Why do you have to go Code Black? One of those day jobs that will kick you to the curb?
> I actually write erotic romance really but that's more about the story line. When it comes right down to it my kissy face scenes are...


Sorry, I missed this message. A combination of the day job, and also my future wife would be strongly opposed (she squicked out over a couple of off-colour gags in what I thought was a pretty clean short story collection).

I'm glad I had a crack at all this, but it's not a long-term proposition for me.


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

Good going, all!

Stephanie -- Congrats on all your progress. Really good results. Sorry I missed you before, thinking too many things at once. Also, good report on your pricing. I did some more digging on price points in other genres and took a shot at the $2.99 price on some of my experiments outside of erotica (also shorts). So far, so good. 

I just tell people I prefer to keep my work private. I find it freeing to have it be a total secret. Only two people in my life know my pen names and I subject them to most of my book covers.  I contribute to known publications for a living so it's easy to just mention the NF stuff and not get into juicy details. The one funny thing was having neighbors come to the door while I was choosing cover photos. I realized when they left that there was a big lingerie pic on my screen and they probably saw it. Oh well. Yeah, I would not want any family members reading any of this, not even the tamer ones! Glad yours are cool. 

Sophie -- I do a lot of bundles. Most of them 2 to 3 titles, some from the same series, some combo bundles from two or more series. They do well and give you a larger catalog faster. I'm experimenting with keeping bundles out of KU now, except for samplers to allow readers to check out multiple series. 

My series have mainly had stand-alone episodes and later episodes have tended to to as well as the first.  One of my most popular series has done better on later releases than on the earliest releases -- probably because the covers and titles are far better, although there may be other factors. I started out in distinct, weird niches and have multiple titles in each niche, so that probably helps. Earlier titles tend to drop off, although almost all of them get surges of activity, enough to pop them up into the 100ks now and then.  I suspect links in my backmatter help people discover my earlier work. 

Holland, Welcome! Have fun with it. 

For anyone whose enthusiasm may be waning, it took me 10 titles to reach the point where I realized it was working.


----------



## Stephanie Marks

Sometimes I worry about the fact that my contemporary erom pen name now shares a website with my UF pen name, because say what happens if it starts to tank? Or if I just get sick of writing it, etc etc. I get all stressed out and confused. But then I have to remember that no one knows who I am, I'm still a complete writing nobody, so no one will give a crap if a pen name suddenly disappears from my website.


----------



## Happy chick

Thanks so much for coming back to me on this!


----------



## SexyLexy

!Hi Sophie, congratulations on your first book! I published my first one this week too, and I definitely get the whole reticence about telling your mummy friends! My closest girlfriends know I was writing one, but I'm not sure if I can bear to know that they've read it, you know?

I'd love some constructive criticism if anyone has some to share.. My husband did the cover for me (I chose the image and the basic layout, but he changed the font and made it look a bit classier... which I thought was quite amusing considering!) but he also hasn't read it yet.. he told me he wouldn't tell me if he did!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00V5H1NT4

My story "Forbidden Fantasies: Imogen & Avery" went live on the 24th, so far I've had 2 sales and 3 borrows. Struggling with my second title.. I'm torn between the PI menage (200 words in, basic idea for plot but not sure if I'm feeling it) or the BDSM (600 words in, backstory only - struggling to work out how to get from the back story to the part I want to write!). Or taking advice from previous posters whether I should rewrite & alter my existing one to be M/M. It's also really hard with the kids wandering into the room constantly while I'm trying to write - it's very offputting given they can read over my shoulder!


----------



## funthebear

SexyLexy said:


> !Hi Sophie, congratulations on your first book! I published my first one this week too, and I definitely get the whole reticence about telling your mummy friends! My closest girlfriends know I was writing one, but I'm not sure if I can bear to know that they've read it, you know?
> 
> I'd love some constructive criticism if anyone has some to share.. My husband did the cover for me (I chose the image and the basic layout, but he changed the font and made it look a bit classier... which I thought was quite amusing considering!) but he also hasn't read it yet.. he told me he wouldn't tell me if he did!
> 
> My story "Forbidden Fantasies: Imogen & Avery" went live on the 24th, so far I've had 2 sales and 3 borrows. Struggling with my second title.. I'm torn between the PI menage (200 words in, basic idea for plot but not sure if I'm feeling it) or the BDSM (600 words in, backstory only - struggling to work out how to get from the back story to the part I want to write!). Or taking advice from previous posters whether I should rewrite & alter my existing one to be M/M. It's also really hard with the kids wandering into the room constantly while I'm trying to write - it's very offputting given they can read over my shoulder!


Maybe it's just me, but calling a guy Avery was really confusing. I had reread it to see that the "he" being referred to was Avery.

Use cock or dick, not penis. You need to make your cover look more like erotica: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Urban-Erotica/zgbs/digital-text/7620229011

Get rid of the warning at the top of the blurb. Make the entire thing more like this random blurb pulled from top 100 (less all the typos):



> I was completely naked with all my plus size revealed to him and his eyes were still hot on me as he crawled up my body
> 
> Jasmine has a crush on the most forbidden guy. She knows him so well, and they are so close.
> 
> it's very taboo
> 
> But she knows there are no guys who want her BBW curves. She constantly fantasies about, Sawyer, the guy she lives with, because he is so hot in a totally bad boy way. Even though she knows it is wrong. Then out of the blue, Sawyer takes her camping. All alone.
> 
> Sawyer has lusted over Jasmine's BBW curves since they first lived together, and he has finally decided to make his move. He is going to teach his luscious chick that her body was made for him. He has to be the one to have her first time, until she begs him for more, even as she begs him to use protection. But the minute he touches her, he knows that he has to possess her hard, deep, and unprotected, filling her up and not pulling out. until he is the only one she will ever want.


Also, if you want to sell, don't write older woman younger man. Look at the top 100, see what's selling. Copy that. The easiest way to sell, is to write things people are already looking for and know they want.


----------



## funthebear

Oh and don't waste your time with twitter or social media. Just set up a mailchimp mailing list, and add a link to the front and back of all your stories.

If you're still doing this in a month, set up a facebook page. Twitter is worthless, though, unless you're writing nonfiction.


----------



## lyndabelle

Secret Pen Pal said:


> For anyone whose enthusiasm may be waning, it took me 10 titles to reach the point where I realized it was working.


This is what I was hoping. I figure I've got to still just keep crankin' out shorts to get to a point it really starts to get sales going. Right now, the erotica shorts are selling better than my paranormal romances. That tells me something right there. Plus, the shorts I'm writing right now will connect together as a novella which I can market as a box set.

Besides, I'm having so much fun writing the Scottish Erotica Tales series. All my years of working Ren. Fairs is paying off. I only had one rockstar experience, which involved Corey Feldman hanging out with my friend and I. Somehow she ended up handcuffed to a hooker. It helped inspire the rockstar erotica. I'm done with the second Scottish tale, and know how the third will wrap it up. I tend to think in trilogies, even with shorts. I blame Tolkien.

Like I said. Writing the erotica shorts are too much fun.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

To those individuals interested in writing in this genre, I say go for it. But first read this thread carefully because there is a lot of information I glossed over in my eagerness to start. I find I'm still going back to discover material that was initially overlooked and disregarded which proved costly. 
For example, I continue to make my own covers because it's inexpensive and a time saver. However, I wouldn't suggest to anyone that they should to do this starting out. I suspect I lost a lot of sales because of my covers, and because I was a new name in the erotica genre with covers I admit, stunk.

I tried to change my recent covers and get them more professionally made, but I guess my fans were used to my amateurish ones and the new covers sold only a few books. Nevertheless, there can be many variables at play as to why the books didn't sell with the good covers.

Finally, after writing in different subgenres I began to sell in one particular genre, to my surprise. Then I wrote a series and my fans increased. I remember having three fans  buying my books and I wrote for them. Now I have a few more fans and I have written 41 short works. My sales and borrows have increased exponentially because of all the books I was able to put out in 5 months, nevertheless, I haven't reached the thousand dollar a month benchmark yet. Maybe I'll get there with my 80th book.  

Lessons learned:
1.	Writing these shorts have increased my writing speed from 1,000 words a day to 5,000 words and all my erotic romance and erotica titles (41) are in KU.
2.	Start out with great covers. You can get them made for $5.
3.	Don't get one of your titles banned by pushing the envelope because you didn’t do your research. (This happened to me). 
4. Find the subgenre that is attune to your voice and write more books for these fans.
5.	If you quit, you will never know what you're capable of doing.
6.	Nothing is wasted. You may have the opportunity to use what you have learned here in writing the books you're passionate about. And if erotica is your passion, rock on.


----------



## Dr Luck

I wanted to say thanks to the contributors to this thread since it started. I first spotted it late last year when  I had a handful of non-fiction titles to my (non-pen) name. I followed the advice on here and launched my 1st erotica short story in December. The 1st fiction I've ever tried to publish. 

Have followed up with 4 more in same series since then. All so far exclusive to Amazon and monthly sales/borrows combined averaging around 50 units of each title/month which am reasonably happy with.

I've done no advertsing so far except the odd tweet and all titles are priced at $2.99. I've read a little about bundling and wondered what other writers felt were the most successful formats? All 5/complete series, 1-3 or whatever? Am not really sure how to go about this and whether whatever I do may actually canibalise existing sales..

Either way, thanks once again for the original inspiration. Who'd have thought you could earn some extra income having such fun?


----------



## Sarah09

How do you make the bundle covers that I see people using?

Such as in this book?

http://www.amazon.com/The-Seduction-Complete-Collection-ebook/dp/B00U0FSXLS/ref=zg_bs_157057011_49


----------



## lyndabelle

Sarah09 said:


> How do you make the bundle covers that I see people using?
> 
> Such as in this book?
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/The-Seduction-Complete-Collection-ebook/dp/B00U0FSXLS/ref=zg_bs_157057011_49


Actually, I'm getting to the phase where I will want to bundle stories too. I found this post on a blog that explains how to do a box set graphic yourself with Gimp.

http://www.indiesunlimited.com/2015/02/19/making-an-ebook-box-set-cover-in-gimp/#more-62210

I'm leaning towards boxing 3 stories in a set since I'm writing trilogies. I've seen box sets of 3, 5, 10 or 12, depending on how many stories were in a series. As far as I can tell, the box sets with one series included all the stories in the series. So if your series has 3 stories, that is what you would include. If your story has 5 stories, that would be the number in the box set and so on.


----------



## katrina46

Secret Pen Pal said:


> Good going, all!
> 
> Stephanie -- Congrats on all your progress. Really good results. Sorry I missed you before, thinking too many things at once. Also, good report on your pricing. I did some more digging on price points in other genres and took a shot at the $2.99 price on some of my experiments outside of erotica (also shorts). So far, so good.
> 
> I just tell people I prefer to keep my work private. I find it freeing to have it be a total secret. Only two people in my life know my pen names and I subject them to most of my book covers. I contribute to known publications for a living so it's easy to just mention the NF stuff and not get into juicy details. The one funny thing was having neighbors come to the door while I was choosing cover photos. I realized when they left that there was a big lingerie pic on my screen and they probably saw it. Oh well. Yeah, I would not want any family members reading any of this, not even the tamer ones! Glad yours are cool.
> 
> Sophie -- I do a lot of bundles. Most of them 2 to 3 titles, some from the same series, some combo bundles from two or more series. They do well and give you a larger catalog faster. I'm experimenting with keeping bundles out of KU now, except for samplers to allow readers to check out multiple series.
> 
> My series have mainly had stand-alone episodes and later episodes have tended to to as well as the first. One of my most popular series has done better on later releases than on the earliest releases -- probably because the covers and titles are far better, although there may be other factors. I started out in distinct, weird niches and have multiple titles in each niche, so that probably helps. Earlier titles tend to drop off, although almost all of them get surges of activity, enough to pop them up into the 100ks now and then. I suspect links in my backmatter help people discover my earlier work.
> 
> Holland, Welcome! Have fun with it.
> 
> For anyone whose enthusiasm may be waning, it took me 10 titles to reach the point where I realized it was working.


For some reason ten seems to be the magic number. I was making 10-15 dollars a month on Amazon. The month I published my 10th story I shot up to around three hundred. This month I almost hit four figures, but not quite. It seems I'm stuck in the 500-800 dollar range for a bit. I'm anxious to see where I am when I hit my dirty thirty. I don't know why so many people say erotica doesn't sell well anymore. A lot of the writers have left for romance, but the readers haven't gone anywhere. Some people don't want romance with their erotica. In fact, since my smut sells better, I think most of the readers on my mailing list won't be interested in my NA and erom. I'm going to start a new list for that.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Dr Luck said:


> I wanted to say thanks to the contributors to this thread since it started. I first spotted it late last year when I had a handful of non-fiction titles to my (non-pen) name. I followed the advice on here and launched my 1st erotica short story in December. The 1st fiction I've ever tried to publish.
> 
> Have followed up with 4 more in same series since then. All so far exclusive to Amazon and monthly sales/borrows combined averaging around 50 units of each title/month which am reasonably happy with.
> 
> I've done no advertsing so far except the odd tweet and all titles are priced at $2.99. I've read a little about bundling and wondered what other writers felt were the most successful formats? All 5/complete series, 1-3 or whatever? Am not really sure how to go about this and whether whatever I do may actually canibalise existing sales..
> 
> Either way, thanks once again for the original inspiration. Who'd have thought you could earn some extra income having such fun?


I've discovered that your borrows and sales remain the same regardless if you put your titles in box sets because an author on this thread said that you are targeting a different reader. However, the problem comes when your individual titles are in a box set and they no longer sell and you want to place them on other channels. When these titles are in box sets, you have to wait for 90 days if you want to put one up somewhere else, or you may have to wait longer.

Someone on this thread suggested that I could place the box set on other channels when I asked the same question about cannibalizing my titles. Read the entire thread as I suggested in an earlier post if you want to succeed at this. You can find answers to most of your questions, and the ones concerning box sets and how to make a box set if you're not proficient in Gimp and you can't afford the expensive software.


----------



## Perro Callejero

katrina46 said:


> For some reason ten seems to be the magic number. I was making 10-15 dollars a month on Amazon. The month I published my 10th story I shot up to around three hundred. This month I almost hit four figures, but not quite. It seems I'm stuck in the 500-800 dollar range for a bit. I'm anxious to see where I am when I hit my dirty thirty. I don't know why so many people say erotica doesn't sell well anymore. A lot of the writers have left for romance, but the readers haven't gone anywhere. Some people don't want romance with their erotica.


I'm one of the folks who started writing erotica because of this thread, and I'm now moving on to romance. For me, it just seems like there is more money to be made there, mainly because the audience is much larger. My last erotica short has been out for about a month and it's made about $50. I published my first romance story two weeks ago and it's made about $150 so far.

There are a lot of important differences, though. Here are some that come to mind, off the top of my head:

1. Length. Erotica can be 5K words and sell. Romance needs to be longer. You can get away with serializing, with each part being 10K words long, but even that might be pushing it.
2. Price. $2.99 is typical for erotica, but 99 cents is more common for the shorter romance pieces. In the end, though, most of the money I make is from borrows, and those are worth the same no matter how much the sales price is.
3. Plot. Erotica is typically much simpler, Romance more complex. Erotica is typically built around a kink, while Romance is built around the characters and their developing relationship.
4. Reviews. Most of my erotica has never been reviewed, but the Romance got reviews from the start. And Romance readers can be very exacting in their desires, and more vocal when they're displeased.
5. Sex scenes. Romance has a broader variety of approaches to the portrayal of sex, including plenty of sub-genres that don't show the sex at all (fade to black). But there are also Romance categories, like New Adult, where the sex scenes read pretty much like Erotica. (Guess which type I'm writing.)


----------



## SexyLexy

Argh! I made some adjustments on my book taking on feedback (new cover, new title, changed Avery -> Austin and changed it from her best friend's son to her step son) and now KDP has blocked it! Can I kiss this book goodbye? Or is there a chance that I can rewrite parts to comply with the Amazon violations that I must have made?


----------



## lyndabelle

SexyLexy said:


> Argh! I made some adjustments on my book taking on feedback (new cover, new title, changed Avery -> Austin and changed it from her best friend's son to her step son) and now KDP has blocked it! Can I kiss this book goodbye? Or is there a chance that I can rewrite parts to comply with the Amazon violations that I must have made?


I'd say the best friend's son must have been ok. Looks like maybe the step son was too much. Did you republish on the weekend? We're finding the best time to upload and publish is on a weekday. For some reason, weekend publishing tends to get flagged more. Don't know why.


----------



## Jay Walken

Hi everybody,

I was surprised to discover this awesome thread. I have been inactive for a long time, thinking erotica discussion was forbidden. Thanks to the OP for the initiative, and to KB for permitting it. I am going to read through this thread as time permits, but meanwhile, if anyone wishes to look at my books and make any suggestions, I would be grateful.

Thanks again.


----------



## katrina46

SexyLexy said:


> Argh! I made some adjustments on my book taking on feedback (new cover, new title, changed Avery -> Austin and changed it from her best friend's son to her step son) and now KDP has blocked it! Can I kiss this book goodbye? Or is there a chance that I can rewrite parts to comply with the Amazon violations that I must have made?


DO NOT resubmit a book after it has been blocked. Your account will likely be suspended even if you change the cover and title. It used to be you could, but not anymore. Also, publish erotica on weekends at your own risk. See other comments on this thread about Carlos. And in case you didn't know you can't say step or hint at that at any way in the title. You have to say taboo. I think forbidden is still allowed, but taboo is your safest bet. You can use little brat, too. For step father use man of the house. The same goes for your blurb. Does any of this sound like a mistake you might have made? PI is one of the best selling categories, but it's also one of those that Amazon is stricter with. I personally avoid it, but learn the rules and you can make good money at it.


----------



## Just Another Vampire Writer

Oh my gosh, I'm doing this. Ready, set, go!


----------



## anotherpage

lyndabelle said:


> This is what I was hoping. I figure I've got to still just keep crankin' out shorts to get to a point it really starts to get sales going. Right now, the erotica shorts are selling better than my paranormal romances. That tells me something right there. Plus, the shorts I'm writing right now will connect together as a novella which I can market as a box set.
> 
> Besides, I'm having so much fun writing the Scottish Erotica Tales series. All my years of working Ren. Fairs is paying off. I only had one rockstar experience, which involved Corey Feldman hanging out with my friend and I. Somehow she ended up handcuffed to a hooker. It helped inspire the rockstar erotica. I'm done with the second Scottish tale, and know how the third will wrap it up. I tend to think in trilogies, even with shorts. I blame Tolkien.
> 
> Like I said. Writing the erotica shorts are too much fun.


That's the problem erotica sells, but i don't enjoy writing it. I wrote 20 shorts then decided to break from it and return to novels as while erotica sells, they don't hold unless you have a book that is 80 pages or more.

They are like houses made of snow. If you build fast you might benefit from them for a time but eventually they melt


----------



## SexyLexy

katrina46 said:


> DO NOT resubmit a book after it has been blocked. Your account will likely be suspended even if you change the cover and title. It used to be you could, but not anymore. Also, publish erotica on weekends at your own risk. See other comments on this thread about Carlos. And in case you didn't know you can't say step or hint at that at any way in the title. You have to say taboo. I think forbidden is still allowed, but taboo is your safest bet. You can use little brat, too. For step father use man of the house. The same goes for your blurb. Does any of this sound like a mistake you might have made? PI is one of the best selling categories, but it's also one of those that Amazon is stricter with. I personally avoid it, but learn the rules and you can make good money at it.


Yes, stupidly submitted on a Sunday - should have known better after reading this thread... and I was so careful to submit it the first time on a week day!

I did use the term 'step' in the title, which I wondered if that flagged - but there are HEAPS of titles with "Step" in them that are available for sale, so I thought it mightn't be such a red flag anymore. I've emailed them to ask for clarification on my content violations, so fingers crossed they will get back to me?


----------



## Dr Luck

Rachel E. Rice said:


> I've discovered that your borrows and sales remain the same regardless if you put your titles in box sets because an author on this thread said that you are targeting a different reader. However, the problem comes when your individual titles are in a box set and they no longer sell and you want to place them on other channels. When these titles are in box sets, you have to wait for 90 days if you want to put one up somewhere else, or you may have to wait longer.
> 
> Someone on this thread suggested that I could place the box set on other channels when I asked the same question about cannibalizing my titles. Read the entire thread as I suggested in an earlier post if you want to succeed at this. You can find answers to most of your questions, and the ones concerning box sets and how to make a box set if you're not proficient in Gimp and you can't afford the expensive software.


Thanks for the tips. Yes, it probably is a good idea to re-read the whole thread now my stories are up and running. Should keep me busy for a while!


----------



## AYClaudy

SexyLexy said:


> Yes, stupidly submitted on a Sunday - should have known better after reading this thread... and I was so careful to submit it the first time on a week day!
> 
> I did use the term 'step' in the title, which I wondered if that flagged - but there are HEAPS of titles with "Step" in them that are available for sale, so I thought it mightn't be such a red flag anymore. I've emailed them to ask for clarification on my content violations, so fingers crossed they will get back to me?


Hey, sorry you got flagged. Please update us when you find out why... maybe it was the step dad thing... I mean, Step brother is all over the hot lists, but maybe step dad is too much for them? Interesting.


----------



## lyndabelle

KGupton said:


> Oh my gosh, I'm doing this. Ready, set, go!


Welcome to our little experiment. Glad you want to play!


----------



## katetanner

I just did a search for free books, no specific genre and this companies freebie appeared. How are they getting away with these covers? *(covers may offend, don't look if you might get offended)*

*(I removed link) *authors name - Adult Entertainment Productions

See this is why i support having an adult's only section on Amazon like Smashwords.


----------



## Happy chick

I think the moderators may step in and remove that link.  I believe we are okay discussing titles etc but not to provide links to content.


----------



## SexyLexy

AYClaudy said:


> Hey, sorry you got flagged. Please update us when you find out why... maybe it was the step dad thing... I mean, Step brother is all over the hot lists, but maybe step dad is too much for them? Interesting.


This is what I received back from KDP:

_We've confirmed that your book(s) contains content that is in violation of our content guidelines and we will not be offering this title for sale in the Kindle Store. As stated in our guidelines, we reserve the right to determine what we consider to be appropriate, which includes cover images and content within the book.

If you wish to re-publish your book(s) with content that meets our guidelines, it will need to be submitted as an entirely new ASIN and go through our standard review process. Previous customer reviews, tags, and sales rank information are not transferable because the title will essentially be a different product.

Our content guidelines are published on the Kindle Direct Publishing website._

Not quite the specifics I was hoping for, but on the upside they have said it's ok to resubmit if I adjust the content to fit the guidelines (only the never told me which content was in violation!)

So.. in the interests of getting it right third time around, could the erotica hive-mind please give me an idea of how to traverse the waters without sinking myself again?

1. Definitely do NOT use "Step" in the title.
2. Keywords - can I use step here? Do people write PI as a keyword? Pseudoincest? What are safe keywords, which are fraught with danger?
3. Storyline - I don't think this is any more offensive than all the "research" I've read on my road to writing, so I don't really feel need to change it back to "best friend's mom" instead of "step-mom"... or do I?
4. Cover - Single female image, in lingerie, not pornographic - this should be ok as long as the title is changed?

Have I missed anything?


----------



## SexyLexy

Also, in my excerpt at the front of the book (which would ultimately show up in the "Look Inside" feature) it says:

_"... Her husband had never fucked her like this. He'd never thrust so deep into her, never filled her so completely with his manhood. Funny that it should be his own virgin son who would teach her so much about pleasure."_

Now, in the original it said something like "Funny that it should be the virgin son of her best friend", which was passed fine. Do you think it will flag as now it mentions her husband's son, but doesn't specifically place her as his step mother in the excerpt? Should I change the excerpt? Leave it out? Or do you think it should pass ok?


----------



## KelliWolfe

Lexy, you'd probably be ahead to get with the folks on the erotica forum where you can discuss this more openly in much greater detail. There are a lot more erotica writers there and they're more likely to have a better read on what is currently being frowned on by Amazon's content police. Since they're now blocking books for blurb violations as well as title/cover/content, it gets much more difficult to figure out what the problem is without having a lot of people who can chip in with their own experiences. You may never figure it out. I've got multiple stories that have been blocked which left a lot of us scratching our heads without ever figuring out why.

As best we can tell sometimes their reviewers just take out their frustrations on the erotica writers without any real rhyme or reason.


----------



## katrina46

KelliWolfe said:


> Lexy, you'd probably be ahead to get with the folks on the erotica forum where you can discuss this more openly in much greater detail. There are a lot more erotica writers there and they're more likely to have a better read on what is currently being frowned on by Amazon's content police. Since they're now blocking books for blurb violations as well as title/cover/content, it gets much more difficult to figure out what the problem is without having a lot of people who can chip in with their own experiences. You may never figure it out. I've got multiple stories that have been blocked which left a lot of us scratching our heads without ever figuring out why.
> 
> As best we can tell sometimes their reviewers just take out their frustrations on the erotica writers without any real rhyme or reason.


I never did figure out why my PI was blocked. That's why I don't write it anymore. I am thinking of doing a Stepbrother romance, if I can figure out a way to do something that hasn't been done a thousand times. Even then, I've come up with a title that doesn't have the word Step in it. Heck, that itself is doing something new, lol.


----------



## katrina46

SexyLexy said:


> Also, in my excerpt at the front of the book (which would ultimately show up in the "Look Inside" feature) it says:
> 
> _"... Her husband had never [expletive]ed her like this. He'd never thrust so deep into her, never filled her so completely with his manhood. Funny that it should be his own virgin son who would teach her so much about pleasure."_
> 
> Now, in the original it said something like "Funny that it should be the virgin son of her best friend", which was passed fine. Do you think it will flag as now it mentions her husband's son, but doesn't specifically place her as his step mother in the excerpt? Should I change the excerpt? Leave it out? Or do you think it should pass ok?


I know writers have been suspended for submitting the same story with a different title, blurb even after getting that email. Most start over with a new story and let the old one die. Dirty Discourse is only a one time fee of 10 dollars and most of the erotica writers are there now. I learned a lot about key words from them and I've seen tons of threads on how to avoid having your PI blocked. These are writers who make their living at it, so I'd join if I were you. I'm glad I did.


----------



## Navigator

KelliWolfe said:


> Lexy, you'd probably be ahead to get with the folks on the erotica forum where you can discuss this more openly in much greater detail. There are a lot more erotica writers there and they're more likely to have a better read on what is currently being frowned on by Amazon's content police. Since they're now blocking books for blurb violations as well as title/cover/content, it gets much more difficult to figure out what the problem is without having a lot of people who can chip in with their own experiences. You may never figure it out. I've got multiple stories that have been blocked which left a lot of us scratching our heads without ever figuring out why.
> 
> As best we can tell sometimes their reviewers just take out their frustrations on the erotica writers without any real rhyme or reason.


Do you have the link to the newish erotica forum and would you mind sharing it with me? I went M.I.A around the same time the new forum rules in regards to erotica were implemented so I missed the migration to the new forum.


----------



## katrina46

Navigator said:


> Do you have the link to the newish erotica forum and would you mind sharing it with me? I went M.I.A around the same time the new forum rules in regards to erotica were implemented so I missed the migration to the new forum.


http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,199937.msg2833258.html#msg2833258


----------



## Navigator

katrina46 said:


> http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,199937.msg2833258.html#msg2833258


Thank you very much!


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## lyndabelle

katrina46 said:


> http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,199937.msg2833258.html#msg2833258


Thank you. I wanted to go check it out too.


----------



## Sarah09

I know this is buried deep down in the thread, but I figured I would ask it again to see how people are doing with it currently. How well are your boxsets/bundles doing? Do you find that they cannibalize the sales of the short stories if you make a boxset of them?


----------



## katrina46

Navigator said:


> Thank you very much!


For some reason that link just takes you back to the main kboard page instead of the thread containing the link, so try this one. It's the registration page for dirty discourse. http://dirtydiscourse.com/forum/index.php


----------



## SexyLexy

katrina46 said:


> I know writers have been suspended for submitting the same story with a different title, blurb even after getting that email. Most start over with a new story and let the old one die. Dirty Discourse is only a one time fee of 10 dollars and most of the erotica writers are there now. I learned a lot about key words from them and I've seen tons of threads on how to avoid having your PI blocked. These are writers who make their living at it, so I'd join if I were you. I'm glad I did.


Loving DD, thanks for the recommendation!!

Just an update for those who were interested, KDP wouldn't give me specifics, but I resubmitted it with the following changes:
1. New Title, no "Step" to be seen. Same cover as blocked version, only change was title.
2. Removed the "Excerpt" in the front matter as it didn't establish the step relationship and could have read as incest. Better no excerpt than a banned book.
3. New description/blurb, no excerpts in it, short and sweet.
4. Changed my keywords, stuffed those babies in (but after reading DD I wish I'd been more explicit - I was so afraid of being blocked for naughty keywords, but apparently that's ok! Now I'm just terrified that changing my keywords will be too risky)
5. Listed in Contempory Women's Fiction and Short Stories.

Went through in about 24 hours, already 2 sales. So far so good.


----------



## katetanner

I asked this question a few pages ago. I am writing my first erotica short story, just thought i'd give it a try. 

Please could any erotica authors tell me, if you put your books in other categories and avoid erotica or erotic romance can readers find you easily? (as a new or fairly new author). I can see that a few authors who write erotic romance have skipped over the erotic romance category and their books are in contemporary romance, new adult romance, romantic suspense ....
I know they might get more visibility in those categories


----------



## batmansero

katetanner said:


> I asked this question a few pages ago. I am writing my first erotica short story, just thought i'd give it a try.
> 
> Please could any erotica authors tell me, if you put your books in other categories and avoid erotica or erotic romance can readers find you easily? (as a new or fairly new author). I can see that a few authors who write erotic romance have skipped over the erotic romance category and their books are in contemporary romance, new adult romance, romantic suspense ....
> I know they might get more visibility in those categories


Erotica readers will know how to find what they want, mostly by using searches to find their desired kink. In order for them to find you, you'll need to include them in your keywords. Here is an example, if someone is searching for: _cuddly pillow love-triangle pr0n_, put it in your keywords: _cuddly pillow love triangle pr0n_. As well as others like: _sexy erotic inanimate object fetish_, _human bed goose feather loving_, _man on pillow on bedspread mfp (male female pillow) romance_, _indoor outdoor memory foam funtimes_.... etc.

Easiest way to find out what people might be searching for, is to go to Amazon and type something into the search bar and see what it autocompletes as. Select one, hit enter and see if there is a reasonable number of hits (not too many, not too few) and then add that phrase to your keyword list.

Hope this helps


----------



## WDR

A heads up: while this thread has been about maximizing return from the KDP Unlimited lending library by writing short erotic stories, I felt this little bit of news was relevant to the writers on this thread:

Apple has been aggressively prudish in what they allow for content up until recently. Due to demand from readers, they added more sub-genres to their Romance line, including erotic romance. The industry code is  BISAC FIC027010.

While I believe erotica is still not accepted by Apple--as far as I know--at least this is a step in the right direction. You can only resist market demand for so long. So, for those of you who are writing erotic romance novels, this means another sales channel has opened.

Quick edit: while erotic romances may have been squeaked in under the Romance genre, this basically means that Apple is being more open and official about it.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Apple has always published both erotica and erotic romance. They're more restrictive in their content policies than Amazon (no PI, and they're iffy on dubcon) and they don't allow erotica titles to chart, but they certainly do publish them.


----------



## morganblack

Joined up on Dirty Disclosure, hoping to see some great interaction over there since I totally missed this thread.


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

Stephanie Marks said:


> Sometimes I worry about the fact that my contemporary erom pen name now shares a website with my UF pen name, because say what happens if it starts to tank? Or if I just get sick of writing it, etc etc. I get all stressed out and confused. But then I have to remember that no one knows who I am, I'm still a complete writing nobody, so no one will give a crap if a pen name suddenly disappears from my website.


It's good you're keeping your perspective. I've been glad to keep the erotica and romance completely separate from my public identity, although now that the experiment is working I've loosened up and run some titles from my genre pen name through my real social networks. It's unlikely anyone will guess they're mine and if that ever comes up, it's not such a big deal. The way-out-erotica pen name I prefer to keep under wraps for privacy and professional reasons - I'm hoping to be free of client work in a couple of months and that may make a difference. The main thing is I enjoy the freedom of keeping the projects secret. I'll probably claim all the work at some point.


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

katrina46 said:


> For some reason ten seems to be the magic number. I was making 10-15 dollars a month on Amazon. The month I published my 10th story I shot up to around three hundred. This month I almost hit four figures, but not quite. It seems I'm stuck in the 500-800 dollar range for a bit. I'm anxious to see where I am when I hit my dirty thirty. I don't know why so many people say erotica doesn't sell well anymore. A lot of the writers have left for romance, but the readers haven't gone anywhere. Some people don't want romance with their erotica. In fact, since my smut sells better, I think most of the readers on my mailing list won't be interested in my NA and erom. I'm going to start a new list for that.


Yeah, I was getting a bit discouraged when I had the first few out and was nowhere moving one a day per title that I'd seen mentioned in this thread. Then after the 10th release things really moved. My second half of January was when I realized I could make this work. It was my first full month in erotica and I hit close to 500.

But I didn't release enough new titles in February and I'm dealing with the drop-off on earlier titles. Glad to hear your sales are still growing. I've been stuck at 500 or so for three months. A new series rescued late March and got me above 500. My first three days of April are decent thanks to that series. Launched another new one this week and have two more set to release next week. I'm close to my limit on how many story lines I can continue producing at one time.

I expected to hit 1000 by now. If I'd kept my release schedule as strong as I did in January (more than a dozen titles, including bundles) I probably would have made it. I'll hit the dirty thirty on my erotica pen name this month. Hoping that's the charm!

Wish you well with your spring sales and building your NA and erom lists. I considered a separate pen name for the more romantic erotic stories but decided to stick to the two names.


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

Sarah09 said:


> I know this is buried deep down in the thread, but I figured I would ask it again to see how people are doing with it currently. How well are your boxsets/bundles doing? Do you find that they cannibalize the sales of the short stories if you make a boxset of them?


I tried the bundling method of 2+ titles per bundle, some mix and match, all in KU. In March I tried one bundle out of KU. I didn't even manage to pay myself for the time I spent on the formatting and the cover. For now, I've backed off of bundles. I've read posts that suggest bundles have a different readership and won't harm sales of singles, but I'm not sure that's true, especially in KU. After reading a post by KMatthews elsewhere, I decided to focus on moving singles. All of mine are in series, so if I get a borrow for each episode it's going to be better. I'm not going to pull existing bundles. Some of them are my top sellers and I like doing the combo ones to give readers a way to sample more than one series.

As an experiment, I'm going to hold off on doing any box sets of the new ones to give the singles a chance to reach as many readers as possible. I may keep doing bundles on older work because it increases my releases and they tend to rank well. I'm also curious about the potential of larger box sets so I may try one of those this month with older stories.

Once the new projects are complete, I might try doing a non-KU bundle again with some promo to see if it will fly.


----------



## Navigator

katrina46 said:


> For some reason that link just takes you back to the main kboard page instead of the thread containing the link, so try this one. It's the registration page for dirty discourse. http://dirtydiscourse.com/forum/index.php


Actually the first link worked just fine.


----------



## Navigator

Boyd said:


> As far as I know, Erotic Romance is a dead category. It isn't listed anymore. It could have changed...
> 
> If your story has a beginning, middle and ending with a HEA or HFN and the focus of the story isn't just about sex - You can safely put it in a romance genre without backlash. If it's all about the sexual experience and sexual journey, put it in erotica. JMHO


HFN? I know what HEA means but not the other one.


----------



## Navigator

Boyd said:


> Happy for now - Like in a serial/series installment.


Oh I see.

I think my own series I'm working on has a HFN, only neither character will be meeting each other in the next book. 1 character, my male protag, is the only constant character in the series, while the women are different. But it always has a "happy for now" kind of ending, with a plot that's there for a reason and isn't there just to make the story longer.

Should I stick it in romance then?


----------



## Navigator

Boyd said:


> PM me a link to your books. I'll give them a KU/look see


They're not up yet. The second part is almost done, and then I'll publish the first two at the same time.

I'll pm you the links when that happens. =)


----------



## funthebear

Navigator said:


> Oh I see.
> 
> I think my own series I'm working on has a HFN, only neither character will be meeting each other in the next book. 1 character, *my male protag, is the only constant character in the series, while the women are different*. But it always has a "happy for now" kind of ending, with a plot that's there for a reason and isn't there just to make the story longer.
> 
> Should I stick it in romance then?


I won't comment on where you should put them, but that's _definitely_ not Romance. Romance HFN or HEA are the H and h ending up together, whether just moving in, or getting married and having babies. A guy going on to another girl is nowhere near HFN.


----------



## Navigator

funthebear said:


> I won't comment on where you should put them, but that's _definitely_ not Romance. Romance HFN or HEA are the H and h ending up together, whether just moving in, or getting married and having babies. A guy going on to another girl is nowhere near HFN.


Wouldn't that just be HEA?

HFN sounds like at least both main characters are happy with the outcome in the end, regardless of whether or not they end up together. Which mine are.


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

Rachel E. Rice said:


> To those individuals interested in writing in this genre, I say go for it. But first read this thread carefully because there is a lot of information I glossed over in my eagerness to start. I find I'm still going back to discover material that was initially overlooked and disregarded which proved costly.
> For example, I continue to make my own covers because it's inexpensive and a time saver. However, I wouldn't suggest to anyone that they should to do this starting out. I suspect I lost a lot of sales because of my covers, and because I was a new name in the erotica genre with covers I admit, stunk.
> 
> I tried to change my recent covers and get them more professionally made, but I guess my fans were used to my amateurish ones and the new covers sold only a few books. Nevertheless, there can be many variables at play as to why the books didn't sell with the good covers.
> 
> Finally, after writing in different subgenres I began to sell in one particular genre, to my surprise. Then I wrote a series and my fans increased. I remember having three fans  buying my books and I wrote for them. Now I have a few more fans and I have written 41 short works. My sales and borrows have increased exponentially because of all the books I was able to put out in 5 months, nevertheless, I haven't reached the thousand dollar a month benchmark yet. Maybe I'll get there with my 80th book.
> 
> Lessons learned:
> 1.	Writing these shorts have increased my writing speed from 1,000 words a day to 5,000 words and all my erotic romance and erotica titles (41) are in KU.
> 2.	Start out with great covers. You can get them made for $5.
> 3.	Don't get one of your titles banned by pushing the envelope because you didn't do your research. (This happened to me).
> 4. Find the subgenre that is attune to your voice and write more books for these fans.
> 5.	If you quit, you will never know what you're capable of doing.
> 6.	Nothing is wasted. You may have the opportunity to use what you have learned here in writing the books you're passionate about. And if erotica is your passion, rock on.


Great summary. Glad you reported back and that you're still at it. Reading the entire thread and keeping notes may have been the most important thing I did when I was getting started.

Now that you've found a niche that's working for you, you'll see faster progress. It isn't so much how long it takes, it's keeping at it. 
I've experienced the speed increase too. My words per hour rate is more than double what it was when I started. 
I agree, the learning experience of erotica bootcamp does apply to other areas. I branched into other genres ahead of schedule and I'm sure my results are related to weeks of cranking out short erotica and studying marketing on Amazon.

I hope you reach your benchmark soon.

PS: ** Katrina,** congrats on your thriller sales from a couple pages back!


----------



## lyndabelle

Things slowed down a bit for me this week. I have been concentrating on another pen name title release. So, I've just had a few borrows. Hoping that the release of the next Scottish Erotic tale will help perk up April sales. Hope everyone else had a good week.


----------



## katetanner

April Ryder said:


> Erotica readers will know how to find what they want, mostly by using searches to find their desired kink. In order for them to find you, you'll need to include them in your keywords. Here is an example, if someone is searching for: _cuddly pillow love-triangle pr0n_, put it in your keywords: _cuddly pillow love triangle pr0n_. As well as others like: _sexy erotic inanimate object fetish_, _human bed goose feather loving_, _man on pillow on bedspread mfp (male female pillow) romance_, _indoor outdoor memory foam funtimes_.... etc.
> 
> Easiest way to find out what people might be searching for, is to go to Amazon and type something into the search bar and see what it autocompletes as. Select one, hit enter and see if there is a reasonable number of hits (not too many, not too few) and then add that phrase to your keyword list.
> 
> Hope this helps


Thank you April. i'll play with the keywords.



Boyd said:


> As far as I know, Erotic Romance is a dead category. It isn't listed anymore. It could have changed...
> 
> If your story has a beginning, middle and ending with a HEA or HFN and the focus of the story isn't just about sex - You can safely put it in a romance genre without backlash. If it's all about the sexual experience and sexual journey, put it in erotica. JMHO


Thank you. The Romantic Erotica category still exists under Erotica - romantic erotica


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## BasilGreen

Hullo~

Just wanted to pop in and say hi since I've been reading this thread the last couple of days and will be publishing some shorts of my own soon. Everyone's experiences have been very helpful (and fascinating!), so thanks.


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## flaskbak

Been reading this thread, interesting, I have some questions.

1. Are there limits to what type of erotica is allowed on Amazon, and how graphic, in your face, something can be described? Are there some subjects that are absolutely forbidden on Amazon?
2. As I understand it, when publishing a book, it usually takes about 24 hours before it goes online, how is it possible for amazon to check everything that is published within that timeframe? Is it done manually, or do they just search or scan for certain key words with some kind of engin?
3. What does "IP" and ¨blurb"mean?


----------



## Happy chick

flaskbak said:


> Been reading this thread, interesting, I have some questions.
> 
> 2) it takes around 24 hours but certain books take longer


----------



## flaskbak

sophie lawton said:


> Hi flaskbak
> 1) I would suggest you sign up for Kindle Unlimited and read a whole look over the next couple of weeks! And be prepared to be shocked! There is a whole lot of stuff that is 'close to the bone' but amazon are quite strict in some regards.
> 2) it takes around 24 hours but certain books take longer and it's not recommended to publish erotica over the weekend for some reason!
> 3) do you mean PI (pseudo Incest is a big trend at the moment. Look up 'step' on amazon and you'll see what I mean. Some is quite innocent in the new adult area but some isn't - you'll see a lot of code language used to get around amazons regs. For example step fathers are referred to as 'older man of the house' etc. It's all a bit icky!!!) IP could be Intellectual Property - not sure of the context. Blurb is the stuff you find on the back of a book.
> 
> Hope that helps and good luck!


yes, thank you!

Yeah, I was referring to PI, but somehow turned the letters around, lol

I am not so easily shocked and can probably stretch quite far if necessary, my concern is rather, if I would go too far, will I receive a warning, or an instant ban?

Would certainly not want to risk getting banned before I even start


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## Rachel E. Rice

I am not so easily shocked and can probably stretch quite far if necessary, my concern is rather, if I would go too far, will I receive a warning, or an instant ban?

Would certainly not want to risk getting banned before I even start

[/quote]

Hi, If you don't do your research and go too far, you will get banned instantly with no warning. I had one title banned and no one explained why and I couldn't take it down. It's still there to remind me that it was banned. If you are considering writing in this genre read this thread in its entirety. There is some good information to help writers who have ventured down this road.


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## flaskbak

Rachel E. Rice said:


> I am not so easily shocked and can probably stretch quite far if necessary, my concern is rather, if I would go too far, will I receive a warning, or an instant ban?
> 
> Would certainly not want to risk getting banned before I even start
> 
> Hi, If you don't do your research and go too far, you will get banned instantly with no warning. I had one title banned and no one explained why and I couldn't take it down. It's still there to remind me that it was banned. If you are considering writing in this genre read this thread in its entirety. There is some good information to help writers who have ventured down this road.


Just so that I understand, the book was banned, not your account, right?

Yes, will continue to read this thread.


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## Rachel E. Rice

Yes, my book was banned but not my account. I think an account will be banned if you have a certain amount of banned books. You will have to check to find out how many. I can't remember, however, you should read the terms which are set out concerning banned books. Because of this happening, I became more conservative in my writing and covers. My covers weren't the problem, I think it may have been the content. I really don't know.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Carlos actually blocked one of my sweet, vanilla older man/younger woman eroms a year or so ago. And when I say vanilla I mean vanilla - the MC was explicitly stated to be over 18, no PI, no reluctance/dubcon, no BDSM, no nothing. They're so completely arbitrary about what they block that it's barely worth wasting time worrying about.


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## AYClaudy

I finally set up a pen name and jumped in this... and... I am pleasantly surprised with the results! I think I'll keep doing this because 
1. it's fun 
2. for the time vs return it was well worth it---better return than my larger works on my real name. 
3. Plus it was low stress. My novels I put heart and soul into and I STRESS over them and their ratings big time. This was a nice fun experiment with very low stress. 

The data: I published April 11th and so far have made 65.20 (according to BookReport) sold:5  Borrow: 44  (it's a step dad story sooo... it's pretty taboo and I think that helps) 

The story is 10,000 words and took me 4 days to write, edit, and design cover to using Canva. Signing up for dollar photo club for $10.00 was my only investment so far.


----------



## Happy chick

Well done


----------



## katrina46

KelliWolfe said:


> Carlos actually blocked one of my sweet, vanilla older man/younger woman eroms a year or so ago. And when I say vanilla I mean vanilla - the MC was explicitly stated to be over 18, no PI, no reluctance/dubcon, no BDSM, no nothing. They're so completely arbitrary about what they block that it's barely worth wasting time worrying about.


I know, I got a book blocked for having the word step in the title a year ago and now I see tons of them. Sometimes it takes much longer than the 12 hours to get my books live and I freak out the whole time I'm waiting. Other times it's fast. I know when I publish thrillers their up in an hour, so now that I'm hitting the publish button on my first romance tomorrow I'm curious to see how long it takes.


----------



## lyndabelle

So, how is everyone's week going?

I'm hammering away getting another rockstar short done. I've got consistent selling or borrowing going on with my Scottish Erotic Tales series. That seems to be taking off the best. Again, the Kindle Unlimited borrows are really the money flow right now. Or is it because it's April? 

Sales so far for April:
Borrows: 17
Sales: 3
Hoping it keeps going. Borrows are less payout than sales, but good to see something happening. Back to writing. It seems to be the secret to just write more. ;-)


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## crow.bar.beer

Back in November this thread was solely responsible for prompting me to stop myself from languishing away through drafting and redrafting the same novel for over a year and a half and start putting the horse in front of the cart, career-wise.  After dipping my toes in and seeing how it works to go through the motions of self-publishing, towards the end of January I started approaching erotica shorts professionally, and now that I'm three months in I'd like to share my results.  

So far I've published 12 titles (3k-5k), which isn't very many considering that it's been three months but whenever I tried to push myself harder than where I was, I crashed, so mostly I've just focused on keeping a steady rate writing-wise and tried to let the word-count increase gradually, a bit each day. 

Bookreport tallies me up to 780 borrows and 127 sales (at $2.99) for the three months, which it estimates at a bit below $1300. My best-selling book so far brought in $180 and my least-productive book $40. 
There's definitely an accumulative effect as well as over half that income is from April.  

I think the most important thing is to write-to-market. Readers have specific reasons why they are reading and know what they are looking for, and understanding what that is and adjusting everything from the writing itself to how the story is marketed to suit their interests makes all the difference.


----------



## Will C. Brown

Thanks for your update, Amber. It sounds like you're off it a good start.
Do you have any perma-free series leaders in your books?

I only have one three-part series and it's box set out. I put book 1 in perma-free and did a Freebooksy on it. It resulted in 1,001 downloads in one day, a few email list sign-ups, #1 in my sub-category for a day-and-a-half, #264 free in Amazon, and additional sales and borrows. If I had more titles out like you and others, I'm sure it would have trickled down to them as well if I had other books to funnel them to.


----------



## Al Dente

So far for this month on 3 shorts under 10k words, I've managed to get a combined total of:

Sales: 95
Borrows: 199
Total: 294

My 3rd release has been out less than 24 hours, and it has already managed 21 sales and borrows, and is sitting in the top 10k paid on Amazon. I'm not technically a part of the challenge and don't want to share my pen name right now, but I thought I'd post with my numbers because this thread was a major inspiration for me to start writing Erotic Romance shorts.


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## crow.bar.beer

Will C. Brown said:


> Thanks for your update, Amber. It sounds like you're off it a good start.
> Do you have any perma-free series leaders in your books?


Nope, everything is in KU so perma-free isn't an option. I do have a series though and I keep adding installments, which always kicks off a new batch of readers to start off at the beginning. I think when things settle down for it though I'll take the first one out of Select and permafree it.


----------



## lyndabelle

Anyone finding lowering price to $0.99 helping sales as you increase the titles in a series? I'm about to publish a third in my rockstar series, and have the next in mind for a fourth. Not sure when this one will end. I just keep going. Will a $0.99 motivate people to buy? Hannah Ford has her whole series at $0.99.


----------



## Lady Vine

Since you started this challenge, have any of you found that either your average word counts per book have increased, or that you've moved more into erotic romance?


----------



## Anonymouse

Lady Vine said:


> Since you started this challenge, have any of you found that either your average word counts per book have increased, or that you've moved more into erotic romance?


Yes and yes. I started participating in this challenge in mid-October, writing short erotica. Since then I've created three pen names--one for erotic shorts, one for new adult romance, and one for paranormal romance. I've written about a dozen erotica shorts, and a serial each for the other pen names. This is my first month that I'll break $1,000 US in royalties, and it was because of the new adult serial.


----------



## Just Another Vampire Writer

Well, I'm into this now with two shorts, 5K each. I'm not into any big numbers yet, but so far those two little fellas are hanging in there and getting a few borrows every day and have raised my bottom line. Onward! ...I'm still pretty chicken about posting the pen name, though.


----------



## Jack Krenneck

Sweet Amber said:


> Readers have specific reasons why they are reading and know what they are looking for, and understanding what that is and adjusting everything from the writing itself to how the story is marketed to suit their interests makes all the difference.


This is dead on - for any genre. And the title, cover, blurb and sample are the marketing signposts the reader sees from the outside that lets them know the inside is the kinda thing they're looking for. When everything is in alignment the sales start to snowball.


----------



## crow.bar.beer

Jack Krenneck said:


> This is dead on - for any genre. And the title, cover, blurb and sample are the marketing signposts the reader sees from the outside that lets them know the inside is the kinda thing they're looking for. When everything is in alignment the sales start to snowball.


Sometimes I like to sit down and write the blurb before the erotica short, or get the cover ready before the story.  Knowing you have an amazing cover just waiting to be published, I think, makes you up your writing game, to make the story not let the cover down. 



Lady Vine said:


> Since you started this challenge, have any of you found that either your average word counts per book have increased, or that you've moved more into erotic romance?


I think my word counts per erotica short have actually decreased since I've started, from about 7k to 4-5k, mostly as I've developed a better intuition of how to pace the story. I'm looking forward to starting some erotic romance soon too, but I want to make sure I consolidate the pure erotica income base first.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

I have finally reached my benchmark of fifty books including three box sets as well as reaching the goal of making one thousand dollars this month. However writing short erotica and erotic romance is not for the faint of heart. 

Fifty titles you say before you reached $1000.  Well, I did numerous things wrong and I'm still doing them because I don't have the time to change in midstream. For example, I get bored and write in different subgenres, I'm still making my own covers, I don't have a website, and I don't advertise. 
Furthermore, if I were lucky, and had applied most of the advice from this thread, I may have reached that amount earlier as some individuals did with a few titles.
  
I have invested a great deal of my time in this project, but it's rewarding. For instance, by increasing my word count and story output, developing ideas for over forty titles because I wrote few series, and when I did, there were only three parts with the exception of my best sellers. With different plots and concepts for fifty stories, some of these 5,000 word shorts can be turned into a romance novel in the future, with most of the useful but excessive sex scenes removed of course.  Moreover, I have a catalogue to place in other venues if I decide not to write any more of these short erotic stories.
Lessons I've learned: nothing is wasted. Persistence, perseverance, and self-belief can make a difference.


----------



## alawston

FWIW, I think the covers you've got in your signature look just fine! Congratulations on reaching the milestone, a shame it's not been so lucrative for you.


----------



## Anonymouse

Rachel E. Rice said:


> I have finally reached my benchmark of fifty books including three box sets as well as reaching the goal of making one thousand dollars this month.


I just wanted to say thanks for the update. You've been one of the more consistent and dedicated people on this thread, and I appreciate it.

Also, congratulations!


----------



## lyndabelle

Lady Vine said:


> Since you started this challenge, have any of you found that either your average word counts per book have increased, or that you've moved more into erotic romance?


I write spicy romance under another pen name. So, I'm finding that a lot of my shorts are linking together into a romance story, linked together with intrigue and relationships. I think I'm just not into writing the straight erotica. I've got to have meaning somewhere in there. Besides, I like it if you end up with the guy in the end. Or at least with him in some way. ;-)

So, yes, I'm mostly churning out erotic romantic shorts. I've got some vacation fling ideas, and can link them as different character adventures. And I've started a vampire brothel story which is more about the sex with the vampire, even though the main character is getting over a divorce. OK, I just can't stay out of the romance formulas. It just is too much fun.

And my word count is going up. I think stories were about 3500 words to start. And now I'm getting to 4500 words a story. They got longer with my paranormal romances too.


----------



## BasilGreen

Aww, it's so quiet in here. Just wanted to pop in and say cheers again for all the advice (I lurked so hard) now that I finally hit the Publish button and my first erotica is live.

The billionaire-stepbrother-werewolf craze seems to still be dominating, so hopefully the medieval erotica audience is starving for a little fiction. ^_^

Anyway, would love to know how others are currently doing, and share if anyone else feels like sharing.


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## lyndabelle

BasilGreen said:


> Aww, it's so quiet in here. Just wanted to pop in and say cheers again for all the advice (I lurked so hard) now that I finally hit the Publish button and my first erotica is live.
> 
> The billionaire-stepbrother-werewolf craze seems to still be dominating, so hopefully the medieval erotica audience is starving for a little fiction. ^_^
> 
> Anyway, would love to know how others are currently doing, and share if anyone else feels like sharing.


Hi ya! Good to see people checking back.

I just pushed the button on a vampire brothel short. I tried my hand at BDSM and vampires all in one story. Way too much fun. This is my sixth short in 3 1/2 months. Still averaging writing one short every two weeks.

Still selling an average of 1 sell or borrow a day. Trying to advertise some more. I actually splurged and bought an ad on an erotic blog, and I'm seeing a steady flow of sales for that short. I'm hoping that once I get people interested in one short, they'll read the others.

Plus, working on getting some teasers done, and a mini blog tour. I'm finding if people find out about the shorts, they start buying.
I pitch ideas for my stories and I'm getting nothing but excitement. Always a good sign. 
Got costs down to about $60 a short. This includes beta readers, proof editor, and cover design.

Shorts written so far: 6
Series: 3 series
Hot Groupies
Scottish Erotic Tales
Vampire Pleasures

Got ideas for 3 shorts for a vacation fling series. I want to somehow get in on the billionaire trend, mostly because I think alpha billionaires are hot. Will have to see where my thoughts lead me. 

How are the rest of you guys doing?


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## Rachel E. Rice

Hi all, I'm reporting on this thread because it has loads of information, and because it may be difficult to locate if you are new and want to write erotica or erotic romance. I began in the middle of October, 2014 and I have about fifty six titles which consist of five to six box sets. When I began writing erotic shorts, I made about $90 dollars the first month and I had maybe 3-5 individuals purchasing my books.  My best month was April, 2015 and I made over $1,000, which isn't much compared to other authors who have been at it longer and did their research. 
I continued writing and putting out two shorts a week. As my writing speed increased, and I became more proficient at making bad covers, I was able to write, edit, and publish quickly.  

I don't have a web site but I'm working on it.  I have a newsletter and I'm working on it. I don't have professional covers but some of my fans don't seem to mind for now.  The great part about writing these shorts is that I don't have an overhead. I would probably make more money if I had all the professional stuff but who knows. I certainly don't. I'm not an expert yet.

I wrote in different subgenres until I found one where the readers appeared to like my voice, so I concentrated on that genre. My previously written erotica shorts stopped selling at some point. Maybe because I didn't advertise? Nevertheless, I published them to three other vendors and they are making money, but not much. I don't have many of my books at different vendors because on Amazon, if you have any of your individual titles in a box set, and the ninety day period is up for them, but not the box set, then you still can't sell them at other vendors. That's my understanding. 

Lessons learned: Do not box or bundle your work if you're not planning on keeping them in Amazon. And if you are taking them out, try synchronizing them where all the titles in the box set will expire around the same time.


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

Good to see reports. 
Welcome, Basil and all.

Amber -- I like to do the blurb and cover first, too. 
Rachel -- Sounds like you're on the right track. 

According to Book Report, I've had 1220 borrows and 289 sales in the past 90 days. My strangest genre serial is my top seller. Encouraging, because most of the top selling topics in erotica (based on the Kindle top 100) don't appeal to me at all. 

Most of my ebooks run 10k now and, so far, seem to have better staying power than the 5k ones. But one of my early erotica series sells steadily and brings in a good chunk of my income here. On the positive side, I'm on the first page of top sellers in my favorite sub cats often, but the income hasn't increased as fast as I expected. 

This month is running about the same as last month, even though I've been running weekly promotions all month for the first time ever. I've had some higher sales days, though, and a higher ratio of sales to borrows. Also scored a couple more reviews with the freebies. Gave away more than 2600 books. Thanks to strategic back matter I'm getting a backlist boost.

Discovered on Reddit that the easy way to have more Author Central pages for more pen names is to open a second Amazon account under a different email address. It's a separate issue from a second KDP account. 

Having fun with BookTrakr, it tells me all of my titles that are on top 100 lists across English speaking countries, information that's time-consuming to get on Amazon. Happy that I'm more popular in the UK and Denmark than I realized.


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## Dr Luck

Hi everyone,
I waded through all these pages last year, got excited/inspired and dived in writing and publishing my 1st short story last December. It developed into a series of 6 books and I've bundled the 1st 3 books too. Just launched book 2 of a new series so have 9 in total (on KDP only).

Shifting an average of c. 30 of each per week (sales/borrowscombined) on singles of 1st series. Bundle about half that volume. Big surprise was book 1 of new series which is in a different genre and has done almost 100 units since launch earlier this month. No idea why so much  higher than others though...These are new readers, not abots from the 1st series.                                

Not all great though, book 2 in 2nd series has landed in adult dungeon! Hopefully I can rejig it and get it out after the bank holiday


----------



## legion

I started mid-Oct 2014 and currently have about 40 erotic titles (including boxed sets).
I have made well into five figures over my seven months of doing this, and I'm about to be bumped into 100+ sales/day club as a result of adding this stuff to my repertoire!

Best results from erotic romance/romantic erotica stuff, novelette length.


----------



## Dr Luck

legion said:


> I started mid-Oct 2014 and currently have about 40 erotic titles (including boxed sets).
> I have made well into five figures over my seven months of doing this, and I'm about to be bumped into 100+ sales/day club as a result of adding this stuff to my repertoire!
> 
> Best results from erotic romance/romantic erotica stuff, novelette length.


Thats impressive. Are you writing full-time or around a job and or family?
Can you define novella vs short, is it just word count?


----------



## lyndabelle

legion said:


> I started mid-Oct 2014 and currently have about 40 erotic titles (including boxed sets).
> I have made well into five figures over my seven months of doing this, and I'm about to be bumped into 100+ sales/day club as a result of adding this stuff to my repertoire!
> 
> Best results from erotic romance/romantic erotica stuff, novelette length.


At what number did sales really start taking off? 10 stories written? 15 or 20? Did you do any promo?


----------



## Doglover

SabrinaLacey said:


> Curious about this... I've been hearing about the 1 star reviews left by readers of this forum on other writer's books. Is that really happening, and why on Earth?


It happens on every forum. You should see some of the pathetic comments left on some of my books by people from the kdp forum who asked for opinions about their books and got the hump when I told them. I even had one which simply said I write romances because I live alone with my dogs! Yet, I like to see my books in my signature and I've got enough five stars to make people realise the truth.

I won't put a name down for this though, as I wouldn't want people I know to read them. As it is my daughter won't read most of my books because there might be sex in them; she says it would be too weird.


----------



## katrina46

Doglover said:


> It happens on every forum. You should see some of the pathetic comments left on some of my books by people from the kdp forum who asked for opinions about their books and got the hump when I told them. I even had one which simply said I write romances because I live alone with my dogs! Yet, I like to see my books in my signature and I've got enough five stars to make people realise the truth.
> 
> I won't put a name down for this though, as I wouldn't want people I know to read them. As it is my daughter won't read most of my books because there might be sex in them; she says it would be too weird.


I don't worry about 1 stars as much as I used to. My books are out there. I promo like crazy, so if someone is going to 1 star me they just are. I have a story that has several 4 and 5 star reviews and 1 1star. The 1 star simply said it was too smutty. That's a legitimate review and it actually helps me. Some people like smutty and the ones who don't won't buy it and give me another 1 star. Plus I looked at the reviewers page and she hates everything, so I didn't take it too personally. Besides, they say you're nobody until somebody hates you.


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## Doglover

Do people really pay $2.99 for a 5,000 word story?


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## katrina46

Doglover said:


> Do people really pay $2.99 for a 5,000 word story?


They pay 2.99 for a 4,000 word story. You bet they do, though now with KU I get more borrows than sales. But yeah, short smut has always sold at 2.99. I started out at 99 cents until I got some readers, but raising the prices didn't hurt me at all. In fact, my 4k-5k stories do better than my 10k-15k, so for right now I'm sticking to shorts to build my catalog faster.


----------



## Doglover

katrina46 said:


> They pay 2.99 for a 4,000 word story. You bet they do, though now with KU I get more borrows than sales. But yeah, short smut has always sold at 2.99. I started out at 99 cents until I got some readers, but raising the prices didn't hurt me at all. In fact, my 4k-5k stories do better than my 10k-15k, so for right now I'm sticking to shorts to build my catalog faster.


That is very interesting. I shall give it a go. I've had to rewrite the first in my series because I uploaded a couple of weeks ago and it got blocked. I forgot that underage in the UK is not underage in the US. But it was just as well, because my new version is a much better story. I don't know if I can do this, but we will see.


----------



## katrina46

Doglover said:


> That is very interesting. I shall give it a go. I've had to rewrite the first in my series because I uploaded a couple of weeks ago and it got blocked. I forgot that underage in the UK is not underage in the US. But it was just as well, because my new version is a much better story. I don't know if I can do this, but we will see.


I make all my characters at least twenty to be on the safe side. Also on the look inside feature I place a content warning and add that all sexually active characters are over the legal age of consent. Nineteen is fine, but twenty just seems like a nice adult, yet young age that works for my stories. I usually write about college freshman's.


----------



## Doglover

katrina46 said:


> I make all my characters at least twenty to be on the safe side. Also on the look inside feature I place a content warning and add that all sexually active characters are over the legal age of consent. Nineteen is fine, but twenty just seems like a nice adult, yet young age that works for my stories. I usually write about college freshman's.


That is where it gets confusing because we don't have those sorts of colleges in the UK, we have universities or further education or technical colleges. Amazon don't really know about anything outside the US so best not to go there.


----------



## mouse1996

Doglover said:


> That is where it gets confusing because we don't have those sorts of colleges in the UK, we have universities or further education or technical colleges. Amazon don't really know about anything outside the US so best not to go there.


Just wanted to say that here in the US we have universities, technical colleges, and continuing education, so it may be similar to what you have in the UK. Not sure, but thought I'd mention that. If you mention that young person is in college, there shouldn't be too much of a problem. 18 is the age of consent here, but perhaps just skirting around the actual age of a person and mention facts that are "youth-centric" might be a better idea.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Doglover said:


> That is where it gets confusing because we don't have those sorts of colleges in the UK, we have universities or further education or technical colleges. Amazon don't really know about anything outside the US so best not to go there.


Based on the emails I've gotten I assume Amazon's content reviewers are Indians with a rather frail grasp of English. From the horror stories I've read about non-smut books being blocked for using dialect, colloquialisms, and "too many hyphens" it seems quite plausible.

You need to explicitly state that your characters are over 18 or you are risking your book being blocked. Don't skirt around it. Don't insinuate it. Don't leave it to inductive reasoning by saying "she was fifteen three years ago." I've had multiple books nailed by Carlos for that.


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## Doglover

mouse1996 said:


> Just wanted to say that here in the US we have universities, technical colleges, and continuing education, so it may be similar to what you have in the UK. Not sure, but thought I'd mention that. If you mention that young person is in college, there shouldn't be too much of a problem. 18 is the age of consent here, but perhaps just skirting around the actual age of a person and mention facts that are "youth-centric" might be a better idea.


I know they are called the same as ours, but I'm not 100% certain of the ages, so I'll leave it alone. Your public schools, for instance, are not the same as our public schools. We call them state schools, ones you pay for are private schools, the same, but public schools in the UK are our absolute top of the range private schools, like Eton or Charterhouse.


----------



## legion

lyndabelle said:


> At what number did sales really start taking off? 10 stories written? 15 or 20? Did you do any promo?


I wrote seven shorts my first month and was making four figures by the second (added a few more that month). 
I tried out several niches, then threw more titles at the ones that took off.
I only recently started doing promos, but stayed making four figures monthly.
My shorts are usually in the 5-7k range as per challenge terms (w/ a few spilling over to novelette territory).


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## lyndabelle

legion said:


> I wrote seven shorts my first month and was making four figures by the second (added a few more that month).
> I tried out several niches, then threw more titles at the ones that took off.
> I only recently started doing promos, but stayed making four figures monthly.
> My shorts are usually in the 5-7k range as per challenge terms (w/ a few spilling over to novelette territory).


Writing my seventh right now that is turning into the 5-7K range. Got 6 published right now. So, got to keep writing sounds like. So far, making big two digits, but that is better than one digit. 

Yes. Throwing more writing at the ones that sell seem to work. I've got a promo that is starting June 1, and I've got to finish the last of my most popular short. Thing is, I'm obsessed with this male escort short. Will have to finish it to get to the other ones. Can't dictate to the MUSE. Sometimes she calls the shots.


----------



## katrina46

lyndabelle said:


> Writing my seventh right now that is turning into the 5-7K range. Got 6 published right now. So, got to keep writing sounds like. So far, making big two digits, but that is better than one digit.
> 
> Yes. Throwing more writing at the ones that sell seem to work. I've got a promo that is starting June 1, and I've got to finish the last of my most popular short. Thing is, I'm obsessed with this male escort short. Will have to finish it to get to the other ones. Can't dictate to the MUSE. Sometimes she calls the shots.


I've never done it because I always have an idea for the story I want to write, but Kmathews advises if you look at the charts and write whats trending you can't go wrong. That's advice frome a good source. If Selena Kitt is queen of erotica, I think K must be the princess at least. She makes about 30k a month.


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## Doglover

How long does it usually take for an erotica short story to publish? I'm sure I haven't done anything wrong this time, but after have one blocked I am nervous.


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## Doglover

Doglover said:


> How long does it usually take for an erotica short story to publish? I'm sure I haven't done anything wrong this time, but after have one blocked I am nervous.


Panic over! It's appeared, so now I need to crack on with the second one.


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## cinisajoy

Doglover said:


> Panic over! It's appeared, so now I need to crack on with the second one.


Glad it went well this time.


----------



## lyndabelle

Just wanted to report that I'm doing my first promo today for an erotic short.
After 3 months of writing, I have 6 shorts up, and thought it was time for a free promo. It should give enough material for people to dive into after they've read the freebie. And still writing more, of course. Publishing every two weeks doesn't give me as much, but it definitely is working for me to create some kickbutt HOT erotica. I'm not regretting taking a little longer to make it right.

So, after one day of a promo, almost 2,000 downloads at current count: 1,904.

Trying to not hold my breath to get into the Top 100. *crossing fingers*

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #103 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
#2 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction > Short Stories
#5 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories > Single Authors


----------



## Doglover

lyndabelle said:


> Just wanted to report that I'm doing my first promo today for an erotic short.
> After 3 months of writing, I have 6 shorts up, and thought it was time for a free promo. It should give enough material for people to dive into after they've read the freebie. And still writing more, of course. Publishing every two weeks doesn't give me as much, but it definitely is working for me to create some kickbutt HOT erotica. I'm not regretting taking a little longer to make it right.
> 
> So, after one day of a promo, almost 2,000 downloads at current count: 1,904.
> 
> Trying to not hold my breath to get into the Top 100. *crossing fingers*
> 
> Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #103 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
> #2 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction > Short Stories
> #5 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories > Single Authors


How have you been doing without the promotion? I'm not at all sure I'm cut out for this; I read the look inside of one of Burt Maverick's and it made me feel sick. Does it have to be that bad? I have to admit I like my sex scenes to be a little more subtle.


----------



## lyndabelle

Doglover said:


> How have you been doing without the promotion? I'm not at all sure I'm cut out for this; I read the look inside of one of Burt Maverick's and it made me feel sick. Does it have to be that bad? I have to admit I like my sex scenes to be a little more subtle.


May was steady with the one sale or borrow a day. Still a bronze badge. But hoping the promo will help get my shorts into some new hands hungry for more.

May Looked like this:
22 KU borrows
10 sales

It's getting to be a stable daily sale, but I won't to earn more badges. Hopefully the promo will help me go up in ranks. *crossing fingers*

I try to make it HOT but interesting. I think women like more sensual descriptions. Getting used to it now. Really get imaginative and it's fun once you get used to it. Maybe, try writing some more and see what happens.

Download the short I have up for Free to see what I've been doing. It's called: Rockin' Him Hard (Hot Groupies #1). It's more erotic romance with menage. I gotta have a story to keep me reading. You might like more story oriented erotica.


----------



## Doglover

lyndabelle said:


> May was steady with the one sale or borrow a day. Still a bronze badge. But hoping the promo will help get my shorts into some new hands hungry for more.
> 
> May Looked like this:
> 22 KU borrows
> 10 sales
> 
> It's getting to be a stable daily sale, but I won't to earn more badges. Hopefully the promo will help me go up in ranks. *crossing fingers*
> 
> I try to make it HOT but interesting. I think women like more sensual descriptions. Getting used to it now. Really get imaginative and it's fun once you get used to it. Maybe, try writing some more and see what happens.
> 
> Download the short I have up for Free to see what I've been doing. It's called: Rockin' Him Hard (Hot Groupies #1). It's more erotic romance with menage. I gotta have a story to keep me reading. You might like more story oriented erotica.


Right, I've done that. I need a story, otherwise what is there? Mine is paranormal and I am just doing the second in the series.


----------



## katrina46

Doglover said:


> How long does it usually take for an erotica short story to publish? I'm sure I haven't done anything wrong this time, but after have one blocked I am nervous.


It just depends. I've had them publish in less than 12 hours. My latest one that went live yesterday took almost 24 hours. Since you've been blocked they might be taking an extra hard look, but they doesn't mean there will be a problem.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Hi, I had a title blocked and after that it took days before my titles went live. Moreover, I became shy, and I began cleaning up my books until they are no longer erotica. My books boarder more on erotic romance and they clear in less than a day. I do worry every time it takes more than 72 hours. Furthermore, there are so many factors that may prevent the books from going live.


----------



## Doglover

Rachel E. Rice said:


> Hi, I had a title blocked and after that it took days before my titles went live. Moreover, I became shy, and I began cleaning up my books until they are no longer erotica. My books boarder more on erotic romance and they clear in less than a day. I do worry every time it takes more than 72 hours. Furthermore, there are so many factors that may prevent the books from going live.


Well this one went live just after I posted about it, but the next one has the same title as the one that was blocked so I'm not sure if I should change it.


----------



## katrina46

Doglover said:


> Well this one went live just after I posted about it, but the next one has the same title as the one that was blocked so I'm not sure if I should change it.


You should definitely change it.


----------



## Sarah Scribblez

Long time lurker on this thread, and finally decided to take the plunge and wrote a series of five erotic romance shorts (~8k each). I do focus quite heavily on plot (as much as you can for an 8k story), so the erotic element to the stories is pretty tame by most standards, I would imagine. ^^;

I priced them at 99 cents each and put them in KU. I had written all 5 and posted them simultaneously. In the book description I stated that the price would be increasing on a certain day, and that a value priced box set would be released on that same day, to warn people that they could get a better price if they're not in KU (the aim of this experiment for me was to target KU borrows really, so for anyone buying them I'd like to offer them a cost effective option. The box set will not be in KU, but it also won't be sold anyone other than Amazon).

Production costs were minimal; I already had a stock photo site subscription that I'd never used so I found a suitable photo and made my own cover in Photoshop. Same image for each five with a slight variation to distinguish. Self edited the text to keep costs down (as I had no idea if anyone would even look twice at them!)

I haven't done any promotions or anything, these are organic figures from me literally just pressing submit then sitting there pressing F5 every ten seconds (seriously).

May 28th: KU 20, sales 5
May 29th: KU 29, sales 0
May 30th: KU 9, sales 0
May 31st: KU 15, sales 1
June 1st: KU 21, sales 5
June 2nd: KU 2, sales 0

Okay so I'm not going to hand in my notice at the day job, but I was floored. I even ran off to get the cool badge for my signature because I never thought I'd ever get to wear one.

I have plans to increase the price of the individuals and release the box set which I hope at a severely reduced price compared to the individuals will encourage sales on the box set (at 70% royalty) and borrows on the individuals. I also plan to use the Select free days, and in a few weeks time hope to get a BKnights promo with the first episode in the series set as free.

I just wanted to give a HUGE thank you to everyone on this board that provides information and shares their results, because that inspired me to do this and I've had so much fun with it. Now...off to write some more!


----------



## katrina46

Rachel E. Rice said:


> Hi, I had a title blocked and after that it took days before my titles went live. Moreover, I became shy, and I began cleaning up my books until they are no longer erotica. My books boarder more on erotic romance and they clear in less than a day. I do worry every time it takes more than 72 hours. Furthermore, there are so many factors that may prevent the books from going live.


I don't really get worried about writing erotica, but then my quirkiest stuff is tame compared to some of what's out there. I just stay from the stuff that puts you on the radar. No PI, dubcon or age play and my covers are quite tame. Amazon is fine with erotica as long as it's categorized right and not something that will give them bad press. They actually seem okay with PI as long as the titles are right, but the other stuff they crack down on once in a while. Usually if they crack down on PI it's because of the title or the author doesn't make it clear there is no blood relations.


----------



## lyndabelle

Sarah Scribblez said:


> Long time lurker on this thread, and finally decided to take the plunge and wrote a series of five erotic romance shorts (~8k each). I do focus quite heavily on plot (as much as you can for an 8k story), so the erotic element to the stories is pretty tame by most standards, I would imagine. ^^;
> 
> I priced them at 99 cents each and put them in KU. I had written all 5 and posted them simultaneously. In the book description I stated that the price would be increasing on a certain day, and that a value priced box set would be released on that same day, to warn people that they could get a better price if they're not in KU (the aim of this experiment for me was to target KU borrows really, so for anyone buying them I'd like to offer them a cost effective option. The box set will not be in KU, but it also won't be sold anyone other than Amazon).
> 
> Production costs were minimal; I already had a stock photo site subscription that I'd never used so I found a suitable photo and made my own cover in Photoshop. Same image for each five with a slight variation to distinguish. Self edited the text to keep costs down (as I had no idea if anyone would even look twice at them!)
> 
> I haven't done any promotions or anything, these are organic figures from me literally just pressing submit then sitting there pressing F5 every ten seconds (seriously).
> 
> May 28th: KU 20, sales 5
> May 29th: KU 29, sales 0
> May 30th: KU 9, sales 0
> May 31st: KU 15, sales 1
> June 1st: KU 21, sales 5
> June 2nd (today so far): KU 17, sales 0
> 
> Okay so I'm not going to hand in my notice at the day job, but I was floored. I even ran off to get the cool badge for my signature because I never thought I'd ever get to wear one.
> 
> I have plans to increase the price of the individuals and release the box set which I hope at a severely reduced price compared to the individuals will encourage sales on the box set (at 70% royalty) and borrows on the individuals. I also plan to use the Select free days, and in a few weeks time hope to get a BKnights promo with the first episode in the series set as free.
> 
> I just wanted to give a HUGE thank you to everyone on this board that provides information and shares their results, because that inspired me to do this and I've had so much fun with it. Now...off to write some more!


Are the shorts all one series? Did you use certain keywords? Are they all in a popular niche like Billionaire Stepbrothers?

Great success. Be proud! Just keep doing it, because you know this means you have to write more.


----------



## LifesHumor

I got an idea for an erotic short, but I don't know if I should pursue it. I haven't written anything erotic since college. Plus, it would mean trying to establish another pen name.


----------



## Sarah Scribblez

Yes, the shorts were a five part series, and I made sure to put in the description that the whole series was available now (as I'd read in another post that it might help buyers to know the whole series is already there waiting to be bought/borrowed).

I did try with my keywords after reading Evenstar's awesome post, but I'm not sure I used anything particuarly special that hasn't been mentioned before in this thread. I just stuck in lots of single words that described the story and characters until the Amazon word limit cut me off!

Not sure how popular the niche is is, but it's billionaire and BBW as that seems to sell well and it was something that I knew I'd enjoy writing. The erotic part is actually very tame, so all the PI and such will put mine to shame, I'm sure!

Thank you very much! ^^ It's addictive - I want to get more out there now to see how far I can go!


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## Doglover

Would some kind person explain to a naïve grannie what PI and BBW stand for, please?


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## katrina46

Doglover said:


> Would some kind person explain to a naïve grannie what PI and BBW stand for, please?


pseudo incest (stepbrother, stepfather) and big beautiful women.


----------



## Doglover

katrina46 said:


> pseudo incest (stepbrother, stepfather) and big beautiful women.


Thank you.


----------



## KelliWolfe

lyndabelle said:


> Just wanted to report that I'm doing my first promo today for an erotic short.
> After 3 months of writing, I have 6 shorts up, and thought it was time for a free promo. It should give enough material for people to dive into after they've read the freebie. And still writing more, of course. Publishing every two weeks doesn't give me as much, but it definitely is working for me to create some kickbutt HOT erotica. I'm not regretting taking a little longer to make it right.
> 
> So, after one day of a promo, almost 2,000 downloads at current count: 1,904.
> 
> Trying to not hold my breath to get into the Top 100. *crossing fingers*
> 
> Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #103 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
> #2 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction > Short Stories
> #5 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories > Single Authors


Did you advertise it with bknights or something, or just let it go free and see what happened?


----------



## katrina46

KelliWolfe said:


> Did you advertise it with bknights or something, or just let it go free and see what happened?


I envy people who set it free and let it go with good results. If I don't do a bknights ad I get crickets. Anymore giving all my stuff away for free is how I make money. A lot of KU users see it and borrow it anyway, which gives me a ranking after is switches back to paid. It seems to help the way free used to before Amazon stopped using it to count towards your ranking. I do free ads several times a week.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Hi to those of you who may want an update on last month's results on my erotic shorts. This is for the individuals who took my road. You know the one. The hard road. I say hard because I’m still making my covers in Microsoft. Surprising but I’m getting good at this. Well I think so but I don’t count. I have my website and newsletter available but I have yet to inform my wonderful fans. I haven’t advertised but I do give away the first in a series twice a month. And finally all my books are priced at $2.99. 

I have been taking the titles off that have outlived their usefulness and shelf life and putting them on four channels. They are selling well considering they had stopped selling on KU. The titles that have outlived their usefulness on KU, I didn’t sign them up for another ninety days.

For the second month in a row I have made in the low four figures, which isn’t that much considering I now have sixty titles. The good thing is my overhead is zilch.  I don’t count my time because I enjoy doing this.
I’m in my eighth month of this challenge. I keep writing because I have some or one fan who loves my work,  and she has read all of my little books and is waiting for my next one. She gives me five stars and when she thinks something stinks she will say so with three stars.
I stay in the top twenty of the subgenre that I write in.

Lessons learned: If you plan on taking the titles out of KU, the ones that don’t sell, then pay close attention to when your ninety days are up. Don’t box the titles if you think you will put them somewhere else. 
If I can make a dime at this anyone can.


----------



## Doglover

Well done, Rachel. If you can make four figures, even low four figures, it is worth carrying on. To be honest, I can't agree that 'anyone can do it'. I spent three days doing two short stories, cost nothing but a couple of stock photos for which I already had a subscription. But, I have rarely been so bored at writing anything. A letter of complaint gave me more satisfaction. I have sold a couple of book two of what was going to be a series, or rather had them borrowed which is better because they're 99 pence, but none of the first one. I think I might go make that one free for five days anyway. I only have the three short stories under that name, the other one I wrote and published months ago. That has sold and lent a few copies as well.

I am having a go at a contemporary romance series now, which I plan to be novella length or novelette length (never sure which) but I can get my teeth into it better and keep my interest.

If anyone needs a really scathing letter of complaint, I'm your woman


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

Congrats to everyone who is still at it. 

Rachel -- I enjoy your reports. I use Chasys Draw for covers. It's free, user-friendly and it's easy to add more fonts. 

January was my first full month at this and a few weeks ago I branched out into other genres. One of the biggest downers for me is the drop-off in erotica. I have one series from February that still has steady sales. I've just managed to resurrect another one with strategic freebies and backmatter links. 

My top-selling project is outside of erotica. I had a lot more fun with recent genre projects and still have a lot to learn. I'm hoping the longer, more in-depth multi-episode adventures have a longer shelf life. The first one is still going strong but the others aren't as popular. They sell, they just don't generally move more than about one unit a day per episode. So unless they last, they aren't going to be worth the extra hours it takes to do them compared to short erotica. 

I decided to lighten up and start over with the erotica challenge. So I slammed out a new short smut in one day and popped it up under a new pen name. It's moving a little better than one a day on average with no promo. Not great, but low time investment. So this month I'm going to play with new pen names and standalone shorts as a break and for market testing.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Thanks Pen Pal for the info about the covers.  I'll continue to report on my progress or lack of progress for those of you who have gone this route. I read several threads and wondered if I could write lots of erotica shorts and make some money to support my writing habit. Furthermore, I expected different results because it's impossible to duplicate everything an individual does.


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

Here's the link for Chasys Draw. http://www.jpchacha.com/chasysdraw/download.php I like that he updates it often and it has great on-screen help and tutorials. 
I read a lot of reviews and in general people find this one easier to use than Gimp. I tried Canva but found it far too limited. Last I looked, there's no way to add fonts. 
I expected faster results from my erotica adventure. I don't think I've given it a fair shot, so I'm starting over. I was in kissing distance of 1k last month.


----------



## LifesHumor

I've been flushing out my story. I think I'm going to try to do the challenge this week.


----------



## lyndabelle

KelliWolfe said:


> Did you advertise it with bknights or something, or just let it go free and see what happened?


Yes. I advertised it on BKnights. I have the whole list on its own thread and have been posting updates. 
Here it is:http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,215324.0.html

Try running another promo and try some of the sites on the list. A lot of them are free listings. It took awhile to find ones that took erotica shorts, but I looked at a lot of other threads that had done previous promos. I'm going to use it in the future too.


----------



## Madeline_Kirby

Okay, decided to give it a go. There was a story that had been on my mind for a while, and it has a lot of possibilities for a serial and related stories, so I started writing it on Friday. Wrote Friday, Saturday, and this morning, coming out at about 11.5K words. Read/edited/proofed. Made a cover with Gimp and Publisher. Took time to have cocktails and dinner with friends on Saturday. Blah blah. Hit publish this afternoon, and hoping to see it go live on Monday.

I have been writing MM contemporary romance, but decided to give the erotic shorts a try for a bit. It was very exciting, really got the creative juices flowing, and now I'm ready to jump back into my regular stuff before working on the next short. 

I'm not doing any promo or advertising - just setting it loose to see what happens. BTW, it is MM paranormal. Yes, werewolf, but with a twist. The funny thing is, as fast as I churned it out (5000+ words/day) I'm really proud of it!


----------



## Guest

Great achievement Madeline. PM me your book link and I`ll pick it up.


----------



## lyndabelle

Was looking to see if the subject of the new KU payment plan was going to affect anyone's writing plan. Anyone planning on longer shorts? Moving to novellas? Think erotic shorts will slow down in sells because of the change to page payout on KU?


----------



## Bella Breen

lyndabelle said:


> Just wanted to report that I'm doing my first promo today for an erotic short.
> After 3 months of writing, I have 6 shorts up, and thought it was time for a free promo. It should give enough material for people to dive into after they've read the freebie. And still writing more, of course. Publishing every two weeks doesn't give me as much, but it definitely is working for me to create some kickbutt HOT erotica. I'm not regretting taking a little longer to make it right.
> 
> So, after one day of a promo, almost 2,000 downloads at current count: 1,904.
> 
> Trying to not hold my breath to get into the Top 100. *crossing fingers*
> 
> Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #103 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
> #2 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction > Short Stories
> #5 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories > Single Authors


That's amazing! That most downloads I ever got on a free promo day was slightly over 300. Where did you promote your promo?


----------



## Bella Breen

lyndabelle said:


> Yes. I advertised it on BKnights. I have the whole list on its own thread and have been posting updates.
> Here it is:http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,215324.0.html
> 
> Try running another promo and try some of the sites on the list. A lot of them are free listings. It took awhile to find ones that took erotica shorts, but I looked at a lot of other threads that had done previous promos. I'm going to use it in the future too.


I tried using BKnights, but he refunded my order as he doesn't promote erotica to his email list anymore. Did you run into that problem as well?


----------



## Desert Rose

monamorabooks said:


> I tried using BKnights, but he refunded my order as he doesn't promote erotica to his email list anymore. Did you run into that problem as well?


I'm going to be really disappointed if he doesn't promote any erotica anymore.


----------



## katrina46

monamorabooks said:


> I tried using BKnights, but he refunded my order as he doesn't promote erotica to his email list anymore. Did you run into that problem as well?


He had tons of erotica on his list today including mine. He is, however, careful about what cover and title he will accept. They have to be fairly tame. Maybe this was the problem? I use him two or three times a week and he's never refused to promote a book of mine.


----------



## lyndabelle

monamorabooks said:


> I tried using BKnights, but he refunded my order as he doesn't promote erotica to his email list anymore. Did you run into that problem as well?


It's rockstar menage erotic romances serial. She falls for the rock star and him for her in the end. I'm planning on a epilogue, a 3.5 addition that shows them finally experience their first moments solo and together.


----------



## lyndabelle

monamorabooks said:


> That's amazing! That most downloads I ever got on a free promo day was slightly over 300. Where did you promote your promo?


I have a thread that lists all of the sites. It's here:
http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,215324.0.html


----------



## Bella Breen

lyndabelle said:


> I have a thread that lists all of the sites. It's here:
> http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,215324.0.html


Thank you!


----------



## cinisajoy

lyndabelle said:


> It's rockstar menage erotic romances serial. She falls for the rock star and him for her in the end. I'm planning on a epilogue, a 3.5 addition that shows them finally experience their first moments solo and together.


WANTS!!!!!!!!!


----------



## Will C. Brown

Boyd said:


> http://captiongenerator.com/46584/Jeff-Bezos-Reacts-to-Kindle-Unlimited-Changes
> 
> For laughs and giggles. Make sure you aren't eating or drinking when you watch that.


THIS. WINS. EVERYTHING.


----------



## LifesHumor

Boyd said:


> http://captiongenerator.com/46584/Jeff-Bezos-Reacts-to-Kindle-Unlimited-Changes
> 
> For laughs and giggles. Make sure you aren't eating or drinking when you watch that.


That is hilarious!


----------



## Evenstar

Boyd said:


> http://captiongenerator.com/46584/Jeff-Bezos-Reacts-to-Kindle-Unlimited-Changes
> 
> For laughs and giggles. Make sure you aren't eating or drinking when you watch that.


That is simply brilliant! Has anyone posted it on DD?


----------



## NoBlackHats

Evenstar said:


> That is simply brilliant! Has anyone posted it on DD?


Yes


----------



## Doglover

Boyd said:


> http://captiongenerator.com/46584/Jeff-Bezos-Reacts-to-Kindle-Unlimited-Changes
> 
> For laughs and giggles. Make sure you aren't eating or drinking when you watch that.


There is not much in life that I can't laugh at, but I find nothing funny about this video and I can find nothing to laugh at in the Nazi regime. All Amazon is trying to do is respond to complaints and make things fairer for everybody, yet some muppet sees fit to compare him to one of the most evil men in the history of the world. Am I really the only one who finds that offensive?


----------



## Evan of the R.

Doglover said:


> There is not much in life that I can't laugh at, but I find nothing funny about this video and I can find nothing to laugh at in the Nazi regime. All Amazon is trying to do is respond to complaints and make things fairer for everybody, yet some muppet sees fit to compare him to one of the most evil men in the history of the world. Am I really the only one who finds that offensive?


Yes.

This movie clip, with various subtitles, has become "one of the internet's most enduring memes," according to the Telegraph. People have created thousands of variations on it since the movie came out in 2004.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6262709/Hitler-Downfall-parodies-25-worth-watching.html

I think you're taking this particular version of the clip _way_ too seriously.


----------



## Doglover

Evan of the R. said:


> Yes.
> 
> This movie clip, with various subtitles, has become "one of the internet's most enduring memes," according to the Telegraph. People have created thousands of variations on it since the movie came out in 2004.
> 
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6262709/Hitler-Downfall-parodies-25-worth-watching.html
> 
> I think you're taking this particular version of the clip _way_ too seriously.


You are entitled to your opinion, as I am to mine. I find nothing about Hitler to be vaguely amusing; perhaps it has something to do with how close they came to invading Great Britain, and knowing that had they done so, I, being half Jewish and half Romany, would never have been born.


----------



## alawston

Oh come _on_. The music halls were leading renditions of "Hitler has only got one ball," before WW2 even started. Charlie Chaplin's _The Great Dictator_ is (IMO) his most enduring work and it came out in 1940. People have been mocking the turd for 85 years, and it's probably a bit late to get high-handed about it on an internet forum.

This is the second thread I've come across this morning where you've been bizarrely grumpy about humour, despite claiming that "there is not much in life I can't laugh at." Are you OK?


----------



## crow.bar.beer

Doglover said:


> All Amazon is trying to do is respond to complaints and make things fairer for everybody, yet some muppet sees fit to compare him to one of the most evil men in the history of the world.


No, they weren't comparing Bezos to Hitler. The meme is in reference to a situation where someone has set off with a whole confident plan and strategy and then they hit these increasing waves of resistance until they finally have to accept the inevitable. The meme shows how they progressively work through the stages of acceptance, really.  It's Hitler because the dramatization of him going through all that was superbly done, and it works so well to use that dramatization for comedic purposes because Hitler was always gave such emphatic performances. 

And this particular instance was so beautifully done because it tapped right into the heart of what it means to be an erotica author publishing on Amazon. Hitler is long dead and they weren't implying in the slightest that Bezos = Hitler so it might be best for you to take another glance at the meme and try to enjoy it for what it _really_ is.


----------



## Doglover

alawston said:


> Oh come _on_. The music halls were leading renditions of "Hitler has only got one ball," before WW2 even started. Charlie Chaplin's _The Great Dictator_ is (IMO) his most enduring work and it came out in 1940. People have been mocking the turd for 85 years, and it's probably a bit late to get high-handed about it on an internet forum.
> 
> This is the second thread I've come across this morning where you've been bizarrely grumpy about humour, despite claiming that "there is not much in life I can't laugh at." Are you OK?


The Great Dictator and the classic song were both made before anyone in the world knew what an evil madman he was. Did Chaplin know when he made that film that the object of it was planning to slaughter 4 million people? That he was planning to wipe out the Jewish race, the Romany race, anyone who was disabled, homosexual or imperfect in any way? Did he know he was going to imprison 'Arian' women and submit them to being raped by SS officers, their babies taken from them and having their minds twisted to think like him? Did Flanagan & Allen know when they sang the song? Yes, people could laugh at him then because, like Idi Amin, he was a joke. I didn't get the joke with the write good thing, but I do now. This I just don't think is appropriate.

I get told off frequently for thinking the wrong things are amusing, but not Hitler. Perhaps you should tell the survivors of Auschwitz and their relatives how funny he was?


----------



## alawston

Doglover said:


> The Great Dictator and the classic song were both made before anyone in the world knew what an evil madman he was. Did Chaplin know when he made that film that the object of it was planning to slaughter 4 million people? That he was planning to wipe out the Jewish race, the Romany race, anyone who was disabled, homosexual or imperfect in any way? Did he know he was going to imprison 'Arian' women and submit them to being raped by SS officers, their babies taken from them and having their minds twisted to think like him? Did Flanagan & Allen know when they sang the song? Yes, people could laugh at him then because, like Idi Amin, he was a joke. I didn't get the joke with the write good thing, but I do now. This I just don't think is appropriate.
> 
> I get told off frequently for thinking the wrong things are amusing, but not Hitler. Perhaps you should tell the survivors of Auschwitz and their relatives how funny he was?


Hitler's image was and remains a construct created by the Nazi propaganda machine in order to be feared and respected. So we must disrespect him at every turn. Allowing Hitler to go unmocked and unridiculed merely helps to perpetuate his sick appeal to extremist groups. He was a mad, one-balled little turd with a disastrous haircut, and a rubbish painter to boot. Not to mention a rubbish strategist (quite apart from ballsing up his attack on the USSR, he thought Norway would be the decisive theatre of war in Europe, for some reason). Mock him, ridicule him, laugh yourself sick at him. Because the alternative is to allow the propaganda machine of long-dead tyrants to continue to hold sway.


----------



## Doglover

Boyd said:


> You obviously did not watch the video clip.
> 
> What is it with you this morning? This is the second erotica related thread where you come in on. Do you not like the genre, or you looking for a reason to be upset? I'm truly curious.


I have a few posts on this thread, actually. No, I'm not looking for a reason to be upset. Yes, I did watch the clip and I still say it is in bad taste. That is my opinion; nobody has to share it but nobody needs to challenge it either.


----------



## LeahEmmaRose

alawston said:


> Hitler's image was and remains a construct created by the Nazi propaganda machine in order to be feared and respected. So we must disrespect him at every turn. Allowing Hitler to go unmocked and unridiculed merely helps to perpetuate his sick appeal to extremist groups. He was a mad, one-balled little turd with a disastrous haircut, and a rubbish painter to boot. Not to mention a rubbish strategist (quite apart from ballsing up his attack on the USSR, he thought Norway would be the decisive theatre of war in Europe, for some reason). Mock him, ridicule him, laugh yourself sick at him. Because the alternative is to allow the propaganda machine of long-dead tyrants to continue to hold sway.


Well said.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

Doglover said:


> You are entitled to your opinion, as I am to mine. I find nothing about Hitler to be vaguely amusing; perhaps it has something to do with how close they came to invading Great Britain, and knowing that had they done so, I, being half Jewish and half Romany, would never have been born.


I haven't seen the video but I've had half my family members destroyed in WWII and there is nothing funny about anything that has to do with him. Furthermore, why discuss him on this thread? This was meant to be a fun thread. I was having fun discussing my foray into writing erotic stories. 
I wanted to discuss how my fans have hijacked my writing by telling me what I should write and how to write my erotica.


----------



## Doglover

Rachel E. Rice said:


> I haven't seen the video but I've had half my family members destroyed in WWII and there is nothing funny about anything that has to do with him. Furthermore, why discuss him on this thread? This was meant to be a fun thread. I was having fun discussing my foray into writing erotic stories.
> I wanted to discuss how my fans have hijacked my writing by telling me what I should write and how to write my erotica.


Thank you. And how is your naughty work going? Will the new payment changes affect your plans?


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

My readers and fans are affecting how I write. They want me to write longer books and I don't have enough information to decide what is in my best interest. I need to do more research because each subgenre is different. I need to see what is going to happen in July to make that decision. So far I am still hovering around the low four figures, however, I have about seventy books out. The short fiction is not a problem for me.  
My fans are telling me that they love how I write and what I write but they want more. 
If anyone has advice, please chime in.


----------



## Doglover

Rachel E. Rice said:


> My readers and fans are affecting how I write. They want me to write longer books and I don't have enough information to decide what is in my best interest. I need to do more research because each subgenre is different. I need to see what is going to happen in July to make that decision. So far I am still hovering around the low four figures, however, I have about seventy books out. The short fiction is not a problem for me.
> My fans are telling me that they love how I write and what I write but they want more.
> If anyone has advice, please chime in.


If they want more, give them more.


----------



## LondonCalling

Doglover said:


> I have a few posts on this thread, actually. No, I'm not looking for a reason to be upset. Yes, I did watch the clip and I still say it is in bad taste. That is my opinion; nobody has to share it but nobody needs to challenge it either.


Conversely, you don't need to challenge those who do find it funny. It is a well-known Internet meme parodying Hitler and various situations (such as sports team losses, politician screw ups, etc) and those who like it are not in the wrong either.


----------



## Doglover

LondonCalling said:


> Conversely, you don't need to challenge those who do find it funny. It is a well-known Internet meme parodying Hitler and various situations (such as sports team losses, politician screw ups, etc) and those who like it are not in the wrong either.


I never said they were. I only put forward my opinion which is what forums are for, are they not? Now can we move past Adolf and return to what the thread is about?


----------



## crow.bar.beer

Let's all wave good-bye to Adolph as he swims away from this thread.


----------



## katrina46

Sweet Amber said:


> Let's all wave good-bye to Adolph as he swims away from this thread.


HA!!


----------



## Julianna

How are erotica sales via Smashwords? Anyone seeing much success?


----------



## katrina46

Julianna said:


> How are erotica sales via Smashwords? Anyone seeing much success?


No, but I'm slowly gaining traction on D2D, so I think they'll be worth it in the long run. So far all the sales through them have come from Barnes and Nobles. I think I got one from Apple. Nothing from Kobo, but I never did sell over their.


----------



## mica

Looking through the amazon author rank top 100 for erotica i'm seeing mainly taboo (stepfather and stepbrother) short erotica authors on that list. Also checking out smashwords in the past few days I'm starting to see more taboo erotica appearing.

Is short taboo erotica still a good kink to write?
Would you recommend writing a bunch of these taboo books and spreading them wide or putting them in KU?

I'm asking for a friend (I swear)


----------



## Gentleman Zombie

mica said:


> Looking through the amazon author rank top 100 for erotica i'm seeing mainly taboo (stepfather and stepbrother) short erotica authors on that list. Also checking out smashwords in the past few days I'm starting to see more taboo erotica appearing.
> 
> Is short taboo erotica still a good kink to write?
> Would you recommend writing a bunch of these taboo books and spreading them wide or putting them in KU?
> 
> I'm asking for a friend (I swear)


The step thing is HUGE right now. I know of authors in other groups I belong to, who are raking it in with those stories. If you're not risk adverse I'd say go for it. The only thing is that Amazon has a nasty habit of cracking down on the taboo stuff after awhile.

There's a lot of money to be made with though.. here's an interesting article on Jezebel about the whole topic:

http://jezebel.com/what-do-women-want-to-have-sex-with-their-stepbrothers-1714291638


----------



## mica

Vicky Foxx said:


> The step thing is HUGE right now. I know of authors in other groups I belong to, who are raking it in with those stories. If you're not risk adverse I'd say go for it. The only thing is that Amazon has a nasty habit of cracking down on the taboo stuff after awhile.
> 
> There's a lot of money to be made with though.. here's an interesting article on Jezebel about the whole topic:
> 
> http://jezebel.com/what-do-women-want-to-have-sex-with-their-stepbrothers-1714291638


Thanks for answering my question. 
I'm looking at authors like Scarlett Sykes, Saffron Daughter, Jade k Scott and so on who write taboo erotica but they've already got a bunch of books. For a new author starting in stepbrother ot stepdad taboo erotica would you say try go wide from the start or try KU for 90 days.


----------



## mica

I'm bumping this post up, I'd be grateful if any erotica authors can answer my question above.


----------



## dianapersaud

mica said:


> Thanks for answering my question.
> I'm looking at authors like Scarlett Sykes, Saffron Daughter, Jade k Scott and so on who write taboo erotica but they've already got a bunch of books. For a new author starting in stepbrother ot stepdad taboo erotica would you say try go wide from the start or try KU for 90 days.


I am "new" to erotica. I don't write the above kinks, but I wanted to share my experience. Under KU 1.0, I had a handful of shorts and they had a 3:1 borrow to sale rate. So I made a few hundred bucks. It was nice.

Under KU 2.0, at half a penny per page, the payout would be less than the $.35 royalty. For me, the decision is easy- I'd rather take $.35 per sale on all platforms than less than that per borrow.

Since I pulled my shorts, I've had 6 erotica sales on Amazon. (I pulled them a few days ago).

My stuff is gradually making its way to other platforms.

Last month as a test, I sold a handful of the same erotica for $2.99. Then I pulled it and went into KU. I should have stayed wide. I would have made more money.

Now there will be an influx of former KU erotica to other platforms, so I would price shorts at $0.99 and do bundles at a higher price. Although for some kinks, you could charge $2.99 or more for a short. It just depends on what starving readers want.


----------



## KelliWolfe

mica said:


> Thanks for answering my question.
> I'm looking at authors like Scarlett Sykes, Saffron Daughter, Jade k Scott and so on who write taboo erotica but they've already got a bunch of books. For a new author starting in stepbrother ot stepdad taboo erotica would you say try go wide from the start or try KU for 90 days.


You can't really go wide with pseudo incest erotica. Barnes and Noble is the only other big distributor which will publish it, and it doesn't sell particularly well there because they also allow straight-up incest stories. Google, Apple, Kobo, and All Romance will not accept it. So if you're going to do PI you might as well just stick the stories into Select and be done with it.


dianapersaud said:


> I am "new" to erotica. I don't write the above kinks, but I wanted to share my experience. Under KU 1.0, I had a handful of shorts and they had a 3:1 borrow to sale rate. So I made a few hundred bucks. It was nice.
> 
> Under KU 2.0, at half a penny per page, the payout would be less than the $.35 royalty. For me, the decision is easy- I'd rather take $.35 per sale on all platforms than less than that per borrow.
> 
> Since I pulled my shorts, I've had 6 erotica sales on Amazon.


Yeah, my sales have mostly collapsed there as well. I figure it's going to be December before things settle down again. There's still too much content in KU right now for the readers there to start heading back to paid sales. When August 15 rolls around and more people see how their income has collapsed there will be another mass exodus from Select and a big push to go wide. But most of the people who got into erotica in the last year did it with KU as a huge crutch, and they're not going to stick around when they actually have to do more than throw together a few poorly written 3000 word shorts. Their income will be gone and they won't have the patience it takes to build traction on the other sales channels where they can't game the system.


----------



## cinisajoy

mica said:


> Looking through the amazon author rank top 100 for erotica i'm seeing mainly taboo (stepfather and stepbrother) short erotica authors on that list. Also checking out smashwords in the past few days I'm starting to see more taboo erotica appearing.
> 
> Is short taboo erotica still a good kink to write?
> Would you recommend writing a bunch of these taboo books and spreading them wide or putting them in KU?
> 
> I'm asking for a friend (I swear)


I am on my knees begging here. Tell your friend to read some before trying to write it.
Trust me when I say erotica is not an easy genre to write in.


----------



## dianapersaud

cinisajoy said:


> I am on my knees begging here. Tell your friend to read some before trying to write it.
> *Trust me when I say erotica is not an easy genre to write in.*


Truer words have never been spoken 

Listen to Cinisajoy.


----------



## katrina46

mica said:


> Thanks for answering my question.
> I'm looking at authors like Scarlett Sykes, Saffron Daughter, Jade k Scott and so on who write taboo erotica but they've already got a bunch of books. For a new author starting in stepbrother ot stepdad taboo erotica would you say try go wide from the start or try KU for 90 days.


Well, Scarlett Skyes is a good example. She writes super short and pulled all of her stories out of KU July 1st. You won't make much in KU with shorts anymore, but they still sell okay. My income has surprisingly stayed the same in July. I budled some of my shorts and kept those in KU so I'd have something while I was building my traction on othier sites. I make about 30 dollars a day one those, so if you really didn't want to deal with going wide you could do that, but really you'd make more long term wide. I really just bundled to keep myself going or a while. Also, what Kellie said. Wide means Barnes and Nobles and Smashwords. That's about it. You can put them on Selena Kitt's site Excitica, but BN is about the only big distributor that will take them. i do have some on Kobo, though, but most people don't get many sales from there.


----------



## katrina46

cinisajoy said:


> I am on my knees begging here. Tell your friend to read some before trying to write it.
> Trust me when I say erotica is not an easy genre to write in.


No, it's really not, especially if you write in one niche. It's hard to make twenty menage stories not sound all the same. It's hard not to burn out because you have to stay so prolific and it's super hard figuring out what Amazon is going to do next.


----------



## KelliWolfe

katrina46 said:


> No, it's really not, especially if you write in one niche. It's hard to make twenty menage stories not sound all the same. It's hard not to burn out because you have to stay so prolific and it's super hard figuring out what Amazon is going to do next.


You never figure out what Amazon is going to do next. You just keep a king-sized tube of lube handy for when they spring it on you, and try not to get too vitriolic with KDP support while you're trying to sort out the wreckage.


----------



## katrina46

KelliWolfe said:


> You never figure out what Amazon is going to do next. You just keep a king-sized tube of lube handy for when they spring it on you, and try not to get too vitriolic with KDP support while you're trying to sort out the wreckage.


That's why I didn't freak out so bad with KU2. I didn't know what they'd do, but I knew they'd do something eventually. Erotica was becoming far too visible for them. I had an emergency bundle plan devised six months ago to get me over the rough spot. I thought they'd just kick anything that wasn't a certain length out at the time.


----------



## mica

Thank you for the answers above. 

I know some erotica authors have started writing erotic romance but what about longer novella length erotica. Example authors - Alexa Riley, Jordan Silver and Aubrey Dark.

Are any of the authors on here writing longer novella length erotica books and are they easier to promote? 
In KU or wide?


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

Rachel --

I encourage you to try it. Overall, my longer works (8-12k) sell better and maintain higher rankings longer than my shorts. They are mainly erom, rather than erotica. 

My recent novellas, 25k+, are doing pretty well, too. The main downside is I spend much longer on these more developed stories for the same price point, yet I'm banking on greater longevity. A bit soon to tell, but so far, so good. 

It felt like a risk at first, but the longer works boosted my income. 

Erotica authors charge more for longer works. I think Selina Kitt has a pricing chart on her site.


----------



## KelliWolfe

SPP, are your 25k novellas erotic romances, and are you publishing under the same pen name(s) you used for your shorts?


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

The novellas are erotic romances under my main erotica pen name. I wish I'd launched them under a different name and I may change the pen name on them. I don't put any erotica in the backmatter of the eroms. 

I queried Amazon during the Cassandra Zara issues and got the distinct impression it prefers that erotica not come up in non-erotica searches (such as if someone searches by my pen name expecting romance), though it isn't prohibited. A few top erotica authors on Amazon publish in other genres so I'm letting it ride because I have my hands full with the going-wide adventure. My first ones were doing better than I expected at that point, and still are, outselling most of my erotica shorts. I'm going to launch my novellas and novels in progress under a new name and keep them separate from erotica. As an experiment, I released a new erotica series under a new pen name and they're among my top sellers. I've seen a lot of posts about the importance of having a catalog and that influenced my decision to launch the eroms under an established pen name. Now I don't think that matters as much as the niche, presentation and writing. 

Update: Took 12 days to hit 10k pages read. A whole (estimated) 57 bucks across all titles (40 or so live in KU). My sales are up significantly this month but the income loss based on the preliminary KU per page estimate is drastic. I raised most of my bundles to $4.99 and my most unusual longer episodes (8k+) are continuing to sell at $3.99. At this rate, my KDP income may be about half of what it was last month.


----------



## KelliWolfe

That sounds like a good idea. I've been seriously thinking of splitting the eroms out of my catalog and into a new pen name. I don't have any hard evidence, but I have a strong suspicion it's hurting my sales on both sides.

Glad your sales are up. I know it's cold comfort in the loss of the KU income, but a lot of people have been seeing flat or reduced sales on top of that. Hopefully the novellas will boost things for you long term.


----------



## DGS

Could someone please point me to any step brother romance books that are sub 500 rank AND in which the step brother is not yet another billionaire? Looking for regular- normal life stuff.  Big thanks.


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

KelliWolfe said:


> That sounds like a good idea. I've been seriously thinking of splitting the eroms out of my catalog and into a new pen name. I don't have any hard evidence, but I have a strong suspicion it's hurting my sales on both sides.
> 
> Glad your sales are up. I know it's cold comfort in the loss of the KU income, but a lot of people have been seeing flat or reduced sales on top of that. Hopefully the novellas will boost things for you long term.


Earlier on, I wanted to stick to as few names as possible because I didn't want the hassle of multiple sites, mailing lists, social media and so forth. Now, yes, I think it can be damaging to mix erotica and erom. The more I explore the romance culture via blogs, reader's reviews and boards, the clearer it's becoming that the risk of offending those readers is higher than I imagined at the outset. So I think your instincts are probably right that you may be losing sales due to the mixture. I tend to think of my erotica as not being over the line, yet people's comfort levels vary hugely, and some readers who enjoy one of my sexy eroms (even the nastiest one) might be turned off by some of my erotica. I can picture the reaction of of a reader of one of my early fetish series reading the most emotional erom. Just not a good mix, even though there's a lot of crossover in my kinks and genres.

So I'm getting around the hassle factor by having all the books under my publishing imprint with everything clearly identified. So I keep the door open for cross over and reduce the risk of upsetting anyone. This way I keep the branding clearer. Readers of each pen name will know what they're going to get.

BTW, when I queried KDP I found out it's possible to have a second publishing account under my business name. I'm going to do that to keep my non-erotica separate in case of another purge. Just another option to consider. Reading about people losing all their royalties with no warning for TOS violations sapped my enthusiasm for erotica. And the new KU is finishing it off. Even though I keep thinking I'm nowhere near the banned topics I keep hearing about people who thought the same thing and lost their accounts.

Thanks for the good wishes. The improvement in sales is helping to offset the urge to scream. I'll look forward to hearing how your catalog split goes if you decide to go for it. I'm making the changes in stages. I have one new romance name ready to launch and I'm letting my KU titles expire so I won't have to make a mass of changes all at once.

One of my eroms has been my top seller nearly every week since I published it in March, so that's been encouraging. I'm already making more from eroms than erotica, faster and on fewer titles. Splitting them out will make it easier to do the numbers, too. I'll be able to track erom vs erotica income by comparing pen names in Book Report and Booktrakr instead of having to check manually across many titles in one pen name.

I like how KMatthews acknowledges all his work. There's no secret, yet he has different pen names so the lines are distinct. I'm designing my website with more separation than his though, with separate pages for the different book lines, in the interest giving readers the choice of whether they want to look at erotica covers or not -- and to avoid distracting shoppers who have specific interests. Too many choices can nix potential sales.


----------



## KelliWolfe

DGS said:


> Could someone please point me to any step brother romance books that are sub 500 rank AND in which the step brother is not yet another billionaire? Looking for regular- normal life stuff. Big thanks.


Outside of Cassandra Zara/Krista Lakes' stepbrother stories I'm not aware of any that ever ranked that high, billionaire or not. Unless you're talking actual novel length romances, like Penelope Wards'.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Secret Pen Pal said:


> So I'm getting around the hassle factor by having all the books under my publishing imprint with everything clearly identified. So I keep the door open for cross over and reduce the risk of upsetting anyone. This way I keep the branding clearer. Readers of each pen name will know what they're going to get.
> 
> BTW, when I queried KDP I found out it's possible to have a second publishing account under my business name. I'm going to do that to keep my non-erotica separate in case of another purge. Just another option to consider. Reading about people losing all their royalties with no warning for TOS violations sapped my enthusiasm for erotica. And the new KU is finishing it off. Even though I keep thinking I'm nowhere near the banned topics I keep hearing about people who thought the same thing and lost their accounts.


Yeah, I'm already doing the second account thing under a DBA with a separate EIN. There is no way I would publish anything not erotica-related under the same account with my erotica on Amazon. And it sounds like we're on the same page regarding erotica. I republished 3 of my PI stories as "best friend's daughter" stories yesterday, and I'm getting rid of the other 6 as quickly as I can rewrite them. My main focus is a new romance pen name that will publish under my non-erotica account. As that picks up steam I'm going to stop publishing new erotica and let the catalog fade to obscurity. It's more grief than I want to deal with any longer.


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

KelliWolfe said:


> Yeah, I'm already doing the second account thing under a DBA with a separate EIN. There is no way I would publish anything not erotica-related under the same account with my erotica on Amazon. And it sounds like we're on the same page regarding erotica. I republished 3 of my PI stories as "best friend's daughter" stories yesterday, and I'm getting rid of the other 6 as quickly as I can rewrite them. My main focus is a new romance pen name that will publish under my non-erotica account. As that picks up steam I'm going to stop publishing new erotica and let the catalog fade to obscurity. It's more grief than I want to deal with any longer.


Smart move. The step material has been drawing fire and it isn't worth the risk. I unpublished a bunch of titles, not PI, just early work that might have inadvertently brushed against some unwritten rule or other because I didn't know how risky this was when I started. It was a huge relief to pull them.

I agree. Trying to keep up with undefined and ever-changing pitfalls on Amazon has been a headache. I'm glad I tried the erotica experiment because it gave me a jump start on self-publishing, but yes, we're on the same path. I won't miss it. I've been revising every keyword and blurb looking for any possible errors, remaking covers -- all in the dark as to what is acceptable -- and I'm tired of the stress. I don't think I did anything wrong, but there's no way to know because they won't give clear guidelines. And now there's no financial incentive for dealing with all that hassle.

You've got a following and professional presentation. You'll be able to shake this off and move on. Glad to hear from you today. I've been doing this pretty much solo and it's been a rough couple of weeks sorting out how to deal with the KU change. Down the line we'll be making more money and enjoying freedom from nonsense.


----------



## KelliWolfe

It's not just Amazon, either. Getting anything through the content police at Kobo, Apple, and D2D is becoming a nightmare. I'm having books blocked retroactively that have been up for years and already passed through content review half a dozen times. New stuff is getting blocked, too, for really stupid things like talking about 19 year old college students drinking during Spring Break. Not actually depicting them doing so, mind you, just talking about it happening in the past tense. And then every other week Google picks random words from the dictionary and decides that they're now sexually explicit and using them in a title or blurb violates their content policy. Words like "erotica" and "nailing". It's always been a bit painful to be an erotica writer, but these days it's just ridiculous.

Definitely sounds like it's time for both of us to move into less stressful arenas.


----------



## No longer seen

Secret Pen Pal said:


> BTW, when I queried KDP I found out it's possible to have a second publishing account under my business name.


This is news to me. As well as a separate EIN, do you need a separate bank account? Or will Amazon send $ to 
the same bank account for separate publisher accounts?


----------



## KelliWolfe

I'm currently using the same bank account for both and I've gotten payments for both accounts to it.


----------



## dirtiestdevil

KelliWolfe said:


> I'm currently using the same bank account for both and I've gotten payments for both accounts to it.


What is your goal by having two separate accounts?

Amazon knows they are linked, they know you own both of them. So if you mess up by publishing the 'wrong' stuff on your 'dirty' account -- then who's to say they won't axe both of them at once? I know other people did the same thing, and after corresponding with some amazon reps (not the KPD day-time staff  ), decided it offered no real safety net at all.


----------



## No longer seen

KelliWolfe said:


> I'm currently using the same bank account for both and I've gotten payments for both accounts to it.


Thank you, Kelli


----------



## KelliWolfe

dirtiestdevil said:


> What is your goal by having two separate accounts?
> 
> Amazon knows they are linked, they know you own both of them. So if you mess up by publishing the 'wrong' stuff on your 'dirty' account -- then who's to say they won't axe both of them at once? I know other people did the same thing, and after corresponding with some amazon reps (not the KPD day-time staff  ), decided it offered no real safety net at all.


They might, they might not. Who's to say what Amazon will do? Half the time I doubt they know themselves because they're making it up as they go along. They're not exactly the most consistent people in the world, especially when it comes to their behavior towards erotica.

It also makes things easier for me, so that when I move out of erotica I'm not left with a KDP interface cluttered with dozens of short smut titles that are either unpublished or blocked.


----------



## Doglover

KelliWolfe said:


> They might, they might not. Who's to say what Amazon will do? Half the time I doubt they know themselves because they're making it up as they go along. They're not exactly the most consistent people in the world, especially when it comes to their behavior towards erotica.
> 
> It also makes things easier for me, so that when I move out of erotica I'm not left with a KDP interface cluttered with dozens of short smut titles that are either unpublished or blocked.


I have read several times on the kdp forum posters in a state because Amazon have banned all their accounts because they discovered they had more than one. They also forfeit all royalties not yet paid. I would not risk it.


----------



## Julianna

Is Barnes & Noble as strict as Amazon when it comes to publishing erotica? There's a lot of PI on their site as well.


----------



## Desert Rose

Julianna said:


> Is Barnes & Noble as strict as Amazon when it comes to publishing erotica? There's a lot of PI on their site as well.


I found a book on B&N about a woman getting pregnant by her german shepherd (I...could not make that up), so my guess is no, they're not as strict.


----------



## Julianna

Dragovian said:


> I found a book on B&N about a woman getting pregnant by her german shepherd (I...could not make that up), so my guess is no, they're not as strict.


Is that even possible! lol


----------



## DGS

KelliWolfe said:


> Outside of Cassandra Zara/Krista Lakes' stepbrother stories I'm not aware of any that ever ranked that high, billionaire or not. Unless you're talking actual novel length romances, like Penelope Wards'.


You mean stepbrother romance not ranking high? I keep seeing those books over and over?


----------



## cinisajoy

Dragovian said:


> I found a book on B&N about a woman getting pregnant by her german shepherd (I...could not make that up), so my guess is no, they're not as strict.


Was it in erotica or true stories? 
I thought it was supposed to be a horse.


----------



## Desert Rose

cinisajoy said:


> Was it in erotica or true stories?
> I thought it was supposed to be a horse.


It was a german shepherd. _I can't unsee it._


----------



## alawston

Are you sure it wasn't just a burly shepherd called Klaus or Hans or Dieter or something?

(I know. I'm clutching at straws.)


----------



## dianapersaud

Julianna said:


> Is that even possible! lol


No, it's not scientifically possible.


----------



## DGS

dianapersaud said:


> No, it's not scientifically possible.


That would explain lack of werewolves and minotaurs, but why not?


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

KelliWolfe said:


> It's not just Amazon, either. Getting anything through the content police at Kobo, Apple, and D2D is becoming a nightmare. I'm having books blocked retroactively that have been up for years and already passed through content review half a dozen times. New stuff is getting blocked, too, for really stupid things like talking about 19 year old college students drinking during Spring Break. Not actually depicting them doing so, mind you, just talking about it happening in the past tense. And then every other week Google picks random words from the dictionary and decides that they're now sexually explicit and using them in a title or blurb violates their content policy. Words like "erotica" and "nailing". It's always been a bit painful to be an erotica writer, but these days it's just ridiculous.
> 
> Definitely sounds like it's time for both of us to move into less stressful arenas.


Good points. Amazon didn't invent the morality crusades and the contemporary trend for interest groups to pressure advertisers and corporations who are associated with products that offend them. Interesting to hear what's going on with other distributors. Not surprising, given the history of legal issues about erotic writing and "obscenity." I haven't tried erotica on other distributors and I don't know if it would be worth the hassle. If those 19 year-old were drinking in New York, no laws were broken. So silly. Wow, retroactive censorship and the dangers of nailing. There goes my carpentry erotica.

The arbitrary and subjective nature of the restrictions make it a mine field. I've never had anything blocked or banned, and I got an apology for one case of adult filtering, yet every time I think I have some grasp of what's acceptable I run across a horror story of an erotica writer losing their KDP account and royalties. I didn't know Amazon killed accounts and confiscated all the royalties without warning. The potential consequences of inadvertent TOS violations are far beyond my comfort level.

I'm not certain that other genres I write are free of these problems, but it's less prevalent. Yet in some cases, no less ridiculous. I saw a case here a few weeks ago of a fantasy novelist adult filtered on Amazon. Her novel contained a brief sex scene, and if I remember correctly, her blurb referred to a child sprite or something. Even though that character had nothing to do with the sexual content she had to deal with getting the filter removed.

I've gotten in the habit of creating characters who have no offspring, no pets and go nowhere near any location or organization that might be interpreted as referring to minors.

Outside of erotica, I have a sense of a tiny bit more freedom. The Smashwords update with details about erotica is encouraging, but I doubt that anyone could make a living distributing only through Smashwords. I've seen reports that Barnes & Noble will publish almost anything, yet their TOS makes it clear that authors and publishers are responsible for their content and complying with all relevant laws. In an international marketplace, that's complicated.

I've been considering dropping the erotica for weeks. When the longer works matched my erotica income, I stopped writing erotica shorts except for the new pen name experiment. Bundles and works outside of erotica are bringing in most of my slashed KDP income. Even if Amazon doubles the estimated pay rate for page views, the value of shorts in KU will be too low.

It's disorienting that my erotica adventure is having such a grim ending. I was up late considering whether I'm okay with walking away right now. I enjoy writing longer works, so I think in time I'll be glad about shifting out of KU and erotica. And yes, better to go into going wide without an expectation of it being nonsense-free. It's likely to be a great deal less stressful, and more gratifying, over time.

I like erotica, yet I'm much happier with my eroms. They're a great deal more satisfying to write and if everyone in my tiny town knew I wrote them it wouldn't be a big deal. Only two people in my life know about the erotica and I'd rather keep it that way. Glad I did it, though. I learned a lot. Making hundreds a month writing fiction was a major rush and I doubt I'd be self-publishing in other genres if I hadn't taken this shot.

I'm waiting out the official KU figures in August, but I doubt it will make any difference. The other major lesson in this is the importance of diversifying. No more all-in with KU in any genre no matter what it ends up paying. Here's to prospering with less stress.


----------



## katrina46

Secret Pen Pal said:


> Earlier on, I wanted to stick to as few names as possible because I didn't want the hassle of multiple sites, mailing lists, social media and so forth. Now, yes, I think it can be damaging to mix erotica and erom. The more I explore the romance culture via blogs, reader's reviews and boards, the clearer it's becoming that the risk of offending those readers is higher than I imagined at the outset. So I think your instincts are probably right that you may be losing sales due to the mixture. I tend to think of my erotica as not being over the line, yet people's comfort levels vary hugely, and some readers who enjoy one of my sexy eroms (even the nastiest one) might be turned off by some of my erotica. I can picture the reaction of of a reader of one of my early fetish series reading the most emotional erom. Just not a good mix, even though there's a lot of crossover in my kinks and genres.
> 
> So I'm getting around the hassle factor by having all the books under my publishing imprint with everything clearly identified. So I keep the door open for cross over and reduce the risk of upsetting anyone. This way I keep the branding clearer. Readers of each pen name will know what they're going to get.
> 
> BTW, when I queried KDP I found out it's possible to have a second publishing account under my business name. I'm going to do that to keep my non-erotica separate in case of another purge. Just another option to consider. Reading about people losing all their royalties with no warning for TOS violations sapped my enthusiasm for erotica. And the new KU is finishing it off. Even though I keep thinking I'm nowhere near the banned topics I keep hearing about people who thought the same thing and lost their accounts.
> 
> Thanks for the good wishes. The improvement in sales is helping to offset the urge to scream. I'll look forward to hearing how your catalog split goes if you decide to go for it. I'm making the changes in stages. I have one new romance name ready to launch and I'm letting my KU titles expire so I won't have to make a mass of changes all at once.
> 
> One of my eroms has been my top seller nearly every week since I published it in March, so that's been encouraging. I'm already making more from eroms than erotica, faster and on fewer titles. Splitting them out will make it easier to do the numbers, too. I'll be able to track erom vs erotica income by comparing pen names in Book Report and Booktrakr instead of having to check manually across many titles in one pen name.
> 
> I like how KMatthews acknowledges all his work. There's no secret, yet he has different pen names so the lines are distinct. I'm designing my website with more separation than his though, with separate pages for the different book lines, in the interest giving readers the choice of whether they want to look at erotica covers or not -- and to avoid distracting shoppers who have specific interests. Too many choices can nix potential sales.


 It also works both ways. My smut lovers don't seem to appreciate accidentally buying my erom. They weren't looking for plot. Since I actually make the most sales on my smuttier stuff, I gave up the erom for now. I have another pen name for thrillers and women's fic and that's enough to keep up with anyway. I had two smutty pen names a recently merged them together and killed one name. It's hard to be prolific under too many names.


----------



## KelliWolfe

DGS said:


> You mean stepbrother romance not ranking high? I keep seeing those books over and over?


The request was for stepbrother romance that was a) not billionaire and b) ranked under 500. Outside of the books I listed I have not seen any.


Julianna said:


> Is Barnes & Noble as strict as Amazon when it comes to publishing erotica? There's a lot of PI on their site as well.


No. There's very, very little that B&N doesn't allow. PI just doesn't do so well there because they allow publishing straight-up incest.


----------



## mica

Dragovian said:


> I found a book on B&N about a woman getting pregnant by her german shepherd (I...could not make that up), so my guess is no, they're not as strict.


There's tons of bestality stories on smashwords, one author has books with women who have orgies with dogs and some women get pregnant by their dogs. I downloaded a free one because i was curious. Personally i could not finish the story. It's good there's erotica to please everyones different tastes.

I was shocked that B&N had so many different kinks too. I own a kindle so i'd never really done a deep search on B&N until recently


----------



## mica

DGS said:


> Could someone please point me to any step brother romance books that are sub 500 rank AND in which the step brother is not yet another billionaire? Looking for regular- normal life stuff. Big thanks.


Sabrina Paige writes stepbrother romances with no billionaires. All of her books have been bestsellers. Her book released in June titled Cannon is #403 today in all kindle store


----------



## DGS

mica said:


> Sabrina Paige writes stepbrother romances with no billionaires. All of her books have been bestsellers. Her book released in June titled Cannon is #403 today in all kindle store


Perfect thank you!

KW, yes that's what I meant, I miunderstood, thanks!


----------



## katrina46

KelliWolfe said:


> The request was for stepbrother romance that was a) not billionaire and b) ranked under 500. Outside of the books I listed I have not seen any.No. There's very, very little that B&N doesn't allow. PI just doesn't do so well there because they allow publishing straight-up incest.


What I've been finding the past couple of weeks on Barnes and Nobles is that my PI that has BDSM, rough sex mixed in gets some sales, but my PI without that added kink fizzles pretty fast. Then again, my BDSM, rough sex stories sell better with or without the PI over there.


----------



## KelliWolfe

YMMV, but my menage does much better on B&N than my PI.


----------



## Julianna

katrina46 said:


> It also works both ways. My smut lovers don't seem to appreciate accidentally buying my erom. They weren't looking for plot. Since I actually make the most sales on my smuttier stuff, I gave up the erom for now. I have another pen name for thrillers and women's fic and that's enough to keep up with anyway. I had two smutty pen names a recently merged them together and killed one name. It's hard to be prolific under too many names.


Are you selling your erotica in KU or in KDP?


----------



## cinisajoy

So BDSM MfM would sell.  Hmmmm.  
Not posting the rest of my thought here.  I have an idea if someone wants it.  Message me.


----------



## KelliWolfe

BDSM MFM should have good sales anywhere. BDSM MFM where there's bisexual interaction between the men would sell even better.


----------



## DGS

KelliWolfe said:


> BDSM MFM should have good sales anywhere. BDSM MFM where there's bisexual interaction between the men would sell even better.


Is this an opinion or backed with something? A woman reading a threesome story and suddenly two guys go at it sounds the opposite of what she'd want, no?


----------



## Julianna

DGS said:


> Is this an opinion or backed with something? A woman reading a threesome story and suddenly two guys go at it sounds the opposite of what she'd want, no?


That's what I was thinking...


----------



## cinisajoy

KelliWolfe said:


> BDSM MFM should have good sales anywhere. BDSM MFM where there's bisexual interaction between the men would sell even better.


Should I add another guy or two?
Does really rough sex sell?


----------



## KelliWolfe

It's a very real thing.

Think about how much men like FMF threesomes when there is action between the two women. It's the same deal. I suggest spending some time hanging out on the romance forums and looking at the bestseller lists on sites like All Romance.


----------



## cinisajoy

Kelli I sent you a pm.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Yeah. I'm sorry I wasn't able to be more helpful. I tend towards the more vanilla and romantic, though. It's just not my cup of tea.


----------



## lyndabelle

Wow! It's good to see everyone is back on the thread again. KU2 isn't keeping us down.  

I had my week of a downer, thumbs down to my low page count, and said, "To hell with it. Time to get back to writing."

I've got another promo planned for beginning of August, and finishing up my Scottish Erotic tale series. It should come out end of this week. Then, back to work on my BDSM vampire pleasures series. I keep jumping back and forth between my paranormal romance, sweet romance, and erotica shorts. They're still too much fun to give up. 

I'm trying to figure how to get more interest with my Aussie male escort short. It's like 40 pages, and I went wide with it. But it's taking Kobo forever to put it up. Afraid it got put into the dungeon. Apple and B&N have it up though. Don't know what's taking so long with Kobo. Still not sure how having a series going wide is going to work, and keeping the rest in KU for a bit to see how it all will pan out. The only answer I've found so far is to best deal with change by writing more stories. The one thing keeping me happy is that. You can always write more.

So, crossing my fingers that the free promo will bring the traction back to my sales. I was up to the whole 1 sale to 3 borrow ratio and then things just dropped out. Not sure if it was because of the change over or what. But looks like a lot of people are just watching and waiting to see what will happen. Glad that you all are still here to talk to. Still consider myself a newbie in erotica. Get all kinds of info from this thread. Would never have tried erotica if it wasn't for this challenge too.


----------



## katrina46

cinisajoy said:


> Should I add another guy or two?
> Does really rough sex sell?


The rougher the more it sells in my experience so long as it's consensual.


----------



## katrina46

Julianna said:


> Are you selling your erotica in KU or in KDP?


I have some bundles in KU that are doing okay, but I put most of it wide since the changes. Definitely my rough sex is selling the best out of everything I have on Barnes and Nobles.


----------



## cinisajoy

KelliWolfe said:


> Yeah. I'm sorry I wasn't able to be more helpful. I tend towards the more vanilla and romantic, though. It's just not my cup of tea.


You were very helpful. Thanks again.


----------



## DGS

KelliWolfe said:


> It's a very real thing.
> 
> Think about how much men like FMF threesomes when there is action between the two women. It's the same deal. I suggest spending some time hanging out on the romance forums and looking at the bestseller lists on sites like All Romance.


So on AR MMF with bi guys is bestselling? How about amazon? That's pretty interesting as one would think counterintuitive, but i understand - it is total freedom. Everyone using the sex as a proxy to get what they want.


----------



## cinisajoy

DGS said:


> So on AR MMF with bi guys is bestselling? How about amazon? That's pretty interesting as one would think counterintuitive, but i understand - it is total freedom. Everyone using the sex as a proxy to get what they want.


Not necessarily bI guys.


----------



## Julianna

cinisajoy said:


> Not necessarily bI guys.


They're certainly not heterosexual guys.


----------



## mica

Julianna said:


> They're certainly not heterosexual guys.


I've read one of these books and the guys were friends, not bi or gay. The woman encouraged them to touch each other and in the heat of the moment they started performing oral on each other. By the end of the story the guys decided this just happened because they were heated. They said they were not bi.

I don't know. If two guys start doing things to each other during a threesome, some people might say they just have an attraction to each other (could be long time friends). They might not be bi.

I'm not saying they are bi or gay or straight. I just don't know.


----------



## KelliWolfe

DGS said:


> So on AR MMF with bi guys is bestselling? How about amazon? That's pretty interesting as one would think counterintuitive, but i understand - it is total freedom. Everyone using the sex as a proxy to get what they want.


Go check out the books on Siren Press and Samhain. They do lots of menage and MMF is very popular. Or google for "mmf romance bisexual" and look through the Goodreads lists and things like that. The books are well ranked and tend to be highly rated.

Of course the caveat is that you have to be able to write it convincingly. Not everyone can. I stick with MFM because I can't.


----------



## Julianna

mica said:


> I've read one of these books and the guys were friends, not bi or gay. The woman encouraged them to touch each other and in the heat of the moment they started performing oral on each other. By the end of the story the guys decided this just happened because they were heated. They said they were not bi.


Yeah, that's called denial.


----------



## Secret Pen Pal

katrina46 said:


> It also works both ways. My smut lovers don't seem to appreciate accidentally buying my erom. They weren't looking for plot. Since I actually make the most sales on my smuttier stuff, I gave up the erom for now. I have another pen name for thrillers and women's fic and that's enough to keep up with anyway. I had two smutty pen names a recently merged them together and killed one name. It's hard to be prolific under too many names.


I agree. Readers like knowing what to expect. I'm with you on keeping the number of pen names manageable. Regular releases help maintain visibility -- with too many names/book lines it would become tedious. I have five counting the real me and the soon to launch erom pen name. Only one of them is doing the heavy lifting in terms of income.


----------



## lyndabelle

mica said:


> I've read one of these books and the guys were friends, not bi or gay. The woman encouraged them to touch each other and in the heat of the moment they started performing oral on each other. By the end of the story the guys decided this just happened because they were heated. They said they were not bi.
> 
> I don't know. If two guys start doing things to each other during a threesome, some people might say they just have an attraction to each other (could be long time friends). They might not be bi.
> 
> I'm not saying they are bi or gay or straight. I just don't know.


It could be that they just wanted to get the girl turned on. I would kiss my girlfriends just to get the guys I liked turned on. They'd have to be a pretty good friend though to understand why. Plus, I shared guys with one. That's why most of the menage I write is two girls and a guy. But we didn't really feel each other up. It was just a mutual sharing opportunity. I guess everyone has different ideas of what to do during a menage. Living it helps.


----------



## Jay Walken

Hi all,

I wondered what the latest consensus is about covers and categories. Is it better to be highly understated or moderately sexy with a cover (heterosexual male audience) and to use Romantic>Erotic Romance as the category? 

Also, does Amazon allow one to change categories? And what about the "adult" caution. Should that be in the blurb, and is that required?

thanks a lot!


----------



## lyndabelle

Thought I'd bump this to see how all of you are doing. 
I've got my Aug. promo running. Seeing good results. 
Just made #1 in Top 100 for Erotica!
#50 in Free Kindle store.

Over 2,800 free downloads first day of promo. 
Day two has, of course, slowed down, but being that high on the lists should help spur it on.
I've got a thread with the list of promo sites I used for erotica. 
Here's the link:
http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,219097.0.html


----------



## Kendall York

Jay Walken said:


> Hi all,
> 
> I wondered what the latest consensus is about covers and categories. Is it better to be highly understated or moderately sexy with a cover (heterosexual male audience) and to use Romantic>Erotic Romance as the category?
> 
> Also, does Amazon allow one to change categories? And what about the "adult" caution. Should that be in the blurb, and is that required?
> 
> thanks a lot!


Thanks for asking this. I would love for my shorts to be categorized as "New Adult" but I fear using any form of "adult" as a keyword.


----------



## WDR

Kendall York said:


> Thanks for asking this. I would love for my shorts to be categorized as "New Adult" but I fear using any form of "adult" as a keyword.


No need to fear. "New Adult" is considered one keyword, even though there is a space in it. It is not treated in a search as "New" and "Adult". (Though I should say it _shouldn't_ be treated as two separate keywords. If it is, then Amazon has a broken software system.)

As long as you enter the keyword as "New Adult", it will be treated as "New Adult".

*Examples*

Note carefully the placement of commas and spaces used below.

Correct:

New Adult,Science Fiction,Adventure

_These keywords describe an adventurous, science fiction story featuring characters who are making or just completing their transition to adulthood._

Wrong:

New, Adult, Science, Fiction, Adventure

_These keywords describe a book that is brand new fiction and has erotic themes. But it might also be a science textbook and is an adventurous read. Maybe it's a scientific textbook addressing the development of erotic adventure fiction. Either way, it is new. For now._

In both cases, it is the comma that delineates each keyword item. Because of this, you will notice there is no trailing space after the commas in the correct example. The spaces that are part of each keyword are significant; they are not ignored whitespace. Keywords are not created for human consumption, they are there for the computers to use to categorize the story. This way, when a human says, "I want stories in the New Adult genre," the computer knows which stories to list by drawing on the keywords.

If you are unsure about what keywords to use or what Amazon recognizes, Amazon maintains a list of keywords and guidelines for authors:

Metadata Guidelines

Best Practices

Browse Categories (Note: this page has further links going to keyword lists used by Amazon for each genre)


----------



## lyndabelle

Was checking in to see how you all are doing. If it wasn't for this thread, I wouldn't exist here today. 

Working on starting a new series while wrapping up a vampire series. Anyone finding a magic amount of shorts to have in a series? I've been going for the magical 3, mostly because I seem to think in those terms. I know other series go on and on. There are some alpha billionaire shorts I'm addicted to that go past 15. What do you find is working for you? How many shorts do you put in a series?


----------



## lyndabelle

Got a question about what would be good key words for a exhibitionist erotic short. I'm releasing a new series this week, and know that key words are so helpful. Got some help on my other series. SO, hoping for some now. It's got a secret club that they go to. It's been fun writing. Want to upload tomorrow. So, hoping for some tips before I do. ;-)


----------



## lyndabelle

Suspecting I got shoved into the adult dungeon with my new short. Hard for it to come up in searches. How can you tell that you've officially been placed in the dungeon?


----------



## Gentleman Zombie

Go to http://www.salesrankexpress.com/ and type in your book title. Then click "Get Rank" if you see the "adult" next to your title you've been dungeoned.

It's tough on erotica right now. Most authors I know who were in it, are migrating out other things now. The days of erotica being super easy money on Kindle have come and gone, IMHO.


----------



## Desert Rose

karenharley said:


> What does it mean to be dungeoned?


It means your books are effectively blocked from coming up in search results, and won't show up in the also boughts of other books (except possibly those in the dungeon with them; I know my dungeoned breeding erotica titles show up on each other, but don't show up in anyone else's also boughts as far as I can tell.)


----------



## Desert Rose

karenharley said:


> Thanks, Dragovian. Does it happen to all erotica? Randomly? Or certain subcategories?


Not all erotica; it seems to be triggered by certain keywords. In my case, I made the mistake of having "breeding" in the series title. Google for 'amazon adult dungeon' and you'll find articles and advice for staying OUT of the dungeon (until the rules change again).


----------



## CaraMunro

karenharley said:


> Does it happen to all erotica? Randomly? Or certain subcategories?


What get you dungeoned are the things readers can see: Your cover, title (and subtitle) and product description.

KDP is notoriously vague about this so erotica authors just share the DON'T as gleaned by experience. As Dragovian has pointed out, the term 'breeding' is a no no on your title (and cover) as are several others that KDP deems too explicit. I think I got dungeoned once for 'gang bang'.

However, these terms are perfectly OK for the keywords box when you upload your book. In fact, you can go nuts there.

As for covers, as far as I can remember: no frontal posterior shots; underwear or bikinis only are OK but they can't be undone; hand bras are a no no, as well as any implied nudity. I remember fondly some covers with patches of color painted quickly to resemble a bra.

It's been a while since I last uploaded an erotica title, though; I'm pretty sure KDP has moved the goal posts yet again. You can probably dig out a more detailed and recent DON'T list over at r/eroticauthors on Reddit.


----------



## lyndabelle

karenharley said:


> Thanks, CaraMunro and Dragovian.
> 
> Never heard the term "hand bra" before...funny!
> 
> Lyndabelle, did you get your keywords? All I could think of was "voyeurism" or "peeping tom." Maybe I'm just blanking out or there really aren't a whole lot of keywords for that one.


I did the check "Urban Mogul" suggested, and didn't see "adult" next to the title. I ended up using "exhibitionist, exhibitionism" for search words with "voyeur". My beta reader said it was more an exhibitionist short though there is some watching other couples in it. My cover is KU/Amazon safe. I ask the cover designer to do that, and he's familiar with the design rules since he does a lot of Kindle covers. So, might be they need to just pick up in searches. I've had a promo for my vampire series, and that is going pretty good now.

Plus, I noticed Amazon is automatically putting three of my series together as a bundle. It's like auto bundling, and offering all three Highlander shorts for $8.47. I know Highlander and Scottish is big right now, because of Outlander. But I didn't know that Amazon was putting a whole series together in a bundle like that. Might save me the effort to have to do it. Anyone had this happen to you all? Bundling seems the way to get more reads with KU2.


----------



## lyndabelle

Thought I'd bump up this thread with a question. This thread is the reason I've got this pen name these days.
So, here's my question: Anyone doing Christmas/Holiday erotic shorts? 

I just finished one, got the cover, and I'll be ready to launch next week. I want it to get to 30 days so I can do a free promo near Christmas.
Anyone else have Holiday erotic shorts published? How do they do?


----------



## janetlynn

Hi Lyndabelle!

I've also been mulling over doing something for Christmas--I have a plan for a tiny bundle (4 or 5 shorts, 5,000wds each) to try to move at 99c, but I guess you're right, it's crunch-time for the 30-day mark. Let us know if you do, I'd love to see what you make of it!

Getting more excited, I admit, about the trendy new shorts I plan to publish in time for the post-Christmas morning new-Kindle blitz. Oh, hello alpha bear shifters and BBW...


----------



## lyndabelle

janetlynn said:


> Hi Lyndabelle!
> 
> I've also been mulling over doing something for Christmas--I have a plan for a tiny bundle (4 or 5 shorts, 5,000wds each) to try to move at 99c, but I guess you're right, it's crunch-time for the 30-day mark. Let us know if you do, I'd love to see what you make of it!
> 
> Getting more excited, I admit, about the trendy new shorts I plan to publish in time for the post-Christmas morning new-Kindle blitz. Oh, hello alpha bear shifters and BBW...


I've got it in the process of releasing next week. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm trying to debate now how many days to set it on Free. Also, I'm wondering whether to price it at $2.99 like my other ones or have it go at $0.99. If I set it at $2.99, then I can run a Kindle Countdown before Christmas. ;-)

Ohh, the possibilties. I'm at the NaNoWritMo Writing Dangerously event. I should probably get off the board and write some more. But I snuck in a check between word sprints. ;-)


----------



## chalice

*I want to do a Stepbrother Romance series for Christmas, but I might not find the time to do it.
There are so many other tasks in front of me.

Best Regards,
Shana Jahsinta Walters.*


----------



## lyndabelle

janetlynn said:


> Hi Lyndabelle!
> 
> I've also been mulling over doing something for Christmas--I have a plan for a tiny bundle (4 or 5 shorts, 5,000wds each) to try to move at 99c, but I guess you're right, it's crunch-time for the 30-day mark. Let us know if you do, I'd love to see what you make of it!
> 
> Getting more excited, I admit, about the trendy new shorts I plan to publish in time for the post-Christmas morning new-Kindle blitz. Oh, hello alpha bear shifters and BBW...


I just sent the short to my editor. So, hopefully, with a quick turnaround, it will be ready Thurs. or Friday to upload. If I can get it up on Nov. 20th, I can do a promo starting on Dec. 21. It's all timing sometimes, isn't it?

I've got a thread up to find out whether to post it at $0.99 or $2.99. That's my final dilemma now. People are saying they have Holiday shorts not just sell at this time of year, but in some off times too like March/April. Interesting. ;-)


----------



## janetlynn

lyndabelle said:


> I just sent the short to my editor. So, hopefully, with a quick turnaround, it will be ready Thurs. or Friday to upload. If I can get it up on Nov. 20th, I can do a promo starting on Dec. 21. It's all timing sometimes, isn't it?
> 
> I've got a thread up to find out whether to post it at $0.99 or $2.99. That's my final dilemma now. People are saying they have Holiday shorts not just sell at this time of year, but in some off times too like March/April. Interesting. ;-)


Lynda,

I'm curious to hear how promoting your Christmas short went for you. Life got in my way and I didn't finish mine in time, but I wrote two after so I'm ready for Christmas 2016. How did yours go?


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

I thought this thread had died a respectable death, but I'm glad it didn't. I never had so much fun writing over 100 erotic shorts. It was because of those shorts that I was able to afford to continue writing. When Amazon pulled the rug from under me, as well as more than a few authors who wrote erotica and erotic romance, I took my catalogue wide. I don't advertise and I still do very nicely with them. I boxed my books and the box sets sell. 
Once all of my shorts came out of Amazon's library, I still sell at full price. The down side is: they are short and some people buy them and return them. I never gave out my pen name for my erotica books, and I hope to take that name with me to my grave. Not on my tombstone of course. 
Furthermore, the information on this thread can be useful to some writers.


----------



## MarilynVix

Rachel E. Rice said:


> I thought this thread had died a respectable death, but I'm glad it didn't. I never had so much fun writing over 100 erotic shorts. It was because of those shorts that I was able to afford to continue writing. When Amazon pulled the rug from under me, as well as more than a few authors who wrote erotica and erotic romance, I took my catalogue wide. I don't advertise and I still do very nicely with them. I boxed my books and the box sets sell.
> Once all of my shorts came out of Amazon's library, I still sell at full price. The down side is: they are short and some people buy them and return them. I never gave out my pen name for my erotica books, and I hope to take that name with me to my grave. Not on my tombstone of course.
> Furthermore, the information on this thread can be useful to some writers.


I was wondering what happened to this thread. It's got so much good info in it. I've used it for a reference sometimes. Good stuff here. I wonder how writers have been surviving with KU2 who participated in this?


----------



## lyndabelle

janetlynn said:


> Lynda,
> 
> I'm curious to hear how promoting your Christmas short went for you. Life got in my way and I didn't finish mine in time, but I wrote two after so I'm ready for Christmas 2016. How did yours go?


Wow! It has been awhile since I posted on this thread. It is because of this thread that I started writing erotica. 
@Janetlynn: My Christmas short did really well. It's a stand alone, but I might put it in this new series I'm writing called "Sweet and Spicy". The shorts follow a more romance format and don't have a real kink to them. But they are popular. So, to answer your question, I did little promo with just a few listing sites for listing them for free just before Christmas. But it did REALLY well during the Valentine Deals sale I had at $0.99. I've moved the price up to $2.99 now. So, writing a Christmas short is a good thing. Our guesses if it sells well all year is looking true.

I've been releasing new shorts at $0.99 and then move them up to $2.99 for a regular price. Then, put them on sale for deals I've been organizing. 
I've been working on trying to do promotions that don't cost me an arm and a leg. I was shelling out up to $200 to promote just one title, and wasn't really making enough money that way. So, I'm trying to do multi-author cross promotions right now with other erotica authors. I've been getting tired of paying out $10 here, and $15 there to list a title. It can add up real fast, and I'm finding with KU2, I have to keep promoting to draw in new readers to get some sales.
Here's the thread to my current St. Patrick's Day deals that I organized:
http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,231149.0.html

I was doing much better in KU1, but only had a few months to enjoy it. I tried to have a series wide, but it didn't do well. It was sunk into the obscure. So, I brought it into KU, and I'm at least getting sales and exposure now with it. SO, starting to go wide wasn't working with me, YET. I most likely need a bigger catalog.

The whole KU2 thing happened when I was still starting out, but I didn't give up. I'm enjoying writing the erotica too much. It really is fun. 
I've got a Sci-Fi erotic short series in the works along with a Steampunk erotica series. I've got to finish the On Call series, and my exhibitionist series too.

So, I've got all kinds of writing ideas coming out of all my pores. I'm not going anywhere. I'm entrenched now. I'm feeling I just need to build my catalog and find ways to promote titles that don't cost an arm and a leg. That's my business plan for 2016. Hopefully, KU2 doesn't turn into KU3, yet. Another year will get me to the Dirty Thirty, and I'm hoping that will make a difference.


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

When I started on this thread, I never thought about writing erotica shorts. I wasn't making any money to speak of on my early novels and novellas. My books contained a fair amount of sex because after all what is life without a little sex. So I tried to write erotica and I lucked up and found a subgenre that was perfect for my voice, and because I was getting readers, and eventually made four figures I continued writing them.

I stopped at 100 shorts and waited until some of my books were out of the library, and then I started publishing these books and box sets everywhere I could including on Google.
It took me six months to make close to the money I made on Amazon, but I'm getting there with just these short books. I don't do anything for them, and I haven't written anymore of them. I made the covers myself and some of the covers are awful to tolerable, but they sell. These books are out selling my books under Rachel E Rice and I haven't spent a dime on them. I guess I could make more if I changed the covers, but why mess with a good thing.

I'm toying with the notion of writing erotic romance novels because I promised my fans that I would, but I'm in the middle of my werewolf series. 
Furthermore, it was fun, and I gained a lot of knowledge from this thread. Writing all those books, I was able to increase my writing speed as I mentioned earlier on this thread.


----------



## Sharlow

Very interesting thread. Question... Can you still make money with short erotica on Amazon?


----------



## chalice

Sharlow said:


> Very interesting thread. Question... Can you still make money with short erotica on Amazon?


*Very good question.

Gorgeous Lucky B,
Shana Jahsinta Walters.*


----------



## Rachel E. Rice

I don't know if you can still make money selling erotica shorts on KU. Moreover, I sell a few erotic shorts on Amazon each month, but I haven't written any new ones since 2015, and they are full price. I never price my erotic romance books below $2.99. 
Furthermore, I will begin publishing some erotic romance novels this summer and place them in the library. If they sell, I will write more, if they don't, I'll take them out and publish them wide where I'm selling.


----------



## KelliWolfe

Sharlow said:


> Very interesting thread. Question... Can you still make money with short erotica on Amazon?


Yes, but the gold rush is long over. KU is already flooded with short erotica, you're competing against marketers who publish dozens of cheap ghostwritten stories every week, and Amazon has made it harder than ever to get any visibility with short erotica.

It's a grind. Can you publish multiple stories a week, every week? Can you write an endless stream of explicit sex scenes? Can you write to the market every single time, regardless of what you *want* to write? Can you devote your time to researching the top 100 lists regularly to stay on top of changing trends in what sells? Can you deal with the BS that Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and Google regularly dump on erotica authors just for being erotica authors, like having half of your catalog blocked at once because some barely literate content reviewer doesn't understand basic English? The long tail on erotica shorts generally isn't there. If you don't make money on them out of the gate, they won't produce later. And tastes fluctuate drastically, so even having a large catalog is no guarantee that you'll keep making money. Just ask the people who were cranking out monster sex stories a couple of years ago.

It's not easy money. It was for a while, but KU has essentially ended that. Sure, you *can* make money doing it, but 99% of the people who jump into it quit within a month or two because it's hard. Most of the others end up switching to other genres because they're less stressful and the money-making potential is greater. Because you *can* make money in other genres just as easily. Or even more easily.

I've been writing short erotica since 2011. I've got 70-ish books in my catalog on Amazon with half a dozen permafrees, ten or so books in KU, and decent sales at $2.99 on all of my shorts. I've got books in both the top 100 paid and free erotica subcategory lists. I'm consistently ranked in the top 200 - 300 erotica authors. But I'm making almost 1/3 as much with just a couple of 99 cent short installments in a romance serial as I am on my entire short erotica catalog.

Unless you just enjoy writing porn (which honestly is what short erotica generally is, and what the readers are looking for), you're probably better off with a genre that you actually like and can stick with long term.


----------



## Sharlow

Thanks for the responses! I was just curious, as at the start of this thread, it seemed as if no one could do no wrong. Thanks for the advice.


----------



## chalice

*I have over 40 erotica short stories that never made me a dime. I published them during the KU1.0 revolution. Of course I had no idea about it as I had no internet access at home. I was not on top of the current changes. From November last year until March this year, one reader started buying the stories. I was happy to see this. That is until I discovered that they were all refunded. I thought okay maybe they did not like the stories. But that was not the case as this trend continued until they bought all of them and returned them fast enough to earn their refund.

I find this to be a very shady thing to do. If you don't like one or two, then don't buy the others. The fact that this person bought all of them proves that they liked them in some way, but did not want to pay the cost for the privileged.

Gorgeous Lucky B,
Shana Jahsinta Walters.*


----------



## unkownwriter

Sharlow said:


> Thanks for the responses! I was just curious, as at the start of this thread, it seemed as if no one could do no wrong. Thanks for the advice.


Well, at the beginning of this thread, it was really hard to _not_ make at least some money with erotica. I know I made decent pocket money at it, and I didn't hit the right tropes/kinks nor write it very well. Those who could put out stories that people really wanted to read made darn good money. Some made outrageous amounts of money, money you could hardly believe was out there to be made.

My stuff is all out of KU now, and I don't get much interest in it because I'm not writing erotica anymore, and not promoting it at all, but I did wake up to a sale of one story this morning. Woot! ... Um, just looked, and there are three sales -- THREE! -- of my old erotica. Wonder how that happened? (Now, let's just hope nothing gets returned!)

Anyway, I think there's still money to be made in erotica, I just don't think KU is where it's at. Go wide would be my advice to anyone starting out (anyone writing erotica, really). If you're serious about writing erotica, erom and/or romance, join Dirty Discourse (it's a private, paid forum, full of advice) and learn everything you can about the market.


----------



## lyndabelle

Wow, I've not done an update on this thread in awhile. It's been a year since I started this adventure. I've got 15 erotic shorts now, and I've slowed down a bit in my writing.  Or rather, I've gotten smart in my writing. I'm releasing a story once a month now. But they are longer, 7-10K. I blame KU2. I also now release a new short when I'm doing a promo, and put it on sale at $0.99 to start off. Then, I'll raise the price to $2.99 to put it on Kindle Countdowns later. 

I've also just submitted my first full length erotic romance to a small press. The fact I've been writing all the erotic shorts really helped the process of developing the full length novel. I would say my romance is much spicier than before. Plus, the erom imprint of the house liked my menage angle. So, totally happy I've dabbled in erom shorts. It's helped my writing goals over all. 

Still writing shorts, at about one a month. I've got 4 on my computer now waiting to be finished, and I toggle back and forth between other romance projects now. I just consider my erotica pen name to be part of my overall plan. And I still enjoy it. So, I guess, after a year, that is what matters. I just want to write good stories. So, some people think it's porn while others think it's downright sexy and spicy. Depends on what books they've read before. It's all good. As long as it still translates to sales.

Just to note: I still have most of my stories in KU. I know what you mean about people reading the story, and then returning it for a refund. It's the drawback of writing shorts. People can read it in an hour and return it. Sort of like buying a dress from a department store, and wearing it for one night and returning it. I mean at least with KU, I get like $0.15. Not much I guess we can do about it unless Amazon sets a time line for returns. But even that would probably be 24 hours, and it still wouldn't help.

But I'm glad I've got legitimate readers and some Superfans now that appreciate what I write. That makes it worth it too.


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