Ideal Length For Erotica Books?

[Deleted17784]

Greetings Self Publishers,

Looking for some guidance here.

Inspired by some of the great success threads here, I have decided to try writing in the Erotica genre. I have 30K words written and now I'm wondering how I should move forward.

I read that short stories do well in this genre. Some people publish books as short as 8K words. Should I break this into three parts at 10K words each? Or two parts at 15K words each? Put it out as is? Keep writing until it's a full length novel? It's a compilation of short stories so not really novel material.

This is my first time writing in this genre. Anyone with experience with this please share your thoughts. Thank you for your time.

 

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[Charnell]

Hey man,

Your best bet to find information about erotica is over on that there Reddit. There are a bunch of case studies answering your question, and people find success in short stories, novellas, and novels. Make sure you read recent posts because most posts >6 months won't apply as the market is always changing.

Check out the link below.

https://www.reddit.com/r/eroticauthors/top/?sort=top&t=month

 

[ChickenHawk]

How short are the short stories? I don't write erotica, but I've been noticing quite a few decently ranking books in the 30K-35K word range, priced around $4.99. But those books consist of one story, as opposed to a compilation of several short stories.

Please keep us posted on which route you take, and how it goes.

Best of luck to you!

 

[Deleted17784]

Thanks a lot @Charnell! I will read through that reddit page. And thanks @ChickenHawk. Your Gold thread along with Held For Ransom's inspired me to give self publishing another shot. I have two books on kindle now but the sales are abysmal.

This new project is a compilation of short stories. Each chapter is 1,500 - 3,000 words long. Just different scenarios the same character goes through.

I just broke it into three pieces. About 10K words each. Is 10K words too short to charge $2.99? I'd like to stay in that 70% commission range.

I'll keep you posted. I don't want to overthink this. Just want to get it out already but I want to do it right!

 

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[ChickenHawk]

Your Gold thread along with Held For Ransom's inspired me to give self publishing another shot. I have two books on kindle now but the sales are abysmal.

Oh man, I loved Held for Ransom's thread. Some inspiring stuff there!

This new project is a compilation of short stories... I just broke it into three pieces. About 10K words each. Is 10K words too short to charge $2.99? I'd like to stay in that 70% commission range.

I can relate to the 70% commission challenge! Sadly though, I think that $2.99 for 10K words might be on the high side, unless you're seeing plenty of 10K books in this price range? Doing the math, you're looking at charging around nine bucks for 30K words total. In terms of cost-per-word, that's higher than many traditionally published books, which means you'd likely be fighting an uphill battle to build an audience.

If you're determined to split this up into three volumes, you could consider offering the first one for 99 cents (or maybe even for free) to help get the ball rolling, but you might still catch some grief on the length. It's always tricky, isn't it? Because you want to be compensated for your work, but you want to make sure you're not pricing yourself out of the market either. It's definitely a tightrope, that's for sure!