Made barely anything from erotica, any advice?

[Mattie]

Well I know those people are out there that like that kind of thing. Just have to find them. Imaginations can create just about anything. Creativity is limitless. Ha Ha, I've seen all that on Second life. Lycans and Werewolves, and what ever their latest invention in avatars and trying to animate them. Writers probably went after that genre if they were interested in it.

 

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[Noxtus]

Or Lycan with bloodshot eyes pillaging the town, out of bloodlust, looking for women on their period.

Or Bear trapping young mermaids on a river delta.

see that stuff sounds kinda cool in a...supernatural way xD but i bet it would be more main stream(doesnt mean better but is generally connected with better sales) if there is more story and not a whole bunch of sex scenes but i dunno how many there are so yea lol but thats what im talking about a unique supernatural element gets people interested and hooked but erotica is only essentially dead because like writing it must evolve
hey i just noticed something lol do you know what the first thing mankind started writing? cus that might be a genre to look into q:

 

[DreamsCameTrue]

I'd suggest you do the following:

Give away free content (wherever you can) to attract people to your website and email list.
Try to get people to give their email address for additional free content
build an email list
create an "offer" for paid content or subscriptions
make deals with others who have a list- you mail their offer and they mail yours, both of you take a % of the others' sales. Affiliate deal.
create a pipeline where people can opt in and get new content every month, and join a forum where they talk about the content and meet others with similar interests. They can also ask you questions, "talk to the author."

Once you have a good group of paying customers, offer more expensive services, such as custom written books, or books as a gift. You could create a "valentine's day package" and sell it to couples....well men who don't know what else to buy. Then create a manual on how to do erotic story reading to your partner. Use the V day package as a springboard to get people into the habit of doing erotic story telling sessions as a way to spice up their relationships. This will keep them coming back for more and more content, because if they lose your content, they basically lose the excitement in their relationships. You want to become an important figure in the life or the reader, not just someone they got one book from.

I don't know if slapping a few books up on the internet gets ya anywhere. You've got to build a pipeline and an entire business around the content. It aint gonna sell itself.

I've been in the online publishing business for about 10 years, and I can tell you that I now spend 85% of time on marketing and 15% on writing content.

 

[Lauryn]

I read one of your books... and left a review.
The fact that you're selling is good.

If anything, keep writing. Everyone praises @Held for Ransom and @ChickenHawk. They should be praised. But they did the work and kept hustling and working. ChickenHawk only seems like an overnight success, but she's been putting in work since before I left high school and thought I'd write a book.

Your work honestly isn't bad. It's pretty good. I know grammar and spelling errors aren't great for business, but have you seen the writing in 50 Shades? It's a cool plot and all - that whole rich hot billionaire with a dominant streak saves the day seems to get chicks off - but the writing style, for many, leaves much to be desired.

I suggest you keep writing, you keep structuring stories that mix the stories you WANT to tell with the stories audiences eat up, and you work on emotional pull. 50 Shades provides this emotional appeal to women who wish to have that dominant figure who can take control of everything and take care of everything and allow them to let go. This was a massive emotional release for women who couldn't dare whisper their frustrations with carrying an equal workload with men, having to bring home money for the bills, take care of children and have a million things to do. It was a mental escape with a kinky (and now way too copied) twist.

Find those intersections of your fantasies and what sells, see what's missing and make writing a hobby to fill holes. I know people who have written books and sold not a thing. I think you're on your way, but don't beat yourself up looking at too many suggestions.

- Keep writing
- If you're writing anything romantic, erotic or sexually exotic, explore your fantasies
- Market - by publishing more and by marketing more

The Naked Truth About Self-Publishing and Sell Your Book Like Wildfire are GREAT reads for marketing.

Just keep pushing. But don't get too caught up in copying what seems like an instant formula.

For the record, my highest selling book has a "2 - star" average rating on Amazon. And the other day someone gave me a 5 star on another book that's been out for at least a year with no other reviews. It takes time man.

 

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[DreamsCameTrue]

I dont really agree with all the people saying "KEEP WRITING"

I think you would be better off marketing the shit out of one book than writing 100 more.

 

[gregarious18]

I dont really agree with all the people saying "KEEP WRITING"

I think you would be better off marketing the shit out of one book than writing 100 more.

You can disagree and you share some great above, but with short stories in erotica, the goal is to write many and sell a few of each title a month. She doesn't need one to be a big seller. Every new release should increase your momentum and visibility. Short stories have a ceiling because of length, but erotica is forgivable as short stories if you write what people want. Short story stacking is a long game.

Free/Permafree (strongest and cheapest tool any author has on eBook retailers) is a form of marketing. She sets one story free as the loss leader to promote the rest of the series or similiar books.

Keep writing with a plan. When people keep talking about writing they are talking about keep writing to the same audience, target them. Don't write one erotica short story and one sci-fi story and expect overlapping synergy. When you keep writing, you are ultimately looking to feed the beast of synergy. You want people to say, "oh, she has other stories, I like this story, I might like the next."

1. links in the back of the book
2. make one or the first book in a series free
3. Keep writing
5. find some cheap promos
6. Keep writing

 

[gregarious18]

Yea so im not a writer but i definitely read alot of books so lemme give you some advice from a consumer stand point. Erotica is essentially dead man the only people i see reading it now are old people (my gma reads that stuff all the time). no the key my friend is to write what ill call almost-erotica lol where theres alot of romance and teasing and preferably some other outside element that makes it unique and people are just wondering omg when are they gunna have sex? you gotta make them want it. A perfect example: twilight (i read that book when i was in middle school and thought it was really good actually, i had no idea how big it would get). Next is marketing man, you gotta market your product. That thing where oh i'll just pump out more books and people will catch on? thats stupid. plain and simple. Marketing is the most important thing of any product. ANY PRODUCT. go send out like some advanced copies to reviewers or whatever that is (not a writer q: )get that stuff put in some magazines or somethin man (play boy would be dope lol) and also dont do short stories almost-erotica doesnt work with short stories people want depth they want to get to know the characters more than a short story can offer. Anyways thats my advice hope it helps!

Erotica is not dead, but it isn't some easy piece of a$$ to pimp out like most people think it is. People still want to be entertained.

You do know Twilight is Paranormal Romance?

Consumers are great to give you a critical eye on presentation (blurb, book contents, and cover), but sales and business (unless they know the behind the scenes numbers, they are unreliable as an opinion to base your business on) advice should come from Indie Authors, preferably in your niche. I'm not an internet marketer (even though a lot of internet marketers have jump on KDP and other retailers for good reason) or an affialiate, so my opinion would be wrong in launching products that have many components.

 

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[DreamsCameTrue]

if you do this business model where you write all the time and hope to sell a few of each, you're not in the fast lane. You have a job and you are stuck with it. Stop writing and you stop getting paid. The stuff I suggested will put you in a position to get passive income and start delegating some of the work. also, i dont see any reason to do things the same way everyone else does them.

 

[Noxtus]

Erotica is not dead, but it isn't some easy piece of a$$ to pimp out like most people think it is. People still want to be entertained.

You do know Twilight is Paranormal Romance?

Consumers are great to give you a critical eye on presentation (blurb, book contents, and cover), but sales and business (unless they know the behind the scenes numbers, they are unreliable as an opinion to base your business on) advice should come from Indie Authors, preferably in your niche. I'm not an internet marketer (even though a lot of internet marketers have jump on KDP and other retailers for good reason) or an affialiate, so my opinion would be wrong in launching products that have many components.

;/ i didnt say it was dead i was using that to go into my thing about "almost-erotica" lol and its only a paranormal romance because almost-erotica is a genre i made up. but trust me. its almost-erotica lol and its what people want. if you want to stay in your genre because you enjoy it then by all means do it. but if you want to get mainstream then be mainstream.

 

[ChickenHawk]

I dont really agree with all the people saying "KEEP WRITING"
I think you would be better off marketing the shit out of one book than writing 100 more.

That's a great plan, assuming you have the experience and ability to write an epic, kickass, timeless book like "The Millionaire Fastlane ." However, IMO, most writers are better off writing multiple books, both to boost their visibility and to offer multiple products to their fans. Let's say you write one book and market the snot out of it. What then? What else will you sell your fans?

I know I come across as anti-marketing. That's not the case. It's just that spending a ton of money or time on marketing when you only have one book doesn't seem terribly efficient to me. It's much better to wait until you can market Book#1, and create a fanbase who will be interested in buying Book#2, Book #3 and so on.

 

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[csalvato]

I know I come across as anti-marketing. That's not the case. It's just that spending a ton of money or time on marketing when you only have one book doesn't seem terribly efficient to me.

I agree but this author has over a dozen...

This means there is at least 1 of 2 problems:

1. The writing isn't what the market wants
2. The market isn't seeing the writing that it wants - they don't know it exists.

In the case of problem 1, the market needs to be engaged to see where OP missed the mark, so that future books are closer to the mark. Maybe that means some MerchantWords research. Maybe that just means reading a ton more books that sell well to see the components that are missing from their work that the market loves. There are many ways to do this....

In the case of problem 2, you need to get in front of the eyeballs of the market. Podcasts, Facebook posts, critical reviews, featured reviews, blogger reviews, twitter engagement, email signups, SEO, PPC. The options are limitless but the result is still to get some people in front of the books so that OP can kick-start that train reaction.

Just writing more of the same without that engagement seems a lot like leaving things to luck. At least to me.

 

[gregarious18]

I agree but this author has over a dozen...

This means there is at least 1 of 2 problems:

1. The writing isn't what the market wants
2. The market isn't seeing the writing that it wants - they don't know it exists.

In the case of problem 1, the market needs to be engaged to see where OP missed the mark, so that future books are closer to the mark. Maybe that means some MerchantWords research. Maybe that just means reading a ton more books that sell well to see the components that are missing from their work that the market loves. There are many ways to do this....

In the case of problem 2, you need to get in front of the eyeballs of the market. Podcasts, Facebook posts, critical reviews, featured reviews, blogger reviews, twitter engagement, email signups, SEO, PPC. The options are limitless but the result is still to get some people in front of the books so that OP can kick-start that train reaction.

Just writing more of the same without that engagement seems a lot like leaving things to luck. At least to me.

You're right. I agree you have to try to push and promote the products. It's not a enough to write a story and expect Amazon to highlight any particular newbie author or pen name. But some promotional TOOLS won't be worthwhile to an erotica author like the OP.

 

[gregarious18]

if you do this business model where you write all the time and hope to sell a few of each, you're not in the fast lane. You have a job and you are stuck with it. Stop writing and you stop getting paid. The stuff I suggested will put you in a position to get passive income and start delegating some of the work. also, i dont see any reason to do things the same way everyone else does them.

True, not fastlane, but self-publishing tends to be the slow game. This should be a supplemental income flow and not your main job.

A job that only needs a laptop -- I might add. People do write for fun and money. Short stories should take a day or two to finish and edit and upload. Every release, if you do things right, will increase the momentum (like Also broughts list in Amazon). There are authors making 5 figures monthly doing it this way.

This is why people do it:
1 Year, 100 Titles = My Results: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,162157.0.html
50 Titles = 1,000 Sales...The DWS Way: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,121594.0.html

(not sure if outside links are allowed??)

 

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[gregarious18]

;/ i didnt say it was dead i was using that to go into my thing about "almost-erotica" lol and its only a paranormal romance because almost-erotica is a genre i made up. but trust me. its almost-erotica lol and its what people want. if you want to stay in your genre because you enjoy it then by all means do it. but if you want to get mainstream then be mainstream.

Sorry, for mis-understanding your point. You're right. People like to be teased with the almost-erotica.

 

[csalvato]

You're right. I agree you have to try to push and promote the products. It's not a enough to write a story and expect Amazon to highlight any particular newbie author or pen name. But some promotional TOOLS won't be worthwhile to an erotica author like the OP.

To what tools are you referring?

 

[Selfy]

What if I want to buy from OP?

OP you want to create a bundle? Ill go in with you..

 

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[COSenior]

People want the "easy" button. But there is no easy button.

Can I like this twice? HfR would laugh his head off to see you all wasting your time analyzing this to death. Analyze the market instead, and then get to writing. Like MJ said, there are different paths to the same result. Nevertheless, if you don't write what people want, or vice versa, they don't want what you write, you're writing the wrong thing.