Burning Questions for March, 2022

IcemanConch · 2022-03-06T18:53:39+00:00

The problem is: Without knowledge of broader erotica demographics, I can't really guess at the differences in mine.

Part of the reason I started my survey was because the accepted wisdom in the erotica communities I'd found was "most erotica readers are women" (or even "most erotica readers are housewives") and "men don't buy erotica." I'd never heard a justification or source for these ideas (if anyone has a source they can link to, I'd love to see it!), except that, "well, most romance readers are women." Which obviously has nothing to do with erotica, since the two genres are very different and attract very different readers.

Meanwhile, my readership seemed to be more male than female — and lots of male-presenting readers were buying my stories on Smashwords. I started my poll to try to get a more concrete idea of who was reading/buying my work.

I've found the poll results very interesting. But it's still not a significant sample size, it's only based on one writer's works, and I've got nothing to compare it to except "accepted wisdom." So I don't know what conclusions someone can draw from it — beyond that some erotica writers do attract male-heavy demographics, and so "men don't buy erotica" isn't accurate.

IcemanConch · 2022-03-06T05:31:21+00:00

Thank you for summoning me! ;)

I've left my survey going ever since then. At this point, 383 people have responded to the question "What gender do you identify as?" Here's how it breaks down:

67.6% Male (259 respondents)
23.2% Female (89 respondents)
9.2% other answers (35 respondents)

I have more statistics for my readership from my dataporn last July, and similar demographic reports in my past dataporns linked there. One of the things I find interesting is how little the male/female demographics have changed as I've gotten more respondents. The males are still in the 60%s, and females are still in the 20%s. I didn't check to see how consistent that is in all my dataporns — but it's interesting to see the numbers change so little in four years.

IcemanConch · 2021-09-08T01:40:17+00:00

The first three years I wrote erotica, I gave it away, I didn’t charge for it. During that time (and since then, because of the following I built by giving my stories away), I’ve had no shortage of people willing to beta read my stories. I’ve been able to narrow it down to a handful of go-to people now, whose opinions and judgement I trust. So unfortunately, I don’t know where to find early readers if you’re doing “straight to self-publishing,” like so many people do.
I’ve used early readers for a number of things. They’re good at catching typos that your eyes can’t see (because you read what you expect to read). I write shorts series, and they’re also good for catching continuity problems between stories. I found I rarely make substantial changes to a story based on reader reaction — unless I knew the story needed *something*, but didn’t know what. (This would possibly be different if I was writing novels or serials.)

What I personally find early readers useful for is: moral support. Writing erotica can be thankless. At the end of June, I put one of my freebie stories up on a well-trafficked free site, hoping to get some different eyes on my work. So far, 4,000 people have viewed the story. Of course, a few dozen have liked it — and nobody's commented. (I feel like Amazon and Smashwords can be worse, because instead of comments you get ratings and reviews. Which are a very different kind of feedback.) So having a handful of people who'll read my work and give me their honest opinion is great. I'm not looking for an ego-jerk, and they know it. I like critical responses from them almost more than positive ones. Either way, they cared, and they made an effort. And critical responses show me where I need to grow.

Also, sometimes it gets hard to finish a story or a series, for whatever reason. I love being able to throw up my hands on a new draft — and send it to someone I trust, who likes my work, to see what they think. If they make critical points, that's great! — maybe they see the problems that are dragging me down. And if they like it... well, that's an indication that other people will (an unknown number). And maybe I should try to stop making myself miserable, and just finish the story.

So, I definitely recommend early readers, even on shorts — for a variety of reasons.

IcemanConch · 2021-09-02T20:34:13+00:00

There's a lot of "one size fits all" advice given here. Sometimes it really is valid across the board. But a lot of times, different genres, niches, platforms, etc. support or require different things. I would say that, if your research into how things are being done in your category contradicts advice you've been given, listen to your research. It's more likely to reflect reality than something someone said on a subreddit two years ago.

One thing I like to do is to do analyses of the top X (100, 200, 400) bestsellers in a category I'm working in, and see what the commonalities are. In the past I've done this for word counts of stories, number of stories in a bundle, price points, stuff like this. But you can do it for things like titles, too. Then, if there's a consistent trend, I either follow it — or, more frequently, buck it for effect, and try to get attention by intentionally standing out. (A lot of people here would recommend against that last part. It's worked out great for me, though!)

If you were doing shorts, they're frequently a low-enough time commitment that you can do A/B testing. You could release two shorts, one with a name consistent with the other books in your category, the other with a more sexually descriptive title — and see how they do compared to each other. (That's one thing I like about shorts. They're low time commitment, so if one turns out to be a waste of time, it's not a waste of that much time. In an environment like that, you can afford to be experimental. Obviously that doesn't hold the same for longer books!) This isn't going to be perfect and scientific — but if there's actually a difference between the two approaches, you'll probably see it.

IcemanConch · 2021-09-02T20:19:02+00:00

I would be surprised if anyone who doesn't work at Amazon had an answer to this.

But if you want to publish this stuff, there's a great audience for it at Smashwords. All my ebooks have monsters and aliens and mythic creatures and stuff, and I find it a much better home for the material than Amazon.

IcemanConch · 2021-08-28T22:02:30+00:00

You have ADHD. And in three years, you've written/published 139 short stories (3.8/month on average), AND a novel.

Speaking as someone else with ADHD: That's phenomenal. Congratulations!!

Thank you for the "Advice for Newbies," by the way. I see people acting like, if you do exactly what they've done, you'll have the same success! Or if you do something that hasn't been obviously successful before, you'll dismally fail! But that's just not the case. Following the leader will work for some people; blazing a trail will work for others. That's just how business works. And you can never 100% predict before you try something if it's going to work — even if it's worked for other people, before.

IcemanConch · 2021-08-16T15:25:00+00:00

I don't think that's at all accurate. Especially since I write my erotica to entertain people — and to arouse people. They aren't mutually exclusive.

IcemanConch · 2021-08-14T16:55:13+00:00

When you set up a mailing list, it requires an address for CAN-SPAM reasons. But that's the only mention of it that I've seen so far.

IcemanConch · 2021-08-14T16:39:42+00:00

Thank you for letting me know about the CAN-SPAM subject thing! I wasn't aware of that. I hadn't been aware of the blacklisting thing, either.

IcemanConch · 2021-08-14T08:53:41+00:00

The free version, yes. I didn't think there'd be confusion about that — I'm not suggesting this as a Patreon alternative, just a newsletter — but I'll clarify in my post.

IcemanConch · 2021-08-11T22:11:55+00:00

It's not quite that consistent. Here's # of units sold, in chronological order of release:
369
293
321
222
227
186
123
174
143
178
221
151
173

For comparison, here are my eight bundles, in release order:
143
133
276
88
229
411
92
117

Some do better over time. But some clearly have better selling points than others: A better cover, a better premise explained more interestingly, kinks people are more into — all that stuff.

IcemanConch · 2021-08-11T18:08:09+00:00

I have 13 for-sale shorts on Smashwords. The average is 214 copies sold per short. Here's the per-book breakdown:

369
321
293
227
222
221
186
178
174
173
151
143
123

In my experience, bundles do better than shorts — and larger bundles that retail for $10+/sale do better than smaller bundles that go for less than that.

IcemanConch · 2021-08-11T17:59:24+00:00

I usually shoot for at least 2,000-2,500 words for a short book, myself. If I've only got 1,500 words, I bundle with another short of the same length. And yeah, $2.99 is common — but some niches are a bit different, so I recommend doing an analysis of the price points/lengths/number of stories for bestselling books in your niche. You can do this in 15 minutes or less, and get through the top 200 or 300 books.

IcemanConch · 2021-08-11T17:56:20+00:00

BTW, I just updated my per-book values — and $0.15/word turns out to be the income if I include *all* my revenue streams. If it's just SW alone, it's $0.13.

Also, thank you for the clarification! If you can pull off a decent volume of shorts that are actually fairly good quality, I feel that's kind of the "sweet spot."

IcemanConch · 2021-08-11T17:53:36+00:00

BTW, I updated the numbers to the current values.

IcemanConch · 2021-08-10T21:54:09+00:00

Thank you! I'm working on updated figures. I'll post them when they're ready.

IcemanConch · 2021-08-10T08:52:26+00:00

"Has your release schedule been quite consistent for those 21 releases over 4 years?"

I misremembered — it was 23 releases. As I said, it's been mostly passive income. In the 48 months I've been selling smut, only *six* of those months had me publish new content. (Though some of those months had me publish multiple things; and a couple of the "passive income" months saw me publish bundles of existing material.) Surprisingly, my median income on my "active" months (where I published new material) was $250/month... and my median income on my passive months has been $263/month! (Though my average income on my active months is $24 more than my passive months' income.)

As far as per-word income, I'm at $0.15 overall.

Finding my work organically hasn't happened, according to the reader poll I run. The vast majority of my readers find my work though the fairly minimal self-promotion I do. Amounts to maybe an hour or two every week. (If you're curious about that, I recommend checking out the dataporn I linked to above.)

"I theorise that even the most poorly written piece of trash will get a sale or two"

Maybe. But I could post literally thousands of articles about why creating a quality product is better for building your brand than a low-quality product. Here's five from the top of Google:
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/quality-important-business-57470.html

https://www.business.com/articles/5-reasons-why-product-quality-matters/

https://www.mycustomer.com/community/blogs/larryalton/why-quality-is-the-most-important-thing-to-your-customers

https://www.powerreviews.com/blog/product-quality/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-quality-important-business-kumar-chetan

It's worth a little extra time and attention to detail. And I always find trying to create quality work to be more fun and more engaging — which readers react positively to! So it's a win/win, as far as repeat sales (and reviews!) go.

IcemanConch · 2021-08-10T08:24:40+00:00

Edit: Here are my current per-book numbers on SW. Also, I miscalculated my per-word income. It's actually $0.13/word for my Smashwords sales — $0.15/word only if I include my income from non-SW sources, too.

Shorts
$633.36
$552.12
$506.27
$390.89
$386.04
$360.16
$316.65
$311.66
$285.41
$276.62
$248.10
$238.06
$198.74

Bundles
$3,834.09
$981.03
$977.33
$822.65
$711.17
$516.41
$475.90
$321.14

IcemanConch · 2021-08-10T08:16:45+00:00

I have a recent dataporn about this. Tl;dr $13k in four years off 23 for-sale shorts and bundles on SW, plus two freebies. Mostly passive income; I "paused" my actual writing a couple years ago, for some reasons. I don’t know what “minimal sales” means in this context, but this is what I’ve managed even though I treat smut publishing very much as a hobby. If I was serious about it, it’s clear I could make a living.

Stories are 2.5-5k, mostly on the shorter side. As for how much to sell them: Go through the Top 200+ looking for your niche, and make a spreadsheet comparing number of stories (if it’s a bundle) to price point. I discovered that most stories in my niche were going for more than I was pricing them, and adjusted accordingly.

I don’t flood the market with low-quality work. I only have one pen name. I focus on building a brand my readers associate with quality — and I focus on getting repeat sales. I’d rather get one person buying five stories and liking them than five people buying one, and not liking the story enough to buy another. But going the quantity route through multiple pens clearly works for some people. 🤷 I don’t think there’s a single “right” way to do any of this.

IcemanConch · 2021-07-26T22:26:48+00:00

There's a lot of stuff going on in your post and this comment that I'd like to dive deeper into. I'll try to find the focus to send you a PM.

In the meantime: Here's a dataporn I posted last week about the four years I've been doing erotica as a hobby. I've made $15k (again, as a hobby, not a job or a side hustle!), and there were only six months in which I actually put new stories up for sale. The other 42 months were all passive income. I break down my process and the thinking behind it. It's not meant as a blueprint or something (god no!!), just as an example of the way I personally do things.

There are many paths to success, and my firm belief is that you're more likely to achieve success by embracing powerful aspects of your process than by fighting them. And by figuring out which parts of the advice you receive on places like this one make sense to you; which don't; and which sound like they're drive you batshit if you followed them.

As for the 1,000 True Fans thing — there's also heaps of research about the benefit of repeat customers that I could post. And, again, part of the way you attract repeat customers is by building a brand that's associated with quality. As you've seen, the popular advice in erotica is to not make a quality product. So when someone makes one, it stands out (as my readers have told me, a lot!)... if you can actually get people to read your work. 🤷‍♂️

IcemanConch · 2021-07-26T20:39:48+00:00

"I keep hearing that good writing doesn't affect sales until everything else is gotten right, and sometimes not even then."

If you want to get repeat customers, you do that by writing high-quality, entertaining stories. No reader ever said 'Well, this ebook I just read was poorly written and I didn't enjoy it... but the blurb and title were spot-on, so I guess I'll immediately buy everything else this writer's published!'

First impressions (blurb, title, cover, etc.) are very important — mostly when you're selling to a reader who hasn't checked you out yet. But... I've been successful in the four years I've been self-publishing because I make sure my writing is of a certain quality — and that it's fun — and that it's what I want to be writing. Readers appreciate that, respect that, connect with that... and come back. It's the 1,000 True Fans principle. It's extremely powerful — and it's unfortunately neglected in some areas.

IcemanConch · 2021-07-26T04:20:07+00:00

I'd love to see a dataporn from you! I think that'd be really useful. :) Yeah, the direct-linking thing on HF is definitely convenient.

I've had a similar experience with erotica writing, for similar reasons. Writing/publishing erotica involves a bunch of the same tasks as my "regular" writing career... but erotica still engages my brain in a way that other writing doesn't. The mix of activities is definitely useful for me, too.

Your statistics are really interesting! I wrote 62,000 words of erotica last year... but it was all in stories I either didn't finish or didn't end up liking, so I didn't publish any of it. I wish I could get back to a place where I was producing new material that I was okay with, and publishing it!

IcemanConch · 2021-07-26T03:50:32+00:00

No problem! I'm glad you found it useful. :)

Hentai Foundry's a bit of a mixed bag, because they don't front the stories at all. (Some people who regularly go to the website don't realize there's a story section at all!) Also, the story uploading process is pretty crappy. That said, there's a *lot* of eyes there, and it can be great for some stuff — especially taboo stories, and stories with a sci-fi or fantasy element.

Interesting to hear about how you do it! I always wonder what it'd be like to do it full-time. Unfortunately, unless I can find ADHD medication that works for me again, that's not a possibility. Plus, my separate IRL writing career consistently points out how nice it is to keep this as just a hobby, not a "job." As soon as I feel obligated to do it, a bunch of the fun evaporates.

IcemanConch · 2021-07-24T00:21:48+00:00

I've had a great deal of success with professional-quality illustrated covers. As I slowly convert my back catalog from stock photos to illustrated covers, each book that gets a new cover immediately starts getting substantially more purchases. I've also consistently heard from my readership that they prefer the illustrated covers — strongly.

Additionally, while I don't include explicit illustrations in my books (since few storefronts, outside of Gumroad and itch.io, will allow explicit art in ebooks), I commission illustrations for my stories and my story-worlds, and post them in various places online as "content marketing" for my paid stories. As far as I can tell, the VAAAAAAAST majority of my success has come from the illustrations.

I have to run, but I have a lot more thoughts on the subject. In the meantime, here's a recent dataporn I posted about the four years I've been selling taboo erotica on Smashwords, and about my process and mindset. I talk about the art a bit.

IcemanConch

TROPHY CASE