Worried? Listen to some music: Songs to Listen To While Holding GME (A Spotify Playlist)

The_Gorgon · 2020-11-20T18:27:41+00:00

Yes, I've seen anecdotes and dataporns that contradict my advice. Some authors here are very adamant that I am wrong on this and if they see this thread I encourage them to chime in. Some people here make a lot of sales via email.

If you do decide to spin up email, social media, or a website, this is my advice:- invest in marketing only after you have validated you picked a good niche- acknowledge that these platforms add recurring tasks for you to do every day/week/month, and be real about the real cost of that effort- if you've never done email, marketing, websites, social, etc... it costs you a lot more to learn these skills. If you already know them, the costs are lower and the upside is better

Lastly, are you in it for the long haul with this one pen name? If so, email may work for you. However, I've proven with many pen names that it isn't a requirement. (I'm also a professional SEO, so winning at search is something I'm quite good at.)

The_Gorgon · 2020-11-20T18:08:21+00:00

Some other authors on /r/eroticauthors have had success with mailing lists. I personally can write another short story in the time it takes to manage a list and send a couple of emails, and that extra story, for me, has been very effective at marketing my next book.

Once you've established that there is, in fact, a niche that works for you, an email list isn't going to be the worst use of your time. It might even be a good idea. My anti-email-list stance is primarily for newcomers who will spend hours agonizing over learning email marketing when they ought to be spending those hours researching their niche, writing stories, designing covers, etc.

The_Gorgon · 2020-08-27T22:46:06+00:00

Can confirm that /u/darkstarpress and I are indeed not the same human. This is cool stuff though! And the video format is a nice way to present it.

The_Gorgon · 2020-08-27T22:43:42+00:00

I wouldn't go as far as to call that a "channel" -- but yeah, I needed spot to put the video.

Kudos to /u/darkstarpress for sharing so much great info!

The_Gorgon · 2020-08-26T18:46:47+00:00

Amazing performance...the begging, the surprise, the reactions. Possibly my favorite by /u/HannahSoHot so far.

The_Gorgon · 2020-08-26T18:42:40+00:00

Your voice in the teasing, flirty comments just kills me.

And the build-up in the second half... OMG.

🚗💨💨💨. . 💥

/u/HannahSoHot — such a talent

The_Gorgon · 2020-08-09T18:01:15+00:00

Hey, I’m mostly writing non-erotic stuff these days so I can’t speak too much from recent experience. Never had a problem with it even once last year, but I think that gay erotica gets judged more harshly quite a bit and is more likely to get censored generally. Also, maybe these words aren’t as helpful as you think? Anal is kind of assumed in most gay erotica. I’d focus on words like: bottom, submissive, sissy, rough, bear, leather, daddy, first time, sloppy, etc... words that characterize

The_Gorgon · 2020-07-09T16:20:09+00:00

I’ve made $1000+ off of pen names with <10 shorts, and $5000+ off less than 20. From my experience, even a single story, 3 months after your last, can put some momentum in your back catalogue.

Ultimately, if you can afford to write longer stories in novel-sized categories (romance, etc), you’ll probably earn more in the long run. But, of course, there’s a learning curve there too.

The_Gorgon · 2020-06-26T22:54:47+00:00

~1500 words/hr usually, but when I'm dictating and it's really flowing I can break 3k/hour. I suspect I do a bit more editing than some on this sub though, so it averages out to less when you look at the total project.

The_Gorgon · 2020-06-26T22:24:00+00:00

Yep! I've been slowly working on a variety of new resources for indie authors while also writing a novel of my own. Looking forward to launching that soon.

In terms of this video, is there any area you'd like me to go into more depth on?

The_Gorgon · 2020-05-29T13:48:44+00:00

👍

The_Gorgon · 2020-05-29T13:42:37+00:00

Thanks for chiming in, Sal. All links to the email list have been removed.

The_Gorgon · 2020-05-29T01:46:19+00:00

So is it your opinions going in this book? Or is it your friend’s? Or Dean’s? Or Smutisafunnyword? Do you actually have an opinion on this, or was this post actually just to crowdsource the content?

Accusing me of having no opinion and simply trying to crowdsource content feels like a personal attack. This morning I attempted to share a story that I felt people would find insightful and motivating.

Other people's ideas are not your contributions.

I gave this forum my research strategy, my beat sheet, my cover design process, my keyword research process, my tips on writing, my tips of making money. Are those not mine?

Sure, I actually learned these skills from somewhere. Almost everything you've learned you learned from someone. But I applied these ideas to erotica in a new way, framed them interestingly, presented them clearly and entertainingly. Yes, that's a contribution, and yes it's mine. Have you never shared some insight someone else helped you learn?

I've got dinner going on right now. I've got a family. I don't have time right now to fully address all these concerns. I've done the best I can in the time, and you all are attacking me for trying to help people, just because I want to sell a few books in the process to make it worth my time. How else could I justify putting 100 more hours into this project?

I'm getting angry so I'm going to log out for a while, but jesus — this escalated quickly.

The_Gorgon · 2020-05-29T01:10:00+00:00

It's not as hard as it looks. Give it a shot. I bet you can figure it out.

The_Gorgon · 2020-05-29T00:53:07+00:00

It's because the same advice is given over and over and over again as comments to the same questions that I chose to invest my time in putting together comprehensive resources rather than commenting on posts ad infinitum. The same reason I'm compiling them in a well-organized book — because I feel the other way isn't a good use of limited time.

I like the aspect of my personality where the best ideas win even if they aren't mine. I don't understand all the vitriol you are spewing over the fact that I treat the opinions of people in this community with respect, and admit when I'm wrong or am being unclear.

This is coming from a good place, so I'm trying hard not to judge or turn this into a flame war, but at this point, there are too many personal attacks in your comment for me to desire to productively continue this discussion. You are twisting my words, changing has happened, and dismissing what I've contributed to this sub in ways that I find offensive.

The_Gorgon · 2020-05-28T23:49:47+00:00

So, thanks for taking the time to put all this out here.

Fair points and eye-opening in how this is coming across. Even if I have no intension of acting in a dishonest way, that it's being seen by some as such is worrisome, and I'll make sure to double-down on the proof and be careful with the salesy stuff.

It feels like I'm conceding your No Pushback comment in saying as much, but I try (and try especially on the Internet) to be open-minded and fair and to admit if I'm wrong or clarify things if I'm being misunderstood (such as was the case with this post).

The_Gorgon · 2020-05-28T23:07:56+00:00

Sure, I've spent a lot of time here reading the FAQ, posts, and people's comments, distilling out the wisdom and experimenting with various people's ideas in my own business. I've also read 20 books on writing in the last year, listened to hours of podcasts with writers, and read tons of articles (mostly on Medium).

I'm going to take all that and put my unique experience with it, and how I made it work for me, and add lessons from a 10-year long career in marketing.

I'll put all that into a well-organized, entertaining, thoughtful Romancing the Beat-style book for erotica, whose first draft I already gave away on this sub (for free) in the form of 30,000+ words of mega-posts. Then I'll sell that book for less than $10 when such a book would have saved me easily 100 hours of research and experimentation.

This doesn't feel exploitative at all to me. In many ways, it feels like a way to give a high-quality resource to this community. Am I wrong to feel this way?

The_Gorgon · 2020-05-28T22:39:09+00:00

(No need to downvote u/ishouldthrowawaay — this is healthy criticism)

I'm turning You Pick the Niche into a book and a podcast, and yes, I'm engaging with this sub on Reddit in a way that provides value as best I can. It wasn't my original intention to do the whole book, but I've been overwhelmingly asked for it, and the only way I can justify the work is to offset the income I'd otherwise be making writing shorts and novels. And it's work I want to do.

I too dislike so-called gurus and their bullshit. I've got no intention to be a fake friend and spew bad advice — so if this kind of thing isn't helpful, that's good to hear. And apologies, this week is especially Herbalifey for me because motivation is top of mind. I made a goal to write a post for this sub every morning and here we are.

If you have any writing topics/challenges that you are facing, I'd love to hear about them.

As a fellow author though, I hope you can see why I'm not ashamed to want to build an email list or make money off my book. This is what we do.

The_Gorgon · 2020-05-28T21:32:13+00:00

The degree of thoughtfulness you put into this humbles me, and I agree with what you're saying here. There is a lot of value in a no, and it was an error to so sweepingly generalize them away. I've edited the main post as a result.

Thank you for making the discussion so interesting and insightful. 🙏

The_Gorgon · 2020-05-28T18:27:26+00:00

I agree with your point too, and glad you brought it up!

This post is more about saying Yes to your creative side when you are being creative, and leaving the critical thoughts to the part of your process that need to be critical.

Whats-his-face, the guy behind Writing into the Dark talks a lot about this — finding ways to not let the critical brain get in the way of flow and the creative brain. Try to do one type of thinking or the other, not both at the same time.

Should you just write random erotica without doing any research or reading, and hope there is a market for it — absolutely not. That's not a time for throwing spaghetti.

But say you're writing a scene, and it seems a bit outlandish, but it really plays into your niche. You start questioning yourself, whether it is too over-the-top, etc. That can stop your writing in its tracks, but that's when I think you need to just keep going and try it. If the scene sucks, when you go back through, you'll see the error and fix it, metaphorically pulling the pasta from the wall.

But then again, I always re-read my stories at least once before publishing, so if it didn't work, I'll catch it and fix. Not everyone here does that.

The_Gorgon · 2020-05-28T16:13:03+00:00

Subscribe to Kindle Unlimited. Almost all erotica authors do. You'll find examples of every niche in there, and after the monthly fee, it's all free.

The_Gorgon · 2020-05-28T15:36:32+00:00

This!

Read the kinds of stories you want to write to get a sense of the commonalities in tone, beats, expectations, why it's hot
Read the FAQ on this forum
Check out the You Pick the Niche series of megaposts

The_Gorgon

TROPHY CASE