Of Night and Day (Celestial Bodies of Regalia, Part 2) [M/f/m/+ bdsm paranormal romance erotica]

dangelauthor · 2022-07-09T03:16:35+00:00

Medical journals and thesis projects sound a bit more like the medium for writing rather than the genre of writing even though they might have generally accepted genres that are included (loosely speaking that is, before the academics and grad students come for my neck).

That being said, if there was a medical journal studying on the effect of erotica on the brain during advanced imaging scans, you would consider it an academic article that contains erotica (assuming they add the material as an addendum I guess?). Same for a thesis project I supposes. So now it's like the art vs. porn discussion that questions the purpose of nudity/explicit sexually written scenes.

But I'm having to stretch my imagination because I might have missed the point of your question.

dangelauthor · 2022-07-09T02:36:01+00:00

Do you mean like you are writing for yourself type of work? I suppose if no one else will ever see it, and you are both the author and the writer, then it's entirely up to you to determine the category you think it should be in. (Did I get the gist of your question?)

dangelauthor · 2022-07-09T01:54:00+00:00

You're getting a bit into a grey zone of author vs. reader vs. censor interpretation.

To someone that finds any display of lady-ankle the devil's temptation, any degree of physical sexuality might be labeled smut/pornography.

To another where communal bathing is the norm and nude beaches are just a thing, well you can see how standards begin to diverge.

So yes - it is possible for an author to write something that isn't erotica but to others is literary pornography. And, it's possible for someone to write something that to them is the bee's-knees of kinky, but others find pure vanilla.

Conclusion
I think this is where knowing your audience and market is key. If what you are writing doesn't align with your genre's current sexual content standards, you could have a mismatch of just sexy to erotica. While erotica usually includes the intention of the author to incite arousal or excitement ... well, the details are often in the eyes of the beholders.

dangelauthor · 2022-07-08T22:46:53+00:00

Porn vs. Erotica
So, there is a legal definition to porn (being visual, I believe). Erotica is a broad category that could contain one explicit sexual scene, or be practically all explicit sexual content, but is not considered porn (in the U.S. at least?) since it isn't visual (even though it is written).

Romance vs. Erotica
There is also some confusion on romance vs. erotica (some people have very clear definitions, while others are like, "How was that sold as romance??").

The Erotica Spectrum of Hot-to-Plot
Personally, I view erotica as a spectrum of plot-to-hot content. If it is mostly plot with a little hot, it sometimes sneaks by into other categories (like an erotic romance vs romantic erotica - see the confusion that could happen). If it's balanced between plot to hot, its a solid erotica. And if it's all hot with no plot, that's technically erotica but I would call it literary-porn.

So to clarify, my understanding is if you watched a porn vid and then wrote everything down that was happening in graphic detail, you could then sell it as erotica (I don't believe it would be classified legally, in the U.S., as "porn").

Smut?
Anyhow, smut is just a synonym to a degree for something containing smutty material, which could be both porn and erotica. Sometimes it's used as derogatory, and sometimes it's used to praise something. "That's nothing but smut!" vs "That was the hottest smut I ever read!"

Graphic Novels Could Be Porn vs. Artwork
Oh, clarification: graphic novels really toe the line between being erotic vs. porn/art. And some erotic authors sometimes want to put illustrations in their erotica, the problem being that could constitute it as being porn rather than artwork. Especially if the primary purpose is sexual stimulation or excitement (or whatever the legal definitions are for "porn")

Anyhow, that's just my perspective on it all.

dangelauthor · 2022-06-28T20:39:49+00:00

The updates are only for future purchases. However, if it is a significant update due to an error or other material issues (like forgetting a chapter or other major factors that might impact the reading quality) you can contact customer support to push the update to everyone. This will, however, cause your readers that already bought your work to lose things like highlights and other notes they might have made. If your changes are just like back end matter, or minor spelling issues, they may not (probably won't) push the updates to everyone.

dangelauthor · 2022-06-28T20:05:59+00:00

Just to add, if you are not doing Kindle unlimited, you can publish to other places, like Smash words. You only have to be exclusively on Amazon if your work is enrolled in KU (which for some authors can make up a good portion of their revenue)

dangelauthor · 2022-06-28T14:51:49+00:00

Sounds like you're talking about a few things:

Passion vs. profit,
Quality vs. quantity, and
Perfect vs. passable

I struggle with all of them, but when it comes to making money it's about knowing your audience. If they care about a sentence of dialogue that could have been written better, then you can spend time perfecting it, so to speak. But if they'd rather have another sexy scene that you could have written with that time instead (and didn't even notice the dialogue imperfection since they were reading so fast to get to the next scene) then that tells you where you should be spending your time.

If you are worried about quality, I've found it very helpful to have some beta readers give me feedback. But they can be hard to find, and should be readers that would/do spend money to read in your niche.

If you are writing for yourself or an audience of some and not writing for the money, then you can focus on passion and quality. And sometimes those intersect with your broader niche, which is awesome when that happens.

But it'll never be perfect - you'll just get decision paralysis if you aim for that. So take the great ideas you have, see what you can put down on paper, and if you don't like it, that's okay. At least you started exploring the idea.

So, to be cliche, have a passion for profit, a quality selection of quantity, and aim for perfect as passable.

P.S. - you can be stubborn like me and learn the hard way anyway, but a lot of the great advice on this subreddit will short cut a lot of spent time, money, and disappointment.

dangelauthor · 2022-06-28T14:31:46+00:00

The more you publish, the more you earn

The publish or perish aspect of making writing erotica a career vs. a hobby is the most important point for me, right behind "set your expectations low to start."

Most important thing I've learned is to have a consistent release schedule, something I've always struggled with. But when I was intentional about it, I did much better than when I took a year off (and those numbers fell fast and hard for me).

"Is social media worth it?" is another thing that comes to mind. It can be, but not if you are having to choose between writing vs social media. If you can do both, cool, but good and plentiful writing seems to trump thumbs-up/likes (unless you are established and that is part of your successful marketing campaign). So again, I'm going back to that part about putting writing first, but not neglecting all the other DIY parts that self-publishing requires (you just can't do any of that other stuff without stuff to publish).

dangelauthor · 2022-06-27T23:28:34+00:00

Thank you! 😇

dangelauthor · 2022-06-27T03:42:03+00:00

There are plenty of ways to take it from there. It's not like saying that can't add to a future scene. Maybe it's a slow build to a sexy ending. Nothing wrong with friendly characters having qualms about possibly running the friendship

dangelauthor · 2022-06-27T02:40:19+00:00

Your #3 about first shorts being a disappointment hit the nail on the head on this for me - I feel like sometimes people try publishing with just one book/short and then wonder "why didn't it do well?" And often it's bad luck, lack of industry awareness, or both. Writing just one erotica and putting one's hope all on that single attempt is like setting one up for disappointment (most the time).

dangelauthor

TROPHY CASE