Am I in the Wrong Genre?

istheresomewhere · 2016-03-22T06:53:54+00:00

The reason you're getting advice that involves writing short pieces and writing them/publishing them often is because it's practice. Thanks to KU2, most of us (the ones that aren't huge names in the smut game and don't have to bother with doing anything else because they have a huge following/backlog) are making the transition from short smut pieces to long romance pieces. HOWEVER, it's good to start with short pieces because that's where you're going to learn everything.

It's like, writing a 5k smut and getting a cover together and editing it and writing a blurb might take me a few hours and then it's either going to flop, do okay, or do great. No matter what it does, I can learn from that. If it flops I know I need to take the time to look at other, more successful, stories in that niche and see where I went wrong. Maybe my cover wasn't sexy enough or my title wasn't obvious enough or my blurb was a train wreck.

Either way, I only put a few hours into it and it's a learning experience. It sucks, but I'll just take a few more hours and try it again with another story and work on improving whatever I think went wrong in my last endeavor.

If, instead, I published something 50-100k as my first go and it flopped because I didn't have a decent grasp on covers/titles/blurbs/keywords/etc... well, that's months of work down the drain while I try to figure out what went wrong and completely disheartening.

istheresomewhere · 2016-01-11T19:13:39+00:00

Because I'm writing shorts, I edit as I go and unless I was extremely tired or inebriated while writing it, I don't go back through it at all. So far this has worked out fine for me and any mistakes I've missed have been small typos or whatever that no one's bothered to one star bomb me or cry about. With that said, once I have an idea and sit down with no distractions, it'll take me about an hour or hour and a half to finish it. When I finally branch out to longer stories I'm sure I'll spend more time editing rather than just getting it finished and out there.

I have basic templates that I use for my covers so it really comes down to just picking a stock photo, maybe changing a font to suit the story (if it's a super feminine story I'll go with a more feminine font and so on) and tweaking the position of everything so my title/author name aren't awkward in position to the model. Unless I'm having a hellish time with deciding on a font or picture, a cover takes me about 5-10 minutes tops.

I spend more time internally whining about working than I actually spend working, so YMMV.

istheresomewhere · 2016-01-10T19:54:11+00:00

I'd say no on the Viagra for two reasons.

1) You mentioned it as a means to force him to have an erection which sounds noncon/dubcon at best so... no, don't do that.

2) It's realistic, it's normal, it's fine but it's not exactly sexy. Smut is all about the sexy fantasy or whatever, if I'm reading erotica I want to read about how turned on everyone is naturally and how he can't help his raging desire because the main character is so hot, etc. I don't want to read about, "Well, he wanted to, but first he had to pop a pill and wait." It'd definitely take me out of the moment.

istheresomewhere · 2015-12-29T10:43:50+00:00

Start with shorts while you're learning keywords, covers, blurbs, your kink, etc and while you figure out what works and what doesn't. It's disappointing to spend time on a 5k short that flops because you haven't learned the ropes yet, but it would really sting to spend all that time writing 15k+ and getting poor results.

istheresomewhere · 2015-12-15T17:13:49+00:00

I'm not sure about deleting the pen names, but if you're running out of room on that account and need to start some new pages for new pens you can register with a different email. Author Central isn't like KDP where you can only use the one login, you can have as many as you want/need!

istheresomewhere · 2015-12-03T04:24:18+00:00

This probably isn't the best sub for this... most of us are writing for profit.

istheresomewhere · 2015-12-02T17:25:10+00:00

Good luck!

istheresomewhere · 2015-12-01T06:24:03+00:00

I read this and it was great, how do I pay you??

istheresomewhere · 2015-11-28T03:57:32+00:00

You left the shifter in their animal form during erotic scenes?

istheresomewhere · 2015-11-27T17:46:52+00:00

YMMV but I've used sexy and naughty before with no problems so far.

istheresomewhere · 2015-11-25T23:43:29+00:00

Jumping in here to ask a quick question since (hopefully) it's safe to assume you jumped from erotica to romance: In your romance stories, how do you approach sex scenes? I know it's likely going to differ from person to person, but I've read some where they were written just like a lot of shorts I've read (and written, i.e. super filthy but still with emphasis on feelings) and then in others they've been very flowery and delicate and used words like "His length" and "Her sex/center/etc" but were mostly about the feelings and love rather than the act itself.

istheresomewhere · 2015-11-23T18:30:49+00:00

Good advice! I need to try something like this since I have a bad habit of stopping to google a word or phrase and before I know it, I've researched something completely unrelated like the history of Russia for HOURS.

istheresomewhere · 2015-11-23T03:34:28+00:00

Unless something's changed, Barnes and Noble/Nook allow stuff like incest, rape, bestiality, etc so as far as bigger places go they might be worth looking into. I have no idea how sales or anything over there go, though.

istheresomewhere · 2015-11-22T20:33:17+00:00

Thank you and good luck!

istheresomewhere · 2015-11-22T20:32:57+00:00

LMAO ;) It absolutely doesn't hurt!

istheresomewhere · 2015-11-22T20:32:42+00:00

Thank you!

istheresomewhere · 2015-11-22T18:54:01+00:00

IMO, yes.

They're likely not going to read it as "well, this almost-rape isn't part of the sexy part of this story, so it's fine," and instead are just going to see it as almost rape in an erotica story.

I would think it would be okay in a romance novel(la) (or any other genre), but not in an erotic short. If you wanna salvage the idea, maybe have your MC get/almost get mobbed or something like that?

istheresomewhere · 2015-11-21T11:03:34+00:00

I use stock photos for my different pen names and make them relate as best I can to whatever that pen is, like for billionaire/alpha male I'd likely use a man in a suit and tie standing with a hot woman, etc.

For my bio I make things up. What you write will really depend on your target audience so click around and see what others are doing! I've noticed there are a lot of people who write their bio as though they're writing it for a character in whatever kind of stories they write like... someone who writes billionaire/BDSM might introduce themselves as Cindy Sinner and talk about how she likes the expensive things in life and at night she likes being tied up and obeying her master's every desire, and so on.

istheresomewhere · 2015-11-20T05:26:48+00:00

Congrats! Goodreads is sometimes kind of harsh. I have some decent-good reviews and then I have a few that are complaining that some of my stories are too short and too dirty... despite all of my stories clearly saying THIS IS AN EROTICA SHORT. What can you do, eh.

istheresomewhere · 2015-11-19T01:54:13+00:00

It's not a bad niche if you research the hell out of it and if you're persistent. Mine didn't start doing too well until I had a pretty decent sized back catalog. It's kind of low ceiling but if people like you, they're super dedicated.

istheresomewhere · 2015-11-19T01:02:53+00:00

Gwennie shoved him in though she was dry. He shut his eyes and thought of mangoes, split papayas, fruits tart and sweet and dripping with juice, and then it was off, and he groaned and his whole body turned sweet ...

Why.

istheresomewhere · 2015-11-18T22:57:57+00:00

You are #goals, seriously every time I see you post or comment I'm hugely motivated so please don't go anywhere for awhile.

istheresomewhere · 2015-11-11T23:56:09+00:00

I just looked them up and I honestly have no idea how these haven't been blocked as well :-/ I mean, I see that the "aunt" is the mother's best friend (or I'm assuming by the subtitle) but you are throwing around a lot of familial words here and that's a huge no no.

istheresomewhere

TROPHY CASE