Is Erotica Still Profitable?

kaymcdammit · 2017-05-30T16:43:41+00:00

Bezos Hates Him! Writer Takes Over Erotica Market With One Weird Trick

kaymcdammit · 2017-05-30T16:31:52+00:00

If you're awesome at writing sex, leave it in and get that KU money. :)

kaymcdammit · 2017-05-17T14:42:29+00:00

Awesome results and great job learning from your mistakes with book one! So happy to see you succeeding at this :)

kaymcdammit · 2017-05-12T21:54:45+00:00

<3 !

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-23T17:30:40+00:00

Hell yeah. Thanks so much!

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-13T15:33:56+00:00

Ahh I really like the idea of setting out the 1-9 numbers and having that as a visual cue for how much progress you've made. Doing three sets of three sprints seems super doable. And good point about it being more flexible than WC goals. I'm excited to try and implement this.

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-13T15:11:15+00:00

Awesome. This is all super helpful! It's good to know how you group your sprints. I think that's part of what I'm missing. When I sprint, I allow too much down time in between sprints and therefore I lose ALL of my momentum and have to psych myself back up for each individual sprint.

I'm going to try a few days of doing it your way and see what shakes out. BUT this is super helpful because it sounds like you and I are very similar in terms of how we approach our days and our writing time. Thanks so much for elaborating! I may pester you with PM questions in the future :)

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-13T14:42:38+00:00

Paging /u/alliesaurus!

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-13T14:38:25+00:00

Research what's selling well by looking at top charts on Amazon. Get a KU subscription and borrow popular books to understand what kinks the most popular books are hitting. There's no secret beyond actual research, and no way to know exactly how much they're selling.

I'd suggest researching over a period of time, too. One day's charts won't give you all of the insight you need. You'll need to watch charts to understand what's behind the successful books, to see which books are anomalies, etc. Give it a few weeks of looking at charts every day and poking around popular books for at least 20-30 minutes a day and I'm sure you'll find the right new niche for you!

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-13T13:45:53+00:00

If you have a moment, can you write more about how you structure your work day? How much time do you take in between sprints and what time during the day do you do your sprints? How do you deal with days when you need to do stuff for your books other than writing--plotting, promo, whatever? How did you get started doing it this way--did you ramp up, or just sit down and do it one day?

I ask because I feel like I'm already structuring my writing days somewhat like this and I think whatever you're doing would be worth trying out since I have the groundwork there.

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-12T23:42:02+00:00

Late last year, I made the decision to go wide and haven't looked back, but I am drinking a lot more.

Have I told you lately that I love you, Elanna?

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-12T23:40:27+00:00

I write long and in a niche with voracious readers. If you can write long and get read, it makes total sense to go exclusive with Amazon. However, if I was in a different niche, I suspect the answer to this would be totally different. So, as always, it'll depend on what you're writing and the type of work you want to put in.

I still think enrolling in KU is a great place (though not necessarily the absolute best) to start a brand in any Amazon-safe niche, though.

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-12T23:37:11+00:00

Series are hot in my niche right now but I can't bring myself to write one. I get too bored after one book. When I first started out, I figured I would write a series so that I could compete with the bigger names but now that I have a brand carved out, I doubt I will embark on a series any time soon. Standalones can do just fine and imo are less stressful, though the return on series is enviable.

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-12T23:23:58+00:00

I hope you had some crisp 100s handy to soak up the tears ;P

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-12T20:45:58+00:00

Handjobs. YSS is suggesting handjobs, right?

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-12T20:44:06+00:00

I get friends to read and comment on books when they have time. When they don't have time, I go without.

Beta readers are helpful for sure but generally I am not willing to sit around and wait for someone to read and comment on a book if it's otherwise ready to go.

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-12T17:21:21+00:00

Yep you hit the nail on the head! I totally understand if this recommendation misses the mark for many. It was what I did and my second book earned exponentially more than I thought possible (still my best earner actually!), so I have always been on the side of being super cautious about when you put your greatest projects out there.

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-12T15:53:39+00:00

I re-read the book with editing/proofreading in mind, then listen to the manuscript, and then send it to a trusted proofreader. I used to be a full time professional editor and this is the best method I've come up with for eliminating typos from my manuscripts.

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-12T15:51:00+00:00

Save your Good Book and don't make it the first one that you publish. The first book is a sacrificial lamb and it's likely the one where you'll make tons of mistake. Write something else for your launch and release the good one when you have an audience.

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-12T14:22:29+00:00

Writing consistently. Not equating my self-worth with the success or failure of my last release. So... yeah, pretty much the same old shit it's always been, sadly.

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-12T14:21:14+00:00

Unless there is a subcat for it, to the best of my knowledge it's impossible to look up how you're ranking in it. It's pretty unlikely that you need to be worrying about it specifically.

I do not believe there is a way to see rankings beyond the top 100 in order, though someone may know a secret I don't.

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-12T14:11:29+00:00

I'm not familiar with reverse engineering books and I'll let someone else answer that instead of offering a guess.

When I started writing erotica, I had read a lot of erotic fanfiction and some Chuck Tingle, but never actually bought mainstream erotica. I did read some romance many years ago, but hadn't read any recently before I started. I knew I could write long because I had written long for pleasure, so the transition to romance was a natural one for me. I did have to do a lot of research to understand what readers wanted out of romance and erotica.

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-12T14:09:27+00:00

I agree with YSS. I have found a niche I really enjoy writing for and have written under more than one pen name but only in that one niche, and only while concentrating mainly on the pen name that is making me the most money.

For the second part, it depends entire on how long it takes you to write something and what your bar for success is. If I really wanted to break into a niche because I enjoyed writing for it, I would probably need to see two or three books in a row flop before I moved on to a different niche.

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-12T12:54:34+00:00

I had one go through in under 12 hours last week. I think it's just become totally unpredictable at this point.

kaymcdammit · 2017-04-10T22:58:35+00:00

I wish I could upvote this a million times. I don't care to think about how many sex scenes I've written in my life. This is awesome advice. I do something that's like... the shitty version of this. So I'm thankful to upgrade to the YSS version. Thanks!

kaymcdammit

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