Can you still make money with erotica on amazon

Illustration by Eleanor Doughty. Three dtill ago, Sarah Sethline, a something living on the West Coast, was a freelance writer, making the kind of non-spectacular money freelance writers make. One day, she happened to see a Reddit post written by a guy who claimed to be making good money writing erotica. Sethline had read smut now and then, and she’d even volunteered as an editor for some erotic stories years before, but she hadn’t considered the idea that it might be a way to make a living. Today, Sethline a pen name is the author of more than stories and bundles of stories that you can download from Amazon onto your Kindle. Her work covers a lot amazln territory: bikers, pregnancy fetishesgay BDSM, adult diapering, and lots and lots of near-incest Amazon bans the real thing. Amazon, by far the frotica platform for self-published e-books, sells around 19, of the titles a day, according to data compiled for the publishing data sstill AuthorEarnings. The writer behind the site estimates that 80 percent of erotica downloads for Kindle are written by self-published authors. Sethline said her readers, including those buying the gay titles, are overwhelmingly women.

1. Leverage the app economy

Writing erotica is the fastest and easiest way to make money online. It takes very little effort I can finish a story in under three hours and you can build up a nice little passive income. Writing erotica is pretty much a fire-and-forget industry. You pump out books, throw them online, and then collect a royalty check at the end of every month. I am not some wildly successful erotica author. Is it enough for me to retire on? Of course not. One of the nice things about erotica stories is the fact that they sell themselves. A good cover and title will move books for you without any extra effort. Unlike most other ventures, the learning curve is amazingly low. So low, in fact, that I learned everything I know about the industry from one brief book. Scott Amazon. With books, averaging around 30 sales a day per title, I figured Scott had some industry secrets worth sharing. I followed all the advice, wrote a handful of books, and watched my earnings increase modestly. And then I doubled my profits again in March. You could write a few erotic short stories to pay your bills. Summer is coming up and I know that a lot of college students will have plenty of free time. Why not do some writing to help with tuition next year? But, as anyone who has ever attempted fiction quickly discovers, writing a novel is hard work. Penning dialogue, pacing a story, adding descriptive imagery. All that stuff is immensely difficult. Even writing something as pulpy as a flesh-eating goat story can become immensely complex and difficult. You get to practice your storytelling skills, hone your editing abilities , become an expert on keywords, and master the art of eBook formatting. I have several recurring clients who hire me to explain things like sales rank, keywords, and cover design. My title peaked with a sales ranking under 30, This means that I was selling about seven books a day. While this might not sound like much, my title was outselling hundreds of thousands of other books on Amazon. Kluwe is a man with national fame and almost , Twitter followers.

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To save you from the big suspense…YES! You can still make big money selling short stories in Writing short stories is one of the best side hustles I have ever tried. I publish all of my stories exclusively on Amazon. The best thing about selling erotica short stories on Amazon is you generate passive income for life. What I mean for this is once you actually write the book, the hard work is done! Amazon does the hard part of bringing in traffic to their site millions and millions of people. Another great thing about selling erotica is the product really does sell itself. In fact, the only real promotion I do is through my email list, which is a great way to get in contact with your customers. Self publishing for the first time can be a little bit scary. I remember when I first hit the publish button. I was pretty much sweating bullets! If you want to self publish your own short stories on Amazon Kindle, here is my six step guide to get started:. So, the biggest question in your mind is probably how much money can be made self publishing short stories. Well, that depends really…. If you want to have success publishing short stories for money on Kindle, here are a few general guidelines:. No one wants to follow an author that goes on a 3 month break after publishing a few stories. If you consistently publish great content, people will line up to buy your books off the shelf! Kindle Unlimited is basically Netflix for books. This is a really great tool to read a lot of other books by successful authors. And this will help dramatically improve your writing style. This will help you research other top authors much easier and cheaper too! If you can design a great book cover, you will be very successful in selling books.

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Ebook publishing is a flourishing market, with more and more people joining in the fun every day. You can go to any number of websites and find work from writers who you could never hope to find at your local bookstore.

Erotic literature and romance novels have emerged as one of the most profitable self-publishing markets because it is fun to do and the market is huge. I myself entered the world of online erotic self-publishing nearly a year ago, publishing erotic short stories under a pen name Ciara Ryan, and now my real name as well after years of rejection by the so-called «mainstream publishers».

Aside from being a lot of fun, it’s a great way to potentially make some extra scratch when times are tough. I’ll give you the basics here, and in no time, you’ll be on your way to writing the type of smut that sells so.

Before you start writing down naughty tales, you need to know what’s going to sell and what’s not going to sell. You can have a super-sexy story that really revs your engine, but nobody else is interested in. Visit different sites I’ll give you a few soon and check out what’s popular.

There are a number of genres when it comes to this type of writing and some seem to outsell others by a wide margin, so it’s up to you to decide which genre to pursue. Pay close attention to the categories that define the work you research, because this is the way retailers will market your books, and how buyers will search for. The best indication of how a product is doing is to read the customer comments, go to the author’s website, look them up on Facebook, or one of the other thousand sites where people can promote themselves.

If they’re bragging about huge sales number, it’s a good indication that the genre they write is popular. A few of the writers I researched when I was considering jumping into the industry were Sable Hunter my personal favorite and the one I most highly recommend if you want to learn how to write erotic romance that will sellKelly Haven and Georgia Fox.

Just be careful, recently certain sub-genres have come under heavy fire and are effectively being removed from some retailers. Now that you’ve got something you want to sell, you’ll need to create online accounts to distribute your work. I recommend starting with Amazon, and moving to other channels, like Smashwordsonce you’re comfortable. You’ll need a valid email address to set-up accounts, so make sure you have one.

Be sure you fill-in the account bios and add a picture for each retailer, so prospective buyers can get to know you. Remember, people aren’t just buying your work, they’re buying your image. So create an interesting persona and give yourself a cool pen.

If you decide to write for more than one genre and have more than one pen name, you’ll have to set up separate accounts for. With your accounts set-up, you’ll be able to submit your work through multiple channels. Each channel has different formatting guidelines. Amazon is relatively uncomplicated and easy to figure out if you have even the most rudimentary of computer skills. Whereas Smashwords is a little more involved, but can be learned if you take your time, which will pay off in the end because they distribute to Apple, Sony and a whole host of other Ebook retailers, where you definitely want your books.

I use Adobe Photoshop to make my covers. Ebook publishing is just like traditional publishing, and the cover is what first attracts a buyer to your book and can literally be the difference between you MAKING a sale, and NOT making a sale.

Much like formatting, different retailers have different requirements when it comes to the dimensions of the cover, so I do two versions of each cover, a x version, and a x version. Make sure you label the cover with the dimensions when you save it, or you’ll use the wrong one almost every time, which is frustrating, especially when you’re learning as you go. Here are just a few sites where you can get pictures. Most offer extended license options if you plan on making you work available in print.

Above is the cover from my latest release, so you can see what can be created by a computer illiterate like me. With practice, you’ll be a designing wizard in no time. Sites vary, so be sure to read their license policies to be sure you have the rights necessary. There are thousands of other Ebooks out there for customers to choose from, so don’t shoot yourself in the foot by pricing your book unreasonably.

Do more research to see what books like yours are selling for and price accordingly. If you write three stories that are along the same theme, put them together in an anthology price accordingly and now you’ve got four books instead of. Simple really, get yourself out there wherever you can and let people know you’ve got something they might be interested in reading. Create an account on Facebook and make a Fan Page.

Start a blog and get people talking. The erotic literature community is full of great people, who are extremely kind and usually willing to help. The first sale I ever made only netted me thirty-three cents, but I can’t describe how good it felt when I found.

Well I’d never be dumb enough to guarantee you’ll make money, I will go on record as saying that you will have a good time trying. Content is for informational or entertainment purposes only and does not substitute for personal counsel or professional advice in business, financial, legal, or technical matters.

Sign in or sign up and post using a HubPages Network account. Comments are not for promoting your articles or other sites. Thanks a lot for your post, it made me dare to dive in the erotica world. But I was wondering if you have any ideas on how to start marketing my book. I understand Amazon has made some significant changes since this article was written last year. Any info on what they are and how they might change what you are suggesting here? I was curious, did you just make up your pen name and place it, or did you have to do other steps to use that name?

I write some short stories in this genre, thus far only for private consumption. I’ve been told that I should sell the stories but have no idea how to go about it.

If I put a group of them together, would it be possible to publish that as an anthology? And could it be at all lucrative as a first-time publishing from an unknown? Or should I try another venue with individual stories first, and if so, where? Thank you so much for the ideas above, I had no idea it was even possible.

Amazon is blocking so many erotica books. We need another outlet for our work. If anyone knows of an eBook website that accepts true Erotica, please let me know. Ryan, Thanks for your advice. I have been writing erotic stories for about 25 years now, just for my own amusement. My wife said I should try and publish them for Kindle.

All I read from you checks out so far. My only concern is some wording or detail I use may be offensive to mainstream society.

If you have the time, Please can you still make money with erotica on amazon back to me or steer me to what can and can’t be published. I have ghostwritten several short romance novellas for my clients on a freelancing sites. Almost all my books have ended up on Amazon, and some have even garnered great reviews. Now I want to go the self publishing way but have no idea how to market my books.

Can anyone help me on this? Thank you so much for the information above, not only from you, but also from the comments! I have started to self-publish on Amazon only 3 months ago and have found marketing to be the greatest issue. I started writing spiritual poetry and blogs over three years ago and my circles on social media mainly consists of spiritually interested people and not so many who are interested in erotica.

I certainly agree that honing your skills comes with practice. I am about to publish my 8th novel soon in that genre and I write like you «Just do it! Without a budget to use for marketing and not so much time to devote to relentlessly be online and be present and active there, I find, people simply often don’t know that my books exist.

Something to work on Firstly, Creative Commons is your friend. I use it to find pictures all the time. Google search also has a feature now that lets you look for work with special licenses that you get directly from the artists via Deviant art or Flickr usually, but some others.

Basically, I look for CC work that allows 1. Then, no worries about whether sites like shutterstock, etc, will let you use them for erotica. Just mind if you have to attribute, and if any special verbiage needs to be.

Secondly, question. You mention having a fan page on Facebook. I write erotica with explicit scenes. Stop laughing. I have seen the pages.

Ronnie has a point. Things have probably changed since I wrote this article, so always make sure you read the license agreements thoroughly.

I don’t use those places anymore personally, I’ve moved on, but I did when this hub was written and never had an issue. Just wanted to inform you that your article is a bit misleading and could lead to possible legal problems for authors.

Images of people from the microstock photo agencies you refer to www. It is considered a sensitive use and needs special licensing. I have a couple questions. Can I still advertise my book on other sites or do I have to wait for the 3 months to be up?

Two, I used their cover art, if I put my book on another site, I wouldn’t think I could use theirs, so I will be checking out your suggestions. What about copyrighting?

2. Use existing websites

I have alluded to some of my side hustles in earlier posts, but this will be the first time I actually talk about it onn. Now a lot of you are probably wondering how I got started in the first stilo. Well, I actually read a blog post about it. I researched the idea a bit more after reading the post. After sleeping on it, I decided I wanted some of that action and started my publishing business. A lot of people think that publishing your own ebooks is impossible, but it has never been aamzon with advancements in technology. By that logic, an independent author should have no means to make a dime! The beautiful thing about erotica is that you can get started right away and generate money from day one. The start up costs are so low. In fact, I broke even less than a week after publishing my first book. Right now, there are many platforms eroticq authors to publish erotica and other ebooks. Out of all the platforms, Amazon KDP has the best royalty structure. Amazon KDP is great because Amazon is one of the most popular online eortica websites in the world. They do hundreds and thousands of sales every second. Keep in mind that Amazon KDP pays out royalties two months in lag. Here are 3 key reasons why you should publish erotica right away:. Do your writing skills suck?