by Emily Baker
I, personally, have never mirrored a story in the traditional sense (i.e. take a lesbian story and change only a few details, like make the characters men with giant dongs, or vice versa) but I have used mirroring to explore vastly different genres, so I have called this technique monster mirroring.
Here’s how it works: You look through your stats and find a title that performed decently but not as well as you had hoped. Skim through it and scribble down the major plot points and relevant details of your main character. Grab as many sentences in the “building desire” section of your story and re-write them to be as neutral as possible.
The information you are copying from your existing story will serve as the skeleton of the new story. It’s not plagiarism. You can’t plagiarize your own work. And you aren’t copying everything so even if your lesbian soccer mom picks up your new book (unlikely) then she won’t be disappointed.
Now pick that crazy niche. If you’ve got enough titles under your belt that you’re able to start monster mirroring then you know which one I mean. The niche you’ve been looking at but never quite had the nerve to write. Now is the time to unleash your Japanese tentacle monster. Pick the niche you are most afraid of writing.
The reason monster mirroring is better than classic (boring) mirroring is because there’s less competition in the stranger genres than the lesbian/gay market, and also it gives you the opportunity to explore brand new genres. You might end up the #1 writer of wereshark erotica, or trillionaire time travelling.
Just go crazy and write your new story as fast as possible. When I’m monster mirroring I try and create two new stories in two wildly different genres in the time I normally spend to write one story. This way if one of the books is a total flop then I don’t feel so bad.
Note: Make sure you create a new pen name for each monster mirror. You don’t want one of your fans browsing your catalogue and accidently buying something he’s sort-of already read before.
Editing your own work
Editors are expensive so in the beginning you must edit your own stuff. The cheapest method to improving your writing is to not look at it for a few days. This is called the Letting it Bake method. After a few days not looking at your story at all, take a look at it on a different device than what you wrote it on. If you write on the computer, look at on your phone, or print it out and look at it on paper (barbaric, I know.)
The baking method is effective because often times when we’re writing we lose track of the information that’s been relayed to the audience. We get lazy and use pronouns like he or they. “They thought that stupid.” When you write it the first time you know exactly who “they” are, but you might find that when you re-read your work you’ve forgotten who “they” are and your sentence doesn’t make sense.
Sometimes when when you re-read your work after a few days you will notice extra words that can be cut, like the second “when” at the beginning of this sentence.
Here are some more tips:
Never use a long word when you can use a short word. Writing is about clarity and the transfer of information. It’s not a competition to prove how smart you are or how big your vocabulary is.
Never use two words when you can use one word. Cut every word you can.
Avoid using adverbs. Adverbs can be eliminated 99% of the time. The only reason you should use an adverb is if your action needs to be clarified. “Stick ‘em up,” he said. VS “Stick ‘em up,” he said jokingly.
Synonyms are for variance, not to make you sound intelligent.
Read your work out loud. If you’re stumbling over the words then your reader will as well.
Writing for Kindle Unlimited (doorstop strategy)
I know I said you should never long stories because they almost never make any money, but here is a strategy that people are using TODAY to make lots of money with Kindle Unlimited.
If you’re unfamiliar with KU, think of it like Netflix but for books. Users pay a flat fee and this allows them to read as many books as they want. Every time somebody reads one of your books Amazon will pay you for each page read. Right now the payout per page is sitting around half a cent. Which is absolutely terrible if you’re writing short erotica.
A 7,500 word story will usually register with Amazon as about 30 pages. So if a user downloads and reads your entire story then you’d only get paid 15 cents. Basically nothing and a total waste of your time.
But if your book was 3000 pages then we’re talking $15, which is a solid payout.
“Oh my god, 3000 pages, I can never write that much!” Don’t worry, you’ll get there.
The easiest way to create a 3000-page doorstop is to take everything you’ve ever written and cram it into one book. Every time you write a new story, add it to the end of this super bundle and update your blurb.
The most important thing to realize about Kindle Unlimited is there is almost zero overlap between KU customers and regular customers. So don’t think by cramming all your books together you’re somehow losing sales. You’re not. The KU customer was never going to buy your $2.99 short story. There are over 100,000 erotica titles in KU. Users could read 10 books a day for the rest of their lives and never run out of content.
Even if you’re writing under multiple pen names you can use this strategy. Just call it a special collection and add each author as a contributor. The only thing you’re losing is a tiny bit of privacy because somebody might make the connection that all of these pen names are the same person. Which isn’t really an issue because the reason you use multiple pen names isn’t to hide multiple identities, it’s to make it easier on the customer because each pen name covers a different genre.
So if you want to be successful with Kindle Unlimited you need to be either writing longer books or creating humongous doorstop bundles. I know some people with multiple doorstops and they are swimming in money.
You can even price your super-bundle doorstop at just 99 cents in order to get a high ranking in the Amazon best-sellers list. Think about it. While the payout for the sale is only 35 cents, if you can hook a KU reader then the KU payout is potentially $15. This is more than double what you would get if you sold your book at $9.99.
Cover design
Designing your cover
Cover design is important because it’s the first thing the user sees in the search results. If you’ve been reading this book in one session then by now you’ve forgotten about the pickles on the cover.
“Oh yeah, the pickles. What’s with the pickles?”
Well, aside from the obvious phallic connection, the pickles are there as an example of an interesting cover that might make someone stop and take a look. This is the only goal of your cover design. Erotica stories aren’t going on a coffee table. Once the reader has opened your story the cover will be forgotten. The goal of your cover is to stand out.
Take a look at your competition. If you’re writing a werewolf story and all the other werewolf stories have a picture of a shirtless guy on it, then you put a girl howling at the full moon. Be different. Things that are different stand out and attract attention.
Your title and your blurb are not enough to make someone pick your story over your competitor. You must have an interesting cover. So make the effort to stand out.
If you’re having your covers designed for you, make sure your designer knows you want something different, something interesting. You don’t want a shirtless guy on a black background. Everybody does that and it’s boring. Don’t be boring.
Once you’re rolling in the sales you should not be designing covers you should be busy writing. Leave the art to someone else.
You can get cheap covers designed on Fiverr.com but they mostly suck. You can do similar work with Adobe Photoshop or free graphic design programs like Gimpshop.
A good designer will run you between $100-300 per cover. Custom art like you see on books in the book store will run you $1000+ but don’t worry about that because we’re writing erotica. Erotica is not
about the cover, erotica is about building desire and sex. Don’t forget that. Work the sexual anticipation into your cover if you can, just like the title. Put something desirable on the cover if you can’t find something interesting and unique.
Picking the right stock photo
There are lots of websites that offer free stock photos. There’s so many it’s not even worth listing them. Most of them, however, don’t have free pictures of attractive models you can use on erotica covers. For that you will need a subscription to a stock photo site.
Pick a site where you can get a plan that gets you between five and ten photos per month. That’s all you’ll need. You might plan on pumping out a book every three days but trust me life gets in the way. If you’re writing 10 books a month then you’re doing great. Make sure to download your max photos per month, even if you don’t need them right away. Just create a folder with photos you like and grab one when you need one.
Finding a killer font
Just google “free fonts” and pick a website. Never pay for fonts. There are thousands of great ones you can download for free. Installing a font is easy. Download the special font file and then right-click it and select “install.” You don’t even need to reboot your computer or even reboot Photoshop, your new font will just appear in your font list.
Don’t get too crazy with the fonts. Don’t use one that isn’t legible from a distance.
My most successful stories have blocky fonts that are easy to read and stand out. Forget that cursive garbage. It only looks good in your graphic design program. Just look at any book at the book store, approximately zero of them will have hard-to-read screwball fonts.
Marketing
Power of the blurb
The description of your book is often referred to as the blurb. After the cover and the title, the blurb is the most important marketing tool at your disposal.
This is your chance to really shine. Sell your book!
You want people to read your blurb and think, “Holy hell I have to read this or I’m gonna go crazy.”
It should spur desire but not be profane.
Sexy but not pornographic.
Sell it. You can do it. I believe in you. Just make it short and get to the point. The blurb is like a newspaper article. Who, what, when, where, why. Focus on those and forget the rest.
If you have absolutely no idea what to put in your blurb then just boot up the top 100 sales list and look at those blurbs. You’ll get an idea what works and what doesn’t. Copy the idea of their blurbs but don’t copy the actual text. That’s plagiarism and that’s lazy. And remember, you’re not lazy, you’re a hard-working smut machine.
There’s no such thing as a “perfect” blurb. Just be creative and test different things. Write up two completely different blurbs and try them both. Stick with the one that gets more sales.
Marketing is all about split testing. You try method A and method B and see which one is better. Then you do it again, and again, and again.
Book reviews
Don’t worry about getting reviews. Some people will tell you to buy reviews on Fiverr or other review-trading websites. Do not do this. One day Amazon is going to crack down on these people and they will lose their accounts.
If you write a good story and it becomes popular then you will get good reviews. Don’t worry about bad reviews and never waste your time arguing with someone who gave you a bad review. Stephen King and JK Rowling have hundreds of one-star reviews.
If your books are getting more one-star reviews than three, four, and five-star reviews then something is wrong. But this rarely happens. If people don’t like your material they just won’t review it at all.
Keep this in mind: Some of my highest-selling erotica stories have zero reviews. That’s right. Nothing, nada, zip. Do I care? No. Some people are embarrassed about buying erotica and don’t want people to find out they read it, which might happen if they leave a review.
Advanced reader copies
If you are absolutely compelled to see a shiny review on day one of your release, then one way you can do this is with advanced reader copies.
Method #1
This is not a fast process and if you plan to write on Monday and publish on Tuesday then this is not for you. But if you’re writing a longer story that you want to get more value from, then definitely give it a whirl at least once.
An advance reader does not guarantee a five-star review, but they generally don’t crap all over your book. If an advance reader does think your book is so terrible it probably shouldn’t be posted, then they’ll just email you and give you some tips on how to fix it. But this doesn’t usually happen.
There are a couple different websites you can use, but I recommend you start with LibraryThing.com because it’s free!
It takes two minutes to sign up for an account and then you can post your book. To use the service you must commit to giving away at least 15 books, but since you’re looking for reviews I would give away at least 30. You don’t want to give away so many that your book appears common, but you also don’t want to be stingy.
Once your book has been posted, the users on LibraryThing can request to be an advanced reader. It’s not uncommon for your book to get hundreds of requests even when there are only 30 copies to give away.
VERY IMPORTANT: Make sure your release day (the day you plan to release the book on Amazon) is as close to the “Request by” date on LibraryThing. Since your advanced readers can’t leave a review until your book is released, you want them reading it on the weekend and reviewing when it’s up for sale on Monday.
You don’t even have to worry about selecting who “wins” the advance reading copies because LibraryThing does that for you. They use a special algorithm to select the users who are most likely to create buzz and leave reviews for your book.
After the advance readers are selected then LibraryThing sends you their contact information and you send them the books.
Don’t send them your Word document. Make sure to convert your book into a PDF, EPUB, or MOBI file.
The deadline to submit titles to LibraryThing is 2PM EST on the first Monday of the month.
Method #2
This method generates faster reviews but you will need an existing email or contact list. If you don’t know anybody who can review your work then you can always hit up the top reviewer list on Amazon and start begging.
The first thing you will do is register for a free account at instaFreebie.com
This website will allow you to send a download link to your ebook file to a limited number of contacts. Ideally over time you can build a list of reviewers and email blast them every time you get a new release.
The benefit of using this method is you can submit your book for publishing when you go to sleep, and when you wake up you can email blast your contacts and gets reviews on day one.
It sounds great, but remember, reviews aren’t everything. Your content, cover, genre, blurb, and keywords are most important thing about your book. Reviews will come naturally if you are creating a great product.
Best social media platforms
Twitter, Facebook and email lists. But don’t feel you need to do any of this style of marketing. The majority of your purchases will come from people find your books in the either the search results or on the best-seller lists.
Don’t get dragged into the marketing game. You’re a writer. Stick to the writing game. You know how much marketing Amazon.com did in their early days? Zero. If you’ve ever spent money marketing your books then your advertising budget was bigger than Amazon’s. They were focused on creating a quality product and their advertising was word-of-mouth. You should aim for this as well.
But if you are compelled to get involved in social media marketing, stick to something you can do on your phone, like Facebook and Twitter. This way you can do your marketing whenever you’ve got a few spare moments. Just whip out your phone and write a short post to your fans. “Hey, how’s it going, gi
ve me your money.” Something like that.
The trick to mailing lists is…
Keep them simple and email your contact list as little as possible. If you’re publishing a book every week then consider only contacting your list once or twice per month. The acquisition cost (time + money) on a mailing list subscriber is insane. It might take you months to get 100 subscribers. Do not abuse their inbox or they will unsubscribe.
I’m not the biggest fan of mailing lists because I have a lot of pen names, but I’ve got one and every time I click “send” I know I just made at least $200. My newsletter is sent out monthly and covers my new releases across multiple pen names and genres, as well as major changes and typo fixes incase people want to update their books.
If you want to set up a mailing list then I recommend MailChimp because the basic account (up to 2000 subscribers) is free. If you have more than 2000 subscribers on your erotica mailing list then you are probably a millionaire, so don’t fret about upgrading.
The Hook: If you want readers to subscribe to your mailing list then the best way to offer them something. “Sign up today and receive blah blah blah.” You can set-up MailChimp to automatically deliver the hook when a new user subscribes.
Some people will offer a free story from your catalogue but I have found most of the time this falls flat. It’s boring and everybody does it. Think about it if you were the potential subscriber. The story might be short, it might suck, etc. You want to give the reader something they are excited about. Something exclusive. This is your chance to be creative. Offer them a ticket to a lottery where the winner will select the name of your main character. Photos of your writing space or what’s outside your window. I even know a girl who gives away pictures of her feet to new subscribers.