by Emily Baker
Everything Else
Is it normal to masturbate to my own work?
Yes. Especially the stuff you’ve been letting bake for a few days. If you write a lot then you’ll forget what it is exactly you wrote last month and when you read it you’ll experience just like one of your readers and let me tell you that is a great feeling.
Why more stories is better than longer stories
I know I mentioned this in the writing section but it’s so important I decided to expand on it a little. Now that you’ve read most of this book, you know that your readers are looking to get aroused and then hopefully get off to erotic fantasy you’ve crafted for them.
The problem is sometimes what we think is an erotic fantasy might be not what the majority of readers think is an erotic fantasy. It’s not that you’re wrong and they’re right, it’s just that what they want to purchase happens to be not what you’re selling. If you want to sell more stories then you need to cater to the people who purchase stories.
Remember, the erotica game is about making money. We’re not creating art that will be displayed in a museum for hundreds of years after we die. So we need to adapt our writing to the purchasing habits of the consumer.
And the best way to figure out their purchasing habits is with data. I’ve shared my best-selling niches with you, but you might find you just aren’t in to writing alpha-male erotica. Which is fine.
You just need to find another niche. You find your niches by harvesting data.
You can create your own data by writing a ton of stories.
This will take a while. Weeks. Months. Seasons.
This data is priceless and only obtainable by creating a lot of stories. You can’t just do a survey and ask people what they want. People don’t know what they want and they lie on surveys.
One day you’ll be browsing your reports in Amazon and combing through the sales and page reads and it will just click for you. You’ll discover a niche you thought was coal is actually gemstone. A diamond in the rough. Dig up enough diamonds and you’re rich.
You’ve got to create a ton of products and see what sticks. Maybe the story you spent the least amount of time on will be a best-seller. If you can figure out why it’s a best seller then you’re going to be a millionaire. Once you figure out what people need then it’s just a matter creating enough products to satisfy them.
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” ― Henry Ford
Steve Jobs was the same way. People never asked for iPhones or iPods. He decided they would be great and then he created them.
This is what you must do. Create products and let the consumer decide. Don’t let anybody tell you that a particular niche is bad or will never sell. Only the data knows the truth.
How to get your erotica out of the dungeon (adult filtering)
Getting adult-filtered is the worst thing that can happen to your ebook after you hit publish. This means Amazon has decided there is something highly offensive about the title, subtitle, cover, blurb, or content.
If the Amazon cover-checkers or book-scanning Skynet algorithms find something they don’t like then your book will be labeled as adult. This can be a bit misleading for a new writer because, hey, it’s erotica, right? It’s in the category with titles that have milf and lesbian in them. Generally, an “adult” product on Amazon is one with nudity and offensive language. Naked pin-up calendars are “adult” but a story about a college girl getting nailed by the entire faculty is not. Go figure.
If you post your book on Monday and aren’t seeing any sales or page-reads (KENP) by Tuesday then you should go to www.salesrankexpress.com and enter your book information. If you see the big red letters “ADULT” next to your title you’re boned. If you see “Content Rating: Safe,” then you’re fine.
Thankfully, there is always a solution if you keep a level-head and are willing to do a bit of work.
I’ve had 13 titles end up in the dungeon and I’ve managed to get every single one of them out again. Here’s what you do.
Remove all profanity from the title, subtitle, cover, and blurb.
Remove all “taboo” keywords from title, subtitle, cover, and blurb. The taboo keywords have changed over the years and it’s best to play it safe. Take out all references to anything like force, incest, animals, and power abuse. If you’re writing in the tentacle genres then you know what I’m talking about.
If your cover is provocative or highly suggestive, make it less so. Drag your photo around until your stock photo model is revealing less skin.
If you took a risk on the content then maybe change it a little. Make the 18-year-old a 20-year-old. At this point we’re just trying to salvage our work, so forget about artistic integrity, we’re here to make money.
Once you’ve cleansed your book then it’s time to email Amazon. Make it short and simple. Give them all the information they need to find your book. Author name, ASIN, title, subtitle. Include a link just to make super-duper easy for them. BE POLITE. You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. The people reviewing your book are hard-working regular folk and deserve your respect. If you send them a nasty letter your book will stay in the dungeon, I guarantee it.
Example email: “Hello, I recently published a title and discovered it has been adult-filtered. This was not my intent, and I have since changed the cover, title, and blurb to make it less adult. I am willing to do whatever else is necessary to fix this problem. Can you please tell me why this book was filtered as adult so I can resubmit it? Thank you and have a nice day.”
Boom. Problem solved. It might take a little back-and-forth but eventually your book will be approved.
What to do with underperforming titles
Problem: Your book isn’t selling any copies.
Solution: Change EVERYTHING. Change the cover, the blurb, and the keywords. Don’t spend more than an hour or so on this because during this time you could have written another 1000 words.
Wait two weeks.
Sales and page reads not going up? Change EVERYTHING, again!
Wait two weeks.
If that doesn’t do the trick then I have some great news, you’ve discovered a bunch of things that don’t work. Keep these things in mind and try something new. Try a different niche.
If your flop of a book is attached to a successful pen name but isn’t selling any copies then unpublish it. You don’t want to tarnish your product line with garbage. If someone is going through your collection you don’t want them seeing a book with zero sales and zero reviews because they might interpret that as you are an overall bad writer.
Piracy
This is not an issue. If you see your books or bundles ending up as torrents on popular sites then this is a good thing. It means you’re probably a millionaire. At that point do you really care about a couple people, who can’t afford your work to begin with, reading it and enjoying it for free?
I don’t.
There’s also the chance the pirates tell their friends or post reviews to their social media which is free promotion for you. HBO doesn’t care about teenagers pirating Game of Thrones, so that should tell you something.
Don’t worry about piracy, it’s a total non-issue.
That being said, if you are compelled to put a stop to it, you can file DMCA requests with Google and they will take down any link that violates your copyright. But I strongly recommend just letting it go. You will spend hundreds of hours on this and you will never catch all the pirates.
I’ve read this book 200 times and my writing still sucks, how do I get better?
Easy. To become a better writer you must consume more erotica. If you don’t want to pay for it just check out the top 100 free erotica stories on Amazon. There is more free erotica content on Amazon than you could ever read and more is added every day.
Most of it is terrible.
That being said, you can still harvest it for juicy details. You might learn some new synonyms
or get some ideas for characters or genres. This isn’t plagiarism, it’s research.
How many books do I need to publish before I’m rich?
My aunt has a saying, “You need to scrape all the mud off your shoes before you go to the dance.”
If you’re just starting out then you definitely have mud on your shoes. You won’t start out making $100/hour writing erotica. The only person who can do this is a famous author with an existing fan base.
It will take some time to figure out what works and what doesn’t.
But if you’re looking for a number of books until you “get it,” then I’d say you if you’re not selling at least five copies per week of a 7,500 word book by your fourth release, then you need to take a step back and evaluate what you’re doing wrong.
You should consider one to two sales per day of a $2.99 erotica short story to be a roaring success. At two sales per day your title will make you over $1,500 per year. For a few hours of work that’s insane.
Breaking the rules
There are probably a few times in this book you thought to yourself “Well that’s just wrong,” and you know what? You might be right.
This book isn’t a list of rules you absolutely must follow or demons will eat your brain. It’s just everything that worked for me in my four years as an erotica writer.
Great writers are always breaking the rules. So go nuts. Fill your book with sentence fragments and make your protagonist a caveman. You have the power now.
These books are not your children
Erotica is not a get-rich quick scheme. You will not be a millionaire after a month of work. After a month of work you probably won’t even be making enough to pay your rent.
Every day you are going to wake up and you must resist the urge to check your stats and sales numbers. Most of the time you will be disappointed and this disappointment will prevent you from creating another book.
Being successful in erotica is about creating tonnes and tonnes of stories. Nobody knows for sure what is going to be successful and what is not. Sometimes I’ll put out a book which I believe to be my best work and it will sell less copies than something I thought was junk.
Don’t take this personally.
These books are not your children. They are your employees. If they aren’t making money then you need to let them go.
Try and figure out why they aren’t selling but don’t spend too much time on it. Just keep writing. A “bad writer” with 100 books will make more money than a “good writer” who only works when he’s happy and inspired.
Ideal writing conditions do not exist. I wrote my first book on a busted laptop while sitting on a hardwood floor. My mother-law kept interrupting me and we lived close enough to a dog park that I had to shut the windows and bake in the hot summer heat just to get some peace and quiet.
Just keep writing and think of your books as employees, not children. They are not special snowflakes. You don’t owe them anything.
Glossary
Back matter: The advertising you place at the end of your stories to direct readers to your other products or author page.
Blurb: The short write-up (description) that will appear next to your book cover when someone visits your Amazon product page. In the blub you can use simple HTML to bold or italicize words. Amazon has instructions on their website for how to do this. Google it or click here: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A377RPHW6ZG4D8
Bundle: When you merge several stories into one big document. Like a DVD collection or a complete season of a TV show.
Fiverr: (Fiverr.com) A website where you can pay users to perform a tasks for you, like cover design. Rates start at $5 but you can pay extra for a better product or faster turnaround times.
Genre/Niche/Kink: A category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter. Erotica is the genre. Milf or Lesbian is the subtype/niche/kink.
Keywords: If an Amazon.com customer searches for these words then your product will appear in the search listing.
KU/Kindle Unlimited: Amazon’s version of Netflix, but for books. Users pay a flat fee and get read as many books as they want. Amazon will pay you per page read, not per download. The rate per page changes everything month. More page reads = more money.
Pen name: The fake author name you will write you books under. This helps protect your privacy and allows you to write different genres without confusing your readers. Example: You want to write both gay AND lesbian erotica from the point of view of both men and women. You can have one pen name that is a male name and one pen name that is a female name.
Title: The title of your book. Remember to use keywords and make it sexy and invoke the power of desire.
That’s all, folks!
Follow the simple story formula and make sure to keep writing at least 2,500 words per day, no exceptions!
Trust your gut and don’t think of failure as a setback, think of it as a learning experience. You didn’t fail, you just learned one more way that doesn’t work, and now you’re one step closer to achieving your goal of being a full-time erotica writer.
When you get into the groove it’s normal to spend less than ten hours on a project and clear $1,000. That’s a pretty good wage.
I wish you the best of luck.
(And if you enjoyed this book, please leave a review!)
-Emily Baker
Table of Contents
Getting Started
Introduction
Why write erotica?
What sort of income can I expect to earn in my first month?
Don’t worry if you aren’t a great writer
Choosing a pen name
Writing
Simple story formula (7 step outline)
Step 1: Pick a niche
Step 2: Create a main character
Step 3: Get in the boat
Step 4: Rock the boat
Step 5: Build desire
Step 6: Sex
Step 7: Story resolution
Coming up with hundreds of story ideas
Best niches/kinks
Choosing a title
The most profitable word count
What to do when you’re stuck: Five solid tips to getting past writer’s block
Writing2,500 words per day (even when you don’t feel like it!)
Monster mirroring technique
Editing your own work
Writing for Kindle Unlimited (doorstop strategy)
Cover design
Designing your cover
Picking the right stock photo
Finding a killer font
Marketing
Power of the blurb
Book reviews
Advanced reader copies
Best social media platforms
The trick to mailing lists is…
Back matter magic
Bundles are the key to riches
Keyword wizard
Thesaurus
Nouns (body parts)
Verbs
Adjectives
Everything Else
Is it normal to masturbate to my own work?
Why more stories is better than longer stories
How to get your erotica out of the dungeon (adult filtering)
What to do with underperforming titles
Piracy
I’ve read this book 200 times and my writing still sucks, how do I get better?
How many books do I need to publish before I’m rich?
Breaking the rules
These books are not your children
Glossary
That’s all, folks!
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