I Made $1,700 on a 15,000 Word Short Story This Year

This is what I did right

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I’ve made no secret about the fact that I write steamy romance short stories under a pen name. And no, I don’t share the pen name.

In the past year, I’ve tried some new things and new genres and it’s paid off. In one case, it paid off so well that I made a little over $1700 with one short book.

I didn’t do any advertising (other than tweeting).

I paid less than $150 for the cover.

I self-edited.

And even with no new releases in that genre or with that pen name in the past six months, it’s still selling. And it’s consistently ranked in the top 100 for one of the categories it’s in.

This book has been bought 188 times and has more than 228,000 page reads.

How, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you what I think I did right.

I chose a genre that sells well

The genre of this book is in demand. It’s been popular for several years and although the genre is fairly saturated, there’s lots of room for growth.

The key to selling lots of books in a saturated genre is to drill down to sub-genres.

For example, you might write romance, but what kind of romance? Is it older man/younger woman? Alphas? Cowboys? Billionaires?

Better yet, combine sub-genres. How about writing a curvy girl, alpha cowboys romance?

Do your research. See what’s selling in the top 100 of categories and then look for outliers that may still have room for new authors.

I paid for a great cover

Covers really do matter. It’s the first thing that readers see when they are scrolling through books. If your cover looks cheap or it doesn’t match the genre you’re writing in, they’ll keep on scrolling.

In the past, I’ve mostly made my own covers and for some genres I did ok with them but I wanted to take my earnings to the next level. So, I paid for a good cover with a designer that understood the genre.

I still love seeing that cover on Amazon, and apparently my readers do, too.

I spent a lot of time on the blurb

This is usually the second thing potential readers look at before they buy. Your blurb needs to do two things:

1. It needs to draw the reader into the story
2. It needs to meet reader expectations and give them the tropes.

I worked and re-worked my blurb. I compared it to other blurbs in the genre and got feedback from other writers.

I collaborated with other authors

I believe this is the biggest reason this particular book has been read by so many people. I wasn’t alone.

At the end of 2021, I joined a group on Facebook for steamy romance writers. In this group, I learned about author collaborations.

Groups of authors (anywhere from 5 authors and up) work together to create a series of stories. The stories are always in the same genre and follow some kind of theme. Cowboy single dads, small-town Christmas romances, older women who love younger men — you get the idea.

The authors plan out their books, get covers that are branded, plan out release dates, and sometimes the characters of one author’s book will even turn up in another author’s book.

Best of all — they all promote each other when books are released!

So, instead of getting the word out about my book by myself, I had a whole team of authors supporting me!

Can this work for any genre?

I believe it can.

Writing doesn’t have to be a solitary experience. Facebook groups, forums, and social media can help you find writers just like you who are striving to get ahead. Why not work together?