My Way as an Erotica Writer. Where I Stand After Nearly Twenty Weeks
On August 4th, I uploaded my first erotic short story to Amazon. It was the starting signal for a new career in self-publishing. How far I got in almost twenty weeks, you can read here.
Almost five months is not a long time for an author. The most professional of us manage to write and publish two complete novels with a little more than 50,000 words each in this time.
Building a career takes at least five years. But this only applies to the classic genres. Anyone who writes thrillers, science fiction, or romance must be prepared for such a long time. But there is a niche where you can make faster progress, they say. It is the erotica genre.
My way until today
About half a year ago, I read guidebooks by successful erotica writers and wondered whether this might not become a second mainstay for me.
I read that in this genre, even stories with only 5000 words can be sold for 2 dollars (or Euros), and I couldn’t really believe it.
I also read that you have to publish between thirty and fifty such stories to make a significant income eventually. Here again, I was skeptical.
But I decided to give it a try. I thought up a pseudonym and started writing.
My first series of six volumes was quickly finished and online. A few days later, I bundled the six stories into a longer book and uploaded it to Amazon.
In my first month as an erotica author, I unexpectedly earned more than 100 Euros. It took me years to make my first 100 Euros as a thriller author. I was fascinated. If I could get that far in one month, what else was possible?
But my first career as a thriller author was not to be neglected. My thrillers pay my bills, and my audience is always expecting more.
That’s why I couldn’t keep up the publication speed of my erotic short stories, which led to the fact that I earned less with them the next month.
The next series became four volumes long and took more time than the first series’s six volumes. The individual books and the accompanying anthology did not sell nearly as well as series number one.
I realized that it was time for me to find a permanent niche in the erotica field. The books in the second series were too general and didn’t appeal to a specific target group. I had to do that better in the future. Also, the next series should be longer. I planned to write ten books before I would make a new bundle.
To be able to implement this plan, I would need a clear head. Therefore I had to finish and publish my new thriller first.
But after a one month break, I found a way to pursue both careers side by side and started writing new short stories again. I stuck to the plan to stay in a niche and make the series longer than the two before.
In the meantime, I have completed six volumes of the new series. Number six I uploaded to Amazon a few minutes ago.
I plan to publish another story this week and two next week. The following week I will finish the series and create the bundle a few days later.
Outlook
In the last ninety days, I earned 209 euros with my erotic stories. My first goal is to reach this amount within one month.
The anthology that I will make from the ten short stories that I am currently writing will help me achieve this goal.
Why do I believe this? In the erotica charts at Amazon Germany (where I mainly publish), bundles with at least 50,000 words are the most successful. No single short book rises as high in the rankings there and lasts as long as the big bundles.
When I published my first bundle, I already felt this effect to some extent. Most of the money I’ve made with erotica so far is accounted for by the two bundles I published. Probably these books would have sold even better if they had been about twice as long.
This is precisely what I am trying out now. My next bundle will help me earn 200 Euros in one month with my short stories for the first time.
If that actually happens, I will have found the blueprint for my further path.
I will let you know if my expectations have been fulfilled. But I will also let you know if it did not work out.
I am still a beginner and will stay that way for a long time. But I have plans and the will to implement them.
René Junge a published author writing on The Full Time Writer
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