# Summary

An author has launched a ten-part erotica series in the American Kindle Store and employed a strategic pre-order approach to maximize visibility and sales.

# Abstract

The author, who has previously published a variety of genres and sold over 250,000 e-books, has now ventured into the erotica genre under a pseudonym. With German as their native language, they initially published in German before translating the series into English. To tackle the competitive English-language market, the author adopted a pre-order strategy, releasing a new book every three days, starting with the first volume and making subsequent volumes available for pre-order. This tactic is designed to keep the series visible in the "hot new releases" section for an extended period, thereby enhancing the series' discoverability and sales potential.

# Opinions

- The author views the erotica series launch as the most exciting project in their over five-year self-publishing career.
- Starting from scratch in the erotica genre without an existing fan base or mailing list is a significant challenge.
- The author believes that the momentum gained from the German market was partially lost due to irregular intervals between English translations.
- A strategic approach was necessary to succeed in the English-language market, which is more competitive than the German-language market.
- The author emphasizes the importance of having a series available for readers to encourage continued reading and purchases.
- They highlight Amazon's pre-order feature as crucial for maintaining visibility in the "hot new releases" section over an extended period.
- The author plans to share the results of this strategy by mid-February to inform future publishing decisions.

Today I published 10 books on Amazon

Today my ten-part erotica series goes online in the American Kindle Store.

Photo by César Abner Martínez Aguilar on Unsplash

This project is by far the most exciting thing I’ve done so far in my more than five-year career as a self-publisher.

When I published my first erotic short story on Amazon in August 2020, I had already published 25 thrillers, two urban fantasy books, two fantasy romance stories, one horror novel, and two volumes of horror stories.

With over 250,000 e-books sold, I now live as a full-time author solely on my book sales income.

Entering the erotica genre meant starting from scratch for me. I write these stories under a pseudonym, and none of my thriller readers know about it. I have no ready-made mailing list, no fans, and no way to leverage my experience with Facebook or Amazon ads because you can’t promote erotica on those platforms.

First, the German Kindle store

Since I live in Germany and German is my native language, I publish in German, of course. So far, I have published a total of 20 short stories and three bundles since August.

The individual short stories have a length between 5000 and 7000 words.

From the beginning, I also intended to translate the short stories into English and publish them in the American Kindle Store. However, I didn’t really have a good plan for that at first.

The translations came out at much greater intervals than the German books, so I gave away a lot of momentum. But since the English-language market is much more competitive than the German-language market, I obviously couldn’t get good results with my English-language editions.

I, therefore, needed a better strategy for the future.

Entering the English-language market with the pre-order strategy

When I wrote my third short story series in German, I didn’t translate any of the stories first. Instead, I wanted to finish the series first and then publish the individual volumes in a bundle. Only when I had done this, I would take care of the translation into English.

To achieve the greatest effect, I decided not to translate one book at a time and wrestle it onto the market but to have all the stories ready before publishing them together.

Anyone who knows a bit about Amazon’s algorithm knows that it is not advisable to publish ten books in a single day. On the other hand, the longer the series, the better the series’s first volumes sell. Serial readers want to know that there’s more waiting for them after book one.

That’s where Amazon’s handy pre-order feature comes in.

When I created all ten books in the KDP Dashboard today, I only checked off volume one that I wanted to publish immediately. The other nine books I created as pre-orders.

In this way, a new book of mine now goes online every three days. And although only volume one officially goes on sale today, my readers can already buy all ten volumes.

Once someone likes volume one, they can immediately pre-order all the other volumes. That’s how I make money on books that aren’t even available yet.

Why is that good? You might ask why it’s better to put each book on sale one at a time instead of all at once. If someone reads volume one and likes it, they can buy all the other volumes if available. Why the detour via the pre-order?

To understand this, you need to know that the pre-order phase of a book does not count against the time the book is listed in hot new releases. After the official release, a book drops out of the hot new releases after two months and loses most of its organic visibility.

However, if the book is available for pre-order for several days or weeks before its release, the hot new releases’ visibility is extended by this period.

If I published all ten books today, they would all disappear from the hot new releases in one fell swoop in sixty days.

But since I use the pre-orders to ensure that the tenth volume doesn’t come out until February fourth, 28 days after the first volume, the last book won’t disappear from the hot new releases for 88 days.

So the strategy I use has two advantages: First, the first books promote all the following books. Second, the last books in the series promote the first because as long as one part of the series is in the hot new releases, readers can still find the older books through it.

Summary

As of today, there are ten new books of mine in the American Kindle store. They are translations of books from German.

The ten books are part of a series, and except for volume one, none of the volumes go on official sale today.

Volumes two through ten are available for pre-order and will be released at three-day intervals until early February.

If you buy volume one and like it, you can immediately pre-order all the other volumes.

By spreading the ten volumes through pre-order over a month, the entire series gets twenty-eight days of additional visibility via hot new releases.

This way, the first books in the series promote the ones that follow, and the last books, in turn, push the first books.

I will, of course, report back here on how successfully or unsuccessfully this strategy works. I expect to have reliable figures by mid-February at the latest, which I will then share with you.

René Junge a published author writing on The Full Time Writer

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