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Fuego Fish
Dec 5, 2004

By tooth and claw!

Jalumibnkrayal posted:

It's pretty shocking how helpful this thread is. I mean, rags-to-riches helpful if you can hammer away at it for a while.

Yeah this thread has helped me a lot, and although I'm not really making bank from it right now, I'm certainly doing a lot better than when I started.

Plus I made some money helping with cover design, so that's pretty freakin' neat.

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LionArcher
Mar 29, 2010


Jalumibnkrayal posted:

It's pretty shocking how helpful this thread is. I mean, rags-to-riches helpful if you can hammer away at it for a while.

I like never post here, but this is totally true. About two years ago I saw this thread and started to quietly publish super romance because of it. I also learned a lot from some of the more... selective groups over on reddit. I've made thousands from it. Since the changes in KU.2.0, I've gone from working on super romances to working full time on regular romances and a mystery/thriller series I look forward to showing you guys (and gals) the cover and blurb of very soon.
This is my full time gig, and that all started from the very free advice I've received in this thread. :)

TheForgotton
Jun 10, 2001

I'm making a career of evil.
My self-pubbed comedic novel Further Complications is free on the Kindle store for two days.

I shudder to think that I was actually thinking of using this as my cover at one point. This thread is an incredible resource and I really appreciate all of the feedback to help me refine my blurb and layout.

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

Jalumibnkrayal posted:

It's pretty shocking how helpful this thread is. I mean, rags-to-riches helpful if you can hammer away at it for a while.

Seriously. This thread is 100% the reason I've more than doubled my income this year.

Popcorn
May 25, 2004

You're both fuckin' banned!
A couple of years ago I wrote a memoir about my years as a lodger with a series of bizarre landladies. It's not that long - just 30k words or so. I wrote it for the entertainment of my friends and colleagues, and people ended up giving it to their friends to read, and now sometimes at weddings or whatever I meet strangers who tell me they read it and enjoyed it. But I don't think I can make it public, because it might get me in trouble. At least one of the landladies is a notorious right-wing newspaper journalist and if she discovered it I think all hell would break loose. I don't think I can change the names because the discovery of this particular journalist is part of what makes the story so fun and weird.

Anyway. This always made me wonder if I could be writing stuff and selling it somehow. Recently I wrote a short memoir (7k words) about my first teenage job. I'm pretty happy with it, but I don't know what to do with it. I'm wondering about putting it on Amazon as a sort of experiment. I'm not expecting to make much money from it at all, but it might be a learning experience, right?

Is this a stupid idea? If I go for it, I'll make a nice cover for it and pay attention to the blurb and all the rest... but I don't know if this story is the best thing to lead with.

If I don't do that I'll just make a blog or site and put it up there.

Then again, maybe I should try shopping it round to things that actually publish short stories and stuff first? I guess if I'm going to try doing that, I should do it before making it available anywhere, else, right?

I don't know anything about publishing! I'm a loser!

ArchangeI
Jul 15, 2010
Unless the memoir involves you having sex with someone it is probably not going to sell. Short stories are pretty much constrained to only erotica these days. I mean you can absolutely throw it up there, you sell 0 copies of a story you don't publish and so on, but I would be surprised if it made back what you spent on the cover.

But if you have a talent for writing funny memoirs, write a couple until you have about 50k words, bundle them and put them up as "Weird stories from my silly life" or something.

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005
The first thing I think of when I imagine my favorite kind of story is a biographical piece about a teenager's first job.

(Unless you worked in something really super awesome, that is... but if you did, it wouldn't be only 7,000 words long.)

Edit: Updated second post with the story of BookTripe.

Sundae fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Oct 26, 2015

Popcorn
May 25, 2004

You're both fuckin' banned!

Sundae posted:

The first thing I think of when I imagine my favorite kind of story is a biographical piece about a teenager's first job.

As a matter of fact it owns, but that's by the by. :coolfish:

quote:

But if you have a talent for writing funny memoirs, write a couple until you have about 50k words, bundle them and put them up as "Weird stories from my silly life" or something.

OK, thanks. I'll just stick it on a blog for the time being; it can be a future piece of "Weird stories from my silly life".

ravenkult
Feb 3, 2011




Time for spoopy shenanigans.

I'm giving away $1000 in gift cards for my Premade Cover Store. I'll be posting a new cover every day of the week until the end of the giveaway. But you have to do demeaning things in order to enter, like tweeting about it and such, 'cause them's the breaks.

For real though, help me spread the word if you have any kind of platform.

http://www.cotronis.com/premade-covers/

Yooper
Apr 30, 2012


You really should do this right now. ravenkult does same damned cool covers.

Jalumibnkrayal
Apr 16, 2008

Ramrod XTreme
I'm definitely noticing a trend in the various writing communities I'm in. Instead of writing, so many authors are now supplementing their income with alternative services to writers. It very much has a declining gold rush feel, where everyone is trying to sell mining picks to everyone else. Except it's editing, promo blasts, virtual assistant services, etc.

Kinda weird.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot

Jalumibnkrayal posted:

I'm definitely noticing a trend in the various writing communities I'm in. Instead of writing, so many authors are now supplementing their income with alternative services to writers. It very much has a declining gold rush feel, where everyone is trying to sell mining picks to everyone else. Except it's editing, promo blasts, virtual assistant services, etc.

Kinda weird.

You aren't the only one to have noticed this for sure, and its a little sad.

*tumbleweed blows past*

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug
Is it a decline, or is the self-pub economy maturing? Expanding services from maturing businesses is pretty normal.

Maybe I'm being over-optimistic.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
It's not that the services expanding is troublesome, it's that people who used to write (particularly erotica) have now decided that it doesn't make them enough money but have already quit their day jobs. In 2013 I made $80k writing works no longer than 5000 words, and that was on top of a romance career that paid way better than that. Almost every one of my sales was at $2.99 also (or some three to six story bundle priced higher). Depending on who you ask (but not me, I was still doing great), that basically became impossible for a new author to do in 2014. Kindle Unlimited started up, paying the same to a work of 5k words or 50k words. I dropped all my 5k works to $0.99 and some months was making more than $1 per copy purchased or borrowed due to bonuses + borrow rate and made well over $100k from July 2014 - June 2015 on short erotica. It didn't bother me that I got a similar average royalty rate for the novels because, in a release month, I was generally making ten times what I did on erotica that month (I only had three release months during this time). However, I wasn't the only one who played game theory with Amazon royalty rates. A ton of authors followed my lead (and the lead of others for sure). Readers got used to not spending $2.99 on a short gently caress short for sure. Now a full read of that 5k word gently caress short gets an average royalty of $0.20 if priced at $0.99 and $0.15 if priced at $2.99 (because nobody buys it at $2.99). If it's not in Kindle Unlimited, there's enough other gently caress stories to last a lifetime, so it fades into obscurity. The other retailers are dying due to being starved of content (and their own incompetence). My point in sharing those figures above is that those kinds of figures are no longer really possible for a brand new erotica author, even if they go full tilt, outsource like crazy, and get a new story out every day. Novelists aren't much better off either, at current rates and assuming a stellar completion percentage of 66% per copy started, a novel has to be 67,500 words to get the old borrow rate of about $1.35. Amazon heard KBoards' cries of "wah wah erotica authors are getting paid the same as me for their short books" and said "fine, we'll pay you the same and them a lot less, happy?" and Kboards has been nodding their head vigorously ever since.

edit: to put it in perspective, if your average royalty rate is $0.20 per copy, and you wrote and published one book per day, and each book in your catalog sold one copy per day every day after it was published, it would take 1100 books in 1100 days or just about three years to get to the average daily rate you need to get to $80k a year, and I just passed my three year anniversary.

EngineerSean fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Oct 29, 2015

Jalumibnkrayal
Apr 16, 2008

Ramrod XTreme

RedTonic posted:

Is it a decline, or is the self-pub economy maturing? Expanding services from maturing businesses is pretty normal.

Maybe I'm being over-optimistic.

It's a strange fluid time right now. Just as Sean noted above, a lot of people quit their day jobs before KU2 and now are scrambling. Consider the surge in people willing to ghostwrite for two pennies a word. At first, it sounds like they're practically giving away their writing. But under KU2, it's not so clear.

If a page read is worth $0.0051, and there are approximately 200 words on that page, then reading each word is worth $0.0000255. That means each word you pay two cents for has to be read ~750 times. Obviously, sales will augment these numbers, but it's still fairly daunting. Then throw into the mix that you can get paid today for ghostwriting while publishing is a roll of the dice and you won't be paid for another 60-90 days.

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED
So is all of that to say that I should keep my day job? That's something I'm struggling with right now. I've started making pretty good money, definitely enough to quit and go full time, but only for the past few months. I'm not sure if right now is the best time to go all-in, even with romance.

Bobby Deluxe
May 9, 2004

If you've made enough over the last few months, and you're happy with the workload, and you're sure you can live off the income, go for it.

The last few months have sorted the wheat from the chaff, so if your current income is enough for you, and you can keep up what you're doing, it's not going to get worse. It's just not likely to get much better either.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
Yeah I'm still making as much as ever so it's still possible to be a Kindle millionaire, but I can definitely sympathize with people just starting out, realizing they can do facbook posts for someone and get paid better for it or whatever.

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

Bobby Deluxe posted:

If you've made enough over the last few months, and you're happy with the workload, and you're sure you can live off the income, go for it.

The last few months have sorted the wheat from the chaff, so if your current income is enough for you, and you can keep up what you're doing, it's not going to get worse. It's just not likely to get much better either.

I am definitely making enough these last few months to live comfortably. I worry that it is going to get worse, but maybe not. Maybe I'm lucky and dove into the romance world just before the barrier for entry got too steep. Who knows!

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005

quote:

I am definitely making enough these last few months to live comfortably. I worry that it is going to get worse, but maybe not. Maybe I'm lucky and dove into the romance world just before the barrier for entry got too steep. Who knows!

EngineerSean posted:

Yeah I'm still making as much as ever so it's still possible to be a Kindle millionaire, but I can definitely sympathize with people just starting out, realizing they can do facbook posts for someone and get paid better for it or whatever.

I'm trying to double it up and do both novels and services, which is why I have that ARC service I run now (by the way, if anyone's sitting on the fence on that service, we're worth it). The big problem for me is that I was always about one step behind Amazon instead of ahead of them, so I missed the gold rush and instead got the perfectly serviceable dregs. Now, that's over $200K in three years, to be fair... but that's not a very good wage in my books (ha!) compared to what I can get by staying in the day job and being complicit in the deaths of Nigerian children.

Another factor in my book is my degree of risk tolerance. I'm not going to go full E/N here, but if something goes horribly wrong (Amazon just straight fucks everyone over beyond hope once B&N shits the bed, etc), there's almost zero backstop for me and my wife if it was our only income source. The current state of revenue uncertainty, combined with the difficulty in maintaining enough momentum while still working the day job, makes it extremely difficult to rationalize quitting. I know it probably sounds really lame for me to be saying this coming off an $18,000+ month, but $17,000 of that was complete luck. If I hadn't gotten lucky with one boxed set, I'd have been looking at my worst month since 2012.

If I can supplement the writing income with the ARC service, that could make it much more feasible to quit.

Shirec
Jul 29, 2009

How to cock it up, Fig. I

brotherly posted:

I am definitely making enough these last few months to live comfortably. I worry that it is going to get worse, but maybe not. Maybe I'm lucky and dove into the romance world just before the barrier for entry got too steep. Who knows!

Sundae posted:

I'm trying to double it up and do both novels and services, which is why I have that ARC service I run now (by the way, if anyone's sitting on the fence on that service, we're worth it). The big problem for me is that I was always about one step behind Amazon instead of ahead of them, so I missed the gold rush and instead got the perfectly serviceable dregs. Now, that's over $200K in three years, to be fair... but that's not a very good wage in my books (ha!) compared to what I can get by staying in the day job and being complicit in the deaths of Nigerian children.

Another factor in my book is my degree of risk tolerance. I'm not going to go full E/N here, but if something goes horribly wrong (Amazon just straight fucks everyone over beyond hope once B&N shits the bed, etc), there's almost zero backstop for me and my wife if it was our only income source. The current state of revenue uncertainty, combined with the difficulty in maintaining enough momentum while still working the day job, makes it extremely difficult to rationalize quitting. I know it probably sounds really lame for me to be saying this coming off an $18,000+ month, but $17,000 of that was complete luck. If I hadn't gotten lucky with one boxed set, I'd have been looking at my worst month since 2012.

If I can supplement the writing income with the ARC service, that could make it much more feasible to quit.

I've recently been burning my way through this thread and started to write my first novel. Is the barrier for entry too high now? I was never planning on writing speed romance, but has it rocked the standard romance genre just as badly?

Bardeh
Dec 2, 2004

Fun Shoe

Shirec posted:

I've recently been burning my way through this thread and started to write my first novel. Is the barrier for entry too high now? I was never planning on writing speed romance, but has it rocked the standard romance genre just as badly?

No, there's still money to be made, especially in romance. Great money, if you get things right. It's just that when we all started, you could be making really decent money within a month, just from writing erotic shorts. That's not true anymore, due to the way Kindle Unlimited is now structured. You can actually still make money from shorts in KU, but you're far more reliant on boxed sets - the individual stories just don't make enough on their own. It takes longer to ramp up your income, and there's more uncertainty.

Romance novellas and novels can still be very lucrative though, you just need to do your research. Make sure you know which genres are hot, and what readers are looking for within those books. Read a bunch over a week or two, and take note of what sells and what doesn't. I would start off with 25k word serials in Stepbrother/bad boy Alpha male or paranormal romance, and try to aim for one a week. Bundle them up, make or pay for awesome covers ($30-$50 each), and book lots of promotion. Be willing to spend money on promotion, it's pretty much required these days.

Keep your story simple - don't try and think up anything too crazy or unique to make the book stand out, because romance readers are, on the whole, people that like to consume the same thing over and over and over until they get bored and move onto the next trend. Follow the trends, write to them, cash in.

The Fuzzy Hulk
Nov 22, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT CROSSING THE STREAMS


Bardeh posted:

No, there's still money to be made, especially in romance. Great money, if you get things right. It's just that when we all started, you could be making really decent money within a month, just from writing erotic shorts. That's not true anymore, due to the way Kindle Unlimited is now structured. You can actually still make money from shorts in KU, but you're far more reliant on boxed sets - the individual stories just don't make enough on their own. It takes longer to ramp up your income, and there's more uncertainty.

Romance novellas and novels can still be very lucrative though, you just need to do your research. Make sure you know which genres are hot, and what readers are looking for within those books. Read a bunch over a week or two, and take note of what sells and what doesn't. I would start off with 25k word serials in Stepbrother/bad boy Alpha male or paranormal romance, and try to aim for one a week. Bundle them up, make or pay for awesome covers ($30-$50 each), and book lots of promotion. Be willing to spend money on promotion, it's pretty much required these days.

Keep your story simple - don't try and think up anything too crazy or unique to make the book stand out, because romance readers are, on the whole, people that like to consume the same thing over and over and over until they get bored and move onto the next trend. Follow the trends, write to them, cash in.

This is very, very accurate advice.

Bobby Deluxe
May 9, 2004

Here's a thing. Before, I think it was Sean mentioned newer authors turning to other services to bolster their income, like editing, promo consulting and cover making.

I've been complimented on my covers, for speed romance at least. I keep reading people saying to pay about $50 for a cover. Now if I could get the occasional $50 (hell, even $25) for doing basic covers, that would be very useful financially.

I have been thinking for a while I could list on fiverr, offer a very basic (title, gradient background and author name template) cover and then charge as an extra to cover the cost of adding stock photos.

Similarly, I have experience in editing both from my degree and in editing my own shorts, mostly just in terms of using the Hemingway app and similar. I just don't know the appropriate rates for a beginner to charge, and fiverr seems to be littered with people based in third world countries who can afford to undercut minimum wage by a vast margin.

I don't think I could in all good conscience charge for promo consulting because I still don't really feel i'm doing it right myself.

So I guess... Advice? Is this a good idea? Bad idea? Is there a better way of going about it or does anyone have advice about good ways to get started?

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
You're never gonna get rich selling covers for $5 + stock photo costs. Also as far as promo consulting, if I ever want a train advert, I'll know where to go ;)

Bardeh
Dec 2, 2004

Fun Shoe

Bobby Deluxe posted:

Here's a thing. Before, I think it was Sean mentioned newer authors turning to other services to bolster their income, like editing, promo consulting and cover making.

I've been complimented on my covers, for speed romance at least. I keep reading people saying to pay about $50 for a cover. Now if I could get the occasional $50 (hell, even $25) for doing basic covers, that would be very useful financially.

I have been thinking for a while I could list on fiverr, offer a very basic (title, gradient background and author name template) cover and then charge as an extra to cover the cost of adding stock photos.

Similarly, I have experience in editing both from my degree and in editing my own shorts, mostly just in terms of using the Hemingway app and similar. I just don't know the appropriate rates for a beginner to charge, and fiverr seems to be littered with people based in third world countries who can afford to undercut minimum wage by a vast margin.

I don't think I could in all good conscience charge for promo consulting because I still don't really feel i'm doing it right myself.

So I guess... Advice? Is this a good idea? Bad idea? Is there a better way of going about it or does anyone have advice about good ways to get started?

Make a bunch of premades, go to a writer's forum, and post a thread. Sell simple ones for $10 or $15, and you should get some buyers. You can probably turn out four or five simple premades in an hour or so. I'd start with that, see if they sell, and go from there.

ravenkult
Feb 3, 2011


I'm already doing it, so put your predictions in. How much money am I going to make, publishing 10 speed romance stories a month, in the first month and after 3 months. Assume only 30% of those will be but into KU.

I'm the guinea pig.

Jalumibnkrayal
Apr 16, 2008

Ramrod XTreme

Bobby Deluxe posted:

Here's a thing. Before, I think it was Sean mentioned newer authors turning to other services to bolster their income, like editing, promo consulting and cover making.

I've been complimented on my covers, for speed romance at least. I keep reading people saying to pay about $50 for a cover. Now if I could get the occasional $50 (hell, even $25) for doing basic covers, that would be very useful financially.

If you can master the timeless format of "dude torso + bear + nice background" I will feed you $20 bills like an iPad vending machine in Dubai.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot

ravenkult posted:

I'm already doing it, so put your predictions in. How much money am I going to make, publishing 10 speed romance stories a month, in the first month and after 3 months. Assume only 30% of those will be but into KU.

I'm the guinea pig.

The half-in-half-out KU strategy is the worst of all.

ravenkult
Feb 3, 2011


EngineerSean posted:

The half-in-half-out KU strategy is the worst of all.

As discussed, I make more money on B&N so considering what happened with KU, feels like the stronger strategy right now. But we'll see!

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot

ravenkult posted:

As discussed, I make more money on B&N so

Full stop, if you make more money on B&N, why would you want anything to be exclusive to Amazon? This is ignoring all other retailers too. If your erotic shorts are 5k words, you need thirteen fully read borrows to equal one of your lost sales on B&N. If I had a presence on other retailers or if they would work with me to create a presence, I would have 0% of my work be exclusive to Amazon.

edit: additional considerations

If a reader reads your 30% of your catalog in Kindle Unlimited, do you think that they will pay actual dollars to get the rest of your catalog? Amazon keeps releasing a statistic that people in Kindle Unlimited actually spend more on books but as I stated above, I don't think that applies to erotica at all.

EngineerSean fucked around with this message at 13:10 on Oct 30, 2015

ravenkult
Feb 3, 2011


Mostly wanted to snag some newsletter subscribers, but I could be wrong!

Granted, those subscribers might expect more KU books, but I dunno. Maybe I should do some some permafrees with my old stories.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
If you managed to snag more newsletter subscribers via Kindle Unlimited than you would have otherwise, those subscribers will be only interested in one thing: that sweet rear end More stories in Kindle Unlimited. And if you do end up making more money on Amazon this way, then you've won the game, but I don't see it happening at the rate you said (ten stories a month for three months)

edit: for more perspective, if we assume that a KU subscriber goes on to read all your work and we use your 30%, then they'll be worth (5000 words) / (170 words per page) * (30 stories) * (30% of your stories in Kindle Unlimited) * ($0.005 per page) = $1.35

EngineerSean fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Oct 30, 2015

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

Shirec posted:

I've recently been burning my way through this thread and started to write my first novel. Is the barrier for entry too high now? I was never planning on writing speed romance, but has it rocked the standard romance genre just as badly?

Yes, for erotica. I've been saying in IRC, to me it makes no sense to start writing erotica at this point. The real benefit of erotica was the ability to make decent money pretty quickly--but the downside was a low ceiling for returns. Whereas with romance, the ceiling is much, much higher, but it can (but might not!) take a while to get a platform up and running profitably. But now with KU2, erotica doesn't have that fast-cash return, so it just makes sense to buckle down and go for it with romance.

Bardeh's advice above is very good, too, by the way. I might disagree with his idea to write serialized shorts, unless you're doing paranormal romance. PNR seems to still like serialized shorts. For stepbros and badboyalphas (motorcycle club romances, mafia stuff, and SEAL stuff) etc, I'd just dive right into novels. Seems to be where the money is, and KU2 "rewards" longer works. Research the hell out of it first, though. (That was my biggest mistake: didn't research enough). Also, give yourself a few months (or a few books) before you really start deciding whether you'll continue or quit. It took me 5 books before I started making any decent money. It might not be the immediate payout that erotica is, but romance can be super lucrative and also kinda fulfilling. I actually feel proud of the work I do for my romance pen name.

Sundae posted:

Another factor in my book is my degree of risk tolerance. I'm not going to go full E/N here, but if something goes horribly wrong (Amazon just straight fucks everyone over beyond hope once B&N shits the bed, etc), there's almost zero backstop for me and my wife if it was our only income source. The current state of revenue uncertainty, combined with the difficulty in maintaining enough momentum while still working the day job, makes it extremely difficult to rationalize quitting.

This is where I'm at, too. I also have a much, much shorter track record of success compared to you. That said, my last 4 books have been moderately successful (my worst of the group only ranked around 500, the best is at 180-ish right now). I think I'm pretty firmly mid-list at the moment. I'm drawing in over 10k a month, and easily doubled my day job's salary before taxes, and will double it after taxes by the end of the year (drat you self employed tax rate). So that's all well and good, I'm doing pretty well, I have fans and I can write these books pretty easily, but the real problem is Amazon. I'm basically waiting for their next new change which will gently caress everyone over. I can't decide if the risk is worth it, not even just in potential money problems, but also in time lost in my "career." I'm 27 and am still working in a relatively entry-level editorial job (bc they let me work from home and I love that). If I quit and do romance, and it doesn't work out, I'll be maybe 30 and with a poo poo resume.

Shirec
Jul 29, 2009

How to cock it up, Fig. I

Bardeh posted:

No, there's still money to be made, especially in romance. Great money, if you get things right. It's just that when we all started, you could be making really decent money within a month, just from writing erotic shorts. That's not true anymore, due to the way Kindle Unlimited is now structured. You can actually still make money from shorts in KU, but you're far more reliant on boxed sets - the individual stories just don't make enough on their own. It takes longer to ramp up your income, and there's more uncertainty.

Romance novellas and novels can still be very lucrative though, you just need to do your research. Make sure you know which genres are hot, and what readers are looking for within those books. Read a bunch over a week or two, and take note of what sells and what doesn't. I would start off with 25k word serials in Stepbrother/bad boy Alpha male or paranormal romance, and try to aim for one a week. Bundle them up, make or pay for awesome covers ($30-$50 each), and book lots of promotion. Be willing to spend money on promotion, it's pretty much required these days.

Keep your story simple - don't try and think up anything too crazy or unique to make the book stand out, because romance readers are, on the whole, people that like to consume the same thing over and over and over until they get bored and move onto the next trend. Follow the trends, write to them, cash in.

brotherly posted:

Yes, for erotica. I've been saying in IRC, to me it makes no sense to start writing erotica at this point. The real benefit of erotica was the ability to make decent money pretty quickly--but the downside was a low ceiling for returns. Whereas with romance, the ceiling is much, much higher, but it can (but might not!) take a while to get a platform up and running profitably. But now with KU2, erotica doesn't have that fast-cash return, so it just makes sense to buckle down and go for it with romance.

Bardeh's advice above is very good, too, by the way. I might disagree with his idea to write serialized shorts, unless you're doing paranormal romance. PNR seems to still like serialized shorts. For stepbros and badboyalphas (motorcycle club romances, mafia stuff, and SEAL stuff) etc, I'd just dive right into novels. Seems to be where the money is, and KU2 "rewards" longer works. Research the hell out of it first, though. (That was my biggest mistake: didn't research enough). Also, give yourself a few months (or a few books) before you really start deciding whether you'll continue or quit. It took me 5 books before I started making any decent money. It might not be the immediate payout that erotica is, but romance can be super lucrative and also kinda fulfilling. I actually feel proud of the work I do for my romance pen name.


This is where I'm at, too. I also have a much, much shorter track record of success compared to you. That said, my last 4 books have been moderately successful (my worst of the group only ranked around 500, the best is at 180-ish right now). I think I'm pretty firmly mid-list at the moment. I'm drawing in over 10k a month, and easily doubled my day job's salary before taxes, and will double it after taxes by the end of the year (drat you self employed tax rate). So that's all well and good, I'm doing pretty well, I have fans and I can write these books pretty easily, but the real problem is Amazon. I'm basically waiting for their next new change which will gently caress everyone over. I can't decide if the risk is worth it, not even just in potential money problems, but also in time lost in my "career." I'm 27 and am still working in a relatively entry-level editorial job (bc they let me work from home and I love that). If I quit and do romance, and it doesn't work out, I'll be maybe 30 and with a poo poo resume.

Ok, this is good to know. I was actually on the opposite side of all this for a long time. I've read countless romance novels in my life and quite a bit of it was paranormal. I need to buckle down and read some more werebear books before sinking too much time into my current outline. I had planned to write full length novels in that genre, but if I need to split it up for serials, I suppose that isn't too different. Random other question, just because I've been reading so many books in preparation and plan to continue, is it bad form to review books as well? I need to set up my online presence for my pen name and I figured it was a good way to practice writing and figure out what I like/don't like in the genre.

This thread has been really invaluable. I also purchased some books I wouldn't have noticed originally (loved Hard Luck Hank!) which has been an awesome bonus. Thank you for the advice Bardeh and brotherly :)

Bobby Deluxe
May 9, 2004

Erotica's not the instant fast cash option it was, but it's still a possibility.

As far as I was aware you write a 5k short, put it up on amazon KU, and promote it everywhere. Do this cycle at the very least once a week until you have three stories, at which point you drop the price of the original stories and put them up as a collection, which you then promote. Then you write another three stories, bundle them, and again, and again. Bundles are where the remaining smutbux are, so you won't see anything more than lunch money til you have two or three up and being promoted.

There are more advanced points like having a mailing list, where to promote, keywords, dropping books out of KU after a certain amount of time and going wide with them, linking to other books in the backmatter, but the promotion cycle above still appears to be the routine for most smutsters. Angel Opportunity can correct me if i'm wrong, since AFAIK he's the only one still throwing his efforts primarily at smut.

Then, once you've used erotica to build up your writing stamina to the point that you can write steamy romance, you switch to a new pen name and churn out novellas / serials doing that.

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

Shirec posted:

Ok, this is good to know. I was actually on the opposite side of all this for a long time. I've read countless romance novels in my life and quite a bit of it was paranormal. I need to buckle down and read some more werebear books before sinking too much time into my current outline. I had planned to write full length novels in that genre, but if I need to split it up for serials, I suppose that isn't too different. Random other question, just because I've been reading so many books in preparation and plan to continue, is it bad form to review books as well? I need to set up my online presence for my pen name and I figured it was a good way to practice writing and figure out what I like/don't like in the genre.

This thread has been really invaluable. I also purchased some books I wouldn't have noticed originally (loved Hard Luck Hank!) which has been an awesome bonus. Thank you for the advice Bardeh and brotherly :)

You totally don't need to do serials! It's just an option. If you go on the paranormal list for Amazon's bestsellers, you'll see plenty of full-length stuff, though they trend a little shorter (I'd guess 50k is probably a good number).

As for reviewing, I can't say I've seen authors reviewing other books. I know they recommend all the time, as a sort of cross-promotional thing, but I'm not sure about having a dedicated reviewing blog. I can't see how it would necessarily hurt, but other can chime in on that. Personally, I wouldn't, just to avoid any potential weird ethical scuttlebutt or some such bullshit that can arise.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
I made a long post but I guess I failed to press "submit reply" before I closed the window, so now it's gone...

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
Novels are way better than serials. Also I have hit a new record in the kindle store as of today.

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Jalumibnkrayal
Apr 16, 2008

Ramrod XTreme

EngineerSean posted:

Novels are way better than serials. Also I have hit a new record in the kindle store as of today.

hi5!

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