Grouping short stories for books

acitore

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I would like to know a few things...

I write short story erotica (avg. is 4-6 pgs) and have a back log of stories I've finished editing and will put into a series of 5 stories each to sell at the going rate of $3.99. My stories vary in sub-genre and genders involved. M/M, F/F, M/F, group sex, masturbation, cuckhold, rough sex, etc. (Yes, I'm leaving out the incest, bestiality, non-consensual due to rules and regulations. I've also left out the M/M stories because I don't think those are too popular with female readers.) Here's my question: For those of you who do the same thing, how do you decide which stories to package together? Right now, I've got 4 sets of "books" with 5 stories each. Each set contains one F/F, rough sex, sub/dom, exhibition and I'm deciding on what to add as the last. I'm going for length of pages, so that they're all very similar in total. If I'm after an audience of open-minded readers who just want a quick read of quality erotica writing for a quick....release, is this okay? Should I be thinking of a different way? I think if I group each book by sub-genre (F/F or sub/dom), it would get boring to continue onto the next story and the next, etc. What do you do?

Thank you! :)
 

SierraLee

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I'm not at the point of doing this yet, but I've considered it and consequently done some research. It seems to me that your method is pretty unusual among the high selling collections.

The problem is that not every reader is going to enjoy all the different subgenres you include in each collection. Quite the opposite: some people might enjoy your F/F stories but be turned off by the rough sex, others will feel the opposite. Erotica readers like to know what they're buying, and your collections might end up appealing to none of the niches.

By contrast, grouping your books by subgenre is very clear. Readers who want F/F stories can find them in one product. If they also like rough sex stories, they can easily click over to that collection as well. Readers getting bored is unlikely to be a problem - if they're actively searching for a certain kind of erotica, that means they want more of it, and they can always space out your stories if they want.

I've also left out the M/M stories because I don't think those are too popular with female readers.
As far as I know, M/M erotica is predominantly read by female readers.
 

acitore

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Okay, thanks for the feedback. To me it could go both ways, but you probably know more on this topic than me. (I haven't done any research or read anything on it.)

As for the last comment, I know far fewer men read erotica as they're image oriented, but I have no idea what percentage of women are interested in reading M/M.
 

gingerwoman

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M/M is predominantly read by female readers by all accounts, but from what I know a lot of them like long in depth romance novels often involving high heat level explicit erotic sex scenes, but also a deep and interesting plot, involving a romance.

All my experience is selling to markets and publishers though, I don't have experience self publishing, as the cost of editing is a concern for me. I have yet to write a pure M/M myself, I have two MMF novels (involving bisexual heroes) contracted by Samhain.

I started out selling erotic short stories to magazines, anthologies and zines for semi pro rates. 4000 word stories $40-70 US. I guess that just makes me an old fart in the new world of publishing.

I would agree that with short stories people are going to gravitate to collections of what interests them, not mixed collections, although I do know some popular erotica publishers that publish mixed collections. As a buyer I would think "hmm why would I want to buy this? It has like two stories out of twelve that I might have any interest in."
 
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StoryofWoe

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Most erotica readers shop by genre and sub-genre, so it would definitely make more sense to put similar stories together. I get why you might assume otherwise, since you write a relatively wide variety of sexual predilections, but when readers are searching for books on, say, Amazon, they tend to search using keywords and expect to find books that reflect those terms. Now, the title and cover can help relay exactly what that theme is. You could have M/F, M/M, and F/F stories in the same collection if they were all BDSM themed, as long as you marketed it as a BDSM collection and maybe included a brief summary of each story in the description. The whole point of building a platform is to draw in readers that want what you have to offer and confusing them is generally a bad idea. It's why a lot of authors choose to go by multiple pseudonyms even within the same genre, i.e. one name for their BDSM stories, another for their M/M paranormal, another for taboo topics, etc.

If a collection feels too repetitive, you might want to take pause and determine if you're relying too much on the same tropes, scenarios, types of characters, etc.

Also, to echo everyone else, M/M is predominantly read by women.
 

Marlys

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I agree that you should group by type. You might consider putting 5 similar stories together, then adding a bonus 6th story from one of the other genres. If readers like it, they could go on to try another of your collections.
 

veinglory

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+1. Erotica readers like what they like and may absolutely hate other erotica tropes. So long as the stories vary in other ways they will not get bored of their favored tropes.
 

DiloKeith

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The majority of erotic books I buy are short story collections. My favorites tend not to be by single authors -- very few write well enough to fill a book, but I will buy books by those few. However, I usually buy collections of 15-20 stories, so it's not the same. (Also, in that size, I don't expect to love every story.)

I agree with the others here about genres, M/M, and other points.

I'll buy both single and mixed theme, but when I go to read for purposes of arousal, I want something very specific. In my case, that means not wanting variety in gender pairing, among other things. Any boredom will be for the reason a few people here mentioned:
...relying too much on the same tropes, scenarios, types of characters, etc.
 
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