Market for gay erotica (short stories)?

I've heard that gay male erotica on Amazon is very popular. I don't know much about self-publishing on Amazon, but at least you could make a few bucks. I suppose one downside of that is that there is a ton of erotic shorts on there, and many of them are badly written.

Basically yes. There are gay markets, female m/m markets and cross-over markets. There are many options.

The_Outlaw_Torn said:

As a gay male, I've recently started on writing erotic short stories centered on two male protagonists. I just finished the first one a few days ago, and I'm planning to write a lot more in the future (I'm currently working on the second one). Most of them will be May-December romances, while a few others will feature typical same-age relationships. Some won't be erotic at all. There might even be lesbian relationships (even though, I'm not interested in women, I do like exploring different genres when writing).

Ever since the completion of the first short story, I wonder if there's a market for these types of stories. I am writing these because it's one of my deepest passions, but I also want to see if I can publish them anywhere. I know about anthologies, but I need to know if there is one for this specific type of erotica. If there aren't any that accept it (whether it's because of homophobia or something like that), then I guess I can submit the stories on Literotica (but then again, I won't be making any money if I do that). I heard about creating a collection of short stories, but that's rarely accepted by the publishers if you've never published anything before it.

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If you can't get it accepted by a traditional publisher, you can always put them up on Amazon as ebooks. They'll be for sale, possibly, for the rest of your life, earning you a residual income. The catch is that these stories need to be the absolute best you can write them. No typos or grammar problems. The stories need to turn you on or they won't do much for readers, either.
You might put 1 or 2 up at Literotica in order to get feedback. Use that feedback to write better stories in the future.

You can put them up in an anthology on Amazon. Invest in a good cover, make sure the writing is top quality, and write a great description letting readers know what to expect when they purchase it.
If you look at self publishing as building residual income, not something to get rich quickly off of, you might be pleased after 5 or 10 years of consistent writing/publishing, when your collection is pulling a respectable income as a whole. Just always strive to write a better book than your last one and give it everything you've got every time you write.

Good luck.

If you want to submit to publishers it would be better if the stories weren't super short. The market is most certainly there. lol

The_Outlaw_Torn said:

Ever since the completion of the first short story, I wonder if there's a market for these types of stories. I am writing these because it's one of my deepest passions, but I also want to see if I can publish them anywhere. I know about anthologies, but I need to know if there is one for this specific type of erotica. If there aren't any that accept it (whether it's because of homophobia or something like that), then I guess I can submit the stories on Literotica (but then again, I won't be making any money if I do that). I heard about creating a collection of short stories, but that's rarely accepted by the publishers if you've never published anything before it.

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Gay literature is very hot right now, but you should research the market carefully. You'll find that most erotica publishers have long lists in the LGBT category.

It seems to me that there are two kinds: (a) men writing about gay males for a male audience (and the converse for gay women), and (b) women writing about gay males for a female audience. The latter category is particularly popular.

There is also considerable cross over between those two general markets. My last sale was to an anthology from Cleis Press that drew no particular distinction and included both.

The_Outlaw_Torn said:

I've been wondering, why is it that women authors are more popular than gay male authors? Is it because females are a larger demographic? Is it because they can write about a masculine environment better? Or is it because they know something that us guys don't?

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That isn't exactly true. There are a few gay male authors that are extremely popular.

I think the reason it seems that way though, is that women have been in this erotic romance game a lot longer, they were writing het romance, and then discovered that a large group of het women wanted to read gay male/male romance.

Meanwhile I imagine a lot of gay men (or at least the ones I talk to) were trying to write serious literary fiction about the gay experience, and literary fiction, or general fiction has always been a harder sell, and something that (in the past at least) you always needed to get an agent for. Not that those stories aren't very worthy, and some can really break out, but it's a different market and much smaller numbers break into it.

Women already knew the rules for erotic romance, they knew the publishers, they had ties with other authors.

This is all just my guess.

The gay male writers who know the rules of romance writing (as opposed to just writing sex scenes) who know how to write a romance arc in their stories, are doing really really well. Some of them aren't even writing erotic books, but they are writing gay romance that sells.

If you haven't already I would advise reading some gay romance from places like ManLovePress, Dreamspinner, Samhain, Loose ID, Siren, Ellora's Cave and getting a feel for how story works with these popular publishers.

I suspect you need to be writing more than erotic vignettes if you wish to achieve sales. If people are spending money they want STORY not just stroke. (Not saying you don't do that, but I don't know from what you posted.)

I finished my first full length erotic romance, and I thought my characters had depth, but when I sent it to Loose ID I got some detailed feedback that they still did not have enough depth in their opinion. I realized I had to find more layers of depth and emotion to achieve the kind of story that is published by the best places.

Also as far as "stroke" goes. Men as an overall group, don't always demand story with their stroke, they like things visual and will buy visual porn. Women as an overall general group.... like words, they like story, and they are fussy, and want a fully fleshed out novel, and a romance arc, along with their stroke, if they are going to fork out money. They want three for the price of one.

That is my opinion from what I've seen in life anyway. So the subset of women interested in gay male/male stories are the predominate buyers of these books, while I suspect gay men are still more likely to download or rent something visual. But on the other hand there are definitely gay men buying these books too. They've probably discovered them later.

Women are only "more popular" in that they write more for the female audience which is strong online. Men write for it too and do just as well. Just as women write for the gay male audience. And as I said, some books do not pick sides, they just publish the good stuff.

Be aware of sub-genres and tropes, not imprisoned by them. I have had no trouble writing for gay male and mixed markets.

I guess maybe I should have written all that as a blog, that was tldr for a message board. lol

gingerwoman said:

I guess maybe I should have written all that as a blog, that was tldr for a message board. lol

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I thought it was worthwhile.

Another factor is it being a short story, not whether or not it has developed characters or more to it than stroke material. A good short story has many of the same qualities people like in a novel, but many readers don't like shorts.

The short gay erotica that I like best tends to have less than average "stroke" content. Good examples can be found in anthologies Cleis Press publishes. After discovering some outstanding authors in those, I bought their story collections. The problem is that most of them don't have collections. I can understand why that would be a risk for a publisher for cases other than the most established authors.

So, like the others here said, there's a market, but it's small, in part due simply to the number of readers. I heard that romance novels account for half of all paperback sales. The percentage of ebooks is probably higher.

Traditional anthologies help fans of others authors become fans of you. Publishers are more interested in them (for the most part). There are always plenty open and looking for stories. You know what you will get paid.

Collections are great if you can get a publisher to agree to take it. The royalties can being higher in the long run (or not, you have to do your researcj). If you self-publish it this allows you to continued earning from reprints that would otherwise flatline.

The problem with collections is that readers are often hesitant to buy collections from authors they're not very familiar with. So, a collection can be a good route if you're an established author or if you have a lot of previously-published shorts that you have the rights to and want to republish, but it can be a little more of a risk if you're starting out and haven't established a readership.

Hi

I too am a gay male and I quite commonly find homoerotic fiction on Amazon. Unfortunately I have spent many hours doing research because I also write homoerotica and Amazon seems to be the only place that has a market for it.

Hi, Emmy.

The_Outlaw_Torn said:

UPDATE: So while I'm learning about publishing a novel as an eBook, now I'm doing research on publishing a short story collection as an eBook. Some have said that publishing a short story collection on Amazon Kindle (or B&N Nook or Google Play or wherever) is always possible. If so, then I might look into it. For the past eight months, I've been publishing gay erotica on Literotica. Other writers on the site have given me some generally positive feedback. Currently, out of a total of 8 stories posted, at least six of them are graded at least 4 stars out of 5. I might get the same positive feedback if I do officially publish a short story collection on Kindle.

Should I go for it? You know, Carpe Diem?

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Publishing "as an ebook" does not mean self publishing. All the major and smaller publishers publish books "as ebooks". And people also self publish books as print on demand.

If your stories are selling then bundling them and selling them as a collection may well work for you. I know it's worked for a lot of romance authors, but they tended to be bundling full length novels.

EmmyTheMasterSeme said:

I too am a gay male and I quite commonly find homoerotic fiction on Amazon. Unfortunately I have spent many hours doing research because I also write homoerotica and Amazon seems to be the only place that has a market for it.

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I'm not sure what you mean. I know a lot of publishers interested in gay erotic romance. Without the romance angle there possibly is less interest. I've just come back from a four day writers' conference, and one topic that came up is that longer books are selling better these days, possibly because of all the free books being given away. Novellas have dropped in popularity on Amazon and Smashwords etc... apparently.

A short story can pay you twice, once trade and once self-published. And when I self-publish my goal is to provide both digital and paperback. That equals more sales and I am all about the money.

And gay erotica (romantic or not) is super hot right now. That are literally hundreds of markets.

There are markets for short stories. This is only one of them. Evernight Publishing has a line dedicated to short stories between 8-12k. I have a couple there that have done well. Here's the link for specifics. http://www.evernightpublishing.com/special-lines/

There are some more here http://erotica-readers.com/ERA/AR/Erotica_Authors_Resources.htm

Gay shorts sell quite well, although you may want to be careful to separate your commercial writing from your personal fantasies. It's hard to be objective when you are attached at that level to something, and what gets you off may not work for others.