Best way to make money off erotica?

I'd have no idea. The only erotic shorts I ever wrote were either fanfic which I'd never sell, or original stories written specifically for anthologies. Some folks do well with short fiction, but I'm not prolific enough at it. I made the choice to work on novel-length fiction because that gives me the best shot at meaningful royalties and advances.

Everyone's different, though.

I don't think there are a lot of fully pro-paying erotica magazines left these days.

I don't think there is any generic approach. What kind of stuff can/do you write? Sub-genres have specific skill and knowledge requrements and different markets.

Dropping a short story into Amazon, etc. is rather like publishing a poetry chapbook: unless you have a way to get lots of eyeballs on it quickly, you might as well throw your mms into the Grand Canyon. Some folks do make money on unconnected short fiction, but not that many.

Those who do, often have some kind of platform to funnel readers toward the stories. Online magazines and other publishers offer pre-screened works that fit readers' specific expectations. Prolific bloggers can direct readers to their fiction. Published novelists are really taking advantage of short stories to showcase their worldbuilding, or as pre-novel teasers.

I know writers who make about as much off their online short fiction as they do their Etsy craft accounts: maybe $50 to $200 a month. Not enough to live on, but a nice validation that builds portfolios and street cred.

I believe it takes thousands of sales before your average self-published book builds enough momentum that people actually start seeing it through word of mouth and not direct or second-hand author referrals. You're better off submitting them to established erotica publishers, but keep in mind that edgier kinks (like incest) are a no-no at many of the bigger erotica publishers.

Really, the way to make any money as an erotica writer is to know the market and write to it, not to cast your own fantasies into the cyber-void.

And if you want to mine the kindle readership you should post thematically linked work. The erotica readership clumps heavily around themes and you make the money by selling back list, not cold selling every title.

veinglory said:

And if you want to mine the kindle readership you should post thematically linked work. The erotica readership clumps heavily around themes and you make the money by selling back list, not cold selling every title.

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Agreed. I'd say better than half of my royalties every month (or quarter, depending on the publisher) are backlist sales, and usually the books that sell significantly are in the same genre as whatever new titles were released during that period. Release a paranormal book, all the paranormals jump. Release a contemporary, all the contemporaries jump. Etc.

A few other suggestions, depending on what length your short stories are. You can submit to publisher anthologies. There are quite a few out there. Just look around at various epub sites. Most of them ask for 10-20k words though, with a few only wanting 2-5 or 10k.

Also, there are some websites that pay. I've heard of them, noticed ads listed here, but have never looked into them.

FYI: I've heard some people rave about freebies, so publishing on Literotica may work. But, even if you get an audience, it doesn't mean you'll immediately have 'fans'.
I posted free stuff on my blog for about 1 1/2 years before deciding to self-pub my first book. I had a decent audience at my blog, but not very many (I'd say 2 but I never asked) bought the book.

I still have about 40 - 50 rabid fans on Archive of Our Own, based on obscure fanfics I wrote a decade ago. People still write to me. Many of those know I've published original fiction; very few of them have bought it.

The under-age stuff is a legal issue, the rest is about not alienating their readership.

Golden said:

So most people who succeed doing this already have thousands of readers on a different platform (like a blog) or they just wait a long time for sales to pick up?

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I can't speak for everyone, but the majority of authors writing erotica wait for sales to pick up. Your mileage may vary depending on several factors, how many stories you have published and the quality of the writing.

Golden said:

So most people who succeed doing this already have thousands of readers on a different platform (like a blog) or they just wait a long time for sales to pick up?

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No. Most erotica writers "succeed" (though that's difficult to quantify) by writing a story good enough to be published through a reputable publisher. The good publishers know how to market a story to the readers willing to pay for it. Then you write more stories, and more readers discover them and buy your back-list, and your sales go up. And so on.

Pretty much the same way you succeed at writing any other genre of fiction.

Except for Musa's Penumbra Magazine, I don't know of that many short fiction erotica markets where you'd query a story. Generally you send a short, professional cover letter and the story, that's all. Querying shorter pieces seems to be more the norm in non-fiction markets, from what I've seen.

The mantra here is research your target publications and learn their specific guidelines - then follow them.

You can search duotrope.com specifically for erotica markets. By none of them would get anywhere near $1 a word. On top of that there are a few mags left that take 'true story' types first person accounts or specialty fetishes.

Golden said:

Could you give me more info about how this works? I'm not sure if people still do this by submitting query letters?

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You just submit the story, by email (or snail if required), with a brief cover letter:

Dear Editor's Name,

I would like to submit my X,000-word short story, "Title of Story", for consideration in your "Name of Anthology" anthology. I have attached the story as an rtf file (or appended the story in the text of the email below -- do whatever the guidelines say!).

My previous short stories have been published in X, Y, Z (if applicable. If no previous pub credits, leave this out.)

Thank you for your time.

sincerely,

Moi


This is one of the best erotica market lists I know of; Duotrope also has a lot of magazine markets. Most anthologies and established short story markets will pay around $50.

Submitting to magazines and anthologies is one way to get a feel for where your work sits in the market. If you consistently get acceptance letters, your work is good enough to attract readers. If you consistently get rejection letters, you're doing something wrong. If your work is always being featured as the first or last story in the anthology/issue, you're golden.

Golden said:

So most people who succeed doing this already have thousands of readers on a different platform (like a blog) or they just wait a long time for sales to pick up?

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To be clear, the "this" you are referencing is self-publishing. Some wait, some market their butts off, and many write multiple books (not shorts, usually. Books) to get their self-published "brand" to take off.

Could you give me more info about how this works? I'm not sure if people still do this by submitting query letters?

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Visit erotica publishers' web sites, and see what their guidelines are. They will tell you what kinds of publishers they are seeking and how to submit.

I've heard about that, but I don't really understand why? I know incest is illegal in most states, but so what? There are countless works of literature that depict illegal activities (and some that could be considered "encouraging" of them in a way too), so this confuses me.

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This isn't just "literature", it is writing with the intent to arouse. Books get away with some things that seriously squick most people because it is all in the name of character or story development. Writing those same things with the intent to arouse is a whole other game. Unless you find an anthology that is intentionally crossing those boundaries, you're probably going to find specialty kinks a hard sell, and those kinds of anthologies are incredibly rare for two reasons: one, because it's probably sort of rare to find an editor sufficiently unsquicked by these kinks to want to edit an anthology about them, and two because erotica publications are trying very hard to look respectable, and that means drawing firm lines about what they will publish, even if you could find the same kinks in a literary novel on bookstore shelves.

Chasing the Horizon said:

No. Most erotica writers "succeed" (though that's difficult to quantify) by writing a story good enough to be published through a reputable publisher. The good publishers know how to market a story to the readers willing to pay for it. Then you write more stories, and more readers discover them and buy your back-list, and your sales go up. And so on.

Pretty much the same way you succeed at writing any other genre of fiction.

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Ah, so true.

Golden said:

Thanks for the replies!

So this is what I've gathered so far from this thread. Please correct me if I'm wrong about any of these generalizations:

Getting my stories published in a magazine or anthology would pay a lot less than self-publishing/doing Amazon/Kindle/et cetera (assuming that I could get at least 50 people to buy my story, which I admit, would not be something that would happen in the blink of an eye).

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Actually, getting your stories published in a magazine or anthology would more likely pay more than self-publishing at first. Since a publisher can bring readers to your stories via their promotion opportunity and marketing.

Once you have a go at that for a few times, then you can try self-publishing.

If you want to know how to write long published erotica romance, this sub-board is fantastic and that's why I'm here lurking. Money? As in money now? Use the DWS Method. (Dean Wesley Smith)

Write 3k-10k shorts, charge $2.99 (Yes, people will pay $2.99 for an erotica short and you'll make $2.09 each sale) and when you have three or four in a given genre or series, put them in a bundle for $4.99-5.99. If you see something take off, write more in the series of in the same genre. You will need to learn to make your own covers from royalty free stock and write good blurbs.

You need to follow the market and not be fussy about what you write. Use a pen name, if you want to make money--this is not going to be material what you want on your resume. Right now billionaires are hot, but I think that's cresting. Gaywolves were smoking hot 6 months ago, but you can't give them away now and the whole paranormal market is saturated. Three ways and MMM always work well. Lesbian sells poorly, unless it has an out there fetish. PI (pseudo incest) is always good. Don't know about gerontophilia, but ageplay seems to sell well.

Incest and underage will not be accepted by any of the "self-publishing" (quotes as this is not the term we use for ourselves). You cannot sell these, so don't write them.

Don't do any promotion. Erotica will self-promote as you get more titles and your name appears on bought/also bought and also by this author lists. That's the real key, volume and consistently production.

Writing a constant stream of shorts and raking in the bucks sounds easy. It's not. This is a job. It requires following the market and being good at knocking out readable material at quick rate and being able to handle all the cover and formatting yourself. Also, a change in Amazon's policies could completely obliterate your ability to make money.

I know writers who make about as much off their online short fiction as they do their Etsy craft accounts: maybe $50 to $200 a month.

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My partner and I have 10 stories written over the last six months. We make $150-350 a month. We would do better if they were under the same pen name, but that's life.

Katie Elle said:

Incest and underage will not be accepted by any of the "self-publishing" (quotes as this is not the term we use for ourselves). You cannot sell these, so don't write them.

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It's not true that you cannot sell incest. I've found several publishers who accept it, and another writer here on these boards is in an incest anthology.

It's certainly a hard sell, though, and only acceptable to a few publishers, so probably not the best way to make money. But it's not impossible.

The DWS method works well if you're committed to watching and writing for specific markets. You need volume and consistency to snag readers for self-pub shorts.

I'm still too lazy to put that much effort into shorts, so I look for anthologies that catch my interest.

I'll share some payment details on two anthologies I'm in.

One is a little $.99 digital collection from a group of writers primarily active on another writing forum; a nice mix of newbies and major award-winners. It launched in Dec. 2011, and I've had one royalty check for $5 in April. We meant it as a bit of ongoing advertising, not a money-maker. My story is a mainstream fantasy around 4K. Because of another Kickstarter project by some folks in this same group, the first project is slowly gathering steam.

The other was a fantasy erotica publisher (Cleis). The anthology was edited by a fairly well-known editor (Mitzi Szereto), with an intro by a known name in sf&f and erotica (Piers Anthony), and themed around another major writer's creations (George R. R. Martin). I would have angled to get into this one for free, but I got a nice little $60 check for only a few hours of writing and re-writing. My 4K story is meant to help build a platform for another large mms I'm working on. That anthology will be released in mid-September, and we're getting some decent pre-orders on it.

Both of these experiments had little to do with short-term monetary gain.

The incest ban comment relates to amazon kindle etc. It gets through occasionally from publisher but they don't tend to allow it at all from self-publishers.