Today was a good day writing! 3,000 words in about an hour and a half. That is pretty spectacular and I even got a really really good scene in with Sergio and Bree. I won't spoil the toy surprise that he gives her on their second date. Sergio is nervous on the way to Bree's parents house to pick her up for their second fling date. I like the image of him squirming around in his car with nerves while he drives over to her house. I think we often forget that even old men and women still get the butterflies in their bellies when they're doing something they're excited about.
I know when I'm waiting to be picked up i'm all walking around the place with nervous energy looking out the window every five minutes to see if my date has arrived, or if he's pulled up in the driveway or parked out front. I remember bounding down the stairs cause I saw his car in the driveway shouting "Bye! I'll be home later" while I flew out the front door before my parents could see how short my skirt was, or how low cut my tops were.
It is the topic I'm writing about that makes the words flow easier. When I'm engaged in a story I really enjoy and the scene and situation makes me feel good the words just flood out of my hands without virtually no effort. Having the time and silence and space to do it too, that is incredible, and I'm blessed with moments in my day to do that.
Today I spent a good amount of time researching a way I can sell my books directly. I'm thinking that Amazon and the other sites aren't really doing me any favors for being an erotica author. I'd like to sell my stuff directly, but with the full advantages of something like amazon kindle reader or kobo or something.
I use bookfunnel for that purpose. They're freaking awesome. You can get your book in any format easily sent to any device you have, and it is easy for readers to access. I love it!
My problem is setting up a personal gateway for these sales. Also too; my website gets 0 traffic. That is a big, fat zero. No traffic. My steemit.com/@jocelynlily gets some hits, but i'm guessing no where near what I get from Amazon natural traffic. I don't know how to create more rich laden keywords like Erotica backdoor anal sex with babysitter teenagers. I mean, this book is all about an older man fucking a younger girl college freshman babysitter and sticking it up her butt while they have anal sex in the outdoors after she gives him a blowjob in the car and he eats her ass while fingering her pussy.
Whew! How was that for a string of longtail keywords to get traffic?
Some options:
Gumroad
Selz (i think they don't allow erotica)
Paywiz
Paywhirl
Shopify
Squarespace
Woocommerce (don't really want to do this anymore)
Any thoughts? I'm also thinking of making a $50.00 one time get all my books for free forever deal. But that means no more kindle unlimited and that will be about $50.00 this month in lost revenue. Maybe I'll only put my latest books in KU for one 3 month round and put everything else in my personal vault. Hmmmm. Or not.
Remember; I'm in this for the money (yes I like writing about sex, but cash makes the world go round).
Thoughts?
Are you on Goodreads? I had a few stories published an actual-book anthologies a while back and signed up as an author. So I know they do have erotica. I don't know about the real explicit stuff, though.
Having said that, I never capitalized on that. And my own web site gets hits in the single digits ... annually. This is despite providing a link to go there with every story I post here on steemit. I know only one person who clicked through. I only know that because she left me constructive critiques.
I'd offer to form a publishing house with you, if we can get a few other erotica steemians on board. A few of them frequent my blog, and I theirs.
But again, it's the business end. I don't have the time or the cash or knowledge to do the serious but shoo-string marketing. Given that, I'm sure the enterprise will not flourish. You can comment back, or if you want to take it off line, I am on Discord and on steem.chat.
Joe
science fiction, fantasy, erotica @joe.nobel
I checked out goodreads; had 1 review of 5 stars! WOOHOOO!
OTher than that I don't see any benefit or author side of it. So won't go back.
I won't lie; i have no interest in collaborating with anyone, even nice people. Certainly, I wish you well in whatever ventures you go into together with others though. It isn't me.
Marketing is hard when you're in erotica. A lot of places don't want to peddle the smuts. So self publishing and own website it is!
I'm in it for the long slow slog.
Thanks for the well wishes and offers!
I'm still too new at this game to have any advice, but I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and the process that you go through to get where you're going!
Isn't there a blockchain based erotic book selling system ? Could be great if somebody creates one.
I guess your thoughts are also based on revenue distribution and to minimize or eliminate intermediate people between authors and readers. As far as I understand you look for a direct B2C system to cut all intermediate costs. May you should look how things are going in the music branch where there is a pretty good and fair project ongoing. I can try to find the information about who it is, the case study was mentioned in Dan Tapscott's and Alex Tapscott's book about the blockchain system.
May can it be of help for you. An advantage is if nothing similar exists in the book branch, at least in the erotic branch, you could be a pioneer and inspire a lot of like-minded authors to join your team.
I think you should focus in writing and let the selling thing for the people who already have got it.
So... my suggest is you contact to high traffic websites of erotica content and you offer them link your content as a other services of the portal.
If the link to your stuff is showed to a person who have already searched for related stuff you have more probably to sell.
Or simply they can offer another folder wich erotica literature.
The difference is that that website already have targeted your prospect so they have done the hard job...
They can ask you for a fee but... anyway.. i think it deserves
You always can try lo learn google algorithm and such but.. i think we are just good in couple or three things in life and you already write well so.. what is your probability for the google engine? :-)
Good advice. I'll look into it; basically going to people that laready have an audience and going there.
I should post to Literotica.com more. Good idea.
Google is easy; provide value, consistently, that people search for! Haha, just not easy to implement.