u/icesprinttriker

In May, I took a break from Sci-Fi to try Erotica. I found a competitive niche with PublisherRocket and read a lot of the Top 10 stories in the niche on Amazon. Created a new pen name.I still had some outside interference with my writing time, so only published 5 shorts (all my stories are 5K words, common in the niche).

May: Five stories published, and one collection/bundle of the five. 858 page reads, zero sales. Royalties: $3.73. Off to a slow start. But this is a long game.

June: Things didn't really get rolling until after June 4 when outside pressures eased a little bit. Published eight shorts. Another will be published today, after I tweak the prose based on suggestions given about pacing. As of this morning, 3,433 page reads and two sales. Royalties: $18.29. I did a KU sale for my 'bestseller', and signed up for Storykeepr, which I hope will be my all-in-one solution. 149 free downloads over four days. Interestingly, the book continued to earn page reads in KU every day as well. 2 4-star reviews gained.

Things I'm learning: Covers in Canva with Depositphotos. My niche's covers are simple, thank God, because I'm a slow learner with technology. When my 'bestseller' becomes eligible to take out of KU I'll unpublish it and make it my reader magnet and start doing swaps and paid promos. 'Till then, I'll keep writing and hope to make 30 titles by early August in what I'm calling my Summer of Smut.

On May 1st, I decided to give Erotica a try. I used Kindlepreneur to find a competitive niche, found a generic outline for short stories, wrote 5 over the next few weeks under a new pen name, and created a collection of the five, so six titles are out there on Amazon KDP.

Data as of today, May 31:

0 (Zero) sales

858 page reads

$3.73 in royalties/all KENP

All covers were via Fiverr, from a contractor who stated they do not use AI, only photoshopped images. (I don't believe them, and the cost- $19 per cover, is unsustainable, so I'm moving to creating my own covers in Canva with depositphotos.)

What went well:

The writing is fun as hell, and a nice break from my Sci-Fi work. I spent an hour batch-outlining the five stories, and each 5000-word short took me one to one-and-a-half days to complete and edit (I use Word to read the story back to me and edit as I go).

Mistake:

Wise, experienced erotica writers advised me that I put the collection out there far too soon, as it would cannibalize the sales/page reads of the individual shorts. While it's too soon to judge that that is happening, I appreciate the advice and will hold off on future collections for a few months after publication of the next series of shorts.

Experiment:

To gauge how well I was meeting reader expectations, I posted story #6 on Literotica under the appropriate category on May 24. As of today, it has garnered 131 reviews with a 4.69 average, along with some nice comments and 10 followers, and I view that as a success. So I'll delete it from Literotica and publish it on Amazon KDP.

Craft:

I read a number of other stories in the niche and studied the top ten blurbs and covers. While my covers are fine, my blurbs could be better. As far as the style and structure of the stories themselves, I now see that I spend too much time establishing a character in a setting with a problem- my go-to opening- without getting to the sexual aspect fast enough (the aspect, not the act itself), and fixing that will be my focus in the next stories.

Moving Forward:

In what I've decided to call The Summer of Smut, I plan to write and publish a minimum of two shorts a week through June and July. I'll be writing a lot faster, but that will give me lead time if I decide to take a break in late July for a quick vacation.

Any and all feedback sincerely appreciated!