I am currently re-working my stories to be published on Amazon as an ebook ($0.99). Amazon does not allow full out incest, it has to be at best step family. I am near to moving Great Mom and Krystyn and one my partner wrote. Great Mom will become Great Step Mom. I am reworking each story one by one to see how they fare on Amazon. I do plan to redo the Megan series. After that I would like input from readers what series they would like to be reworked. My goal is to redo the old work (edits, make it Amazon acceptable) and then continue with new material...Assuming it sells well on Amazon.

I am interested in hearing from readers whom know my work which series they would like for me to make the transition with to Amazon and continue.

I am also to hear from anyone who is or has published on Amazon Kindle what their experience is or was like.

Thank you for any input.

 

Okay. Here's some experience you don't want to hear about: Don't. Do. Incest. Don't do Pseudo-Incest either. You're skirting along a very dangerous precipice for no good reason at all.

Also, don't do 0.99. The regular price for shorts is 2.99; bundles are more. Unless you want to miss out on about 84% of your royalties, 2.99 is the way to go.

Moreover, don't expect stuff to just take off in an instant. The erotica category is incredibly hard to break into, especially with just a few shorts. Aim for a target of about 100 or so until you start to see serious royalties.

And finally, you HAVE to learn to master the trifecta: Covers, titles, blurbs. If you suck at any of those, work on it until you don't.

Edited to add: You're writing male POV, which sells 10 times as hard as a female POV. I'd change that.

 

Thank you for all the information. I am having my wife edit with me redoing the better stories into a female POV. I understand this is a long process in seeing any return, that is why we do this on the side and not for income.

A few of the stories we removing all pseudo-incest and just making it straight sex. I have been looking on Amazon for a few month at the different erotica types and reading what people write for reviews. I already had the feeling Amazon readers are not too much into the taboo area.

If you have any other input I would be happy to read it.

Thank you.

 

Alright, here I go:

Pick a niche. Generic erotica is generic; nobody's into that. Think about what kinks your story delivers and MARKET THE SHIT OUT OF THEM. Don't try to serve too many things at once. (A werewolf-billionaire-breeding-lactation-ABDL story might sound like a good idea, but it's really not.) But also don't pick a niche that's too small and doesn't sell well. (No matter how much you're into tentacles or midgets, it's never going to be more than a tiny market.) The niche is the secret sauce of every successful erotica writer, and NOBODY will share what niche they're writing in, if it's in any way profitable. It's a trial-and-error process, and involves a lot of research. Protip: Check out Amazon's erotica categories and go through the top selling books to see what currently sells.

Sex sells. You're writing erotica, not the Great American Novel. Subtlety is absolutely overrated. Be as blunt and sexy as possible. Your cover needs to be sexy, your title needs to be sexy, your blurb needs to be sexy, your story needs to be sexy. Don't try to be cute, don't try to be clever, don't try to be subtle. Think of it like this: Yours is the written equivalent of porn movies, and needs to be treated as such. People search porn according to very set interests, NOBODY searches porn to be dazzled by the cleverness of the producers.

Stay away from the fringe. It isn't any more profitable writing things that are on-edge (like pseudo-incest, dubious consent, etc.) than writing mainstream kinks. But you can get into a LOT of trouble when some Midwestern Soccer Mom gets her panties in a wad over her husband's kindle collection of pseudo incest stories, raising a stink online and prompting Amazon to change their rules again due to public pressure. Amazon WILL throw you under the bus if at any moment your stories make them look bad, and won't think twice about it. No need to tempt them. Also, on top of that, EVERY author writing on the edge endangers not only themselves, but also ALL other erotica writers, because Amazon will (and has done so numerous times in the past) crack down hard on the whole erotica crowd whenever someone rocks the boat.

(Sidenote: I'm assuming everyone knows the limits of what Amazon does and doesn't allow. If you don't, here's a rough overview: Don't do Incest, Underage (anything under 18 years), Rape, Non-Consensual sex (including intoxication, unconsciousness, hypnotism and other scenarios in which consent can't be given), Bestiality (anything including sex with animals). Shifters (Humans who can turn into animals) NEED to be in human form when they engage in sex acts. Allegedly, extinct and fantasy species (dinosaurs, unicorns, dragons, etc.) don't fall under bestiality, but could skirt along the edge (see above).)

Stay in the right category. Remember that Midwestern Soccer Mom? If you thought she's been a bitch when she found her husband's erotica collection, just imagine what she's going to say when she finds your hot, sexy, gangbang breeding orgy when she's browsing for self-help books on how to get her husband off his obviously dangerous porn habit. This is not to be trifled with: Do NOT tempt the wrath of righteous coservative readers unprovoked. It might have been a good idea to pick a small category (like "african-american romance" or "architectural design" or "Pterodactyl husbandry") to give your book easier exposure and jerk off to how you're at the top of that category in no time, but if this EVER gets Amazons attention, they WILL not find it near as good an idea as you once did.

Pricing, length and bundles. Really quite easy. Shorts are between 3000 to 5000 words long, price them at 2.99. Bundles contain between 3-6 shorts (or more) and sell for between 3.99 and 4.99. Mega-bundles (10 shorts and up) are priced higher, but shouldn't exceed the 9.99 mark, due to Amazons weird-ass royalty rates. (Anything under 2.99 and over 9.99 only pays 35% royalties instead of 65%.) Longer works (naturally) sell more, so bundle, bundle, bundle, and bundle again. (Don't overdo it. Don't publish the same stories in different bundles only in different orders. Amazon has automatic detection which compares the content of your book to other published books and causes a ruckus if it's more than, like 60% similar to something else.)

Be diligent with covers. Amazon is VERY picky about graphic nudity, and that's the easiest way to get you into trouble. Don't show exposed boobs, exposed crotch or exposed butt. Don't show sideboobs, underboobs, "handbras", nipples, all that. Don't show cocks either, ever. Not real ones, not fake ones. Don't use animals or children on an erotica cover. No bondage on cover. Really, cover design would warrant an entire thread of its own, ESPECIALLY if you're not very savvy with photoshop. If in doubt, find someone who's better at cover design than you are. Typically, you can find someone on fiverr who can put something together for little money. (Hint: Just because you pay someone for your cover doesn't mean it doesn't suck. You still need to find someone who can do it well. Sadly, there's plenty of scammers on fiverr as well.)

Your title NEEDS to be evocative of the kinks you're trying to serve. Don't name your story something vague like "my first time" or something artsy like "the best and worst of times". Nobody buys porn that sounds like it needs to be read in English Literature class. If you're writing gay porn, you can't overemphasize how gay your story is. If it's got gay in the title, subtitle and series name, gay in the blurb and gay on the cover, it still won't be gay enough. (Gay, in this case, stands for whatever niche you're trying to serve. Don't just write gay.) Think of it like that: "Anally taken by my gay dinosaur boss" is probably more interesting for readers than "my first time" or "handsome stranger" or "Pterodactyl bum fest".

Be good to fans. To get anywhere in the long term, you need to build up a fan base. Maintain a newsletter. (DO IT NOW!) Offer free books for anyone who signs up. Send out regular gifts to keep your fans happy. Keep writing. Keep writing. Your fans want new stories, so keep publishing AT LEAST once a week. Nobody will wait half a year for the next chapter of your super-sensitive werewolf saga, EVEN IF IT'S CHOCK FULL OF PTERODACTYLS. Publishing new books is THE BEST advertisement you can get for yourself. Plenty of people pay attention to new titles, and WILL go through your back catalogue if they like your story.

Format your book nicely. Speaking of back catalogue, of course you have one! (OF COURSE you have one, and if you don't, MAKE ONE NOW!) Every book of yours NEEDS to have a good overview of your OTHER books at the end of it, because THAT'S HOW READERS FIND YOUR SHIT YO! Protip: Make them a hyperlink to the amazon book pages (or your website, if you have one). Proprotip: Also include a short mention of your newsletter with the AWESOME FREE BOOKS readers can get if they sign up for it. Proproprotip: Include a LINK to your newsletter. Proproproprotip: Include the newsletter bit at the front AND the back of the book. So everyone who checks out the "look inside" feature will read about your newsletter AND everyone who just finished your book will ALSO be reminded that there's this GREAT SHINY newsletter to sign up to. Seriously, do a newsletter, and do it now. Right now. Before you do anything else.

Other things to do. Make yourself an author page. It doesn't cost anything, and is a great way to get all your titles in one place so interested readers can find your other books. Do that now, too. RIGHT now. BEFORE you do anything else. Include a mention of your newsletter on your author page, and write a little bit about yourself. ("Yourself" not neccessarily being yourself, but whatever pen persona you choose.) Make some social media accounts for your pen name(s), where you at least keep your followers up to date about new releases. Be smart, check out what other authors are doing and try out if it would work for you too.

BUT - I hear you say: "I've seen this and that author with this and that book on Amazon, doing exactly what you said not to do. There's pussy on the cover, there's incest in the title, there's a gay chameleon gangbang orgy in the content and it's sorted in Biology(exotic species)!" Well, you break my advice at your own risk, but only because someone ELSE doesn't play by the rules doesn't mean the rules don't exist. You don't know how long that book / author has been there, or how long they WILL be there. Maybe they'll be banned tomorrow, which won't help you when you published your own chameleon gangbang orgy. Or maybe they're a really big, really successful author, which are treated by different rules than others. YES, that's unfair, but so is life. Whining about it won't help you. So, only because someone else likes to take risks, those don't need to be your risks.

A final note: Erotica is only about 25% as profitable as it used to be, due to changes in Amazons structure. It's not an easy way to make money, but a lot of work, constant work and diligent work. As a rule of thumb, longer works ALWAYS sell better than shorts, erotic or not. If you REALLY want to live off of this, there's only one way to do it: Write novel-length works, constantly and reliably.

 

Fantastic information, @AyaLaRoux! Thanks so much for taking the time to write all that down.

I read a couple articles last month about Amazon suddenly changing their rules to disallow some practices they perceived as gaming their algorithms. Lots of established authors, erotica and otherwise, had their accounts shut off and their last check withheld.

If you have the time, I would love to hear how your thoughts on this might have changed over the last three years.