Making Money Writing Stories

[frecklearms]

Anybody know of some good sites besides Amazon where I can post stories and make some extra money?

[Hilda]

Anybody know of some good sites besides Amazon where I can post stories and make some extra money?

There are plenty of sites to which you can upload stories (Smashwords and Lulu, for example), but making money from them isn't so easy. For starters, you'll find that most sites have strict content regulations and won't accept erotica or even romance.

There used to be dozens of online publishers specializing in 'hot' romance, but last time I looked, they'd all gone out of business.

Even if you could get a digital publisher to take your work, you'd probably find that you have to do all the promotion yourself, which means guest appearances on author blogs, leaving book reviews, and other major investments of time and effort.

One other possibility is setting up your own website (maybe $15 p.a. for the domain name, and another $50 or so for the hosting), posting your stories there, and inviting readers to donate through PayPal or some other payment processor.

[Asmodel]

Best bet is Patreon,
As I’ve seen some others doing that.

[Hilda]

Best bet is Patreon,
As I’ve seen some others doing that.

How would that work? Collecting patrons, that is. I support three content creators on Patreon and was already familiar with their work when I subscribed. How would authors of erotic fiction go about promoting themselves?

[Vela Nanashi]

It may be possible to find other writers or erotica makers, and collaborate with them, or make fan fiction for their stuff, and that way have them link from their patreon/subscribestar etc to yours, also I know some erotica writers do get books published on some places, though I think it may not be heavily intense erotica of extreme fetishes, not that I have yet to explore that. I do think that with the success of shows like GoT, Witcher, Vikings, shows and books with more sex in them have gotten a bit more normalized, but that does not mean extreme kinks will be accepted. However one could always make a name for oneself with a milder book, have a website mentioned in it, have paypal/patreon etc etc and maybe have memberships there that open up the harder stuff for folks to enjoy. Still no personal experience on/with these things.

[Hilda]

It may be possible to find other writers or erotica makers, and collaborate with them, or make fan fiction for their stuff, and that way have them link from their patreon/subscribestar etc to yours, also I know some erotica writers do get books published on some places, though I think it may not be heavily intense erotica of extreme fetishes, not that I have yet to explore that.

There used to be several online publishers that specialized in genre-specific erotica, all unfortunately long gone. The only one I can remember off the top of my head is Samhain. I bought a few novels from them, all professionally edited and formatted, all with sumptuous cover art.

You make a good point about authors helping one another out. It's really tough getting noticed, whether you're an author, a musician, an artist, or any other kind of creator.

[Vela Nanashi]

Smashwords seems to want to have some forms of erotica:

https://blog.smashwords.com/2017/09/smashwords-erotica.html

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/451219 you prolly can find more information for free if you look around some more though.

[Hilda]

Smashwords seems to want to have some forms of erotica:

https://blog.smashwords.com/2017/09/smashwords-erotica.html

My memory may be at fault. I was under the impression that Smashwords was flooded with romance submissions and imposed restrictions. IIRC, they would accept such submissions only if they'd already been published in a traditional format.

That policy no longer makes sense. If you can get your work published in book form, the publisher will gladly generate digital versions for you, and those digital versions will probably generate more royalties.

[Vela Nanashi]

Writers on another forum I am part of have published recently to smashwords, and specifically erotica, so I don't think they are stopping that, but then I may be wrong and I certainly don't know all details.

[Hilda]

Writers on another forum I am part of have published recently to smashwords, and specifically erotica, so I don't think they are stopping that, but then I may be wrong and I certainly don't know all details.

Ah, then my information is incorrect or out of date. It's been some time since I checked out Smashwords, or Kindle, or any of the other major publishers.

It's also been a long time since I was in contact with other authors, but unless things have changed drastically, it's tough making a living as a digital author. All of the ones I knew had daytime jobs.

[Vela Nanashi]

Yes, people first need to choose to see erotic things on the electronic stores, then the market is saturated with erotica, so it is very hard to stand out, then of course you can't take too much per sale or you won't make any, so you have to decide on what price makes sense, and maybe you want to put up some sample works too, to make people interested, and wanting more of your writing, even with all of that it is of course not everyone who can make a living off it, but I suspect that each sale is more valuable as a someone actually likes my stuff enough to want to buy it, and you know maybe a sale is enough for a coffee or two to fuel the writing of the next chapter

[Vela Nanashi]

Another thought also occurs to me, it is so easy to get free porn/erotica, like here on this forum, and other forums like it, other sites with erotica, and electronic books, no matter how much drm is used, will if interesting enough end up on the digital high seas, so I think it might be good to regardless how you get people interested in your works, that you have an author page on the web that is linked to from the books, or other things you make, so that people can find you, and you can have your own membership thing going on there, it is not good to rely only on patreon or any single source of income and publishing, a site of your own will be less likely to get nuked, and from there you can link to all places you publish things on, all social media and all that too, and have a mailing list where you save the emails to your own computer and can reach out to people should things go tits up everywhere. Sadly something a lot of people have had to learn in this era of cancel culture.

[Vela Nanashi]

A third thing occurs to me too, I think in the future, commission based writing may be what will earn the most, where people who love your writing style can pay you to write a story on some theme, with some characters, for them, maybe even exclusively for them if they pay you enough. Or maybe you can let them get mentioned in part of the book, like people seem to enjoy to pay for being listed at the end of youtube videos, and maybe they can vote on things about the story, or what story you should write on next and things like that, I suspect that could give a nice extra income. Probably not enough to live on at least right away, but it might be nicely supplemental as an income, and if you are good enough that will spread by word of mouth and eventually you may collect enough patrons or whatever you choose to call them, that love your work and pay for it. Or pay to remove stressors from your life so you can make more stuff for them.

Still it is always best to make sure you write for yourself first, if you can be happy with just you writing it, and nobody reading it, then anything extra that happens is just a bonus, if you get sad when you don't get views or don't get comments, then maybe consider something else to do, as there will be quiet periods and some things might not get any attention at all, and if that breaks you down that is a bad thing to subject yourself to.

[Hilda]

Yes, people first need to choose to see erotic things on the electronic stores, then the market is saturated with erotica, so it is very hard to stand out, then of course you can't take too much per sale or you won't make any, so you have to decide on what price makes sense, and maybe you want to put up some sample works too, to make people interested, and wanting more of your writing, even with all of that it is of course not everyone who can make a living off it, but I suspect that each sale is more valuable as a someone actually likes my stuff enough to want to buy it, and you know maybe a sale is enough for a coffee or two to fuel the writing of the next chapter

It's called lean publishing, 'lean' being a business term I'd never heard before. One website describes it as, "A little, often." Instead of investing a year or two in writing a book, and then finding that no one is interested, you write a chapter, put it online, and wait for feedback. Depending on that feedback, you make appropriate changes to subsequent chapters. I guess it's something like the focus groups they use to measure reactions to new movies.

[Colin Piper]

It's called lean publishing, 'lean' being a business term I'd never heard before. One website describes it as, "A little, often." Instead of investing a year or two in writing a book, and then finding that no one is interested, you write a chapter, put it online, and wait for feedback. Depending on that feedback, you make appropriate changes to subsequent chapters. I guess it's something like the focus groups they use to measure reactions to new movies.

Interesting that this seems to be the expectation a lot of readers of stories published here have, going by their feedback. Normally I'd approach a story from a beginning-middle-end perspective, with thought for setting, characters and conflict. This is why I find it difficult to expand on a story if I feel the initial conflict has been resolved. If a reader is expecting more, I take that as a sign of a good story and leave it at that.

However, it may be a more modern approach to be open to the idea of stories continuing (or maybe not even modern, if you look at how writers like Dickens made a living out of serialised novels).

Anyway, I've used Duotrope in the past for finding publishers and tracking submissions https://duotrope.com/ for non-erotic writing (but it looks like they have 50 listings for Erotica), though they've since introduced subscription-only membership. They have a free trial period, but I haven't followed the link to see how it works - you may have to put in CC details just to get that, if it works the same as most trial periods. I'd only consider it again if I was serious about getting short pieces published for payment, which I've had small success in, but it was an awful amount of rejection for everything published.

Back to the original point, it would be very difficult to make money as a side hustle writing erotica, so be wary of such advice in get-rich-quick seminars and YouTube ads. The "on demand" private stories for select patrons idea is an interesting one though.


 

[Hilda]

Anyway, I've used Duotrope in the past for finding publishers and tracking submissions https://duotrope.com/ for non-erotic writing (but it looks like they have 50 listings for Erotica), though they've since introduced subscription-only membership. They have a free trial period, but I haven't followed the link to see how it works

Thank you for that link. I'd never heard of Duotrope and will take a closer look.

I've had only one book rejected, and the odd thing is that it was the publisher who reached out to me. He asked for a story outline and four or five sample chapters, which I sent off — and then heard nothing. I'm aware of shady companies that do something similar as a way of picking up free content, but in this case it was a reputable publisher.

A colleague tells me that the vetting procedure for submissions is getting more and more complicated, and taking more and more time. If she eventually receives a rejection, she usually puts her work into the public domain by uploading to an appropriate site. No royalties that way, but a far greater readership.

[Colin Piper]

Thank you for that link. I'd never heard of Duotrope and will take a closer look.

I've had only one book rejected, and the odd thing is that it was the publisher who reached out to me. He asked for a story outline and four or five sample chapters, which I sent off — and then heard nothing. I'm aware of shady companies that do something similar as a way of picking up free content, but in this case it was a reputable publisher.

A colleague tells me that the vetting procedure for submissions is getting more and more complicated, and taking more and more time. If she eventually receives a rejection, she usually puts her work into the public domain by uploading to an appropriate site. No royalties that way, but a far greater readership.

Seems like an opportune time to repeat SF writer Robert Heinlein's writing rules for success:

Robert A. Heinlein's 5 Rules For Writers

    1. You must write.
    2. You must finish what you write.
    3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
    4. You must put the work on the market.
    5, You must keep the work on the market until it is sold

Number 3 is generally interpreted nowadays to be "don't tinker with it endlessly" i.e. edit to the best of your ability, but at some point realise you've reached the point of diminishing returns and if there are still errors, the publisher will point them out ( there again, some of the published stuff I've read...).

Heinlein didn't have any problem sharing these rules to success with his would-be competitors, as he believed most of them would not follow them through anyway.

For instance, 100 people want to be writers. 50 of them will sit down and write something. 25 will finish it. 12 will get to a point where they stop tinkering with it. 6 will submit it to a publisher. All will get rejected. 3 will overcome the rejection and try other publishers, and start work on something else. How quickly you get to the (good) pointy end of wannabe writers even before you have anything published. And the abilities of the writer aren't even a consideration at this point - great stories and writing get rejected, don't we know this?

A good lesson to take from this is to start with short stories or website/newspaper/journal articles. Forever slaving over a novel that is your first attempt in the hope that one day you will be successful with it, is probably not the best approach.

Not that I'm an expert, but at least I've played the game, had some small pieces published, and have been paid for it, albeit only token amounts $5, $10, $15 kind of thing.


 

[Hilda]

Seems like an opportune time to repeat SF writer Robert Heinlein's writing rules for success:

Robert A. Heinlein's 5 Rules For Writers

    1. You must write.
    2. You must finish what you write.
    3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
    4. You must put the work on the market.
    5, You must keep the work on the market until it is sold

[snip]

A good lesson to take from this is to start with short stories or website/newspaper/journal articles. Forever slaving over a novel that is your first attempt in the hope that one day you will be successful with it, is probably not the best approach.

I used to be a huge fan of sci-fi and read voraciously. Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick were two writers I could never get into, which probably tells you more about me than it does about them.

Consequently I was unaware of Heinlein's Rules for Writers. No. 3 is a puzzle. I'm an obsessive tinkerer but the re-writing stops when the manuscript is submitted to the publisher. I soon learned to live with the changes that editors made to my spelling or punctuation. I've done exactly the same to manuscripts submitted to me for editing.

If Rule No. 3 is a puzzle, so are Nos. 4 and 5, for the same reason. Once a book has gone off to the publisher, everything is out of the hands of the author, and that includes how long the book is kept on the market.

I agree with you wholeheartedly about the need to start with small steps, and take time to learn the tricks and pitfalls of the trade. One of the latter is copyright law, which varies from country to country, and is constantly changing.

[Jed_]

Seems like an opportune time to repeat SF writer Robert Heinlein's writing rules for success:

Robert A. Heinlein's 5 Rules For Writers

    1. You must write.
    2. You must finish what you write.
    3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
    4. You must put the work on the market.
    5, You must keep the work on the market until it is sold

[snip]

A good lesson to take from this is to start with short stories or website/newspaper/journal articles. Forever slaving over a novel that is your first attempt in the hope that one day you will be successful with it, is probably not the best approach.

I used to be a huge fan of sci-fi and read voraciously. Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick were two writers I could never get into, which probably tells you more about me than it does about them.

Consequently I was unaware of Heinlein's Rules for Writers. No. 3 is a puzzle. I'm an obsessive tinkerer but the re-writing stops when the manuscript is submitted to the publisher. I soon learned to live with the changes that editors made to my spelling or punctuation. I've done exactly the same to manuscripts submitted to me for editing.

If Rule No. 3 is a puzzle, so are Nos. 4 and 5, for the same reason. Once a book has gone off to the publisher, everything is out of the hands of the author, and that includes how long the book is kept on the market.

I agree with you wholeheartedly about the need to start with small steps, and take time to learn the tricks and pitfalls of the trade. One of the latter is copyright law, which varies from country to country, and is constantly changing.

I’m published, but only because I’m a scientist, and that’s what we do.  Or, at least I used to be published when I was in the lab.  Now I’m not in the lab, but I write instructions for those that are in the lab, so now that I write constantly for work, I’m no longer published.

As far as my fiction, most is unpublishable, because well it’s meant for places like here.

I have started a fictional story that is moving at a snail’s pace that might be something I could publish..   Think I got 30 pages and a 50% finished outline.

And I love Heinlein.  I’m a little ambivalent about Dick; and I mean Dick not dick.  I got some Dick on this iPad I’m posting on, but no Heinlein.

And I agree with rule 3.  I’ve seen many writers on sites constantly rewriting what they already wrote.  I correct errors, but I never rewrite.  I’d probably have to constantly bite my tongue if I ever get an editor, “Those are my fucking words you piece of shit how dare you change them!”

[Rajah Dodger]

Seems like an opportune time to repeat SF writer Robert Heinlein's writing rules for success:

Robert A. Heinlein's 5 Rules For Writers

    1. You must write.
    2. You must finish what you write.
    3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
    4. You must put the work on the market.
    5, You must keep the work on the market until it is sold

Number 3 is generally interpreted nowadays to be "don't tinker with it endlessly" i.e. edit to the best of your ability, but at some point realise you've reached the point of diminishing returns and if there are still errors, the publisher will point them out ( there again, some of the published stuff I've read...).

Heinlein didn't have any problem sharing these rules to success with his would-be competitors, as he believed most of them would not follow them through anyway.

One must remember that Heinlein was submitting stories to the pulps and better magazines in the 40s and 50s.  There were more places to submit, you got actual rejections in a tolerable timeframe, and the pay was more significant.  So #1 and #2 are still in force, #3 is modified to make the story relevant to the site you're submitting to (or when you realize there's a flaw that needs addressing), and #4 and #5 become something like "Keep sending the story until you exhaust markets/websites".  And if you exhaust the market but think you were close, I'd look at a rewrite for that particular site.