How long until I make $1,000 a month?

How do I become a successful erotica author?

Tell me how to sell more eBooks!

Those are three of the typical questions I see and hear from new erotica authors. Those are great questions to have because it means you’re thinking about goals.

However, keep in mind that everyone will have a different learning curve and a different income profile. There’s no one specific blue print that will bring you to $1,000 of sales within 2 months.

I wanted to provide readers with easy and actionable steps to really increase their sales. So, here are 5 ways to really start making money writing erotica.

1. Design a kick ass cover

A book cover is the first thing potential customers see when they’re scrolling through a sea of books to buy on Amazon. As a result, you want your book cover to stand out.

Now, you don’t need to hire a big time book designer who charges $100 per cover. All you need is simple photo editing skills and you’ll be good to go.

I highly recommend using PicMonkey to design your covers. The interface is much more friendly and intuitive than Photoshop.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when designing your cover:

1. Make sure the colors match the tone of your story/niche. If it’s something very happy or romantic, put in brighter colors.

If it’s something a little more dark (say a BDSM or domination story) use darker colors such as black, red, gray, or even purple.

2. Make sure your title and author name are clearly visible. You don’t want to have potential customers squinting to read your book cover.

2. Write a great blurb

A great blurb is really important to have. Even if you have the best book ever, no one will read it if your description sucks.

Take some time and actually write a good description. Don’t just come up with something on the fly right before you publish.

Really take some time out of your day and make it the best you can. If you can spend 3+ hours writing a short story, you can spend 30 minutes coming up with a good description.

Here are some tips:

1. Be mysterious. Don’t give away the entire plot. You want to be a little vague, but still give the reader an idea of what to expect.

2. Try to incorporate keywords into the description. This won’t help your amazon SEO rank, but it will help readers identify if the book is something they want.

3. Pick the right niche

Many successful writers have differing opinions on this. Some think if you don’t pick the right niche you’ll fail no matter how good your story is.

Others think anyone can make something work in a specific niche as long as they publish consistently and put out a great product.

Personally, I think picking the proper niche is one of the most important parts of being successful.

When you’re picking a good niche here are a few things to consider:

• What are the top keywords?
• How many books are published every week?
• Do the top authors have relatively low book rankings (less than 10,000)?

Related Post: The Best Erotica Niches of 2018

4. Publish, publish, publish!

If there’s only one take away you ever get from me it is to publish consistently. I know it’s hard (especially in the beginning) when you might only be selling one or two books a week.

In fact, it may seem like there’s no one out there reading your books.

However, you have to hold your head down and keep grinding. No one is an immediate self published writing success overnight. It takes time, patience, and most importantly hard work.

That’s why you need to get into a strict publication schedule. I would recommend publishing at least once a week at the bare minimum (twice to three times a week if you’re very driven).

When you’re a no name author, no one will flock to your books. They want to see a consistent author who publishes regularly before they start buying.

And the biggest reason to keep on publishing regularly is you begin to build a backmatter of books. If a customer likes one book you wrote, they’ll likely browse through your catalog and buy other book!

I’ve had customers who really liked my stuff and bought 20+ books at once! It took me over a year to get to that level, but it’s well worth it when those big sales day kick in. You feel all giddy and feel like you’re able to accomplish anything!

5. Read your competitors’ work

This is one thing most authors don’t do. You have to keep in mind that being a successful self published erotica writer isn’t all about writing 100% of the time.

You have to research niches, design covers, and come up with interesting stories!

Part of the research process should be reading your competitor’s books. See what they’re doing. Are they changing the structure of their stories?

Do they use any interesting plot points, words, or anything else that you can borrow into your own books?

Finally, do they include backmatter in their books? How do they promote their other books?

Do they have a newsletter you can subscribe to?

Hint: you should subscribe so you can see how other successful authors run their empires. You might even get a few ideas to add to your own list.

P.S. Click here to sign up for a FREE trial of Kindle Unlimited to read millions of eBooks on Amazon for free.

Final Thoughts

No one ever said making money writing erotica is easy. It takes hard work and patience (especially in the beginning).

However, by following these tips, I have created a $1,000+ monthly income stream!

I hope you enjoyed these five tips to earn money writing erotica!