Erotica writing skills: do you really need them?
One thing a lot of people ask me is if they need to be a “good” writer to make money writing erotica.
In fact, a lot of people think they can’t compete with the established authors on Amazon because they didn’t go to school for writing.
And this is a hot topic for many, but I’m going to address it.
Many other hardcore or successful authors may disagree with me, but here’s the deal:
NO
You do not need to be a great writer to be able to make money. Does being a good writer help? Yes, of course!
But writing is only a small part of being a successful author.
In fact, I see many great writers FAIL to make more than a few bucks on Amazon even though they were writing with impeccable grammar and even a good story.
Why writing skills play a small part
As a self published author you have to wear many hats.
If you were a writer for a large traditional publisher you would have a lot of support.
For example, they would world renowned artists help make book covers for you.
And they would also have professional marketing people come up with a marketing plan for your book.
But as a self published erotica author, you won’t have that. You have to do it all!
And unfortunately, you need to be competent in all of those tasks in order to succeed.
Now I’m not saying you have to be a pro level graphic designer or social media whiz to be able to sell books (far from it).
But you need to have a basic understanding of these skills.
Keywords are often ignored by authors
One thing that I really ignored when I first started writing erotica is keywords.
And I see many “good writers” do this as well. They think just because the story is great and very thoroughly researched, people will be shoving their hard earned money into their face.
That couldn’t be farther from the truth.
One of the biggest sources of traffic for your book on Amazon will be search engine optimization (SEO).
This means your keywords have to be on point.
If the niche you are writing in is BDSM erotica and people search that term and you don’t come up in the results, how will they ever find your book?
Just because a book is well written doesn’t mean anyone will be able to find it.
SEO/Keywords for your books is the cheapest (and often easiest) marketing strategy for someone to find your books to buy.
Book covers
Another area that is often overlooked by experienced authors is the book cover.
People ABSOLUTELY judge a book by its cover.
As a result, your book cover needs to look professional and not like some high school teenager slapped it together in 10 minutes in photoshop before publishing.
Book covers are what lure customers in to buy your books.
And as such, they are often very important to your success.
P.S. check out this blog post for some tips to create great book covers that will have customers buying your books.
Erotica Writing Skills – Final Thoughts
As you can see, writing skills are only a SMALL part of the overall success of a self published erotica author.
Sure, great writing skills are helpful and will keep customers coming back to read more and more of your books.
But just because you aren’t a super duper writer doesn’t mean you have no chance to succeed.
Because there are so many inputs in the equation to success, it kind of levels out the playing field for everyone (if you think about it).
If all you had to do to be successful is being able to write well, the best authors in the world would have been the ones that aced high school and college English..not bozos like me who barely skated by.
Here’s the thing that most people won’t admit. You only need to be “good enough” when it comes to writing.
If you can build suspense, write in a decent story that flows, and create a “dirty” sex scene, you’ll do pretty well. And none of that really requires you to be an amazing author.
What is often as important as your writing skills is:
- Writing in a niche that people actually read (not a dying niche)
- Researching and using keywords that will get you sales
- …and marketing and promoting your content
So keep that in mind if you think your writing skills are going to stop you from making money. It wont!