As many of you know, I’m not the biggest fan of driving for Uber.
Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a great side hustle for many people. And it’s super flexible. You can work whenever you want.
But the thing about Uber is that you don’t make passive income. If you stop driving, you stop making money.
Simple as that.
But that’s not true when it comes to selling erotica. You can make money selling erotica 24/7.
Anyways, I started to think about my hourly erotica income because of a report I read about Uber drivers.
You may have heard about it or read about it. But it basically said Uber drivers made less than minimum wage.
So that got me thinking…how much money do I actually make from my erotica business on an hourly basis?
Why Erotica Income Is So Powerful
Now before I crunch the numbers and show you my math prowess (which is basically non-existent), let’s talk about something super important.
And it’s something that I didn’t really fully realize until very recently.
That’s the power of passive income from selling books on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).
Let’s say you release a book and it makes $50 bucks in its first year and you worked 5 hours to create it.
This means you made $10 per hour. That’s basically minimum wage in some states.
But let’s say year 2 rolls around and you make another $50 bucks.
Now, you’ve made a total of $100 bucks for 5 hours of work. In other words, your hourly rate DOUBLED in year 2 to $20 bucks per hour.
Pretty crazy right?
And if you make another $50 bucks in year 3, that rate will shoot up to $30 bucks per hour.
You see…that’s the power of passive income. It stacks and compounds.
The longer your books are available for sale on Amazon, the higher the sales potential.
Meaning, the longer they are available, the more they will be able to leverage the time you sunk into creating the books!
That’s why I think writing erotica is such a powerful business for people like us.
Increasing Your Hourly Income
Naturally, one of the things you may be thinking about is how to increase your hourly income.
Well, to increase your income, there are only two ways you can do it:
- Decrease the time it takes to write a book, and
- Increase the amount each book makes
#1 is a little hard to do because you may sacrifice quality by writing too fast.
But check out this post to see how long it should take to write a short story (and get some tips on how to write faster without sacrificing quality).
The other (and easier, IMO) to increase your income is to make more money.
I think the best way to do this is bundling your books.
This is a great strategy because it doesn’t take much time to create a bundle – maybe an hour or so.
And this allows you to increase your income without writing more content. And it allows you to sell old books as well.
P.S. check out the Erotica Academy Course to get my other strategies for skyrocketing your sales.
Estimating Your Hourly Income
Now if you want to track your hourly income, I would suggest keeping it all organized in an excel spreadsheet.
You can set it up with columns for: book title, hours worked, and income generated.
Then you can calculate your hourly wage per book.
But this strategy can be a difficult if you have bundles (because they are made up of several books).
So another strategy may be just to calculate your hourly wage as a whole.
But it’s a fun exercise to engage in. With some pen names, I’m making in excess of $100 per hour for the amount of work I put in!
KDP Erotica Hourly Income: Final Thoughts
Overall, calculating your KDP erotica hourly income is an interesting exercise.
If you do it, I’m sure you’ll be surprised by how much you’re actually working compared to other jobs.
That’s why I think erotica is a great side hustle for many people. You can make a respectable hourly wage AND work whenever you want in the comfort of your own home.
In fact, I’ve written many of my stories in my pajamas!
That’s the power of passive income…and writing smut.