A little over two years ago, I published my first short erotic story to sell on Amazon. It seemed like such a long time ago!
Anyways, it was a pretty big deal for me. I wrote the story after reading one blog post and I didn’t even really know what to do. However, I was proud that I published my first book.
That first short story didn’t actually sell that well. Nevertheless, I kept publishing and refining my writing process until I got it down just right.
Here is my 6 step process to selling erotica short stories on Amazon.
1. Pick a profitable niche
Picking a great niche is incredibly important to succeeding as a short erotica author.
If you pick a bad niche, your sales won’t be very good. If you pick an okay niche, you might do good.
However, if you pick a good niche with low competition and high reader interest, your books will sell like hot cakes.
Now, I’m not saying you won’t succeed by writing in highly competitive niches. I’m just saying it’s a very big uphill battle for most people.
2. Research the niche and write your story
It is incredibly important to thoroughly research the niche that you are writing in. A lot of the customers in a particular niche only read in that specific genre.
As a result, it is incredibly important to read stories from other successful authors. I would recommend reading 5+ other authors in a niche before you attempt to write a story.
Try to figure out why they are successful and learn how they structure their stories. Do you notice any common themes?
Perhaps they use a certain type of character commonly. Or maybe their story structure is pretty much the same. Also, if they have a good writing style, take note of that too. Writing style is important and reading better authors allows you to mimic their writing style.
Also, you should focus attention on how the authors are promoting their books. Are they using email lists? Do they down the website?
If they have an email list, be sure to sign up for it to see how they run that operation.
P.S. Sign up for a FREE trial of Kindle Unlimited to read millions of eBooks on Amazon for free. This will help you research other top authors much easier (and cheaper too)!
3. Design a great cover
Designing a good cover is important to selling books (especially fiction books).
Despite that people tell you, customers ALWAYS judge a book by its cover!
Here are a few tips to deigning a really good cover that will rake in the sales:
- Make sure your pen name and book title are highly visible
- The color scheme of the cover should match the tone of the book
- Study what other top authors are doing (who/what do they have on the cover and what colors are they using)
Related Post: How To Design A Kickass Cover That Sells!
4. Publish your story on Amazon KDP
I publish all of my stories exclusively on Amazon KDP. Amazon sells millions of eBooks every single day. If you aren’t selling on Amazon you aren’t maximizing your sales.
Now, some people wonder if they should publish exclusively on Amazon through KDP Select.
That’s an entirely different question. In general, I would say most authors would make more money exclusively publishing their short stories on Amazon.
If you publish exclusively through Amazon KDP you get a variety of tools to help boost your book royalties like getting cash for book borrows.
Check out this post to see the pros and cons of KDP Select.
5. Write consistently
As I have said many times, the key to making money writing and selling erotica is to publish consistently.
If you publish good stories consistently, you will build up a great following of repeat buyers. A lot of people give up when their first two or three books don’t do well.
However, you have to stick with it in the beginning. My first two or three books made less than $100 over their lifetime.
For beginning erotica authors, I would suggest publishing 2 – 3 books per week.
6. Analyze your sales
Researching and writing a book is just the beginning. Once you have sales come in, it is very important to analyze the sales data.
I highly recommend using Book Report.
After you have sales coming in you need to analyze your results. I would highly recommend getting Book Report.
It is FREE if you make less than $1,000 per month. If you make more than $1,000 a month, you can afford the $19 subscription cost!
Book Report is really cool because it aggregates all of your sales data into easy tables and charts.
This makes going through your sales data a lot easier!
Which books are doing the best? Why are they doing well? Is it the cover design? Is it the story content? Performing this exercise will help you generate more sales.
Final Thoughts
Writing and selling erotica short stories on Amazon can be difficult in the beginning. However, if you stick with it, you can create a great source of long-term passive income.
In fact, I’ve used my passive income stream from my erotica publishing business to travel the world!
P.S. If you to learn more about making money selling erotica on Amazon, get the Erotica Academy Course. You’ll learn my Secret Step-By-Step Secret Formula to publishing erotica profitably
One of my recent students increased their sales from $200 per month to $400 per month!