Making a Living Writing Erotica

Renee Rose's getting-started story (and what she's learned) is highly instructive:

When I fell into writing spanking romance, I got lucky. It just so happened that the thing I wanted to write most in the world also happened to be a niche in which it’s easy to make a solid living. Within six months I was making enough each month to pay the mortgage and in a year I was making what I consider a full-time living. I read a figure (which I’m sorry, I can’t seem to dig up the reference now) that only seven percent of authors make it to five figures a year.  Really? I’m in the top seven percent?  Am I that good?  Nope. Not at all.
I cringe over some of my earlier works–overly wordy with too much passive voice, overused words like “that” and beating the reader over the head with the character’s emotions. But I always think how lucky I was to be able to hone my craft while still making money. I didn’t spend the last two years working on one perfect novel. I wrote 20 novellas, which provide a passive income stream while I work on the new books.

Be a Big Fish in a Small Sea – Find your Niche
The trick, I think to making a living writing erotica, is to find that targeted niche. Spanking romance is one of them. We learned at Eroticon 2014 from Josephine Myles and Anna Martin that M/M Erotic Romance is another highly lucrative niche.  I’m quite certain there are a great deal of other ones, and I’d love it if you’d add them to the comments to help other writers.  It’s easier to make a name for yourself amongst a smaller pool of books. There are many ready-made markets out there to small, targeted niches.  Spanking romance is far smaller a pool than BDSM. I think it was quite easy for me to get noticed and gather a following in this smaller pool.

Read the full article here: http://writesexright.com/blog/renee-rose-making-living-writing-erotica/
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Getting Started on Good Reads for Erotica Writers

Renee Rose tells how to deal with that necessary evil, GoodReads. Here's an excerpt from the middle of her article so you can see she knows her shit:

IMPORTANT:  This should go without saying, but I was overly critical at first and a friend of mine just posted about this.  If you are an author and have an author account, it does not behoove you to leave negative reviews of other author’s books using that account. You’re just asking for bad karma.

2)  If your books are not already in Goodreads (search first), you can add them by hitting “Manually add a book”.  Enter the ISBN or Amazon number and upload your cover pic and you’re good to go.  You can also add a book in advance of your book release this way and get people to add it to their TBR list.

3).  Mark your own books as read (but don’t add any star ratings or reviews!) and then add categories for your book (e.g., paranormal MM, BBW, domestic discipline, Net Galley Read, cheap smut– whatever you want listed for your book)

4) Add them to any Listopia lists. For my friends in my genre, I just set up the “Best Domestic Discipline Books of 2015.”  Please add yours and any favorites you have so far.

If there isn’t a good Listopia list for you book, create one (e.g., Best Lesbian BDSM of 2015).  Obviously add some other books to that list, so it doesn’t just include your book, and invite others to add to it.

Renee instructs you step by step, with screenshots, on how to set up your GoodReads author account the right way.

Read the whole article here: http://writesexright.com/columnists/renee-rose/goodreads-and-the-rated-review/



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