In my opinion, selling erotica on Kindle is one of the best side hustles.
It takes almost no skill at all and you make money even while sleeping! The income is truly passive.
I’ve been writing erotica on Amazon KDP for about two and a half years now. During that time I’ve made over $50,000 selling smut (and most of that has come in the last 6 months).
I have learned a ton about optimizing your self publishing business during that time. Here are 15 things I’ve learned about publishing erotica on Amazon:
1. Persistence is key
It doesn’t matter if you’re a crappy writer (or even if you’re a good writer). The number one key to self publishing success if persistence and consistency.
Always Be Publishing!
The more you publish the more touch points customers have to discover you.
I often find that first time authors publish a lot in the first 2 – 3 weeks. However, they don’t see immediate results and quit after that.
Most people quit WAY too soon (and often before things turn the corner). I only made $190 my first month of publishing erotica.
And I didn’t even break $1,000 a month until five months later.
Be persistent and get on a consistent publishing schedule (two times a week is good) and you’ll see tremendous results over the next 3 – 6 months.
2. Niches do matter
Research is often an overlooked aspect of being a good writer.
If the niche is too small you won’t be able to scale long term. Conversely, if the niche is way too saturated, your stories won’t be discovered by customers.
Not all niches are created the same. In the beginning, I tried writing in 4 or 5 different erotica niches. Not all of them worked.
I stuck with the ones that sold the best for me and never looked back. Even today, I still experiment around with different niches as the market does change over time.
If your books aren’t selling try moving onto a different niche.
Related Post: How To Niches That Make $1,000+ Per Month
3. Always be writing
One of best habits for success is getting on a consistent publishing schedule. If you start to gain a following, you don’t want to screw that up by not publishing for 3 – 4 weeks.
It is FAR better to publish once a week than publish 4 books in one week and taking a month off.
Customers will likely forget about you and it’ll kill your sales momentum.
If you get on a consistent publishing schedule (two times a week is great), you’ll see a tremendous improvement in results.
4. Take time to analyze sales
Part of being a great author is taking the time to analyze your sales. Once a week I like to look at my best sellers over the past month.
I’ll look over the cover design, my description, and the actual book content. I try to see why this book was particularly popular and try to replicate the results.
You’ll often see patterns emerge.
It is very important to take a few minutes a week to run this exercise.
In the beginning, I noticed that my covers with just a shirtless guy on the front sold better than those that featured couples.
So, I tweaked my covers over the next few weeks and noticed a 10% increase in sales!
Analyzing sales is REALLY important and you’ll often find easy ways to boost sales without doing much work.
5. Bundles rock
Bundles are a great way to generate additional sales. In fact, bundles are often my best selling books.
Bundles are just a collection of your stories. Make sure they are in the same niche. Don’t start bundling your stories until you have a decent sized collection (I would say 25+ books).
Also, do not over-bundle your books. You don’t want customers to think you’re trying to make a quick buck by reselling them old stories.
6. It’s better to have a big library
Some writers like to have dozens of pen names even if they’re writing books in the same genre. I’m firmly against that.
I believe it is MUCH better to have a big library than multiple pen names. When you have a huge library you can bundle more books.
It is also much easier to market your books through your backmatter when you have a huge collection.
Finally, it is far easier to attract long-term buyers when you have a huge collection of books.
7. Don’t check your sales 100 times every hour
Alright, I’ll admit I’m guilty of this. I often check my sales dozens of times an hour.
I encourage you NOT to do this…especially in the beginning!
On some days I got depressed because sales didn’t stack up to my expectations. Don’t worry, everyone has bad sales days.
You’re not doing yourself any favors by checking for sales 3 times in 10 minutes. Your time is better spent writing more stories!
8. Scrivener rocks
Scrivener is by far the best tool you can have to write erotica. It is an incredible word processing software that blows Microsoft Word out of the water.
It wonderfully formats your ebooks perfectly so there are no issues when you upload onto Amazon KDP. Scrivener was the very first investment I made in my publishing business and I have never looked back.
Check out this post to see how using Scrivener increased my sales by 25%!
9. PicMonkey is great
If you’re going to design your own covers I would highly recommend PicMonkey. It is far easier to use than PhotoShop for beginning authors. Plus, it’s cheaper ($3.99 a month vs. $9.99).
I design all of my covers using PicMonkey. The software is easy to use and highly intuitive. Plus, they have a ton of great resources on the website to help you design the perfect cover.
10. Book covers matter a lot
ALWAYS judge a book by its cover!
There are literally millions of books on Amazon. If you don’t have a good cover your book will not sell well.
Despite what people say, covers DO matter! Good covers won’t compensate for a poor story, but at least they will lure a customer in to look at your blurb/description.
If you master the art of designing good covers you will do very well selling erotica.
11. Be willing to cut losses
As I mentioned before, it is a smart idea to experiment around with a few different niches and pen names.
However, don’t be afraid to cut your losses. Some niches just don’t work out. The audience may be too small or there might be too much competition.
Don’t be afraid to stop writing for a particular pen name if the sales aren’t there. If the pen name or niche hasn’t taken off in 3 – 6 months it is best to move on to better ideas.
12. You don’t need an editor
In my opinion, hiring an editor is a waste of money. It is hard to find a good editor and they’ll likely charge around $5 for every 500 – 1,000 words.
That is a ton of money out the door, especially when you’re just getting your business off the ground.
I self edit my books and have never regretted it. Sure, I might miss a few things, but I have never heard any complaints or bad reviews related to grammar.
Besides…I have found that erotica readers are surprisingly lenient with grammar and spelling mistakes!
13. Reviews don’t matter
Don’t worry about getting reviews for your books. Given the nature of the genre, most customers will not leave reviews.
Not having reviews WILL NOT impact your sales! One of my best selling stories over the past month has ZERO reviews!
That’s the wonderful thing about selling erotica…you don’t need reviews!
14. Take breaks
It is important to take breaks during writing to avoid burn out. I typically like to write between 500 and 1,000 words before taking a break.
Also, do not attempt to burn yourself out. I often see people try to write 6,000 words and then not being able to write anything the next day. They get burned out and have to take a few days off to mentally recover.
That really puts a cramp in your publishing schedule!
15. Research your competitors
This is a very important thing to do. You must research your competitors! I can’t tell you how many good ideas I have gotten from reading my competitor’s work.
You can learn a lot from reading their stories. Look to see how their stories are structured, how they promote their backmatter, and even sign up for their email list.
I would HIGHLY recommend getting a subscription to Kindle Unlimited. You can borrow up to 10 books at a time for $9.99.
Most authors enroll their books into Kindle Unlimited, so you can borrow them for free to read up on your competitors!
Click here to sign up for a FREE 30 day Kindle Unlimited trial!
