Five years as an indie erotica writer

Five years ago tonight, I quit writing for the erotica print market, and uploaded my first erotica offering on Smashwords. So this is one of my writing career anniversaries.


Over the last five years, I seen my sales start to promise a good living (on one ebook, I earned thirty-five dollars plus an hour before...), then watched my sales be destroyed first by Paypal, and then other outlets as someone decided that screaming, "Will someone please think of the children?!" was a good thing. I also got to watch outlets close, some of which I was doing good at (Oyster, how we will miss you), and others change the rules on which categories they were going to support (turns out the subscription model does not work for companies when it comes to romance). And Amazon....well, they are constantly changing the rules, but always in their own favor.


The only constant has been that (if an outlet allows it to be sold) dubious erotica is the money maker. And maybe romances--I am not sure if I wrote a romance if it would sell--but other writers seem to be doing good on that front. Of course, dubious erotica is the last thing you actually want to do if you care two cents about your reputation, or in my case, have family who care about such matters (I honestly think that one of my family members would rather have me be an ax murderer).


Not all of the problems have been external. The issues I had three years ago when I started really, really needing bipolar meds halted all my writing for awhile. It took almost an year for a doctor to get the chemical cocktail right; and then last year, I briefly could not get the meds for insurance reasons--none of which helped my writing any.


And this year, I have been focused on getting some non-erotica projects done, including a satire of the Necronomicon (almost done there--after thirteen months), so my output has not been what it should have been.


But still, every month, I do earn a little...which is probably why I will continue to write erotica (probably some of it dubious) for the foreseeable future.


[And before you ask, no, I do not share my erotica pen-names with the general public. It has been my policy since I started writing for the print market in 1984 (golly gee, it has been a long and dubious career). And yes, I know some people in the one of the other fields I write in, would just love to know my pen-names, so that they can loudly declare that I am unfit to be a spiritual leader--which is all the more reason not to share them. And yes, I know that this probably costs me some sales, but that is my choice to make.]


So Happy Indie Erotica Anniversary to me!

Publishing erotica on Amazon--where the rules constantly change and your opinion does not matter.