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.

Barnes and Noble melted?!

It seems that Barnes and Noble is currently having website troubles. As in you can't actually get to any sales page for anyone's books, no matter who the writer is. Yes, they are knee deep in 404 "page not found" errors. That can't be good for business, can it?

[Update--the preceding was posted at 5 pm MST; and now at 9:30 pm, Barnes and Noble seems to have discovered and fixed the problem--whatever it was. Still one wonders how many sales they lost during the down time.]

Why I do not advertise certain books

Here is an ebook that I actually advertise.

Last week was the annual ebook sale promotion on Smashwords. I had a few ebooks on sale during the promotion (some that I admit to writing; some under a different pen-name). The results were as expected--personally, I always have trouble moving stuff on Smashwords...I think that it is the website itself, and not my writing that makes my sales slow there.

Now, one of the comments I got on Facebook was from someone that did not know that I wrote a version of the Golden Dawn Neophyte (0=0) ritual that required only three officers to perform--which brings up the whole question of why I do not advertise that ebook more.

To understand that, one needs to know the history of the ebook in question. The three officer version was something that I wrote for Bast Temple, the Denver GD lodge that I belong to. It was written because we could only gather four members initially--it was either do a revised version of the Neophyte ritual or not practice the ritual at all. (The person in the hot seat, having performed Neophyte rituals as the sole officer, wanted to spread the work around.)

Later, the ritual was later published on Lulu in a hard cover edition. It was probably over-priced. At a certain point, Lulu removed it from publication because their page count requirements had changed for hard cover printing--it became 46 pages too short under the revised rules (it might be even more than that now...I haven't chacked page count requirements lately for that outlet).

So the ritual spent sometime out of print...until last year when I decided to put it up on Smashwords as an ebook. It is probably still over-priced. Abd it is only available on Smashwords at the moment.

Why? Because I actually intend to write the additional pages to get it back up on Lulu. And the same pages are going to be in the Smashwords edition also. So I have not done all the steps necessary to get it into the Smashwords Premium Catalog (which is how you get an ebook on Smashwords though to Apple and Barnes&Noble.)

Part of the reason for the delay was that I needed to finish off my college classes. Another part is projects with a higher priority number. And the final part is that I am not completely sure what I want to add to the book yet.

And considering that I have been told by some initiates of the Golden Dawn tradition that it is not needed...well, it is understandable that I do not advertise it that much. I might not advertise it that much when it is finally complete.

For those who have brought a copy though Smashwords, the important part to remember is that as soon as I add the pages and upload it to Smashwords, you get to go and download the latest version--therefore, if you own an ebook copy of the current, you also own a copy of the future improved edition.

As for books that are available on Barnes&Noble, one of the ebooks that I do advertise is Pizza Boxes on the Floor, which contains an article that I am going to be revisiting during the June Open Full Moon ritual. I think I do so, merely because my cat likes to have his picture on the cover. I am strange like that.

Finally, Bad Monkey has a cover picture at B&N

Bad Monkey is available online at Barnes and Noble.

Barnes and Noble finally put up the cover image for Bad Monkey, the ebook that I collected the second year's worth of newsletter articles that I wrote for Hearthstone Community Church. I am not sure where there was a delay for the cover to appear there; I guess that B&N has some manual vetting and approval process for covers. What I do know is that my little ebook spent the whole Christmas shopping season without a cover picture. I can't imagine that helped its sales any. Oh well, B&N now shows that it actually has a cover picture of a very bad monkey armed with a hammer, breaking up pottery.

Tentacle Sex Fiends

That thing on Trump's head is a Tentacle Sex Fiend.

Something that one notices when one writes erotica, especially after this spring's Paypal fit over the Forbidden Four, are the weird things that other erotica writers are hacking out.

One of these weird things is Tentacle Sex. Yes, erotica involving tentacles (demonic and/or alien), especially slimy tentacles and dubious consent. Isn't that bordering on two of the Forbidden Four?!

At first, I thought that it was just a Lovecraft fan taking their Lovecraft fetish to a new level. But then I noticed that more than one person was writing about tentacle sex. Ok, maybe there is more than one writer out there with a Lovecraft fetish, I thought. Then I noticed more tentacle sex show up in the Smashwords front page display--enourgh to make me curious.

So last night, I decided to punch in "tentacle sex" into the search form at Smashwords (400 plus in the results), Barnes and Noble (between 400 and 100, depending upon how refined your search is), and Amazon (about 400 results). And there are a couple of dozen writers who seem to specialize in this sub-genre, with a half dozen or more tentacle sex ebooks apiece. More telling is the fact that the prices seem to be solid at $2.99 for three or four thousand words.

Ok, I understand why the writers are writing this stuff. After all, I write one of the Forbidden Four...because, well, people buy the stuff, and I have cats to feed. (In fact, it was the realization that someone was getting paid to write one of the Forbidden Four that got me started as a professional writer.) As a writer, occasionally you write something as a test...to see if there are some sex fiends out there who will like your tasty erotica offering.

And if you make enourgh, you write more of that type. Your focus as a writer tends to go when the money is...especially if you are good at writing a genre or sub-genre (even if it does not personally turn your own crank) and the pay is decent. But in order to sell the stuff, there has to be readers.

So my question, given my search results, is: Who are these tentacle sex fiends?!

I mean, based on my search results, there has to be quite a few of them. You wouldn't get that much of this stuff up in the five years that ereaders have been around if there wasn't a fair number of them. Could my neighbor be an alien tentacle fan?! My doctor?! The bag-boy or bag-girl at the local grocery store?! How about the cop at the local station house?! Is the world filled with these tentacle sex fiends?!

Of course, the bigger question is should I attempt to write a tentacle sex story myself to test the market. What?! I am supposed to be classier than that--who did you think that you have been reading? Miss Manners?

After all, I have cats to feed; and I have already proven that I really have no pride left, thanks to my empty wallet.

(And before you ask, no, I will not advertise any tentacle sex offerings here...I have my silly rules about not advertising most of my more interesting work--call it a small town sense of shame. Only wholesome fiction and esoteric commentary gets advertised here.)