I just spent 35 minutes on two sentences. I vented about it to the internet, and it gave me this Nathaniel Hawthorne quote. I found it helpful for my morale.

I thought it might help some other writers in this group as they struggle to transform intriguing thoughts into engaging sentences.

Cover concerning you?

Title tribulations?

Need feedback on formatting?

Post your books here so the community can offer constructive criticism.

Rules:

Kindness is not required, but constructiveness is.

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3. What are your goals for the week? And what are you going to do to make sure you achieve them?

Can I add lesbian erotica to the main erotica category as a second option on kdp? Is it allowed? or should I only leave it in the lesbian section of the LGBTQ erotica category?

I mean is it okay to have both like this:

Kindle Books › Literature & Fiction › Erotica › LGBTQ+ Erotica › Lesbian

Kindle Books › Romance › Erotica

I want to start writing some serialized erotic fiction on Substack that focuses on bdsm and spoiling, but am worried about issues with Stripe. Has anyone had issues around their accounts getting banned? If so, what other platforms would you recommend? Want to have multiple paid tiers and will not post explicit imagery.

Hi all. I just started writing my first erotica short (it’s MM first time) and while I’m okay with it, I feel like it’s not exactly keeping me excited to keep writing it. Mostly because from what market research I’ve done, most of the first time MM stuff is in the college\jock\cowboy genre, and I wanted to lean more into forced proximity situations (stuck in a cabin during a storm, apocalypse, any other difficult situation you could think of) and have the two MMCs have to explore their newfound sexuality that way.

Is that too far of a market deviation from what the people expect, or is it okay to try something like that out? I have seen many writers do this exact thing in the niche, but I’m not sure! I want to start publishing and writing more, but I feel bored with the most popular parts of that niche!

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When the creative juices get flowing I don't want to step away for fear of cutting off the flow. After hours of writing, I suddenly realize I can't actually focus anymore. At that point, I know it's too late and I am doomed for a 24-hour headache. Do you have any tips or tricks?

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Hey all, I’m working on a novel-length story that falls into the erotic romance category. Obviously, any character in any of my writing is always well above 18, though I’ve come across a situation where I can’t find a clear answer.

In short, is it okay to mention something clearly non-sexual as part of a character’s backstory that happened at a younger age? For example, in reference to a nearly 40 year old character, I had something like: “so-and-so knows that smoking isn’t great, but it was a habit they started at age xx, and they don’t plan to stop anytime soon.” (Less shittily written but something along those lines).

This is the only backstory reference like this, the story is pretty plot heavy and it’s more than clear throughout my writing that the character is nearly 40. The goal of the mention was to convey how deeply rooted of a habit it is, especially since the storyline takes place at a time where it wasn’t uncommon for adults to have started smoking at a younger age. The reference even takes place in a chapter where there is no sex scene, if that matters. I just don’t want to end up in a situation where it’s published and there’s an issue because of a one-time mention like this, though maybe I’m overthinking it.

I’ve already edited to bump up the “started smoking/vaping age” to 19 as I don’t think it’s worth it to fret over, and may just cut it out altogether. I still felt it was a question worth asking though, since longstanding habits or past tidbits can help flesh out a character (I’m thinking of examples like a past medical diagnosis that may have happened at a younger age, or losing someone at a younger age, developing a love for music or sports as a teen, etc.). As much as I use backstory references I think I’ve always immediately defaulted to college age (or later), hence why it’s a new-to-me (and perhaps stupid) question.

Anyway, is mentioning something non-sexual that happened in a character’s past at a younger age fine, or is it just better to just not even bother in this type of writing? I was thinking the answer would be a hard ‘no’ in shorts, but maybe okay for longer stories (depending on context of course)? Any thoughts are appreciated!

I have been writing erotica just for fun between more extensive projects for a while now. Just short little flash stories for my partner. I am now considering getting more serious with it. I know what my partner is into and mostly write to their tastes, but now that I am trying to branch out i want some more honest feedback. Any suggestions?

I have been building up a readership on Wattpad with my first serialised erotic romance. For the next book, I aim to convert readers to paid subscribers who can access advanced chapters, bonus scenes, etc. on another platform.

So far, I have considered using Patreon, Ream and Inkitt. Does anyone have advice on the best platform to use?

Edit: I’m unsure about KU because I enjoy my Wattpad community and would like to continue writing for my free readers. Thus, I’d rather have a paid option and allow free readers to read at a slower pace. As I understand it, KU requires exclusive publishing?

For context: I only publish my stories in Germany, I have done 90 stories in 6 years, on average about 6-7k words, everything is in KU and costs €2.99 except for a few older stories at €0.99. I write lesbian, gay, and straight stories. Everything I write always has something to do with BDSM across the board.

https://imgur.com/a/CdcAqCy

Hi, it's been six months since I did my last dataporn. At the time, my royalties were at a little over €300 monthly, and I was very optimistic about being able to maintain that number.

But that didn't work out.

Although I've published 16 new stories since then, the royalties have steadily declined to a low point of €99 in August, before recovering to €150 in September. October also looks like it could bring me around €150 again. In total, it's been about €1,000 in royalties over the last six months for me, or €6.911.72 from May 2020 first story published until today.

What was the reason? I think it's mainly because I mixed different kinks under the same pen names. Since I'd created 21 different pen names over the years, I decided to reduce them to just my 3 most successful ones so far. So I kept one for stories told from a female perspective, one for stories from a male perspective, and one for my gay stories.

In hindsight, that was a massive mistake. My stories are all somehow connected through the theme of BDSM and power dynamiques, but beyond that a lot of them are still very different from each other. I think I drove away old readers and turned off new ones when they looked at my author pages.

Only with the gay stories did I stay true to the original line, and this pen name is currently performing the best for me, even though it only got one new story in the entire six months, while the other two pen names seem to be ruined.

So the takeaway: Be careful if you want to mix different kinks under one pen name.

Otherwise, the German market might currently also be suffering a lot from AI books and the automatic AI translations of foreign authors by Amazon.

I'm now going to start over once again. I'm going to give up all my pen names except the gay one. Then I'll start completely from scratch. Better covers, killer blurbs, clearly defined fetishes. No more mixed pen names. That's what I aim for.

Maybe I'll remove all my old stories from Amazon and republish them reorganized under different pen names once again, if that's possible. Many of these stories have been making zero revenue for ages anyway. We'll see what works.

Well, this was my little dataporn report here from Germany. I hope that in maybe six months I'll be able to report some better news. Thanks for reading.

I've been doing some research on Smashwords and was suprised to see that there are 3-6K taboo shorts on offer for 3.99 or even higher. And stories over 10K for 4.99 or higher.

It's not just the really obvious AI-shorts but also shorts from regular writers who've been around for a while.

There's also someone on Amazon who's asking 6.99 for 6-7K shorts (obvious AI covers and questionable content) and ranking relatively high in their erotica sub-genre with a lot of good reviews, but I assume that's mostly KU and maybe some other shenangians?

But what do you think? 3.99 for 6K shorts? Yes or no?

Have a blurb that is bugging you?

Want to maximize its marketing moxie?

Post it here, either in its entirety or in part, and let your peers take a crack at whipping it into shape.

Rules:

Blurbs only, please.

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3. How's it going?

No genitalia are shown, nor are bras or panties. Let's say a sexy red nightdress with cleavage. Everything is covered.

I'm an Asian author writing an original post-apocalyptic fantasy web novel.

I'd like to publish the English translation for free, chapter by chapter, and optionally accept donations through an external platform.

The story contains explicit sexual content and some potentially sensitive themes.

For example, a distant descendant of the protagonist calls him "Dad," despite the fact that they are separated by 400 years.

The protagonist also has a peculiar physical restriction: when he is forced to receive oral sex or penetrative intercourse, he cannot physically resist. Instead, his body involuntarily responds by groping the woman's breasts or buttocks, even against his own will.

This restriction, and the protagonist's struggle to overcome it, are closely tied to the main plot of the novel.

I'm not looking to sell chapters or put the ending behind a paywall. I just want to share the story for free and give interested readers a way to support my work.

Are there any combinations of free publishing platforms and donation services that would allow this?

Thanks!

Sprints are here

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2. Rooftop yellings? Successes? Failures?
3. What is a question you have for more experienced authors?

Hello everyone,

I recently got back into writing and I started off with a steamy novel. I would love to hear opinions on my ideas and writing style from friends etc but due to the nature of the story it is not really possible. It is also still the ugly duckling stage so this is not me asking for proper feedback or releasing it out to the world yet.
But just having someone tell you if the direction of the story is decent would be nice.

This is more of a vent than anything else but how does everyone else deal with this?

Edit: I just want to say a super big thank you to everyone who has responded so far. I was honestly hesitant make this post in the first and seeing everyone being so supportive and nice genuinely means a lot to me :)

Sprints are here

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2. Rooftop yellings? Successes? Failures?
3. Tell us about your current favs? Book, music, app, movie, tv show, etc? What are you feeling passionate about?

Cover concerning you?

Title tribulations?

Need feedback on formatting?

Post your books here so the community can offer constructive criticism.

Rules:

Kindness is not required, but constructiveness is.

Sprints are here

1. Goals for the day? (Word count? Reading? Editing? Covers? Something else?)
2. Rooftop yellings? Successes? Failures?
3. What are your goals for the week? And what are you going to do to make sure you achieve them?