Self-Publishing Goons: Yep, people buy it!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Self-Publishing Goons: Yep, people buy it!

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

So what's the situation with names, do they have to be unique? Like if there are already books called Dead Heat and Stolen Hearts, would I get any grief or problems for calling my book Stolen Hearts book one: Dead Heat?

(Not actual titles I'm considering, just examples used to illustrate the question)

Also great OP. People have often told me there's a formula to writing romance, but rarely has anyone ever actually linked to any decent resources on it.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2014 10:51

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 10:20

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Interesting article on the 'War on Amazon' that's apparently happening:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/04/war-on-amazon-publishing-writers

# ¿ Jun 7, 2014 08:29

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

PoshAlligator posted:

Here's the new cover design:

Is the "sold over two copies" thing too dorky and dumb?

It was the icing on the cake in terms of showing off the sense of humour people can expect, personally it got a laugh from the missus and I. I thought if anything, you could lose the quote.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2014 13:00

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Grammaton posted:

How many of you self-publish but also seek a literary agent for traditional publishing? Will an agent be soured by the fact that I self-published?

Only if it fails spectacularly. My understanding is if you can go to an agent and say 'I have a book I can prove people are already buying, and I want to cut you in,' they'd have to be spectacularly bad at their job to turn you down.

e: It's sort of like theatre. You put on a cheap production in a tiny theatre and then use that / the reviews you got to approach a bigger theatre and get funding. Except with self pub there's no capacity on the first venue so if you do well enough, there's no need to contact the bigger theatre. And I guess self publishing there's less chance of getting fingered by unscrupulous agents who promise you Broadway but leave you crying in a dressing room.

I think what I'm saying is I have no idea and should probably abandon this metaphor.

Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Jun 19, 2014

# ¿ Jun 19, 2014 01:35

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Got my first royalty cheque this morning!

I'm so excited, whatever will I spend the £2.07 on?

# ¿ Jun 20, 2014 15:43

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Grauniad article about self publishing:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/13/self-publishing-boom-lifts-sales-18m-titles-300m

# ¿ Jun 21, 2014 16:12

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

EngineerSean posted:

The only niche eBook selling concept that even makes sense to me is erotica, because it's a product that people want to pay for but that Amazon won't allow in its entirety.

Which would be difficult to start up, since any new erotica site would probably be listed lower than literotica and the numerous free story sites. But people still seem to want to pay.

In other news I've been stalled for a week now trying to think up a title that isn't already taken

# ¿ Jun 29, 2014 01:16

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

I'd like to know of more hangouts - kboards seems to get mentioned a lot. Just to broaden my knowledge base.

I could do with knowing places that do discuss authoring erotica, maybe add a link to the op, like 'we don't discuss erotica in this thread so go here, here and here' or some such.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 08:37

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Sundae posted:

So, what're people reading these days? Anything interesting or awesome?

One of my old classmates just became the first of us to get published, so I'm reading his book at the moment. Interestingly it's trad published but he ended up doing most of the work himself, so it's pretty much self published.

If it's OK with everyone I'll link it, otherwise it'd feel like I was just plugging it. It honestly is a good book and I'm genuinely reading it which is why I brought it up.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2014 19:15

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

magnificent7 posted:

This - this is what I'm talking about. When you consider the amount of work current publishers expect an author to do, regarding marketing, promoting, etc, what's the point of trad publishing?

Their excuse was that they're only a small publisher so they couldn't really do the book justice. I have a terrible memory so this might not be accurate, but I think he did the cover and the promotion himself.

They've been helpful in trying to introduce him to bigger agents and publishers, but it does seem like they've basically just printed and edited it and let him do the rest.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2014 20:16

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

I don't know what the words 'a novel' are doing there and tipped my interpretation of the cover almost into comedy.

If you feel you have to include it, make it 'a novel by...' or 'a [name of series] novel' or even 'a [name of main character] novel.'

Also where it is is weird. Put it across the top or under the title as a subheading.

Apart from that, looks good.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2014 02:07

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

PoshAlligator posted:

Not too sure what that can offer the self-published person though. I guess if the author is struggling to get the sales they want?

If the author either can't be arsed to do the promotion and marketing or - like me - is terrible at it.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2014 23:45

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

I'm not doing 'proper' writing at the moment, I'm trying to get going on the erotica. First book would probably have been out end of last week if it hadn't been too hot to turn on the big PC - I had to work on my little Ubuntu laptop which doesn't have kindle converter or graphics software to finish the cover.

Plus my sister in law is off work as well so getting any peace and quiet to write is a loving miracle. Between my crappy living situation and the depression stemming from it, I've managed to drag out a fairly simple 12,000 words of bad zombie survivalist porn into 6 months of crippling self doubt.

So no, I've not found an agent. Sorry if I'm venting but it's too hot and with the windows open all I can hear is my neighbour being a drunken oval office outside.

I hate summer.

e: To answer your question, if I had a novel and an offer I probably would get an agent and accept the 14% loss (which would translate to an overall gain since i'm bad at promotion and they're not). I'd much rather be spending my PC time writing than marketing.

Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Jul 19, 2014

# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 00:08

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Publishers and agents are not the same thing. A good agent will negotiate on your behalf with a list of publishers they know. A publisher will print and distribute your book to their network of shops, so even just the fact that your book is on a shelf in a store is a kind of promotion in itself - especially if the store in question knows you're local. They'll also usually send review copies out to genre appropriate reviewers and handle the editing and typesetting. If it starts to gain traction they might even place some ads in papers (train platforms also seem popular places to advertise 'electrifying debut novels').

These are all things that most people (with a little reading up in advance) should be able to do for themselves -apart from the train station ads. Probably. I don't know if Sean could bankroll it.

However I can see this tailing off into another trad vs self publishing debate, so let's just say i mention it only because eventually I'd like to just write and pay someone else to handle that side of things for me, because I suck at it.

e: Note though that I said 'good' agents and publishers. Big does not necessarily mean 'good' in the sense of 'willing to help all of their authors.' A lot of them will just take their 10-14% and leave you to DIY, which is why you need to shop around and ask what they can do for you.

e2: this is stuff I learned on the degree I did, though a lot of it comes from published lectures and agents who spoke to us during the course.

Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 08:56 on Jul 19, 2014

# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 08:45

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

EngineerSean posted:

edit: someone pointed out to me that you might not be American and that train station ads are big for thrillers in UK, but here in America where I get 90% of my sales, I've never even seen a train station

Train ads do quite well over here, especially if placed in the hub stations like Reading or Birmingham New Street which have branches of Smiths that tend to stock the advertised books. It's something I've noticed over the last 10 years or so and it must be working because I'm seeing it more and more.

For reference the degree was 2008-2011 and from the complaints we heard from the agents, the trad publishing industry is just starting to wrap its head around TV advertising, let alone social media and YouTube. That's one of the major advantages you self pub guys have is that you're balls deep in ad methods the trad industry is still largely unable / unwilling to understand.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 16:03

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Maybe the UK is just a completely different advertising ecosphere then. The missus and I have seen book ads on a few 5oD programs - mostly thrillers. There again, that's more online advertising, and was probably demographically targeted at us as readers. And there's more of an infrastructure around the train system to enable people to buy a book they see advertised there, maybe also more of a culture of commuting long enough journeys to make a book a good investment.

One of the agents we had a seminar with said they went through a phase of advertising man books like Andy McNab (remember, reading's not gay if it's about soldiers!) on TV but the results were so sparse there wasn't really a lot they could do with it apart from niche demographic things apart from advertising Miss Marple / Poirot collections during ITV repeats of the relevant show. Hence why I said they were just coming to terms with it.

Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jul 19, 2014

# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 18:17

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Interesting. 'Buy it now' button to appear on Facebook:

http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/authors-will-soon-be-able-to-sell-their-ebooks-on-facebook

# ¿ Jul 23, 2014 13:50

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Reading 'Fallen on Good Times' by Rewan Tremethick, the author friend from uni I was saying about. Aside from that, trying not to melt or kill my neighbour, both of which grow as concerns as the day draws on.

Fallen on Good Times at Amazon

Also making GBS threads myself as I just published my first erotica book. Five people downloaded trials from SB and one person Amazoned it the day after it went up. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Jul 30, 2014

# ¿ Jul 30, 2014 17:51

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Yeah, SmashWords. No idea where the B came from.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 11:17

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

If you want to get paid to talk about writing, contact UK universities that run writing courses. Nobody has any idea about self publishing, so if you just throw some numbers at them about how much you're making, they'll be baffled with disbelief into getting you in to guest lecture.

Our uni got a ton of consultants in because none of their full time staff know about anything except how trad publishing worked 10 years ago (one of ours was still talking about advances).

# ¿ Aug 17, 2014 10:40

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Hrrm. While trying to write an erotica short I seem to have accidentally written the beginning of a fifty shades steamy romance thing.

This is the problem with my brain. It won't cut straight to the action because it desperately clings to the setup, but then it can't quite manage to string stories out past 10k.

I suck at this

# ¿ Aug 19, 2014 16:19

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

I think I might be able to spin it out to 10k, unless I go for a pretty woman clone and then I might make a terrible 50k.

I kind of feel like I could do with someone casting an eye over it just so I can see if it's actually sexually charged and cheesy enough, or if I just think it is because I really, really don't normally write romance. Might get the missus to look it over.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2014 16:44

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Hijinks Ensue posted:

This is a good opportunity to ask a question that I've been pondering: What is the difference between a sexy romance and erotica?

With romance, plot comes first and sex is something that makes the plot more interesting if it ever happens.

With erotica, sex comes first and plot is something that makes the sex more interesting if it ever happens.

The wife liked what I wrote and judged it erotica so I shall mention it no more.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2014 20:40

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

I hate the platform maintenance stuff. I only have one identity (and it's not very good), and I still can't be arsed with twitter, can barely be arsed with stacking tumblr posts and have pretty much just put up a Facebook page that points straight back to tumblr.* I can't imagine how much it sucks managing that many IDs.

Maybe just add a line to each cover making the genre clear? Although the genre should be clear from the cover anyway.

* disclaimer: I'm barely making any money at the moment so don't think I'm recommending this or saying it's a good idea.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2014 09:33

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

I think it's that there are certain conventions popular within each genre, and they don't necessarily mix well.

Off the top of my head one example I can think of is that thrillers tend to open with an action sequence, whereas romance novels tend to establish the protagonist and have them meet and be drawn to a mysterious newcomer.

You can mix the two, you're just making it much harder on yourself if you try.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2014 11:02

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Don't forget the difference between setting and genre. A genre encompasses the whole 'feel' of a book; it's writing style, it 's setting and usually the structure of the plot. With romance for example there's such an expected structure that Mills & Boon won't publish anything that doesn't adhere to their structure, even if it's absolutely brilliant.

A romance in a sci-fi setting could work. A SciFi romance genre clash would be difficult to pull off.

Not sure if this clarifies or further complicates things.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2014 18:34

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Might be of interest to selfpub authors with identity crises: The next version of Chrome has an account switching menu.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2014 23:17

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Short stories don't sell, unless you're already famous for something else. I personally wasted a lot of time pursuing it, the thread always advises against it and the figures speak for themselves.

Exception for short erotica, but we don't discuss it in here (previous writing threads got horrible fast because of it).

# ¿ Sep 2, 2014 23:59

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

PoshAlligator posted:

Nobody likes worldbuilding.

I'm assuming you mean from an authorial standpoint, because George RR Martin's fans loving love it. There again, he's much better at world building than plotting stories, so that might be why.

My own take on it is to give the reader enough to picture it themselves. For instance if I say "The golden bridge glistened with dew, burning orange as the sun rose over the valley," I don't need to tell you the colour of the grass, the political system of the country or what you can hear in the background for you to picture it.

If it's important that a character goes east to get to a city, specify it's to the east. Otherwise leave it to the reader to imagine the land. Maps and poo poo are only important if you make them important.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2014 15:57

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

e: meant to edit to say this is all just my opinion, seems to be backed up by the brief research I did when trying to build my platform last year though:

One weird tip about blogs: if you're just getting started and don't have much of a following, it's my opinion that you are much, much better off using a platform like blogspot, or WordPress.com as opposed to your own hosted wp install.

Wordpress.com & blogspot have a crapload of promotion tools that will bring new users to your site through their tags, and for the most part they're SEO already so you don't have to gently caress about with that. Plus people are more likely to have a google account with which they can subscribe or follow you.

People will tell you that your own hosted site looks more professional, but to start with while you're still building an audience, just get a domain name and point it at a blogspot (I prefer blogspot because you can put google ads on it and the customisability isn't hidden behind various paywalls).

Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 12:42 on Sep 28, 2014

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 11:00

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

PoshAlligator posted:

If I did like a serial I guess I could crosspost updates, one on my Author Blog, and another on either [SeriesTitle].blogspot or .wordpress Would you definitely recommend Blogspot over Wordpress for audience?

I would personally recommend blogspot because the setup is easier, you can place google ads on it and make a little bit of cash out of the views, and it makes connecting with other writing blogs incredibly simple. I haven't updated my blog in about a year and I still get about 30 views a month. It also has email subscriptions built in.

Wordpress... It's open source, but most of the features you'd want are behind a paywall, unless you host it on your own web space in which case it's a nightmare to optimise and you don't get the benefits of the social side of it, defeating the entire point of it.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 14:39

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

PoshAlligator posted:

So can we be like blog buddies?

Yeah, I'll have to check what my URL is, it's been that long. But having someone subscribing who knows me outside of the blog might be the boot up my arse that gets me taking it seriously again. Like I say, I get 30 views for doing absolutely nothing to the site, I'm pretty sure if I updated every other day it'd be a good source of new readers and at least wine money.

PoshAlligator posted:

What writing do you put on your blog? Is it segregated to just one sort of topic, a series or "writing blog posts" or something? I'm trying to figure out where to split my content between sites and where to not.

At the moment, free writing exercises and old rants about video games. I'm actually not concentrating on that writing persona at the mo because I'm throwing my efforts at 'romance' right now.

In terms of content I'm maybe not the best advisor, but I can tell you that even terrible writers have large followings on blogspot. They are great at giving you a place to grow a fan base, it reminds me of the old GeoCities community from waaay back.

Tumblr is pretty nice too, their tags work better than Twitter's and the user base is (according to traffic during the Olympics) about the same size. Just be prepared to watch out for saying anything too non-pc like a loving hawk.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 19:51

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Jithendra posted:

As far as what content to put on your blog... I'd recommend you post more than just some examples of your writing. Posting something about your writing process can get people interested, but more than that... ranting about things and engaging with the world will get people who agree with you more interested in what sort of things you write. Post links to other blogs, and discuss your own take on whatever concepts they're talking about. Making friends with other bloggers and regularly interacting with them is probably the best thing you can do to (passively) promote your work. They will link and reblog your posts in conversation with you. Don't make everything you post about your writing. Show readers that you're an interesting person, not just someone spamming the internet with promotions and such, and they'll be more interested in checking you out.

I strongly agree with this from a subscriber's point of view. On twitter, my newsfeed regularly gets completely out of control and needs culling. First to go are always the accounts that haven't made me laugh or posted interesting stuff in ages. Like I really like Jon Richardson on TV, but his twitter (last time I checked) was just tour dates. Compare this to George Takei, who's facebook page has taken on a monstrous life of it's own thanks to the sheer volume of funny stuff he posts, compared to incredibly rare posts about his own projects.

PoshAlligator posted:

Will I be able to create tabs to sort categories by tabs in the future with my Blogspot?

Probably not, unless you know how to code it yourself in HTML and can get round blogspot's incredibly bizarre limitations in that direction (it's basically impossible unless you're using a theme).

PoshAlligator posted:

But here's my blog http://oscartkfiction.blogspot.co.uk/

Excellent, here's mine with a post about how to generate ideas I seem to type out a lot:
http://dansclayton.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/where-do-ideas-come-from.html

PoshAlligator posted:

So just putting stuff like "fiction", "comedy", "writing" in the labels is the sharing function?

Yes. In the same way that tagging a post #funny on twitter will get the attention of anyone searching that hashtag, the same is true of blogspot's tags. The drawback to this is that tags like 'funny', 'comedy' and 'blog' update so fast your blog post will most likely be lost before it's seen. So get clever - tag it with labels that you think a lot of people will be searching for, but not everyone will be posting about (harder than it sounds, I know. I'm poo poo at SEO).

# ¿ Sep 29, 2014 15:38

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

magnificent7 posted:

Regarding blogspot vs. wordpress.

What about Tumblr?

The biggest problem with Tumblr is that it's primarily a microblogging site, so the news feed is designed around numerous small posts. If you write anything longer than about 250 words, it comes up as this huge annoying wall of text that's likely to make people unsubscribe. If you want to post your stuff to tumblr, it's generally best to post it on another site and then link it there with applicable tags and an excerpt.

The other two problems are lack of pagination (or even basic truncation within feeds) for posts, and recent changes to the layout that have decimated earnings among some of the more longstanding users. In short, more and more parts of the site link to your content via a sidebar view which you cannot customise with ads, and therefore people are making zip out of pageviews where they used to be able to make a living.

What it is though is a fantastic tool for gaining new followers who love to read and will enthusiastically spread the word about your books among themselves. The tags work like twitter should, and the newsfeeds work like Facebook should. Oh, and the queue is great because you can stack up a bunch of posts once a week, and it'll spit them out to your followers at regular intervals.

It has a lot of advantages that should put it on par with Facebook and Twitter, but for some reason nobody ever really mentions it.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 01:57

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

psychopomp posted:

So how do we, as authors, take advantage of that tool?

Disclaimer: I'm still finding my feet, but had decent results last year. I'm not saying this is the be-all and end-all, just a starting guide you can build on.

Tumblr revolves around two things: tags, and the reblog.

Functionally the same as Facebook's share / twitter's retweet, reblogging basically means you see a post you like, you hit reblog, and it goes up on your page. Anyone who follows you will have that post appear on their dash (their homepage / newsfeed). If they reblog it from you, your name appears on the post on their page as the person they reblogged it from.

When you reblog / like someone's post, it sends them a note telling them you've reblogged it. It also means that when someone looks at the full version of that post, your name will be along the bottom of it as having reblogged it. If you reblog a lot of stuff, there's a decent chance of getting noticed this way and having someone check out your page and start following you.

The upshot of this is that if you reblog / post a cool thing, every time that cool thing is shared / reblogged your tumblr URL is shared along with it, and that leads people back to your page where they can learn more about you, follow you, follow you on twitter / Facebook /good reads etc.

In terms of what you reblog, try to keep it thematically the same as the work you're trying to promote. If you're a comedy writer, reblog funny stuff. If you're a romance or even a romance author, post soulful stuff and gifs of people kissing and being as sexy as possible without actually being naked.* If you're John Green, try to punch people directly in the soul with those upworthy videos (you know the ones). Basically follow people who interest you and reblog stuff that your target audience would like.

The major advantage tumblr has over other networks is that you can queue a bunch of posts. This means that instead of having to take time each day to post something, you can spend one afternoon a week reblogging, then set the queue to post (for example) 3 a day between 9am and 11pm.

Obviously you can create your own posts as well with info about your books or links to your blog, but I would say to try and keep your ratio of reblogs:posts around at least 3:1. Try not to promote more than once a day; too much promotion will annoy your followers, less followers is less people reblogging your stuff, and less reblogs means less people coming back to your page.

The second thing is tags. When you search on tumblr it searches by tags, same as twitter does with hashtags. So tag your posts, and they'll be seen whenever someone searches for that thing. Things tumblr always likes:

- social justice,
- catte gifs
- shipping, especially Sherlock / Dr Who / Supernatural

Things tumblr currently loves but will probably get bored of in a bit:

- pumpkin spice latte,
- skeletons,
- shrek

Generally if a tag is trending it'll be outlined in blue on your dash, so keep an eye out for any blue tags at the bottom of posts, because they'll get you a lot of attention. Tags I have noticed are usually hot:

- lol
- books
- funny
- superwholock

TLDR: Follow relevant blogs. Reblog to get noticed. Queue your posts. Tag your posts. Reblog stuff relevant to your style.

* Sidenote about NSFW: Yahoo acquired tumblr last year and set about getting rid of the porn. Without getting into a long and boring explanation, if you flag your blog as NSFW you're basically invisible to search and most people won't be able to see your posts. So don't post naked people, despite the fact that anything written before Feb 2013 will tell you to do precisely this.

Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Oct 3, 2014

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 09:50

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

moana posted:

Mark Coker, is that you?

Draft2Digital is sooo much better than SW, it's not even funny. Plus you can do preorders with them.

How do D2D charge? Is it a subscription or a percentage?

I'll admit I've been using smashwords but only because I wasn't aware that d2d were the current best for non-amazon publishing.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2014 23:58

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

50 shades is a bad example, because EL James already knew there was a massive audience from her fan fiction days - all she did was change the names and setting in oder to sell it and bingo, it's a hit.

Come to think of it, the iPhone's a bad example too, if you take into account the gradual market shift towards touchscreens via things like the Samsung u900 and the G1, and the astronomical amount of market research and product testing apple did pre-launch.

Spending that much time writing a novel which has neither a market waiting nor any evidence of one just to see if it might sell is a pretty massive gamble when you look at the time invested and the likelihood of success.

e: side note so as not to double post. You can swear in Kindle titles, right? Specifically the word 'bastard'

Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Oct 13, 2014

# ¿ Oct 13, 2014 16:17

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

To be honest, there's only one career where it's a selling point to say "I want to be the very best, like no-one ever was" but they won't accept my CV.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2014 14:50

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

All Else Failed posted:

I don't know if I'm writing erotica or not, but I am not paying tenbux for some erotica discussion forum that may or may not be goons, that's for sure.

r/eroticauthors is a decent starting point, plenty of FAQs and walkthroughs.

All Else Failed posted:

I seem to have 10k words for a novel ($2.99) and 2-4k for a short story ($.99) stuck in my head but I am seeing a little conflicting information across threads, and it seems it might differ between fiction and literotica. Just trying to wrap my head around it -- sound about right?

50k is what you should be aiming for with a novel (unless it's fantasy, in which case 100k+). 10-25k is a novella, and anything below that is just not worth it (unless you're doing erotica, which revolves around pumping out 5k shorts at $2.99 each. Even the bad writers out there seem to report an income of about $500 a month once they hit 20 titles).

Erotica discussion is not really allowed any more because it gets weird fast.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 02:41

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 10:20

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

All Else Failed posted:

So there is not even a separate thread for literotica anywhere else on the forums? Seems uptight for the forums that brought us "your poison womb is making heaven too loving crowded" but I should never underestimate the prudishness of my fellow Americans.

It's not so much a matter of prudishness as drama. When the thread was around Amazon wasn't taking a hard line on incest, bestiality and rape stories, and the dinosaur porn was also getting pretty big. Because of this, the thread kind of became more about people trolling those authors (or even worse, defending those fetishes) and it started to spill out into other threads* so it got shut down to keep the drama out.

Most forums I've seen consist of people defending pseudo incest ("it's OK because he's her stepbrother/dad") or pseudo bestiality ("you guys he just shifted to wolf form during sex but he's really human") and I suspect the mods don't want to touch that clusterfuck with a bargepole. Even if a thread was started with a disclaimer saying 'normal porn only,' I suspect any erotica thread would quickly become infested with arguments from people defending why their banned fetish should be considered OK.

* As in authors posting in other threads were getting "yeah, well you write weird porn" in non related threads, and then that thread also became about weird porn, and so on.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 09:13

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Self-Publishing Goons: Yep, people buy it!

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