I haven't seen one of these threads in awhile.
Are any Veeky Forumserati making some income from self-publishing cheap books on amazon?
I've heard the best way to go is to publish either extremely kinky weird erotica, or shitty self-help PUA books.
I'd love to make even $50 bucks a month or something with half a dozen short porn books.
I've only made like 30 bucks total with Tao Lin on a Tricycle.
This guy apparently makes 2000 bongdollars a day by (a) writing the kind of generic stuff people want and (b) marketing it properly. Maybe try that.
theguardian.com
I'm trying this right now. I wrote a shitty slut story about an English middle class girl who goes searching for chavs and black guys in a council estate. I wrote it in an hour. Didn't give two shits.
I know I'm not bad at it because I've written gay shit before on Nifty and people have really, really liked it. This is hetero, ofc, but holes are holes when it comes to this shite really, let's be honest.
It's been up for a few days but I haven't made any money. It's only 2000 words long, and I think incorrectly priced. I've bumped it down to $0.99, so we'll see how that goes.
I'm also experimenting with other longer genre fiction. I'm trying to write a shitty romance about a middle class woman whose adulterous husband dies of cancer. She then goes on a shitty holiday and finds a shitty unconventional hairy shit juan who fucks her brains out. You know, writing the most stereotypical middle class British housewife out. We'll see how it goes too. If it doesn't go well I'll write a thriller, then a crime. I'm writing about 2500 words a day (2 hours).
Just do it. What's to lose? Just don't use your real name for fuck's sake. This shit is really, really looked down upon if you ever want to become a real author.
Yeah I think advertising is really important. I'm reading about advertising in general, to be honest, and that'll probably be a big part of it. I mean, if we're honest, pleb fiction is generic and basic as fuck. The only thing that makes your turd stand out from the mammoth heap that is KDP will be a pretty cover and fake reviews.
Right now I'm reading 'Ogilvy on Advertising' but it's so hard finding decent books on this shit. It's all self-promotion, self-esteem crap.
It looks easy, but the thing is going by the guy's comments (he's all over the comments section, and it's way more informative than the article) I think he genuinely likes the kind of generic thrillers he writes. I doubt it's possible to do it so successfully while looking down on the genre.
On the other hand, he does seem self-aware enough not to claim his writing is good. He goes for a 'taste is subjective, people love it' line instead.
...in terms of marketing, though, the main substantive point (he also recommends a guy's course) is that he started by paying a very small amount for Facebook adverts, got a return from that, reinvested it in more adverts, and repeated. Also he would have paid people to make the adverts look nice, and the book covers, of course.
But he himself has worked in marketing so there's probably a lot more than that going on, if only in terms of contacts.
has anyone considered putting out a few good 5000ish word erotica stories out for free, places like xhamster/amazon and then making 5-10 more for sale (.99-2.99)
i've noticed xhamster stories can get about 5000-25000 views
what are you gonna do with $50 bucks a month ? Buy toilet paper ?
that's right. it'll make my life 50 bucks easier. Could afford like 3books a month, or some liquor.
>%50 a month on toilet paper
that's either some super luxurious toilet paper or you're eating just a little bit too much fibre
jesus christ i haven't seen normal in like years.
This was the part where I was going to tell you to get a real job, and that you could make a lot more doing a real job.
But I guess you're a writer and that you're not interested in doing anything else. And I just realized that perhaps me telling you to get a real job would be hypocritical since I have one but I fucking hate my life.
I wish I had the courage to follow my dreams.
Related: what are some really attractive female names?
Emma
Caitlyn
Chloe
May
April
Leigh
Jane
Emily
Sounds like an interesting idea for a novel. Too literary though. Try GILF erotica instead.
My middle age Avon Lady is called Diana.
Anyone know if its better to go really extreme or more vanilla on the spectrum?
Well you can't go pedo which is a shame because that stuff is always the most popular when it's allowed.
couldn't you heavily imply it without outright saying it?
>by roberto pinchas
ayyyy
I think so, but you have to say they're over 18. They review before you can self publish on Amazon. But you could perhaps start with vanilla and progress later. Who knows.
Erotica died as a major moneymaker after KU2 last year. You can still make a living off of it, but only if you put out like 5 stories a week now.
Most have moved on to writing romance novels.
claudenougat.wordpress.com
humm.. OP, sorry to break the bubble, but you have more luck by applying to a McDonnalds
>only 40 self-published authors make at least $1 million per year
Yeah... let's forget about the tens of thousands that make between $30k and $999,999 per year.
>the median writing-related income among respondents dropped from $10,500 in 2009 to $8,000 2014 in 2014, a decline of 24%.
>That’s way below the poverty line! Small wonder that most authors depend on another job to survive…
Please, read the entire article dingus.
yeeh.
but i just want to make pocket change so i can go ouot to eat sometimes or w/e
When was the last time you bought an e-book from an obscure author?
Exactly
You can try. Fuck, write something and try to sell it on your own. Lets see how much time it takes from you, be it writing, editing, or trying to tell people about your book online (social media)
and now: When was the last time you bought an e-book for $3 that you saw on Facebook?
But do it anyway. Maybe you can get $100 o $200 a month by it
Fuck, who knows?, you might end up being the next Rowling.
It's gotten a lot harder since Amazon introduced kindle unlimited. From what I understand instead of charging their customers per sold product Amazon offers a subscription based model, compensating the authors depending on how many pages the reader got through. This has sliced revenue for a lot of erotica authors since the name of the game prior to kindle unlimited was to pump out very short stories in a specific genre to snatch up as much of the market as possible, offering the first one for free and the entire series bundle for a few dollars.
I'm not entirely sure of the specifics though, but I'm sure you can still carve out a space for yourself if you're dedicated enough.
A few ideas:
>Register an account on one of the stock-photo websites and pirate photoshop. This way you can save money by not having to pay someone to create the cover for you.
>Do a lot of research and stick to one or a few specific genres, don't be too diverse.
>Check out the eroticauthors subreddit to participate in meta-discussion.
>Write that you want to write. If you don't want to write it, it will show.
>median
Unfortunately, there are a ton of people who write maybe a book or two over five years and wonder why they don't make much. Not to mention they don't advertize.
I've read the article already, and half of everyone on kboards laughed at it. If you want to be an actual writer making a good living, you have to put out at least three books per year, unless you're well-known from previous success.
As I stated, there are tons of people who make a living(and many make a really comfortable living) writing. On top of that, most successful self-published authors join publishing companies on generous terms so you have a large filter as you get closer to the top pay grades.
That's doable. Write like 10 shorts a month in a decent niche and you'll make a hundred or two hundred dollars every month. Hell, you might break out at an even higher level if you treat it like a business and keep it up.
Also, create a mailing list. That's one of the largest newbie mistakes.
thanks great advice.
I thought I might make a twitter acct too, i'd love to take input from readers to include what they want to see my characters do with each other.
mailing list sounds really good
that sucks about the bundle not working that was my plan, give away the first copy and sell 10 more stories with the same character for a few bucks. i guess i should have researched a bit more.
How does one go about making an email list from Amazon customers? I always thought they don't give you out the customer's email, only allow you to message them in system?
You might not buy anything on Facebook, but that's why there is targeted advertising on Facebook, based on everything from interests, age bracket, location, sexuality, income and gender. You can sell to whoever you want, since people give shitloads of info to Facebook.
Holy shit that article is terribly written.
How much does a Facebook ad cost?
It had a good blurb and cover photo though
>I've written gay shit before on Nifty and people have really, really liked it.
link me senpai
It's flawed. I mean, how many people are making $30K a year doing it? If it's quite a few, then it's not so bad. Where are the real statistics? I don't think most people go into it expecting to make a million dollars a year.