Is still possible to make some money writing erotica to sell on amazon?

Here's the link

amazon.com/dp/B01EE48KOK

It's this idea I had for a vaporwave-esque project turning a bunch of modified infomercial and commercial quotes into vaguely mystical, possibly creepy, but definitely weird shit.

Also the cover is an a flipped and color inverted version of this

amazon.com/dp/B011K0XUF0

KU money got reduced due to a change in how they pay it out. It's by pages read now, so expect the old methods of churning out clickbait books as fast as possible to have their payout drastically reduced.

People used to shit out a ton of those 20 page books, sometimes publishing a new one every week. They'd get like over a dollar per download at some point back then even if the customer never read it, where as a 20 page story today will likely make you less than a dime provided they actually read the whole thing.

Basically, the market is still alive but you need to work either harder or better to see the same results as the golden age.

>over a dollar per download
>mfw a few years ago I was cranking out absurd shitpost smut on the reg and could've been making bank off it

but why is that?
the customers don't pay for the read pages, they pay for the whole book

Are other languages also marketable or is it an English only market?

Amazon profit.

That's the only way they'd implement this,

Don't you know money is king?

Did money ever tell you the truth?

Who is paid to tell the truth?

hahahHAHAHAHHAHAHhaHAHahhAHA

Kindle Unlimited is their subscription service, like $10 for unlimited reading of participating ebooks. You can opt out but KU is a huge factor in gaining popularity and going up in the ranks, plus you can still gain regular sales alongside opting into KU.

All of those subscriptions creates a fund from which they pull royalties from and 20 page short erotica stories used to get the same payout as actual novels per download. Amazon didn't want the majority of its money going to erotica I guess so they changed the rules.

That's a false economy son.

Besides that, Amazon couldn't give a god damn turd where there money goes to as long as the majority of it is staying in their pocket.

That's business, amazon, don't pretend its not.

That's right.

I'm betting people pay the $10 but 80% don't finish any of the books. Therefore, where's all that excess cash going?

Eh Amazon?

You like money huh?

erotica/smut writer here. what i did was start out with smutty fanfiction, post it on sites like ao3 and ff.net. then once i had a considerable fanbase/amount of readers i published non-fanfiction and mentioned on my previous fics that 'if you liked this, i have ____ for sale."

Amazon cutting down on what it pays to erotica writers likely had nothing to do with morals, but to save them money. Not to mention:

>20 page short erotica stories used to get the same payout as actual novels per download

They probably saw it as rigging the system as there were erotica writers who were literally making six figures because they would basically put out one short story a day. Some guy made $130k in a year while just working 3 hours a day.

The new system was supposed to favor people who wrote longer books, but it instead it hurt pretty much all authors while amazon rakes in more shekels.

People who write ~300 page books are only seeing the same numbers if their readers actually finish their shit. Everyone loses under the new system unless you're committing fraud or some shit by pushing out 3000 word books and getting people to flip through them.

>tfw you missed out on your chance to post 15000 page """books""" with a link on page 1 that takes the reader to the last page and gives you credit for having 15000 pages read

>3000 word books
Meant to say pages

Coincidentally, 3000 pages is the limit for how much they'll pay for and people definitely took advantage of it by posting "books" full of spam and then just linking to the end. It would pay out like over $12 a read, enough for a new KU subscription and then some.

Pretty sure Amazon has since cracked down on it, at least to some degree. It was a big problem as it would drain the fund and deflate the payout per page, basically fucking everyone else over.

>it's an user has literally just discovered that companies seek to make money episode

Hahahaha. That's a good one.

And yeah it's not the authors' fault Amazon made a broken false economy.

I'm glad you're agreeing with me though, even if in the most contrarian way possible.

I guess people should stop placing their books under kindle unlimited.

I don't even know who's paying this 10$ to dig through hordes and hordes of absolute booger fiction desu

The game has changed a lot for authors and you kind of have to play the game differently now. KU sucks now but Amazon still remains one of the most profitable platforms despite that and their annoying content policing/adult filters that blacklist "overly explicit" books from all searches.

>I don't even know who's paying this 10$ to dig through hordes and hordes of absolute booger fiction desu
It's still cheaper than actually purchasing books, so a lot of people do that. The KU library is pretty big too so it's not a horrible deal for them.

The current strategy is to leave KU on for a month without auto-renew while pricing at either $0.99 (not advised unless you're trying to maximize sales to build a reputation) or $2.99 as new releases get a big boost in the search algorithms for the first month and they want to take advantage of that to get maximum exposure. You still make sales with KU on, especially if you're good or have a reputation.

After a month or so, KU goes off and your book becomes purchase only.

Once sales dwindle down to practically nothing or a couple months pass, the Jewish secret is to bundle a bunch of old related stories together for a $2.99 special while reducing the individual price of the old ones from $2.99 down to $0.99. It'll cause a resurgence in sales and all you did was repackage stuff.

Individual short stories eventually have their non-KU sales practically die out, but a bundle of 10 stories and ~200 pages of porn has greater longevity.

Either way, a lot of old erotica authors are just taking the plunge into romance/erotic romance and making longer stories now. It's more stable, books don't totally die out after a month, and you get actual reviews so the quality of your work starts to matter somewhat.

I guess it does depend on what you're writing, what do you write if I may ask?

OR is it quite the obvious answer

Primarily erotica but I want to try my hand at other stuff in the near future.

Those are all tactics for selling erotica specifically though, the short stories primarily. The sort of unspoken agreed upon price for new or somewhat longer erotica stories is $2.99 and it works pretty well in terms of both actually getting sales and creating decent revenue.

If you want to sell stuff well in another genre's market, you have to be prepared to do your research in seeing how people make their money. Stuff like KU can either save you or screw you depending on how your target audience makes their purchases.

Okay so I'm in a lot of debt right now, which is the most accessible genre market?

I'm not willing to write erotica, but what else are people wanting to read - fantasy? LoTR type deals?

I'm gonna go ahead and say that's gonna be the second top seller for KU under erotica.

What's the non-fiction market like do you know?

>I don't even know who's paying this 10$ to dig through hordes and hordes of absolute booger fiction desu

protip: they typically lend/buy books that are advertised to them with Amazon's own advertising system or by big names like Oprah, etc. If you have a vaguely compelling advertisement and cast a wide enough net, you'll get KU downloads.

er yeah i'll just call Oprah she's number 2 speed-dial guess who is number one and its not OBAMA (protip:it's Obama)

And besides that youre obviously an amazon rep

I SEE YOU BUDDY

AMAZON SUCK FUCK

jk amazon are alright you make quick delivery

Was it in greentext format though?

Erotica's appeal as a money maker comes from the relatively high return vs time invested as you can get away with short stories as opposed to full novels. Erotica has a much lower income ceiling per book and the real money only really comes in through constant releases. There are no major one hit wonders and it's a slow and steady grind to get your earnings.

Romance is generally the next level up if you can manage to actually write a real book. Tap into that female market and you'll find that the market is surprisingly profitable if you have a bit of luck and skill. The market is still saturated and people will actually start leaving proper reviews, including negatives ones for stupid reasons which can kill your sales.

As far as other genres go, you'll have to do a bit of research into Amazon's top sellers. Fantasy is a very saturated market as well without the same audience who craves more on like a daily basis. The need for quality, lots of exposure, and the ability to stand out from the rest of the trash is going to be way more important here, but if you do it right it might have a lot of potential.

Non-fiction has potential but it really depends on what you're trying to sell. The big money usually lies in like self help books that can easily teach some sort of valuable skill. As an example, some guy made it big with a short self published book about frequently asked questions on doing taxes.

For non-fiction I can write advisory from a Buddhist-esque (no brahmarama or nuttin, just the ideas) perspective upon the struggles of alcoholism and general addiction and how to overcome.

I can, have written erotica, not as a genre but as a part of a short story.

I imagine fantasy is very saturated, but I would be rather more apt at that than say romance.

You know what? I'ma go with a fantasy.

would something like that work?

Check out the erotica authors subreddit. Some really good advice. It's important to find a niche. Just writing mainstream erotica is going to be hard. I tried it for a few months and made less than $300 so it wasn't worth it for me. I have more money than time, tho.

Just published my second story.

Will I make some money Veeky Forums?

>I tried it for a few months and made less than $300
how many stories did you publish?

What about rape/snuff porn? Does that sell? Rape/snuff erotica, I mean.

Please spoonfeed me just once since google doesnt like Hitler. Sauce ?

I'm not sure if amazon allows that kind of books. I think if you put some words in the title or keywords, because of amazon policies they are hardly to find.

>What is your experience with writing erotica?
I just wrote this masterpiece

Get ripped and do it yourself

I'm thinking specifically about the kind of content you find in books by Edward Lee or Richard Laymon types. Pic related is probably the sickest thing I've ever read, and I've read some seriously fucked-up shit.

The thing is, no matter how gory, depraved, or intensely uncomfortable these author's content can be, it's undeniable that they are all quality writers. Jack Ketchum is another brilliant writer whose content will always prevent him from becoming a mainstream success.

As good as these authors are, I have a sinking suspicion that a large portion of their readership consists of people completely oblivious to the technical brilliance and taboo-breaking nature of their works, but only read for the brutal sexual violence that is a constant in the majority of their output.

You could call it 'projection' and you might be right, but read some of the reviews of these books. I'm not wrong. There's an audience for this, and many don't care about plot or pacing or characterization or prose. They simply want tightly written, succinct stories about high-impact sexual violence.

Would I have to call it 'horror' and just have a lurid cover to sneak it past? Would that work? How strict are they? How do you link your work to other authors (i.e. If you enjoyed this, you might like this type shit).

Please answer if anyone knowledgeable is still around.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudazumo_Naki_Kaikaku

Please someone answer. Shit, you clicked this thread so you must know something about it...