How can I make more money selling short erotica stories online? That’s the biggest question I hear all the time.

Many people ask about building email lists, establishing websites, creating Facebook groups, and building social media accounts. Those things are all great ways to help boost sales, but they are more advanced techniques.

Instead of focusing so much on those ideas, let’s go back and focus on the basics. These skills and rules really helped me earn over four figures a month writing erotica!

1. Consistent publishing schedule

If you only take away one thing from my website it should be this:

The best way to make money writing erotica on Amazon is to get on a consistent publishing schedule.

Don’t publish 4 books in one week then take 4 weeks off.

It is MUCH better to publish one erotica short story per week for four weeks straight.

Why? Well because it’s easier to get repeat customers that way. Erotica customers like to know that their favorite author is still active. If you take too much time off between books they WILL forget about you.

Now, don’t get all gun ho and publish 10 books a week under the same pen name. There is such a thing as reader fatigue. They aren’t going to be buying all 10 books from you at once.

In my experience, publishing two books consistently for each pen name a week is a pretty good schedule. Three books will be pushing it.

2. Don’t get discouraged

You hear a lot of success stories online and think “why not me.”

In fact, that’s exactly how I got started writing erotica! I read a blog post online and thought it was something I could do.

My erotica publishing business didn’t take off right away. Sure I got some sales here and there, but I didn’t get to $1,000+ a month within my first two months of publishing.

It takes a while to get the ball rolling. Don’t get too discouraged when sales don’t come in as fast as you’d like. Most authors give up RIGHT before things really take off!

I’ve also had plenty of books that have bombed with NO sales. When I first started out, some books would make less than $10 in their first month of publishing. It’s frustrating when you put in the work and don’t get the results.

Again, don’t get too discouraged. When you first start out, you’ll fail a few times. But that’s fine because as long as you learn something you never fail.

Keep on rolling and I guarantee things will eventually pick up!

3. Research top erotica niches

Picking a good erotica niche is pretty important. The best advice I can give you is experiment around.

Write a few books in a few different niches and see what takes off. That’s what I did and it really worked for me.

When you’re researching a niche, be sure to find out the overarching themes. What kinds of characters and settings are the most popular? How do the sex scenes go down?

Also, keep in mind that there is such a thing as information overload. Don’t get too caught up with doing all the research you can for a niche.

It’s far better to learn as you go than get overloaded with too much information. After all, experience is the best teacher!

4. Research your competitors

All erotica authors that want to make serious money online should get a Kindle Unlimited plan.

It’s basically Netflix for books. For just $9.99 a month, you can borrow up to 10 books on Amazon.

You’ll want this to research into a niche and follow successful authors. This subscription will let you borrow a ton of books and really see what makes some authors successful.

It’s an amazing value for the research potential you gain.

The best use of your Kindle Unlimited subscription is to follow successful authors in your niche. Read all of their books.

Study how they structure their stories and how they design their book covers and write their book descriptions.

P.S. Click here to sign up for a FREE trial of Kindle Unlimited to read millions of eBooks on Amazon for free. T

5. Learn to design covers

Unless you are going to pay an experienced book cover designer, you’ll need to learn how to create decent book covers.

Don’t worry, you don’t need to be some kind of photoshop whiz. All you need is about 1 – 2 hours on Youtube and you’ll be fine.

Book covers are the first thing customers look at when scrolling through the search results. As a result, you want yours to stand out.

Make sure the colors and the actual stock photo match the tone of the title and the story. If you’re writing a BDSM story you don’t want bright neon pink colors on your cover. You’d want darker colors like black or red.

Related Post: How To Design A Kick Ass Cover That Sells Thousands Of Books

6. Type faster

I remember when our teacher would take us to the computer lab in second grade for typing lessons. I actually enjoyed it. Our school was lucky to have decent computers back in the 90s. It was a great experience.

I loved the feel of the keyboard and I remember the software we used treated typing like a game. You got points for how fast you typed and other cool features.

Some of us in class would have competitions to see who could type the fastest.

I’m very grateful for my school for including typing lessons into the curriculum. It is because of those lessons that I can type like a maniac today!

I can type at around 90 – 100 words a minute depending on the content (100+ if there aren’t any numbers in the text).

While there are certainly people who can type much faster, I’d say I’m in the top 10% of typing speed globally.

Typing speed is really important in writing erotica. Not a lot of people think about it, but it’s really, really important!

The faster you type the faster you make books and the more money you’ll make!

Don’t worry if you’re a slow typist. You’ll learn fast. The key is to practice and practice!

For those looking for a new keyboard, I would HIGHLY recommend getting the HP Wireless Elite Keyboard v2.

It’s the keyboard I use on a daily basis. All of the keys are really sensitive, which makes typing much easier. I HATE keyboards where you really have to punch it down in order to get a letter to appear.

It sounds silly, but getting the right keyboard can really impact your typing speed. 

7. Pick a good pen name

 I always see some beginning authors pick bad pen names. Some people ask how is it possible to have a bad pen name?

Well, your pen name is your brand! You don’t want to make it hard to remember, but you do want to make it somewhat memorable.

You don’t want a long ass pen name like Fyodor Dostoyevsky!

I find that using the same letter for the first and last name is an easy way to get people to remember.

Some examples include:

• Jessie June
• Taylor Tanning
• Dan Dash

Also try to make sure your pen name doesn’t have too many characters. This ensures you can make the text on your book cover really stand out in the thumbnail of the Amazon search results.

8. Author central

Author central is basically the “about the author” page for writers on Amazon.

People can click your name on your book product page and be transferred to your author central page.

It includes a big list of your books, your biography, and any website links (to your blog or newsletter). It is a must have tool for erotica authors because it increases your exposure to potential customers.

Final Thoughts

Learning these basic erotica skills and rules will help you more than any email list or author website. Once you lock down these rules, you’ll be able to succeed as an author.

Good luck out there to all!