Do you want to learn how to write erotica? Well, this blog post is designed to help you make money with this unique side hustle!
Yes, that’s right…you CAN make decent money selling short stories online (specifically on Amazon).
The purpose of this little blog post is to help as many people as possible launch their erotica self-publishing business on Amazon.
Writing erotica is an amazing side hustle to have because you can make money 24/7. That’s right! As long as your book is listed on Amazon, you can make money at ANY point of the day.
It doesn’t matter if you’re relaxing at home with family or friends or out on vacation. That’s the power of passive income.
Now, if you’re reading this, you probably already want to start your self-publishing business, but have no idea where to start.
If you’re wondering about:
- How to write erotica/smut
- How to get paid to write short stories
- Making money writing online
- How to sell short stories
…then continue reading on!
Don’t worry! I’ll give you the quick rundown of how you can get your business off the ground.
Step #1: Sign Up For Amazon KDP
Before you can publish a story, you need to create an Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) account.
This is the platform that all authors use to publish on Amazon.
Don’t worry – it’s 100% Free to sign up. You can use any email address you want to create an account.
After you sign up, you’ll be able to earn money by writing online. How cool is that? 🙂
That’s right…getting paid to write online is the best feeling of all!
Step #2: Pick a pen name
For obvious reasons, I don’t recommend publishing under your real name. So, you should pick a pen name to publish short stories under.
Amazon KDP allows you to publish under whatever name you desire. So be sure to pick something that’s catchy and easy to remember.
I would recommend publishing under 2 – 3 pen names depending on how many niches you’ll want to tackle (I’ll talk about niches next).
Step #3: Select A Niche
One of the most important parts of making money selling erotica online on Amazon is selecting a niche.
If you pick a niche that’s too competitive, your book will never be found. If you pick a niche that’s too small, your sales may be limited by little demand.
So what’s a niche?
Well, a niche is just a way to categorize a story by fetish, kink, or some kind of sexual orientation.
Most new authors just write “vanilla sex stories”. By this, it’s just a man and a woman having sex.
DON’T DO THIS! It’ll be hard for you to make any money doing this.
It’s BORING! And that’s a super over-crowded market. And most importantly, it’ll be super hard for you to pick relevant keywords that aren’t competitive.
That’s why you should focus your attention into niches of the erotica market.
One of the most popular niches is BDSM – mostly due to 50 Shades of Grey.
But anyways, focus your research on picking a good niche that has a relatively LOW amount of competition, but A LOT of reader demand.
If you don’t know where to start, check out my blog post about some of the best erotica niches.
Step #4: Write Your Story
Once you have thoroughly researched a niche, the next step is to get your hands dirty (no pun intended) and write the story.
Never written a book before in your life? Don’t worry. I’ll give you a high level walk through of the process.
In general, I think most authors should write stories in the 3,000 – 7,000 range.
So, how in the world do you write a short erotic story? Well, each story should have 3 parts – a beginning, middle, and end.
The beginning should focus on introducing the characters and their motivations.
The middle of the story should introduce a conflict of sorts (like a moral conflict or some kind of sexual tension between the main characters).
The end of the story should be where the fireworks happen. The main characters consummate sex.
Each story will be different, but if you follow this 3 step process, you’ll be able to write hundreds (if not thousands) of stories.
Step #5: Design A Book Cover
Once you have finished writing and editing your story, the next thing to do is create a book title and design a book cover.
I recommend using a short title that targets a relevant keyword in the niche. Crafting a good title takes some practice, but it’s a very useful skill.
Check out this blog post on how to create a great subtitle for your book.
If you don’t want to design one, you can go on Fiverr and hire someone to do it for about $5 bucks.
But let’s say you want to design your own cover (which is cheaper).
Never done it before? Don’t worry, I’ll walk you through it as simply as possible.
First, you need to get a stock photo. I recommend using DepositPhotos because they have the largest selection of stock photos in the world.
And it’s super cheap. You can get a great erotic photo for about $1.
Next, you’ll need to add some text to the stock photo. You can use PhotoShop, but it’s a little expensive (and super hard to learn).
That’s why I recommend using PicMonkey. It’s cheap, SUPER easy to use, and you can create a professional looking book cover in less than 10 minutes.
Click Here to try out PicMonkey.
P.S. check out this blog post where I discuss how to create a kickass book cover that will sell.
Step #6: Write Your Book Description
A book description is super important because people normally read the description BEFORE buying any book (unless they really know the author).
That’s why your book description needs to sell your book. And how do you do that?
The name of the game is curiosity!
Spark the curiosity of your reader, but don’t give away too much of the plot details. Your description should get them wanting MORE!
Step 7: Pick Keywords
Picking keywords is one of the hardest parts of the publishing process.
Keywords are how customers discover your book on Amazon. And it can take a lot of trial and error if you don’t know what to do.
The best advice I can give you is to use keywords customers would type into the Amazon search bar to find a book in your niche.
For example, if you are writing a BDSM book, one keywords might be Billionaire BDSM or bad boy erotica.
P.S. if you need help picking out keywords, be sure to check out my keyword templates. These are keywords that I personally researched and tested in various niches.
Now I’m not guaranteeing you’ll make money with my templates, but it’ll save you a bunch of research time and trial and error.
Click here to check out my keyword templates.
Step #8: Hit Publish!
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! Your first book is now finished!
Now it’s time to hit publish. It can be super nerve wracking to publish your first book. Personally, I was sweating bullets when I hit the button.
But don’t worry, now you’re a self-published author!
So, what now? Well, now it’s time to check your sales after a few days.
If you sales are good, continue replicating those results.
If your sales aren’t as good as expected, it’s time to look back at each component of your offering (story content, description, cover, keywords, etc.) and figure out what didn’t work.
Then, apply those learnings to your next book.
Making money writing erotica is all about finding out what works for you. Some of that comes through trial and error.
It took me a while to finally find a niche and story format that really worked for me. But once I did that, I started making decent money.
Recommended Resources For Writing Erotica
Erotica Academy Course
I have spent the past 4 years or so publishing erotica on Amazon. And I’ve made over $100,000 doing it.
But it didn’t always start out like that.
I struggled A LOT in the beginning (a big cause for my receding hairline haha) and made pretty much every newbie mistake.
That’s good news for you though, because you can learn from my painful mistakes without having to waste the time or money to do it.
I designed the Erotica Academy Course to help new authors get their self-publishing business off the ground.
This course includes over 2.5 hours of content and 50+ lectures covering pretty much every erotica writing topic.
Here’s a brief overview of what you can expect to learn:
1. How to research and discover highly profitable niches.
2. How to write compelling stories to get REPEAT customers.
3. How to design book covers that sell.
4. How to write book descriptions to get customers to hit that buy button.
5. How to select keywords to make your books fly off the shelf.
6. Sales hacks (I’ll teach you 3 different sales hacks to increase your sales WIHOUT writing more words)
Plus for a LIMITED TIME I’m giving away over $600+ of FREE BONUS CONTENT with this course:
>Free Book Sample: Free sample of one of my first books! You will get this book for free! This includes the book cover, title, description, keywords, and actual story content! [$300+ VALUE]
>FREE Book Review Consultation: Don’t waste valuable time or money making rookie mistakes! I will read your first book and offer critique on your cover, title, description, and actual story! [$100+ VALUE)] – Limited Time Offer Only
>Popular Niches: I will go over 7 popular and HIGHLY PROFITABLE niches that you should start in! [$100+ VALUE]
>Sale Hack: I’ll share one surprising sales hack that increased my sales by 30% over two months! [$100+ VALUE]
Click Here to sign up for the Erotica Academy Course to start making money.
Transparent Kindle Author
Transparent Kindle Author is a unique offering I just started offering.
So many people have hounded me for access to my pen names over the years. And now I’m finally reading to let a select few in!
What is Transparent Kindle Author (TKA)? Signing up for this course will give you EXCLUSIVE backstage access to one of my newest pen names.
You’ll see EVERYTHING!
You’ll get access to:
- My story content
- Book covers
- Book descriptions
- My money making keywords
Plus, you’ll see EXACTLY how much money I’m making with my monthly income reports.
In fact, you’ll learn how I earned 3 figures my first month with this pen name and how I nearly doubled that in month 2.
And I have a lot of cool unannounced content coming to this course in the very near future.
So if you want to get backstage access to a top erotica author’s pen name (which pretty much no one else is offering), click here to sign up for Transparent Kindle Author!
How to write erotica: Final Thoughts
Learning how to write erotica changed my life.
I never could have imagined the level of income I would be able to make.
Over the past few years, I have been able to use my erotica publishing income to travel the world. And I think that’s pretty cool.
So I hope this blog post helps you get started on your self publishing journey as well.