Hello! Question for you guys. How do you make your covers for your bundles? I see most writers using the 3D box set covers that show the cover and spine turned to the side. Do you know what software they use?

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Hi, newbie here. I just recently heard of D2D and want to publish my erotica there under a pen name. My main concern is being anonymous. May I ask how that works when you get paid as a non US citizen? What info will they ask? In addition, might be using paypal as payment method but any non us authors in D2D have any tips for payment other than this that works for them? Thank you for helping out.

Hey guys. I want to write an erotic paranormal series but I want it to be "Barbarella" style where she has several lovers over the course of the series. I'd market this more as a "why choose" romance. In this scenario, would the fact that she's on good terms with the man at the end, leaving open possibilities of future encounters, be sufficient as a HFN? Is that even required in erotica?

Just posted my first short story (swinging and MILF niche related) for review in KDP Marketplace and wanted to thank all the perverts in this community for their help and guidance!

I'm certain I read somewhere that if a user finishes a certain percentage of your book, your royalties will equal the intended royalties for a normal purchase. I honestly can't remember where I read it, and I'm starting to think I dreamt it. Was this ever the case?

I'm only asking because I get quite a few full book reads, but the page rate only equals something like $0.30 - which seems ludicrous. I know there's the advantage of increased reach due to some users not wanting to consume non-KU books, but that still seems far too low.

How would you rate KU as opposed to just releasing on Kindle without it?

Sprints are here

1. Goals for the day? Word count? Reading? Editing? Covers? Something else?
2. Rooftop yellings? Successes? Failures?
3. How was your week? Did you get everything done that you meant to?

I'm curious what people's thoughts are. I have what I'd consider an erotic horror, but I wouldn't consider the goal of the story to titillate the reader even though it does feature graphic sex. If anything, it's depressing. Nobody's going to be masturbating to that, for sure.

Does a story count as erotica if the goal isn't to titillate any readers? How about if there's almost nothing titillating in it at all but it features sex with a few graphic scenes as a central theme?

Mostly just curious because I've heard all kinds of opinions on it, especially in drawing a distinction between porn and erotica.

This is going to sound a bit pathetic, but I've been feeling pretty anxious about posting my stories publicly. I guess I'm just kind of caught between wanting to grow my following and have more people see my writing, but at the same time feeling overwhelmed about lots of people potentially seeing it.

My page is still pretty small, so I'm only getting a few interactions per post which is pretty managable (but also a bit disappointing). I actually commissioned an artist to draw some of the scenes from my current story, with the plan of posting them to help grow my page (art naturally gets a lot more clicks than writing where I post). But I started getting cold feet when I thought about so many people seeing it - I guess it just feels a lot more sensitive when it's something you feel personally attached to and spent so much time on (writing the characters). Also there's a lot of art theft within the community, so I'm guessing it would end up somewhere sooner or later. I'd just feel a bit uneasy about not having control over where it's posted.

I know I sound like I'm contradicting myself, but I'm just kind of stuck between wanting to share my work but also being a bit embarrassed by it. I struggle a lot with anxiety in general, so this is probably more of a personal issue than anything. But I was just wondering if the fear of posting goes away and you eventually get over the idea of so many people reading your work.

I know the free route would be to make a throwaway account here and post in the critique threads, but before I try that I want hire someone to write a blurb and keywords for one of my shorts.

I tend to learn best when given examples, but analyzing other shorts on Amazon hasn't helped as much as I would have liked. I think if I have one example that is specific to my own work, I'll have an easier time on future ones. I hope that makes sense. Haha.

So my question is if anyone has any recommendations? I know there's fivver but I know erotica is such a different beast to market than other fiction and worry they wouldn't know what to do with it. For clarification I write romantic erotica.

Maybe one of the trusted smut peddlers here would be open to a one time trade of passive marketing for a spicy character sketch?

How do you stay on topic? I keep finding myself going down rabit holes of different things I want to write. Different stories completely. I have a few I've started and I haven't finished others... anyone else have this "issue?" How do deal with it?

I checked the faq and some posts here and i get that backmatter to your other books are very important but for publishing the very 1st book how would I include them since I'm yet to publish anything else? Also can I edit the published book to add them after i posted a few other books?

Sprints are here

1. Goals for the day? (Word count? Reading? Editing? Covers? Something else?
2. Rooftop yellings? Successes? Failures?
3. How's it going? Anything you want to talk about or get off your chest?

What can I get away with on a kindle cover for a very well-hung MC?

Thanks

Hey guys,

I had a few books sent to the dungeon, but I was able to get all of them out except one, which they say has "sexually explicit language in the book's title or subtitle." The title includes the word "SEX." Should I just remove the word "SEX"? The problem is that this book is part of a bundle that was removed from the dungeon. But if I change the name, it will be different from when it's in the bundle and may confuse my readers. I hope this makes sense.

Hi, all! I came across this subreddit semi-recently and was floored by the amount of freely-given advice and the generally helpful and collaborative spirit of the community here. I've started writing my first erotic short following the template laid out in this wonderfully thorough guide, and I'm having a lot of fun—I've written romance with a few tame sex scenes before, but this is my first time sort of letting my hair down, so to speak.

Part of the appeal (obviously) is the anonymity granted by the pen name and the freedom to be as explicit, crude, and regressive as I want. My question concerns the ethics and, I suppose, risk of misrepresenting oneself—obviously there are lots of male authors writing under female pen names in the erotic and romance markets, but what about writing under a pen name of another ethnicity? For example, I'm a white male, but my story's protagonist is an Asian woman. Would it make sense in that case to write under a pen name like "Grace Wu"? I feel like that's crossing a line, but I also wonder if it's important to the reader's immersion to believe—or at least pretend to believe—that the writer is an actual Asian woman sharing her fantasies.

What are your thoughts? Would a more ambiguous pen name be the safer, more respectful choice? Or would I be giving up some amount of verisimilitude/eroticism? Thanks in advance and apologies if even broaching this topic offends—I assure you no disrespect is intended!

EDIT: It's clear from the responses I've gotten so far that this would, indeed, be crossing a line, so I'll go with an ambiguous pen name. Thanks for the sanity check, everyone! Also, to any other newcomers to the subreddit, apparently that guide I linked to should be taken with a "big heaping spoon of salt".

I have a pretty wide range of interests when it comes to writing, but I’m most drawn to historical or fantasy settings. Think Regency or sexy Tolkien. Do you think these are popular enough genres to make it worthwhile to write in? I’m not looking to make enough to live on. I just need some extra income.

I've been writing erotica for a number of years on Patreon without much trouble, releasing a new chapter of an ongoing story every ten days.

Recently, however, they decided to remove a single chapter from the story for the first time. This would only be an inconvenience if it weren't for the fact that it's a later chapter that my patrons will be receiving in four days. Specifically, my higher level patrons have have access to this chapter for a number of days already, and now the lower level patrons are scheduled to have it unlocked on the 30th.

It wouldn't be as simple as refunding every lower level member, as they'll need to read this chapter to understand what's going on in future chapters.

I've considered emailing each patron a document containing the chapter, or posting a password protected link for them to use, though honestly I'm scrambling for a better solution.

Has anyone else experienced something similar? If so, do you know of alternative ways to distribute separate chapters?

(Mods, I hope this kind of discussion is okay, if not I apologize. I also posted to r/selfpublish.)

Some author friends of mine are worried about AI generated books spamming the kindle store and drowning out the real ones.They are afraid that it will get harder for human authors to get their books in front of the eyes of customers.

But I simply don't see it! I have checked multiple categories, sorted by new release. There are of course many terrible low quality books, as they have been for many years now. But I don't see much evidence for a wave of AI spam.

Am I blind? Are you noticing AI books taking over the new releases in your niches? Or is my assumption correct that this just a baseless fear?

Sprints are here

1. Goals for the day? (Word count? Reading? Editing? Covers? Something else?)
2. Rooftop yellings? Successes? Failures?
3. What are your plans for the weekend?

Hi everyone, I posted here and the r/selfpublish sub before.

I was excited when I found out about IngramSpark and how they don't have content restrictions (from what I gathered). My erotic book is also going to be my debut novel; I've never written a book before. I then read some reviews about IngramSpark and a vast majority of them were negative, so now I'm searching for a new self-publisher.

I would consider Amazon, but my book may be a bit too "taboo" since it involves an 18-year-old senior in high school with his slightly older female teacher.

Besides Amazon, what reputable self-publishing company would you recommend? Thank you.

Just curious, I don't like writing locally on my computer, so used a separate google docs account. Just noticed I could not log in, so assume that a bot got in there and shut the account.

I knew that as a possibility, and just write for my entertainment. I don't really care that much, but if I write again, I'm kind of looking for a more stable platform to store erotic writing.

I was here reading up on my publishing opportunities. I see a lot of post complaining about Amazon restrictions. Where can I publish the stories Amazon doesn’t allow? We’re talking dark graphic descriptions of rape, murder, BDSM. Should I be looking at traditional publishing? Another platform?

Until now I've been using Kindle Create to generate my EPUB files (or KPF files in this case). However, I'm not thrilled about it, since the program is clunky and a bit overly manual.

How do you format your books ready for sale? Do you use an application for it?

I know Draft2Digital allows you to pre-format everything, but not all my releases will go through Draft2Digital, because of KU.

My other question, which is along the same lines, is what backmatter do you use? And how do you ensure that your backmatter stays consistent across releases?

This is one of my biggest gripes with Kindle Create - I wish there was a way to 'save' pages so that I can easily add them on future releases, or create a 'template' with all the front and back matter already added. At the moment, I have to literally copy and paste my back matter, which is annoying as hell.

Hey All,

I'm new to self publishing and looking for some advice around what to look for in an editor?

Also, is there anyone you would recommend?

Thanks!

Sprints are here

1. Goals for the day? (Word count? Reading? Editing? Covers? Something else?)

2. Rooftop yellings? Successes? Failures?

3. How's it going?

Have a blurb that is bugging you?

Want to maximize its marketing moxie?

Post it here, either in its entirety or in part, and let your peers take a crack at whipping it into shape.

Rules:

Blurbs only, please.

Kindness is not required, but constructiveness is.

Question is the same as the title. I write a lot of bdsm vampire fucker smut. Can I have my vampires drink the blood of their human partners during the act in a book published on Amazon? Or is that "sexualized violence" and thus banned?

If not, just gonna stick to smash words. Just curious because Google has been no help, and I don't wanna have all my eggs in one basket.

Someone reached out to me based on one of my Literotica stories and wants me to write a story for her. I'm thinking about doing it, and not charging for the first one to see if I want to do it. What are your opinions, thoughts, warnings?

If I do decide I like it I may be asking for more advice.

Thinking ahead, I've realized that I may have getten myself into a pickle. I've got two series started now, which I plan to extend to three books each. They both happen in the same world, a few years apart. While they can be read fully independently of each other, the second series is a sort of origin story for the antagonist of the first series. So my plan has been to bundle both together into a single 6-book volume. (Maybe throw in a bonus 7th book, if that story comes together.)

But I've realized that Draft2Digital only lets me assign one series to any given book. Which gives me four options:

1. Release the bundle with no series attached at all.
2. Release the bundle attached to one series, but not the other.
3. Retroactively combine both series into one, and figure out how to update their numbering. (My first book might become book 4 in the series?)
4. Release them as separate bundles, and stop pretending anyone cares about interlinked plots in their porn.

Seeing as I've only finished half of the planned books for the bundle, it's not a pressing issue. But if I have to change the numbers around, I'd rather do it while I have as few readers as possible.

Thank you for any advice. :)

I've read various posts on here about choosing keywords, but not a lot about organizing keywords.

Amazon gives us seven boxes for keywords, so what I do is put a specific phrase in the first box, characters in the second box (young woman. alpha male, etc.), actions in the third box (oral, anal, intercourse, etc.), adjectives in the fourth box (rough, steamy, dirty, etc.), and so on.

Would it be smarter to mix it up? How do you choose which to put in which box?