new to all this *gestures vagely*

[OldDevilDesignStudio]

I just signed up today and Im hoping to learn a few things. If I could pick your brain...
Im an artist and I have a familiar knowledge with kink, fetish and many types of alternative lifestyles. I love erotic horror of the supernatural variety. It has themes in my art as well. I am writing a book and I'm about 10,000 words in after edits. Right now it is rated R at worst. very little smut factor. Im very curious as to what would be more popular, the rated R version or a version that goes full smut. Going full smut would easily double my content. I still want to make a great story. I'm torn. Does anyone ever write 2 versions? As much as I like writing, my goal is to earn some passive income from book sales and crossover into my artwork.
I have no clue how lucrative this market is but I imagine it has its pros and cons. Im guessing that its harder to get your books out there? Prohibited content and so forth? Does it compensate by word of mouth via the fandom of the different genres? Im not sure what info Im looking for but anything might be useful to someone new to the genre of erotica.

 

[AlinaX]

I'm not sure about actual publishing, but on Lit the general preference is to be shamelessly explicit. 10000 words, by the way, is a 3-page Lit story, and a comfortable target to aim for (but certainly not a hard target to hold to).

 

[OldDevilDesignStudio]

I'm not sure about actual publishing, but on Lit the general preference is to be shamelessly explicit. 10000 words, by the way, is a 3-page Lit story, and a comfortable target to aim for (but certainly not a hard target to hold to).

Thanks. I did read a few stories. I noticed how they were written. I'm probably trying to write 50-100k but I really cant tell how long the story will be yet. I have a feeling the best answers are going to come from good old experience and experimentation. I'm currently waiting for the story to be reviewed by admin so I can get some feedback.

 

[Voboy]

I have no clue how lucrative this market is but I imagine it has its pros and cons. Im guessing that its harder to get your books out there? Prohibited content and so forth? Does it compensate by word of mouth via the fandom of the different genres? Im not sure what info Im looking for but anything might be useful to someone new to the genre of erotica.

It's not hugely lucrative unless you're willing to do it full-time and churn out a great deal of content. There are erotica publishers who trawl Lit and seek out writers they feel will suit their imprints, but the returns are not all that significant. Many writers here claim great success in the marketplace, and I've got no doubt they'll be along shortly to tell you how they do it.

There is a visual artist subforum here, too.

https://forum.literotica.com/forums/the-visual-artists-corner.50/

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm currently waiting for the story to be reviewed by admin so I can get some feedback.

You won't get feedback from the site editor - your first chapter will either be published or rejected if it breaches site content policies.

If you want feedback, start a new thread in the Feedback Forum once your chapter is published. If there's something in particular you want comments on, ask a specific question - otherwise you'll get generalities.

Driving crossover traffic to your art - I wouldn't bank on it. I've got some art here which doesn't get much traction - Literotica definitely has a writing focus, not a visual focus.

There is an Illustrated Category, but the site doesn't seem to place much of a priority on it, judging by the lengthy submission times people report.

 

[PennameWombat]

I just signed up today and Im hoping to learn a few things. If I could pick your brain...
Im an artist and I have a familiar knowledge with kink, fetish and many types of alternative lifestyles. I love erotic horror of the supernatural variety. It has themes in my art as well. I am writing a book and I'm about 10,000 words in after edits. Right now it is rated R at worst. very little smut factor. Im very curious as to what would be more popular, the rated R version or a version that goes full smut. Going full smut would easily double my content. I still want to make a great story. I'm torn. Does anyone ever write 2 versions? As much as I like writing, my goal is to earn some passive income from book sales and crossover into my artwork.
I have no clue how lucrative this market is but I imagine it has its pros and cons. Im guessing that its harder to get your books out there? Prohibited content and so forth? Does it compensate by word of mouth via the fandom of the different genres? Im not sure what info Im looking for but anything might be useful to someone new to the genre of erotica.

I’m not quite certain. Have you submitted a story for posting here on Literotica?

This Forum is mainly focused on writing and submitting to Literotica. In that vein, your use of “smut.“ I recognize it from plenty of forums and such in the ‘outside world’ but it’s not a word used here with any regularity. It’s also a word that really annoys me.

Because 99% of what’s posted on this site is what the outside world would call ‘smut.’ There is a Non-Erotic category here which makes up about 1% of the total posted story count (I haven’t done the precise math, but it’s close to that.) That said, stories here range from what you would likely describe as ‘R’ rated, I have a couple of those, with only short and not overly explicit sex scenes to others which have numerous explicit scenes.

But your questions about publishing for sale may or may not get addressed. There are regulars here with much more publishing out there, but from what I know there is a market ’out there.’ But. One issue is it’s very crowded. A second is how major marketplaces, such as Amazon, treat it. Amazon KDP technically prohibits “pornography“ (along with ”glorifying” pedophilia or rape). But, “pornography“ is what they decide it is. There is plenty of erotica there, but their tolerance of it varies over time.

Your question about earning ‘passive income’ is likely to be… fanciful. Unless you build up a fairly large catalog of published works AND do some marketing to build an audience AND continue to produce additional works. Again, the field is crowded and getting attention on YOUR works for sale will not be easy.

There are authors here who use Patreon and have followers who pay subscriptions for access to additional or early release of works. You can mention Patreon or your outside links in your profile, just not in the stories themselves. But this is a free site. If you’re posting here to build a following for commercial work, that may or may not work. Largely, it probably won’t. But it has happened, if very rarely. Some authors here established names first, then post old or side-project stuff here.

You also need to decide where you’re posting something. If you expect to publish on KDP or other platforms, most who do that post there first. Literotica content guidelines specifically prohibit using works here as “teasers;”

• Works that contain advertisements, outside links, domain names, or outside promotions of any kind within the description, body text, or audio (including “See my profile for…”).
• Teasers, partial works, excerpts of offsite works, or any work that appears to be a promotion for other platforms.

It’s also forbidden here to involve any person under 18 years of age in any sexual situation in a story. Period. That includes no flashbacks nor underage experiments, nothing. You can have children and young teens in stories, just nothing sexual when they’re present. Refer again to the content guidelines. Amazon will also nuke your work if they find a book you post there also on Literotica here.

All that, welcome. There has been an active thread in this Forum the last few days around ‘how much sex to have in a story?’ Again, just keep in mind, the discussions here focus on stories for Literotica. While much advice will carry over to the ‘real world,’ it’ll often require adaptation.

 

[CJLahrainn]

I just signed up today and Im hoping to learn a few things. If I could pick your brain...
Im an artist and I have a familiar knowledge with kink, fetish and many types of alternative lifestyles. I love erotic horror of the supernatural variety. It has themes in my art as well. I am writing a book and I'm about 10,000 words in after edits. Right now it is rated R at worst. very little smut factor. Im very curious as to what would be more popular, the rated R version or a version that goes full smut. Going full smut would easily double my content. I still want to make a great story. I'm torn. Does anyone ever write 2 versions? As much as I like writing, my goal is to earn some passive income from book sales and crossover into my artwork.
I have no clue how lucrative this market is but I imagine it has its pros and cons. Im guessing that its harder to get your books out there? Prohibited content and so forth? Does it compensate by word of mouth via the fandom of the different genres? Im not sure what info Im looking for but anything might be useful to someone new to the genre

If you're planning on publishing to KDP or Smashwords, I strongly recommend checking out the eroticauthors subreddit. Lots of good info there, and the dataporn posts give some idea of what kind of money you can expect. I can say with some confidence that the money is in the back catalog. A single novel may have a good month on KDP, which privileges new works in the searches for 30 days as far as I know, but without new content that will fade to nothing, no matter how good it is.

The cover, the blurb and the keywords are your most important marketing tools. Know the genre, of course, but bad covers and keywords for searches can kill any hope of income. People's experiences buying ads seem to be all over the place. Some say it helps, others say they saw no bump in sales.

As for two versions of the same work, I'm fairly certain Amazon doesn't allow that, calling it duplicate content. Research it, of course, but it may also fall under the misleading consumers rule.

Then there's the decision to go wide or not and try to get those KU page reads, because KU is only available for Amazon exclusives. Also, whether or not to publish under the erotica category, which limits the searches which will bring up the work. It can get kind of complicated, is what I'm saying, so researching is kind of required.

Good luck to you, and I hope this helped a bit.

 

[SimonDoom]

This is an erotic story website. There's a place on it for non-erotic stories, and some people write them here and seem to have good experiences, but most of the stories are erotic in nature, which means they are intended to give readers erotic pleasure. Usually, that means sex of some kind.
My advice to you is to write a short story, submit it, and see how it goes. You will learn more by doing than by overthinking and asking.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

If you intend to publish here, I would advise to make some stronger erotic/sexual content. If you are trying to publish it like a mainstream novel (meaning not here) then keeping it R rated is probably better in my opinion. Adding stronger sexual content won't take from the story you want to tell, just make the sex consistent with characters and the story. By changing it from R to X you will just change the readers pool somewhat, but even the readers who want strong sexual content can appreciate a good story.

 

[KeithD]

Yes, I sometimes write different versions of the same work for different audiences--but to different venues. You should post just one version to Literotica. Whether full bore or ratchetted back a bit on the sex for Literotica is up to which you enjoy writing the most. There are audiences for it all along the spectrum.

 

[gunhilltrain]

This is an erotic story website. There's a place on it for non-erotic stories, and some people write them here and seem to have good experiences, but most of the stories are erotic in nature, which means they are intended to give readers erotic pleasure. Usually, that means sex of some kind.
My advice to you is to write a short story, submit it, and see how it goes. You will learn more by doing than by overthinking and asking.

Several people have emphasized the erotic aspects of the material here, but that doesn't mean the story has to be wall-to-wall sex from the first paragraph. Some stories here are, but it's okay to have a slow build-up and even some of the aftermath. (Are the participants satisfied? Are they confused? Were they disappointed? Does the main action result in a personal disaster for somebody - like a break-up with another lover?) There are all kinds of ways to approach it. Maybe some readers may be titillated by the story, but I don't see that as necessarily being the main point of writing it.

So what if 1% of the stories are in the non-erotic category? If you have such a plot, get some experience writing something a bit different. By the way, I don't think I've ever written a story or chapter in a series that is 10,000 words. You can do something quite good with half that many words.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I just signed up today and Im hoping to learn a few things. If I could pick your brain...
Im an artist and I have a familiar knowledge with kink, fetish and many types of alternative lifestyles. I love erotic horror of the supernatural variety. It has themes in my art as well. I am writing a book and I'm about 10,000 words in after edits. Right now it is rated R at worst. very little smut factor. Im very curious as to what would be more popular, the rated R version or a version that goes full smut. Going full smut would easily double my content. I still want to make a great story. I'm torn. Does anyone ever write 2 versions? As much as I like writing, my goal is to earn some passive income from book sales and crossover into my artwork.
I have no clue how lucrative this market is but I imagine it has its pros and cons. Im guessing that its harder to get your books out there? Prohibited content and so forth? Does it compensate by word of mouth via the fandom of the different genres? Im not sure what info Im looking for but anything might be useful to someone new to the genre of erotica.

I put my first story from here up on Smashwords in two versions, "full smut" and "fade to black". The "full smut" version has outsold "fade to black" by ten to one.

 

[OldDevilDesignStudio]

Several people have emphasized the erotic aspects of the material here, but that doesn't mean the story has to be wall-to-wall sex from the first paragraph. Some stories here are, but it's okay to have a slow build-up and even some of the aftermath. (Are the participants satisfied? Are they confused? Were they disappointed? Does the main action result in a personal disaster for somebody - like a break-up with another lover?) There are all kinds of ways to approach it. Maybe some readers may be titillated by the story, but I don't see that as necessarily being the main point of writing it.

So what if 1% of the stories are in the non-erotic category? If you have such a plot, get some experience writing something a bit different. By the way, I don't think I've ever written a story or chapter in a series that is 10,000 words. You can do something quite good with half that many words.

Its not a story or a chapter, its a book...that 10k is about 4 chapters and Im up to Chapter 7. It will be between 50-890k word count.

 

[OldDevilDesignStudio]

I put my first story from here up on Smashwords in two versions, "full smut" and "fade to black". The "full smut" version has outsold "fade to black" by ten to one.

Thats good info. Thanks

 

[OldDevilDesignStudio]

If you're planning on publishing to KDP or Smashwords, I strongly recommend checking out the eroticauthors subreddit. Lots of good info there, and the dataporn posts give some idea of what kind of money you can expect. I can say with some confidence that the money is in the back catalog. A single novel may have a good month on KDP, which privileges new works in the searches for 30 days as far as I know, but without new content that will fade to nothing, no matter how good it is.

The cover, the blurb and the keywords are your most important marketing tools. Know the genre, of course, but bad covers and keywords for searches can kill any hope of income. People's experiences buying ads seem to be all over the place. Some say it helps, others say they saw no bump in sales.

As for two versions of the same work, I'm fairly certain Amazon doesn't allow that, calling it duplicate content. Research it, of course, but it may also fall under the misleading consumers rule.

Then there's the decision to go wide or not and try to get those KU page reads, because KU is only available for Amazon exclusives. Also, whether or not to publish under the erotica category, which limits the searches which will bring up the work. It can get kind of complicated, is what I'm saying, so researching is kind of required.

Good luck to you, and I hope this helped a bit.

Thanks, and Ill learn about Smashwords. Currently Im poking around on Medium

 

[gunhilltrain]

Its not a story or a chapter, its a book...that 10k is about 4 chapters and Im up to Chapter 7. It will be between 50-890k word count.

That's very ambitious; I'm impressed. I once thought of writing a novel, but it was a daunting idea. Even the series I write are maybe a little over 30,000 words. I'd have to count again to be sure.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Its not a story or a chapter, its a book...that 10k is about 4 chapters and Im up to Chapter 7. It will be between 50-890k word count.

Typo?

 

[Euphony]

Typo?

Tolstoy was a chump with his 587k.

 

[Duleigh]

Does anyone ever write 2 versions?

I do not write two version, but the majority of my sex scenes are removeable, they can be easily replaced with R or just popped out of the story, they're not important to the narrative.

I've written strokers that revolve around the sex scene but lately my stories are much longer, and the sex is additional to the narrative. I've found that my stories that contain the least amount of sex get the higher score

 

[yukonnights]

I do not write two version, but the majority of my sex scenes are removeable, they can be easily replaced with R or just popped out of the story, they're not important to the narrative.

I've written strokers that revolve around the sex scene but lately my stories are much longer, and the sex is additional to the narrative. I've found that my stories that contain the least amount of sex get the higher score

With story plot being the first priority, the opportunity for the overall story believability is more easily attained. Such a story can be much more like our real lives where sexual intimacy is usually a very small percentage of our daily life activity. A longer story can provide the time needed to show the lives, doubt's, frustrations, etc. of the characters. I usually try to make my stories believable and this is one of the ways to help do that.

That said, there is a valid purpose to the "all porn stroker" story, which seems to be the written version of "porn clips" that can be found online. And who hasn't watched a porn clip? So both styles are valid and serve different purposes — and to some extent different audiences. These short video clips also portray a very short moment in characters day, etc.