I'm new here

[whimpersofdesire]

Hi!

I'm new here and am excited to be publishing my work. I'd love to hear your feedback (good, bad and ugly). What would make my erotica better for readers?

I'd also love to hear about your experiences on Literotica! What brought you here? Why do you write, and what's worked well for you in terms of finding readers, getting feedback, or building an audience? Any previous contest winners here? What worked for you?

https://www.literotica.com/s/hired-girl-1-prepared-for-him
https://www.literotica.com/s/hired-girl-2-prepared-for-them


Stay dirty
xxx

 

[anthrodisiac]

First off, welcome! Always happy to see new writers liven up the place and bring with them their own brand and tastes and philosophies and whatnot

Second, lotta questions I got into writing smut because I wanted to break a near-6-year hiatus and shake some rust off, and add some more smut to the niche category I most read (anthros). There are a lot of different approaches and philosophies to finding readers, getting feedback, stuff like that. The primary thing is to keep writing and keep building your skills as a writer. It rarely happens overnight, but as you keep posting, you become more of a known quantity, more people are likely to find your stuff and stick around. It also helps to have characters that the reader can connect with. I believe that erotica that focuses on the characters is usually more engaging and sensual, because the readers can really get a sense for these people and connect more viscerally with them. But if you're writing kink, that tends to trump characterization, because people are there for the sexy scenario less than the characters. Still, why not have both if you can? Sexy kink with characters a reader can connect with is a winning combo in my book.

We have a ton of threads on writing advice that could be helpful in helping you hone your craft, but I'd probably start with https://forum.literotica.com/thread...f-writing-tricks-philosophies-styles.1632683/ because it's a bit more general and encompasses a lot of different aspects, whereas the On Writing threads tend to be more narrowly focused and get really in the weeds on stuff. The best writers tend to be the ones who are constantly learning and trying out new things, figuring out more advanced techniques, and always striving to be better.

Third, if you're looking for feedback, you should also try the Story Feedback forum, since that's usually where people who are most willing to give feedback on stories hang out. It can be a bit of a crapshoot, some people get a lot of useful comments, some get nothing, but most get about 1 - 3 people of varying levels of skill and experience, who providing a decent amount of feedback, and occasionally a pretty huge chunk of it. I think you'll find at least a couple takers, since your chapters are a single Lit page each.

In any event, welcome, and good luck Hope to see you around more often. AH is a great place to ask questions and learn and have fun, quite a lot of us here enjoy talking about writing and helping out others. Also being weird and goofy, there's a lot of that too. And puns, so many puns.

 

[al55]

Hi!

I'm new here and am excited to be publishing my work. I'd love to hear your feedback (good, bad and ugly). What would make my erotica better for readers?

I'd also love to hear about your experiences on Literotica! What brought you here? Why do you write, and what's worked well for you in terms of finding readers, getting feedback, or building an audience? Any previous contest winners here? What worked for you?

https://www.literotica.com/s/hired-girl-1-prepared-for-him
https://www.literotica.com/s/hired-girl-2-prepared-for-them


Stay dirty
xxx

Welcome to the forums!

 

[Rob_Royale]

Welcome. I hope you have enjoy your Literotica writing career.

 

[NotWise]

I'd also love to hear about your experiences on Literotica! What brought you here? Why do you write, and what's worked well for you in terms of finding readers, getting feedback, or building an audience? Any previous contest winners here? What worked for you?

What brought me here? Literotica was the best alternative.
Why do I write? For the fun of it. It's a hobby. I have several.
What's worked well for finding readers or building an audience? Publish frequently in popular categories.
Previous contest winners here? There are many.
What worked for you? For me, popular characters and an emotionally rewarding ending produced a high score.

 

[NotWise]

As to how to get feedback, that depends on what kind of feedback you want.

You can ask for feedback on the Story Feedback forum. People providing feedback there usually give fairly esoteric, writerly critique.

Alternatively, cling to every comment you get from the readers. They tend to give emotional love it/hate it feedback about the story and ignore technical details.

Between those choices, I prefer the latter. YMMV.

For unpublished stories, you can go to the editors' forum and request a beta reader. The result can be highly variable, and it's best to cultivate readers you are familiar with.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I'd also love to hear about your experiences on Literotica! What brought you here? Why do you write, and what's worked well for you in terms of finding readers, getting feedback, or building an audience? Any previous contest winners here? What worked for you?

Same questions back to you. Tell us a bit about yourself, your experience.

 

[whimpersofdesire]

Ahh thanks for sharing <3 everyone

I have been writing my entire life, and I just think smut is fun. I'm pretty mild I think in terms of tastes - compared to the extremely experimental things out there, which I hope is refreshing to some readers out there especially women who haven't explored themselves sexually - which can be done with or without a partner in my opinion.

I'm mostly here to win a contest lol - I'm a little money driven, and eventually would love to sell episodes or e-books. I've seen that amazon has recently changed their rules, but before I do that I want to kind of do my practicing and learning here.

It's really exciting to post something and watch the views go up I guess it's kind of addicting. I have a few things I'm working on right now as well as a non-spicy book I've finished but if I don't have a lot of projects going on at the same time I get depressed.

 

[ClintonBrooks]

Hi!

I'm new here and am excited to be publishing my work. I'd love to hear your feedback (good, bad and ugly). What would make my erotica better for readers?

I'd also love to hear about your experiences on Literotica! What brought you here? Why do you write, and what's worked well for you in terms of finding readers, getting feedback, or building an audience? Any previous contest winners here? What worked for you?

Hi whimper,

I've been a reader here for over three years, a writer for about 18 months. It was the stories that drew me in.

I started writing as I was coming up with stories at night, when I couldn't sleep. I had one in particular that I clung to as I usually forgot pieces of it by the next morning. So I started writing what I could remember, even texting sentences...paragraphs...just ideas to my email. Then I started writing it. That story is still unpublished. I enjoy the creation of the story. The spark of an idea and determining what direction it will take. The sense of achievement I receive when I finish and hit "publish".

Finding readers, getting feedback and building an audience are not my strong suit. Regarding feedback, I have a few friends here who will "beta-read" for me and their feedback is valuable. I perform the same for them if/when asked. That's the most effective feedback for me. We may get comments at the end of our stories, but those are few and far between, if they come at all. And frequently, there is nothing useful there in the way of a critique. They are still nice to receive though. (except for the occasional hateful or misunderstanding person who doesn't appreciate/understand)

No contest winners for me. I still compete though as that's a good way to get your story in front of a bunch of readers. Either the official Literotica competitions or the semi-official author challenges will work. There are support threads here for each one that help.

Participation helps me. Connecting with people helps me. Not only with my writing, but just enjoying the day-to-day as there are plenty of non-writing threads here to entertain.

Good luck.

 

[ClintonBrooks]

Ahh thanks for sharing <3 everyone

I have been writing my entire life, and I just think smut is fun. I'm pretty mild I think in terms of tastes - compared to the extremely experimental things out there, which I hope is refreshing to some readers out there especially women who haven't explored themselves sexually - which can be done with or without a partner in my opinion.

I'm mostly here to win a contest lol - I'm a little money driven, and eventually would love to sell episodes or e-books. I've seen that amazon has recently changed their rules, but before I do that I want to kind of do my practicing and learning here.

It's really exciting to post something and watch the views go up I guess it's kind of addicting. I have a few things I'm working on right now as well as a non-spicy book I've finished but if I don't have a lot of projects going on at the same time I get depressed.

Amazon is a challenge. I am in a couple of anthologies there. Plus, there is little in the way of author support there and I hear of many people getting "dungeoned" with no explanation.

There is sooooo much AI crap out there that the smut market is saturated.

 

[whimpersofdesire]

Amazon is a challenge. I am in a couple of anthologies there. Plus, there is little in the way of author support there and I hear of many people getting "dungeoned" with no explanation.

There is sooooo much AI crap out there that the smut market is saturated.

Yes that's what I'm finding too! Now everyone suddenly thinks they can write which fine great go for it but it's better to write the old fashioned way.

 

[whimpersofdesire]

Hi whimper,

I've been a reader here for over three years, a writer for about 18 months. It was the stories that drew me in.

I started writing as I was coming up with stories at night, when I couldn't sleep. I had one in particular that I clung to as I usually forgot pieces of it by the next morning. So I started writing what I could remember, even texting sentences...paragraphs...just ideas to my email. Then I started writing it. That story is still unpublished. I enjoy the creation of the story. The spark of an idea and determining what direction it will take. The sense of achievement I receive when I finish and hit "publish".

Finding readers, getting feedback and building an audience are not my strong suit. Regarding feedback, I have a few friends here who will "beta-read" for me and their feedback is valuable. I perform the same for them if/when asked. That's the most effective feedback for me. We may get comments at the end of our stories, but those are few and far between, if they come at all. And frequently, there is nothing useful there in the way of a critique. They are still nice to receive though. (except for the occasional hateful or misunderstanding person who doesn't appreciate/understand)

No contest winners for me. I still compete though as that's a good way to get your story in front of a bunch of readers. Either the official Literotica competitions or the semi-official author challenges will work. There are support threads here for each one that help.

Participation helps me. Connecting with people helps me. Not only with my writing, but just enjoying the day-to-day as there are plenty of non-writing threads here to entertain.

Good luck.

Yes I'm the same way they keep me up at night so I write them down. I finished my first fiction earlier this year and now instead of editing that I'm playing in the sandbox here haha.

 

[whimpersofdesire]

First off, welcome! Always happy to see new writers liven up the place and bring with them their own brand and tastes and philosophies and whatnot

Second, lotta questions I got into writing smut because I wanted to break a near-6-year hiatus and shake some rust off, and add some more smut to the niche category I most read (anthros). There are a lot of different approaches and philosophies to finding readers, getting feedback, stuff like that. The primary thing is to keep writing and keep building your skills as a writer. It rarely happens overnight, but as you keep posting, you become more of a known quantity, more people are likely to find your stuff and stick around. It also helps to have characters that the reader can connect with. I believe that erotica that focuses on the characters is usually more engaging and sensual, because the readers can really get a sense for these people and connect more viscerally with them. But if you're writing kink, that tends to trump characterization, because people are there for the sexy scenario less than the characters. Still, why not have both if you can? Sexy kink with characters a reader can connect with is a winning combo in my book.

We have a ton of threads on writing advice that could be helpful in helping you hone your craft, but I'd probably start with https://forum.literotica.com/thread...f-writing-tricks-philosophies-styles.1632683/ because it's a bit more general and encompasses a lot of different aspects, whereas the On Writing threads tend to be more narrowly focused and get really in the weeds on stuff. The best writers tend to be the ones who are constantly learning and trying out new things, figuring out more advanced techniques, and always striving to be better.

Third, if you're looking for feedback, you should also try the Story Feedback forum, since that's usually where people who are most willing to give feedback on stories hang out. It can be a bit of a crapshoot, some people get a lot of useful comments, some get nothing, but most get about 1 - 3 people of varying levels of skill and experience, who providing a decent amount of feedback, and occasionally a pretty huge chunk of it. I think you'll find at least a couple takers, since your chapters are a single Lit page each.

In any event, welcome, and good luck Hope to see you around more often. AH is a great place to ask questions and learn and have fun, quite a lot of us here enjoy talking about writing and helping out others. Also being weird and goofy, there's a lot of that too. And puns, so many puns.

Totally agree it's worth the effort to make the experience enjoyable - to read - all around haha.

 

[whimpersofdesire]

Same questions back to you. Tell us a bit about yourself, your experience.

I did a little below i hit the wrong button I have never really used threads much before! lol I posted my story on reddit and nobody read it. haha

 

[Voboy]

I'm mostly here to win a contest lol - I'm a little money driven, and eventually would love to sell episodes or e-books. I've seen that amazon has recently changed their rules, but before I do that I want to kind of do my practicing and learning here.

Welcome!

Most of us who post in this forum, particularly those who've been here awhile, will tell you that winning a contest is not as realistic an expectation as you might wish it was; even the finest writers, posting the best stories, often fail to place thanks to the way the contests are structured. And while many of us have made a little money here and there writing smut, it's never likely to be a life-changing amount.

If you stay here and post, you might find some other things that can motivate you instead of cashola. If not, then not; that's cool too, but I've found that writing enjoyable smut is its own reward.

Good luck!

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Welcome, have fun, don't take any of it too seriously.

 

[SimonDoom]

Welcome! I hope you have a great time here.

Write. That's the only real rule. Just write and publish and see how things go.

It's better if you write for the pleasure of writing than writing for the pseudo-award of winning contests.

Feedback is spotty and unpredictable. Get used to that. If you just keep writing, and you write well, you'll find readers who like your stuff and let you know. It takes a little time, but in the meantime you can enjoy the writing process and knowing that you are giving erotic pleasure to your readers.

I recommend doing your homework, if you have not already. Peruse the site, this forum, the how-to articles, the guidance given in various threads, the site's rules, etc.

Most of all, have fun.

 

[MK_Whimsy]

I'd also love to hear about your experiences on Literotica! What brought you here? Why do you write, and what's worked well for you in terms of finding readers, getting feedback, or building an audience? Any previous contest winners here? What worked for you?

Hi! I came here mainly to throw my weird yarns and word vomit into the void, and this seemed an opportune place to do it.

I can't speak to how to amass huge numbers of followers, though I have heard one factor that works very well is writing consistently -- which I don't really do. Usually if I do post something I'll share a link in the forums here, such as in this thread: What have you posted recently?

Good luck with your writing!

 

[whimpersofdesire]

Hi! I came here mainly to throw my weird yarns and word vomit into the void, and this seemed an opportune place to do it.

I can't speak to how to amass huge numbers of followers, though I have heard one factor that works very well is writing consistently -- which I don't really do. Usually if I do post something I'll share a link in the forums here, such as in this thread: What have you posted recently?

Good luck with your writing!

Thanks for the tips!

 

[whimpersofdesire]

Welcome!

Most of us who post in this forum, particularly those who've been here awhile, will tell you that winning a contest is not as realistic an expectation as you might wish it was; even the finest writers, posting the best stories, often fail to place thanks to the way the contests are structured. And while many of us have made a little money here and there writing smut, it's never likely to be a life-changing amount.

If you stay here and post, you might find some other things that can motivate you instead of cashola. If not, then not; that's cool too, but I've found that writing enjoyable smut is its own reward.

Good luck!

It is - I just reread both of my stories and I found a lot of room for improvement lol. So I'm excited to get better. idk why but sometimes I find a contest and I just have to do it. so here we are lol.

 

[whimpersofdesire]

Welcome! I hope you have a great time here.

Write. That's the only real rule. Just write and publish and see how things go.

It's better if you write for the pleasure of writing than writing for the pseudo-award of winning contests.

Feedback is spotty and unpredictable. Get used to that. If you just keep writing, and you write well, you'll find readers who like your stuff and let you know. It takes a little time, but in the meantime you can enjoy the writing process and knowing that you are giving erotic pleasure to your readers.

I recommend doing your homework, if you have not already. Peruse the site, this forum, the how-to articles, the guidance given in various threads, the site's rules, etc.

Most of all, have fun.

Thank you! Yes it is fun

 

[anthrodisiac]

It is - I just reread both of my stories and I found a lot of room for improvement lol. So I'm excited to get better. idk why but sometimes I find a contest and I just have to do it. so here we are lol.

Unending improvement and learning is the hallmark of good writers. We have a ton of threads about writing craft, some of it gets super in the weeds, and there are tons of opinions and tips and philosophies and I've learned a lot from them.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Hi!

I'm new here and am excited to be publishing my work. I'd love to hear your feedback (good, bad and ugly). What would make my erotica better for readers?

I'd also love to hear about your experiences on Literotica! What brought you here? Why do you write, and what's worked well for you in terms of finding readers, getting feedback, or building an audience? Any previous contest winners here? What worked for you?

https://www.literotica.com/s/hired-girl-1-prepared-for-him
https://www.literotica.com/s/hired-girl-2-prepared-for-them


Stay dirty
xxx

Welcome.

It appears that you are writing a chapter story so I will wait until it is finished before diving in. It's just my personal preference to not start reading incomplete stories on this site.

Contests are the only viable way to monetize content on Literotica. The ambiguity surrounding them and the competitive targeting associated with them stacks the odds against every entrant. If the monthly contests return at some point, they pit each story published in the month against every other one "behind the scenes", so to speak. I won one of these with my first story and got a check, but that was more than a dozen years ago.

I believe that most writers do better when they utilize this site to hone their skills and embrace reader feedback to adjust their content to increase the market appeal of their stories. These improved stories then might find a marketable reception on other sites, such as Smashwords or even Amazon. The improvements might entail toning down the graphic depictions of some content, creating a novel-sized version of the individual chapters, or an anthology built from multiple series episodes.

There is no "one-size-fits-all" approach, but if you take examples from how things work in traditional publishing when publishing for this site, you should be better positioned in the long run.

Good luck

 

[EmilyMiller]

@whimpersofdesire

Welcome to Literotica

 

[Jada59]

Welcome! Love the name. No time now, but I’ll look at your work later.