Promoting Your Erotica Books (Questions and ideas!)

[T_Silverwolf]

Hey, hey,

I've been working on a fantasy erotica series for some time now and, as I'd planned to, I'm cleaning up the first volume of it in order to release it as a stand alone/series novella. This, in turn, got me wondering where to promote my work, I've seen some real hit or miss projects on Amazon and Smashwords even in my niche, leading me to wonder just how I can maximize my chances of getting seen and hopefully making a sale.

So far I've been promoting my blog which contains a link to my in progress stuff as well as the cleaned up 'premium' version of the first chapter. I've also been:

Inviting people to guest blog.
Setting up accounts on ebook sites like Kobo.
Planning out a press release (urgh).
Trying to entice friends to leave (honest) reviews of my premium version on sites where it's posted for free.
I've also joined some erotic writing groups with the intent of learning and promoting my stuff.

So far I've managed about 200 downloads of my free sample, have a hand full of reviews and my blog has been getting a little extra traffic which is nice, but still nowhere near the reads I get on here... Like 10 to 1 disparity.

I understand why LE doesn't want people promoting their commercial work in the body text, but I'm kind of in a position where the ability to make money from my writing is impossibly vital-- I quite sincerely fit the starving artist trope, so I'm really hoping some of you folks will have some ideas to share and others will be able to get some ideas for promoting their own work here.

Can't wait to see what you guys have to say, thanks for taking the time to read this!

 

[sr71plt]

I think the occasional free read and discounted sale and reviews by recognized reviewers and bloggers are helpful, but most of everything else doesn't seem to be worth the payoff. The best thing to do is to write excellent, edited, works to underserved or high demand niches, to have killer covers and blurbs, to cover a multiple of sales points that will display your entry well, and to release a new one frequently to keep your name/covers under the noses of readers/buyers and to keep them checking back on your backlist. (IMO)

Don't put more into promotion of an erotica e-book than you did into providing a high-quality product that meets a niche demand. Overpromoting a dud will deep six anything else you write. Happily, the phenomenon of the erotica e-book online world is that they sell themselves far better just by being on offer at multiple sales points than print books ever did just by being on bookstore shelves.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

All of the people here who have been published in physical book form, or have had their fiction turn commercial are all, um, storied. That is, there is a story in itself in how they ever got some commercial returns for what they wrote. In my own case, it was to do with a bunch of (normally) totally drunk and irresponsible mainstream movie producers, one of whom was completely comatose after standing on a stone fish in Indonesia!

And the rest, as they say, is history. Well, it was in that specific case in which I became an unwitting beneficiary. I was young and foolish then, but could handle a script and wrote pretty well evidently.

Now, I think they 'see me coming,' as it were, whenever I have the aquarium with the stone fish under my arm...

Yeah, to some extent though I don't think there is any substitute for being a shameless self-promoter if you want to commercialize your writing. And I think it was ever thus.

I don't personally do fiction for money, and I have always had a little audience of followers from the days of underground hard copy porn magazines, basically till now. I do make money from writing. I have a background and industry training from inside one of the world's largest (German-owned) production houses, and earlier work with a government finance department - consequently I occasionally do a contract for a merger team or an industry bank with a specialist requirement usually for a very brief few months. Some do say that this work comprises some of my best fiction too.

But I do get paid for it.

I read a lot of these issues talked about here by people such as yourself and a number of others and I'm not sure there is a one-size fits all solution. On the one hand, fiction writing does have a huge following globally, on the other hand, the old library purchasing system of virtual subsistence to writers has gone down the drain of free or hackable technology and this means the current situation is not viable for most writers intending to be commercially successful in any simple, direct way. There are those who claim this is not so, but really, what they are saying goes against the fact that so many magazines (titles) are closing down worldwide and all the pay-sites are failing, even the Murdoch ones that have so much marketing behind them.

Recently I have been involving myself in App development businesses and arranging investment for some of them that I can get a piece of the action on, and here, there definitely appear to be avenues where revenues do flow much more freely. Take a look at that one that just got purchased by Priceline Group a week or so ago for 2.6 billion I think. This App does restaurant reservations via mobile phone. They are getting 1 dollar from the restaurants per booking via the App. I haven't seen that they split anything to reviewers for any restaurant reviews, for example but hey, that's where the money is for writing these days.

I mean it can go a hell of a lot deeper and broader than what I am saying, but generally speaking, this is where the main action is.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

No one touts gold mines or Rolls Royce.

 

[sr71plt]

No one touts gold mines or Rolls Royce.

Called you on this before, James. Rolls Royce does do TV commercials (e.g., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMwcXRSA2Iw). Gold Mines have no need for investors or buyers, so there's no need to promote them.

Now, since you posted to this thread, let's hear about the books you have in the marketplace.

 

[lovecraft68]

Its like a paid version of lit. Just keep putting up new stuff and people will start to look for you. Every time I put up a new e-book I see a few sales on older books and many times multiple sales(on sites like smashwords they will tell you if a sale was more than one book, the others you have no idea)

The great thing about e-books is they are there forever and will continue to make a few bucks here and there. A couple of days ago someone bought four of my e-books and one of them was the first one I published in March of 2011 so here it is three years later still tossing a couple of dollars my way.

I'm lousy at social media in general, but although everyone insists you need a blog or facebook etc....My opinion? That's time away from writing. There's enough to do with finding and making covers, formatting uploading books etc...those are necessary, yapping away to the internet isn't.

 

[Swilly]

That's a good point, LC. Driving enough followers to blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and the like is a lot more difficult that one would think.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Called you on this before, James. Rolls Royce does do TV commercials (e.g., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMwcXRSA2Iw). Gold Mines have no need for investors or buyers, so there's no need to promote them.

Now, since you posted to this thread, let's hear about the books you have in the marketplace.

PILOTs real question is: HOW MANY STORIES DID YOU XEROX AT THE POST OFFICE AND TRY AND SELL AT THE FLEA MARKET?

Uh, none. Shame the Devil with the truth, Pilot, I hear you Xerox your stories and give them to Jehovah's Witnesses.

 

[sr71plt]

I always suspected you had trouble with your hearing, JBJ.

You know, it's fascinating how often you argue with completely empty words.

 

[Hypoxia]

There's enough to do with finding and making covers, formatting uploading books etc...those are necessary, yapping away to the internet isn't.

Then why do you post here so much?

 

[sr71plt]

Then why do you post here so much?

Think he's referring to blogs here. And I agree they aren't cost effective. Unless you can gather a big-number following, which is hard to do and requires a whole lot of effort with blogs, you are expending a lot of quality time that could go into writing your next e-book into an effort that will only sell a handful of books. It's akin to selling out of the trunk of your car with a print book--and driving into the next state each time to try to do that.

 

[lovecraft68]

Then why do you post here so much?

This isn't a blog and I'm not trying to promote anything. I come here for an escape from whatever a I'm doing at the moment. I guess we could call it procrastination, but its not creating and maintaining a blog, website facebook page asking people to buy my latest book.

 

[lovecraft68]

Think he's referring to blogs here. And I agree they aren't cost effective. Unless you can gather a big-number following, which is hard to do and requires a whole lot of effort with blogs, you are expending a lot of quality time that could go into writing your next e-book into an effort that will only sell a handful of books. It's akin to selling out of the trunk of your car with a print book--and driving into the next state each time to try to do that.

Yup, that's my point.

As for driving around selling copies of your book from state to state goes, it worked out pretty well for Wayne Dyer. But I'm sure he's the exception to the rule.

 

[sr71plt]

Yup, that's my point.

As for driving around selling copies of your book from state to state goes, it worked out pretty well for Wayne Dyer. But I'm sure he's the exception to the rule.

Yes, and there are damn few exceptions. The one that is often brought up--falsely--is John Grisham and his first book, A Time to Kill. Yes, he went around to his wife's garden club meetings and sold books he had bought from the publisher himself (with him, on his own decision, buying up a 1,000 of them--one fifth of the printing--because he falsely thought he could sell them himself better than the publisher could. He has said that he still has most of them in a storage unit and will, indeed, make a killing when he decides to sell them)--but none of these few sales he made had a damn thing to do with the movie contract he got on the second book, The Firm, that launched his best-selling career.

 

[lovecraft68]

Yes, and there are damn few exceptions. The one that is often brought up--falsely--is John Grisham and his first book, A Time to Kill. Yes, he went around to his wife's garden club meetings and sold books he had bought from the publisher himself (with him, on his own decision, buying up a 1,000 of them--one fifth of the printing--because he falsely thought he could sell them himself better than the publisher could. He has said that he still has most of them in a storage unit and will, indeed, make a killing when he decides to sell them)--but none of these few sales he made had a damn thing to do with the movie contract he got on the second book, The Firm, that launched his best-selling career.

Yeah those things would go through the roof at an auction house. Might even be worth getting the attention of Heritage or Sotheby's (probably spelling that wrong)

 

[JagFarlane]

No one touts gold mines or Rolls Royce.

Stock traders tout gold mines...http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-miners-stock-rally-has-just-begun-2014-02-21