Question for those who publish outside Literotica

[ShelbyDawn57]

I'm following the TMI Comment thread and it raised a question in my mind.

What do those little red Hs and our voting scores mean in the real world?

I have some very high scores and just won the Readers Choice for my favorite category.
Does that mean my stories are deserving of Pulitzers(this is a joke, OK?) or that they would sell well outside our little ecosystem?
I honestly have no idea. People seem to like them, and I love writing them. I even have a few followers pestering me to publish a hard copy anthology, promising they'd buy it if I did.

What's been your experience in the outside world? Do high vote stories equate to ones that will sell well on Amazon? Is there any correlation at all?

This may end up being a rhetorical question, but I'd be interested in any comments anyone has.

 

[lovecraft68]

They will get more attention here because this is a free site, and not everyone pays for erotica either because they're cheap, or they don't want to sign up on a pay site with any real info.

Also, for amazon at least, they often play games with erotica and put it in the dungeon where its not easily visible, unless you do their exclusive programs which I don't recommend.

But I'm saying this about any story regardless of score or reception here. But one thing that pay and lit have in common is you need a niche. "generic erotica" does not sell that well, but if you target a genre such as milf, hotwife, taboo(on places that allow it) you'll do well.

Keep in mind that also like here, first one out might not do much, you need to add books and build a library and base.

If you want to give publishing a go and have any questions, feel free to PM me and I'll see if I can help you.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

I'm pretty sure that was mentioned many times before, but it's pretty useless to correlate your score on a free site, where people can just randomly stumble over your story and consume it without any ties, with the viability of putting out a product people pay good money for.

In my experience, the moment people pay actual money for your work, there is a whole new level of expectations associated with it. If you get a free meal, and it's okay, you'll thank the cook regardless. If you go into a steakhouse and pay fifty bucks for a dry piece of meat that was cooked to death,... well, you get the idea.

The same goes when looking at stories with bad scores. Cuckold stories in LW will get one-bombed to death when freely accessible, but once you slap a price tag on it, and only those who actually want to read about that kink pay money for it, your work will fare MUCH better on the pay site than here.

Other than that, I can only fully agree with what LC posted before me. I'd say the amount of followers you get here, on a free site, is probably the best indication you can get for how many people would be willing to buy your work.

 

[AchtungNight]

It depends on where you post it. I had fanfic here for years with few votes and comments. I post them to AO3 this past summer, get a bunch of nice comments and then back to cool silence. Which is better than the trolling and behind my back condemning I got on another now defunct site I posted on before Lit. Or the just plain silence I’ve gotten on other platforms. Do as you will and try not to be a jerk, that’s about all I can say. Good luck.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I'm going to go down a slightly different path with my opinions...

Having readers like your stories here can translate into some success on pay sites, such as Smashwords or Draft2Digital. If the writing is good, it can have enough value for people to pay for it.

The biggest challenge where publishing erotic content for profit is concerned lies in the shame or potential embarrassment associated with a writer attempting to promote their work while remaining anonymous. Simply posting a story onto a pay site, whether it is one of those I mentioned or Amazon, it will be competing against thousands of other stories. Something has to drive potential readers to it, and that responsibility falls on the writer alone.

Unlike some others, I don't believe the stigma of purchasing erotic books is that great, especially where e-books are concerned. I have posted in other threads that my wife bought a paperback book last year at Target that was as hard-core erotica as anything posted on Lit. It was marketed as a romance story, but it was your basic porn in all ways. (Forever Never by Lucy Score, published by Bloom Books)

As that book illustrates, there are publishers interested in erotic content, especially if it deals with characters who have been marginalized in society or historically underrepresented in published works. At the recent Atlanta Writers Conference, I heard several agents and publishers stating that the number one project on their wish list was a dystopian tale involving characters who were "different" than the society they lived in.

 

[Gamblnluck]

I have some very high scores and just won the Readers Choice for my favorite category.
Does that mean my stories are deserving of Pulitzers(this is a joke, OK?) or that they would sell well outside our little ecosystem?

No, it means you hit the button for appreciation by your target audience. I'd have to go back and see if I'd read any of your stories ( I read TG on occasion depending on how the title and description are written.)
Just because your character is forced trans does not necessarily mean it has to go to Nonconsent. Just because it is in trans does not meant the guy has to love the idea. He can be very reluctant. I've tried several categories and in some, I can't hit that magic formula even though I like my own story.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

No, it means you hit the button for appreciation by your target audience. I'd have to go back and see if I'd read any of your stories ( I read TG on occasion depending on how the title and description are written.)
Just because your character is forced trans does not necessarily mean it has to go to Nonconsent. Just because it is in trans does not meant the guy has to love the idea. He can be very reluctant. I've tried several categories and in some, I can't hit that magic formula even though I like my own story.

Pretty. Much if Hallmark had a trans porn department, it would be me.

Happy endings all around with an occasional dose of righteous vindication. Some of my stories still make me tear up when I read them. Oh, and lots off butt sex. LOL

 

[Voboy]

I used to write commercially, and met with almost exactly as much success outside Lit (for pay) as I did within Lit (for free). So in my mind, for my work, Lit seems to be quite well-calibrated to the marketplace, for the level of readership and acceptance I appeal to. I have no doubt there are no firm conclusions anyone should draw from that; I think there are a lot of variables at play, writer by writer and genre by genre.