Tie in to Amazon ebook?

[jdlockett]

Tie in to Amazon ebook allowed?

Is it permitted to post original stories on Literotica with a tie-in to additional material available as an Amazon ebook? For example additional chapters? I see a rule about no links. What if you added a sentence at the beginning or end of the story such as:

Check out chapters 12 through 18, now available on Amazon, Author Name T.S.Keebler, Book Title "Romancing The Andesite", ISBN number 1435246428763

OR

Check out chapters 12 through 18, now available at your favorite bookseller, Author Name T.S.Keebler, Book Title "Romancing The Andesite", ISBN number 1435246428763

Is this allowed?

 

[Bramblethorn]

You can include a link to e-books etc. on your author page, and in your forum sig, but advertising it in the story itself or offering a "pay to see the end" deal is a no-no. If in doubt, PM Laurel.

 

[jdlockett]

You can include a link to e-books etc. on your author page, and in your forum sig, but advertising it in the story itself or offering a "pay to see the end" deal is a no-no. If in doubt, PM Laurel.

Interesting. Do you think any/all of the following sentences would be acceptable at the end/beginning of a story:

A) More explicit version of story and additional adventures of these characters are available - see my author page.

B) In the next chapter, Emma discovers Willoughby's less-than-noble intentions. See my author page for instructions how to view this material.

 

[Laurel]

In a word, no.

We do not allow promotion of any kind inside of submissions (including "see my profile for my other work/blog link/etc"). That said, you are more than welcome to promote your offsite work or websites on your Author Profile page.

And while we welcome authors to publish shorter fiction on Literotica while promoting ebooks or other offsite projects on their profile page, out of respect for reader's feelings, we would rather not publish partial works as "teasers".

IOW, you can't post a chapter here and then advertise that they can read the rest of the story elsewhere. You can post your short stories here, then link to longer offsite works in your Author Profile.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to PM me anytime.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Interesting. Do you think any/all of the following sentences would be acceptable at the end/beginning of a story:

A) More explicit version of story and additional adventures of these characters are available - see my author page.

B) In the next chapter, Emma discovers Willoughby's less-than-noble intentions. See my author page for instructions how to view this material.

You'd need to ask Laurel to be sure [edit: and I see she responded while I was writing that], but I think B would be over the line if you're not posting the rest to Literotica. Literotica is billed as a free story site, and as a reader I'd be annoyed at an author who breaks that promise with a bait-and-switch story. I think the "more explicit version available for $" bit would also not be appreciated.

 

[Handley_Page]

Interesting. Do you think any/all of the following sentences would be acceptable at the end/beginning of a story:

A) More explicit version of story and additional adventures of these characters are available - see my author page.

B) In the next chapter, Emma discovers Willoughby's less-than-noble intentions. See my author page for instructions how to view this material.

[A]possibly.
Not a bloody hope.
If I saw that, I'd not bother going further; to my mind, it borders on fraud.


As I understand it:
Lit is not here as a medium of advertising for aspiring authors of erotica.
It is here so aspiring authors (and perhaps published ones) can practice their writing and amuse [excite] the reader.

 

[jdlockett]

More specifically, I have a cross-genre literary-style novella that turned out wonderfully and of publishable quality, but I have a strong desire to have as many people read it as possible.
It is set in the Roman wars against the Gothic tribes. Because of this, the language is more naturally suited to "his swelling erectness"-style rather than "rock-hard cock"-style, haha.
Therefore, I was thinking of publishing my preferred version of the work, which is less-explicit, here as a complete work, in the form that I prefer people read it. But, since I have to eat, I was thinking of writing an explicit version with the modern sex vocabulary for my Amazon store, since I know what people will pay for ;-)
So, certainly, I desire the promotion and readership that the many eyes Literotica offers, but on the other hand, I am genuinely offering my preferred version of the complete work for free for as many people to read as possible, rather than retaining the entire work as a pay-to-read traditional eBook. So, I'd hope this falls within the general mission of Literotica, which is providing diligently-written erotic literature free of charge to everybody. The crux of what would make this a win/win is the ability to make readers aware at the end of the story of the fact that this more-explicit version of the story exists.

Would any sentence like these be allowed:

A) Below is/you have just read the "canonical" version of this novella. For those who prefer more graphic detail, an alternate version exists with more explicit description of sexual interactions.

B) Below is/you have just read the "canonical" version of this novella. For those who prefer more graphic detail, an alternate version exists with more explicit description of sexual interactions, entitled, "Explicit Great Gatsby"

C) Below is/you have just read the "canonical" version of this novella. For those who prefer more graphic detail, an alternate version exists with more explicit description of sexual interactions. See author page.

 

[TxRad]

Anything over about three paragraphs is considered spam also.

 

[sr71plt]

Yep, what the OP just posted is among the acts that are spam here.

What you do is that you post stories to Literotica and become a Literotica author and then you can publicize your published books on the sticky thread provided for that at the top of the Authors Hangout forum.

 

[49greg]

You'd need to ask Laurel to be sure [edit: and I see she responded while I was writing that], but I think B would be over the line if you're not posting the rest to Literotica. Literotica is billed as a free story site, and as a reader I'd be annoyed at an author who breaks that promise with a bait-and-switch story. I think the "more explicit version available for $" bit would also not be appreciated.

I would also be royally pissed at the author who started a story then told me that I'd have to pay to see the rest.

I definitely would NOT either buy the rest of the story, or ever buy any story that author wrote. Switch and bait sucks.

 

[jdlockett]

Would any sentence like these be allowed:

A) Below is/you have just read the "canonical" version of this novella. For those who prefer more graphic detail, an alternate version exists with more explicit description of sexual interactions.

B) Below is/you have just read the "canonical" version of this novella. For those who prefer more graphic detail, an alternate version exists with more explicit description of sexual interactions, entitled, "Explicit Great Gatsby"

C) Below is/you have just read the "canonical" version of this novella. For those who prefer more graphic detail, an alternate version exists with more explicit description of sexual interactions. See author page.

The reason to parse this so finely is because of the economics of having/not having a sentence like the above.

WITH this sentence passing under the eyes of everyone who reads the story, making them aware of an alternate version, say maybe one in 100 will seek out the explicit version.

WITHOUT this sentence, perhaps ten times fewer, or 1 in a thousand will by pure random curiosity find their way to the author page and then discover and seek out the explicit version.

This sentence is the difference between making it an economically viable scenario or not (obviously using off-the-cuff numbers):

Scenario 1) 100,000 Literotica readers read the story, and all 100,000 know the more-explicit version exists and buy 1000 copies of the more-explicit version. Total revenue copies: 1000

Scenario 2) 100,000 literotica readers read the story, but most have no idea another version exists. 100 wander to author page and to eBook purchase. Total revenue copies: 100

Scenario 3) Publish only the canonical version as eBook, through erotica imprint or KDP. Promote through more traditional means. Do not publish free anywhere to retain IP. Sell 1000 copies. Total revenue copies: 1000

To me, it's hard to argue against the observation that scenario 1 is better than scenario 3 in all ways for both parties. Many more people get free enjoyment of the canonical story. In scenario 3 the more-explicit version doesn't even exist because I don't think it would make that much difference in revenue due to the small number of eyes on the canonical work. Plus, it kinda annoys me (in this case only) to jar the chaste-speech period-appropriate dialog with lots of "cock" and "pussy" exposition, for artistic reasons. Of course, for the audience people who are must-haves with graphic detail, I would whore myself out to do this for cash, haha, but in fact i LIKE the idea that the ultra-graphic version is in smaller circulation and not how most people remember the work.

 

[Bramblethorn]

It is set in the Roman wars against the Gothic tribes. Because of this, the language is more naturally suited to "his swelling erectness"-style rather than "rock-hard cock"-style, haha.
Therefore, I was thinking of publishing my preferred version of the work, which is less-explicit, here as a complete work, in the form that I prefer people read it. But, since I have to eat, I was thinking of writing an explicit version with the modern sex vocabulary for my Amazon store, since I know what people will pay for ;-)

You could post both versions on Literotica, which would avoid any suggestions that you're using Lit as "teaser" for a commercial version.

But I'd be surprised if the money to be made by providing an alternate version went very far to compensate for the work involved in creating and maintaining it. Unless writing a second version is something you'd enjoy for its own sake, you can probably make more money stacking shelves somewhere.

So, certainly, I desire the promotion and readership that the many eyes Literotica offers, but on the other hand, I am genuinely offering my preferred version of the complete work for free for as many people to read as possible, rather than retaining the entire work as a pay-to-read traditional eBook.

IMHO "author's preferred version" is less important here than "version the author expects to be popular with readers", which apparently is the one you're not proposing to publish here.

 

[jdlockett]

You could post both versions on Literotica, which would avoid any suggestions that you're using Lit as "teaser" for a commercial version.

But I'd be surprised if the money to be made by providing an alternate version went very far to compensate for the work involved in creating and maintaining it. Unless writing a second version is something you'd enjoy for its own sake, you can probably make more money stacking shelves somewhere.



IMHO "author's preferred version" is less important here than "version the author expects to be popular with readers", which apparently is the one you're not proposing to publish here.

Maybe it's wishful thinking about human nature, but I actually kinda think the non-explicit version will be more popular with readers, because it's the non-sex parts that are the focus of this particular work. I don't think there's any question that it's a better work without too much obsessive sex detail (in this particular case; I'm not saying that generally).

But it does have some out of the ordinary sex scenes where I could see a small percentage of "enthusiast" readers get enthusiastic about these quirky scenes and want to pay to hear the filthy details. Those guys aren't going to appreciate the artful part anyway, so I don't mind taking their money and cheapening the work for that limited audience, especially if not that many people see that version.

And the real hours I put into this were in crafting and honing the language and the dialog as if it were my mainstream writing, which I did far, far more than I've ever done with erotica, which is usually more about words per hour. So, this ended up around halfway between my mainstream writing and my erotica (my primary reader was like, "What IS this?") which is why I'm thinking about marketing it differently.

So rewriting the sex scenes is probably only 10% additional man-hours. In this case I'm not really trying to absolutely maximize my revenue, since, like most authors, the thing I fear most is to have good work go under-appreciated. But on the other hand, a decision that cuts the revenue by a factor of ten would give pause.