Writing professionally

[Tangledskein]

Do any of you write erotica professionally? If you do, how did you get into doing so? What platforms do you use and how lucrative are you finding it?

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Check out r/eroticauthors they're very businesslike over there

 

[Dearelliot]

I did back in the 80s or 90s if you can call a penny or two a word for a porn Femdom paper professional. It was for "Leather Links" if my memory is right and hand typed back then...

 

[Ada Stuart]

Do any of you write erotica professionally? If you do, how did you get into doing so? What platforms do you use and how lucrative are you finding it?

Yes, I do it professionally now, but it took me at least ten years of practising my skills here at Literotica before I gave it a try as an indie author.

But, lucrative? That depends what your goal is. A lot of people brag about being a 6- or 7-figure author without mentioning how much they pay for advertising and other expenses. (In my experience they pay almost the same amount in expenses as they earn.)

So, if you look at the number of hours I spent on it, my day job pays a lot better. And that dayjob also includes free sick leave and other nice goodies, like a pension.

But, I can heartily recommend writing/publishing as a side-business, as long as you keep your expenses to a minimum and keep pumping out new books once a month. That said, as long as you're willing to keep learning and being realistic about how much time and effort is needed, you should definitely give it a try. It's immensely satisfying to build your own company from something that only started as a hobby. But, don't expect your first book to make you rich, because that won't happen. And if you hope it's passive income, I'm sorry to ruin the fun.

 

[Voboy]

I did, for a few years. A publisher reached out to me after seeing my stuff here. Parts of it were really cool, and I still make a little money from it every year, but in the end I didn't like thinking of writing as a job. Even a job with minimal remuneration, which writing always is unless you're Stephen King or something.

 

[XerXesXu]

Do any of you write erotica professionally? If you do, how did you get into doing so? What platforms do you use and how lucrative are you finding it?

If you want to write for a living, write something other than erotica. I've cast different genres of bread on the water and erotica gets, by far, the fewest bites. As Ada Stuart points out, it's all about volume. Pile it high and sell it cheap. Sell it digitally on every platform that'll accept it. Remember, the way to make money is to be businesslike, not creative.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Think of it this way, what is the market for paid erotica when you have thousands of people giving it away for free?

Even if we factor in 90% of everything is crap, there is more erotica on this site than any of us could read in our lifetimes, and more is added everyday.

 

[mildlyaroused]

Writing fiction professionally is amazing but deeply challenging. I can't speak for erotica, but I know from experience that it's a mentally taxing undertaking: it's a primarily solitary job, a job in which progress is gauged by baby steps each day, and if you're extra lucky it can give you a bit of an identity crisis. If you love to write, then the craft is probably tied in some way to your identity as a person - it's your passion, it's your art, it's your contribution to the world. But once writing becomes your job, it can be difficult to maintain that passion indefinitely. Suddenly the pressure is on, not just internally but externally too. Of course, what I'm saying is all old news, but this advice is repeated often for a reason. Take your time. Ease yourself into your professional commitments, if that's your end goal. And if you do follow this path, then good luck, because it is a wonderful job!

 

[Voboy]

Suddenly the pressure is on, not just internally but externally too.

I was EXTREMELY conscious that someone else's money and reputation were relying on my words. I did not like that at all.