Using short Erotica to fund your larger works.

One advantage of erotica is that it's possible to write a short story-- say about 4500 words and have people buy it for 2.99 or read via the lending program and don'feel robbed.  That last is important for your long term sales.

But there's another advantage to this-- most authors generally hope to write longer books, but in today's economy, taking months off to create the Great American Novel (which might not sell) isn't financially wise for anyone who isn't wealthy.

And in today's business world where "overtime" generally means "time your smiling boss tells you you will take unless you want to be downsized"  there isn't a lot of time to write a book on your own if you're fully employed.  That's especially true when you consider the best way to get ahead in today's market isn't just to write one book, but to write a number of books.

So, the short erotic story.  I'm already moving up to where my story sales can pay my mortgage.  Granted, that's not independently wealthy, but it's a level where I can start spending some time on longer stories, or stories in another genre.

And that's one of the great strengths of the short erotica market-- It's possible to knock out a 5-10K story once very one or two weeks.  Those stories then make you money and as you increase the numbers, you find yourself at the point where you can afford to take a few days or a week out of every month to work on a longer story-- erotic or other wise.

So when thinking of short erotic stories, don't think of them as simply being a way to get a little extra money-- they're also a way to raise investment capital, in the form of time that you can now spend on other things-- such as the Great American Novel you've always been wanting to write.