The Bimbo Mirror: From Andrea to Andi Now Available on Amazon!

Andrea was a proper woman. She dressed right, was respected in her community and would never think of letting her wild side out. 
Until she got a mirror that showed her what she could be. What she would be if only she would submit to the eager bimbo that lay just underneath her so proper exterior. 
Andrea soon found herself abandoning her old life in a flurry of shopping trips and bodily transformations. She was being prepared for her new life, a life she’d never dreamed possible. 
And while Andrea may have never dreamed of being a bimbo, Andi could never dream of any other life. 
Come read the first book in the Bimbo Mirror series as Andrea becomes Andi, a bimbo who lives to serve…

Get it HERE from Amazon.

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.

Lindsay Buroker Tells you how to get your stuff into more categories with keywords.

Lindsey Buroker isn't a dedicated erotica writer (just wanted to get that out there since this is a blog on erotic writing and it's never a good idea to tie someone to a genre they may prefer not to be tied to.) but she has some great wisdom on keywords:

If you’ve published any ebooks through Amazon’s KDP dashboard, you know they allow you to select two categories (i.e. Fantasy/Epic or Science Fiction/Steampunk) for your work, and then they have a box where you can type in seven keywords, though they don’t really say if those keywords can be used to help you show up in the search results or what the deal is. They’re just… there.If you browse around Amazon, you may also have noticed that there are subcategories for ebooks that aren’t options in the dashboard (i.e. Science Fiction & Fantasy/Fantasy/Coming of Age or Romance/Paranormal/Witches & Wizards). Because some of these categories are so niched down (and because they’re not selectable on the dashboard), the competition can be low. It might only take a 50,000 sales ranking to appear in the Top 100.

It's a good article and you should go read it.

I'll add some of my own wisdom.  (that and five dollars will get you something called Coffee from Starbucks.)

Getting into multiple categories is one of the most important things yhou can do as an erotica writer...

IF your erotica is related to those categories.  If it isn't, if it's just a bog-standard erotica story that has a single raygun and is put into sci-fi, you will get Unhappy Readers.

Who will complain to Amazon.

You really want to avoid that.  So remember that keywords and categories, like anything else you do to boost your publicity, is part of attempting to create a long-term and loyal audience of fans, not simply getting someone to look at your book, feel deceived and return it, with or without a snarky review.

Why Pennames are more important for Erotica Writers.

Let's be honest, a lot of erotica involves catering to our fans' fetishes. That's the nature of the beast, but what can be a turn on for some readers is an absolute turn off for others. In fact, some people find various fetishes to be a complete turn-off and that can extend to wanting to read anything else the author has put out.

Now before we continue, I want to let everyone know that this isn’t about whether or not an adult writer should have a pen name— that should be obvious. Employers may not like the idea of an employee whose main claim to fame, in addition to having the best office attendance record, is his ongoing series: LUSTY CHEERLEADERS: THE LOCKER ROOM SAGA.

What we’re talking about here is the question as to whether you should have alternate pen names for the various genres and fetishes you write for. This is fairly common across the book industry of course, but it may be more important for erotica writers. After all, the readers who love big breasts may not like breast expansion stories and they may really not like pregnancy themed stories. The fellow who wants to read an erotic detective story may decide to close the book (and buy no more) when midway through it becomes a supernatural mind control story.

To demonstrate, look at the  Venn Diagram below.

You’ll notice that “Vampire Erotica” and “Breast Expansion” both have fairly large groups who read them— but the group who reads mind control stories that ALSO incorporates breast expansion is smaller.

Diagram not simply by the writer, but also proving why most writers probably shouldn't explore a career in graphic design.

So, that’s it. Just never mix the genres, right?  If having your gothic princess taken by a vampire results in sudden breast-flesh explosion, just don't do it. Simple, right?

Well…

There’s another factor to consider. How Loyal are your readers? After all, there are a LOT of erotic westerns out there. You’re competing with a large number of writers who have a lot of exposure in the field and your readers have a tremendous amount of choice. But if you have a book that say involves magically mind controlled cheerleaders that also includes breast expansion? Your fans may be fewer— but how many books do they have to choose from? For self-published erotica authors, a fan base of 1,000 people who buy every one of your books is a pretty good fan base, which, if you sell your kindle book at 2.99 will bring in well over $2,000 dollars for each story, not counting anyone else who joins up.

The key is to try to mix genres (or fetishes) that have the largest possible number of people interested in both. When doing this, using a pen name can ensure that you don’t run the risk of having a negative impact on your other published stories.

But how do you manage to convert being a popular writer in one area to popularity in another area if you’re not even using the same pen name?

We’ll talk about that in a later post.

My Books now available at Nook and Kobo.

Draft2Digital is an excellent service for getting your books out to other distributors without going insane from trying to keep track of who demands  what in terms of submission guidelines.


So today, I am proud to announce that both Nook and Kobo now list some of my books.


Gregory Michelson's Nook Page

Gregory Michelson's Kobo Products Page.

Give 'em a looksee!

What to Do When Publishers Start Banning Your Erotica?

When it comes to banning authors or books, self-published erotica is the low hanging fruit of the world of fiction. You won’t get news editorials defending the right of someone to publish “Cheerleaders 2: The Trouser Snake Returns” and most independent authors aren’t going to pull down the sort of numbers and have the marketing clout that might make a publisher step back and decide to resist public opinion.

It can be worse today because of the of clickbait articles which are designed solely to drive traffic to their parent site. A writer can type up an article, headline it with: PUBLISHER TOLERATES MONSTER/ALIEN/SEXY CHEERLEADER PORN, slap up a few pictures or excerpts and watch the page views (and revenue) roll in. Meanwhile, the publisher’s staff quickly go through the catalog and delist some books so that they can say they’re doing something about it.

First of all, someone, somewhere is now shouting about the First Amendment, that glorious document that protects us from this and lets us sell our erotic stories.

Stop. Seriously. Stop.

The First Amendment only applies to the government. There are some very, VERY limited cases where a publisher refusing to publish something might attract the  government's interest, but erotic stories? Nope. They have a perfect right to sell or not sell any story submitted to them.

They’re also not doing it because they hate you. A publisher loves one thing: Green, as in the color of the money you bring them. Now individual reviewers or editors might have an ax to grind, but most publishers don’t care. They’re banning books because they think it will ultimately make them more money than keeping those books available will.

So What’s the Author of Erotica to do?

It’s simple:

Never, EVER, let yourself be trapped with one storefront. Always spread books out among several distributors in order to ensure that if there’s a problem with on, it won’t destroy your revenue stream. These companies don’t talk with each other and many of them have far different standards. If a book gets banned or if it looks like one of your books is going to run into TOS related troubles, just sell it via a different channel.

That also helps you if, heaven forbid, you get your entire account banned— you still have books up for sale and you still have an Internet presence. There is nothing worse than realizing that you put your eggs all in one basket and now not only have you been banned, but your fans have no way to keep buying your book. In the time it takes to rebuild your Internet presence you could lose thousands of dollars worth of sales.

Finally, note that if you’re only selling through one publisher, you’re not simply at the mercy of decisions to ban your books or account, but you’re also at the mercy of decisions to change the contract you’re working under. If it’s a choice between rebuilding everything from scratch and accepting a new deal that cuts your royalties by 10 percent, what are you going to do? Well, if you have your books being published through other avenues, you have much more freedom to say: “nope!” and take your books with you.

Finally, a word of advice:

Don’t take it personally. These companies are making a business decision. It maybe a stupid decision, it may be a decision that is harmful to your pocketbook, but it’s not personally aimed at you. In fact, it may be based on an automated scan of your work instead of someone reading it. Getting pissed off won’t change anything and can lead you down unproductive avenues. Just keep your options open and keep writing. You’ll be successful.

Oh, there's another thing to consider: If you're good enough to write erotica, you're also good enough to write general fiction, so in addition to spreading out your options in terms of who you're publishing with, you might want to consider writing to a wide range of genres.