How Does an Author Make Money with their Writing Hobby?

[kiwibat]

So with the Patreon approach, does one get that following in Lit? Most of my stuff is very long and lends itself well to evolving into a ten chapter story.

Making assumptions here but do I keep posting new story ideas in Lit until one hits a home run? If so, what’s the next step? Put a comment that additional chapters can be purchased in my personal store for .50? And I suppose a website link in my bio so they can find that store easier?

I’d recommend trying to build your audience elsewhere. i recently did a survey on where all my subscribers came from, and out of the 4 or 5 main sites I post to, Lit was by far the smallest, only like 7% or so.

but maybe that’s just me.

 

[DreamingOfMyEx]

Another idea - I don't understand how any of this works, but once upon a time I happened across someone (an actual female - figure the odds) who makes recordings of her reading erotica aloud. I wrote a story from a female perspective I would love to hear read in a female voice and asked if I could send it to her for her consideration. She was gracious enough to say yes, then asked how much of a percentage I wanted if she got any money for it. I never dreamed of such a thing happening, but apparently it does.

Anyway, I just gave her the rights to the story. Just to listen to her read it was enough payment for me and I never asked any details. However, there might be some potential there, and it was far fewer than 30K words.

 

[PennameWombat]

I have been curious about this for a while. I am by no means an expert author but I have a million ideas in my head and now that I’m retired, I find I love writing smut.

I have no illusions that I’d make significant bucks or anything like that but I’d happily crank out 30k stories if I thought I could get some publishing house to buy them for $50 bucks a pop. I have half a dozen now that I haven’t submitted to Lit.

As has been discussed, the various self-publishing platforms (KDP, Smashwords, etc.) are more or less tolerant of erotica, but it's also easy to fall afoul of the rules and get your account nuked. And note, while various subjects and kinks are obviously verboten, much of it, such as Amazon's rules, is left intentionally vague. So if they get an ick, see ya, bye.

There are plenty of Literotica authors who use Patreon, although I don't so can't offer any personal experience. This is a thread from a couple of years back on Patreon as well as broader discussion of writing erotica for paid platforms: It's a short thread, only five entries. Way shorter than this one
https://forum.literotica.com/threads/patreon.1567514/

Just to highlight, you cannot link to any sites outside of Literotica in your stories. Hard rule. You can put a link to, e.g., your Patreon, in your profile. But that's it. Nothing in stories.

That would actually be easy for me since nearly everything I write has lots of slow build up with strong romantic overtones. I’d just need to adjust a little bit of the sex detail to suit my audience.

So where does one go to market a romance story?

They're very popular on Amazon, many of them as ebooks or via Kindle Unlimited subscription (you self-publish using Amazon's KDP, then make it exclusive to Amazon using KDP Select.) But keep in mind, that means the competition is fierce. In aggregate, it's the highest grossing fiction genre, and the vast swath of sub-genres means much can fit. But that also means it's a massive target for huge numbers of authors.

But despite the flexibility of sub-genres, note that Romance isn't simply 'romantic' or 'slow burn.' While the market is widely varied (open-door to closed-door to Christian (and even Amish Romance is a genre), yeah, really; spicy, hot spicy, nuclear spicy), there are tropes and beats that better be there, regardless of sub-genre and spice levels and the like. Not negotiable. Also the requirement of HEA or HFN.

 

[Wifetheif]

I have a nice sideline publishing shrink fiction on erotica at Amazon under a pseudonym. Not a great deal of money BUT I've made more off my smut than I have for my conventionally published award-winning nonfiction book!

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I give private readings.

I’m guessing the redhead pays well.

 

[StillStunned]

I’m guessing the redhead pays well.

We usually come to a mutually satisfying arrangement.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I publish stories through a Mom & Pop publishing company. I do okay. It's not great, but it's good enough to help with our monthly income. Most of my money earned from writing is from writing other people's stories as a ghostwriter. That's for blogs, podcasts, short stories, and novels.

 

[nippledick]

I have a nice sideline publishing shrink fiction on erotica at Amazon under a pseudonym. Not a great deal of money BUT I've made more off my smut than I have for my conventionally published award-winning nonfiction book!

Is shrink fiction what I am thinking it is..?

 

[nippledick]

Actually I came here to ask if anyone knows whether piss is a hard limit on Amazon rules.

 

[Plathfan]

They read a story to the bank teller while urging them to hurry up... at gunpoint.

 

[D_K_Moon]

I have been curious about this for a while. I am by no means an expert author but I have a million ideas in my head and now that I’m retired, I find I love writing smut.

I have no illusions that I’d make significant bucks or anything like that but I’d happily crank out 30k stories if I thought I could get some publishing house to buy them for $50 bucks a pop. I have half a dozen now that I haven’t submitted to Lit.

I prefer just keeping it a hobby.

 

[Wifetheif]

Is shrink fiction what I am thinking it is..?

Shrink fiction is erotica featuring tiny women and sometimes tiny men. Shrinking can occur via any means, magic, sci-fi gizmo, etc.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Run a search on KDP books with the word piss and see if you get any returns. If you don't, it doesn't mean that stories doesn't have it, but that they don't put it in the search tags. If it isn't used in tags, you can assume it is borderline at best.

Actually I came here to ask if anyone knows whether piss is a hard limit on Amazon rules.

 

[nippledick]

Run a search on KDP books with the word piss and see if you get any returns. If you don't, it doesn't mean that stories doesn't have it, but that they don't put it in the search tags. If it isn't used in tags, you can assume it is borderline at best.

Thank You so much for the advice. You gave me what i needed to go the next step.. Piss may not be for everyone, but it is a big part of kink for a large number of fetish people. i hope i can use it as needed in the strory i have in mind. Thank You again, Ms Millie Dynamite

 

[nippledick]

Shrink fiction is erotica featuring tiny women and sometimes tiny men. Shrinking can occur via any means, magic, sci-fi gizmo, etc.

aaaaah yes, now I get it.. I was thinking of something else that women - and sometimes men - do to male subs and slaves at times. One word, two kinks.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Writing is in this sense like hooking. It might be okay at the top end, but it's a tough way to earn a living out on the streets.

 

[Belegon]

I might look into Patreon. I still have some "fans" out there... mostly other erotic romance authors that I've met at conventions and signings. It's nice when a peer becomes a fan, but I've found that a lot of that was based more on whether they liked me, not whether they liked my writing.

I got my start into the paid market back when it was booming, around 2007... I did "sell" a fair amount to some e-publishers like Venus Press and Phaze***... unfortunately both are gone now, as are a lot of the websites that would buy novella length and shorter works. I'm basically having to re-learn where the market is.

*** the quotes around "sell" are there because they didn't pay a flat fee... they published the work and then paid royalties on your sales. The big benefit was the presence of the larger readership and the editing and cover services, which the publisher covered, not the author. From a purely economic POV, I made more income as an editor than I did as an author, but it was my writing that got me noticed enough to receive offers to edit. Most of that work came from Phaze and Torquere, another e-pub that I'm not sure still exists. I should check on that. ETA, looks like Torq closed in 2016.

 

[Ada Stuart]

Thanks @AwkwardlySet I consider myself a good writer but truth be told, I lack patience. Sounds like more trouble than it’s worth for the satisfaction of earning enough to buy a coffee which is really all I was after.

The route described by you and others makes sense if I was trying to earn a living but I’m not. I’ll leave that path to those folks and stay out of the way!

I don't think you should give up so easily. There is a market out there for both erotica and romance and plenty of subgenres. You just have to start writing, publish it and keep trying. I would suggest that you self-publish on Google and Smashwords/D2D and take it from there. Yes, you can try to go directly to Amazon, but they have some strict rules for erotica so they might not be your best option.

Other than that: just have fun with your writing and do one book at a time. 30k books take a long time to write (and edit), so I would recommend starting with short stories of about 5k, publish them and see what happens. If one of them sells better than the others, then you try to write one more in the same genre. Think long-term, and do not feel discouraged if you don't sell really well at first. It's a learning process, and most authors earn money from their backlist, not their latest title.

And there is always room for more writers. Particularly if you're willing to learn and improve your writing, publishing- and marketing skills. People always think writing books is about the wiring. Nothing could be further from the truth. The actual writing is just a small fraction of the whole thing, but I've discovered that I enjoy the challenge and I like to learn new things. And in that it helps a lot if you're impatient.

 

[kitmarlowe]

I can't speak to erotica, since I'm only just starting out, but my full time living comes from writing. It's not fiction but it's fiction adjacent (I'm not going to go into any further details than that for fear of doxxing myself, which defeats the entire purpose of a pseudonym for smut) and the key thing to make it work is having multiple revenue streams and a large, healthy backlist. For me those revenue streams look like this:

* Self publishing
* Freelance writing
* Freelance editing (copy, line, and developmental)
* Freelance cover design and internal layout/typesetting
* Patreon

I'm also a musician and tend to write unique soundtrack albums for my bigger written works, and I've done some freelance work in that field too.

As with any self employed gig, financially there are peaks and troughs. In 2020/21 I made about £60k a year. Last year I made £18k. The years in between were closer to £30k. Right now erotica is just a hobby for me, a way to shake off the dust and get back into writing fiction regularly, but if it turns out I'm good at it then maybe it will become an additional income stream. Who knows.

 

[NoTalentHack]

https://media1.tenor.com/m/UCBnVC7FlvUAAAAd/thats-the-neat-part-you-dont-invincible.gif

 

[WittyUserName]

I don't really have anything significant to add. I subscribed to an author's patreon for awhile, and loved it! I got laid off and had to cancel, then I never resubscribed. Starting a patreon is probably your best bet. The problem with patreon is that you will feel more obligated to regularly produce content. I don't have a patreon and all my stories are free, yet I still get angry messages and comments when I take too long. I can fall back on 'I'll give you a full refund if you're not satisfied' but you can't do that when you start charging. Of course, I'm not retired and have a full time job. The problem is, I'd still worry about it feeling more like work than a fun hobby if I felt compelled to regularly produce.

I will say that I understand. I do this for fun and only made money one time. That was from placing third in the 2024 Summer Lovin' contest. It was an amazing feeling. Your best bet to build readers is to enter contest. I have 1200 followers. I got over 200 just from my Summer Lovin' entry. You get a ton of views if you enter a contest. Do that with one offs while writing a long series and you'll probably get a lot of exposure. Enough to justify a patreon.

 

[CanuckKitty]

I've never used Patreon, even as a fan, but I know it's quite popular.
I'm curious to hear from anyone who has used it for sharing audio. There are a lot of audio content creators here and places like Reddit, who also have Patreon accounts, and I'd like to know more about the experience.

 

[taytay4eva]

The simple answer is, "You don't."

The more complicated answer is, "You don't, until you do."

Lol, I came in here to say exactly this.

For most of us, the vast, overwhelming majority? You don't make money off this. It's just a hobby.

It's a fun hobby, though, and it's VERY validating when your stories take off. But if you go into this thinking "one day I will be able to make money!" you're gonna have a bad time.

I think of writing and making money in the same way that I make money from my professional mode facebook page. Do I make money each month from it? Sure. This month I was very proud to have a take home of $10. Do I expect to ever take home more than that? Absolutely not. I do it because I'm terminally on facebook, and if I have a professional page they don't ping me for stupid stuff or lock my profile page.

That isn't to say that I make money writing. I don't. But one day! One day I will be published, and if people, OTHER people, read my book, I can ask them about it!

(I very much wish I could respond to comments on my stories)