(Part 2) Top products from r/eroticauthors

Always follow the gut. :D If the trope is dominant male focused or more appealing to women, then you want the guy on the cover. If the trope has crossover male appeal or is a body-oriented fetish (hucow, fetish clothing such as corsets/stockings etc, feet) as well as lesbian, PI or MILF, you want the scantily clad woman.

Suave, gorgeous Latin lover seems to be stuck in-between BUT if you follow the romance tropes -- Meet Cute, Instant Attraction with Sexiness, Issue Arises, Pining Happens, Issue Resolved, Super Sexy Happily Ever After, you can use the Latin lover aspect as a nice twist, even for a 25K novella.

I highly recommend How to Write a Brilliant Romance for a great quick recipe of how to write romance novels/novellete.

I'm at least 70% sure OP is a troll post, but let's do this.

Here's the deal. "Secret cabals" aren't secret because they're exclusionary and snobby groups of elitists. They're exclusionary for the same reason that when you and your friends go to the bar for happy hour, you aren't inviting random people over to share your pitcher of beer. It's got less to do with "elites vs. plebes" and much more to do with just who your friends are.

"Secret cabals" are just groups of friends and peers. I'm in most of the "exclusive subs", and while I will say they've been and continue to be immense sources of help, the best and most helpful "secret group" I'm in is just a slack group of peers that came together organically through just word of mouth and friends of friends getting to know each other.

Someone - Seth Godin maybe? - coined the phrase "find your tribe", and I don't think I can impress upon you how important that is in this industry. My tribe is awesome. We all work full-time (well, way beyond full time). We all feed off each other's motivation, creativity, and help, and we're near-sociopathically driven to push each other higher. The reason I can tell you with near certainty that no one is conspiring to "keep the little guy down" is that we're all far too busy keeping each other up to even have time for pettiness like that.

So, again, only being ~30% confident you aren't trolling, here's the advice I can give you: work your fucking ass off. If you're doing shorts, and putting out three a week isn't giving you the results you want? Put out six. Hell, put out ten. Not seeing great numbers for your mailing list sign-up? Go read every social media marketing guide you can find. Want to get into novel-length romance but worried you don't understand story structure and plot points? Here, read this. Do ALL of this, because ALL of this is your job if you want to make this work.

The world is always going to be full of misinformation, but it's your job do the grind, do the work, put in more hours doing this than you ever though you would, and eat, sleep, live, and dream this job. It is not easy, and there are no breaks, or secret tips, or cheat codes, or secret clubs that will give you the special keywords that unlock Bezos's treasure room. It's literally just hard work - every single day.

But, like I said, there's one thing that'll make this easier, more fun, and honestly, more likely to work for you:

Find your tribe.

I'm glad you posted this - I was actually thinking of starting a similar thread. Great minds think alike. :)

I have mentioned here and there that my romance novella tanked (poor marketing, oversaturated niche, etc.) -- but the one good thing to come out of it was that it forced me to find a way to actually finish a story, quickly.

I pantsed the first half, but then got stuck, which is normally what happens to me when I try to write long. I happened to stumble on (thanks to a comment on this sub, though unfortunately can't remember by who!) a book called [Tell Don't Show] (https://www.amazon.com/Tell-Dont-Show-James-Lofquist-ebook/dp/B00B4JF6JG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468194438&sr=8-1&keywords=tell+don%27t+show). You can buy it but it's pretty high level - basically the jist is that when you're writing and you don't know what to put, just write out the scene in short hand and move on.

So I did this for the second half of the novel. It was a fast easy way to map out the remaining chapters, figure out how to hit the right beats, and see where I needed more conflict. And the extra bonus was that it helped me write SO FAST when I actually went back to do the writing. It was all there, and I just needed to transcribe. The result is that I believe the second half of my book was much stronger and better written.

So this time around, I decided to do that for the whole novel. My outline is about 7500 words and took me four days to write, which seems kind of insane, but I'm feeling really confident about going in and actually writing now.

I outline right down to the chapter, detailing everything that should happen in it, including bits of dialogue as they come to me. Some chapter outlines end up a little longer and some are a little shorter, but they are roughly about 150-200 words apiece.

This won't work for everyone but I've found it extremely helpful. I'll see how this book goes, but I honestly think this method has changed my whole approach to long-form writing.

Oh, there is also a book called Romancing The Beat that gets mentioned in this sub a lot -- it is PERFECTION for trying to figure out how typical story beats apply to romance. So I use that to start thinking about my basic plot points / motivations, etc.

Your story Humped by the Humpack popped up under the one I just published Holding His Interest in the "Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed" section while I was checking the ranking on my listing. Thought you might like to know.

Anyway, I donwloaded your story and really enjoyed it (I can't get over how well this Kindle Unlimited is working for me as a reader).

I'm brand new at this, so I don't have much to add other than your cover is great, and a little proofreading.

You use "loose" when you mean "lose" twice, "trusts" where you mean "thrusts" once, and drop into first person a few times even though the rest is in third. These are things that pull me out of a story.

If I were you I would search your manuscript for the following terms: Loose, Our, I, trusts, and Us. (See how it makes me stop reading? I made a list. Haha. Just trying to be helpful.) That should make making your corrections quick and painless.

Anyway, great story. Good luck!

I had started with Save the Cat and the Jami Gold beat sheets, which you can easily Google.

/u/Pious-Highness "Falling in Love / Fighting for Love" story circle, which I believe he/she based on the more general Dan Harmon's story circle. Pious-Highness had deleted his/her account and I can't find the thread with that image and those descriptions at the moment, so you might search around on this sub. You can find the Dan Harmon information via Google.

Another nice resource are tips from K.M. Weiland's 5 secrets of story structure, which is currently available for free on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BHE3HXE

Good luck!

Here's all the upcoming books. You can get ahead of the game and request now if you want. I'm pretty sure Amazon considers this on a monthly basis, so try to request them all one time each calendar month.

Next: /u/eroticawriter4: Amazon and free on Smashwords

Next: /u/Romanticon: amazon and Smashwords

Next /u/JTWashingtonDC: Amazon or free on Smashwords, Nook Store

Edit: In case anyone notices, I've added affiliate tags to these links (to Amazon anyway), sorry if that seems like a profit grab or anything, I'm mainly interested in how many people actually click. I doubt there will be any significant revenue from it.

I own each one of those books and I would only cosign on the Amy Cooper and the Emily Baker. I also got a lot of helpful info from Unsilenced's first book.

For Erotica in general - I would also skip the Susie Bright. Instead I would go with Stacia Kane Be A Sex Writing Strumpet. Also this website also helped me helped me think stories through.

I would suggest you start learning story structure and outlining early. Dan Wells is an awesome free source - through his youtube videos, and Dwight V Swain Techniques of the Selling Writer. Also Gwen Hayes Romancing the Beat.

As a writer I would keep reading additional sources, once you find a story structure that you like - as in 3 part or 4 part, then find an ultimate resource for this.

When I first started I didn't really understand pinch points so I read a book on screenwriting that helped.

Done and done (and done, so many books)!

I would be hugely thankful if anyone could help me make this free. It's my first attempt at a permafree. 0.0

It's on B&N, Kobo, Google Play, and ARe. I've heard Amazon likes B&N best so please do that one if you only do one.

I get that, as well, because I do a lot of dictation in the car, with lots of background noise. But it's still awesome, and I get much more done than the zero i normally log when I'm driving.

I got a ton of help from this book. It gives a pretty good how-to on setting it up for best accuracy.

There's definitely an allure and a market for it. Read Lauren Blakely's series that starts with "Big Rock" to see how someone does it well. I don't think she's the only one who does it, either. (Here's one other that I know of off the top of my head... disclaimer: she's a friend, but her book's gotten fantastic reviews.)

It isn't about marketing to a male audience, either. Female readers love getting into the guy's heads, and even polls of readers of genres who focus on female POV suggest as much - they want more of the content to be from the hero's POV and would be all over books that are exclusively written that way.

I followed some of the suggestions in Rachel Aaron's 2k to 10k, to boost my output.

In the very beginning of a story, I use very rough outlines, kinda similar to the method discussed in James Lofquist's Tell, Don't Show!

Basically, I just throw it all on the page (I mean even the shittiest idea) and come back to edit it later. Saw a thing somewhere on reddit yesterday that said "You can edit a bad page; you can't edit a blank page", and that's pretty much been my philosophy since the start.

I have never taken a class, save for the basics that are required for any degree in college. I find workshops (in my area, anyway) to be full of people who just want to critique the shit out of your stuff, but who aren't actually pulling in any money from their writing. I read a lot, though, and I think that's pretty key to being able to internalize (and then naturally emulate) style, plot patterns, etc.

As for the distractions, I will usually put on a headset and crank up some kind of white noise (I have a whole host of websites that I visit, but a favorite is rainymood.com). My boyfriend knows that this is a source of income for us, and gives me the free time that I require -- if you are not in a similar situation, you may have to be firm about setting your boundaries, or just lock yourself away for a bit each day.

If I'm really not into it that day, I'll read instead. Sometimes I just need a break from the story.

I'm just getting started on self-publishing erotica over at Amazon.

Here's a link: Holding His Interest

I would be forever grateful for any sort of feedback at all, whether about the cover, the blurb, or even an honest review on Amazon itself.

It is available for "free" through the Kindle Unlimited program.

Thanks in advance...

Check out Wired for Story and Techniques of the Selling Writer. The latter is dated - as in the guy wrote it from a white, male perspective in the 60s - but the advice on craft is solid. Good luck.

ETA: This is a decent podcast series so far.

https://www.amazon.com/Save-Cat-Last-Screenwriting-Youll-ebook/dp/B00340ESIS

Most useful book on plot and character I ever read back when I went from shorts to long form romance. Recommend it most highly. You see cat saving all the time in films after reading it!

Done and done

Could use some help getting the first book in my Amanda the Governess series free Amazon free at Kobo Smashwords and AllRomance

Hi,

I only started publishing last week and I have two books up. Both are in the transgender category which maybe isn't popular. How do you know what categories are most popular? I will have to branch out. Anyway because I am so new, all critiques or comments about any aspect of these productions are welcome--and be as blunt as you like. Thanks!

This is the newest one:

Candy's Halloween

[my other book] (http://www.amazon.com/Bangkok-Cocktails-Kella-Z-Driel-ebook/dp/B01CK40RFQ/)

Done! Now, please do the same to mine!

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LEP7KCG

Free site link (Smashwords): https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/453349

EDIT: Hmm, so I'm supposed to PM this to you. I'll leave it here, and someone who's got time on their hands or is procrastinating can do it. Let me know if this needs to go in its own thread.

Outlining my stories extensively has changed everything for me. I use a combination of the Jami Gold beat sheet (for the romance arc) and KM Weiland's 5 Secrets of Story Structure (for the surrounding plot). I kind of can't believe I've churned out 21k on my novel in a week, and it's all because I've got such a detailed, structured outline.

Evidently I was not imagining things.

Did you write this thing?

Oh god how do the stingers fit into all of this?

(Very carefully? I'll show myself out... ^No ^I ^won't)

hmm well it is free to kindle users anyway
http://www.amazon.com/Billionaire-Lawyer-Eoritca-Persecution-Defence-ebook/dp/B01CO7AKTM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1458569370&sr=8-2&keywords=persecution+of+the+defence

I don't want feedback, I want unstinting praise! :D

That said, [here's my latest gem] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UTWMSDQ)

Hey friends!

I just completed my first series. I bundled it all together and wonder if any of you have any feedback on it.

The Fairies of Thyk Trilogy Bundle

I read A Writer's Guide to Training Your Dragon to get started with Dragon. It's a pretty good primer and took me an afternoon to read. Drawback: Dragon isn't cheap. As far as I can tell it kicks a lot of ass, though--literally only had it two days so I don't know enough to say.

Any way of doing it like this? https://www.amazon.com/Big-Rock-Book-ebook/dp/B01A1E8WO0/

I'm currently reading Monica Leonelle Write Better, Faster. She swears by dictation and wrote a book on that too: Dictate Your Book. May be worth checking out.

http://amzn.com/B013ZVSVC4

I haven't tried it yet myself but I plan to.

> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UKHEI7Y

Title: Not bad, not good.

Cover: I don't like it. The picture looks like an ad for someone with chronic back pain. The overall red tint is off-putting. The fonts don't work.

Blurb - Short, sweet, hot, and to the point. Nice!

Look Inside - Solid writing, with a few awkward areas. "A noise broke the peace." just doesn't sound correct to me. And shouldn't she be going out to confront the noisemaker, not the noise?

Writers block is a myth. Just write. I struggle with sitting down and doing it myself but it's not lack of creativity it's lack of sitting down and writing. Here's my two cents (most of which I need to follow myself!)

-Read [The War Of Art] (http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/1936891026/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450114231&sr=8-1&keywords=the+war+of+art&tag=thelexfiles05-20) (or Turning Pro) By James Pressfield. I keep a copy of both near the toilet and it always sets me straight. He talks a lot about what he calls resistance, which is what I now believe in, instead of writers block. Really, really good stuff.

-Dictation can he HUGE if you like doing it. I type really fast so I don't have as much incentive to give it a go but more and more authors seem to be moving in that direction. I read [this] (http://www.amazon.com/Dictate-Your-Book-Smarter-Storytellers-ebook/dp/B013ZVSVC4/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1450114377&sr=1-2&keywords=dictation) and found it to be a no nonsense guide on getting set up for a life of dictation.

-Write in the morning, before you do anything else. We only have so much mental energy every day if you're waiting till the end of the day to write you're going to find yourself drawing on thin reserves. This is the one I have to work on the most. I want to start getting up at 5am every day to write. I'll try again tomorrow!

Store front page numbers are the page numbers that appear on the store page of an Amazon ebook.

https://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Shades-Grey-Book-ebook/dp/B007J4T2G8

>Print Length: 530 pages

Forced feminization by a demon in Succubus.

Oh, and Werebees. That one is unique. I should write it a friend. Then they could breeeeeeeeed.

Back to making my own covers...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UKHEI7Y

Here is the mobile version of your link

Here is the mobile version of your link