Through the Self-Publishing Rabbit Hole

I've been interested in self-publishing as a concept for a long time, but until recently, it's been mostly theoretical since I don't feel like a lot of what I write is well-suited to self-publishing. I write a lot of contemporary/literary and science fiction/fantasy, and while I've tried my hand at novels, I've yet to complete anything that I've wanted to publish. I don't feel like self-publishing would be my first approach for that writing of mine, just because I think it can be harder to find a market. Also, for something like a novel, expenses can be higher and I would be more hesitant to self-publish without trying other avenues first.

But I also write erotica and erotic romance, and the for the past year I've been getting more and more into writing that. I know several people who have successfully self-published erotica, and I know that romance and erotica are genres where self-publishing can work well. When it comes to erotica, I like how self-publishing can give you a little more flexibility in some regards. I feel like I can write some more niche kinks that might have a hard time finding a home with bigger erotica publishers. Also, since I largely write short stories, it can sometimes be difficult to find open submission calls that interest me.

I also like the idea of finding an audience for my erotica. I write fan fiction and enjoy having people read that, but finding an audience for original fiction can be more challenging. I've thought about putting some of my original erotica up on free sites, and will probably still do that. But, well, money is tight at the moment, and earning a little extra cash through self-publishing is very appealing. I've been having trouble finding a full-time job since graduating from college, and making some money through my hobbies is always appealing.

That said, I don't really want to make writing a career. I don't want writing to become my job. I know that this might impact my success. I'm fine with doing some promotional stuff for my books, but I'm not aiming to be a career self-publisher by any means. I'm also not willing to sacrifice too much of my own enjoyment in order to get sales. I know some people who have made good money by catering to market trends and writing popular kinks, but I would rather focus on stuff that I enjoy writing, even if that means that I have a smaller market.

Last night, I finally took the plunge. I'd been working on a short story for a while. I had it beta-read, spent a while revising it, and finally decided it was time to release it to the world. I designed a cover and released the 6k short story on Smashwords and Amazon.

After the initial excitement, my first thought was, 'Oh, crap. How are people going to know this exists?' Marketing and self-promotion are going to be big challenges for me. While I'm not all that interested in the business side of things, I do really want to attract readers. And I'm realizing that some self-promotion is going to be necessary for that! I have a Twitter account and a blog on Tumblr, but I need to research more on how best to promote erotica. Right now, I feel a bit silly promoting myself because I only have one 6k story out there. I'm hoping to finish a few more stories before too long so I can establish a bit of a library. I also have a couple erotica novellas that I'm hoping to self-publish once they're done (though that will take at least a few months. Maybe a little longer).

Self-promotion is also hard for me because it takes so much confidence. In some ways, I feel like it's easier to submit my work. If the editor/publisher doesn't like it, they'll just reject it. I don't want to embarrass myself by putting out something that people don't think is good. It feels kind of presumptuous to encourage people to buy something I wrote! I would't have published the story if I wasn't happy with it, but I'm not too quick to assume that I'm the greatest judge of my own work.

It's been about 24 hours, and no sales yet. This is kind of an experiment, because I don't really know what to expect. I decided to set the price at 2.99 because that seems to be common with erotica, but I wonder if it might do better if I lower the price a bit. Hmm. I notice a few people have downloaded samples from Smashwords, and it's hard to know how to interpret that. I worry that maybe those people didn't find the beginning of the story compelling enough, but I don't know how common it is for people to sample without buying. Since there have only been five samples downloaded so far, it's hard to get a sense of a trend.

I feel like there are a lot of things like that to learn, but I definitely want to keep it up and keep trying, even if this story doesn't fly well.

Oh, I'm very realistic. I'm not expecting much. I just don't know exactly what to expect just yet. I've done a lot of research, but I think I'm at a point right now where I just need to figure things out. For example, I wasn't expecting to get many (if any) sales in 24 hours, but being able to see my own stats is a really different experience than just hearing about other people's sales efforts. All of a sudden, I have something to pay attention to, and I don't really know how to read the stats yet.

I also know that other people's experiences won't mirror mine exactly--I write mostly M/M BDSM fiction, which is certainly going to have a different market than some other stuff.

I think I underestimated the self-promotion part only in that I didn't expect it to be quite this daunting. Promoting myself when money is involved feels a lot more intimidating than when I'm just offering free stuff. I don't mind putting some effort in. I just know I'm never going to be a one-person marketing and publishing machine.

For all my reticence regarding self-promotion, it's so easy to get caught up in everything. I'm trying not to let stuff like building a social media presence and finding stock photos for book covers get in the way of, you know, actually writing and editing. None of that will do much good if I don't have stuff to release.

Though I may look into professional cover art if I release a major project, I like trying to design my own covers. I say "try" because I know I'm not an expert graphic artist by any means. I like to think I have an okay eye for what looks good, but I know there's room for improvement. I love creating book covers, though, so it's something that I think is worthwhile to try to improve on. I think that it would help a little if I could invest in more resources, like nice stock photos and maybe Photoshop. For now, since money is tight and I'm not making any sort of profit yet, I'm hesitant to spend money if I can avoid it. As such, I've been trying to work with free images as much as possible, though that's a bit limited. Unfortunately, while it's pretty easy to find nice pictures of women in seductive poses, I find it more challenging to find pictures of men.

I was thinking of trying to set up a mailing list so that I can potentially use that as a marketing tool. There's no need for that right now, but it's one of those things I thought would be good to have. I know some people who self-publish who swear by it since they can offer special deals to their subscribers and whatnot. Unfortunately, I'm having a little trouble setting one up. So I need to figure that out.

The story I'm working on right now is going so much better than the last one I wrote, so I'm hoping to have another release before too long. And by then, maybe I'll have things figured out a little bit more. It's tricky, because networking with other writers seems easier than reaching potential customers (though, fellow writers can definitely be customers, too. I've bought books from self-published erotica writers whom I encountered while trying to learn about self-publishing for myself).

Trying to decide if I should do some sort of promotion, maybe by offering a Smashwords coupon. I don't want to undercut my profits, but I want exposure, too. I'm also on the fence about how much to promote my publishing endeavors to friends and people who are fans of my fanfic and other free stories. On the one hand, these people are already familiar with me and my writing style, and some of them may be genuinely interested in reading stuff that I self-publish, so it feels stupid not to let at least some of them know. But I also don't want to come across like I'm fishing for them to buy stuff, or turn my non-professional profiles into annoying marketing endeavors.

Down the line, I would like to join All Romance Ebooks, since I know some people have had good success selling on there. But since ARE wants a link to your website and library, I think I'm going to wait until I have a couple more releases and everything is set up a bit better.

akaria said:

You don't need to have a couple of releases to join ARe. I'm on there with just one book!

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Yeah, I know it's possible. I guess I thought it might be easier/that I'd feel less silly. I feel a little silly having my "library" being just one 7k story. I also thought I might look more professional if I have a "real" website set up, which is in progress. But I might go ahead and try to join ARe sooner rather than later.

Speaking of websites, I'm kind of torn about buying a domain name. I know the conventional advice is to purchase your pen name as a domain name ASAP. My concerns about that are twofold: 1) I just don't have a lot of money to spare right now and 2) I worry about compromising my public anonymity as an erotica author, so I want to make sure I understand how I can have my name hidden on whois searches.

I feel weird having my website just be a Wordpress blog, though.

I had hoped to publish more by now and am getting a little antsy. I thought I would have this WIP done by now, but with other obligations, I've been delayed. Writing in general has taken a bit of a hit between work and my class that I'm taking.

At the moment, though, I have a bit of a dilemma. I'm working on the first part of an erotica series. My initial plan was to self-publish it on Smashwords and Amazon like my first story.

However, I know that building any sort of readership for my fiction is probably going to be a slow process. There is a lot of self-published erotica out there. This is hard for me to accept sometimes because I want people to read my work.

I've been toying with the idea of making my first story available for free. I'm not opposed to this, as I care more about having readers than making money from my writing. But I have a few concerns that I need to think about:

1. Though it may be a valid marketing decision, I'm not sure how I would feel about making the first story free but charging for the others. But if I can make a little money off this series, that would be a nice bonus, so I don't want to write off that possibility altogether.

2. Putting up the story for free and later taking it down in order to charge money for it is not something I will consider. So I know that if I want to publish it on Amazon as well as put it up for free on other sites, it's probably going to have to be free on Amazon indefinitely. I know some people who have managed to keep stories online for free but have had for-sale versions on Amazon, but I also know that technically, Amazon doesn't want any source to have the book for cheaper than it is on Amazon.

3. I don't have a lot of experience publishing original fiction online, and I suppose I worry that even if I put a story out for free, nobody will care about it.

So, I need to weigh all this out. Main priority at the moment is finishing the story, though, which has grown a bit from what I originally planned.