I love building low maintenance passive income streams. There’s just something nice about building something that makes money and doesn’t take much work to maintain.
One of my favorite income streams is self publishing erotica on Amazon.
In fact, this little side hustle of mine brings in a few grand every single month. It doesn’t make enough money for me to retire, but it’s nothing to scoff at either.
Over the past three years, I have made a decent chunk of money selling erotica and that income has allowed me to travel all over the world.
Here are 5 important lessons I have learned from self publishing erotica on Amazon.
1. SEO Is REALLY Important!
SEO isn’t something you really think about when you publish an eBook, right?
Well, it’s super important if you’re self publishing on Amazon. There are millions and millions of other books on Amazon.
So if you don’t use the proper keywords for your book, it could never be found by customers. The rare exception to this is if you’re already a famous or well-established author.
A lot of new authors just gloss over their keywords right before they hit the publish button.
That’s not good. Keywords are often a big reason why your books never sell.
So if you’re having trouble selling erotica on Amazon, one of the first places to check is your keywords.
2. Consistency Is Key
Like all things in life, consistency is key.
It took me a while to realize this. You need to publish consistently if you want to have repeat customers.
Once big time erotica readers find an author they like, they will typically devour everything you put out.
And these readers like authors who put out new books every week. If you do this, you’ll be able to build up an audience quick.
It took me a while to realize this. You need to publish consistently if you want to have repeat customers.
Most new authors will publish a few books and then give up when the sales don’t come rushing in like Niagara Falls.
You can win simply by showing up to the batting cage.
A good schedule is at least one short book a week (ideally two books a week).
Once you have built up a big catalog of books (50+), you can pull things back and publish less frequently and still maintain that income stream.
Now saying you need to publish consistently is the easy part. Actually doing it is the hard part.
Most people get discouraged because their sales don’t explode right away. It takes some time to build that audience.
That’s why it is important to set small goals so you don’t get discouraged. When I first started, I just wanted to see if I could sell one copy (seriously) haha.
3. Bundles Rock!
Aside from publishing consistently, one of the other reasons why you want to publish at least once a week is to increase your backlog of books.
Once you have a decent library of books (50+), you can start bundling them.
Bundling is basically combining several of your books into one large book (i.e. a collection of stories).
This is helpful for several reasons. First, it helps you re-purpose old content that might not be selling many copies anymore.
Second, a lot of readers like bundles (and they sell for higher price points). So it’s a win-win for all.
My income really took off when I started bundling my books and they are often some of my best sellers.
4. An Email List Is Helpful
An email list is really helpful (but not 100% necessary to succeed).
If you are a totally new author (or just starting a new pen name), then I wouldn’t even bother with an email list until you have at least 10 or 15 books under your belt.
Focus on the basics first, before you start doing advanced stuff like mailing lists.
That being said, an email list is really helpful because it allows you to sell directly to your audience.
Let them know what books you’re working on and give them an announcement when you release a new books.
I saw a decent increase in sales after I rolled out my email list, but it wasn’t anything spectacular. These days I keep that email list automated so I don’t really manage it much anymore.
5. People DO Judge A Book By Its Cover
Creating a book cover is often intimidating for new authors.
Some of them (myself included) even used Amazon’s basic eBook cover creator. Big mistake! That cover creator sucks and as you can imagine, I didn’t sell many books with those covers.
People really do judge a book by its cover. Now, I’m not saying you won’t sell any books with a bad cover (I’ve seen it done before), but it’s a really big uphill battle.
At first, I used PhotoShop to create my books, but then I turned to PicMonkey.
PicMonkey is a lot easier (and more intuitive) to use. And you don’t need to learn any crazy skills to be able to make great covers.
Plus, it’s MUCH cheaper than PhotoShop (only $8 per month).
P.S. Canva is a great alternative as well since they have many book cover templates that you can use.
Final Thoughts on Self Publishing Erotica
Self publishing erotica is a great way to make some extra money on the side.
Even if you spend just an hour writing per day, you can publish several books a week. And this income builds and compounds over time.
Before long, you could be making enough money from your erotica business to fund a vacation whenever you want.