You Gotta Spend Money to Make Money... Right?

Oh boy. In what might be a huge mistake, I have... (drum roll, please)... paid for advertising.

Nah, not on Facebook, although I'm investigating that as well. Since my books are almost exclusively offered on Amazon, I went with them first. The first unhappy surprise: minimum hundred dollars expenditure. Second unhappy surprise: I have to wait, potentially up to 72 hours, for them to review it.

The book I chose to advertise is The Queen of Swords... of course. If I have some success here, I may branch out and do a similar campaign for Delilah. Those are the two I consider my most popular (even though 1001 Erotic Nights is my best seller, by far). The first reason is... well, it's easy to pin down the interests. It's all based on comics and thus, I targeted people who would buy comics or super hero novels. The second reason is that there are three books out in the series. If people like Queen enough, they may check out Prince, and then Princess.

It was pretty easy to set up. My nerves will be wracked until it's actually a live campaign. I'll keep thinking, "OMG WHAT IF THEY DON'T LIKE IT?! WHAT IF I DID SOMETHING WRONG?!" which is silly, of course. The next thought is, "What if I don't sell a damn thing and I just threw a hundred bucks away?" That would be a lot more shaming. However, Queen has some of my best reviews, Rebecca Wolfe's audio is wonderful to listen to, and I think it's fun and dark and sexy to read. You ONLY get 150 characters to sum up the book, though! This is what I ended up with:

In Imperial City, villain-for-hire Caprice works hard... and she plays harder. This novella contains dark, sometimes brutal, sexy, mature content.

It hits all the main components. She's a villain (check) who is hired (check). She works hard (check... sort of a nod to her being a bad ass) and plays hard (check). It's dark (check), bloody (check in the 'brutal' comment), sexy (check) and for a mature audience (check). There's no main element of the book which I left out, I think. Oh, and it's a novella, NOT a novel (check). I do NOT want people to be surprised by the length. The next books are novels, yes, but this one isn't. I think Prince has more sex in it by virtue of its length, but per capita... Queen is packed with sex. I wasn't sure HOW much I wanted plot and how much I wanted sexy times yet, so I erred on the side of sexy times. IIRC, Princess has three and a half sex scenes in comparison... basically the same amount as Queen. But it's three times as long. Longer than that!

This is a new, nervous step for me. I am reluctant to bug bloggers and say "Hey, review my booooook!" but that'll be the next terrifying step. People have often told me that you have to spend money to make money, and I hope this pans out. If I get a lot of click throughs, that'll be good. If I get a lot of sales, that will be better. If I want to be taken seriously...I need to advertise. Which that's a whole other post--people not taking erotica writers seriously. I seriously challenge anyone on the street to write a hot sexy scene and get people to fap to it.

"Free" on Kindle Unlimited Isn't Fucking Free

I try not to go off (too much) on here. This is a positive place filled with smutty books and updates and some weird musings from me now and again! However, I keep seeing this all over the place... and it bugs the shit out of me.

I'm a voracious reader. I devoured Game of Thrones in five hours, just to give you an idea of the speed at which I read. Not a speed reader, but pretty fast. Because I read a lot, and also to do research for writing, I decided to enroll in Kindle Unlimited. Now, a lot of authors bitch about the low payout (and it is), and they feel like Amazon is strong-arming them. If you don't put your book into Kindle Unlimited, then it won't get the visibility other books IN KU will. However, you have to be exclusive to Amazon for the term of being in KU. Kind of sucks for an author.

However, it's fantastic for a reader. You can borrow up to ten books at a time, and I've found some fantastic books this way. Some not so good ones too. Some downright awful ones as well. But I would NEVER have tried those authors had they not been in Kindle Unlimited. In one case, reading an author's book made me a fan of hers. You basically get as many books as you can read for ten bucks a month. That's a great deal!

I pay for that service.

Let me repeat that: I PAY FOR THAT SERVICE.

Yeah, it's only ten bucks a month, and some months Amazon gets my ten bucks for free without me reading shit. Other months, I read the hell out of everything I can get my hands on. It comes and goes. The point here is that money goes out of MY pocket to Amazon's for the right to read the KU books as many times as I want. It's not free.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen authors advertise, "FREE ON KINDLE UNLIMITED!" and it annoys the fucking hell out of me every time. I advertised like that once, then took it down because I felt dirty and weird. Afterwards... never. I'll mention my books are mostly on KU, because they are (mostly), but I never put the word "free" in there. It's not free. I FUCKING PAY FOR THE SERVICE.

Sure, I get it. Authors want to get their books attention. I totally get it. I do! I would love my books to pick up in popularity! And while it's a small thing, saying it's free on KU, it still annoys me. It's false advertising. You heard me: false advertising. Some people might say, "But it IS free on KU! The reader doesn't pay for it." But they do. Hence, it is a lie, a falsehood. Perhaps it's a well-intentioned falsehood. Perhaps the author simply didn't think about it. And I know I'm definitely in the minority here. Heck, I might be the only one in the world that annoys. (But it's my blog, so I write about what I want. :P )Doesn't matter. It is still a false statement.

And I don't borrow those books.

I don't buy them either.

I skip the authors who advertise that way. It annoys me that much it drives me away. If they want to advertise it's on KU, that's great! Do it! We people who are KU subscribers know that hey, we can borrow it at NO FURTHER COST to ourselves, great! To those people who aren't KU subscribers, the word "free" has a very different connotation, and that's where I feel it's really disingenuous. They go in expecting the book to be a freebie if they don't read carefully enough, and lo and behold, it's not.

I can't make anyone stop doing that, but I wish they would. Ah well, le sigh.

Basic Things Every Erotica Writer Should Have and Should Know

I was talking the other day with Bryce about how to make covers, and what tips and stuff would be good, and then I thought about it... if I really wanted to do something here to help beginners get off the ground, I should really start with the basics, rather than just covers... of which I admit I know very little about since I don't make my own.

What should an erotica writer possess in order to start writing?

• Basic Understanding of the English Language: You'd be surprised how often I open up an erotica book and it's... bad. Like, really bad. I'm not knocking people who know two languages--I certainly don't!--but if English isn't your first language and you want to write erotica in English... you need a basic understanding of how it works, and how to write in it. You can publish stuff that's hard to read, but people won't come back for more.
• Basic Understanding of How a Story Goes: Whaaaat? You talking crazy, Alana? Erotica is just sex, right? Well, the thrust (hehe) of an erotica tale is sex, yes. That's the climax. However, even in straight they meet and fuck erotica, there's a basic flow to the story. And honestly, a story about two people meeting and fucking is not all that interesting. To that end, I highly recommend coming up with an interesting scenario, and giving yourself a small outline. It doesn't have to be much, but it's got to follow certain beats. You need to first introduce the main character briefly, explain their problem (yes, erotica characters have problems too, even if it's just "I wore the batteries out on my vibrator!"), introduce the "complication" and other characters, give your readers a tease, and then move on to the climax. For example, taking "Dominating Her Senator" apart. I introduce the senator first, and show that he's stressed out. His secretary shows in his last appointment for the day. This appointment starts bitching him out for voting against things which would help his female constituents, and then starts punishing him for being a bad, bad senator. (Spoiler: it ends in sex!) It's a short story, and it takes place in one setting. However, all those beats are still there. The tease part is when she starts verbally dominating him since it's a femdom book. I would argue that short stories, including erotica, are harder to write than novels because you have to make that connection with your audience in a thousand or so words to get them to connect with the main character. That's a hard thing to do. Obviously, for longer works, you'll want to expand that, but knowing how your story should flow is essential. There are exceptions to this, as always, but for the most part, basic plotting is essential, and it does help you in the long run.
• Know Your Kinks/Niches: This one requires some research. If you want to write romance? Go read the top romance books being sold right now. If you want to write adult baby diaper stories? Go read the top ones. Figure out what you want to write, and aim your story specifically for that. Now, now, I know it's a bit hypocritical for me to say this because I'm all over the place. However, I'm writing science fiction and fantasy which happens to be erotica. It's not a popular niche, but for this niche, the setting is just as or MORE important than the sex. For Maledom/femsub, it's important that you know how the lifestyle works, and what's sexy about that scenario. For cuckold, you need to understand why people may want to be cuckolded, know what a hotwife is and what a bull is, etc etc. Before you start writing, read the books that people like already in your niche. As a side note, you'll hear the words "kink" and "niche" a lot, and the two terms are basically interchangeable. A kink/niche is the type of erotica you write. I write scifi erotica, and femdom. Sprinkled with a little horror erotica and gay. (Like I said, I'm all over the place) Those would be my kinks or niches. If you take nothing else away from this article, just remember to READ THE POPULAR STUFF TO SEE WHAT WORKS.

Those are the very basic things you need to write erotica. I could also add "basic editing skills" but that goes under basic writing, heh.

Now that you know you can do this, how do you go about writing it? I have a post somewhere here which detailed my method for going through and actually writing. I'm a fan of outlines, but simple ones. I put in more details as I need them. I will move on instead to things you need to know about publishing on Amazon.

Amazon, without a doubt, is the biggest place to sell. You can sell on other platforms, but Amazon is by far the most profitable. Assuming you are writing this to make money and not just for personal amusement, there are some things you need to know about the Big A.

• Certain Kinks/Niches are a No-No: Amazon likes their erotica plain Jane for the most part. There are certain kinks/niches which are just not publishable on Amazon. These include, but are not limited to: bestiality, incest, underage sex, rape or non-consent (NC stories). These will not only get your book blocked, but could potentially get you banned from Amazon.
• Other Kinks/Niches are Borderline: There are varying reports from erotica writers, but in general, these niches/kinks are considered borderline: they COULD get your book blocked, but MIGHT not, depending on how you package it. These include: Monster erotica (IF it includes tentacles OR a shifter that is not completely in human form--other forms of monster erotica are safe if they are completely made up or extinct beings, ie dinosaurs), pseudo incest ("step" incest--but Amazon has been cracking down on these recently), dubious consent (as opposed to noncon, dubcon is often a mixed bag, they say they don't want it, but they really do and are enthusiastically participating at the end is dubcon... and usually ok. Having sex while on a mind altering drug (even if it's made up) is much iffier).
• Titles and Blurbs Need to be Free from Obscenities... and Other Miscellaneous Words: This "rule" is harder to pin down. Obviously, any foul language in the blurb or title will get you blocked or at least adult filtered, so stay away from them. However, other words will also get you filtered or blocked. This is an INCOMPLETE list, as Amazon shifts it around a lot: cheerleader, virgin, babysitter, hypnosis, rape, force (enforced, forcibly, etc), noncon, abuse, girl, boy, preteen, teen/ager, tween, baby, infant, newborn, child/ren, mother, father, brother, sister, bro, sis, mom, momma, daddy, pa, grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt, niece, nephew, cousin, great-, -in-law and step-variants, incest, pseudoincest, family, mind control, PI, (gang)bang or any variant with the word -bang in it (not "gangbanger" though) like blowbang or ragebang, breeding, lactation, rimjob, rectum, deflower, pussy, cunt, creampie, cum, splooge, semen, menstrual, period blood, slave, prison bitch (other derogatory uses of bitch), molest, pedophile, pedo-anything, fuck, jizz, shit (when literal) and anything referring to actual feces or urine, bestiality, any real-world extant animal word like wolf, dog or bull. **Please note that many titles as of late (within the last month) have been blocked by using words like these too: hucow, pounded, sex, hard, penetration, lactation, breeding, milk, thrust, pumped, stretched, filled, rough.** 
• Covers Need to Follow Amazon's Prudish Rules: Among other guidelines like the size of your cover and what format to save it in, Amazon has a few rules about what you can post for a cover. There can't be any nudity or IMPLIED nudity in there, so handbras are out. Butt cheek need to be covered. You can't have people tied up on the cover, or in handcuffs, especially women. I've heard that you can get away with it if it's a guy, but I would not chance it. However, instruments of bondage are quite alright, so long as they are not actually being used, ie, 50 Shades and the handcuffs. 

The thing that's frustrating about this is that since each book is reviewed by an individual reviewer, and there's no one set of standards, is that what gets one book blocked or filtered won't on another. These are general rules that have been proven time and time again to get people blocked, banned, or filtered, but other things may crop up that haven't been discussed. 

As a side note, I'm still amazed I got "Pooper Probed by Poseidon" and "Knob Gobblin' Hobgoblins" through the adult filter.

What is this adult filter I've been talking so much about? Well, if you publish a book that has "adult content visible to children" (ie, butt cheeks on the cover even if the model is wearing a thong, or perhaps a swear word in the title), then Amazon puts it on an adult filter. Why is this bad? It means that unless people click OFF the adult filter, your book will NOT come up on a search on Amazon. It means less visibility and potentially less sales. How do you know if your book is adult filtered? Good question! Go to www.salesrankexpress.com and plug in your author name or book. If a big fat red ADULT comes up next to a book that means it has been adult filtered. If you put in my name, for example, two of my books have been filtered: My Big Black Bodyguard Banged my Wife! (for "banged") and The Perils of Penetrating Pixies (for "Penetrating"). 

What is the difference between being "blocked" and "adult filtered"? If your book is "blocked" it's done. It will show up on your bookshelf on Amazon as blocked. I have never had one blocked, so I'm not 100% sure what it looks like, but from what I've been told, you can't miss it. The general advice is to abandon the book on Amazon and perhaps sell it on other platforms if you can.

That's all for now. Need to go back to editing. :)

Independent Publishing Vs. Traditional Publishing

It occurs to me that there's really one or two big differences between indie publishing and traditional publishing. In traditional publishing, you of course, submit your manuscript and they, the publishers, decide if they want to publish it. You have less control over your book, but you also have access to editors, which help to polish and shape your book, giving it a smooth, professional read, as well as a professionally done cover. But as a book reader? You wait forever for them to come out. It's not just the time the author takes in writing them, but sending it back and forth between the writer and the editor, making changes and resubmitting, approving the cover, and so on. It can stretch into months after the manuscript is written!

Independent authors who are self-publishing pretty much do everything on their own. I think they're a bit more frazzled, but a lot more in control. Unless they hire an illustrator and a publicist, they do their own covers, and their own promotions. Unless they hire an editor or have a friend do it for them, they do their own editing, which means a book may not be as polished and smooth as it could be. However, they can turn around and put several books out a year, since they can spend their time writing, and don't have to wait for the editor's say so on what needs to be changed or not. THEY decide what needs to be changed. They decide how much promotion to put in. They decide on the cover. They are a lot more involved with their book, from beginning to end. In general, they are able to put out books faster than in traditional publishing.

I don't know which is better. I would love to be popular enough to get a contract with one of the big five, but I'm good doing it all myself too (and Jotham, of course). I like being in control of the entire project, from start to finish, but it would be nice to have someone else take over and do the promotion stuff (I am really bad at it, but I'm getting better).

I May Be a Bitch, but I'm Not Amazon's Bitch

... mostly. Yeah, there's still stuff of mine in KU. I'm not pulling them. I'm sticking to my plan as originally intended of letting them expire 'naturally', but as I was sitting here thinking writing fox smut, I thought, "What if I developed a series JUST for a specific distributor NOT Amazon?" The one that came to mind at first was Excitica, of course. I would really like to help indie distributors as well. I'm not saying I'm awesome and yeah, like totally everyone would come aboard, but it would help to get the word out to other distributors rather than just Amazon.

The problem is: I'd be limiting myself to something that's not Amazon. I mean, let's face it, it's got the lion's share of the ebook program. I think I could contact the administrator of the site and ask a question like, "Hey, if I limit this one particular series to JUST here, could I get a bump in visibility?" I mean, it's worth a shot, right? Of course, if it were someone who were much bigger, I think that'd be a yes, but people gotta start somewhere. But someone like Reed could do it, maybe. Some of his stuff seems popular. There's another writer who writes some really good shit, Oleander I think their name was, maybe they could. I'm a nothing right now.

Of course, Excitica has its problems at the moment too. For one, which is majorly annoying, I cannot check to see if I've actually sold something there. It's... there's an error in the order history page. Hence, no stats. I could be moving a ton of books there. I could be moving nothing (a far more likely scenario). I have no idea. The interface isn't as intuitive as Smashwords or Amazon, or even B&N, and B&N (Nook) has a stupidly complex interface for no particular reason, which you have to save on every page. I went through one of my books by hitting 'next', and realized after the fact I have to hit 'save', THEN 'next'. (or whatever the stupid buttons are called) Haven't done D2D or any other platforms yet, because I got lazy. Eventually I'll get around to it.

Second problem, it's a small distributor. If I write something exclusive and it never gets seen... what good is that?

However, it IS a place where shifters can have sex in shifter form. Incest is OK. Sick, depraved shit is OK, to a point. No underage (totally gross, so I agree with that). No necrophilia (except for "vampires", I wonder if other sentient undead are ok, or if they're just deadist? It would be like letting only lipstick lesbians into a place and banning all other gay people. Or only big beautiful brunettes in, and no to skinny redheads, and so on. I would have to think sentient undead would be alright. I mean, ghuls need love too! What about ghosts? Revenants? Zombies? Ok, most zombies are sentient, but some are!)... where was I? Hm. Underage, necrophilia, what else was banned? Oh, yeah, beastiality is still a no-no, but I would assume that's only for real life animals, not mythological ones. And shifters in were form are totes OK. Selena Kitt herself said so! I can also attest going through their categories for how to tag the books I have put up there, they have tags for shit I have never even heard of. So, fellow writer friend of mine who is obsessed with futas--there's a category for that! There's a category for incest, and for scat fetishes and many, many, MANY varieties of BDSM.

So, that's an advantage. I mean, you can kinda let loose there. I don't think anything they ban is anything I would write about... maybe the necrophilia (especially if ghuls or other sentient undead don't count; stupid vampires hogging all the fun), but that would be more at home in one of my horror books anyway.

Now, the last big drawback for Excitica: it's not running https. As in the link is NOT secure. I know a lot of people have balked at that, and I really hope they change it. People's personal info is in there, man, so that could potentially be dangerous.

Anyway, all of that was a thought. I do refuse to be Amazon's bitch. If it means I just fucking sell shit and pull everything out anyway, so be it. I think I will write an exclusive for one of these other platforms, see who might follow or who I might discover. It may even be Delilah's. Her story is still brewing in my head. I see the first few very easily... Maybe it'll be Caprice in Villainess/Queen of Swords. That's almost done too, and it's pretty plot heavy. Plus, she's a fucking psycho. She might be made for a place with a harder edge than Amazon.

Amazon Categories are Sometimes WTF

So, I know a lot of authors will pad their keywords to get into as many categories as possible. I consider this a "black hat" tactic, as it misrepresents a book. I try to keep it to exactly what's IN the book so that people know what they're getting. Makes sense, yeah? Because, y'know, I'm sorry... if I want a horror book, and it's not horror, I'd get mad. If I want romance and it's not really romance, I'd get mad.

With Primal Urges, there's a menage scene in it that consists of our hero of the book, and two ladies he happens to meet who are bisexual lovers living together. There are a couple of paragraphs of just the two ladies making out, then more with pussy eating and whatnot during the menage... and that's it. Of course, I wasn't thinking and put lesbian in the keywords because they are, or rather bisexual. Maybe I put bisexual in there. I'd have to check that, actually. Anyway, it got categorized under literature & fiction > Horror > LGBT / Lesbian. I was like... Ooookaaaay?

It is in there, but it's not the focus of the book, so I feel that I must apologize for any misrepresentation of it. Yes, it technically is in there, so it could technically be in that category, but it's not the focus. I don't want to misrepresent what I wrote: it's horror with a paranormal romance and lots of hot sex. I'm still wondering if that one keyword was enough to bump it into that category. Sometimes, I really don't understand how Amazon determines where goes what, and if people even look at the content at all for all those authors jampacking whatever keywords they can to get into all those categories. I really don't think they do.

Changes. Meh.

This post is going to be about the KDP changes and my opinion on them.

First off, let me say this straight out: my income does not depend on publishing. At most, I've made about 220$ a month, least much less than that (first month and all). It seems to be averaging around one to two hundred a month, which was nice. It was even more especially nice when I took a pay cut for switching jobs. However, this is not my livelihood. I'm a hobby writer. The extra cash is nice, but not necessary.

Second, let me say I'm still of the 'wait and see' variety of author when it comes to this. We just don't have information to make accurate judgments yet. We can make some very good guesses, but they are just that: guesses.

So, with the changes to the kindle unlimited program, authors get paid per page read. In theory, this would be a nice way to reward each author evenly for reader entertainment. In practice, I don't think it's going to pan out that way, but I don't know yet. What I do know is that short stories, specifically erotica as that's my experience but it applies to all shorts, won't get paid nearly as much as they were under the old system. The old system seemed to have stabilized at around 1.35$ per borrow, so every time someone read past 10% of a book, the author would get that much for the KU user who borrowed the book. Many, many erotica writers made a lot of money under this system, many and more less so but a decent amount for beer money, as they say. I'm of the second variety. I know of several authors who quit their jobs because they were making so much smut money. That was terrific for them! It's the dream, yeah?

With the new changes, it won't be that. Now, the market is in upheaval. People are pulling their books out of KU and putting them in other markets, going "wide" as it's called. Other people aren't, or don't plan to. Still more are waiting. I'm of the third variety, but I was already putting my plan into motion of going wide anyway, and I was doing it BEFORE the changes were announced. Why? After the first couple of months, shorts tend to fall off the radar, so why not put them into other, newer markets where they'd get more exposure? That was my thinking anyway.

There are theories going about that authors will be getting paid (and there's math, I'm just lazy so I'm not rehashing all that, go Google it) $0.0057 per page read. That just over half a cent. Even with "increased" page counts--and the page counts seem to be about 175-200 words per page, give or take--a short is suddenly worth about twenty cents on the borrow. Forty if it's a bigger short. Other people have already done the math, and under that payment rate, a person would have to write like 250 pages or something, a full sized if shortish novel, to get the current pay rate. (No, my numbers may not be accurate. I'm lazy. I'm not looking it up. Google it yourself. Suffice it to say it's an estimate, and it's a pretty close estimate from what I was reading)

Even if it was a full cent, or even two, many erotica short story writers will be losing a lot of money compared to the old system. Many are upset. They have every right to feel what they feel. I understand being upset. I'm vaguely upset by that as well, but that's because I was envisioning being able to save up smut money to get the crowns on my two teeth that I've been needing. It will just take longer now. Much longer.

There are some people who write longer novels who are gloating over the changes. It's ok to celebrate your good fortune, but some of the posts I've seen talk about people "deserving" money for their work. That's what is very upsetting to me. There is no "deserving" in this. Flat out, it's a fucking business. People are in it to make money. End. Of. Story.

For Amazon, it's a business move. It's to save money, and they put the spin on it that it's to fairly reward authors for their pages published and read. That's just spin. It's fucking business. That's. All. BUSINESS.

For the authors, it's business as well. Amazon's move has hurt their business, which is upsetting. Beyond a doubt it's upsetting. There's a movement to "release the rate" for the borrows accumulated and how much per page is getting paid. I agree with that, because it's impossible to know what's going to happen. Without that vital information, authors can't figure out for themselves if they want to continue with the KU business model or move on to another pasture. That information should be given out, or updated throughout the month or something. It's a needed figure for authors to figure out where their business needs to be, how to grow it, and so on.

Even for me, a hobby writer, it's to make money. It's a fucking business. I don't... ok, I do do this for my own entertainment, but it's also to make money. I'm still kinda middle of the road here, but... being honest, I wanna make some cash too.

So, for Amazon, it's a business move to save them money. They have every fucking right to do that. It's even stated in the KU terms and conditions that it can change at any time. Whether or not they used strong-arming tactics to get people to enter KU to begin with and then to stay is a moral question, not a business one. We can only take this from a business perspective.

However, on the other side, this is the author's livelihoods that are being changed. It's business for them too. I understand the frustration and feeling of helplessness, but you can't change other people's actions. You can only change how you react to things. Granted, it would very much be helpful for authors if Amazon gave them the tools which were needed to make an informed choice... but that's a telling thing already, isn't it? If they aren't telling you and constantly change the rules, then do you want to stay?

In the end, I'm coming down in the middle so far. What I don't like is the negativity. I know a lot of authors are upset, and they have every right to be. However, let's all learn from our "Dear Negative Reader" from Laurell K. Hamilton and Anne Rice meltdowns in the past. Give Amazon your arguments in clear, concise terms, and then wait. Be polite. On the other side, for some douchebags out there saying that "If your income goes down, someone more deserving is seeing their income go up" is completely fucking wrong. Nobody fucking deserves money. We are mother fucking working for it, asshole. Whether some someones think that writing 5K of smut isn't work, well, I challenge them to put out 10-20K publishable words per fucking week for months on end and see how long they last. It is work. Those who don't keep up the pace aren't paid as much as those writers who can. So, for those people, stop gloating or rubbing it in the faces of people who are losing money on their business where it was once booming. It shows what kind of person you really are, and I'm seeing a lot of people on both sides of the argument I really don't want to be around because of the sucking vortex of negative energy.

Instead, I am focusing on a fellow writer's words, "You just keep doing what you do." Keep writing. That's where I'm at.

Amazon Changes the Rules Again

So, if you're a part of a writing community which publishes on KDP, I'm sure you already know about the big controversy. If not, let me sum up real quick. Amazon has changed how Kindle Unlimited (hereafter KU) pays authors for their work. Instead of waiting for a borrower to read 10% of their book and then getting a set amount (which does change from month to month), Amazon will now pay authors a price per page. Some have said it might be as much as ten cents a page which is blatantly ridiculous, others have said it will be down to half a cent a page, which is just as ridiculous. We don't know what the price will be yet, but erotica short authors are up in arms over it, and freaking out.

Now, this affects my livelihood as well, so obviously I'm concerned about it. Considering my "books" average about 10-11K a book (some are shorter, some are longer), we'll go with an estimate of 35 pages per one of my books. If it's 1 cent a page, then I'd be getting 35 cents per borrow, which is not really... awesome. If it's 10 cents a page, then it's 3.50$ per borrow. Obviously, it's not going to be that... that's way too much money. I think Amazon is going to start it off somewhere in the middle, and do what they did before... go down slowly in payout. It happened already with how KU works now. It was $2 a borrow (MAN I wish I would have started earlier!) and has stabilized around 1.30-1.40$ per borrow. Yet they're losing money. So many authors have put in books in KU, especially erotica writers, and with unlimited borrows, people are reading a lot more and getting their bang for their buck, which turned out good for writers. More they borrow, more writers earn. Yet the income for their KU program stayed about the same, if increased slightly.

Going to a page per read metric doesn't bother me too much. It's pushing closer to a getting paid per word deal that submitting to magazines and suchlike was like back in the day. I actually have complete confidence in that what people borrow of mine they read to the finish. This is mostly because MOST of my sexy bits tend to end up at the end of the book, OR there's a story there to carry them along. I'm not saying my work is high writing, but the way I've tied it together seems to carry readers from story to story with my JKC. Most of the Dominating books have a scenario in the beginning, leads to the sexy part at the end. What bothers me is that it's not... set down how much they are going to pay per page, how many words per page there are, and if formatting makes a difference or not. If I HAVE to, I'll go to 1.5 space formatting to fluff it a little, but that would kill part of my soul. I don't do that. I use a 12 size Times Roman font with single spacing, no double spacing between paragraphs... I use indents. Hence, my words per page is probably higher than a lot of erotica writers who do use such tricks to pad out their page count. I read one book where it was literally a paragraph (and not a long one) per page. That. Was. Annoying.

I understand why they're doing this, and it's Amazon playbox. If I don't like it, I can take my shit and leave. I'm considering that. They're offering 90 days after this goes into place to pull your shit out of KU, and depending on how it's done, I may. My plan originally was to pull stuff out of Amazon and sell on other forums anyway. This may just hasten it. I don't know yet. However, if they pay at least 3-5 cents a page, I'll probably stick to my original plan. 35 pages * 3 cents = 1.05. 35 pages * 5 cents = 1.75. I can live with those numbers. The sales will still be there too. But since I tend to writer LONGER stuff, it doesn't hurt me as much as those who churn out a billion 3,000 to 4,000 stories. Yeah, I've some shorter stuff, but I didn't work as long on them, so it makes sense to me that I should get paid less.

People have freaked out that this means the end of bundles, and I'm like.. this means MORE bundles. Bundles always have been and always will be free money to erotica writers. You're getting paid twice for work you already did. However, it'll mean more trash bundles too. I vow to my readers I will never ever trash bundle. I might slip in a bundle of stories from various series together, like a sampling, at one point, and I WILL bundle Dirk stories together and Debbie stories together from the JKC so that if my gay/bisexual readers want to find just Dirk stories they can, and hetero readers want to just read Debbie's they can... but that's it for my "trash bundling". Otherwise, stories will be bundled how I've been doing them. Every 5 for a JKC, 10 into a mega (haven't reached there yet tho), every 3 for Dominating, and every 3 for my shorter series. Rock, I haven't decided yet, but depending on the length of the next Rock, it may be every 2 or 3. If he continues to make me write 25K+ in a story, that's a lot of words, lemme tell ya. Two of them would be novel length then (novel length being over 50K), which would make sense to bundle them in a two pack. Just have to wait until I finish the next one.

The other thing is that it means more immediate payment up front, though the returns for each book will vary. People sometimes read stuff all in one sitting, and sometimes they don't. Assuming someone borrows a book and starts reading it right away, you'll get your cash right away (well, in 60 days, but that's the payment schedule). If they put it down and continue reading the next day, you'll get the next bit. It's more continual. That may mean a smoother graph, more consistent money throughout the month. Authors such as Selena Kitt have given us what information she has, which is really appreciated, and has offered authors to "come to the dark side"... which I already have an Excitica account, heh. My first book that is not attached to a bundle has finally come free of KU, so it was going to go up onto the different platforms out there, starting tonight when I get my conversions done. How will these other platforms perform? I have no idea. That's why I'm experimenting. I don't like being at Amazon's mercy, but they're a company and they want to make money. I get that. It's just that... so do I.

What does all this mean? It means keep your head down and keep writing until July or August until we get some numbers for sure, and then you can cry the sky is falling. For now, it's business as usual.

The Adult Dungeon... It's Not Just for Whips and Chains Anymore!

So, I've mentioned that I got a couple books "adult dungeoned", but what is that exactly? Since I mostly publish on Amazon, I mostly obey their rules and restrictions on erotica. However, when you happen to step over the line, they'll put an "Adult" filter on you which means when people search for your book, it's not in the general population of books... it's in a special section, which people have to click a button to turn on to search IN it. Needless to say, the button is sometimes hard to find, and people don't really bother with it. Being in the adult dungeon can be the death of a book, and usually is. There are exceptions for this rule, but not many that I've found.

What gets you landed in the adult dungeon? As far as I can tell, here's an incomplete list... and I'm sure there are more things, these are just the ones I know about:

• Nudity on the cover. Definite no-no.
• Implied nudity on the cover... such as not wearing panties, lol, but also "hand bras". This seems to be more lax with bare chested men though.
• Certain words or phrases in the title or blurb. Anything vulgar like cock, pussy, dick, etc, is a definite, but there are some other phrases which aren't as well known, like BANGED (hehe), anything to do with 'school' girl or boy, probably anything to do with implied underage (girl, boy) sex, definitely anything noncon and possibly dubcon as well (forced, raped, etc, but "taken" is ok, at least so far), anything to do with incest (ie, mommy, daddy, sister, brother) and some to do with PI (psuedo incest), but a lot of people seem to be getting away with certain phrases like "brat" or "man of the house"... also "step" stuff, though I still wouldn't put brother or sister on there.
• Images which depict a woman being bound. It's unclear if men are under the same restriction, but I would assume so. Because, you know, BDSM is just SO FUCKING HORRIBLE and people can't possibly be bound with their consent.
• Anything on the cover actually depicting a sexual act.

There are others, but those are the big ones off the top of my head. Basically, think of like a ten year old who might come across it... if it's anything that you'd really be embarrassed about them seeing, then don't. Make sure your models all have their clothes on and are enjoying things in a consensual manner. Write teasers... but don't spell everything out. I've found in my personal experience that writing short descriptions of what's IN the books are ok though... like putting in "oral, anal, group sex, mmf" and so on doesn't get you filtered, but some people insist that putting anal in there will. Well, I've gotten a couple of books adult dungeoned now, and not one of them have been for putting anal in the blurb, so I'm calling bullshit on that one right now. If someone DID get blocked for that, odds are it was actually for something else. Or Amazon's fucking with them.