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[Elfforkusu]

Has anyone here ever had their writing become an audiobook?

I've been eating those up lately and would love to hear one by a Gaffer, be it something I buy or something that I'm hearing for free in return for my critique. Audiobook GAF, you have an audience of at least 1 here.

I would love for Wrath of Flight to be an audiobook, but sadly...

make it awkward by including gaf in a story. Oh yes, it was an ordinary day for gaf-man, but then!

Maybe insert some doom_bringer and bestiality in the back, and just roll with the incoming tides of whyhwywhywhywhywhywhywhywhyhwhywhywhywhwyhwywhwyhwywhwyhwywy

#gafgate

If it's true to gaf-form, there'd be a weird and unnerving incestual turn at some point...

It seems like that might be against the amazon terms of service!

 

[Delio]

Yes, get started so that you're not scrambling near the end and have time to revise and edit. More time means you can polish or fiddle with covers and the like. <-- Your covers must be done by each upload date or you won't have a cover.

K time to get started then! Churning out three of these should be easy. ( i hope) lol.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

Huh, that's interesting. The book sirap recommended mentioned using taboo and virgin a lot.



Bah, I might want to increase the length a little bit then. Can we bring it down to 4000 words? The book said 4500 should be minimum for 2.99, but I think we can give ourselves at least a bit of leeway.

I might just do 1.99 anyway though, but 2.99 does give more advantages beyond just royalty rate. I'll see when I've written more.

So everything in this thread is going to have two meanings now.

 

[Nappuccino]

So everything in this thread is going to have two meanings now.

metaphors galore!

 

[Crash Station]

I'm honestly fine with whatever you want to price yours at. Those numbers were just what I gleaned from various discussions other erotic authors had on forums and sirap's input. If 4000-45000 is also doable at 2.99, then go for it. I just want everyone's out of the gate with the best chance and lower word counts might be a hard sell at the higher prices.

This is true. The book recommends to not put out a sub-2.99 book until you have a bunch out already, but since this is a simple experiment, it might not be so bad.

For the keywords, yeah... I keep seeing contradicting info here. I think perhaps omitting the taboo stuff is just to lower the chances of Amazon reviewing your book and slapping you with the ADULT rating, which is apparently the kiss of death sales-wise. Could be fine, but I'm going to err on the side of caution, myself.

Care to add any other tips from the book? What else does she recommend?

Some stuff that sirap said himself. I'm honestly not convinced this ISN'T sirap, lol. I'm fairly certain this isn't a woman, though it might be.

Some stuff:

.Try to stick to 1 genre/kink
.The landscape is changing ALL the time with regards to what's popular
.Do research on the top 100 erotica authors and what they sell
.Don't write what you want, write what the consumer wants
.Pen names should be either female or gender-neutral
.There is no rule to sex/story ratio.
.There is no rule to perspective.
.Double-spaced paragraphs to up page count. Also page breaks.
.Other Works section with clickable links
.ALWAYS put Kindle Unlimited in the keywords somewhere.
.Stagger your releases

And probably the most alluring thing about it is what the book calls the Burger Bundling Shameless strategy. You can bundle any 2 or more books in any combination. He/she even mentions that it sounds like cheating, but a common response to that throughout the whole book is "It's erotica, no one cares!"

So say you have 5 short stories. You can bundle them like this.

1-2
1-3
1-4
1-5
2-3
2-4
2-5
3-4
3-5
4-5
1-2-3
1-2-4
1-2-5
1-3-4
1-3-5
1-4-5
2-3-4
2-3-5
3-4-5
1-2-3-4
1-2-3-5
1-2-4-5
1-3-4-5

And so on. You can have like 30 things up for sale and only write like 5 stories. That's the strategy I want to use so I don't have to do many of these (provided it works of course).

Bunch more in the actual book, but that's the highlights.

 

[Petit Melon]

Revised Mini-Challenge:

Welp, just noticed this. Can we still join?

 

[Gaz_RB]

Can somebody explain how the ADULT tag works on amazon? lol, isn't all the Erotica adult?

 

[Jintor]

Can somebody explain how the ADULT tag works on amazon? lol, isn't all the Erotica adult?

Nah man look at that lucrative kid's erotica market





...actually don't

 

[Delio]

Can somebody explain how the ADULT tag works on amazon? lol, isn't all the Erotica adult?

Yeah I wonder this as well. What would push it to adult?

 

[H.Protagonist]

This is true. The book recommends to not put out a sub-2.99 book until you have a bunch out already, but since this is a simple experiment, it might not be so bad.



Some stuff that sirap said himself. I'm honestly not convinced this ISN'T sirap, lol. I'm fairly certain this isn't a woman, though it might be.

Some stuff:

.Try to stick to 1 genre/kink
.The landscape is changing ALL the time with regards to what's popular
.Do research on the top 100 erotica authors and what they sell
.Don't write what you want, write what the consumer wants
.Pen names should be either female or gender-neutral
.There is no rule to sex/story ratio.
.There is no rule to perspective.
.Double-spaced paragraphs to up page count. Also page breaks.
.Other Works section with clickable links
.ALWAYS put Kindle Unlimited in the keywords somewhere.
.Stagger your releases

And probably the most alluring thing about it is what the book calls the Burger Bundling Shameless strategy. You can bundle any 2 or more books in any combination. He/she even mentions that it sounds like cheating, but a common response to that throughout the whole book is "It's erotica, no one cares!"

So say you have 5 short stories. You can bundle them like this.

1-2
1-3
1-4
1-5
2-3
2-4
2-5
3-4
3-5
4-5
1-2-3
1-2-4
1-2-5
1-3-4
1-3-5
1-4-5
2-3-4
2-3-5
3-4-5
1-2-3-4
1-2-3-5
1-2-4-5
1-3-4-5

And so on. You can have like 30 things up for sale and only write like 5 stories. That's the strategy I want to use so I don't have to do many of these (provided it works of course).

Bunch more in the actual book, but that's the highlights.

Yeah, we are experimenting with multiple things here, which is part of the beauty of everyone doing it at the same time. Might give us a better idea of what works and what doesn't. For the tips, they all sound pretty solid. I'd heard about using a female/gender neutral pen name being preferred. An interesting little facet to all this. For the bundling, oh, my. The options really do seem limitless.

Welp, just noticed this. Can we still join?

Of course! Anyone is welcome to join up till the first publishing date on May 18th.

If people are also uncertain about directly chiming in here and joining but are curious and would like to try, feel free to PM me and I'll make up a name for you to add to the tracking chart here when it goes up. That way you can participate and still keep it extra-private, so to speak.

Updated list:

Me
Nappuccino
Gaz_RB
Delio
Blargonaut
Jintor
timetokill
toddhunter
Nudull?
mu cephei
FlowersisBritish
Cyan
cosmicblizzard
Petit Melon

Can somebody explain how the ADULT tag works on amazon? lol, isn't all the Erotica adult?

I believe, and I'm not 100% certain here, that if your blurb, cover, or even contents (maybe just the Look Inside section?) are considered too graphic or too close to pornographic then Amazon will slap your work with an ADULT tag that relegates you to an unsearchable sub-category with other too risque titles. What this does essentially is remove you from the most visible pool of books which obviously kills your sales.

That's what I think it is, anyway. I've read a number of posts on other forums where this has happened to people, so I'd love to know how to best avoid it. Right now it just seems like you need to choose your keywords and cover design carefully.

 

[Crash Station]

Yeah, we are experimenting with multiple things here, which is part of the beauty of everyone doing it at the same time. Might give us a better idea of what works and what doesn't. For the tips, they all sound pretty solid. I'd heard about using a female/gender neutral pen name being preferred. An interesting little facet to all this. For the bundling, oh, my. The options really do seem limitless.

On top of that, use all different keywords for the bundles. The book calls it "leaving your trash in as many yards as you can". The chance of at least one of them getting noticed is pretty high if you have good keywords, which can lead people to your other stuff.

 

[Nappuccino]

I believe, and I'm not 100% certain here, that if your blurb, cover, or even contents (maybe just the Look Inside section?) are considered too graphic or too close to pornographic then Amazon will slap your work with an ADULT tag that relegates you to an unsearchable sub-category with other too risque titles. What this does essentially is remove you from the most visible pool of books which obviously kills your sales.

.

I'm guessing this means the sexy times can't be too . . . intensive then.

 

[Gaz_RB]

I'm guessing this means the sexy times can't be too . . . intensive then.

From what I've gathered, its more of a manner of what the stuff pertains to. Incest and the like are probably what slaps the tag on ya.

 

[Nappuccino]

From what I've gathered, its more of a manner of what the stuff pertains to. Incest and the like are probably what slaps the tag on ya.

Weird that virgin does it though.

 

[Crash Station]

Interestingly, the book recommends incest stories. Maybe something has changed since December.

 

[Gaz_RB]

Hmm... honestly my plan is to, as someone mentioned, hit the top 100 and see what's popular now. I imagine incest and v-card snatching aren't niches on that list, but I could be wrong-new territory and all.

I think I'm gonna try to read that book tonight.

 

[H.Protagonist]

On top of that, use all different keywords for the bundles. The book calls it "leaving your trash in as many yards as you can". The chance of at least one of them getting noticed is pretty high if you have good keywords, which can lead people to your other stuff.

Nice. I'd say we're getting enough info here to make a fairly educated stab at this. Just a bit more research to be done on 1) what constitutes good keywords, and 2) what to do about the category conundrum.

I'm guessing this means the sexy times can't be too . . . intensive then.

Well, I think it's more along the lines of naked covers and blurbs shouting about barred topics like underage, incest, torture, etc. as Gaz said.

 

[Delio]

Looking at the top 100 atm it seems full of Fifty shades like books. That and rich guy fantasy.

 

[Crash Station]

Not top 100 books, top 100 erotica authors. We want to know what the people pumping out a ton of content are doing, niche kinks or otherwise.

 

[Jintor]

So are we all going to be reading a lot of .99 erotica over this weekend or

 

[Gaz_RB]

So are we all going to be reading a lot of .99 erotica over this weekend or

I don't have a kindle . Gonna hit up the dark corner of my local bookstore.

 

[Delio]

So are we all going to be reading a lot of .99 erotica over this weekend or

Falling down the dark hole of free to .99 cent erotica this weekend.

 

[Gaz_RB]

It's a date.

What's yours about, btw?

It's this ridiculous multi-character monster that I'm about 100k words into, aiming for 150,000 by the end and having it be the first of a trilogy. It's grown into a beast of its own design, however.

I'm sort of calling it of a "Colonial" or "Revolution" fantasy in that it's basically 1600-1700 era technology with bits of magic and a very Lovecraftian sort of ancient lore that is revealed to both the characters and the readers as the story unfolds. It'd probably be easy to call it Steampunk just because of the time period, but I don't see it that way. Much more grounded and realistic, with as little extra magic or technology as possible, aside from the Lovecraftian stuff, which also isn't extremely pronounced.

Basically a few hundred years ago, a new landmass was discovered, and the Domain begin a colonization effort very similar to a certain British colonization of the new world. A very familiar sort of rebellion situation also occurs, and when the book begins, we're ten years deep into a seemingly never ending revolutionary war. No one side is altogether on the moral high ground, and most of the conflict is character based rather than classic good vs evil.

Basically the story revolves around a couple different characters, on both sides of the war, that-inadvertently or otherwise-are all heading towards unraveling the mystery behind the New World's ancient history.

I mostly write short stories, so taking on such a complex novel for my first go at something longer might not have been wise. But its fun as hell and I'm learning a ton about plot structure and character development. While I may end up rewriting the whole damn thing, its certainly been a hell of a learning experience.

 

[FlowersisBritish]

I've only read one Erotica and it was about Dinosaur on human sex. Let me tell you, it was atrocious, and ignored much of dinosaur anatomy. I intend to do a similar thing with my dinosaur eroticva, and ignore much of Victorian England's history.

 

[Jintor]

Feathers/no feathers

 

[H.Protagonist]

I've only read one Erotica and it was about Dinosaur on human sex. Let me tell you, it was atrocious, and ignored much of dinosaur anatomy. I intend to do a similar thing with my dinosaur eroticva, and ignore much of Victorian England's history.

I'm so happy that this challenge seems to not only be uniting Writing-GAF but also elevating the woeful state of Victorian dinosaur porn.

 

[Delio]

Feathers/no feathers

Feathered ALL the way.

 

[Nappuccino]

Feathered ALL the way.

Gotta get that tickle-torture scene in for the niche crowd.

 

[timetokill]

Interestingly, the book recommends incest stories. Maybe something has changed since December.

IIRC it actually says like "almost" incest. Non-blood relatives.

 

[FlowersisBritish]

I'm old school. Lizards all the way. Fuck science, what's science done for me as of late? Notin. You know what movie I watched the other day? Jurassic Park/

 

[Mike M]

I'm old school. Lizards all the way. Fuck science, what's science done for me as of late? Notin. You know what movie I watched the other day? Jurassic Park/

You're dead to me.

 

[FlowersisBritish]

You're dead to me.

"Margaret! Margret! Did you hear? This peasant seems to think I give a fuck."

 

[Crash Station]

IIRC it actually says like "almost" incest. Non-blood relatives.

Ah, you're right.

Still, H.Pro said an author said to avoid even pseudo-incest, so I don't know...

 

[Jintor]

All I'm saying is POMF wat r we gunna do on the bed onii-chan

 

[fredrancour]

I've only read one Erotica and it was about Dinosaur on human sex. Let me tell you, it was atrocious, and ignored much of dinosaur anatomy. I intend to do a similar thing with my dinosaur eroticva, and ignore much of Victorian England's history.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a velociraptor?

Spoiler

yes i know regency =/= victorian I've just never read any historical romances besides P&P

 

[toddhunter]

So are we all going to be reading a lot of .99 erotica over this weekend or

I did some research last night. I'll probably do some more... After a day or two.

 

[Crash Station]

500 words into the second one.

Hope it pays off because this is really stupid, lol.

 

[Zakalwe]

It's this ridiculous multi-character monster that I'm about 100k words into, aiming for 150,000 by the end and having it be the first of a trilogy. It's grown into a beast of its own design, however.

I'm sort of calling it of a "Colonial" or "Revolution" fantasy in that it's basically 1600-1700 era technology with bits of magic and a very Lovecraftian sort of ancient lore that is revealed to both the characters and the readers as the story unfolds. It'd probably be easy to call it Steampunk just because of the time period, but I don't see it that way. Much more grounded and realistic, with as little extra magic or technology as possible, aside from the Lovecraftian stuff, which also isn't extremely pronounced.

Basically a few hundred years ago, a new landmass was discovered, and the Domain begin a colonization effort very similar to a certain British colonization of the new world. A very familiar sort of rebellion situation also occurs, and when the book begins, we're ten years deep into a seemingly never ending revolutionary war. No one side is altogether on the moral high ground, and most of the conflict is character based rather than classic good vs evil.

Basically the story revolves around a couple different characters, on both sides of the war, that-inadvertently or otherwise-are all heading towards unraveling the mystery behind the New World's ancient history.

I mostly write short stories, so taking on such a complex novel for my first go at something longer might not have been wise. But its fun as hell and I'm learning a ton about plot structure and character development. While I may end up rewriting the whole damn thing, its certainly been a hell of a learning experience.

I'm intrigued, And impressed you're taking on so much for your first. Lovecraft is something I enjoy, so I'm interested to see what you do with that, but the most interesting part for me will be to see how you incorporate the subtle magic and technology while keeping it more grounded.

Will the horror elements be pronounced, or setting under the surface?

I've not really thought about final word count for mine, I'm at 6k and I'm five chapters in. Based on my plot outline I'm looking at 80k (rough guess), and I may split it into two books as there's an event almost dead centre that could work for that. We'll see, I'd like to write it all first regardless.

At this pace I'll be done in two months which seemed impossible before I began. It's amazing how the process can sweep you away with it!

 

[roknin]

Oh my... I did not know this thread existed. Subbed.

Right now one of my novels is in the editing phase... But I don't have the funds yet to get it professionally edited, which I'd really rather do.

The other part of me is tired of having waited some 15+ years to get something close to done, and is tempted to roll with it without the pro-editing.

I doubt the latter is going to win, thankfully.

 

[aidan]

500 words into the second one.

Hope it pays off because this is really stupid, lol.

There's always a money shot at the end.

 

[360pages]

Just write and edit the fuck out of it. As long as you have proper grammar and look over your story and what not you can improve your prose as you go along. Most people who are buying on Amazon/ a lot of books from there. Probably don't really give two shakes about the details of writing...for better or worse.

So just make the story readable as your first directive.

 

[Petit Melon]

I'm old school. Lizards all the way. Fuck science, what's science done for me as of late? Notin. You know what movie I watched the other day? Jurassic Park/

I read this book for my chutes and prostates feature on another board. It was umm... yeah. Everything you'd expect it to be. (Poorly written ridden with grammatical errors head hopping POV shifts)

 

[lobdale]

I don't have anything to submit here, but cheers for offering the opportunity, lobdale. The chance to be published for a built-in audience is a pretty nice one. Might give it a go if it comes around again.

Thanks! I'm accepting submissions year-round since it's a monthly magazine and I'd like to be able to do this every single month. I've gotten a couple thus far, so you can submit any time if you're interested!

 

[A Human Becoming]

Well, even though I didn't get the warmest reaction to my career change, at least the erotica response turned into something.

 

[Gaz_RB]

I'm intrigued, And impressed you're taking on so much for your first. Lovecraft is something I enjoy, so I'm interested to see what you do with that, but the most interesting part for me will be to see how you incorporate the subtle magic and technology while keeping it more grounded.

Will the horror elements be pronounced, or setting under the surface?

I've not really thought about final word count for mine, I'm at 6k and I'm five chapters in. Based on my plot outline I'm looking at 80k (rough guess), and I may split it into two books as there's an event almost dead centre that could work for that. We'll see, I'd like to write it all first regardless.

At this pace I'll be done in two months which seemed impossible before I began. It's amazing how the process can sweep you away with it!

I don't plan on really introducing the horror until the third act, just teasing it throughout and then bringing it on unexpectedly.

And yeah, its crazy how daunting a novel seems until you actually start devoting time to it. You can do a lengthy first draft in a few months-or less- if you really focus and work on it daily. And working on it pretty much daily is really important for me because I find I begin to lose track of character motivations and personalities if I take large breaks.

It seems like breaking your book into two might be a good idea if there is enough of a cliffhanger in the middle, while still tying up a decent number of plot threads.

But yeah, the process is crazy once you're inspired.

 

[H.Protagonist]

For anyone doing the mini-challenge, I highly recommend you read these two posts from a published author on the subject. They cover those choppy waters I mentioned earlier concerning the dreaded ADULT filter and how to avoid that and/or your book being banned.

Selena Kitt - Corporate Censorship: Keeping Your Erotic Books Off Retailer Hit Lists

Selena Kitt - Amazon Targets Dark Erotic Romance and BDSM

Basically: "If you dress up pretty on the outside, you can be as much of a whore on the inside as you like.*

(*with a few exceptions…)"

Thanks! I'm accepting submissions year-round since it's a monthly magazine and I'd like to be able to do this every single month. I've gotten a couple thus far, so you can submit any time if you're interested!

Very cool! I'll keep it in mind if it pops up again. Cheers.

 

[BorkBork]

I had a couple of really good experiences at the Surrey International Writers Conference when I went in my early twenties. The panels and events were interesting, but the most encouraging thing by far was the opportunity to mingle with so many professional authors, including one of my favourite authors, Terry Brooks, who kindly had breakfast with me one morning. It was (and still is) a huge source of inspiration for me.

Thanks! I have been tempted to go to the SIWC in years past, but I didn't really have anything to shop. Sounds like a pretty amazing experience though!

 

[Petit Melon]

I know I just joined this thread but, lol, anyway, I have my concepts for the shorts done. They're only about a chapter and a half or so of words so I'll probably be able to get them done quickly. I also have another ero piece I've been working on that I'd like to see release around Avengers to see if that will give it a sales boost (it features superheroes) and a full length ero-novel I was planning to release in May, but with this challenge I feel like it'd be better in late June or July. I've been focusing on establishing my brand as "cute and steamy" for awhile now, so we'll see how this helps.

 

[Mike M]

Dear Mike,

Thank you very much for letting us read your story. Unfortunately, it was not selected for inclusion in UFO4.

Sorry about the bad news, and please try us again next year.

Sincerely,

Unidentified Funny Objects 4 editorial team

P.S. I enjoyed the scenario you set up, but there wasn't enough depth to the story for me to truly become engaged. Also, isn't 911 a free call from any pay phone? I know the story is absurdist, but that fact still pulled me out of it as a reader. Perhaps that problem could be avoided by changing the scenario somewhat to have the narrator needing to connect with a specific person by phone, rather than emergency services.

Also, the bio or anything you wish to include in the cover letter is fine. The associate editors only get to see the story file itself -- only I see the cover letter, so it's entirely optional.

-Alex

See, now I know of a glaring plot hole!

 

[FlowersisBritish]

See, now I know of a glaring plot hole!

Yeah, professional editors are great that way. Also what kind of places are you submitting where you're getting response in a couple days? I usually wait months to hear back.