The October Experiment

Don't mind me, just hanging out in my Tharja duds.

Happy Halloween!

October was a pretty experimental month for me. (Minds out of the gutter, please!) It was the first time I published a collection of stories right off, without publishing them individually first. That also happens to be my longest book ever (probably). And it was the first book I published without putting it into KDP Select.

This month also marked the first time I made a concerted effort to market my book using my blog, social media, and other websites. And it was the first time I tried using a paid marketing service.

So how did I do? Well, here's what my sales looked like in September:

And here's how I did in October:

Which, relatively speaking, looks like a success to me! In terms of my sales October was a downright record breaker.

That said, the month wasn't an unqualified success by any means. But, I think I learned a few things about marketing and how Amazon works. And now, I'm going to share them with you, out of the goodness of my little black heart.

Amazon Loves Launches

Publishing a book on Amazon is by far the biggest marketing bump you can give it, at least for free in the small smut market. I'm not sure how Amazon's algorithms work exactly, but new releases are definitely favored for at least the first week. It's how super-productive smut writers make their cash, by releasing books often enough to make sure that Amazon keeps them front and center.

Which I'm not up to taking advantage of yet! But I have other plans, precious, yesss. Point being, when you publish a book, make sure you're prepared to promote it first so it can get off to the best running start possible. (This sounds really obvious. Hrm.)

KDP Select Is For Your Back Catalog

My sales for Monstrous Seductions were quite a bit better than any of my other books at launch, and I think this came from not enrolling the book in KDP Select. Every other book I've published has gone straight to Kindle Unlimited, and while they've gotten reads consistently, none of them ever got this number of actual sales. And when you're selling stories at my length, reads don't really help as much as you'd like, but sales are cash money.

So I'm going to make a simple recommendation: don't enroll your books in KDP Select at launch. If you want to go that route, give your book some time for your initial sales to slow down, then enroll your book when you're ready to run promos with it and start picking up those sweet page reads people swear by.

By the way: Monstrous Seductions will never be on KDP Select, because most of it is already free to read right here on my blog! Which means I can't put the book into KDP Select without Amazon getting all huffy.

(The one story that isn't on the blog, Wolfsmead, is a follow up on Bette and Veronique's story, so you'll have to buy the collection if you're interested. I like those two. I may keep them around.)

Free Samples Draw Traffic! Not So Much Sales

I did a lot of promotion for Monstrous Seductions, most of which consisted of posting stories from the book on my blog, Literotica, and Reddit. Out of the three, my blog got consistent traffic, Literotica got me some good feedback, and the Reddit post landed like a hardened turd. As far as I can tell none of them drove any sales to the actual collection.

I do recommend consistent blogging to help build up an audience, but as a way to drive short-term sales, not so much. Literotica isn't a bad place to get feedback on your shorter smut, they run the occasional contest, and you won't be barred from publishing for profit, but the site isn't designed to attract customers.

One other thing: I did another giveaway of some of my creepier back catalog through KDP Select. And I said I wouldn't do that again! But I was weak. And generous. And weak. I did pick up forty new readers, but once again I can't recommend doing this to get paid sales of anything. On the other hand, FUN FACT: giveaways do raise your rank on Amazon, and because of that I can now call myself a Top Ten Bestselling Erotic Horror Author! *confetti*

You Get What You Pay For

The biggest disappointment of the month came from a paid promotion I ran through a promotional Twitter account. I won't name names, but at 12,000+ followers I expected, you know, at least one sale from a week-long promotion. What I ended up with was about 100 RTs of the ad (pretty much all on the first day and last day), some new followers, and zero sales.

Part of that was my own fault: I didn't write Twitter-specific ad copy, and the parts of my book blurb that the promoter used couldn't have helped anything. Part of it, I think, was that the ad linked to a page the promoter set up rather than Amazon, and I doubt anyone wanted to click through to my book.

I will say the promoter was completely courteous and friendly to work with, exceeded what I expected of them, and for the price I can't complain about what I got. But I will have to think twice (and do some research) before running any paid ads again, just to make sure I've got some indication the ads will be effective for me.

Conclusions And Future Efforts

Based on what I saw this month, the best way to make money writing smut is to publish new content weekly. If you can do that, good luck and God bless!

Since I can't, I'm going to pursue some other efforts this month. First, I'll be giving away my most taboo story ever to anyone who signs up to my mailing list. You'll hear more about that when it's ready.

Next, I'll be setting myself up with some other publishers, and seeing how Monstrous Seductions does wide. I'm sure some people aren't tired of Halloween yet! I'm not sure how I'll address KDP Select going forward, but for now everything I have in there is going to stay in there, so check it out if you have Kindle Unlimited.

The rest of the month I'll be using to produce new content, here and elsewhere, because it's certainly a good month for it. As long as you keep reading, I'll keep writing!

-Lea