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How do you use your writing talent to make actual money?

Slaanesh said:
I agree with you, but it doesn't necessarily have to be considered a nefarious practice. Is DMing an ERP for someone any different than drawing an NSFW image for a commission? I see them both as pornographic art for money it doesn't have to be a scam.
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I don't really consider it a scam or bad, just something me and most people I know wouldn't partake in, if someone wants to run that kind of game as a service and can find players, more power to them! I've had partners draw our OCs and that was way more than I could ever hope to repay.
 
I mean...a major part of my job is writing. All the time. I am constantly drafting documents. But probably not the sort of writing you are looking to do.
 
Slaanesh said:
Maybe I should open a patreon where I do commissions as a GM for erotic RPs. I wonder if people would pay me to fulfill their kinks.
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There is a market for GMs. If you look over in Roll20, there are tons of games you can join... for a fee. Not sure how profitable that is, however.
 
Solo said:
Hey all.

We don't want to take any topics down, but we need to exclude RP-for-money from the conversation here. Having a directory of people who would pay for RP is not something we want to host here, so I'll be going back and removing references to pay-for-posts from the posts here. In the future, please keep suggestions here to generic, offsite methods without advertising other sites or referencing that you're willing to pay for RP or writing commissions. There are sites for that, but BMR is not one of them, and the legality of paying for writing is not something that we're equipped or willing to take on.

Unfortunately if posts keep being made about pay-for-RP we are going to have to take the topic down and we don't like to do that if not completely necessary. Thanks!
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I deleted all my posts refering to this topic. I apologize, it was never my intention to make it seem like I was promoting this. It really just started as a joke.
 
If your goal is to make money with your writing, you are going to be disappointed.

You can do it, but either you accept making enough to buy a coffee, or you are one of the rare few who make it.

Let me illustrate it a different way. Let's say you want to write a quick 20 page smutty ebook. Great.
  • Now you need to edit it. You can edit it yourself, or simply not care because this is a quick short erotica piece, but that will make an impression. Or you could pay an editor.
  • Now you need someone to format it into ebook code, which you have to pay. You can learn to do that, but not only si that learning, but formatting is a time-consuming thing.
  • Now you need a cover. Cover hugely impacts sales. So you could slap something on with MSPaint, buy a pre-designed cover, or get someone to make a cover.
Success, you now have an ebook, it is on Amazon. How are people going to find it? Amazon shows people new books based on algorithms, which is "people who bought x also bought y" and other weird occult rules. Mainly it's about promotion, it's marketing. You are on social media, you are posting and commenting in those communities you're selling to, interacting with people. You need to get reviews and word of mouth.

Meanwhile you're going to be making less than a dollar from each purchase of that one ebook.

The way money is made is a snowball effect. You have 8+ ebooks. The more books you have, the more you sell because someone is more likely to see one, someone buys one and they like it and buy another. That impacts your algorithims.

Patreon is another attractive option, you can skip all the cover art and formatting issues. But that relies even more on marketing, because no one is going to know who you are to sign up at first. And it takes a long time to build up a follower base. All who you need to supply with regular writing. Plus writing patreons aren't charging a lot. So you have to wait until you have a Lot of followers before you're making anything substantive off Patreon.

Going to publishers is a different beast all together that I could go into if you really want.

The point is that you are investing a metric fuck-ton of time and effort before you ever see any profit, and then you need to put more time and effort before that profit is anything worthwhile. If your only goal then is to make money, there are hundreds of options that give you more money for less investment. That's why having a goal other than money is important, because it helps keep your motivation going.
 
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Deante said:
If your goal is to make money with your writing, you are going to be disappointed.

You can do it, but either you accept making enough to buy a coffee, or you are one of the rare few who make it.

Let me illustrate it a different way. Let's say you want to write a quick 20 page smutty ebook. Great.
  • Now you need to edit it. You can edit it yourself, or simply not care because this is a quick short erotica piece, but that will make an impression. Or you could pay an editor.
  • Now you need someone to format it into ebook code, which you have to pay. You can learn to do that, but not only si that learning, but formatting is a time-consuming thing.
  • Now you need a cover. Cover hugely impacts sales. So you could slap something on with MSPaint, buy a pre-designed cover, or get someone to make a cover.
Success, you now have an ebook, it is on Amazon. How are people going to find it? Amazon shows people new books based on algorithms, which is "people who bought x also bought y" and other weird occult rules. Mainly it's about promotion, it's marketing. You are on social media, you are posting and commenting in those communities you're selling to, interacting with people. You need to get reviews and word of mouth.

Meanwhile you're going to be making less than a dollar from each purchase of that one ebook.

The way money is made is a snowball effect. You have 8+ ebooks. The more books you have, the more you sell because someone is more likely to see one, someone buys one and they like it and buy another. That impacts your algorithims.

Patreon is another attractive option, you can skip all the cover art and formatting issues. But that relies even more on marketing, because no one is going to know who you are to sign up at first. And it takes a long time to build up a follower base. All who you need to supply with regular writing. Plus writing patreons aren't charging a lot. So you have to wait until you have a Lot of followers before you're making anything substantive off Patreon.

Going to publishers is a different beast all together that I could go into if you really want.

The point is that you are investing a metric fuck-ton of time and effort before you ever see any profit, and then you need to put more time and effort before that profit is anything worthwhile. If your only goal then is to make money, there are hundreds of options that give you more money for less investment. That's why having a goal other than money is important, because it helps keep your motivation going.
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So what you're saying is the first ten stories won't make any money until they do. They'll cost money, but eventually they'll turn a profit once the brand is established.
 
Understand it's not a guarantee. "Do this, and that will happen." Your first book could be super popular. Or no one may be buying any of them at all. No one likes to talk about it but there's a degree of luck involved. There is so much content out there that good books get missed. It also can depend some on what you're writing, how many people are interested in that thing. Normal erotica? The world is your oyster. Sex between inanimate objects (like Cars or The Brave Little Toaster? Not as many.)

But in general, if you have multiple books out there, if you're actively engaging your following, then it should start building.

It takes patience, writing on a regular basis, and cultivating your fans.
 
Purple Alien Hoe said:
So what you're saying is the first ten stories won't make any money until they do. They'll cost money, but eventually they'll turn a profit once the brand is established.
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I am in a facebook group for erotica writers, and they have the magic number at 30. The dirty thirty. That's 30 short pieces (5k-10k words each) under the same pen-name, under the same niche, or closely related niches. If you branch out into erotic romance, you can get buy on novellas and novels, 30k- 75k words each, which make more money, but cost more money and time to make. If you can pump out a novel each two-three months, the algorithm will reward you with greater visibility, but the algorithm is fickle as hell.

Erotica is hard to market. Amazon and Facebook don't allow you to advertise it through ads on their platforms, so you have to find other ways. Not many newsletters promo allow erotica either. You need to build up a social media following if you want success, which can be fairly time consuming. Not trying to dissuade you, but it's not a get rich quick option. Even at 30, most erotica authors aren't making a lot of money
 
Xanaphia said:
I am in a facebook group for erotica writers, and they have the magic number at 30. The dirty thirty. That's 30 short pieces (5k-10k words each) under the same pen-name, under the same niche, or closely related niches. If you branch out into erotic romance, you can get buy on novellas and novels, 30k- 75k words each, which make more money, but cost more money and time to make. If you can pump out a novel each two-three months, the algorithm will reward you with greater visibility, but the algorithm is fickle as hell.

Erotica is hard to market. Amazon and Facebook don't allow you to advertise it through ads on their platforms, so you have to find other ways. Not many newsletters promo allow erotica either. You need to build up a social media following if you want success, which can be fairly time consuming. Not trying to dissuade you, but it's not a get rich quick option. Even at 30, most erotica authors aren't making a lot of money
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What this makes me think of is finding a forum or place that caters to those niches, and hit them regularly. Pulling one out of the air, say BDSM erotica. So then you start posting links in BDSM fiction subreddits, kink forums, Fetlife, and so on. The trick is if those particular areas allow for promotion of your content. For instance I'm in the subreddit for harem novels and most of the posts there are promotion, but the Horror subreddit deletes all self-promotion.

The question is, "Where are the people that are into the thing you write. Go there."

I also wonder if Patreon would let you put up ads.
 
Yes, there are audiobooks. But that is one more thing you have to get done. Unless you got a sexy-ass voice and a good audio setup, you're going to have to pay someone. And they require pay by the recording hour. Audible has the majority of the market (Just like Amazon has the majority ebook market). Working with Audible though is a pain in the ass, from what I hear.

All this is to make you aware of the many parts involved here. If you see it all and go "okay, I'm doing it", then for right now, write. Don't worry about the rest until you have something finished. Otherwise it's cart-before-the-horse.
 
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