The Rocky Road to Publishing

[Ruby]

Thank you, Slut4U.

I'm looking forward to hearing about you being published and having you tell your story in this thread.

---

Congrats and thanks to the forum members who been published and contributed to this thread.

I'm sure there's more of you hiding out there. Enquiring minds what to know what's worked for you and what didn't.

[her_Joe]

I've never published erotic stories/poems except for online sites like the Library, but "back in the day" did have a busy (if not exactly "thriving") career in writing fiction for slick magazines and poetry for "little magazines," even put out a pair of chap books.

It looked like I was about to experience some "real" success when I got a tentative offer for a volume of poetry/fiction from a 'mainline' (i.e., major) publisher. I chose not to pursue the contract, and not to try further to publish that book (or any other), because of the bone-crushing commitment that the contract would have demanded for political support of the book at a time when I had a young family.

I was asked to "hit the road" to do readings, interviews, and so on for a period of three months. I made it for nearly a month before I bailed out.

I think the experience might be informative for some beginners, so I offer it up here ...

Understandably, while publishers may like what they read, they want to be fairly sure there will be a large enough audience for what they publish to justify the costs of editing, printing, distribution, and so on. And it's up to the author to establish that fact beyond their doubt.

So, in my case, the publisher was generous in arranging a road trip of colleges, coffee houses, and so on. They had arranged 3-5 appearances each week. It was up to me to make sure that I filled in, as I could, with 3-5 more, so as to generate some newspaper coverage, reviews, interviews, and so on.

I enjoyed the travel and the chance to talk about the things that interested me (who the heck wouldn't?), even though it kept me from my family, but the part that soured it was the heavy dose of cynicism in "professional" readers -- i.e., critics and student critics, academic audiences and poetry house audiences and people who show up with the primary intention of poking holes in whatever they hear.

Now, so I don't sound too whiney, I'll admit to enjoying it ... for a day or two. I kept good spirits and dealt with the condescension and "rejection" for a couple of weeks (after all, I once papered a room with rejection slips). But after three weeks I was about 'up to here' with it and my grin was more of a grimmace ... even then, I'd have been good to go had it not been that the contract wanted me to do this for six months straight when the book was published, provide another book inside of a year, and a third three years later ... without guarantee of publication.

The point I want to make is that many good writers fall short of success not because of their writing but because they are unwilling or unable to handle the political requirements of self-promotion. I know I wasn't able to handle it ... now that I'm older, I may give it another shot, but this time I'll be aware that it's up to me to sell the dang thing, whether I use a vanity publisher or a mainstream commercial press, no matter whether it's 'literary' or erotica ... unless of course I can find a way to use the name Harry Potter in the title and get away with it!

Write because you love it, because you have no choice but to express yourself in that way. Otherwise, you likely won't make it.

[Mad Lews]

The point I want to make is that many good writers fall short of success not because of their writing but because they are unwilling or unable to handle the political requirements of self-promotion. I know I wasn't able to handle it ... now that I'm older, I may give it another shot, but this time I'll be aware that it's up to me to sell the dang thing, whether I use a vanity publisher or a mainstream commercial press, no matter whether it's 'literary' or erotica ... unless of course I can find a way to use the name Harry Potter in the title and get away with it!

Write because you love it, because you have no choice but to express yourself in that way. Otherwise, you likely won't make it.

Maybe some good writers turn to porn as a way to avoid the publicity schlepping.
I've never heard of Ann Rice doing a promotional tour for the Beauty series though she did have to for the Vamps. It might be that an agent could negotiate a contract to minimize the amount of appearances you have to make. Then again how do you get an agent without having published? Sounds like catch-22 but I hear tell if you have a contract offer you might want to have a literary agent look it over and see if they can improve upon it. Of course they do take a cut for their trouble but they are supposed to represent the writers best interests
Mad Lews

[Rabbit1]

Maybe some good writers turn to porn as a way to avoid the publicity schlepping.
I've never heard of Ann Rice doing a promotional tour for the Beauty series though she did have to for the Vamps. It might be that an agent could negotiate a contract to minimize the amount of appearances you have to make. Then again how do you get an agent without having published? Sounds like catch-22 but I hear tell if you have a contract offer you might want to have a literary agent look it over and see if they can improve upon it. Of course they do take a cut for their trouble but they are supposed to represent the writers best interests
Mad Lews

Oh I agree Mad---but most of the time by the time the litary agent is thru ---you would have been better off with the first offer---most are like personal injury lawyers your best intrests are their's only because their cut is bigger if you get more. There are a few good ones out there---but like law ---it also has become a dog eat dog world. So be careful of Litary Agents---

[her_Joe]

The "good ones" will put in a lot of work on your behalf. In return, they don't want to represent something that won't sell (and make them the $$ which is their reward), so many (don't know about all, y'know) will only represent a novelist, e.g., who has published one and has another nearly done and something to show toward a third cool idea .... what Mad called the Catch-22.

It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's best to be aware of what the realities are, imo.

HJ

[Dr Mabeuse]

Agents work on commission - or at least they should. If they don't sell your work, they don't (and shouldn't) get paid a dime.

The fact is, the net has changed the publishing business just as much as it's changed the music business. Anyone can publish their own stuff now, or go with a print-on-demand outfit like PublishAmerica, or, if you prefer, it costs like next to nothing to start your own e-book publishing business. The publishing industry is scrambling to figure out how to function these days.

If you're any good at all, you should be able to get published in e-book format at least. I mean, if I have a publishing company, what does it cost me to publish you? I don't pay you anything up front, you just sign a contract guaranteeing a cut of sales. I don't have to pay to have your book set in type and ptinted and distributed, I just have to rent space on a server to store the text file, which is basically free. My only outlay is the $50 or so I pay some freelance editor to go over your manuscript and correct the more grievous spelling errors, and a couple bucks for some stock cover photo, and for my $50, I take 50-60% of all sales.

In that kind of business, I don't even have to advertise. If they buy your book, great. If not, it's really no skin off my nose.

[Mad Lews]

Well Ruby has been encouraging me for so long I realy ran out of excuses.
I put together 4 short stories with a great picture from Lochie (with his permission of course) and sent the whole thing off to bdsmbooks.com It took a few months of back and forth but its finally up and for sale. Now all I need to do is figure out how to plot a longer story and I'll be on my way.
Mad Lews

[Talia]

Well Ruby has been encouraging me for so long I realy ran out of excuses.
I put together 4 short stories with a great picture from Lochie (with his permission of course) and sent the whole thing off to bdsmbooks.com It took a few months of back and forth but its finally up and for sale. Now all I need to do is figure out how to plot a longer story and I'll be on my way.
Mad Lews

Congratulations Mad!

Also, good to see you here and posting again.

[Widget]

wow congrats indeed ... you must be very excited

[Mad Lews]

Wow and all! after the ehm..Mad Rush, I got my first Royalties check from
(bdsmbooks.com)
31 dollars and some change after assorted fees were withdrawn. Now if I could just find a bar that accepts Pay Pal I could invite you all out for a drink to celebrate.
Mad Lews

[Ruby]

Congratulations, Mad Lews! Excellent news.

[orchidsoul]

That's great, Mad! Congrats

[StephVE]

Since many of the posts were made a while ago, is there a consensus of which e-book publisher is best for authors? Which one provides the best sales and royalty stream?

[Ruby]

Since many of the posts were made a while ago, is there a consensus of which e-book publisher is best for authors? Which one provides the best sales and royalty stream?

Hi StephVE,

I don't believe there is one e-book publisher that is best for all authors. E-book publishers, as well as sites that take e-books directly from the author, are often seeking specific genres, formats, etc.

And the personality of the publisher, or the person you'll be working with is also important. If you don't like dealing with that person, it's not going to be a good relationship for either of you.

Most publishers are competitive with sales and the royalty stream. They have to be in order to secure new authors and keep others returning to publish with them again.

Other things to think about:

Are they asking you to pay them for being your publisher?
(A huge warning sign.)

What rights are they asking to your work?
* Exclusive or non-exclusive?
* For how long?
* Do you retain rights to any derivative works?
* Do you retain rights to screen plays, movie/TV/video productions based on your work?

* If you are unhappy with the contract, how quickly can you end it and under what conditions?

How much marketing/promotion does the publisher do and how much is the author expected to do?

Does the e-book publisher have an easy to use web site(s) for sales?

What's there distribution channel?

Will you as an author, have an opportunity to have an affiliate site - for your own works - or for a book store - where you can make money off the sale of other author's works?

The more you research, compare the contracts and author submission guidelines of the various publishers, the more you'll gravitate to a chosen few that meet your needs.

If you want to clarify your questions to a particular genre, like BDSM books, I recommend these sites, which work with publishers and authors directly.

www.a1adultebooks.com

www.bdsmbooks.com

www.bondagebookshelf.com

Here's an example of an affiliate website through A1adultebooks that my publisher uses to promote her authors. After you get through the "I'm old enough to enter" page, you are dropped into a page that leads to the books published by her company.

http://www.a1adultebooks.com/17.htm

Note: Authors or individuals can sign up and promote their own affiliate sites. Each affiliate has a choice of "landing pages" and can promote what they want. It's also easy to track royalty payments online, so an affiliate always knows what's been sold and when.

To your success,

Ruby

Who's next?

[Eponine]

WOW. This thread is a monstrously super-duper source of information!!!!!!! on publishing.... awesome...
okay... the reason i got into these forums is because of my main concern (paranoia?) about plagiarism... i've been wanting to submit some writing since i joined the site, but first wanted to make sure i wouldn't go to the adult bookstore and find my story there with someone else's name on it (& making money of it too!)
Does no one else have this concern too? Does a simple copyright symbol w/ my name take care of that?
Thanks from a newbie.

[Ruby]

Hi ThisGirl,

Your concern is very valid.

Protecting your works with a copyright statement does not keep others from copying it and claiming it as their own.

It does help you win your case if you go to court.

Think twice and then again before submitting your work to any website.

What is the purpose of submitting work that you eventually want people to pay for? If it's to get them excited about your writing, then have a plan and determine how much of any story you want to submit. Many publishers don't like to see more than one chapter available online for free.

If you want to share your stories and don't plan to sell them, then that's a different story. Though I'd be pretty ticked to find out someone had copied my work and sold it as their own, you would have a fair amount of legal protection by posting the copyright notice with the story.

The same goes for stories that you just want to share and plan on making other stories available for sale. Look at the success of Powerone.

He has posted over 30 stories on this website in the library and is a top selling author on adult e-book sites.

The policies on this website are different from others. This sites can be found here: http://www.bdsmlibrary.com/stories/story_submit.php

If you want reviewers to read your work, and have more control over it, you might try a site like www.writing.com, where you can password protect your writing, or decide how much of any story is posted at a given time.

To your success,

Ruby

[annie]

This thread is being closed. Some of the links posted in it are commercial links. Due to the fact they were posted before the rules changed the links will not be removed but the thread will be closed for further comment.

Thanks!

[annie]

Based on the updated guidelines this thread can be open again! YEAH!

And thanks to ML providing memory support... thanks!

[Razor7826]

This is a great thread, and I'm happy that it is opened again.

Considering that I want to stay anonymous in my writings, is there any way for me to write a copyright statement?

Also, is there a rough amount that e-publishers pay per download, and is it difficult to convince them to put your story up for sale?

[Mad Lews]

Rejoice,

After months of incarceration we are free to post here once more!!

Let us rejoice as we once again stumble forward on this rocky road and a tip on the hat to the new guidelines that have made this possible.

thanks

Mad &Lews

[Torq]

Hello Mad Lews,

Your welcome. We need more openness and free flowing adult convo's.

Be Well
T

[Mad Lews]

This is a great thread, and I'm happy that it is opened again.

Considering that I want to stay anonymous in my writings, is there any way for me to write a copyright statement?

Also, is there a rough amount that e-publishers pay per download, and is it difficult to convince them to put your story up for sale?

Dear Razor 7826,

You need to use a name to make a copyright statement. Pen names are quite common and perfectly acceptable.
Believe it or not my R/l name isn't Mad Lews but something much less mundane. still I get away with copyright Mad Lews 2007, and that will stake my name to the story.

E-publishers payments vary and are usually listed in their notes to authors page. The two I'm familiar with are

http://www.bdsmbooks.com/ which pays 40% of each purchase for first run stories. (not published elsewhere) royalty's are payable monthly and can be payed via p** P*l (which doesn't know its dealing with adult material)

http://www.a1adultebooks.com/ on the other hand pays 60% royalty's but you can only collect payment when they owe you $50.00 or more. If you're a best seller no problem but for more than a few it leaves you high and dry.

Both are looking for adult stories of about 30,000 to 50,000 words. They will take some collections of short stories that are exceptional if the entire collection meets their minimum size requirement. I also suspect it depends on how desperate they are for stories at the time. Try to remember they need to put out 4-8 books a month. You are producing a product for them and they are not doing you a favor. It's a business.

hope that helps

Mad Lews

[Razor7826]

How genre specific does a story need to be? I am working on an M/f rape/slavery story, but there is some F/f domination and slight generic lesbianism. Should I stick to only M/f bdsm?

[Mad Lews]

How genre specific does a story need to be? I am working on an M/f rape/slavery story, but there is some F/f domination and slight generic lesbianism. Should I stick to only M/f bdsm?

Tell a good story and the tight genre specifics won't matter. You are in fact writing for the customers so what they find enjoyable they will purchase. side trips into variations are fine if they serve the story. The general theme of BDSM
are important to
http://www.bdsmbooks.com/ but even there imaginative variations are quite acceptable.

[Razor7826]

Do any of the sites consistently release sales numbers so it can be determined which has more 'traffic', and what sort of fees do they take out of your royalties check? I am really warming up to the idea of producing a longer work for commercial sale.

I'm pretty sure Bondage Book Shelf is not the site it once was...

[Ruby]

Good point, Razor

Since this thread began, two of the sites are no longer available for our authors:

www.maidenheadbooks.com
www.bondagebookshelf.com

Now about releasing sales numbers:

Most sites have posted their payment policies in great detail. If you submit a book and are accepted, each seller/publisher will provide you current sales for biz tracking purposes. Will they provide you with information about sales of other authors? You have to ask them directly. I'd expect a no.

You might want to contact other authors privately and ask them if they are pleased with sales an specific site or with a particular publisher.

[Ruby]

How genre specific does a story need to be? I am working on an M/f rape/slavery story, but there is some F/f domination and slight generic lesbianism. Should I stick to only M/f bdsm?

Visit the sites and you can see the types of categories they support and promote.

You might even want to purchase a book or three to determine the quality of what they are seeking.

[Mad Lews]

Ok, Ok, it's only a short story in an anthology but still it's a first for me.
Here be the scoop. Back in January Carol Queen sent out a call for 1000 word erotic stories for a sequel to the "5 Minute Erotica" anthology.
A friend of mine got one of those e-mails and passed it on to me.

Ms. Queen was looking for what would sell; mostly straight, lightly kinky, hetro erotica of about 1000 words or a five minute read. It sounded a bit like the "Short Take" thread. I stitched together an appropriate story, ran it by Dragon's Muse for obvious blunders, and sent it off with an introduction by mid February.

I heard it was accepted in May and a contract was signed with Running Press (who's publishing the anthology) in Sept. Today I got the Check. a onetime payment of $70.00 not that much but a resume builder when you're trying to sell another manuscript.


The book titled "More 5 Minute Erotica will be published in December if all goes well but at this point I need only cash my check and wish them well.

I put little black squiggles on paper.... Mum would be so proud.

Mad Lews

[Ruby]

Three cheers for the Mad Lews:

Hip hip hurray, hip hip hurray, hip hip hurray!

Congratulations!

[tessa]

My most sincere congratulations.

tessa