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Comment by tinktank | Hacker News Reader

I sell erotic stories online through Amazon Kindle. Made more than $200K last year but it's hard on the imagination

Sorry, I should point out the $200K includes my day job. From this gig it's about $50K

You should write an ebook on how to make money publishing erotic stories, including publishing and maintaining anonymity.

I assume you bang these out and go for quantity to help build a backlog for new fans to dig into and fresh releases to keep getting new content for existing fans. Do you spend much time editing the stories after you write the first draft? Or is it pretty much just a single fast second draft that cleans up the first draft a bit and then push the book out there? How many words do you aim for for each book? What do you do to promote them?

That doesn't sound very passive to me.

Authoring a book is very passive income.

Passive income is defined as high upfront work and very low maintenance work. Other than possible marketing tasks the author's job is done once the book is published and collects money on every sale.

>>Authoring a book is very passive income.

Authoring a book, sure. But the parent poster implied that he/she continuously writes these stories, i.e. many of them, hence why they said it is "hard on the imagination".

Each book is passive income. I'd consider a prolific author as someone that makes a series of passive income intellectual properties.

I guess with such a generous definition of "passive income", anything is passive income.

I mean I'm still getting paid for the features I wrote for my company's software two years ago!

If you're getting paid for things you're not ACTIVELY working for, guess what... that's PASSIVE.

I wouldn't include "high upfront work" as part of the definition. It could be close to no work and still generate income.

You need to think broader. Hollywood is starved for ideas. How do you think 50 shades of grey became a movie?

Dr Chuck Tingle???

Nope, just Chuck Testa.

Can you link a few of yours?

how did you get your first few customers?

how did you start?

Came across some reddit posts saying there's good money to be made -- found a niche that seemed underserved and started banging out the stories. It's hard work but if you get a following and have a style your readers like it becomes easier.

so, did you start out by blogging erotic stories at first?

I take it these are short stories? How long does it take you to write and publish each one?

When you release a new one, do most of the sales come immediately after release and then trickle to almost nothing? I'm wondering if you are gradually building up more income, or if you need to keep working to remain stable.

How long are your stories? How do you get an audience? How long does it take you to produce each? Do your stories share content, themes, etc i cant imagine coming up with entirely new content all the time.

How many pieces did you have to produce to make 50k?

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