Has the Smut Writing Business Jumped the Shark?

Doom and Gloom, Bah Humbug!

As a writer of smut stories, I belong to a number of blogs which focus on authors who spend a lot of time pounding the keyboard along with their pud. Recently there have been several posts about declining sales of dirty books. Below is one of my responses and after finishing it, I thought I should post this on my blog.

Well as I was rearranging the chairs on the Titanic because I knew the bulkheads would hold, I would like to offer a more fair and balanced other side, take that Fox news!

I just got through reading the 2015 predictions by SmashWord's Mark Coker and he has a lot of good things to say.

He agrees that the pool of writers will shrink and the total volume will probably drop as the Indie market levels out. But if your competition gives up writing and turns to "Welcome to Walmart" is that going to be a bad thing for you? One of the reasons early writers did so well (ignoring their skill set obviously) is that the market was wide open and they had little competition.

Now everyone in the world is writing a book. Just the other day, the wife of a straight friend called to ask me questions about writing a Anne Rice type of book. She doesn't know I write smut but am heavy into computers so called me for advice on word processors. Now she's got this idea of writing a book because everyone is doing it. Just like when your kid tells you he's going to be a basketball star.

In my mind now is the time to hunker down and start producing more quality stories. Do we really think the demand for porn is going to fall? The type of porn we write, maybe but we all know that the Internet would have died if people never started sitting on the copy machine and emailing pictures to their friends.

You have to make a basic decision here, do you need to make a living writing porn or is it mostly a hobby? Think of all the actors and actresses waiting tables in LA, how many are going to be super stars? If you have a day job or a supporting other half, then do you want to make it or not. If not, then go away and I'll be glad to pick up your customer base.

As my Dad always tells me, "Faint heart never sold a vacuum cleaner." and if you believe in yourself, put your head down and push forward. I know it's hard to type like that but it's just a saying.

We need to look at the market and see what's selling any why. If what's selling is not what you're writing, how can you improve your skills to compete. A good start is to look for porn that you'd like to read and see what you find. Hopefully you will find your stories but if you don't, why did the other guy's stories show up and yours didn't? For example have you ever looked at the top 100 erotica writers on Amazon? Why are they in the top 100 and you're not? Figure it out and you could be there.

I agree that in general sales are probably down but I see this in a glass half full view and think that the shakeout will benefit those of us who stay the course and keep writing. Certainly my sales are so far down in the weeds that nobody knows I exist but I've put away enough money to pick up a Air when they come out.

My prediction is that I don't have a clue but I have faith that if I keep writing and one by one collect new customers, my sales will increase. The worst that can happen is that I'll get carpal tunnel syndrome but I might just succeed and get rich, well moderately rich, or maybe break even. But I know that if I give up and quit then I will not sell anything.

Another thing my wise old Dad told me was when as a kid I would say, "I can't do that!" he would answer, "You can't hardly do that." So we can all sit around and cry on each other's shoulders or we can step up to the plate and knock it out over the fence.