I released my first porn story in paperback a few years ago, more as a lark and to allow my wife to read and comment on my smut stories. Foxy, a cute Luddite, refuses to read anything longer than a text message on her phone or laptop. She is one of those people who read every word and ponder every sentence on which came first, the chicken or the egg. When you get the book back, it is often filled with notes in the margin, along with underlined and corrected verbiage. I was taught that writing in a book is a sacrilege against the laws of nature. So, it’s typically with chagrin when she returns a smut story after reading it.
Her comments are insightful and mostly on point, but I can’t seem to get her to read electronic stories. She has a laptop, iPad, and tablet, but nothing seems to work, and I’ve pretty much given up.
Initially, I had serious reservations about any ROI on printed smut stories. I wasn’t convinced that the additional time and effort would be rewarded in sales. But, once again, I fear I’m about to eat my words.
My paperback sales have slowly ramped up to the point that mid-month, print sales are 44% of my sales at Amazon. Previously, paperback sales have bounced between 8-20% and averaged around 15%. But forty-four percent of Amazon is unreal in my book.
My current release, The Perfect Wife, was my first story released in both paperback and electronic format simultaneously. I’m not sure if this has anything to do with it, but the results are encouraging.
As an engineer, I am typically anal and seldom do anything halfway. So while Amazon Kindle will take an electronic copy of a story and automatically generate a print copy, I’ve resisted the easy way out. It’s sort of like cheater’s head, as we call a blowjob, using your hands to help rather than all mouth.
I’ve blogged on my journey, from using Word to Scrivener and QuarkXPress to generate my stories. Every time I publish a new story, the process gets easier and quicker. With Scrivener, I’ve created a custom template containing all the formatting and compiler adjustments to generate a Word output file for submission. Then, the only thing I have to do to the Word output file is tag the chapter headings as a Heading 1 style and bookmark them for the table of contents.
Scrivener can auto-generate a linked table of contents, but the Kindle validator program always complains about it. So, I manually generate it. The only downside to this is that if you discover an issue in the manuscript and regenerate the output file, you have to recreate the table of contents.
Quark can import the body in Word format. Then you have to tag the chapter heads. Quark does neat stuff like large drop caps on the first word of a new chapter. Once you get that handled, it’s simply going through the manuscript to be sure there is not some glitch in formatting.
With electronic stories, there is not much to do but with print, you have to make sure a new chapter always starts on the right side page. I go the extra mile and ensure that any blank pages added to move the new chapter to the right side do not contain any headers, footers, or page numbers. Most readers probably don’t notice the little things, but I like to try and do them correctly.
If you are an aspiring author and have questions, feel free to contact me off list, and I’ll be glad to help as time allows. [Larry] [at] [LarryArcher] [dot] [com]
I’m Larry Archer, a simple writer of smut stories in both print and electronic format. Foxy and I are swingers in real life, and I write about the things we do and see. While the Lifestyle is not for everyone, it’s been fun for us. My smut is explicit and hardcore but with a somewhat plot. My porn stories are generally positive and fun, as this reflects how enjoyable swinging has been to us. If you’re interested in checking out my stories, I publish at all the typical outlets.
Larry Archer's World (LarryArcher.blog) 
There’s a certain comfort in holding a real book in your hands. The scent of the paper and ink and indulging in nice bookmarks to keep your place when you put it down and when what you’re reading is smut, you can hold the book in one hand and handle your bizness with the other until you gotta put it down.
Feeling an odd sense of loss if you tear a page or wind up breaking the book’s back because you’ve laid it down open one too many times. Seeing a cover that’s starting to get a little beaten up because of all the times you’ve handled it. Walking into a room and seeing them all lined up in bookcases and they’re just waiting to take you on an adventure.
I used to have one hell of a book collection (like six bookcases full and even more books stored in boxes) and when ebooks came along, I saw the sense of them and even though I managed to get many of the paperback books in ebook format, it broke my heart to give away about a thousand books altogether; they were like old friends to me. Ebooks are just… convenient; they don’t wear out and given how much cellphones cost these days, you’re not likely to leave the book on your phone in the doctor’s office. The joy of reading remains just the same.
I’d rather read porn than to watch it because words have a power that visuals can’t quite compare to…
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I keep waiting for you to jump in with both feet as someone who is as prolific as you are to do daily long blog posts. If you’re interested, I can help with the mechanics of formatting as you don’t have any problems with the words.
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I know the mechanics very well… I just don’t always give a damn about them, and I know I’m being… bad for writing exactly the way I’m thinking it instead of putting things into the proper format – and not doing it is kinda fun. My junior high school English teacher probably rolls over in her grave when I’m blogging because she did, in fact, teach me proper formatting.
I used to be a secretary and, when I got my AAS in Computer Science, my minor was in… secretarial procedures and, yep, I know about the mechanics because I well and truly learned them. I’ve written technical white papers and you know how those are, right? I wish I still had a copy of the thesis I wrote getting my bachelor’s degree – you would have loved its formatting!
Still, I love to read and, yeah, I traded real books for the electronic versions but, then again, given what I did for a living, I’m not a Luddite – and no offense to Foxy and more so when I know a lot of people who’d rather read a paper book than an electronic one.
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I don’t generally like to edit someone else’s work unless I can think like they do. If you put your spin on a story, it starts to feel broken unless your edits fall in the same style as the original author.
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44% is really impressive — and surprising to me, although I personally like to read print books.
One thing that’s encouraging is the quality of POD these days. You probably weren’t publishing at the beginning of the POD/self-pub revolution, but the POD books initially were horrible. The paper was rough and you could actually smell the printer ink.
These days, you really can’t tell a well-done POD from a traditionally typeset book.
Hope you continue to be rolling in dough…!
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I figure in about 37 years, I’ll have enough saved up to put a downpayment on my new Range Rover! 🙂 If I was smart, I’d write a James Patterson knockoff and really be rolling in dough. My sales at Amazon have really increased, and I don’t know if it was because of offering more print books or not. No telling what my sales would be if I actually advertised.
POD books are good, but the printing costs are a big chunk of the book price and force the author to bump the sell price higher than I’d like. Still, now that I’ve kind of figured out how to do it, it has gotten a lot smoother. On my latest book, I published the electronic copy in the morning and then did the print copy that afternoon, but a big time sink was updating my catalog in the back matter, which now just needs updating as I write new stories.
I’m so impressed with how my latest cover came out by using a single landscape image that wrapped completely across the front and back cover. I’ve been reading The Perfect Wife and have been impressed with how good it came out.
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Regarding getting Foxy to read electronic smut.
There is one thing that electronic formats can do that paper versions can’t.
Embed videos/gif’s.
If she has some voyeuristic tendencies, and her character in your books certainly seems to, then that might be the prod she needs to experiment with the media.
RLM @ Darkwanderer (https://darkwanderer.net/members/rlm.3747/#ams_articles ) embeds plenty of images, as well as gif’s in his stories, so you can use him as a guinea pig in this regard.
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Thanks for the link to the site. I’m not sure gif’s would help as she’s fixated on print material. I’m starting to release paperbacks with the electronic version so the paperbacks will make her happy.
Foxy is not so much voyeuristic as an exhibitionist. Most of our friends call her the Instigator or prick teaser. LOL
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Some of RLM’s stories are pretty good.
He certainly has a wider vocabulary for the dirty words than most erotic authors, with the possible exception of perhaps C.K. Ralston.
Sex saddle and love spike, are a few that come to mind.
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I haven’t had a chance to dig through the site much but I like what I see.
It’s a challenge to try and pick words to use such that you don’t use the same word too many times. How many words can you use for “cunt?”
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How many words can you use for “cunt?”
pussy, snatch, twat, quim, gash, slit, womanhood, sex, opening, vagina, vulva, tunnel, cunny, kitty, hole.
How’d I do?
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You did good. 🙂 Now, I know who to call on when I’m looking for a word and my mind is blank!
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I’m posting this here, because it seemed the simplest way to get it to Larry and Lisabet.
I’ve noted three different “series”, to date, at Amazon, where multiple authors have contributed stories.
They are:
Ultimate Hotwife Vacation
Ultimate Hotwife Christmas
FanXXXpo
Not sure who organized this (Lacey Cross?), but I’ve seen the works of authors I hadn’t heard of before here, along with some I’m quite familiar with.
Thought it an interesting marketing approach and a possible way to get your name exposed to a broader audience.
I’m not saying any of these themes would be something you’d want to dabble in, and Larry you may have to learn how to write ‘the end” a bit quicker ;-), to match the schedule for the series, but I thought you should know, in case it was something you’d want to explore.
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Thanks Mark, I’ll check them out.
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