daliadaudelin

One and one half! They are all short stories, of course, so it's not as amazing as it would be were they novels!

I write for middle-aged women, the sort that buy Fifty Shades of Grey. I got started when I stumbled upon a now-defunct thread on Something Awful by the wonderful author Delilah Fawkes. She gave us all the information we needed to begin, and those of us who followed her advice now have a nice community going.

I link to the community in the back of my book, but they prefer to remain private. They're behind a paywall now and I don't want to flood them with new people, so I won't link to them. There are other groups, like /r/smutwriters for example!

The perspective in the story is different. I write first person, but even in third person you're going to be focusing on a main character. Most women want to read about a female character that is likable (not necessarily one that they can pretend is themselves). Most men want to read from a male perspective. That's really the only necessary difference, so long as you know what you're talking about when you write how their genitals work.

If you're a woman and you don't know how a penis feels, ask your boyfriend. I asked my fiance a lot of questions at first, and I still do.

The middle ground tends to be gay stories. Both gay men and straight women will read those.

Someone might tell you that women like gentler sex. This is not true. We want to read about fisting and BDSM as much as men do!

Well... I think it's done great things for erotica authors. I think E L James was very smart to rewrite her fanfiction and then sell it. I also think it can't be all bad if so many women love it. It clearly gave them something they've been wanting but hadn't found yet.

It's not the best writing I've ever read, but I don't think every piece of fiction needs to be perfect to be enjoyable.

The first step is to write a story. 3000 to 5000 words, more if you prefer. I generally do 2000 words of story and 1000 words of sex, though you might prefer a different ratio.

A different first step could include research by reading a few other erotic shorts and figuring out what you'd like to write!

The theory is that people think free=bad and paid=good. That's not always true, but people are willing to pay for something that might be well written. Our audience also tends to be middle aged women who might not know how to use a computer and just use the Kindle their sons bought them for Christmas 2 years ago.