May 2023 Recap
so many words ...
I’m a little late to doing a recap post for May - things have been busy at Cornelia Quick World Headquarters, both in the writing world and in my secret identity world, and I haven’t spent much time in reflection. It’s worthwhile, though, to take a look back at how things went, and see if there are lessons to take away from May 2023.
First, the word count. I’ve been keeping a running tally of words written every day, with most of my writing done early in the morning and again before bed. My May numbers are down a little from April — about 74,000 vs. 94,000 - but April really wasn’t sustainable. I had set myself a goal in April of putting a story a day on Medium, with the plan to break the 100 subscriber count and get into the partner program to earn a little something with all of those words. I managed, but it was exhausting. My pace in May, which is roughly what my pace is in June, is much more manageable.
Publication-wise, I put out 15 stories on Medium. A couple were shorter than usual, and seven were excerpts from longer works that went up on Amazon and other retailers’ sites.
As far as the profits go — well, there really aren’t any yet, not if I do honest accounting. The expenses of an independent erotica writer aren’t too steep — a Novelpad subscription for my main writing tool, a Depositphotos subscription for cover art, a Bookfunnel subscription for book landing pages, a Wordpress subscription for corneliaquick.blog — but the pay is lower still. In May, Medium paid me about $20 for my stories, and Amazon paid me a little less than that. I got about $20 from Draft2Digital as well, which I use to publish on non-Amazon platforms. June’s numbers for Medium are looking a bit lower, but better on the other income streams, so I have a chance still to break even. This continues to be a hobby, really — not the most expensive hobby I’ve had, and certainly a fulfilling one, but definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme.
My published stories in May were mostly gangbangs — those Hannah Wild-inspired scenarios just kept coming (pun intended), and I just kept writing. There are seven titles now in my All for One and One for All gangbang series, with another hitting Amazon the first week of July, and probably a few more over the summer. Indeed, the longer piece I’ve got in the works right now has at least two gangbang spinoffs — one for paid subscribers, and one that will be a “reader magnet” on Medium and a part of my newsletter strategy. I guess I’ve found my niche?
I released about 56,000 words into the wild in May, both on Medium and on ebook retailers. I’m testing a new publication strategy: stories or excerpts go up on Medium for about a month, and then they get a little revision and polish and go to Kindle Unlimited (which, alas, requires that they come down from Medium and from the subscription page). When they finish their 3 month run on Kindle Unlimited, they’ll go out to all of the other ebook retailers.
Here are a few of my publications that I particularly enjoyed writing, and that I think you might enjoy reading:
“Reposado Gold”: there’s an excerpt of this story available on Medium, and a longer (even hotter) version in the three-story collection The Center of Attention. I was out for a run, using the Spotify AI DJ to select my playlist, when “Jose Cuervo” by Shelly West came on. The image of the wild honky tonk gal waking up in some sleeping cowboy’s shirt was just too good not to steal; of course, I had to make a subtly dirty song incredibly filthy, and I really enjoyed spending some time with those cowboys — maybe not as much as the narrator enjoyed it, though.
“Shagged in the Bookshop”: I suspect a lot of writers have done a stint as a bookseller; I loved my time in a bookshop: even though it was one of those big corporate behemoths, we carved out some freedom in our endcap displays and shamelessly pushed favorite authors. We didn’t have an erotica room like Penelope curates in this tale, of course, and our late night inventory never got as kinky (there may have been some smooching in the stock room, though …), but I think this story brings the sexy to the book trade in a way that’s true to the spirit of a good bookshop.
“Pounded at Pirate Land”: for a while there Owen Gray, my favorite adult film actor, kept turning up in my gangbang stories. He’s been absent for a while, though I have plans for bringing him back. In this story, he’s Victor, the bad boy bartender at Pirate Land who has a way with the ropes, and he brings out something especially kinky that Denise didn’t know was lurking inside her.
“Throuple”: this is a little polyamory romance tale, about insatiable Katie needing two lovers, Dave and Jim, to fulfill her needs. A work friend, Susie, rounds out the action. It has been my best selling title by far, and I’m formulating ideas for a sequel. I really enjoyed writing Katie: she’s brash and demanding, and she gets what she wants because she speaks up and asks for it. We should all be more like her!
“Throuple” and “The Center of Attention” are both available to paid subscribers; “Pounded at Pirate Land” and “Shagged in the Bookshop” are exclusive to Amazon until August.
June has been shaping up to be busy as well, with some changes in my marketing (have you signed up for my weekly deals newsletter yet? You ought to!), some more publications (check out the “Too Hot to Sleep” stories — one is out now, two more are coming later this month), and an expansion of the hotwife vacation story that I plan to publish in July. I’m slowly figuring out how to write smut for fun, and I’m fumbling my way toward profit as well.