Looking for a Hook.

[Guest Vikki Mixon]

[I’m very sorry if this is in the wrong forum. If it needs to go somewhere else, please message me. I can move it once I know where it should go.]

I have recently begun writing erotica under a pen name, and I'm having difficulty finding a niche that is both popular enough to market, but not over-saturated.

My writing skews toward the bizarre and uncouth, with tentacle monsters and super-hardcore BDSM as common staples.

I am looking for advice beyond the usual "write what you know". I am, at this point, very comfortable with the characters and the story.

The issue is becoming the interesting ways in which those characters can mate. Thus far, my most popular story has revolved around vore and un-birthing, but I don't really understand what makes that sexy.

The only restrictions that I have are: the sex acts must be consensual, the characters can't be blood-related, and they both need to survive the encounter. They don't need to be the same species, but they do both need to be of human-level intelligence (no bestiality, but yes to werewolves and the like.)

Past that, I welcome all suggestions and/or challenges.

[CloverReef]

I think it’s difficult to predict what the audience at any given site will devour and what they will ignore. Trends do tend to come and go. Last time I checked, werewolf and kidnapping stories were the most popular in the M/M original areas. I don’t know if that has shifted yet or not. The appeal of high school drama erotica seems to be an ongoing thing in general, but I have no idea if that is applicable here on AFF. 

If your priority is to focus on the trends, I’d suggest going through your chosen category (or similar categories if yours doesn’t have a lot of traffic in general) and look for patterns in dragon prints and review counts. I’d like to tell you which of my stories get the most attention, but I don’t actually post most of what I write, lol. I wish you luck!

[Desiderius Price]

I say it’s best to write what you want to write.   If you need to do a bit of research to sound a bit more of an expert, do the research (though keep it legal – pulling bank robberies, rape, and/or murder tend to make people very irritable).

[CloverReef]

8 hours ago, Desiderius Price said:

I say it’s best to write what you want to write.   If you need to do a bit of research to sound a bit more of an expert, do the research (though keep it legal – pulling bank robberies, rape, and/or murder tend to make people very irritable).

Absolutely! Write your passion. Write what turns you on or what interests you. Best way to make your readers feel what you want them to feel is if you’re feeling it too. If it happens to coincide with shit you know lots about, that’s great. 

[Guest Vikki Mixon]

On 7/28/2018 at 4:18 PM, CloverReef said:

Absolutely! Write your passion. Write what turns you on or what interests you. Best way to make your readers feel what you want them to feel is if you’re feeling it too. If it happens to coincide with shit you know lots about, that’s great. 

The thing that I really love is tentacles. Specifically, the underrepresented niche of humans carrying on consensual encounters with tentacled monsters/creatures/whatever. That has been getting a slow start, hence trying for some advice. Market research says that feet are a big thing, but that market is flooded. BDSM is also a popular thing, but Fifty Shades took BDSM and took the usual standard of ‘safe and sane’ and shattered it hard.

[CloverReef]

9 hours ago, Guest Vikki Mixon said:

The thing that I really love is tentacles. Specifically, the underrepresented niche of humans carrying on consensual encounters with tentacled monsters/creatures/whatever. That has been getting a slow start, hence trying for some advice. Market research says that feet are a big thing, but that market is flooded. BDSM is also a popular thing, but Fifty Shades took BDSM and took the usual standard of ‘safe and sane’ and shattered it hard.

I love tentacle stories! If the feet market is flooded, you can still carve your way into it. I bet they don’t have a lot of tentacle monsters with feet fetishes. I don’t know, I like to be kind of naive and believe the best way to get lots of readers is to write well, but I know that’s not always the case. Having a head for marketing and packaging helps, even in the free fiction world; sometimes just packaging the story well with a good summary and catchy title. 

[Desiderius Price]

4 hours ago, CloverReef said:

I love tentacle stories!

Jefferey, ep 15? 

14 hours ago, Guest Vikki Mixon said:

The thing that I really love is tentacles. Specifically, the underrepresented niche of humans carrying on consensual encounters with tentacled monsters/creatures/whatever. That has been getting a slow start, hence trying for some advice. Market research says that feet are a big thing, but that market is flooded. BDSM is also a popular thing, but Fifty Shades took BDSM and took the usual standard of ‘safe and sane’ and shattered it hard.

Fifty shades is not a stranger to this archive….

Use research if you want, though trying to find the niche that’ll take off after you finish a book, that’s tricky.  When I’m low on ideas, I’ll use random generators to give something for the brain to start mulling over.  Choose some words at random, or maybe a place title, or a random name of a character.  Sometimes, paradoxically, narrowing down the choices can help you choose, or at least, give you a place to start thinking.