BILLIONAIRE TENTACLE SEX ROMANCE

If you send spend an obsessive amount of time on the erotica marketing subReddit, you start to notice some patterns.

The erotica marketing subreddit, by the way, is a chaotic, a free market libertarian dream.

It’s a place where people who say things like “write what you love,” are routinely eviscerated, told to “stop giving terrible business advice based on ego.”

Here’s one pattern I see on this subreddit.

Every other day someone asks the following question about niche, clearly to the exasperation of every other person on the forum.

The question is something like this:

“I want to write (tentacle sex) but I also want to write (billionaire romance). I do a lot of research, but doesn’t seem like there is a market for tentacle sex billionaire romance combined, so I don’t wanna write that. Should I write some tentacle sex and some billionaire romance niche under the same pen name or two different ones?”

Usually first time posts don’t get a response.

Sometimes they get a gentle reminder to read the FAQ, a death blow if there ever was one.

But this particular question always brings people out of the woodwork.

Inevitably some well-established erotica writer comes along and unleashes advice on this commentor, clearly exasperated. Something like:

“Oh my God, if you like billionaire romance, and you like tentacle sex — WRITE BILLIONAIRE TENTACLE SEX ROMANCE!!!!”

Duh! They may or may not include depending upon how annoyed they are.

The person who commented originally will respond to this comment with gratitude and apprehension.

“Oh my gosh thank you so much,” they will say.

(First time erotica writers are extremely polite. This is funny because the responders to first time comments write like Succession characters with broken keyboards.)

“That is such good advice, and I am totally going to take it, or I totally would, except… I did a ton of keyword research, like everyone said, and it just doesn’t seem to be a niche that people are particularly interested in. I can’t find any other examples of anyone who has written billionaire tentacle sex before. So it seems like there just isn’t a market for it.”

No one ever responds to this reply.

Not even the person who commented in a flurry of exasperation.

Reddit posts are fundamentally stories without endings, so who knows what happened to our erstwhile aspiring billionaire tentacle sex writer.

But it’s the reason nobody ever responds to that particular comment is fairly simple.

The writer is willfully ignoring a fucking gold mine.

The writer has identified the perfect balance for financially sustainable writing:

a mix of what they personally are interested in, what they know readers are also interested in, and a pace and medium they can keep up with for a while.

More importantly, they found a space where their work is going to stand out – they are not one of 3 million billionaire romance writers, but instead the only billionaire tentacle romance writer.

They could corner a market while doing what they care about.

But, they just decided not to.

I like to hope that the reason people are silent when this question gets asked is NOT because 12 people just bought “billionairetentacle.com” — but that’s business, baby. 😎

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The reason I bring up this misguided Reddit question, beyond illustrating how critical it is to have a specific place where you and your work can stand out while making things, is to show how self sabotage, cognitive bias, and stupid brain stuff gets in your way when it comes to writing.

We have so much shame and bias and distortion around money, creative work, and anything we enjoy. Adding sex to the mix doesn’t help.

Even if you’re not writing tentacle porn, feeling insecure about what you bring to the table will inevitably keep you from seeing opportunities you are uniquely predisposed to take advantage of.

Unless this subreddit commenter is a highly evolved wildly unashamed person, the fact that they are the first person ever to write billionaire tentacle sex probably got to them on some level.

Instead of seeing their idea for it is what it is, they got fixated on the fact that no one had ever done it before.

Instead of thinking “oh shit, I am the first genius to provide readers what they’re looking for at a rate that may be financially sustainable for me,” they probably thought “what the fuck is wrong with me for wanting to do this?”

Regrettably, if you are the first person that has ever thought of saying what you feel in a particular way, to a particular group of people, or on a specific platform, it is likely that what you have to say is useful — or, at the very least, interesting.

But because our brains suck, the fact that no one has ever done what you are thinking about doing, whether it’s writing billionaire tentacle romance or starting a newspaper in your neighborhood, is often paralyzing instead of motivating.

Consider saying it, doing it, writing it, anyway.

Even if it’s tentacle porn.