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Step 1
Read up on the market. Know what's hot and what's not. Check out the Resources section for samples of current fiction in the market. What was hot ten years ago has probably been done to death by now. Think about the upcoming trends and try to target your erotic romance fiction to ride the wave of those trends.
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Step 2
Write good erotic romance. Don't just churn it out. Refine it, get it critiqued, and produce a truly marketable product that your readers will find irresistible.
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Step 3
Take a broad marketing approach when you start to make money writing erotic romance fiction. Develop several marketing strategies, not just one. Don't expect to find a writer's agent and have the agent do all the marketing work for you. This is the age of do-it-yourself promotion.
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Step 4
Study the print markets. Send your erotic romance fiction manuscripts to print publishers who specialize in that market, such as Harlequin, Berkley, Kensington, and Black Lace. Follow the writer's guidelines always. Don't submit atypical material for consideration in a publishing line.
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Step 5
Study the online markets. If you want to make money writing erotic romance, the Internet is the wave of the future. You have many options. You can publish with an eBook publisher who focuses on erotic romance and romantic erotica, such as Ellora's Cave and Phaze.
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Step 6
Another online marketing option is to sell your book yourself on your own website. With the new Internet marketing model of the "long tail" of business, you'll find self-publishing is losing its "vanity publishing" tradition and becoming a legitimate way to market quality material online. Whenever necessary, use publishing software or services (such as Lulu), web design gurus, web hosting companies, checkout and payment services, and other services that will allow you to sell your erotic romance fiction online.
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Step 7
Once you've published and marketed your fiction and are set up to sell, take care of the business part of being self employed. Take out any necessary business licenses, keep accurate and thorough bookkeeping and do your taxes, including your self-employment taxes.
