I've been experimenting with book promotion, using my own book, which is both informative and useful. To me, it seems that authors need to keep informed about new possibilities for online publicity and experiment freely with them.I’ve finished up the first draft of the Building an Online Presence for Writers class, and am in the process of incorporating feedback from the first readers into the text. At the same time, I’ve been doing a lot of research and adding some new tools to my promotional toolbox. Here’s some of the new ones:
Authorgraph: Developed by a reader here in Seattle, Authorgraph provides a way for authors to electronically sign an e-book. Sign up on their site to allow readers to request a personalized signature. Authorgraph provides a way to add a Facebook page that readers can use to request signatures as well.
Reddit: Another post for the SFWA blog talked about Reddit, which holds a number of lively reader communities. I’ve been enjoying participating over there and have been gleaning some interesting new suggestions for my to-be-read list.
I will be hosting a special free session of the Building an Online Presence for Writers – details forthcoming in the next day or two. If you’re interested in being informed when the book comes out in November, you can sign up here.
Want access to a lively community of writers and readers, free writing classes, co-working sessions, special speakers, weekly writing games, random pictures and MORE for as little as $2? Check out Cat’s Patreon campaign.
Want to get some new fiction? Support my Patreon campaign.
"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
~K. Richardson
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What I'm Working On
I have a couple of stories that were requested, so I’m picking away at those. One’s a military fantasy piece that I’m setting at Hadrian’s Wall, right around the time it was built. Another’s for the Glitter and Madness anthology, and it’s a fun structure I’m playing with, through which a murder gets told, revolving around a lesbian were-seal. Im finishing the revision of “The Threadbare Magician,” which is a novelette I’d like to get sent off this week. I’ve also got some nonfiction stuff.
I’m also finishing up (hopefully today) the dark mermaid story. Here’s an excerpt:
When she got home, she went to the tanks, curious to see what progress had occurred. She’d put the coral seeds in them late last night. The seeds were globes now, made of a glossy gray material, almost two and a half inches in diameter. She could see something moving inside the globe. Its sides flexed and bulged as the thing inside it shifted. Even as she watched, it shuddered and wobbled. Whatever inside — presumably a mermaid — was eager to escape. Should she help it, perhaps poke a small hole in the side so it had something to work at? She consulted the pamphlet but it said nothing about the hatching process.
But by the time she came back to the tank, the question had resolved itself. A rent in the side was rapidly widening. Through it Petra glimpsed orange scales and pale flesh.
She checked the second tank. There the same thing was happening, although the scales were turquoise rather than reddish orange.
The globe convulsed and collapsed. In a flurry of scales the turquoise mermaid emerged.
Petra stared. She had expected Sea Monkeys.
This was very different.
The mermaid was tiny and perfect as one of the elaborate little fish that school in coral reefs, colored parrot bright. Her upper half was a tiny woman, complete with blue sea shell bra hiding the faint swells of her torso.
She called Leonid. “What are these? Are they intelligent?”
“Of course not!” he crowed, pleased at his creation having deceived her sharp eye.
“But it’s wearing clothing.”
“Look closer,” he said. “All natural coloration. Or engineered, to be more precise.”
Her fingers were tight on the cell phone as she leaned down to look into the tank. The mermaid coiled, long tail writhing in the water. It nosed among the plastic seaweed in the tank, perched atop an arch of rocks and groomed itself, running fingers through its long blonde hair.
“You’re sure?”
“They’re not even animals, really,” he said. “Think of them as little flesh machines.”
The flesh machines floated in their tanks. Petra pulled her eyes away from them.
“Very well,” she said.
That night she set two more seeds into their starting buds, one white, the other purple. It amused her to think that these were Suffragist colors, the same colors banner wearers of the 19th century had sported. She wondered what a suffragist mermaid would look like.
(As a side note, if you’re interested in the editing class that starts today, 4-6 PM PST and runs today and two additional Sundays, drop me an e-mail or a comment, because I’ve still got openings. It’s a class that’s useful not just to editors, but to writers wanting to enhance their own self-editing skills.)
Taco wants to know: Have you pledged?This year, I’m again participating in the Clarion West Writeathon.
A lot of people are driving pledges with backer incentives. Here’s mine:
I plan to complete one story each week. At the end of the six weeks, all backers will receive copies of the stories written during the Write-a-thon along with a bonus story.
So I just wanted to point out – you get to pick the donation amount. In return, you’re getting at least seven Cat Rambo short stories, which, although they’ll be a bit drafty, I’d like to think is a pretty good value. 😉
