Tag Archives: Fiction

Writing Prompt: Best Writing Advice

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A Facebook writers’ group I’m a part of put up a challenge recently: if you’re a writer, post a short piece about the best writing advice you’ve ever received. If you’re a reader, what do you look for the most in fantasy books?

I’m not much of one for listening to advice, but I’d like to have a go at answering both bits, if I may. As a writer, it’s pretty easy to feel bombarded by advice on how to write better, how to publish better, how to market better, etc. Quick tips and tricks abound on the internet, most buried deep in a post that is five times longer than it needs to be. Most of this advice is harmless, some of it is useful, and all of it guarantees instant success, which is to say it guarantees nothing at all.

You can make bad writing better, but you can’t fix nothing at all.

Receiving advice implies a level of support from others: someone who’s in the know, or whose opinion carries weight, and wants to share it with you. The funny thing is, I haven’t been much supported in my writing endeavors since my childhood, when my mother used to rave over my Star Trek fan fiction (it really was awful). Today I’d like to see myself as a ‘professional’ author, but my sales are in the double digits and my royalties not even enough to warrant being taxed. Because it’s not bringing money into the house, my immediate family doesn’t tend to see the value in what I do—other things have to take priority.

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The Redemption of Erâth: Newsletter and Giveaway

I was talking with a friend the other day about the difficulties of publishing, and the point came up that, often, the people most inclined to write a book (i.e. people who are content to sit alone for hours on end) are also those least inclined to evangelize their own work. It makes marketing your novel a pain in the ass, because frankly all you want to do is sit down and keep writing, but instead you have to advertise, talk, Facebook, post, blog … all the things that it takes to get yourself noticed.

Probably the biggest frustration is that, after all that work, you might end up with nothing to show for it anyway. A handful of sales, a couple of reviews, and negligible exposure. After all, with all the books being published these days, how does one go about getting noticed?

Well, one of the things I’ve decided to do—inspired by my good writing friend, Nancy Chase—is start a newsletter going. Once a month I’ll send out a very brief update on things in the world of Erâth, the road to publication, and any new offers or giveaways that might be going on. I’ve set up an account with MailChimp, and the first newsletter goes out on October 1.

To give you an incentive to sign up (other than just hearing wonderful words from me!), I’ll also be hosting a giveaway: the first thirty subscribers to my newsletter will receive a free Kindle copy of The Redemption of Erâth: Consolation as a gift through Amazon. I’ll be running this giveaway throughout the month of September, so you have plenty of time to sign up! The signup form can be found at the bottom of this page, and I’ll be including a link in the sidebar of the website to make life easy.

So sign up now, get a free book, and keep up to date on all the goings-on in the world of Erâth!

Sign up here: http://eepurl.com/bxDBX1.

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Thought of the Week: WordPress, Stats and Readers

One of the things I like the most about WordPress is the fairly in-depth statistics it gives you about your posts, your successes, and your readership. As a writer and an author, one of the most important things for me to know is whether anyone out there is actually reading what I’m writing. For the most part, of course, I’d like to know how people have read my book, but it’s nice to know when people are following you on your blog, or on Facebook, or on Twitter.

So far, WordPress has been my most successful writing medium, with now over 3,500 individual followers here alone. A large part of this success has come about from being featured on Freshly Pressed not once but twice, although I’d like to think a little bit of hard work went into the mix, too. It’s nice to think that over 3,000 people (potentially) see my writing each week.

Facebook is second to this, with now over 1,000 Likes for my Facebook page. I’ll admit to a curiously amusing coincidence, here, though: I once ran a Facebook ad targeted in India. Well, it happens that Satish is a very common first name in Hindi, and I think I got a lot of likes from people who possibly didn’t know exactly what I was all about. Fair enough—Likes are Likes, and I appreciate every one of them!

Twitter I haven’t quite got the hang of, apparently; I have about twenty followers.

More recently, WordPress has added a feature that tells you when your most successful posting time is. It turns out for me I get the majority of my reads on Wednesday evening—hence the time of this post! I’ll be curious to see if the response to today’s post is significantly greater than usual (I used to post on a Monday evening).

Stats for my book sales are important to me, too—even though I’m doing absolutely terribly at it so far. It’s funny to think that a single sale on Amazon can boost my ranking by over 1.4 million points—from 1.6 millionth best-selling book to the heights of 200 thousandth best-selling book. Whew! I wonder where two sales would get me?

Anyway … I don’t think I have much of a point to this post today, other than to say: buy The Redemption of Erâth: Consolation, and give an author a reason to look at his stats!

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