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| Professor Anesidor Sumian http://www.atendesign.co.uk/anesidor.html |
Micro Story promotion:
Queue the reviewers
Tuesday 26th July 2011
When I started writing the short stories a year ago, I set out with quite rigid ideas about the release dates, armed with my own meagre self promotion. I had no regular readers. Only a few writers and close friends had read my first chapter. So I planned to announce the stories on various social networks, scheduled events in advance of the actual release. This worked for a while, but real people don't like rigid structures and grand announcements, especially if they have no investment in your work. Some of my friends and most of my family haven't read any of my stories, so why should complete strangers? How do you attract new readers without annoying them? I've found that the release and marketing of each story has to be flexible. People don't like scheduled announcements, unless they've subscribed to your blog willingly! Queue the reviewers...
I'm a writer, I illustrate, but am not a business person. I'm not an 'author' yet. I haven't been traditionally published. Building a readership is hard. You can keep writing / illustrating the best quality stories that you can possibly put out, but it takes a hell of a lot more work to attract new readers. Despite being disheartened by the gargantuan promotional tasks, I kept writing, until eventually my stories started getting noticed by reviewers. Ordinarily short micro stories aren't easy to review. A lot of reviewers need novels, (I've written five) but I'm not published yet. My self published short stories are in part here to attract potential editors, publishers etc... so that I can find a home for my novels (remember I like the idea of magic and reality merging?) Anyway... How do you get a job if you have no address? It's the same for an unpublished writer.
Fortunately my first ever micro story review was written in July 2011. It's by Chantal Boudreau, and can be read at: The Blurb on Other People's words. I've also been fortunate to have been approached by a short story ezine publisher, who read the micro stories and asked me to contribute to his ezine. The stories are steampunk based and are called "A Worm is a Bird and Other Bad Things," and "Corset Wings." These will be released in September 2011 in issue 5 of Science Fiction Freedom Ezine, by Peter Saga. Glenda Bixler, a reviewer, is showcasing my short stories on her site for the whole of August, which I'm very excited about. Her website is at: Book Reader's Heaven, where she reviews novels, but has made and exception for my stories, fortunately for me.
This is the beginning of my journey to find new readers and inviting them to become submerged in a world that I've been living in since I was seventeen years old. The writer gives life to a story but the reader (reviewer) keeps it alive...
Reprinted with Permission
from author...
When I started writing the short stories a year ago, I set out with quite rigid ideas about the release dates, armed with my own meagre self promotion. I had no regular readers. Only a few writers and close friends had read my first chapter. So I planned to announce the stories on various social networks, scheduled events in advance of the actual release. This worked for a while, but real people don't like rigid structures and grand announcements, especially if they have no investment in your work. Some of my friends and most of my family haven't read any of my stories, so why should complete strangers? How do you attract new readers without annoying them? I've found that the release and marketing of each story has to be flexible. People don't like scheduled announcements, unless they've subscribed to your blog willingly! Queue the reviewers...
I'm a writer, I illustrate, but am not a business person. I'm not an 'author' yet. I haven't been traditionally published. Building a readership is hard. You can keep writing / illustrating the best quality stories that you can possibly put out, but it takes a hell of a lot more work to attract new readers. Despite being disheartened by the gargantuan promotional tasks, I kept writing, until eventually my stories started getting noticed by reviewers. Ordinarily short micro stories aren't easy to review. A lot of reviewers need novels, (I've written five) but I'm not published yet. My self published short stories are in part here to attract potential editors, publishers etc... so that I can find a home for my novels (remember I like the idea of magic and reality merging?) Anyway... How do you get a job if you have no address? It's the same for an unpublished writer.
Fortunately my first ever micro story review was written in July 2011. It's by Chantal Boudreau, and can be read at: The Blurb on Other People's words. I've also been fortunate to have been approached by a short story ezine publisher, who read the micro stories and asked me to contribute to his ezine. The stories are steampunk based and are called "A Worm is a Bird and Other Bad Things," and "Corset Wings." These will be released in September 2011 in issue 5 of Science Fiction Freedom Ezine, by Peter Saga. Glenda Bixler, a reviewer, is showcasing my short stories on her site for the whole of August, which I'm very excited about. Her website is at: Book Reader's Heaven, where she reviews novels, but has made and exception for my stories, fortunately for me.
This is the beginning of my journey to find new readers and inviting them to become submerged in a world that I've been living in since I was seventeen years old. The writer gives life to a story but the reader (reviewer) keeps it alive...
from author...
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