Causes

[sartorias]

Life . . .

A friend of ours needs help with gender affirmation surgery. Simon, being disabled, lives on a fixed income, with no family fallback. When he's well, he volunteers with rescue animals. We'd be grateful for any help, including just spreading the word.

The indie challenge . . .

A writer friend, Leigh Kimmel, has a free serial going,

Comments

[starshipcat]

Thanks for the signal boost. Self-promotion is tricky, because it's so important to be enthusiastic, but not cross the line to pushy and end up pushing people away instead. And when things are rough, when the interest just isn't building, there's the problem of avoiding any whiff of that whiny, wheedling "oh please look at my poor, lonely little story" that really turns people off.

So having someone else put out a good word really helps, since it doesn't have that awkward aspect of the self-serving.

[sartorias]

I hope you get a bunch of new readers!

[starshipcat]

I hope so too. It's really frustrating to put up chapters and see no evidence anybody's reading them.

I can sure see how some writers fall to the siren call of sock-puppetry and try to astroturf up some word-of-mouth buzz with fake reviews and fan sites. Especially for someone who has some computer skills and enough knowledge to create a site that isn't obviously connected to oneself. Wouldn't it be so easy to just get a free e-mail address somewhere under a fake name, use it to create an account at one of the free web hosting services, and put together a site written in the voice of an imaginary person who's found the story and fallen in love with it. Or for a touch of realism, likes it, but has a few problems with it and would like to get it off their chest -- controversy can be as effective for drumming up the readership as pure fangirl squee

[sartorias]

Yes, and there is still the problem of getting people to read the sock puppet. I wonder if those even work anymore, in these days of Facebook and Twitter: one's computer is exploding with Stuff (with a very high quotient of Read My Book, or Squee, Read My BFF's Book), whereas twenty years ago, even ten, one could post and be fairly certain at least a number of people would check it out.

I think the only thing that works for those of us who are not young and pretty, or famous, or charismatic, is to keep writing, and hope that slowly an audience builds. There's nothing like genuine word of mouth, but one cannot force it to happen.

[starshipcat]

It's just so hard to keep plugging away while it builds. Telling myself it's an exponential curve, not a linear one, is only going so far to maintain the enthusiasm and check the urge to abandon it for another of the several projects on my desk in hopes that one would do better.

But I did get another chapter up today, and I did put a mention of it up on my Facebook wall. So far I don't seem to have gotten any clicks from Facebook promos of my own serial or my brother's, but I figure as long as I don't become a pest about it, it won't hurt.

[sartorias]

Exactly.