Tag: marketing your writing

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Novel or Short Story? Why not Both!

carolyncordon

OK, so I am a writer, a user and sender of words out to the world. One of my ways is via blog posts, another is the monthly newsletter I have printed and I distribute it to my nearest town (and other readers online. And I am a writer and poet, sharing my words through my published books.

At the moment though, I am being a novelist, writing a new book, I hope the first in a whole series of books. I have written about that on this site previously. I created a town (based in part on that town I produce the newsletter for). And I created characters, and some potential book titles and plot ideas.

I am slowly getting for of this first novel written (many more words to go though). But I had an idea about a way to garner more interest in my novel, might be to produce an anthology with short stories using that same setting, and same characters as are in my novel-in-progress.

To that end I have written a few short stories so far, including one that I sent off for a competition, and I enjoyed that process so much, I may well do the same thing next month and many months after that. (the competition is Furious Fiction, an Australian Writers’ Centre one, where they give several words, and rules, and 50 hours to write a piece of flack fiction (fewer than 500 words) with a prize of $500 for the winner.

It happens on the first weekend of every month, and when I saw the writing prompts, a story idea came to me, and I started writing my story, edited it down to meet the word limit, and sent it off. It was an easy process and enjoyable, so why not combine both my writing of this novel, as well as the writing of short stories about the town of Talloola, where my novel is set, and with the people I have already created for the novel?

So writing a novel, and looking at possible marketing of my ideas and the actual novel series are happening at the same time, and even though I have no idea if that first book in the series is likely to be picked up by a publisher, I’m having fun with this whole process, and having fun, hey, there’s nothing wrong with that!

So writing, and thinking about marketing are important things for the writer, and I am working at getting better and better about these aspects of my writing life. I’m also keen to talk about my writing, and to give workshops and presentations about writing in many forms.

Public Speaker, Writing

3.5% Famous – Aiming Higher!

carolyncordon

In my previous blog post, I wrote about fame. I was going to post some more about the subject, hoping to bring some more insight to the subject, but you know what? I’m struggling to find much in the way of insight here.

I am known to my family and friends, obviously. The people who live near me know who I am, and may or may not know that I am a writer – I expect most of them neither know, nor care about what kind of books I write, or what the content of my blogs is all about.

Certainly some of my neighbours, and people living in the town close to the townlet I live in, know that I and the editor of the monthly newsletter I publish and distribute around town and beyond, every month. And I’ve been on the ABC, talking about things I and members of the writing group I lead, are doing, and so some people will have heard me doing that.

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That’s not fame though, not like authors who are published by big publishers, who give them thousands of dollars in royalties, and take them on country-wide speaking tours … The closest I get to anything like that, is to drive myself to the radio station I’m a volunteer presenter at every fortnight or so, and they’ve interviewed me a couple of times, when I’ve self-published another book …

I do still get royalties for a book I had published by a children’s educational publisher, quite a few years ago. My most recent payment was possibly the smallest one yet, but my book is still out there, being sold. I also have books in (school) libraries, and have received payments from that. That isn’t fame, but it’s being known, which is kind of the same thing, in a way, isn’t it? I think it is. 

At the moment, I have a book I’m reading off and on, by an English person, Caitlin Moran. The book is cleverly titled “Moranifesto”, and is full of amusing and thought provoking things.

One of the thing she writes about there is fame (how coincidental is that?), and she says she is 35% famous. Based on what she writes in her book, I suspect I am around 3.5% famous …

I’m thinking about possible ways to lift my percentage, so that’s a start, well it’s better that sitting on my bum thinking about nothing … I’m going to be seeing some friends tomorrow, and if I remember, I will ask them for some ideas about possible ways I could up my fame percentage … The three people I am thinking about all have higher percentages than I currently have, I would think. We’ll see how those discussions go.

In the meantime, I will post this to my Author Website/Blog, and see if I can get more that a couple of people looking at it, and maybe even leaving a comment … I do enjoy writing though, so it’s not like sitting here on this sofa tippity-tapping away on the keyboard is an onerous task for me, I love doing it.

Writing and talking, playing words, that is certainly one of the funnest things to do, for me. If you ever need a speaker, look me up, I’m 3.5% interesting, and can be quite funny too, and at the moment, my speaker fee is low!

Writing

Branding -What Is My Main Focus?

carolyncordon

When a writer wishes to tell others what their writing is all about, it can sometimes seem they are a little bit of this, and that, a smidge of something else, and a morsel of something else. That’s not a useful description to be used for ‘Branding’ yourself in regards to your writing.

While it may be true, that you do a little of many things, it isn’t something a potential agent or publisher necessarily wants to hear. They may appreciate having a writer who can speak on many subjects, but they also want someone they can easily bundle up and present to the book buying public.

They want to be able to say something like: “Here is Author X, she writes brilliant thrillers,” for instance. But you might write thrillers, but also some romance, and haiku poetry, as well as some articles about your hang gliding adventures over the Murray River. How will they wrap up that oddly shaped and bulky package?

Perhaps a better way to look at “who you are” as a writer, could be to find a common thread that goes through all of your writing. So, yes you write all of those things, but you perhaps concentrate most, on finding the essence of the community, in all of the places you are writing about.

I suspect that would be my take on this subject, if I were to label my writing. I am focused on understanding how communities fit together, to get things happening. Communities such as where I live, the things I am interested in and the groups I deal with regarding those interests.

I write often about my life circumstances, in my various blogs, and there I find more community related things happening. My chronic illness, interest in dogs, gardening, and the sadder issue of sexual abuse, all of these things have connections with the overarching idea of ‘community’.

And of course the thing that takes up much of my time, is certainly intimately connected to community, and that is being the Editor of the Mallala Crossroad Chronicle. This newsletter is all about the community of Mallala, the biggest town close to where I live. I am writing a novel based on a town very much like Mallala, but with some differences to meet with various plot requirements.

My main character in that novel-to-be, works with council, and is working hard to get the best understanding on this new community she has moved to and is working with. The mythical town of “Talloola” is a community that is taking up much of my thinking, it being the town where that novel on its way is set in. Talloola is a bit like Mallala, a bit not like Mallala, but it is an important community to me, for sure.

So I happily and truly brand myself as “A writer with a strong focus on Community”.