Newsletter musing
I hear having a newsletter is pretty much vital for an Indie author, but I have to admit that’s something I’m failing on. I have got one, but so far it’s been going out only when there was news. IE once every six months or so.
Naturally it’s not lively.
Those of you who know me, know that I have a tendency to read too many self-help books, and recently I finished a cool book on self publishing called Write, Publish, Repeat. Among many pieces of advice that seemed to make sense to me, they suggested weekly newsletters, with bonus content.
By ‘bonus content’ I here mean ‘a weekly episode of a story written specifically for the newsletter.’ They suggest 500 words a week as a doable goal alongside writing new books, and that seems like something I could manage, particularly if I plotted out the whole thing before I started, and aimed for a total length of about 30,000 words before starting either on a sequel or a different one.
Then I thought, well, perhaps before I do that, I should offer the chance to any readers of this blog to be involved. I’m going to put these choices to you and see whether anyone would like to read a 30,000 word novella on one of these prompts, told in episodes of 500 words each.
Historical Romance choices
Victorian gentleman falls for a tattoo artist.
Celtic chieftain & Roman captive.
Fantasy choices
Arranged marriage between a warrior king and a pacifist prince.
Steampunk meets Lovecraft.
Steampunk meets Rider Haggard.
Alternative Option:
Pick a historical period
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/
Pick three words from this list
http://towriteprompts.tumblr.com/onewordprompts
combine, and I will write a story around that.
My Cunning Plan
If I get a request, I’ll plot out the story and let you all know when the plot plan is done and the episodes are about to start. If I don’t get a single request, I’ll assume nobody wants this and try to think of something else to do. It’s up to you 🙂
Before that point I’m going to have to come up with a better way of subscribing to the newsletter than this – Subscribe to newsletter
I mean it looks okay, but then it sends you an email and you have to hit ‘reply’ and send an email back, and then it asks you if you’re sure you want to subscribe. And who’s got time for all that?
I’m not fussed about Lovecraft or Rider Haggard as I’ve never got into anything of theirs, but YES PLEASE TO EVERYTHING ELSE!
At last year’s Eroticon, Ruby did a fabulous session on newsletters & why you should have one – basically, it’s more personal than a blog or anything else, & even if all you offer in it is news, you’re building a relationship with your readers so that when you get to a point of politely saying “I’ve got a new book out, please buy & let me know your thoughts,” they’ll find it difficult to say no…
My problem seems to be that I’ve either scared or bored everyone in my newsletter to silence. I’m not sure how to get them talking again!
Celtic chieftain and Roman captive, because i’ve never been able to resist anything set during that period. But the others sound good too. Does it have to be a traditional newsletter format? Maybe you could just do it as regular blog posts?
Since you got in first, I’ll do this one first! I am aiming to blog a bit more regularly as well, but I think I need to keep something exclusive for the newsletter to make it an attractive prospect at all. I imagine there’ll be a lot of research before I can get it off the ground, and that can go in the blog.
Victorian gent and tat artist, please.
Oh no! That makes votes for both of the historicals! Well, I guess I can do one first and then the other. That will certainly give me something to aim for ????
I tried to set up a newsletter. It wouldn’t let me because I have blogger site for my website. I got the hump with trying to get it to accept it and gave up. Can’t guarantee I’d remember to send out newsletters anyway.
I know! I am really bad at this stuff. I keep trying and I keep failing and giving up, and then I get guilty and try again. But curiously, one of the very few things I’ve ever been able to consistently work at until they were finished was stories, so maybe I’ll have more success with this tactic!
I’m going to be busy, aren’t I!
Late to the party ::waves shyly:: and you have prompts going, but I’d love to see Pacifist Prince meets H. Rider Haggard! Maybe even Pacifist Prince: subset: Animal Rights Hero. I’ve been reading John Buchan lately and wondering how it would be if Sandy and Richard and the rest had a compatriot who was just as badass as they were but questioned…everything a bit more.
Oh no, that would have been awesome! Maybe I’ll do that one next. I really like the idea of some of those Victorian explorers coming up against someone who was considerably cleverer than them and not at all manly in the sense of being able to kill things. I suspect the majority of them would just dismiss him as an effete mother’s boy and then get very worried when nothing seemed to go their way.
Really late to the party. As I said elsewhere (?) I’m too late to vote though I love the idea of the Victorian tattoo artist – you could always combine that one with Victorian explorers, you know!
I love the idea of a newsletter and of bonus stories. I should probably copy you, but nerve fails me at creating a newsletter and I think maybe my WordPress, which is not my own site but a WordPress one, might fall under the blog category? I will have to think long and hard about this, but meanwhile I am looking forward to seeing how it goes for you!!
I should have waited a little longer before announcing the decision, because that’s three people now for the Victorian thing as opposed to one Romano-Celt. Still, never mind. It just means that I’ll do the Victorian thing afterwards. (I’m half way through a plot plan for the Romano-Celt thing now.)
TBH, I don’t really know what to do with a newsletter, and as far as I know there may be nobody on it at all, but recieved wisdom is that it’s the one thing you can’t do without as an indie writer, so I’m trying! Even if it doesn’t work, I’ll at least have a novella I wouldn’t otherwise have written. I’ll keep you updated though!