I have to figure out what I'm doing next writing-wise.
I've just finished another collection, "The New Amsterdam Vampire Social Club", as well as combining all the longer flashfiction from 2009-2011 into a collection called "Flash Back". Those two along with "Flash Forward", which falls between the two, contain all of my longer flashfiction including stories that didn't appear on the blog.
So with that done, I've been writing for five years (at least this time around) and it's definitely novel time. I just don't know whether to write one of the existing ideas or 'pants it' with a brand new idea. Or I could spend some time writing short stuff or even a novel under my 'pen name', which is for more *ahem* adult fare. Which frankly would have a better chance of selling.
I guess ultimately there's only two of the four existing novel ideas I really like right now, but even then, if I had a good new idea, I'd start that without hesitation. Maybe I've let the older ideas sit too long and now they almost seem in my head as if I've already written them.
Sigh.
I guess I'm waiting for inspiration to hit me in the back of the head.
-----
Also of note is the demise and decline of a number of flashfiction 'prompt' sites I've been using, historically speaking. Trifecta closed down, Sunday Scribblings closed down, Wordplay wasn't renewed (though Nika might bring it back independently) Write On Edge just up and disappeared, and Parking Lot Confessional is a ghost town that doesn't really drive much in the way of traffic to my site when I (and only I) link to the prompt.
There's still Chuck Wendig's site, and the drabble sites Velvet Verbosity, The Magpie Tales, Visdare, and Friday Fictioneers. So I'll keep doing those when I like the prompts (as I usually do at least with the first three) and occasionally the PLC even though I get no hits out of it.
Anyhow, more later.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
What The Twit?
OK, all you authors on the Twitters, I may be alone on this, but I'm going to rant for a second.
Both on my dedicated writing Twitter and my personal twitter, I'm constantly getting follows from authors or musicians who've subscribed to those 'we'll get you thousands of followers' bot services. They work by taking control of your account, following a gazillion people, and hoping that some appreciable percentage of those people follow you back.
Which, it looks like, tends to work, within a narrow definition of 'working'. These accounts will often have upwards of ten thousand followers; unfortunately, they're also following upwards of ten thousand accounts themselves (which is the nature of the scheme.) Or twenty thousand. Or twenty-seven thousand. Twenty-seven thousand seems to be sort of a 'sweet spot' for these kind of accounts.
Which means even if the actual meat person associated with the twitter account actually uses it, they're never going to see my tweets. They'll be lost in the noise. They're certainly not going read a given tweet, consider, and click on the link to go read my fiction. I suppose it's possible that some marginal percentage of the people who end up following them back actually do read their tweets and click through, but what could possible motivate me, a content creator, to opt-in to this deal?
I don't follow any of those accounts back, ever. I've seriously considered adopting a policy of isnta-blocking any account with more than a thousand follows. Blocking does seems like a very 'nuclear' option. Who knows, some of these people might clean up their act.
In the meantime, consider: a follower that doesn't read what you're posting is worthless except as a tiny percentage of an ego boost.
I'm not certain it's even possible to leverage twitter followers into a reading audience instead of the other way around. Most of my followers (on the writing account) are writers. Which makes it a community of writers as opposed to an audience. Not that there's anything wrong with a community of writers. It's just important not to mistake the one for the other. I see a lot of writers advertising in their streams. To the point of spamming. To a following of maybe a hundred other writers.
That's not going to help. It'll get you concrit, I suppose, if any of the writers are actually reading your stuff instead of just hoping you'll read theirs.
Anyway, rant over. Facebook, with its hiding your page's posts from the vast majority of your 'fans' is even worse for small-audience content creators.
Still trying to figure out this social media stuff. More later.
Both on my dedicated writing Twitter and my personal twitter, I'm constantly getting follows from authors or musicians who've subscribed to those 'we'll get you thousands of followers' bot services. They work by taking control of your account, following a gazillion people, and hoping that some appreciable percentage of those people follow you back.
Which, it looks like, tends to work, within a narrow definition of 'working'. These accounts will often have upwards of ten thousand followers; unfortunately, they're also following upwards of ten thousand accounts themselves (which is the nature of the scheme.) Or twenty thousand. Or twenty-seven thousand. Twenty-seven thousand seems to be sort of a 'sweet spot' for these kind of accounts.
Which means even if the actual meat person associated with the twitter account actually uses it, they're never going to see my tweets. They'll be lost in the noise. They're certainly not going read a given tweet, consider, and click on the link to go read my fiction. I suppose it's possible that some marginal percentage of the people who end up following them back actually do read their tweets and click through, but what could possible motivate me, a content creator, to opt-in to this deal?
I don't follow any of those accounts back, ever. I've seriously considered adopting a policy of isnta-blocking any account with more than a thousand follows. Blocking does seems like a very 'nuclear' option. Who knows, some of these people might clean up their act.
In the meantime, consider: a follower that doesn't read what you're posting is worthless except as a tiny percentage of an ego boost.
I'm not certain it's even possible to leverage twitter followers into a reading audience instead of the other way around. Most of my followers (on the writing account) are writers. Which makes it a community of writers as opposed to an audience. Not that there's anything wrong with a community of writers. It's just important not to mistake the one for the other. I see a lot of writers advertising in their streams. To the point of spamming. To a following of maybe a hundred other writers.
That's not going to help. It'll get you concrit, I suppose, if any of the writers are actually reading your stuff instead of just hoping you'll read theirs.
Anyway, rant over. Facebook, with its hiding your page's posts from the vast majority of your 'fans' is even worse for small-audience content creators.
Still trying to figure out this social media stuff. More later.
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