ZOMG!

I finally did something worth reporting on!

Check this out:

OK, the cover’s a little manky, I’ll admit, but I don’t have the budget for a cover designer, sorry 🙂

But let’s focus on the important bit…

My first ebook’s out on the internetz!!!!

W00000t!!!!!

😀

How to Get Free Publicity for Your Fiction

Step 1: Make your fiction available, free, online. This might be via a blog platform (like WordPress), or a dedicated online content management system (like Drupal), or a PDF/text file/HTML page uploaded to your own web site.

Step 2: Join Twitter.

Step 3: Follow @onlinefiction.

Step 4: Send me a Direct Message, or just mention my name in a standard tweet, eg:

Hey @onlinefiction – check out My Awesome Fiction at http://blahblah.com/link.pdf – thanks!

Easy peasy!

Speaking of Rules…

… Holt Uncensored has a useful (if long) article about the ten most common mistakes writers make in their writing, and often don’t even notice:

The Ten Mistakes

Handy read! I’m wondering if I should find a utility to tell me which words I overuse in my writing…

(probably ‘fuck’ 😀 )

Writing Children’s Stories

Half the writers I know seem to have plenty of time, but no ideas. Me? I have ridiculous numbers of ideas. Although that’s possibly because I wander off to a new fiction series about once a week!

Anyhow, I came up with an interesting concept on the train this morning. A children’s series about a time-travelling dachshund named Polly. But I soon found that writing specifically for young kids might be harder than I thought…

Publishing Renaissance

I found a new blog a couple of days ago, thanks to Cliff Burns. It’s called Publishing Renaissance, and it’s a group blog by indie writers, about indie writing. Well worth subscribing, if the subject matter interests you!

Screw Up Tuesday

Dammitall.

Here’s a screwup for Bettina’s theme day.

I was sure I had a post all written and set up for publication today.

BUT

I have no idea what it was about, other than that it was brilliant.

GAHHH.

I think I’ve been dreaming life instead of living it again.

Whoops!

There is a bright side, though.

I have written fiction recently. There’s an update on Kyle and Merryl’s daughter Monica (ooooh, that’s an old series!) in Disaster, and a couple of new-ish Pete & Wendy stories – Bad Cop and Just Visiting.

Blog Promotions

In case you haven’t guessed, I’m a little obsessed right now about writing, and alternative methods of delivery, and promotion of my fiction, and all sorts of other poncy stuff.

One thing I’ve done is to put a bit more of an effort into social networking.

“Oh FFS!” I hear you mutter. <– Frankly, that’s usually my response to the phrase ‘social networking’ when uttered by a blogger, too.

It’s not that bad. I’ve started a Writers/Readers group on Facebook, called Indie Fiction (you might need to log in to Facebook to look at it). I’ve decorated my MySpace profile and added a feed from my fiction blog. And I’ve started a MySpace blog which I’ll update occasionally with random raves about writing that might save Nomesque Life readers some pain and boredom. THEN, I started a page for Nomesque Fiction on Facebook. <– It doesn’t sound like much, but it allows people to become fans, and allows me to send them updates without making a pain of myself 🙂

I’m not sitting back waiting for the millions of eager readers to suddenly pour into my life, though. I don’t think these moves will reap huge benefits. But then, I’m not ready to become a celebrity just yet. A few more fans would be nice though 😉

There was a point to this post. Honest.

Ha! I remember it, too.

First – feel free to friend me on MySpace and/or Facebook. But if you friend me on Facebook, please tell me who you are (if it’s not bleeding obvious), or you’re likely to go on my ‘people I play FB games with who might take advantage if they have too much info about me’ list by default.

Second – a list of things I’ve done to promote my fiction blog without being rude or intrusive (I hope):

• Published a feed on my Facebook profile
• Configured that feed to publish short ‘news feed’ updates every time I publish a new story (this appears in friends’ Home pages)
• Friended a LOT of people (although this wasn’t premeditated – they were friended as part of FB games I was playing)
• Set up a ‘writers and readers’ Facebook group to help connect people who write independent/amateur fiction, and people who want to read it
• Created a Facebook page for Nomesque Fiction
• Set up a MySpace page
• Published a feed on my profile
• Started blogging on MySpace

I thought I’d list those steps for one main reason – so that others who’re interested in doing similar things can give me a yell and ask, “How the hell did you do that?” So if you’re puzzled but interested, do give me a yell and ask me. I don’t bite hard 😉

Modern Publishing and Promotion

I may not think of myself as a particularly good writer, but that doesn’t stop me wanting to promote Nomesque Fiction. Because… well, maybe it’s my sadistic side coming out… *snicker*

So I’ve been pondering, lately, ways to promote the site. I don’t want to be rabbiting on about it on this blog more than necessary – telling y’all about the miseries of a writer’s life (aka whingeing) is one thing, telling you about a new story is another thing… but blatant ‘read my fiction blog or you don’t love me!’ stuff just isn’t me. Besides, there aren’t THAT many people reading this blog 🙂

Brainstorming has given me a couple of ideas, but not necessarily the method for bringing them to fruition. I’m thinking that a parallel podcast or vodcast might be an interesting addition. Because let’s face it – not everyone reads for fun these days. I’d like to provide PDF downloads of completed storylines… but ummm… I don’t have any at the moment. They’re ALL still hangin’. Ooops. The character-blogging thing… didn’t really work. Blogging as a character is bloody hard. Something that I should keep doing now and then though, whether people read it or not. Because that’s a skill I really need to work on. Parallel graphic-novel? Great idea if I could draw. Bugger.

What do you think? If you were trying to interest more people in your fictional work, how would you go about it?

Did I Mention…

… that I wrote another story?

A follow-on from Suicide Blue.

Sadly, Feedburner seems to have killed my feed, so my legion of subscribed fans (*cough*) are doubtless thinking I’ve been a slack-arse.

For once, they’re wrong.

Check out In The Program for a look at the future of IT. 🙂

Busy Busy Busy

Life is a bit flat-out at the moment, so I don’t have another well-thought-out post for y’all. Although you might be glad to hear that, what with the swearing that ensued last time I started thinking 😛

About all I have to offer instead is the latest instalment in my science-fiction-y story about a duplicitous fiction blogger who got on the wrong side of an alien… Abducted follows her back to the alien’s secret lair.

And if amateur fiction isn’t your thing… well, you’re stuffed, aren’t you? Unless of course you have other blogs to visit 😛