Welcome to the new blog!

One of the things I’ve decided to do over the next six months is release a number of my stories in small mini-collections in electronic form. Each of these will consist of 2-3 already published stories, with 1-2 ones original to the collection. The first is Halloween Quartet, which contains “Whose Face This Is I Do Not Know” (appeared originally in Clarkesworld), “Niobe in the Rain” (appeared originally in Serpentarius), “So Glad We Had This Time Together” (appeared originally in Apex Digest), and “Pumpkin Knight,” which is original to the collection.

The next one will be Desert Quartet, which will contain “Aquila’s Ring,” (originally appeared in Light and Shadow II), “Karaluvian Fale” (appeared originally in Giganotasaurus), “Her Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight” (the title story from my second collection), and “Mirabai the Twice-Lived,” which is original to that collection. It’ll also contain an essay about the world in which all of those stories are set, that of Armageddon MUD, and my experience working with it.

Other e-projects in the works: a mini-collection of flash, a mini-collection of superhero stories, and something collecting blog musings about fiction.

Why do this? Because I do think electronic publishing is clearly the way the industry is going. I’m curious about the power to sell one’s work that it promises the author and I’d like to get in on what seems to be at least the first or second, if not ground, floor of the movement.

I’m lucky in that I have a little bit of a name, acquired through publishing short stories. I don’t know that this would work for someone with no already established platform. And I don’t expect to make a vast sum of money from them. But I do expect there to be a slow trickle. At least – that’s my hope.

How will I spread the word of them? I’ve learned a little from publicizing Near + Far, but I’m not sure how relentless I want to be about pushing these. I’ll certainly talk about the experience of putting them together on here, and will be mentioning them on social networks as well as on my mailing list. Suggestions are welcome, as always 😉

If you want to sign up for that mailing list, by the way, which will come no more than once a month and mention new publications and classes, fill it out here:

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Those of us living a solitary writing life can sometimes get a little too addicted to Google Analytics. It’s a validation to us if people are reading our blog — and comments are like gold. I freely admit I poke at mine from time to time, trying to figure out what drives numbers up. So here’s five things I’ve noticed that do:

1. Repeat yourself a little. It’s okay to tweet about the same blog post more than once, but space it out so you know you’re reaching a different group. Not only do I repeat announcements of blog posts, I sometimes go back and remind people about old posts that were particularly noteworthy, like my Pink Hair Manifesto or Three Strategies for Snaring the Senses. Similarly on Sundays, lately I’ve been posting a recap of that week’s activity.
2. Post or tweet outside your time zone. Apps like Buffer or Hootsuite allow you to queue up posts in advance. I have mine set up to tweet several times during the night because I know that’s a different group accessing my Twitter stream than the ones showing up when I first get online in the morning.
3. Be responsive. Remember that social media’s a conversation, not a soapbox. “But Cat,” you’re saying, “what about the point just above, where you told me to use some canned tweets?” You don’t always have to respond immediately. But do at some point.
4. Think hard about titles. Some titles are attention grabbers. Intrigue your reader or tell them why they need to read your piece. For example, one of my most popular posts, which still gets a lot of hits, is Popping Pimples on Paragraphs.
5. Be consistent. I’ve started using the scheduling function on WordPress to make sure something goes up every day, and if I feel the urge to blog, well then, cool beans, it’s a two (maybe even three) post day, and that’s fine too. A consistent post schedule gives people a reason to visit your blog on a consistent basis.