I’m putting together many of my notes from the Building an Online Presence for Writers class as well as the various blog posts I have done about online promotion and notes from the Near + Far book launch campaign in an e-book by the same name that I hope to release at the end of September or October, along with another e-book, Podcasting for Speculative Fiction Writers, written with Folly Blaine.
So far, it looks as though the Building an Online Presence book will be between 50 and 60 thousand words altogether, and include a number of screenshots. It’s aimed at both writers just beginning their careers and wanting to build their online presence as well as mid and later career writers who want to refine their online presence. Right now it’s a little under half-drafted, with about 27k laid out in the Scrivener project (which is GREAT for nonfiction works like this).
One of the things that I think will make it useful to writers is that I try to give you examples for the various concepts I talk about. I include all of the blog posts from the Near + Far book launch as well as screenshots showing the book’s presence on various social networking sites, and in each case provides some notes about SEO strategies, tags, images, All and other promotional considerations that affected the construction of the post. Getting a chance to see the campaign in action will be a valuable chance to see the concepts in action.
Topics that are covered include: building a fan base, the minimum web presence you should have as a writer, what to blog about, how to use social networks such as Facebook, G+, Pinterest, and Twitter to publicize your books, free tools that will help you maximize your online presence, maintaining your privacy, podcasting and videocasting, maintaining multiple identities on the Internet, how to write a press release for your book, how to take mobile devices into consideration when shaping your online presence, and how to measure your success at all of these in a way that will help you shape your Future strategy.
If you’re interested in signing up to be notified when the book comes out, please sign up here.
Want access to a lively community of writers and readers, free writing classes, co-working sessions, special speakers, weekly writing games, random pictures and MORE for as little as $2? Check out Cat’s Patreon campaign.
Want to get some new fiction? Support my Patreon campaign.
"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
~K. Richardson
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Cat Rambo Award Eligibility for 2019
It’s that time of year again when I urge my students and mentees not to be shy about spreading word of the great stuff they’ve done over the course of the year. I’ve blogged before about how important it is particularly for marginalized writers, and you can find my usual round-up of such posts here along with A.C. Wise’s here.
What did I publish over the course of the year? The thing I’m proudest of is my novelette, CARPE GLITTER, which just came out from Meerkat Press. It is available in both electronic and print form. If you’re reading for awards and need a copy, please let me know.
Other things I had published include:
A Merchant Has Maxims (novelette) UNFETTERED III, edited by Shawn Speakman
A Merchant had a journal since first learning to write. A Merchant without one felt that lack like a missing limb, something Essa kept reaching for and not finding. She already missed being able to flip through it at night, to figure out the results of different actions and what part each God had played, from small ones like Kepterto, who handled tailors, or Rilriliworhaomu, Trade God of Hypothetical Marital Alliances, to the larger ones like Enba and Anbo, Want and Supply.
Big Rural (short story), THE WEIGHT OF LIGHT, edited by Joey Eschrich and Clark A. Miller
She gulped down the last of the water and stuck the bottle in her purse. The tomato red sun rolled on the horizon, sending long black shadows walking across the land, towards the enormous black square that was Phase One of the Sol Dominion power plant, glittering in the last of the sunlight. You could barely see the storage structures scattered among them like enormous alien flowers, many petalled and made of dark carbonized plastic with an oily undersheen of cobalt and purple.
Arms folded, she looked towards the town bordering that square to the east, where lights were flickering alive. She could name most of them. The gas station. The diner. The tiny grocery/hardware/drugstore locals just called “the store.” The two block strip that was Main Street, the grade school on one end, the high school on the other, but meeting in shared sports fields: baseball, soccer. Still no football stadium. The coal plant, unlit now.
When you came home again, even “the big rural” as the song called it, things were supposed to have changed. Here the only change was that black square. Between the town lights and the scattered but symmetrical lights surrounding the plant, a dark strip, perhaps a mile wide, stretched, unlit. As though town and plant had turned their backs on each other.
A Hand Extended, (short story), CITIES OF DUST, PLANES OF LIGHT, edited by Todd Sanders
The person closest to the mage was an Ettilite, all four arms folded. Despite stiffly formal body language, he was dressed simply for his race: plain brown tunic drawn over his humanoid torso’s purple skin, and matching trews and”¦were those boots? On shipboard you never needed such a thing, and coming down to Tarn had been a revelation to Niko in her flimsy ship-sandals. Imagine having to dress for a totally random circumstance called “weather”? It was absurd. She hated this place.
Niko gnawed at a cuticle, then caught herself and dropped her hand back into her lap. Stay calm and don’t expend energy. Save it for the Threefold Gauntlet.
How I Come to Be the Queen of Treacle, (short story), WONDERLAND, edited by Marie Keegan and Paul Kane
When we grimbled, how we grambled, children, down in those treacle mines, with a slow syrup slurry that clung to your boots, your hands, and every bit of skin, so you’d lick your lips, vicious-like, and taste gritty sugar and wonder what was happening up in the blue-sky world. And then we grimbled and we grambled more, and when we were weary walking, sleep stepping, we came up to the wasty world and tumbled into our blankets, and then in the morning before the sun came into the sky, we went back down and did it all again.
Broken all My Boughs and Brittle My Heart (short story), UNLOCKING THE MAGIC, edited by Vivian Caethe
It was a lizard dropping on her face from the ceiling that woke Ambra in a panic. They ran back and forth all night, feasting on spiders and midges and the slower moths, but they were sticky-footed and rarely lost their grip. This one scampered away while she smacked herself in the face, much harder than she’d intended, so that she saw stars and bit her tongue, all at once.
Dawn, seeping gray, outlined the window, showing the shutter slats as faint lines of light. She nursed her tongue, which felt awkward and painful in her mouth, and swallowed blood as she swung herself up and out of bed, abandoning thought of sleep. Once she’d had a soldier’s knack of being able to sleep anywhere, anytime, but nowadays that skill was long gone and she was lucky to pluck a few uneasy hours from a night.
Cold stone struck her feet as she stood, and she fished around under the bed for the knitted socks that served her as slippers, disreputable and threadbare but warmer than being barefoot. The narrow chamber had only the single window; she moved to it and swung the shutters open, then leaned out on the wide stone sill.
Huzzah! It’s my great pleasure to announce that WordFire Press will be publishing my novel, Beasts of Tabat. I’m tickled as can be, plus have a couple of other pieces of good news up my sleeve. So far 2015 isn’t too shabby!
I’m putting together many of my notes from the Building an Online Presence for Writers class as well as the various blog posts I have done about online promotion and notes from the Near + Far book launch campaign in an e-book by the same name that I hope to release at the end of September or October, along with another e-book, Podcasting for Speculative Fiction Writers, written with Folly Blaine.
It’s that time of year again when I urge my students and mentees not to be shy about spreading word of the great stuff they’ve done over the course of the year. I’ve blogged before about how important it is particularly for marginalized writers, and you can find my usual round-up of such posts here along with A.C. Wise’s here.
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