This afternoon, I received word that “Amos’s Song” was accepted to Wicked East Press’s Chained in the Attic anthology. It is my fourth story with WEP and I would like to thank Jessica A. Weiss for her continued faith in my work.
Now a little about the story for the newly titled “Why Did I Write It?” segment…
Last year while working at a booth at our local Fall Festival the idea magically appeared. The booth was next to the stage and I worked during the amateur hour competition. The way I portray the tap-dancing acts is spot on and they gave me the biggest headache. In typical form, I started to kill them in my mind and this little tale about revenge came from my experience. There are some things spoke of that might not make sense…yet. Fear not because all will be explained (please keep reading).
This is also the first published story taking place in my town of White Creek. The town was created because I hate having a series of stories set in a real place. I didn’t feel like I can destroy a town properly while a reader thinks about the real place. With that in mind, I decided to go the new town route and create my own stomping ground. Currently, I am working on a group of stories to introduce the town and its main characters. There will be many tales that interconnect in some way, but can still be enjoyed on a story by story basis. One of these is the completed novella and three other stories round out the group so far. My goal is to put it together as a collection and introduce the world to the most cursed place on Earth, White Creek.
In closing, I feel odd. The story is my 13th and I hope it proves to be lucky for me instead of a portent of things to come. It is also the third story accepted this year already and I hope to have many more. I will leave you with one last thought, beginning authors don’t have a lot of name recognition yet. Do something nice for a new author, go to Amazon and check out their author page. Once you read about them, like them and pick up some books they are in to show support. Like those books, review them, and follow them on Twitter and Facebook, or follow their blogs. We aren’t doing this for the money, we are doing it for our love of storytelling and we want to know our work is not falling on blind eyes. Go and like the hell out of some starting authors and make their day (including me ;).
Goodnight…
Our Darkest Fears 
Congrats 🙂
First of all, Congrats!
I couldn’t agree more with the last thought. I consider myself lucky. I was able to build a respectable following fairly quickly thanks to social networking, but I couldn’t agree more that it’s not about the money. I have this story in my head and it has to come out. I do it for the readers. I have a pretty good day job that pays the bills and keeps my family comfortable, writing is a passion for me. I love when readers comment on chapters as I post them, even if its “Great chapter!” or “Wow this is terrible”. At least I know someone is reading!
Trying to build a base following has been my goal the last few months. At first I didn’t take it seriously, but lately I’ve found myself at a crossroads where I either need to get on with it or step back. Stepping back doesn’t sound like much fun…
Do you have any tips on building your following? I also run The Zombie Preparedness Initiative, so I had a pretty good ‘base’ of potential readers to start with. The facebook page is growing, and I recently started a twitter account, but haven’t seen much benefit from that yet.
Twitter seems like a waste most of the time. I really now just have it set up copy FB headlines and links. The FB page I set up for the author stuff is doing ok, I wish more people would like the damn thing. Things to be growing slowly, so I’m working with some people to get the word out more. Like I said earlier, I didn’t take this seriously and now that things are going pretty good I’ve had to rethink everything. I feel weird about the whole situation right now and I find myself altering my mindset quite a bit. Follower building? I’ve resorted to begging.
I haven’t tried begging, although I’m seriously thinking about it.
In my opinion, using Twitter or Facebook or your blog or your Amazon page individually doesn’t do much for you, but using all of them (even using a handy system where they post onto each other) together seems to work for me… I’ve built all my platforms up with potential readers, like-kinded authors, and people that like the same things that I do (in my case, horror, heavy metal, zombies and steampunk)…
I also don’t waste a lot of posts simply promoting my books, i use them to promote me by putting myself out there, responding to posts (like this one!) and meeting new people… its’ all about being accessable to future fans. You might not buy my book today, but when you see my name enough or a book title enough somewhere down the line you might remember it and buy it.
Armand Rosamilia
My problem sometimes is that I have to choose between trying to promote myself, hit up places to comment, or write. It’s like pulling teeth sometimes fitting it in with work, stuff with the boys, work, and maintaining some sort of normal life. I will take your advise about commenting in other places and I’m headed straight for you Armand :).
Writing is 75% promotion and 25% writing… if you want anyone to see your actual writing.
Armand Rosamilia
That is what kills me. I know I have to, but I’m still uneasy throwing myself out there. It’s gotten easier, but I still have many lessons to learn.
Promotion is a necessary evil… like eating vegetables…
You need to find like-minded authors and follow them, follow their fans, comment in facebook groups (other than simply pimping your own work) and on blogs that you follow… I follow a ton of blogs, anything authors or horror I can find… and add my own two cents when appropriate… most of the time I don’t even mention my own work, because it’s not about that… it’s about networking, meeting new people… and online is the easiest way, no face to face…
Get your name out there and keep it out there.
Armand Rosamilia
Dude, you’re my Yoda…LOL. Thanks for the insight man, it means a lot.
I’ll spew more worthless knowledge when we talk on the phone, so be ready, lol
Armand Rosamilia