Last fall, author Neil Gaiman gave a very special talk at the Digital Minds Conference at the London Book Fair. It wasn’t received with much enthusiasm by the audience — mostly publishing industry folks — but it lit up the twitterverse. If you missed it, you can watch it here.
Neil’s talk (hereafter referred to as "Be Like Dandelions") was about the opportunities presented by the digital frontier. He talked about how dandelions spread their seeds far and wide, and proposed that publishers (and authors) could benefit by following their example. After the speech in an interview with The Guardian, he clarified his proposition, saying:
When the rules are gone you can make up your own rules. You can fail, you can fail more interestingly, you can try things, and you can succeed in ways nobody would have thought of […] throw things out there […] see what sticks.
As an author, I’ve always been a serial monogamist. I start a project, I research, write, and revise, and I move on to the next one. Listening to Gaiman’s speech, I came away with the feeling that what I was doing was playing it safe. This feeling joined a nagging sense that it was time for me to take a more active role in managing my career, rather than just signing and delivering on book contracts.
It took months of simmering in the crockpot for this idea to transform into this real-world to-do list:
- New formats. Experiment with different lengths, or new ways of delivering your writing. Are you a novelist? Try a novella, a short story, or flash fiction. How about formats? SilkWords, the small publisher where I’m partner and editorial director, publishes interactive fiction such as “choose your own adventure” and reader-vote stories. There are also publishers who offer digital formats that incorporate images and video.
- New genres. Is your genre’s audience small? Or so big it’s hard to get noticed? Experiment with others. For me, it meant branching out from sci-fi romance to write steampunk, fantasy, and erotica.
- New outlets. There are so many ways to get your work out there these days! Indie publishing via KDP, or via new services like Aerbook, which gives authors a bigger cut and promotes through social media. There are also ezines, thousands of small publishers, and community-based venues like Wattpad. New venues are popping up every day.
To illustrate what this can look like, here’s a quick overview of how I’ve applied this to my own writing over the last year.
- Wrote a “choose your own adventure” story for SilkWords, in a genre I hadn’t written before
- Wrote a piece of flash fiction and published it at Rogue Particles magazine
- Posted the flash fiction on Wattpad and began to expand it into a novella (currently at 1.6K reads)
- Posted the SilkWords story on Wattpad (currently at 10.6K reads)
- Started writing an erotica novelette series; indie published the first story in collaboration with my literary agency
So I know what you’re thinking: all of this is time consuming. Is it really worth it? It is, and I’ll tell you why. Maybe none of these efforts will be wildly successful, but that doesn’t matter. Because “Be Like Dandelions” is really about marketing and building your brand.
Authors hate marketing, right? But IMHO, this is marketing any author can get behind. It’s marketing by doing what we do best: writing. And by “marketing,” I mean it can help you to:
- Sell more titles to your fans, who are likely to buy anything you write.
- Find new fans, in places you weren’t even looking before.
- Increase productivity / decrease writer's block. I thought this endeavor might make me scattered and unable to finish things. The reality? I’ve never been more inspired or productive.
- Find yourself on the leading edge — discover the next big thing. Maybe that won’t happen. But maybe it will.
I’ll close with another great quote from The Guardian interview:
The whole point of a digital frontier is that it's a frontier; all the old rules are falling apart. Anyone who tells you they know what's coming, what things will be like in 10 years' time, is simply lying to you. None of the experts know — nobody knows, which is great.
Have you tried any creative, author-friendly marketing techniques? If you're traditionally published, are you considering getting skin in the indie game (or vice versa)? Share with us!
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Sharon Lynn Fisher (www.sharonlynnfisher.com) is a sci-fi romance author for Tor/Macmillan and an indie published erotica author. She is also editorial director and partner at SilkWords (www.silkwords.com), a rapidly growing, woman-owned publisher of interactive romance and erotica.
Cool, I found your profile, Suzy. (You have a fun job background!) I'm so pleased the post resonated with you. I hope it brings you as much inspiration as it has me. Best of luck to you as well!
Sharon, I'm now on Wattpad. I really have to thank you for your post. It's funny how life works. You never know where inspiration will come from. I would never have thought of this on my own. And I'm a huge Gaiman fan who never read that interview. So again, best of luck.
I so recognize that little voice, Suzy! I thought the same thing when I first started mulling all of this over. I LOVE that you decided to give it a go anyway! I figure at the very least, it's a great way to hone our craft. Look me up on Wattpad when you get there! Thanks so much for sharing your story.
Congrats on your steampunk story, Diane! (Fingers crossed on the mystery) I've recently written a couple steampunk shorts myself, one sweet and one erotic. Love the genre!
Just wanted to add that I'm a humor writer so decided to try another format.
I read your post and thought, great post, but not for me. Then I walked away from my computer (untied my leash from the CPU) and thought about Gaiman's words and your ability to switch gears. And I thought, "Why not?" I've got buckets of things strangling my writer's folder, why not set some of them free to travel? So I'm fine-pointing a paranormal story and will put it on Wattpad. So thanks for the inspiration and good luck with your book.
Excellent post. Love the encouragement to try something new. I just wrote a Steampunk short story which was accepted by Xchyler Publishing- My mystery is still trying to find a home, however.
I love your book title, Fran! And congrats on the anniversary. Much as we all want to earn a living, I think deep down most authors do what they do to connect with others, whether we realize it or not. :) Thanks for reading and commenting, and have FUN!
Sharon- As someone who just published the 10th Anniversary Edition of my book, Digging Deep: Unearthing Your Creative Roots Through Gardening, you're offering some terrific, 'doable' tips. The truth is- on this 10th Anniversary- I care so less about the money- I just want to make sure the book is read by as many people as possible. So thanks fo your ideas. They go on my to do list. Warmly, Fran
That's exactly why it spoke to me, Patricia! At first I viewed it as permission to try new things, which itself was liberating. But pretty quickly I realized, this is a GREAT marketing tool.
"I think the key is to do what feels right and have fun."
I SO agree with this, Caroline. And also "writers always help writers." I'm going to check out your FB page.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience. And my goodness, congratulations on your success with Call Me Royal!
This sounds like much more fun than so many of the other marketing ideas out there! It's the "next frontier." Might as well have fun with it.
Great post Sharon.
I was always one of those people who liked to control a project from beginning to end. Yes, it’s nice to finish a novel and see it launched on a date specified by somebody else. But for me something was missing. It’s lovely to say ‘Yes I have a publisher,’ but 3 novels and a move back to the UK I decided to follow my heart and take full control of my next project and self publish.
Maybe it was my enthusiasm or terror of failure but I’ve never been more satisfied.
I tentatively launched a novel with a slightly smaller word count than my norm. It became an Amazon UK Bestseller and zipped up and down several different categories in the USA and although I’d only planned to do an e-book, I've since had requests for the paperback. Call Me Royal has now become the first novel in my Call Centre Series.
My marketing strategy has seen it used as a fictional read for Call Centres both here (UK) and abroad and I've adapted the second novel to continue the trend.
I think the key is to do what feels right and to have fun.
I gave up blogging as I found it a chore, but I run a Facebook page called the Multicultural and Interracial Book Showcase. I interact with authors and readers and dedicate different things for each day of the week. We celebrate milestones, promote new releases and share across our personal networks reaching readers we may not have normally reached. It’s a fun way to market and to get your name out there.
Writers always help other writers.
Next year I've organised a reading event to celebrate International Women’s Month and I plan to write a novella maybe with dark skinned handsome vampire (smile)
As long as I’m having fun with the marketing I can continue living my dream.
That's wonderful, Jill! Feel like telling us what you've been up to? (Totally okay if not! :) Thanks for reading and commenting!
I simply love this post! Within quite knowing it, I've been moving in this direction for some time, and this post gave me the motivation to fully embrace it.