
For some time I’ve been concentrating on my other genre projects and keeping my own “brand” (heh) on pause. I’ve been thinking for a bit on how to restart things, and then I fell on the idea of a short story I had in the back burner. World Cup Hook Up was originally published on Wattpad, and re-reading it one day, I thought it was cute and worth trying to get non-Wattpad readers to see it.
So I added it on Amazon and on Kindle Unlimited, offered it as an advanced review to willing reviewers, and added a couple free days too. In the end I had a fair number of free reads, a surprising number of KENP read and a bunch of interesting reviews too. Which told me a few things:
- I thought I’d have to start from scratch, getting-the-word-out-wise, because I’d been so inactive for so long. But my writing has its own spin, and the people who liked that were still interested in something new that I had to offer, even if I’d been away for a while.
- Despite that core of interest from people who were already familiar with me, I still worked hard behind-the-scenes to get the word out beyond that core (something that I admittedly did not really think too much about when I started independent publishing.) Self-marketing is generating your own heat, and most of the time I had the feeling of being back in the Girl Scouts and trying to start a fire by rubbing two damp sticks together.
- I did a marketing plan though based on WCHU activities, and now I’m trying to replicate it with another genre project. Will it be easier to replicate or will it work for a completely different target audience? That I’m waiting to see.
- Finally, feedback from readers tells me that you like what I’m putting down! (Feedback is valuable – I know, right? Who’d’ve thought? #captainobvious).
- Readers liked WCHU, but the length was not entirely satisfying. Action point for me to ensure that my next reads hit the satisfaction mark, or, be up front and call a short story a short story.
- Some liked the ending. Some wanted to know what happened next. When I first wrote WCHU I was thinking about a sequel. Worth a re-think? Hmmm….
- I’m restarting a project I’d left in the backburner when I started the genre stuff. I’m excited to get this done and see what you think!