How Big Is Yours?

On By Andy McKellIn Getting Known, On Writing, Social Networking

ID-100218413How To Impress Publishers With A Huge Following

Last time, we saw that an aspiring author needs a big Following to get the attention of a publisher.

So how to achieve that? Tricky. Without any published work, the newcomer has little to share about his work. All he can do is to show the world what a witty and entertaining person he is, so anyone reading the post will expect great things of his novel and will hasten to buy it. Here are some suggested topics:

  • what my novel WILL be about (if ever I get it finished)
  • the day I got stuck in an elevator with Stephen Fry (hopefully, a one-time-only post)
  • the local weather (a daily update can be exciting)
  • why I wrote nothing today (e.g. spending too much time on social networking)
  • how I hate my day job (another exciting topic)

The options are endless and all riveting to a total stranger who is actually just looking for a good read.

Seriously, any of these topics CAN prove entertaining and popular in the right hands. If you can make these work for you, then you deserve success!

So, you work at gathering interest and expand your following over a 2 or 3 year period, not forgetting to do some of the writing that you actually wanted to do when you started tweeting/posting/uploading. You can read many, many other blogs to give you ideas for posts and trawl through endless pages of advice to aspiring authors. And do not ignore your followers, so the advice runs –  engage with them, run competitions and quizzes, invite comments and respond compellingly.

Well, that is what I try to do. Apart from competitions and quizzes.

Or there is another way…

Next time: Quick Fixes

Disclaimer

Just to show there are no sour grapes, I have not yet submitted a novel’s manuscript to a publisher and I merely report other people’s experiences. Perhaps it will be different for me? (Big smile at the publishing industry. And please tell me I am wrong, in the space provided below.)

Image courtesy of basketman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

13 thoughts on “How Big Is Yours?”

  1. A cliffhanger if ever I saw one. I just fell off one and smashed my shoulder. But found a way of typing when I can’t do much else. Good news for the cobwebbed manuscript and its sleeping characters. Awaiting your next blog … Ann

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    1. Hi Ann – I hope you were not too badly injured.

      Who said the pen (keyboard) is mightier than the sword? Glad you liked the post and let’s face it, if I am writing a series, I should be able to hang readers off a few cliffs 😉

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      1. Broke my shoulder in 3 places but have avoided having to have surgery to plate and pin it. It improves daily. Make sure you only hang your readers off cliffs, not drop them! 🙂

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      2. Best wishes for a speedy recovery. (The secret is to hang onto the cliff at all costs!)

        My own blogging cliffhanger has been extended a little as my laptop failed me while traveling these past weeks. I hope to post later today, to catch up before I set off on my travels again 😉

        Liked by 1 person

      3. I sort of ski-ed down the slope …. Saw my consultant yesterday. He said my healing rate was ‘amazing’. Not bad for an old dame! Hope your laptop has healed amazingly.

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      5. I’ve got Windows 8, 8.1 actually. All it means is having to figure out the ‘new’ way of how to use the same programs I used with the earlier OS. 🙂

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      6. XP was perfectly adequate for me. The nonsense of installing an operating system built around a touch-screen interface on desktop pc’s that have none still astounds me. I also grumble about having to learn new Word interfaces every two years, hence I use OpenOffice (which replicates the old Word menu system) and is more backwardly-compatible with old MS documents that are Microsoft’s offerings.

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      7. I installed OpenOffice but had to get rid of it as it didn’t get along with MS Office. I agree about the touch screen which has only been useful to me since I smashed my shoulder and have had to do more with my right hand as I couldn’t lift the left one off the keyboard on its own and my fingers didn’t reach all the buttons. It’s about MS trying to take over the touch screen market that Apple has cornered.

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      8. I remember when IBM was the world’s biggest personal computer company. I wonder who will be Operating System top-dog in 20 years – if there still are OS’s by then. Amazon, maybe? 😉

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      9. I believe that the day will come, providing we do not destroy the planet and ourselves in the meantime, when babies will be implanted at birth to connect them organically with the worldwide web. The way things are going, the human of the future will be virtually indistinguishable from machine. Science fiction or just an extension of fibre optics? I bet there are already books authored about this. 🙂

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      10. In my “future universe”, I have gone for birthing vats and brain implants 😉
        There are, indeed, many novels on the subject of cyborgs and enhanced human perception. I believe my concepts are a little different…

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