On the Zoom call on Tuesday (recording coming soon!), someone suggested we have Office Hours (like Substack’s own) where Fictionistas members could introduce themselves, ask questions, help each other, and be part of the community.
So let’s give this a try, though we won’t limit you to an hour!
For this inaugural edition, feel free to ask any burning questions you have about the platform, writing fiction, or anything else relevant.
If you don’t have a question, then perhaps you’d like to answer the question Geoffrey asked on our call: of all the new features on Substack, are there any that you would classify as “naughty” or “nice”?
I've been wanting to attend the zooms, but haven't managed to get my schedule together in time to make it work so far. How would the office hours be different from your zoom calls?
For one, you made it! This IS the office hours and you are here in the comments, which means you and I and other Fictionistas who see this will all be connecting with one another!
Like Nicole said, this is just another opportunity to connect with each other. It’s not the same as being live on zoom, but connection is connection. I decided to run with this idea immediately after the zoom call this time, partly to strike while the iron is hot, so to speak, and partly because of the holidays coming up. In the future I think I’ll probably schedule this for the beginning of the month.
I agree about the new information on sign-ups. I wish it would all be collected in the backend, so I could see which other Substacks my readers have the most overlap with. That could lead to some natural cross-promotion opportunities.
Hi. I'm Thania (or TV Hernandez through my newsletter), and my newsletter, Ramblings Across the Spectrum, focuses primarily on essays on my life as an autistic woman and book reviews. However, I’ve also been putting out chapters of my novel Petty Habits through there. It's a new adult novel about an autistic woman who has to look after her teenage sister after their mother abandons them. The first three chapters are free while the rest are for paid subscribers with free previews included. I also intend to put out more fiction on there since I intend to start a second newsletter called Reading Through the 70s and 80s where I review novels published in the 1970s and 80s as close chronological order as possible. Therefore, I will be able to post more fiction through my main newsletter than I did before.
I won't be able to participate in the Zoom meeting because I'll be working around that time, but I hope to be able to be more active in the Fictionestas community next year when I can. I also hope you can take advantage of opportunities like the chat feature to get in contact with subscribers more often.
Thanks for popping in and introducing yourself! Be sure to watch the video when we get it uploaded, and note that we schedule the calls at different times, so some are in the afternoon (US time) and some are in the evenings, to maximize the number of people who can attend at least once in a while.
For those who couldn't attend the Zoom call yesterday, I suggested setting up some kind of fellowship or networking/promotion program for fiction writers. We can either reach out to the Substack community managers or work on it ourselves.
I would love to see this happen. Could you think on it a bit and see if you could come up with an idea that could work for us? If it would help, you could write it up as an idea we could share on Fictionistas and get some conversation/feedback.
I like the idea of office hours, zoom meetings are hard for me to work into my schedule. I'm a successful (ie I sell a whole lot more books than I ever expected to in my life) indie author who took up this career in retirement. I write the Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, and I am currently working on my fourth book in the Paradisi Chronicles, an open source, multi-author world I helped create. I liked the suggestion by That Guy From the Internet below about seeing if there is a way to work on a promotion program for fiction writers in the substack world. I've used Bookfunnel group promotions, and I was wondering if this approach couldn't work in some fashion. In addition to a daily substack post "An Aging Author's Daily Diversions" I do a monthly promotional newsletter on substack. While this is to get out info about my discounts and new publications, I like to feature other authors-when their books are being discounted if they are in my general genre (historical fiction, mysteries, science fiction.) Don't know if there are enough writers in these genres yet on substack, but if so, would be glad to see if any would fit into these newsletters.
I've also been actively using BF to grow my list. Works really well with Substack--even wrote a Fictionistas article about it which can be found in the archives ;)
I write Science-Fiction and Fantasy, BTW, and post free stories on my 'stack every month.
I like the new Mentions feature. Not a fan of Badges. I also like that Substack has managed to increase discoverability. The majority of my new subs come from the Substack network now. I haven’t done any promotion at all in 2022, and my subscriber numbers have taken off compared to 2021, when I was promoting on Twitter (good riddance), Discord, and Book Funnel with little success.
Chat is an interesting idea. A private social media just for your Substack network, without (hopefully) the garbage of public social media. But I haven’t activated mine yet, because I am not sure what I want to do with it. I don’t want another chore of thinking of good questions to ask. Maybe I will post cat photos. 🤣 I used to post silly one-liners on Facebook back in 2008 and got lots of fun interaction. I may try that. Someday.
I agree about Mentions and Badges. Question: how were you using Bookfunnel to find new subscribers? I’m considering making the first few chapters of my novel available via Bookfunnel after I’ve published them on sub stack and linking the sign ups to here as another method of exposure.
Also curious to hear more about using BookFunnel. I know people who have built their lists with BookSweeps, but the subscribers seem to be hit or miss from what I hear.
I use it for my romance pen name to great success. There are two methods I tried-- giving a free novella away via BookFunnel (it introduced readers to my fictional setting where a bunch of my stories took place) and adding bonus epilogues and scenes to the end of my stories in exchange for email sign ups. The freebie works but I found I was get a lot of people who only wanted free stories on my list. The bonus scenes were fabulous because the people who signed up that way were proven super fans who’d already read my stories and wanted more. I’m interested to see if BookFunnel would work for Substack. Perhaps I’ll create a novella or short in my new world to lure readers in and use that instead of the first few chapters of a book. Feels wrong to cheat ‘em with an unfinished story! But I know authors who did that and it worked great for them. 🤷♀️ Nice to e-meet you, Charlotte!
I wrote an article about using BF with Substack. You do get a lot of freeloaders, but I think it works well if you post (like I do) free stories on your 'stack. The reader magnet draws them in, the posts make them stay. Some of them become avid readers and can turn into the elusive "true fan".
I gave away the first novel in a series. I did two promos but only got about 100 subs. But my novel is a historical adventure. So not a real popular genre.
I use book funnel. Sometimes I fear the people are only “freebee “ people, but I’ve grown my list quite a bit from it...only it, actually. Now if I can just get them to be paid subs, it would be great
Chat fizzled for me pretty quickly. My first Chat saw good engagement, but then I think people realized it was relatively limited in scope. Since then I've seen little engagement and worry about spamming people with unnecessary notifications.
Like many recent features (e.g., Chat, badges) they're great if you're already famous or people want to get close to you. If you're an unknown (like me) it feels pretty awkward.
I think you need to have a very popular newsletter (preferably on a topic people want to give their opinions on) or do something unique for chat to work.
Coming to this one a little late, time zones were not in my favor this time. With the cohort idea we bounced around on the zoom call, I'd mainly be interested in giving each other feedback. It's a tad demoralizing to put writing out there with no response.
I think the mention feature is definitely a nice. Even if you don't use it there's no harm done (unlike the badges) and when you do have a need for it, it makes things more efficient.
Hiya, I just subscribed! Started a substack last month as a complement to my novel, sort of newsy updates from a made-up town. I don’t know what I’m doing. Anyway I was wondering if anyone has done audio versions of their posts—not necessarily a podcast, just a read-by-the-author version to go with the text version?
Brian Reindel over at Future Thief has done this for some of his stories. I can’t pinpoint you to the exact stories, but if you click around for a minute you’ll find a couple. He does an outstanding job with them all around.
Let me know if you have any questions about it. I'm sure there are more automated tools to make a reading happen. I probably go overboard with the production 😁
Let me know if you have any questions about it. I'm sure there are more automated tools to make a reading happen. I probably go overboard with the production 😁
I couldn't make the zoom yesterday, but hope to get connected on the next one. I'm still fairly new here, though gaining some more experience on how it all works.
My stack is Dynamic Creed, odd fiction from the edge of life which kinda means at times darkly humorous, generally off the wall, and always evocative and illustrative of the quirks and accidents of verse that follow the human spirit. [end plug]
My goal for the upcoming year is simply to continue writing and posting once a week. I know that sounds like a pretty basic goal, but for me that can be a challenge. I get discouraged sometimes. I've been working to get traction for a good while, and I understand that my style is for some, not for others. Still, I hope to keep connecting with those special folks.
As for Substack itself, I think it's pretty nice. I like that people can discover and read without the platform itself cutting you off after your allotted number of reads for the month (Medium)
The chat feature doesn't really stir me. Maybe if it were available on the web site, but typing messages on a virtual keyboard within the app is way too slow for me. Plus, I'm not sure I want to even begin a chat, not sure what to say.
Hi! I'm hybrid between posting fantasy and memoir. My story Body Swappers speculates on what it might be like if someone in crisis could have a trained expert swap into their body.
"Nice": I really like that they integrated voiceovers into Substack, and I want to start using them! I just need a little more setup to start recording. My favorite audiobooks are the ones read by the author!
"Naughty": I don't really get the chat thing and how it's different from a discussion thread, and my phone doesn't read QR codes, so I haven't had the opportunity to dive into it. Anyone want to explain to me the benefits? Thanks!
oh, I love the idea of a combined fantasy memoir! That’s a really cool idea.
As for chat, it seems to work really well on Substack’s with lots of subscribers, by more celebrity type folks. It gives them a way to have conversations with their readers (and can fill in for Twitter, in that way.) But for the rest of us, I’m not so sure.
Cross Posts: Potentially naughty for a newcomer trying to establish their writing presence on the platform. Tough to maintain the content and schedule consistency expected by brandy new subscribers when you're adding other people's voices to the mix. BUT... for the badge worthy crowd... this could be a great way to share the wealth of popularity. May we all be badge worthy someday. Or may they just get rid of the badges and spare us the angst. 😏
I love the idea of hosting Office Hours here on Fictionistas. My work schedule makes it difficult to attend the monthly Zoom meetings, so I really appreciate you all for making this happen! 🙏
I must have been off in la la land when someone mentioned this idea because I would have chimed in and said it was a great idea! I'm glad you decided to do it as it looks to be very popular.
I have been writing a novel experimenting with a musical substructure and so have been interested in looking at meaning in literary form.
I would be keen to learn from you all how to find an audience for this writing.
I have almost completed the first draft of my novel and thought eventually I could publish it through Substack, if the traditional route doesn't work. I have also had the idea of illustrating my novel, and, whether or not the book is printed with these illustrations, sharing them through my newsletter, offering editions to founding subscribers.
I know nothing of the music scene on Substack, other than I think it's a growing community as well (it has its own category). You may find a good crossover by being active in both groups and generate just as much interest from musicians. Just thinking out loud there.
Hello, all! I am new here - looking for a community of like minded friendly folks. My Substack is fiction based on my own experience, philosophy, religious traditions and psychology (I have a degree in Arts & Consciousness Studies). One of the questions I often receive is: "But is it true?" I consider that a complement. Since, like some other writers, my work does not fit so neatly into a "nitch". I tend to accumulate new subscribers in small numbers, but I value the fact that my work is actually being read, unlike the usual social media click-and-run approach. So... I suspect the commonly offered advice of "stay in for the long haul" apples to me. To a significant degree, my writing is part of my own personal process, shared with others. Oh, and here is my Substack address: https://robertmaynord.substack.com/
I just subscribed, Robert, it looks like you've got some wonderful stories. Much of my fiction is written and inspired by little experiences in life that leak into a story. I think that gives us three dimensional characters and worlds that allow readers to better connect with us as authors. I look forward to reading more!
Hi, Brian - I enjoyed your story "Ashes to Ashes" very much, and I plan to read others. Your details and character development are great. The "thousands of tiny abdomens scurried across the floor" line made my hair rise! I have subscribed to Future Thief.
I've been following this Substack for a few months, but this is the first time I've posted. Although I've been writing for over 10 years, I only started sharing my stuff publicly this past year. My Substack, Halcyon Horror, is still in the process of getting up and running, but I hope to post my first story in the next couple of weeks. As the name implies, I write mainly horror set in the past. It's a bit niche, but I'm hoping there's still an audience for it.
By which I mean, I guess, it's great to have discoverability, but stuff like badges etc., feels too much like Medium etc.
I'm also not sure how I feel about audio and video (although audio is great for inclusivity of course).
I think my overall feeling for 2023 is that Substack represents a great opportunity for fiction writers, even if it's just a place to publish. It's way better than a drawer, is what I'm saying :) And hopefully, it could be way, way better than a drawer.
I'm going to publish a short story every week for 2023, and also publish my edited novella in the fall (that I serialized on here in 2022). I'm thinking Bookfunnel will work well for promo - but I do agree with others on here that Bookfunnel gets you lots of people who expect fiction for free, always. And you know, I like to eat, sometimes.
I've been wanting to attend the zooms, but haven't managed to get my schedule together in time to make it work so far. How would the office hours be different from your zoom calls?
For one, you made it! This IS the office hours and you are here in the comments, which means you and I and other Fictionistas who see this will all be connecting with one another!
Awesome! Happy to be here
🙌🙌
Like Nicole said, this is just another opportunity to connect with each other. It’s not the same as being live on zoom, but connection is connection. I decided to run with this idea immediately after the zoom call this time, partly to strike while the iron is hot, so to speak, and partly because of the holidays coming up. In the future I think I’ll probably schedule this for the beginning of the month.
I love the idea! Thanks for getting the ball rolling
Nice: showing more information about new subscribers when they sign-up (especially where they come from).
Naughty: the much-maligned popularity badges :o
I agree about the new information on sign-ups. I wish it would all be collected in the backend, so I could see which other Substacks my readers have the most overlap with. That could lead to some natural cross-promotion opportunities.
Great idea!
We definitely don't need no stinkin' badges!
I've been waiting for someone to say that. Thank you, Jackie. 😊
Hi. I'm Thania (or TV Hernandez through my newsletter), and my newsletter, Ramblings Across the Spectrum, focuses primarily on essays on my life as an autistic woman and book reviews. However, I’ve also been putting out chapters of my novel Petty Habits through there. It's a new adult novel about an autistic woman who has to look after her teenage sister after their mother abandons them. The first three chapters are free while the rest are for paid subscribers with free previews included. I also intend to put out more fiction on there since I intend to start a second newsletter called Reading Through the 70s and 80s where I review novels published in the 1970s and 80s as close chronological order as possible. Therefore, I will be able to post more fiction through my main newsletter than I did before.
I won't be able to participate in the Zoom meeting because I'll be working around that time, but I hope to be able to be more active in the Fictionestas community next year when I can. I also hope you can take advantage of opportunities like the chat feature to get in contact with subscribers more often.
Love this! My 15 year old daughter has ASD-1. Just subscribed!
Thanks for popping in and introducing yourself! Be sure to watch the video when we get it uploaded, and note that we schedule the calls at different times, so some are in the afternoon (US time) and some are in the evenings, to maximize the number of people who can attend at least once in a while.
I'm with you, the zoom meetings are hard to make. I enjoy getting to know fellow fiction authors on substack.
🔥🔥🔥😂
Meant 🙌
For those who couldn't attend the Zoom call yesterday, I suggested setting up some kind of fellowship or networking/promotion program for fiction writers. We can either reach out to the Substack community managers or work on it ourselves.
Also want to add that it would be cool to do workshop/mentorship too!
I would love to see this happen. Could you think on it a bit and see if you could come up with an idea that could work for us? If it would help, you could write it up as an idea we could share on Fictionistas and get some conversation/feedback.
Definitely! I’ll think of something this weekend.
Sent you a message on Discord!
This is a great idea!
🔥🔥🔥
I like the idea of office hours, zoom meetings are hard for me to work into my schedule. I'm a successful (ie I sell a whole lot more books than I ever expected to in my life) indie author who took up this career in retirement. I write the Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, and I am currently working on my fourth book in the Paradisi Chronicles, an open source, multi-author world I helped create. I liked the suggestion by That Guy From the Internet below about seeing if there is a way to work on a promotion program for fiction writers in the substack world. I've used Bookfunnel group promotions, and I was wondering if this approach couldn't work in some fashion. In addition to a daily substack post "An Aging Author's Daily Diversions" I do a monthly promotional newsletter on substack. While this is to get out info about my discounts and new publications, I like to feature other authors-when their books are being discounted if they are in my general genre (historical fiction, mysteries, science fiction.) Don't know if there are enough writers in these genres yet on substack, but if so, would be glad to see if any would fit into these newsletters.
I've also been actively using BF to grow my list. Works really well with Substack--even wrote a Fictionistas article about it which can be found in the archives ;)
I write Science-Fiction and Fantasy, BTW, and post free stories on my 'stack every month.
BF? I have such trouble keeping track of acronyms.
Bookfunnel. https://bookfunnel.com
I like the new Mentions feature. Not a fan of Badges. I also like that Substack has managed to increase discoverability. The majority of my new subs come from the Substack network now. I haven’t done any promotion at all in 2022, and my subscriber numbers have taken off compared to 2021, when I was promoting on Twitter (good riddance), Discord, and Book Funnel with little success.
Chat is an interesting idea. A private social media just for your Substack network, without (hopefully) the garbage of public social media. But I haven’t activated mine yet, because I am not sure what I want to do with it. I don’t want another chore of thinking of good questions to ask. Maybe I will post cat photos. 🤣 I used to post silly one-liners on Facebook back in 2008 and got lots of fun interaction. I may try that. Someday.
I agree about Mentions and Badges. Question: how were you using Bookfunnel to find new subscribers? I’m considering making the first few chapters of my novel available via Bookfunnel after I’ve published them on sub stack and linking the sign ups to here as another method of exposure.
Also curious to hear more about using BookFunnel. I know people who have built their lists with BookSweeps, but the subscribers seem to be hit or miss from what I hear.
I use it for my romance pen name to great success. There are two methods I tried-- giving a free novella away via BookFunnel (it introduced readers to my fictional setting where a bunch of my stories took place) and adding bonus epilogues and scenes to the end of my stories in exchange for email sign ups. The freebie works but I found I was get a lot of people who only wanted free stories on my list. The bonus scenes were fabulous because the people who signed up that way were proven super fans who’d already read my stories and wanted more. I’m interested to see if BookFunnel would work for Substack. Perhaps I’ll create a novella or short in my new world to lure readers in and use that instead of the first few chapters of a book. Feels wrong to cheat ‘em with an unfinished story! But I know authors who did that and it worked great for them. 🤷♀️ Nice to e-meet you, Charlotte!
I wrote an article about using BF with Substack. You do get a lot of freeloaders, but I think it works well if you post (like I do) free stories on your 'stack. The reader magnet draws them in, the posts make them stay. Some of them become avid readers and can turn into the elusive "true fan".
Article is here BTW: https://fictionistas.substack.com/p/how-to-build-an-audience
Alex wrote an article about using Book Funnel here on Fictionistas.
https://open.substack.com/pub/fictionistas/p/how-to-build-an-audience?r=3c4zu&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
I gave away the first novel in a series. I did two promos but only got about 100 subs. But my novel is a historical adventure. So not a real popular genre.
Awesome! Hadn’t seen that article. Thank you!
Ah, missed this reply, sorry. Ignore my earlier question :)
I use book funnel. Sometimes I fear the people are only “freebee “ people, but I’ve grown my list quite a bit from it...only it, actually. Now if I can just get them to be paid subs, it would be great
That is the trick. None of my BookFunnel subscribers became paid subscribers.
me too :)
Chat fizzled for me pretty quickly. My first Chat saw good engagement, but then I think people realized it was relatively limited in scope. Since then I've seen little engagement and worry about spamming people with unnecessary notifications.
Like many recent features (e.g., Chat, badges) they're great if you're already famous or people want to get close to you. If you're an unknown (like me) it feels pretty awkward.
I think you need to have a very popular newsletter (preferably on a topic people want to give their opinions on) or do something unique for chat to work.
This is how I see it as well.
Using book funnel has been my to do list. I hear good things
It works great for many writers.
Agree: forget Twitter and all that crap. Write and interact with others on SS. That’s the crucial key 🔑
No joy on Bookfunnel? What did you do on there Mark, if you don't mind me asking?
Coming to this one a little late, time zones were not in my favor this time. With the cohort idea we bounced around on the zoom call, I'd mainly be interested in giving each other feedback. It's a tad demoralizing to put writing out there with no response.
I think the mention feature is definitely a nice. Even if you don't use it there's no harm done (unlike the badges) and when you do have a need for it, it makes things more efficient.
There’s no late with our office hours. This can keep going all month long. 😀
Maybe you could work with That Guy from the Internet (Sam?) on some brainstorming on the cohort idea? https://fictionistas.substack.com/p/fictionistas-december-office-hours/comment/10980325
Hiya, I just subscribed! Started a substack last month as a complement to my novel, sort of newsy updates from a made-up town. I don’t know what I’m doing. Anyway I was wondering if anyone has done audio versions of their posts—not necessarily a podcast, just a read-by-the-author version to go with the text version?
News from a fictional place sounds like my kind of thing, definitely going to check it out. Haven't tried audio versions of my posts.
Brian Reindel over at Future Thief has done this for some of his stories. I can’t pinpoint you to the exact stories, but if you click around for a minute you’ll find a couple. He does an outstanding job with them all around.
nice! i've read his work but will look around for the audio.
Hi Josh! The most recent one is here, which was done by my very talented nephew and then I edited a little and uploaded:
https://brianreindel.substack.com/p/the-huntsman-and-the-fox
Let me know if you have any questions about it. I'm sure there are more automated tools to make a reading happen. I probably go overboard with the production 😁
the production is great! that's what i'd like to do, music and all.
Hi Josh! The most recent one is here, which was done by my very talented nephew and then I edited a little and uploaded:
https://brianreindel.substack.com/p/the-huntsman-and-the-fox
Let me know if you have any questions about it. I'm sure there are more automated tools to make a reading happen. I probably go overboard with the production 😁
This is also the idea of The Weirdy Wordy. https://weirdywordy.substack.com/
ok i love this
Been meaning to do this as well (even recorded a couple of my stories already) but haven't posted any yet. Maybe in 2023!
I use the AI feature for my posts on Beyond Words
Is this still available only through the iOS app?
i didn't even know that existed until my mom got my last newsletter and said "some lady started reading it out loud"
I couldn't make the zoom yesterday, but hope to get connected on the next one. I'm still fairly new here, though gaining some more experience on how it all works.
My stack is Dynamic Creed, odd fiction from the edge of life which kinda means at times darkly humorous, generally off the wall, and always evocative and illustrative of the quirks and accidents of verse that follow the human spirit. [end plug]
My goal for the upcoming year is simply to continue writing and posting once a week. I know that sounds like a pretty basic goal, but for me that can be a challenge. I get discouraged sometimes. I've been working to get traction for a good while, and I understand that my style is for some, not for others. Still, I hope to keep connecting with those special folks.
As for Substack itself, I think it's pretty nice. I like that people can discover and read without the platform itself cutting you off after your allotted number of reads for the month (Medium)
The chat feature doesn't really stir me. Maybe if it were available on the web site, but typing messages on a virtual keyboard within the app is way too slow for me. Plus, I'm not sure I want to even begin a chat, not sure what to say.
I really enjoyed the zoom call last night. It was lovely to meet some fellow Substackers and chat about stuff.
Cross-posts are going to be a game changer for The Storyletter moving forward. I can’t wait to share everyone’s awesome stories!
Hi! I'm hybrid between posting fantasy and memoir. My story Body Swappers speculates on what it might be like if someone in crisis could have a trained expert swap into their body.
"Nice": I really like that they integrated voiceovers into Substack, and I want to start using them! I just need a little more setup to start recording. My favorite audiobooks are the ones read by the author!
"Naughty": I don't really get the chat thing and how it's different from a discussion thread, and my phone doesn't read QR codes, so I haven't had the opportunity to dive into it. Anyone want to explain to me the benefits? Thanks!
oh, I love the idea of a combined fantasy memoir! That’s a really cool idea.
As for chat, it seems to work really well on Substack’s with lots of subscribers, by more celebrity type folks. It gives them a way to have conversations with their readers (and can fill in for Twitter, in that way.) But for the rest of us, I’m not so sure.
Such a cool idea, memoir and fantasy!
Badges: Naughty
Mentions: Nice
Chat: Potentially nice for someone with a badge
Cross Posts: Potentially naughty for a newcomer trying to establish their writing presence on the platform. Tough to maintain the content and schedule consistency expected by brandy new subscribers when you're adding other people's voices to the mix. BUT... for the badge worthy crowd... this could be a great way to share the wealth of popularity. May we all be badge worthy someday. Or may they just get rid of the badges and spare us the angst. 😏
I love the idea of hosting Office Hours here on Fictionistas. My work schedule makes it difficult to attend the monthly Zoom meetings, so I really appreciate you all for making this happen! 🙏
It was an idea that came out of yesterday's call, and it seems to be well-received! I'm glad it's helpful.
I must have been off in la la land when someone mentioned this idea because I would have chimed in and said it was a great idea! I'm glad you decided to do it as it looks to be very popular.
🔥
Hello Fictionistas!
A Work In Process is my newsletter which most recent post you can find here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/rachelmaggart/p/trust-the-process?r=g2ass&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I have been writing a novel experimenting with a musical substructure and so have been interested in looking at meaning in literary form.
I would be keen to learn from you all how to find an audience for this writing.
I have almost completed the first draft of my novel and thought eventually I could publish it through Substack, if the traditional route doesn't work. I have also had the idea of illustrating my novel, and, whether or not the book is printed with these illustrations, sharing them through my newsletter, offering editions to founding subscribers.
Here is my email for anyone who wants to get in touch: rachel@rachelmaggart.com
❤️❤️🔥🔥
I know nothing of the music scene on Substack, other than I think it's a growing community as well (it has its own category). You may find a good crossover by being active in both groups and generate just as much interest from musicians. Just thinking out loud there.
Thanks Brian, really good idea!
Hello, all! I am new here - looking for a community of like minded friendly folks. My Substack is fiction based on my own experience, philosophy, religious traditions and psychology (I have a degree in Arts & Consciousness Studies). One of the questions I often receive is: "But is it true?" I consider that a complement. Since, like some other writers, my work does not fit so neatly into a "nitch". I tend to accumulate new subscribers in small numbers, but I value the fact that my work is actually being read, unlike the usual social media click-and-run approach. So... I suspect the commonly offered advice of "stay in for the long haul" apples to me. To a significant degree, my writing is part of my own personal process, shared with others. Oh, and here is my Substack address: https://robertmaynord.substack.com/
I just subscribed, Robert, it looks like you've got some wonderful stories. Much of my fiction is written and inspired by little experiences in life that leak into a story. I think that gives us three dimensional characters and worlds that allow readers to better connect with us as authors. I look forward to reading more!
Hi, Brian - I enjoyed your story "Ashes to Ashes" very much, and I plan to read others. Your details and character development are great. The "thousands of tiny abdomens scurried across the floor" line made my hair rise! I have subscribed to Future Thief.
Thank you, Robert! I very much appreciate it.
Hi all,
I've been following this Substack for a few months, but this is the first time I've posted. Although I've been writing for over 10 years, I only started sharing my stuff publicly this past year. My Substack, Halcyon Horror, is still in the process of getting up and running, but I hope to post my first story in the next couple of weeks. As the name implies, I write mainly horror set in the past. It's a bit niche, but I'm hoping there's still an audience for it.
That's wonderful, Leigh, best of luck with the launch, and as always if you have questions once you get started, we're here to help.
Much appreciated.
Hi all! I’m fairly new. What kind of categories work best for you. I accidentally switched mine last week and I haven’t gotten new subs.
Oooh, good question. Fiction, short stories, writing (I think that's what I use). I haven't ever changed them
Hey all.
Naughty: Substack becoming more like a "platform"
Nice: Substack becoming more like a "platform"
By which I mean, I guess, it's great to have discoverability, but stuff like badges etc., feels too much like Medium etc.
I'm also not sure how I feel about audio and video (although audio is great for inclusivity of course).
I think my overall feeling for 2023 is that Substack represents a great opportunity for fiction writers, even if it's just a place to publish. It's way better than a drawer, is what I'm saying :) And hopefully, it could be way, way better than a drawer.
I'm going to publish a short story every week for 2023, and also publish my edited novella in the fall (that I serialized on here in 2022). I'm thinking Bookfunnel will work well for promo - but I do agree with others on here that Bookfunnel gets you lots of people who expect fiction for free, always. And you know, I like to eat, sometimes.
Go fictionistas!!
Hey is there anyone interested in world records or fictional stories? Check out my profile to see if any of my stacks are relavent to what you read.