POST-MORTEM, DAY THREE

Know your audience.

We were told going in that a substantial number of our preorders could come from other authors on the site. I have had a small number of people on the site preorder (and dog bless you for that!), but not many. And why would they? I write humour, one of a very small number of writers on the site who do. The novel I entered into the competition was weirdly structured and didn’t fit comfortably into any of the genres’ popular sub-genres. Perhaps worst of all, Both Sides. NOW! has ;* LITERARY PRETENSIONS *. I probably couldn’t have chosen a book less likely to succeed in a contest such as this.

;This is, of course, a good general piece of advice. The problem with me is that Both Sides. NOW! is not an anomaly; everything I write is like it. I was talking to another writer the other night, and I pointed out that, as far as I can tell (and my experience with this contest has confirmed), there doesn’t appear to be a natural audience for what I do. This means that I literally have to build my audience one reader at a time. At some point, I may reach a critical mass of readers that will grow exponentially (the cascade effect I mentioned a couple of days ago), but until that happens, I just have to grind out every reader I can.;

To make the point obvious: don’t enter a science fiction novel into a contest for romance novels (unless it has a romantic plot that really kicks ass). Again, if you’re honest about this, you could save yourself some embarrassment.

POST-MORTEM, DAY TWO

Managing a campaign like the one you need to succeed in something like the Inkshares/Nerdist writing contest is incredibly involved and time-consuming. If you’re going to attempt it, you should be planning what you will do several months in advance.

I learned about the contest two days after it started, and entered on an impulse. All of the organizing I was able to do was, therefore, done on the fly, on an ad hoc basis, which is the polar opposite of ideal. Had I had the luxury of time, I could have built relationships with people who might have been able to help me instead of just asking for help and hoping for the best. I could also have built a better premium structure. And had the cover of the book completed before the contest started. And so on, and so on.

One other advantage of starting at least a couple of months in advance, is that you will get a good idea of whether or not you have the support to make trying something like this worthwhile. If you’re realistic about the responses you get in the pre-planning phase, you could save yourself some embarrassment.