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Month: September 2020

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Writing Progress Report – Third Quarter 2020

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on September 29, 2020

Progress Report –Third Quarter 2020

How great was third quarter 2020? So I spent third quarter 2020 mostly working. The pandemic continued, as did the American conversation about race. Which is not a bad thing.

Third Quarter 2020 Posted Works

First of all, I worked on a number of new short stories. A lot of these had been drafted on paper and so I spent some time fixing and polishing them.

Then on Wattpad I posted on the WattNaNo profile and nowhere else.

Milestones

Also, I have written over two and a half million words (fan fiction and wholly original fiction combined). So right now my stats on Wattpad for wholly original works are as follows:

† Dinosaurs – 29 reads, 9 comments
• How to NaNoWriMo – 18,579 reads, 231 comments
† My Favorite Things (like kibble) – 972 reads, 133 comments
• Revved Up – 59,292 reads, 530 comments
† Side By Side – 9 reads, 0 comments
• Social Media Guide for Wattpad – 13, 479 reads, 590 comments
† The Canadian Caper – 473 reads, 37 comments
• The Dish – 250 reads, 24 comments
† There is a Road – 188 reads, 28 comments
• WattNaNo’s Top Picks 2018 – 1,814 reads, 45 comments
† WattNaNo’s Top Picks 2019 – 1,124 reads, 7 comments
• What Now? – 1,949 reads, 48 comments

More Published Works

Also, I am amassing quite the collection of published works!

Untrustworthy, which is my first published novel. So yay!

Almost Shipwrecked, a story in the January 2019 edition of Empyreome, a site which unfortunately is no more.

Canaries, a short story in the March 29, 2019, edition of Theme of Absence.

Complications, a story in the Queer Sci Fi Discovery anthology. So this is an anthology where the proceeds went to supporting the QSF website.

Cynthia and Wilder Bloom, stories in the Longest Night Watch II anthology.

Killing Us Softly, so this is a short story published in Corner Bar Magazine.

Props, a story in the Longest Night Watch I anthology. So this is an anthology where the proceeds go to Alzheimer’s research.

Surprises, a story in Book One of the 42 and Beyond Anthology set.

The Boy in the Band, a story in the Pride Park anthology. So this is an anthology where the proceeds go to the Trevor Project.

The Interview, the featured story in the December 14, 2018 edition of Theme of Absence. So they even interviewed me!

The Last Patient, a story in the Stardust, Always anthology. This was an anthology where the proceeds go to cancer research.

The Resurrection of Ditte, a story in the Unrealpolitik anthology.

This is My Child, a short story published in the April 8, 2019 edition of Asymmetry Fiction, another site which is no more.

Three Minutes Back in Time, a short story published in Mythic Magazine.

Darkness into Light, so this is a short story to be published in Corner Bar Magazine.

WIP Corner

So my current WIPs are as follows:

The Obolonk Murders Trilogy – so this one is all about a tripartite society. But who’s killing the aliens?

The Enigman Cave – can we find life on another planet and not screw it up? You know, like we do everything else?

The Real Hub of the Universe Trilogy – so the aliens who live among us in the 1870s and 1880s are at war. But why is that?

Mettle – so it’s all about how society goes to hell in a hand basket when the metals of the periodic table start to disappear. But then what?

Time Addicts – No One is Safe – so this one is all about what happens in the future when time travel becomes possible via narcotic.

Prep Work

So currently, my intention, for this year’s NaNoWriMo, is that I am writing the second novel in the Time Addicts/Obolonks universe. But I need to iron out the plot! So a lot of this year will be spent on that. This one will be called Time Addicts – Nothing is Permanent.

Third Quarter 2020 Queries and Submissions

So here’s how that’s been going during third quarter 2020.

In Progress

As of third quarter 2020, the following are still in the running for publishing:

This list is the name of the story and then the name of the potential publisher.

† A Kitten – The School Magazine, Zooscape
• Blue Card – Salvage
† Gentrification – Minola Review
• I Used to Be Happy – Whiskey Island Magazine
† Justice – Protean
• None of This is Real – Journey Into…
† Soul Rentals ‘R’ Us – Defenestration Magazine
• The Guitarist – The New Southern Fugitives
† The Student – Utopia Science Fiction
• Who Do We Blame for This? – Short Story.me

All Other Statuses

So, be sure to see the Stats section for some details on any query statuses for third quarter 2020 which were not in progress.

Stats

So, in 2018, my querying stats were:

68 submissions of 19 stories

† Acceptances: 4, 5.88%
• In Progress-Under Consideration: 3, 4.41% (so these don’t seem to have panned out)
† In Progress: 10, 14.71%
• Rejected-Personal: 14, 20.59%
† Rejected-Form: 24, 35.29%
• Ghosted: 13 (so these were submissions where I never found out what happened), 19.12%

So, in 2019 my querying stats were:

23 submissions of 11 stories (so 6 submissions carry over from 2018)

† Acceptances: 4, 17.39%
• In Progress: 11 (so this includes 2 holdovers from 2018), 47.83%
• Rejected-Personal: 4, 17.39%
† Rejected-Form: 3, 13.04%

• Ghosted: 1 (so these are submissions where I never found out what happened), 4.35%

2020 Stats

So, in 2020 my querying stats so far are:

27 submissions of 12 stories (so 9 submissions carry over from 2019)

† Acceptances: 2, 7.40%
• In Progress: 11, 40.74%
† Rejected-Personal: 8, 29.63%
• Rejected-Form: 2, 7.40%

† Ghosted: 4 (so these are submissions where I never found out what happened), 14.81%

It can be pretty discouraging and hard to go on when nothing new comes up which is positive. It was a huge lift when Killing Us Softly got an acceptance!

Third Quarter 2020 Productivity Killers

So, it’s work, what else? I am working on a ton of things and since that is also writing, it can sometimes burn me out. So there is a lot going on, and I am busy as all get out. Because you just know that third quarter 2020 will not be the end of that!

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Swag for Independent WritersPromotions, Swag, Exposition, Better Dialogue, Character Sexuality, Starting, Personal Writing Process, Starburst Method, how do I write a book, Supporting Indie Authors, Snowflake, Libraries, Descriptions, Ages, Dialogue Tags, Gender Swap, Pocket conflicts, Giveaways, Plotting, mental energy, Character Creation, Scene Setting, Transitioning, Genre Treatments, Easter Eggs, Accents, Plot Creation, Complex evil characters, Bechdel test, Writer Newsletter, Wattpad gets into the Digital Publishing Game, character reviews, Universal Explorations, Libraries, Awards, Social Signals, Blog Community, Query Letter,

Swag for Independent Writers

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on September 17, 2020

Ah, Swag

Do you like swag?

So, swag is necessary when you go on the road. Work a convention at a dealer’s table, or get your book into a library, and you may need a little extra something to give away. Hence here are a few choices.

Bookmarks, a Very Common Form of Swag

Maybe the best and closest kind of giveaway item is the humble bookmark. In one sense, it’s perfect because it relates directly to books and reading. And you can spend as much or as little as you like. Plus maybe you only want something straightforward, perhaps a section of your cover, often printed on one side on heavy cardboard stock. And that’s great!

Because you’ve got some real estate, consider some additions, such as your website or even a QR code for a discount off one of your books. However, I suggest leaving one side blank for notes. While that’s not strictly necessarily, it may end up cheaper for you, not to mention it having an actual purpose.

Bookmarks are particularly useful because not only can you put them in your own books, you can put them in library or bookstore books. Yes, they might be removed and discarded. However, you need to consider that these are loss leaders; you need to be ready to lose some cash on these.

Business Cards

These seem hit or miss. If you go to conventions and run a table or booth, you will need cards. And again, try to keep the back blank. Pro tip: use matte. Shiny card stock costs more and it makes it harder to write on the card. Because you want people writing on your cards. Oh, and don’t be stingy with them. Give them away. Meet someone? Give them a card. Someone stops by your table? Give them a card. Like bookmarks, these will be discarded by a lot of people. Accept that as a cost of doing business.

Tee Shirts

These can work really well if you have a fantastic and memorable cover design, or a great catch phrase. Imagine a tee shirt which has your cover on the front and your catch phrase on the back. You can make people into walking billboards this way. Be ready to give a lot of these away, and maybe even use them as contest prizes. Most people will not purchase these unless you become really famous. Again, this is a cost of doing business.

Toys and Action Figures

Funko Pops lets you design your own male and female characters. But volume is an issue here. And so is the startup cost. The blank figures in that link are almost $10 apiece. Hence a large run of these may not be in the cards – so take advantage of their rareness and play on the scarcity aspect when giving these away or selling them.

For other types of action figures, look at prices and consider what you want to settle with. If the figure doesn’t end up looking a lot like you, how will that make you feel? If the answer is ‘terrible, of course’, then you might want to do something else with your swag budget.

Swag: Some Takeaways

Giving away swag may seem counterintuitive. After all, you want to make money, rather than spend it. But if you are new on the scene, it can be a great way to get noticed and show how you’re different from all the rest.

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Community Management – Collection of Users to True CommunityCommunity Management, Scale. Freshening, Get Together, Love, Small Things, Without Management, True Community, Party Started, Terrible Netizen, Snakes, Circle Game, Look, Netizen, Corralling, Wandering off Topic, Facebook versus Forums, Superstar Users, Analytics, Community Roundtable, Community Management Haikus, Life of a Community Manager, Social Media Job Descriptions, Superstar Users, Community Roundtable 2010

Community Management – Collection of Users to True Community

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on September 10, 2020

Going From a Collection of Users to a True Community

What is a True Community?

I’ve written at least seven obituaries.

That is, perhaps, an odd thing to confess. But when Jill, Kevin, Paul, Joanne, Olen, Joan, and Mary all passed on, it was up to me to write something, to not only commemorate their lives, but to try to help comfort a grieving community.

I am not saying you will write as many, or even if you will ever write even one. And I certainly hope you will never have to, as they can be gut-wrenching. But it was with the first one – Mary’s – that it became manifest (if it was not already self-evident) that, to paraphrase the old Brady Bunch theme, this group had somehow formed a family.

How Can This Happen to Your True Community (Without the Tragic Part)?

But no one has to cross over to the other side in order for your collection of users to coalesce into a Community with a capital C. The secret is very simple, although many companies don’t want to hear it: it’s going off-topic.

Let us assume, for example, that your community is a corporate-run one. And the product is a soft drink. Corporate tells you to stay on topic, on message. However, your users are saying something very different.

For it is easy, as you’re talking about the soft drink, to slide into discussing foods eaten with it (frankly, for such a community you’d almost have to go off-topic. Nobody but a truly dedicated corporate marketer can talk about a soft drink 24/7). Food slides into a discussion of recipes. Recipes turn into a talk about entertaining. And then suddenly you’re off to the races and talking about family relationships.

Corporate tries to pull you back on topic. Yet your users pull the true community ever further away. And they pinball from family relationships to dating, raising children, and elder care, if you let them.

The Community Manager’s Role

Here is where you, as the Community Manager, can talk to Corporate and forge a compromise. Corporate needs for people to talk about the product, tout it, and virally promote it. And they need people to make well-ranked (on Google) topics about it. Corporate may also realize that they need to hear the bad news about the product as well. The users need to talk.

So make a compromise. Create an off-topic area and move all off-message topics there. And be fairly loose with your definition of what’s on topic. In our soft drink example, the recipes topics, even if they don’t use the product as an ingredient, are still close enough so you can consider them on topic.

Also, don’t be surprised if the corollary is true. Hence topics that begin on message veer off it, even by the time of the first responsive post. That’s okay. Those topics should still be considered to be on message. Because Google is far more concerned with a forum topic’s title and initial post than with its tenth response.

The Benefits of the Off-Topic Section

Don’t be shocked if your off-topic section becomes a large one. And recognize that you and your Moderating staff (if you have one) may need to make on message topics in order to continue creating germane content. But your true community will be talking and the site will be a lively one.

It’s a party that’s going nonstop, your users will stick around and from this you can build a marketing database. And that is one of the standard corporate aims behind creating a community in the first place.

So when your users start talking about life events, such as births, school, divorce, moving, jobs, marriage, children and, yes, deaths, it matters. And when they start supporting each other through each of these phases, it marks a bright line distinction between a haphazard agglomeration of users and a true team of like-minded individuals.

Finally, that team, that family, that army, is what being in a true community is really all about.

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Community Management – From Small Things

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on September 3, 2020

Community Management Tidbits – From Small Things

What kind of small things? Small forums!

Every forum starts out small. Getting started is one thing. How do you get big?

The secrets to getting big go hand in hand with those for getting started: Search Engine Optimization and content.

Small Things Like SEO

Let’s start with SEO. If you haven’t checked your keywords in three months, check them now. Compare to your competitors, and check Google Adwords. Consider changing up your keywords for a while and see if you can draw more traffic.

The basic principles of offsite SEO apply: get your site listed on other sites which are more popular. Also, consider article marketing (if appropriate) and guest blogging. Perhaps some of your best content can be repurposed as articles or blog entries.

Ask the creator(s) of that content for their permission (even if your Terms of Service say that you own all posts, this is courteous) and update and repackage the content. Articles are a great way to generate interest in your site so long as you add your URL into the “About the Author” section.

And make it clear that you allow reprint rights only so long as the article remains completely intact, including the aforementioned “About the Author” section.

Blogging

One good blog deserves another. If you want to see if your better content can go on others’ blogs, why not create your own site blog? So at the absolute minimum, you can use it to inform your users of site changes and planned outages. But you can use it for a whole lot more.

Because you can showcase and expand better content, announce contests and promotions, and keep important site information front and center. Plus, if you add a blog, you can again make the rounds of basic social media bookmarking sites like Reddit.

Add an RSS feed if you have not already. You can feed it into Twitter and Facebook using a promotional site like HootSuite.

Facebook

Create a Facebook fan page and, at minimum, populate it with the RSS feed. And also use it to assure users if your site goes down, particularly for unexpected outages. Because such an outage can make some users nervous. So, Facebook (and Twitter, too) can be a means by which you reassure them.

Small Things About Site Redesign

Another area where you might be able to better grow your user base is with some site redesign. Be careful with this as a community can often take (frequently somewhat unfounded) proprietary interest in the site’s look and feel.

One way you can ease users into a change is by telling them (don’t ask for permission) that you’re going to be testing some site changes. Consider using A/B testing and compare a few different versions and see which one works better.

Simplified Registration

Consider simplifying your registration process, if you can, and embrace user-centered design. You still want to use a captcha code and you still want to have your members sign up with a real, usable email address.

But look at your process and see if there are any unnecessary hurdles. Are you asking for something like a potential user’s middle name or home city? Isn’t that kind of useless (and many users would feel that the home city information would be excessively intrusive)? Jettison the question and your registrations might increase.

Since you’re tinkering with the signup process and not the overall look and feel of the site, your regular membership might not take so much of a proprietary interest. They might not even notice.

Analysis

Check your metrics. Small things on a daily basis are not going to matter too much. But if you’ve got a continuing decline over time, or if membership is staying the same and not really increasing much, you may need to take action.

To grow your site, you need to continue to promote fundamental principles: improve your site design and test it; take care to add and promote good, keyword-rich content; and continue good onsite and offsite SEO practices. And be patient as small things become bigger ones. Most communities weren’t built in a day.

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The Best Lengths for Social Media Posts and More

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on September 1, 2020

What Are The Best Lengths for Social Media Posts?

Best Lengths for social posts can seem elusive. What’s right? Does it ever change?

The fine folks at Buffer and, in particular, Kevan Lee, have done it again and have everything you always wanted to know about social post lengths but were afraid to ask.

In my travels online, I have seen blog posts that were under 50 words long. I have seen blog posts that were a good 10,000 words long. Tweets, of course, are limited. But there have been plenty of Pinterest pins with just an image and nothing else. Or they’ve got enough verbiage behind them to seemingly rival War and Peace. So, what’s ideal? Is there any science behind it?

Blogs

How long should blog posts be? Buffer likes blog post titles to be six words long (oops, this blog post’s title is too long). Interestingly enough, the blog post where I got the inspiration for this blog post from also has a title that is too long.

Sometimes, six words is just not long enough.

Thanks to Buffer for this graphic.

Interestingly enough, Buffer said blog posts are best at 1,600 words in length.

However, Yoast (the fine makers of an SEO plugin I use for my own blog posting–as do many other people!) provides good SEO credit for blog posts that are at least 300 words in length.

The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but one thing is for sure – those fifty-word blog posts just plain are not long enough.

Facebook

How big should a Facebook post be? Buffer said forty characters.

Keep it short, snappy, and to the point. According to Lee, Facebook posts that exceed forty characters degrade in engagement as they get longer.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that 700-word screed you wrote? Better make that a blog post instead and just link to it. But if you put the whole thing on Facebook, people will scroll right on by. Yes, even if you add an image.

Here’s a trick to get around the forty-character wall – links show the title and some text, and you can always change these.

Or add an image with some text. But don’t go nuts! It is very, very easy to hit and exceed critical mass.

Best Lengths for LinkedIn Posts

How long should a LinkedIn post be? Buffer clocks in at twenty-five words, based upon clickthrough data.

Pinterest

How large should a Pinterest image be?

Buffer’s got you covered – 735px x 1102px. These taller pins seem to stand out more, and are therefore shared more often.

Best Lengths for Twitter Posts

How long should an effective Tweet be? Buffer said to limit it to 71 – 100 characters, in order to provide some space for people to comment before sending out a modified tweet (MT).

So keep hashtags at six characters for maximal impact. Yes, we all know that people sometimes use hashtags as a bit of wry commentary.

Tumblr in particular seems to inspire hashtags like #DudeLooksLikeALady (and not just for fans of Aerosmith). Excessive hashtagging is one of the characteristics of Instagram. However, the best length hashtag on Twitter has six characters.

Best Lengths for Posts: Takeaways

TL; DR – Check out the chart, and the cited article, for more information. The research on best lengths for posts is sound, and fascinating, and the article was a hell of a find.

Is it still relevant, years later? Eh, kind of. You make the call, sports fans.

The best lengths for social media posts keep changing. But there’s one constant in life—cut to the chase!

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