Small, Medium, and Large: where should content creators share their content?

I maintain a presence across a bunch of social media sites, including FB, where I have both a personal profile and an author page, twitter, where I try (and usually fail) to be pithy and succinct, tumblr, where I go to find stuff about my fandom loves, and Google Plus, my 'home base' on the 'net as well as my water cooler conversation stop.

One of the communities I participate in on G+ is the Saturday Scenes initiative, where writers across genres and geographies, post scenes of their work each Saturday. 

In an effort to give the scenes higher visibility, I also cross post them to my FB author page and I've also started to do so on Medium.

Medium has a lovely reading interface and is primarily a place for non-fiction, but I liked the idea of having a repository of my work in one easy to find site, so I gave Medium a try.

There is a risk involved in all of these 'silos' in which we post content. The down side is any of them could fold up shop and disappear, taking our content with them. Or they could be a victim of the next-big-thing syndrome, where participants and readers abandon it to true ghost town status. 

Of course, I could simply post my scenes to my own small home on the net via my website - the only space I truly own and control - but the limitation of that is the lack of discoverability and serendipity. 

There is a chance that someone on Medium or G+, for example, might stumble upon my scenes via a hashtag, a recommendation, or random browse, since they're already there. In order for someone to find my work via my website, they need to know I exist. 

This is one of the reasons I love browsing in bookstores and libraries: In the search for something I think I'm looking for, I find something I didn't know I wanted. It's one of the limitations of digital content, IMO. And while Amazon isn't the only market to display this problem, it's the largest, so yes, Amazon, I'm looking at you.

They say the digital bookshelf is forever, that there's infinite room for infinite books to be placed on it. And that is very true. But how useful is that bookshelf if browsing it is virtually (pun intended) impossible? 

For now, I post my #SaturdayScenes offerings in three places: G+, Medium, and FB. I am considering also hosting them on my own website, though that is a task for another day when I'm not staring at a writing deadline.

I'm also considering creating a storefront there where my books can be purchased directly from me. Again, I don't expect to be competing with the big gorilla in the room, but I am concerned about how much power we give over to the digital retailers in return for the chance to sell our work.

We don't own any of our download or purchasing data on Amazon, et al. And, when you think about it, that's likely the more valuable property for them then our individual books. The retailers use the purchase information as a way to sell more goods to more people via targeted advertisement. I don't begrudge them that. However, it's more than a little frustrating to see one's own intellectual property and livelihood being used as a tiny data point.

This is one of the reasons I have an email newsletter. If someone subscribes - and they must opt-in to do so - that person is a fan of my work and is asking me to let them know about future work. 

 Serendipity seems to be a casualty of our digital marketplace. This is a blow to new and unestablished writers. The #SaturdayScenes project is one attempt to bring back a little serendipity to creative work. If you are a creator, what other ways do you combat the silo effect? If you are a reader, what ways to you stumble upon new work to read?

 #SFWApro
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Promises Kept: Time and Tithe is finished

Working out the 'end game' (don't worry, it makes sense to me)

When I started writing THE BETWEEN in October of 2008, I had no idea it would become a novel, much less have a sequel. The story emerged from a prompt in a writer's group meeting at my local library. One of the other writers gave us the sentence: The sky went dark. We then had 20 minutes to write.

That was the beginning of Lydia's tale.

While THE BETWEEN was my first publication, it represented my fifth completed manuscript, and it took me 8 months to write its first draft. From that point in the summer of 2009 to its publication date in January of 2012, the story was revised four times before I believed it was ready for prime time.

It was only after the story was finished that I understood it was not complete. Or rather, while Lydia's original story has a complete ending, the conclusion of the novel raised a lot of new questions to be answered. I made a promise to myself that I would write an answer to those questions and tackle the monster that is a sequel.

But first I had other novels to write. Between 2009 and 2010, I wrote FUTURE TENSE. Between 2010 and 2011, an as yet unnamed and yet to be revised ghost story. Then in a furious burst of writing, DERELICT in 2012. I wasn't able to return to the sequel from hell until October of 2013, exactly five years after starting THE BETWEEN.

TIME AND TITHE took 9 months to draft. That's nearly twice the amount of time as it took me to draft DERELICT. I struggled with returning to the voice of the characters I had created so long ago, and since I had not initially planned to write a second novel in that universe, I had never created a reference bible for it. Now I had to find a way to inhabit the self I was when I wrote Lydia's story, and find a way to continue it, deepen it, yet remain true to the original. 

I think I have done that with TIME AND TITHE. What excited me about the story was the chance to explore relationships and how time changes them. In THE BETWEEN, Lydia is 18, her sister, Taylor is about 6. But time moves differently between Faerie and the mortal world, and when TIME AND TITHE begins, it's only been months for Lydia, but years for Taylor.

The sisters are now the same age.

And Faerie wants both of them.

I've been sharing snippets and short scenes on Google Plus, during #SaturdayScenes. You can read them by searching for #ljsatscenes (https://plus.google.com/u/0/explore/ljsatscenes) Scroll down to the bottom, as they are presented in reverse chronological order like in a blog.

While I'm hammering away at the revision, I've sent notes to the cover artist and am awaiting a concept sketch. If the stars align, TIME AND TITHE will be ready for release in January of 2014.

SaturdayScenes on Google Plus

I am a member of the largest writing group on Google Plus: the more than 11,000 member strong Writer's Discussion Group, started by John Ward. John is a force to be reckoned with. He runs an extremely well moderated community that promotes rich discussions and authentic networking among writers.

A week ago, he promoted an idea he had of sharing scenes from works in progress, unified under the hashtag #SaturdayScenes, with a common graphic. And today is the inaugural post.

There are some really kick-ass work being shared, so if you are interested in sneak peeks into what a bunch of talented writers are working on, head over to google plus and search under #SaturdayScenes.

I shared a scene from DERELICT, my upcoming SF release. You can read the scene here.