Category Archives: Just Stuff

Just my babbling, website related stuff — or whatever doesn’t fit in the other categories ;)

Just Stuff

2019 Eligibility

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I worked on some things this year which are eligible for awards.  Here is a quick and dirty list of those things 🙂

Short stories

  • “Blame it on the Bubble Gum”, In Places Between, IFWA, August 2019*
  • “Maxwell”, Kzine, September 2019

Poems

  • “Grampa Got Bit”, Horror Sleaze Trash, May 2019
  • “Avalanche”, Corvid Queen, August 2019
  • “Fulcrum Point”, Dreams & Nightmares, September 2019*
  • “No Affect”, Illumen, Autumn 2019

Anthologies

  • F is for Fairy, Poise and Pen Publishing, May 2019
  • Earth: Giants, Golems and Gargoyles, Tyche Books, August 2019
  • Grimm, Grit and Gasoline, World Weaver Press, September 2019 *

Long Form Editor

  • Haunting the Haunted by E.C. Bell, Tyche Books
  • The Cassandra Complex by Wendy Nikel, World Weaver Press
  • The Causality Loop by Wendy Nikel, World Weaver Press

I am also eligible for short form editor for my work in the aforementioned anthologies.

If you are nominating for any major awards (and I count the Auroras among those) and would like to read and consider any of my eligible works, get in touch and we’ll make it happen.

Thank you.

Just Stuff, Patreon

Patreon

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Real talk.

There’s this conversation that always happens when you put myself and some of my writerly friends together in a room. It’s the ‘what we do has value, we have value’ conversation.

It can take many forms. Sometimes it’s the ‘This industry is so broken’ conversation, sometimes it’s ‘Hey, my royalties bought me a coffee this month!’ said with sadness-tinged humour, sometimes it is a straight-up talk along the lines of ‘Why do we do this?’ or ‘How do we fix this?’ or ‘Look, this is how much I made last year — am I a failure?’

It’s a conversation that wears many faces, and touches on different aspects of the thing, but at its center it’s about worth and value.

Partly it’s about money because, like it or not, our society does judge people based on how much money they make and we are a part of our society. And I, personally, make far, far less working in publishing full time than I would if I had a part time job making minimum wage.

That’s just a fact.

I’ve been doing this full time for… oh, ten, twelve years now? I have not one, but two ego shelves full of books I’ve had a hand in creating (contributed to, written, edited or published). I work hard. Hard. 40 or more (usually more) hours a week, every week. And I would make more money working at McDonalds part time.

But it’s not just about money.

This job is tough. It erodes you. People talk about needing to have a thick skin to work in publishing, but that’s not really accurate. You need to have a thick skin, and armor, and a shield, and… you get the idea.

Or do you?

If you work in publishing you probably have an idea of how it goes, but in case you don’t, let’s look at just a wee part of the life cycle of a book…

You write the book — in itself a huge feat — but you get it done. And edited. And polished up to be as good as you can make it. The first time you do this probably takes years. After that, when you get more practiced you may be able to do it in months.

You start submitting the book — maybe you’re querying agents, maybe you’re pitching it to publishers. Whoever you are submitting your book to you’re going to start collecting rejections. Probably a lot of rejections. A lot of people saying no — some more kindly than others. A lot. Rejection %s will change depending on what specific path you take here but they will be high.

But then, Hallelujah! Someone says yes and agrees to publish your book. You get the contract and everything looks good (though sometimes you get the contract and it’s obvious you’re being preyed upon and you have to go back to submitting…) so you sign it and you’re on your way. Yay! The rejections can stop, right?

Uh. No.

After you go through the editing process (which can definitely feel grueling, especially if it’s your first time through) you finally have a finished product. Your book. Yay!

Now you need to get blurbs for it. And reviews. So you try giving it away. You pay people (Goodreads, NetGalley, BookSprout) to help you give it away… but for every 20 people you ask only 1 accepts a copy of your book. The one you worked so hard for. The one you put your heart on the line for. The one you cried for. And then, of the hundred or so people you are finally able to get to accept a (free) copy of your book only 1 leaves a review for it after they read it.

But at least you got a couple reviews, right? So that’s a tiny victory. But now it’s time to sell your book. The one you struggled to give away…

And that’s as far down that road as we’re going to go in this blog post. And every path is different — not just for every author but for each specific book — but you see it, don’t you? How every step of the way we’re dealing with rejection in crazy amounts. With disheartening situations.

I think, no matter how confident  someone may be when they start down that road, it eats away at you. And then when we reach the end of that path and our book is out in the world and we’re promoting it and hoping it will find its audience what do we do? We start writing the next book and do it all over again…

Is it worth it? For me, right now, it is because I’ve met some amazing, amazing people in these word trenches that I’m proud to call friends. But it’s still hard. And I still feel the need to qualify my answer to questions like ‘Is it worth it’ with ‘for now’. Yes, for now. Because you never know…

Which brings me to why I started a Patreon. I started a Patreon to slow the ride, or at least add an extra layer of padding between my skin and my armor. The trickle of money will be nice, there’s no doubt about it, but I’m most excited about the possibility that the next time I’m feeling down and questioning the value of these things I do I’ll be able to look at my Patreon and say, “It’s tough, this path I’ve chosen, but look, Rhonda. These five, ten, thirteen people, they think what you’re doing has value enough that they are supporting it not just verbally, but financially.” And that will be huge.

But I’m also terrified that I’ll announce this, that I will try to make this Patreon work, and I’ll fail, and that rejection will hurt the hardest.

I hesitated even to type that because I don’t want it to sound like a guilt trip but I promised real talk from the very first line of this post, and that’s it. Real talk. The realest talk.

Some people’s Patreons make them thousands of dollars a month and while that would be amazing I’m not foolish enough to think it’s reasonable for me and my audience. My dream is to reach 50 patrons and whatever numbers of dollars a month that equals ($150?).

And I feel weirdly greedy and unrealistic when I say that? Even though I’ve created some great reward tiers for people who sign up to support me over there.

Patronage begins at $1 a month and will get you access to exclusive stories, poems, audio books, polls (to pick what I work on next), behind the scenes content and see cover and TOC reveals before the general public.

Other tiers reward patrons with advance copies of my ebooks, signed paperbacks, my editing your stories, surprises in the mail and more.

If you’re even a little intrigued please check it out here –> https://www.patreon.com/RhondaParrish

Pledges aren’t billed until the end of the month so you can try it out for free for nearly three weeks and see if you feel I’m offering you enough value for your money before the time comes to be charged. Like a free trial.

For the foreseeable future I will be moving most of my blogging over there (calls for submissions and such will be available to the public, not just my patrons). I’ll mirror calls for submissions and such here for now as well, I would eventually like to move all my blogging to Patreon so everything is all in one place but I have issues giving up control of my blog so we’ll see what happens — which side of my brain wins this battle.

In the meantime, thank you for reading this — whether or not you checked out my Patreon link. Every acceptance is a win, and you reading all the way to the end of this very long, somewhat depressing, post is definitely an acceptance, and I appreciate you making the road a wee bit smoother. <3

Just Stuff

Quick Change

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Quick note to let you know about a quick, and hopefully short term, change to this blog.

The previous theme I was using started messing with my pages so I have temporarily switched over to this theme until I find the time and space to hire someone to do the full make-over this website needs (which requires stuff done on the back end which is beyond my abilities).

However, this theme displays things somewhat differently than the old one did so posts made before today (2/19/19) may be formatted somewhat oddly.

Just Stuff

Dear Santa,

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For the past few years (OMG it’s been seven. Seven years! O_O) I’ve written a letter to Santa and shared it on my blog. This year’s is the shortest so far, and yet…

Dear Santa,

My 2016 and my 2017 letters to you began with me talking about how tough the year had been… I mean… Maybe let’s just not focus on that LOL Instead, let’s focus on the fact I was pretty damn good this year, Santa. I mean, I always aim to be kind to those around me, but this year I made an extra big effort to do that. And I vaguebooked far less than I did last year. And I whined… okay, so maybe I still whined a fair bit, and I definitely still swear more than my grandmother would like, but surely that is a small thing in the grand scheme of things?

This year I would really, really like a whole week (okay, that’s greedy. Maybe five days? Five days.) five consecutive days when I don’t need to do anything work related or leave the house (except to walk to the corner store to catch Pokemons and get a pop). I will spend those days staying up too late, sleeping in too long, playing ridiculous amounts of video games, reading whatever I want and snuggling on the couch with Jo.

Oh, and also? Remember those baseboard and transition things I asked for back in 2011? I could still use those.

What? Don’t judge.

Merry Giftmas, Santa.

Best,

Rhonda

 

Editing, Just Stuff, Writing

Award Eligibility

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Time is crazy.

I thought I had lots of time to get around to making an award eligibility blog post… and then World Weaver Press tweeted yesterday to remind people about all the things they’d published that were eligible and I started flailing like, “OMG nominations are open!!”

So here is my rather brief and very belated list of works I did last year which would be eligible for award nomination this year:

Short Story
“Starry Night”, In Places Between short story contest, IFWA, August 2017

Non-fiction
Haunted Hospitals (co-written with Mark Leslie), Dundurn Press, August, 2017

Anthologies
D is for Dinosaur, Poise and Pen Publishing, February 21, 2017
Equus, World Weaver Press, July 18, 2017
Mrs. Claus: Not the Fairy Tale They Say, World Weaver Press, November 28, 2017

I am also eligible for short form editor for my work in the aforementioned anthologies, and for long form editor for my work on Dream Eater by K. Bird Lincoln.

If you are nominating for any major awards (and I count the Auroras among those) and would like to read any of my eligible works, just get in touch and we’ll make it happen.

Thank you.

D is for Dinosaur, Editing, Equus, Just Stuff, Writing

When Words Collide 2017 Recap

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What. A. Weekend.

I’m not going to even attempt to give a blow-by-blow accounting of When Words Collide because I couldn’t possibly. Not only would this post be impossibly long but my over-stressed memory is so bad these days that I would absolutely forget something or somebody and that would make me sad.

In fact, even while I was at the con if people asked how my weekend was going I would usually say “Ask me on Tuesday”. This weekend was fantastic, but simultaneously a bit overwhelming (which, really, is kind of my theme for 2017).

Well, it’s Tuesday so let me just say, my weekend was fantastic 🙂

First of all there was this:

"Believe" by Barbara Tomporowski

This year has been hard. I severely over-scheduled myself and the stress of that, coupled with dealing with some non-work things and a slight depression has taken quite a toll on me. I’m not going to go into details about that (that’s a topic for a different blog post) but, yeah, it’s been difficult. So when Barbara gave me a copy of this photograph which she’s entitled “Believe” along with some incredibly encouraging and supportive words I cried. It means more to me than I can put in words to have someone say, “I see what you’re doing. Great job. Keep it up. And also, are you okay?”

I’ll be framing this photo and hanging it over my desk.

Thank you Barbara.

<3

And a special thank you also to Ellen who provided similar but different validation to my work and additional incentive to keep on keepin’ on. With your incredible energy, enthusiasm and propensity for thinking out of the box I can’t wait to see what you create in the years to come.

Ever since I launched Fae at my very first WWC it’s been a sort of tradition for me to launch each new installment of the Magical Menageries there. Equus was no different.

I mean, it was different, but we launched it there just the same 😉

This is what our panel looked like. Well, to be honest Megan looked a wee bit different in person than she does in that photograph. I can’t imagine why…*

We have, from left to right, Hal J. Friesen, Susan MacGregor, C.S. MacCath, M.L.D Curelas , Sandra Wickham, V.F. LeSann (Leslie Van Zwol and Megan Fennell, Pat Flewwelling, Chadwick Ginther and Cat McDonald.

In addition to Equus contributors there are two D is for Dinosaur authors included in that rowdy bunch.

The reading was awesome and included flying cellphones, yeehaws, accents galore, laughs and tears. I am so lucky that I get to work with such amazing people.

And then this happened:

I’ve never won a short story contest before, I was pretty stunned and kind of floated through the rest of the day in a weird state of shock.

In Places Between is a short story contest organized by the Imaginative Fiction Writers Association that is dedicated to the memory of Robyn Herrington. In fact, the dedication on the associated anthology which contains all the stories that were finalists in the contest says:

Dedicated to the memory of

Robyn Meta Herrington (1961 – 2004)

Who believed so passionately in paying it forward,

She still is.

I never met Robyn but after winning the contest dedicated to her memory I spent some time with Barb Galler-Smith learning about her. She sounds amazing and I can only hope people speak so highly of me once I’m gone as they do of her. Thank you, Barb, for sharing some of your memories with me.

Before the con was done I had one more panel. This one was with Mark Leslie where we talked about collaborative publishing and how Haunted Hospitals came to be. The panel turned into an interesting discussion between Mark, myself and the audience and was a lovely way to end the programming.

The next day was time to come home, and on the drive back to Edmonton with S.G. Wong she helped me unknot a really annoying characterization problem for a novel that’s been collecting dust on my desk for years. Now, I’m really excited to re-write the thing over the three day novel weekend (I’m not officially registered), which is a much better state of mind than the ‘What am I going to write? What am I going to write?’ one I had been in before that. So yay!

Overall it was an awesome weekend, made so by many, many people (most of which aren’t listed here by name because if I did this blog post would be far too long). If you organised, volunteered or attended When Words Collide thank you for helping make it an amazing weekend.

See you next year!

 

 

*Just guessing here but it might be because she’s a brat…

Fire: Demons, Dragons and Djinn, Just Stuff

Fire Wishlist

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I want to take a few minutes to talk about my wishlist for Fire: Demons, Dragons and Djinns, and yes, that is a rooster up there. I chose it specifically because it’s probably not what you’d expect to see at the top of a blog post about fire and fiery creatures.

And the number one thing I really want to see in the submissions to Fire is something completely appropriate and yet wholly unexpected.

Like a fiery rooster. Because why should phoenixes get to have all the fun? 😉

Fire is dramatic. It is bold. Ferocious. Powerful. Beautiful. Terrifying. It can consume everything in its path, or push back the darkness so you can see the terrors which loom all around you. It can purify or purge. Brand or bless.

Above all I want to see stories that embrace those first five descriptors:

  • Dramatic
  • Bold
  • Ferocious
  • Powerful
  • Beautiful

And any tale which captures the dichotomy of fire, the yin-yang of it (without smacking me in the face with it) will get serious bonus points.

Including those things doesn’t mean you need to exclude other things though. A story can be both dramatic and funny. You can write beautifully about ugly things. Meek characters can do bold things — or a bold prose style can make readers fall in love with a character for their weaknesses (or despite them).

I’m going to get a bit more specific here than I usually do on these wishlist-type posts because there are specific creatures named right there in the title of the anthology. Demons, dragons and djinns.

When you’re submitting to an anthology the smart tactic is to try and make your story stand out in a positive way. In this case that might mean choosing to write about the most obscure fire creature/magician/thing you can possibly think of–and don’t get me wrong, that’s not a bad strategy–but here’s the thing… I need some demons, dragons and djinns.

Ideally I would like about a quarter of the stories I accept to be dragon-y, a quarter to be demon-y and the last half to surprise me… but include at least two which are djinn-y.

I say ‘dragon-y’, ‘demon-y’ and ‘djinn-y’ because a dragon-y story doesn’t need to have the dragon as the main character, nor does it need to be all about the dragon. It just has to be dragon-y. It’s like truthiness, I suppose.

(Quick side note about dragons, specifically — it probably goes without saying but for this anthology I’m looking for fiery dragons. Save the water, air and earth dragons for those later anthologies :-p)

The point I was trying to make before I went off on that bit of a ramble is I really do need some dragons, demons and djinns in this anthology so if you have a great idea for a demon story and a good idea for a salamander story but you’re thinking, “Nah, everyone is going to be sending in demon stories and I don’t want to compete with them all — I’ll write this salamander story instead.” don’t. Go for the great idea.

Confession:

Djinns are mostly in the subtitle because I am an alliteration hound, I love djinns, and I could make an argument for them being fiery creatures. Alas, since I can also make an argument for them being born of air I don’t intend for them to take up as much of the Table of Contents as dragons and demons. Though you never know, if I get enough amazing djinn stories that could totally change.

I want an ifrit story (bonus points if it’s actually set within ifrit society and the ifrits are demonstrably different from humans!), and a salamander story. Someone please send me a story with a lava monster and, possibly related, a fire mage. No fire anthology would be complete without a phoenix story, and any story that includes a hellhound (especially one that’s misunderstood) will likely discover the path to my shortlist is… well, short.

But you don’t need me to give you a list of creatures associated with fire, do you? Google can do that better than I can.

And, because I’ve been asked, you don’t need fire-based creatures in your story, fire itself can fulfill the required fiery element for your tale.

Wildfires? Sure!

Michael Bay-type explosions? Why not?

Bombs dropping during The Blitz? Please!

Other things that will give you an advantage while submitting:

  • I am completely infatuated with WWI & WWII as a setting. Any story set during, between or shortly following them will definitely make my eyes light up when I begin reading.
  • A fiery solarpunk story? Think you can pull that off? I’d love to read it!
  • Anything that matches the aesthetic of artist Omar Gilani’s Pakistan+ series (plus fire!)
  • For this anthology I’ll be leaning further toward fantasy than science fiction or horror but fire in space? On a whole other planet?
  • Is fire sentient?
  • I’d like something that dates back to when humans first gained control over fire. Whether this takes the form of something set in prehistoric times or a take on more of a ‘How raven brought fire to the people’ or ‘How Prometheus stole fire from the gods’ type thing… well, that would be up to you.
    • Does man command fire, or does fire command man?
  • I like diverse characters and settings. And by diverse I mean in every way you can possibly imagine.
  • Have you got a fiery story that is set in the Arctic? *makes grabby hands*
  • Fiery fairy tale?
  • A story with absolutely no humans in it at all would be awesome.
  • Fire can transform. Got a fiery shapeshifter story to tell?

And if your story is nothing like anything I’ve described here — send it. Please send it. I love reading a great story about something I never could have imagined.

This anthology is the first volume in a brand new series. That means, to some extent, it is going to help define that series. Which means you get to help define that series. Is it going to be upbeat and fast-paced? Angsty and emotional? Fairy tales and folklore? Well, we’re going to find that out together 🙂

Finally, because it’s become an FAQ–probably the best way to get an idea of what I like is to read one of my other anthologies, but when in doubt–submit. The worst thing that can happen is I’ll say no. And I’m not a jerk about it, I promise.

Fiery stallion
Dragon castle
Man walking through darkness
Rooster metal
Man and dragon
phoenix bird flying up in the sky, painting graphic collage.
Black Angel. Pretty girl-demon with black wings. An image for Halloween. Image of an old book of fairy tales. Fashionable toning
warrior and a dragon

Call for Submissions:

The ability for people to control (to some extent at least) fire has long been held as one of the major events that contributed to human evolution, but when fire eludes or escapes our control it is also one of the most destructive forces on earth. Associated with passion, power, transformation and purification, fire is a ferocious element with an unquenchable appetite.

We want to explore the many facets of this beautifully furious element and the creatures associated with it so Fire: Demons, Dragons and Djinns will be filled with stories about every kind of fiery creature you can imagine, not only those listed in the subtitle. We’re looking for phoenixes, ifrits, salamanders, lava monsters and fiery beasts no one has ever heard of before. And of course this anthology will not be complete without at least one demon, dragon and djinn!

Rights and compensation: Payment: $50 CAD flat fee and a paperback copy of the anthology. In exchange we are seeking first world rights in English and exclusive right to publish in print and electronic format for six months after publication date, after which publisher retains nonexclusive right to continue to publish for the life of the anthology.

Open submission period: June 1, 2017 – August 31, 2017 (extended from August 15th)

Length: Under 7,500 words

No simultaneous or multiple submissions.

No reprints.

Submit here

(http://bit.ly/FireAntho)

Because I’ve been asked — though payment is in Canadian dollars you do not need to be Canadian to submit. Everyone is welcome.

Just Stuff

Holiday Themed Anthologies

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Image by © 2000-2009 Dieter Spears

In addition to being an editor and anthologist I occasionally take the form of a writer which means I totally understand that if you write a short story specifically for an anthology you are taking a risk. Depending upon the theme if the story doesn’t make it into the anthology it’s intended for it can be a nightmare to try and place elsewhere. I also understand that, to varying degrees depending on your story, Mrs. Claus is that kind of tricksy anthology.

With that in mind I wanted to gather together a few other anthologies that are currently open to submissions and have a holiday theme. Perhaps some people who submitted unsuccessfully to Mrs. Claus might find a home for their stories here (because I pass on stories for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with quality). And perhaps some people might be inspired to write something new for them.

I am in no way affiliated with any of these anthologies and I don’t know anything about them, their editors, or publishers beyond what you can find on the submission pages I link to.

 

Bon Chance Press — Christmas short stories (romantic elements helpful but not required)

This one takes a different approach than I’ve seen elsewhere. You don’t submit the story but rather a pitch for a story?

Deadline: August 30th

 

Splickety Magazine — Wreck the Halls

They seem to be looking for funny, heart-warming Christmas stories for this one.

Deadline: September 22nd

 

Black Heart Magazine — Holiday Hell

Sounds like a bit of a darker take on the holiday theme. Submissions don’t open until the end of June.

Deadline: October 30th

 

Thank you, Sarena, for helping me track these down. If anyone else knows of any other holiday themed anthologies that are currently open to submissions please let me know, I will be happy to add them to the list!

 

Just Stuff

Facebook Launch Parties

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I’m not going to bore you with the long story because this is a long blog post all by itself even without the detailed explanation. The short version is I’m writing a couple ‘How to’ type things for writers. One of those things is this thing about hosting a successful Facebook launch party for your book. Take a peek, give it a read and then give me a shout if you think of anything I’ve missed. This is my first draft (I know, I know…) so there’s still plenty of room for revisions and additions 🙂

Facebook Launch Parties

Facebook launch parties, like any event involving the internet and other people, have highly variable success rates but there are some things you can do to maximize your chances of having a fun and effective one.

The first thing you ought to do is define what your primary goal is. If you don’t know that how can you judge your success rate? Are you looking to just have fun and celebrate the book’s release? Want to generate ‘Likes’ for your page? Get reviews? Add subscribers to your mailing list? Sell copies of the book?

Bonus points to you if you create a measurable goal. “I want to add XX new subscribers to my mailing list” is a more meaningful goal than “I want to add new subscribers to my mailing list”. Similarly, “I want to sell five copies of my book between when the party begins and when it ends” is more helpful than “I want to sell more copies of my book” or even “I want to sell five copies of my book”.

As you plan, set up, host and contend with the aftermath of a Facebook launch party you’ll want to keep that goal at the forefront of your mind. It will directly impact all of the choices you make through the entire process.

 

Choosing a Date

Keep your goal in mind when you choose the date for your event. For example, if you want to increase your total reviews you could plan the event for a week or two after release but if your goal is to make some sales you’ll probably want to schedule the party to happen on release day or shortly after. Whatever your goal is you’ll want to pick a party date that is far enough in the future that you’ll have time to organize the event, maximize attendance and build some anticipation for it.

I’ve held parties that were all day long and parties that were just a few hours. I highly recommend the later. Day-long events might seem like a good idea but stretching things out too long means you rarely have multiple guest on at the same time so they can’t interact in real time and it also makes for a really long day for you as the host.

Given different time zones and people’s schedules trying to choose the perfect two or three hour window in the day can seem like an impossible task. Because it is. You’re never going to make everyone happy so my advice (barring extenuating circumstances) is to go with what works best for you. You’re probably the only person who is going to be there from start to finish so in this case it’s okay to be a little selfish.

 

Create the Event Page

Use a custom header for your event page. If you’re not awesome with graphics that’s okay, there are free services like https://www.canva.com/ that will help you look professional even if you don’t know how to do anything more than drag and drop.

Include all the information your guests will need on the event page(don’t forget the five Ws—who, what, where, when and why) and make sure you emphasize the ‘why’ part. Give your guest a real reason to show up. People are invited to tonnes of Facebook events every day so you need to find something to set your event apart from the rest. Are you giving away an awesome door prize? Offering exclusive content of some kind? Unusual access to the author/editor/publisher/contributors/artist/your dog/something? Games? Contests? Whatever the thing is that makes your event special make sure that is front and centre.

 

The Door Prize

I always offer a prize to the attendee who invites the most people to the party. The door prize is meant to be an incentive for people to spread the word and invite their friends (who will, one hopes, invite their friends. And they’ll tell two friends, and they’ll tell two friends…).

I try to make it something of value (this doesn’t have to be monetary value, just value to the person winning it) that is not the book I’m promoting. The exception for this might be if the goal of my party was to get more reviews, but otherwise I want people to buy the book not wait to see if they won it instead.

If you’re feeling especially ambitious you could also ask your friends who are writers (or create any sort of product somehow related to the book you are launching) if they’d like to donate prizes to the event as well. Done correctly this can benefit both parties—you get prizes and they get some promotion—but it will increase your workload significantly.

 

The Event Itself

Ideally the goal is to strike a balance between structured posts and unstructured conversation. You want to avoid having a stilted and dry event where you’re posting things and people are pausing in their scrolling for just long enough to click ‘like’ before continuing on. At the same time if the conversation turns into a free-for-all you are highly unlikely to accomplish your goals for the launch—you need to maintain some measure of control.

I aim for one post every ten or fifteen minutes and spend the time between those posts chatting in the comments of all the posts with my guests. I also consider it a total victory when I spot participants engaging with one another directly instead of always going through me—that’s how you know the party is actually a party and not just one big commercial for your book.

Each post I make contains three things:

  • A picture
    • Something to catch my guest’s eye and make them want to stop and read what I have to say. Also, posts with pictures are more likely to be shared, which would be an added bonus, amirite?
  • The content of my post
    • I usually aim for 100 – 150ish words. Long enough to have something to say but not so long that people can’t be bothered to read it and just keep scrolling. When a post does have to be longer than 100 words I break it up into several smaller paragraphs rather than presenting my guests with a big ole wall of text.
  • Something intended to stimulate conversation.
    • More often than not this is going to be a question (“What do you think?” “What’s your favourite thing?”) but sometimes, like in the case of a post that’s a contest entry, it will be a ‘Post such and such’ in order to enter to win!
      • If you ask your guests a question pay attention to their answers. Not only because it’s the right and respectful thing to do (which it is–the same as in a three dimensional conversation), but also because they might provide you with fodder for a new post/conversation as well.
      • Regarding contest entries. Sometimes it’s fun to send people on scavenger hunts (‘post a picture of the actor you’d cast to play so and so’ for example) but you do need to be careful because if you send your guests away from the party, even just to a different browser tab, they might become distracted and not make it back.

Don’t be afraid to use all the tools Facebook gives you to make your party memorable. Facebook Live, photos, videos, polls, sharing—all these things can be combined in creative ways to make your party stand out from the crowd. Experiment. See what happens.

 

After the Party

You’re not done just because the party is. Close, but not quite.

The first thing you need to do is make sure that all your prizes have been won and the winners notified. You also need to send out those prizes and follow-up with the people who have donated prizes to make sure they’ve sent theirs out as well. There’s no quicker way to anger a guest at your party than to promise them a prize and then not deliver. And I very much doubt ‘Make people mad at me’ was on that list of goals you made before the party began, was it?

That’s the next thing you need to do—honestly evaluate the success of the party. Did you meet your primary goal? This is where you’ll be super thankful to Past You for setting specific, measurable goals. If Past You didn’t do that you may not be able to clearly determine how successful you were, but you’ll probably have at least a vague idea.

How did things go? What went better than expected? Worse than expected? Make a note of these things—really. Write them down somewhere—they will provide incredibly useful information for you when it comes time to plan your next Facebook launch party. That is, assuming you’re going to have another Facebook launch party.

Give that some thought too. These events are not for everyone. Some people love them, some hate them. Some do very well with them and some don’t. If you love Facebook parties there may be some reward for you just in having them, regardless of how effective they are. However, if you aren’t having a good time your guests will probably sense that which is likely to impact your results. But even more than that, if you’re not having fun maybe your promotional energies would be better funneled in a different direction.

In the end, like so many things in this industry, it’s all very individualized. The best way to discover if a Facebook launch party is the right thing for you, though, is to throw one.

Good luck, and have fun!

Just Stuff, Personal

Dear Santa,

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Santa For the past several years I’ve written a letter to Santa Claus on my blog that includes a wishlist of gifts. This is not an actual wishlist that I want my friends or readers to buy me things from it’s just meant to be fun 🙂

Dear Santa,

This year has been rough. Really, really rough. But I’ve tried my best to be good — actively worked really hard at it, actually. If I’m not on your ‘Nice’ list this year, you really need to get a new list-maker. I mean, have you seen some of the ‘Naughty’ people out there in the world? Okay, I know, I know, comparing myself to others is not good and could easily lead to my name being put right alongside those people I’m judging. It’s hard, Santa, but I get it. Still, I hope I’m on your ‘Nice’ list because I have a few things I’d really like from you this year.

  • The Fairy Tale — this is a course offered through The Carterhaugh School and though there is no reasonable way for me to make time in my life to take this course, I want to. And given the subject matter, maybe it being nearly impossible for me to pull it off makes it even more appropriate that I do it? Think about it… 🙂
  • A Mysterious Package — Any of them! They all look so amazing! I really wanted to get the Filigree in Shadow one during their kickstarter (I suspect the object will be a camera-type thing) but that was pretty expensive. The ones on the website seem to be somewhat more reasonably priced, though still far from cheap. But still… it’s an experience!
  • A Big Wall Calendar — something like the one I linked would be great, but I’m not too picky. I just need something to help supplement the white board that keeps me sane.
  • I didn’t get to donate as much to Fauna this year as I like to do. If you could give them a donation on my behalf that would be awesome. I really appreciate the work they do and they could definitely use all the support they can get.
  • Finally, five years ago I said, “I could also really use some baseboards and riser thingers for my bathroom and kitchen. If we don’t finish them up soon they are just going to blend into the background and we’ll never get them done.” and yup, you guessed it. That’s still on the list for this year.

Thank you, Santa! Happy Ho Ho!

Rhonda

Just Stuff, NaNoWriMo

About Toilet Paper…

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nanowrimo_2016_webbanner_winner_congrats

Well, I “won” NaNoWriMo again. I think this makes my ninth victory in twelve attempts (I can’t double-check that because the NaNo site is not loading properly right now LOL) For this NaNoWriMo I was a rebel — I wasn’t writing one novel, I was writing a series of interconnected short stories. Or, that was the intention. As it turned out, some of the stories were less connected than others.

I’m kind of an old hand at this NaNo thing, but this year seemed especially difficult. I knew it would be going in — part of the reason I decided to do NaNo this year was because I had so much going on in November that it was ridiculous for me to add NaNo to the mix — but I didn’t realise just how very tough it would be. Things like the results of the American election and an unexpected weekend away added extra bumps along the way. Some of the biggest obstacles I had to deal with were 100% internal and included a ginormous helping of impostor syndrome right around the middle of the month.

highlight-reelIf you get a bunch of writers/editors/publishers together and start them talking it soon becomes clear that things aren’t always shiny, and what you see on social media is only one of many facets of our lives. As the quote says, “The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” With that in mind I’ve been making a real effort to peel the curtain back now and then, to acknowledge the struggle from time to time.

Some writers don’t go to conventions or writers groups or whatever so if we don’t talk about this publicly on occasion they might not benefit from those ventfests I enjoy from time to time. They might not get that they aren’t alone. I’m not looking to be Debbie Downer, but I think it’s important that we be real about this stuff.

A small group of friends and I have banded together to work through Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story“. Right smack dab in the middle of my most recent bout of impostor syndrome I was working on the latest assignment for that group — to write a story about an old woman doing some task while thinking back to something in her past. I used that assignment not only to add to my NaNoWriMo word count (every bit of fiction counts!) but also to work through some of the stuff I was feeling. Now that I’m in a much better state of mind, I think it’s kinda funny so I thought I’d share it here.

Uh, enjoy?

And know that when you’re feeling badly about your work, or like an impostor — you are not alone. I think we all go there from time to time. I certainly do.

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