Questioning Online Publishing, because Internet

Of the multitude of world problems to concern a reasonable human being over the last few months, one has lingered in the back of my mind in a more personal and, dare I say, private, way. I think about my writing a lot. It’s the main reason I have this blog, as a space to write about writing–my ideas, the writing process, the publishing process, the connective tissue of good storytelling.

I also think about my place as an “author” a lot. Not my level of notoriety or what I earn from writing — negligible in either case — but in how my writing and my “profile” is seen online. Privacy is always a consideration for someone who has a presence among the online public.

Every time I get a new idea or see a new tool for my writing, I consider whether I should be doing more to protect my own privacy and security online, as well as protecting my data and copyright. In an era when AI-generated tools are quickly gaining the ability to look, sound, illustrate, or write like real people, I question whether I should have an online presence at all.

With search engines becoming harder to navigate and the overwhelming glut of Content out there, it’s hard to find cogent, well-thought-out answers to these types of questions. So, I just want to pose my questions in a general way, talk a little about my thought process, and see what other writers or creators of any type think.

Is copyright sufficient to protect my writing in the chaotic realm of the internet?

I have registered US copyright of my only published novel, and automatic copyright over all of my writings on this site, a short story in an online litmag, and a 12-part series published on Wattpad. (See a rundown of my writing here.) My writing is generally available to anyone who happens upon it online. My novel costs money to purchase, but that’s it.

Is this enough to protect my work from billions of users who may find it online? Legally, yes. But practically? I really don’t know. My novel could have already been lifted, translated into another language, and republished under someone else’s name, and I’m not sure how I would find out about it. The odds of that happening are probably slim, but IP theft definitely exists online.

Should I care?

At a certain point, I feel like worrying about copyright infringement online is like chasing ghosts. In my broader existentialist view, I will have no control over the things I write and publish after I’m gone, so is it worth fretting over it now? To some extent, I think, but honestly — I just want to be able to publish my own work and sell it to people who want to read it. I would hope I can carve out a space to do that much.

Are free publishing platforms “safe” for putting content out there?

I published my short mythology series on Wattpad in 2019, mostly as an experiment to see what kind of readership I could get publishing one chapter per month. The short answer is: not much. Wattpad is social media for writers, so you have to be really prolific to gain a real following there. A lot of authors use Wattpad to publish first-look drafts of their novels, section by section, to gain a following ahead of self-publishing it in full. (Traditional publishing will generally not publish something that has already been published, so Wattpad is a readership-building tool for self-published authors.)

I don’t doubt the success that some authors have on Wattpad, and I have definitely read some good content there. But is it worth the effort for me to provide my writing there, for free? I’m not really concerned about providing free content. I have given a lot of thought to doing just that to build readership of my work. But Wattpad is a platform where anyone can sign up under anonymous usernames and scrape content from millions of stories by nearly as many authors.

Is that really a “safe” place to put my work? I’ve already done so, but only with a side project, not my primary novels. Wattpad is in the business of bringing authors to its platform, so I would think they take copyright infringement and data security seriously, but it’s a free service (that has a premium user tier).

Is cloud storage really secure enough for my writing content?

George R.R. Martin famously stores all of his writing on a DOS computer in his basement, which has no internet connection. I don’t use cloud storage for my writing yet, but I’ve thought about it. Currently, every outline, draft, and finished manuscript of my writing is stored on a flash drive. I’ve used it for years, but I’ve always had a little fear in the back of my head that it will break, or burn out, or get lost, and all of my work will be gone.

Cloud storage offers a back-up plan, if not a primary storage option. I pay for a cloud storage solution for personal/family photos, but I still hesitate to put my writing there. Cloud storage servers can get hacked, data can be corrupted, and work can still be lost.

I don’t have solid answers.

But these are the questions that pop up every time I think about doing something different with my writing. I can (and probably will) do a deep-dive into the writing/self-publishing threads of Reddit at some point to see how others feel about this. For now, I just wanted to voice my quesitons.

Who else thinks about this stuff? How do you approach it with your creative work?

Steve D

The Herb Witch Tales – A Work in Progress Update

It has been quite some time since I’ve spoken in any detail about my current works-in-progress on the story front. Part of the reason is likely that I’ve been preoccupied with other things in life over the past couple of months. Between travel, work, family time, and the most socialization I’ve had since the pandemic, I’ve been pretty busy.

And yet, here I have these two stories, nearing completion of their second drafts.

The Herb Witch Tales parts 1 and 2

For longer than I’d like to admit, I’ve been working on a two-part novel. Really, it’s two novellas that I will publish separately in ebook and together in one hardcopy volume. The reasoning there has more to do with marketing than anything else — people are more likely to read an ebook if it’s not too much of a commitment. It will also cost less to publish 90,000 words as one volume versus two separate volumes of 45,000 words each.

In any case, that’s what I’ve been aiming for.

Uprooted, The Herb Witch Tales #1 has been sitting in its third draft form for a few months at 48,000 words. I rewrote it mostly from scratch earlier this year, so it definitely needs some fine-tuning.

New Earth, The Herb Witch Tales #2 is in its second draft at 41,000 words. Achieving my word count goal for June would put me just shy of 50,000 words for this one. It also needs a healthy dose of fine-tuning.

So in the near future I’ll have two novellas just under 50k words each, and I’ll have a few large wrinkles to work out:

  • Add some more description to individual characters. I left out a lot of physical descriptions – quite unlike me – to expedite the writing process, but I recognize now that it makes some characters more difficult to distinguish, and now it may be difficult for me to go back and add those details in without sounding out of place in the narrative.
  • Ensure that specific details – like the style of dress for my characters’ culture – are referred to consistently.
  • Pacing. My overhaul of part 1 caused a similar overhaul of part 2, so I need to make sure their plots make sense independently of each other. If someone were to read only part 1, would the story and ending make sense to them without reading part 2?

I have a lot of work cut out for myself for these stories, but I’m pleased at how close I am to finishing the drafting process. From here, it will be revisions of each story individually and of the 1+2 volume in total.

Next, Next Steps

It’s been difficult for me not to think about my next full-length novel. The Warden of Everfeld: Legacy will be the sequel to my first (and so far, only) published novel, The Warden of Everfeld: Memento. I had written about 60,000 words of a first draft a couple years ago before shifting focus to what I had hoped would be a much quicker writing process for The Herb Witch Tales.

Turns out I can’t write and publish a full-length story every year. Oh well. I am definitely excited to return to Legacy and my favorite character I’ve created. But I want to finish what’s in front of me first.

So, my medium-term goal, say, through the end of this year, is to get The Herb Witch Tales #1 and #2 into a publishable state. Not to publish them, mind you. I just want to have polished drafts that I can consider publishing in the longer term, perhaps once I’ve really picked up and made new progress on Legacy.

We’ll see. I’m excited, and also just enjoying the grind, for once.

Steve D

Book Publishing and Marketing Goals c. 2021

Title card for Marketing Your Novel, photo from AwesomeCon 2019 table, The Warden of Everfeld: Memento fantasy novel, Steve D'Adamo

I wrote earlier this month that I was reserving longer-term goals for my book publishing and marketing efforts, so here we are. In some ways, I have come to find yearly publishing and marketing goals a bit strange when I’m not publishing multiple books per year — or even one book per year.

However, I still think it’s important to have something to shoot for in any endeavor.

Continue reading “Book Publishing and Marketing Goals c. 2021”

How KDP Select Helped My Book Promotion

Title card for Marketing Your Novel, photo from AwesomeCon 2019 table, The Warden of Everfeld: Memento fantasy novel, Steve D'Adamo

Two weeks ago, I suggested in my wrap-up post for 2020 marketing goals that I hadn’t yet reached my goal for sales/giveaways of my books in 2020. I just wanted to run one giveaway through KDP Select to close out the year.

After a modest performance the first day and a half, my KDP Select giveaway picked up some steam and lifted me well beyond my original goal. Here’s how it went. Continue reading “How KDP Select Helped My Book Promotion”

2020 Marketing Goals Wrap-Up

Title card for Marketing Your Novel, photo from AwesomeCon 2019 table, The Warden of Everfeld: Memento fantasy novel, Steve D'Adamo

Well, it’s not quite the end of 2020, but I’m ready to put a pin in my marketing goals for this year. The main reason: marketing did not go well for me. I can likely point to a number of reasons that this is the case, but the primary one is that I was likely too ambitious to start the year, and even a little too ambitious with my adjusted goals at the mid-year point.

One key thing I’ve learned this year is to aim high in my goals while still being more pragmatic about which ones are really attainable. Let’s dig in. Continue reading “2020 Marketing Goals Wrap-Up”

2020 Marketing Goals: Midyear Catch-Up

Back in January, I laid out my goals for my book publishing and marketing efforts for this year. Now that we’re over the halfway mark of the year, it’s time to review–and likely revise–my goals.

By the way, does anyone else feel like we’re living in a completely different world now compared to January? It’s like we stepped into the dark timeline.

Most ridiculous moment of UK politics this year? : ukpolitics Continue reading “2020 Marketing Goals: Midyear Catch-Up”

Promote Your Book through Giveaways

Welcome to part two of my series on strategies to promote a new book release. This time, we’re going to take a closer look at running giveaways for your new book.

The idea of a giveaway may be a little intimidating for a number of reasons, but it can be a great way to build readership and get some attention on your book. Continue reading “Promote Your Book through Giveaways”

4 Ways to Advertise Your New Book Online

Last month, I talked briefly about 4 broad strategies you could use to promote a new book release. Even though I’m still in the drafting phase of my short stories, I want to start researching book promotion strategies so I’m prepared for publication.

For this post, I’ll start looking into online advertising for a new book release.

Continue reading “4 Ways to Advertise Your New Book Online”

4 Strategies to Promote Your Book Release

It’s been a long time since I’ve written about actual marketing strategies, so I wanted to find a topic I could cover in greater depth over the next several months:

Promoting a New Book Release!

This topic is relevant to my own publishing efforts, since I’m writing and aiming to publish a two-part novella later this year. I’ll start off with a summary of different book promotion strategies, and then deep-dive into each topic in later posts.

Continue reading “4 Strategies to Promote Your Book Release”

2020 Marketing Goals: Short Story or Bust

Last week I reviewed my book marketing goals for 2019 and summarized how those went.

TLDR: meh.

But the past is gone and we must look forward! So here are my plans for 2020 on the book publishing, marketing, and selling fronts. Continue reading “2020 Marketing Goals: Short Story or Bust”