Market My Novel

It is no secret that I am a firm believer in social media as a tool to create successful writing careers.

This week, I'm pleased to present two authors – both met via Twitter – who used blogging, social networks and podcasting to net fans and, ultimately, book contracts.

It is through their stories that I hope authors everywhere can understand the true power and potential of the Internet for a successful writing career.

Today, "Mighty" Mur Lafferty shares her journey to success using the Internet:

As an author, how do you use online media to network with fans?

It's about the only way I network with fans! I release podcasts of my fiction and of writing advice, I use Twitter to communicate daily with them, I try to keep up with Facebook (although I get distracted building shiny robots on Facebook. my vice…). I find that the more vocal you are, the more human  you are and the more people relate to you as an artist and a person.
 
Have you used it to pitch to publishers, or have publishers found your work online?

I've mentioned my listener numbers to publishers and agents, but for my first book I was found online.
 
How did social media help get your book, Playing for Keeps, the accompanying podcasts, Stories of the Third Wave and your next book, Heaven, published?

I podcasted my superhero novel, Playing for Keeps, to 25,000 people in the winter of 2007-2008, then in April a publisher contacted me. My agent hunt has been easier now that I have a following and have shown an ability to connect with and gain listeners/readers online. When PFK launched in August, I encouraged my listeners to purchase it on the same day so that the book would rise in the charts. I knew it wouldn't last, but the goal was to get the book on some radars that it normally wouldn't have been. My publisher was small press and I didn't have book store exposure. I had to have people discover the book, see the cover, hopefully have that "book store browsing" experience somehow, so I shot for the top 100 lists.

You are actually giving Heaven away for free at http://www.heavennovel.com/. How do you make money when you go free?

For Heaven, I haven't made much yet. Currently I'm hoping people who like Heaven will buy Playing for Keeps, or will buy Heaven when/if it comes out in print. But I have done something a little different with the fifth season- people who want the content early, and have the chance to read the book as it's being written, can pay a one-time fee to get a peek inside. I call it the Inside Story and the response has been better than expected. I'm not giving them anything that the free subscribers don't get, except they get an early look and they get to read the story off the blog.

Right now I see what I'm doing as investing. You don't expect an immediate return when you invest money, and I don't expect an immediate return when I podcast fiction. I am hoping to continue to build a loyal fanbase that will support me when I have another book printed.

For you, writing and podcasting go hand-in-hand. How has podcasting changed your publishing life? Can this mix work for every author?

I think the image of the author as the loner will have to die soon. If you don't have an online presence as a new author, I'm wondering if you can survive. podcasting led directly to my job as a regular columnist for Knights of the Dinner Table, which gave me credentials for more magazine work. Podcasting brought me my first publishing deal. My first agent contacted me because of my success with podcasting. Can it work for every author? I don't think any one thing works for everyone. But for people starting at square one (ie- unpublished authors), if you're friendly and enjoy spending time online and interacting with fans, I think your chances for success are greater than people who think all they need to do is write a book and send it out.

Podcasting requires an odd kind of confidence; it's much more active than just writing your book and putting it on your blog or out in PDF. It requires you to learn basic audio editing, learn basic promotion skills, learn how to interact with fans (who give both positive and negative feedback!) and get past the complaint that nearly every person I know has: "I hate the sound of my own voice." That's where you hire someone or just get over yourself. And if you don't have the confidence, pretend you do.

Is writing a podcast any different from writing a novel?

Depends on what kind of podcast you're writing. I've written a more audio drama kind of story (my zombie comedy, The Takeover) which requires episodic writing and full dialog and relying on sound FX to help you tell the story, and I've written Heaven for podcast, which was written episodically to start out with, but then melted into more of a novel format as I got further in. I know people like Matt Wallace who have written for podcast with great effect (Check out The Failed Cities Monologues, told from the POV of eight characters. It works brilliantly in audio.) But as Playing For Keeps was written for print, I simply read it straight when it came to the podcast. Some people turn their longer works into a meld of audio drama and narrative, but I don't have that kind of patience!

What key lessons have you learned about social media as an author?

As I am still a small press author with one fiction book and not a lot of short story sales, I still see myself as this wanna-be. I realize that many of my listeners don't see me as that, and i have a large enough audience to where I need to conduct myself professionally at all times. And that's good advice for everyone, but sometimes you feel like you're cutting a joke with three friends, all of whom will get your meaning, and then you realize that four thousand people are following you and the room just got a lot bigger. Everyone from someone who puts their short story on their blog to Neil Gaiman and John Scalzi have to conduct themselves with a level of professionalism. You never know who is going to read, retweet, forward, or Digg.

And never, ever talk shit about anyone. Ever. If two people follow you, your mom and one stranger, that stranger could have 800 followers and point them all to that thing you just said. Google tools allow people to constantly search the web for their name or their product's name. Web savvy people know when they're being talked about, and you can really hurt feelings, or hurt your career, when you think you're just whispering to a group of close friends.

Along the same lines of unprofessionalism, you can't really express a lot of negative emotion online, especially when you're feeling the all-too-human feelings of jealousy and hurt. When you feel slighted because a peer won a break that you haven't yet, it takes a lot of grinning and bearing it. And don't get me wrong, I have lots of thrill and delight when my podcasting friends make good, but there's a little voice inside that whines, "When is it MY turn?" and I have to make sure to keep that little voice locked away in its little box where it belongs and not go crying all over Twitter.

What is the biggest mistake you ever made using online media and how did you correct it?

I've been guilty of spreading myself too thin, doing too much to engage my readers, and then being forced to abandon things after my listeners faithfully flocked to join whatever I started. The Ning group is the worst of these communities I've abandoned.

I also had two listeners invest several hours to help me create a wiki, which still flounders as I didn't realize that the wiki software I was using did not have a GUI interface so I had to deal with a lot of coding at the shell level, which, uh, I don't do. So they put in a lot of time on a project for me, and I was unable to unveil it with the pomp and ceremony they deserved. I sent them both gifts as thank-yous, but still feel guilty for that. I'm sorry Allie and Glen!

On your Web site, you share short stories both in podio form and in PDF form. Did you ever hesitate to share your work, afraid of copyright infringement?

It took me a while to embrace it fully, yes. I thought that on-the-web meant "published" and publishers would view their purchase of the work as a reprint. But people like John Scalzi, Scott Sigler, and Cory Doctorow quickly showed that it wasn't the case, and I leapt forward with gusto. I learned a lot about Creative Commons licenses, which every digital creator needs to learn about, which gave me the confidence that my work was legally protected even if I gave the permission to distribute my stories.
 
What are the best podio sites to use if you want to get noticed via audio?

I'm not terribly on the cutting edge of what's hot right now, but if you're doing long fiction, you have to be on podiobooks.com. That's the main hub for podcast fiction. It's free, they take donations and give you 75% of the money your book makes, and are a fantastic site. But beyond podcasting you need to be on at least Twitter and Facebook. Getting active on Seesmic, YouTube, Digg, etc can also help.
 
I think there are some out there who are still reluctant to share their manuscripts on sites like Authonomy or via podio sites like PodioBooks.com. Do you think this reluctance will hold them back in the future? Will publishing catch up with the technology – and the people using it?

I can only speak from my own experience. But when I was worried about releasing my content, I had zero listeners. I released some essays, it grew to hundreds. I released some fiction, it grew to thousands. People bring up plagiarism and fear, but podcasting my work has done more than built me a listener base than anything else. It's also established an undeniable time line for my work's creation. No one can dispute that I wrote Heaven in 2006 because it's on my server and on podiobooks.com. I'd have a harder time claiming I wrote a story that was stolen from a workshop or something similar.

I wouldn't be here if I hadn't gotten involved with podcasting. That much is obvious. And I believe it will continue to help me move forward, and I love doing it, so I don't see myself ever giving it up.