Progress report: Saving Gabriel
I’m past the halfway point in posting chapters for Saving Gabriel, though I changed very quickly from a post every two days to two chapters every night at midnight in an effort to get more votes. This strategy seems to be working, as I’m up to 166 votes for 3,792 views. I’ve already passed my best numbers with all my previous stories, and the votes-to-readers ratio is higher than I’ve normally seen. Comments are almost all positive (setting aside typo comments, which are good, but in a different way) and the chapters where I cover the alternate history of heaven seemed to go over well.
I still would like to reach the top 10, but to do that I’d need at least 10 regular voters hitting both chapters each night to make it. Much as I’d like to go all utlra-beggy to reach that peak, my gut instinct says I don’t have enough reach to get there from here. But where I’m at now, I can still make another run into the top 20, and that’s not too shabby.
If you haven’t yet tried the story, please give it a chance. You can make a Wattpad account using your Facebook sign-in, and it takes all of two seconds to get set-up. Very easy, and no fussing with new names or passwords.
Since it’s been pointed out a few times that folk can’t find the vote button, it’s because the button is at the top of the page. So when you finish reading a chapter, to vote on it, you have to scroll back up to the top. It’s a little squirrely, I know, and if it were my site, I’d add a second vote button at the bottom of the story.
Anywho, I know I’ve said this before, but Saving Gabriel is probably the closest I’ve come to a mainstream YA book. The story is centered around a mystery, an attempted assassination of the main character, Rosalinda Fernandez. She’s saved because she has a guardian angel, a fallen angel named Gabriel, who assigned himself to Rosalinda when she was five. Gabriel is ordered by the archangels to find out why the other fallen have taken an interest in Rosalinda, so he moves in closer for a stakeout.
It’s a short novel, only 53K, and the chapters are fast and choppy. It’s a first-person perspective told in past tense, but from two POVs, Rosalinda’s and Gabriel’s. There’s a few huge fight scenes, several plot twists, and a really different take on biblical history. The heroine isn’t your typical YA girl, nor is Gabriel the standard hero.
Totally going ultra-beggy on you haven’t I? Yeas. Well I can’t help it, can I? I’ve got this feeling that this might finally be the one good story that I could build a small fandom around. Now I just need to find enough fans to make that happen.
In the contest between Facebook and Twitter, Twitter is still hands down giving better feedback. I’ve got lots of RTs and even RTs of RTs of RTs. This is making a better run at the whisper down the line game, but I suspsect with Facebook, the problem may be with the platform itself. Facebook wants people to pay them to promote posts, and just to still get updates from my family, I had to go to their profile and click “Add to my interest lists.” What a rotten pain in the ass that would be to do for every single friend, and I only have 36 or so friends. I can’t imagine the poor schmuck who has 1,000 friends and has to keep telling Facebook “YES I WANT TO SEE UPDATES FROM MY FRIENDS.”
Seriously, a huge pain in the ass, so I feel like Facebook has lost the point of their own service and they keep hamstringing people to prevent them from connecting. Total bullshit, and I’m grateful Twitter isn’t like that.
To return to my chorus, please go read Saving Gabriel. It’s a good fantasy story, and I think it deserves your time. Who knows? You might even like it and decide to vote for it. You might even decide to be a fan of the book and buy a copy when I release the ebook next year. You might write a short review for the story and do other fannish things like squee or ask for a sequel. (Or possibly demand a print run?) And, I am totally not opposed to doing a sequel, provided I can find some demand for it. This could be a series, but only if I can find a small fandom for book one. And I’m not picky. I’m not aiming for anything more than 100 fans.
Cause, just imagine it. If 100 fans all bought ebooks on opening day, that would shoot the book up in the ranks and put it on the best selling list, even if only for a day. That’s still time to catch someone’s eye and maybe make an impression. But then, imagine if y’all gave 100 honest reviews. Not all 5s, but a mix of 3s, 4s, and 5s…okay and those other two icky numbers, I suppose. But just think about how much of an impression 100 reviews has. It says people felt enough about the book to say something, and that many reviews will give any reader a solid idea of what they getting, even before they get the free preview.
I admit, it’s still a long shot for now. I’m getting better numbers of readers, but still not enough voters/commenters to crack that rarefied air at the top 10. Perhaps I’ll have better efforts now that folks know where to find the vote button too.
Okay, I’ll shut up now…but please, try my book. It’s free, so the only thing you’ll be wasting is a few minutes to decide if I’m worth more of your time.
