Dale’s Comments (group member since Sep 15, 2017)

Dale’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

Thanks, Sam and Anna!

This is just a heads-up. Back in May/June, I wrote a 7-part short story titled "Solve This" for Medium publication Lit Up. Unfortunately, at about that time they called a hiatus (due in at least in part to some family health issues, I think), so it's been sitting in their queue ever since. This morning I received word that they will be publishing again soon, and "Solve This" has been accepted. It will appear over the course of two weeks, one installment every other day. I'll let you know when each part is published. I'm happy to finally get this one out into the world.

My latest short story in Red Tales: Clever Scoundrels.

By the by, if you aren't a follower of Red Tales, please consider following it. I haven't gotten much traction yet, so extra followers would help. Thanks!

Anna wrote: "Just building my site, Dale, and by golly does it take some concentration. Nearly there, but have to stop for the puppy sitting."

Good luck!

Here's my latest writing article. This one is my first article for Medium publication The Book Mechanic: Keep Your Fiction Flowing.

Two months have passed since my last update. As I said then, Instagram is rather out of the running as a tool for me, because I just haven't been able to keep up with it. I do post occasionally, but not enough to get much in terms of subscribers from it.

What has worked, rather amazingly well, is Story Origin group promotions. Members can create group promotions in several categories, including giveaways and sales. For giveaways, books are linked to your email list signup, so readers have to join your list in order to get your free book (called a "reader magnet"). I have created reader magnets for The Fibonacci Murders (which I also give away when readers sign up directly with me) and Space Operatic. I've created a couple of group promos and joined several more. As a result, my list membership is now approaching 300, about double what it was.

I now have 340 contacts, 286 of whom are subscribers. (The other 54 are people who have unsubscribed, but that's over the entire time I've been running the list, not just this year.) 109 of those subscribers joined in just the last month as a result of StoryOrigin promos.

The engagement breakdown is now 27% "often," 12% "sometimes," and 20% "rarely." This leaves a rather large 31% unaccounted for, but I think that's because so many of my members are too new to "call" yet.

At this point, I think I can confidently say that StoryOrigin works. Of course, you need to have books people find interesting and you need to send regular emails that people find engaging.

The latter point is what I started with earlier this year, based on August Birch's advice. I have to admit that I've bent his "rules" a bit. He insists you should never give newsletter readers more than one thing to click on, and repeat it two or three times, but because of StoryOrigin promos, I'm frequently including two or three things to click on, and repeating them twice each if possible.

I guess the other thing to emphasize is that this is a bit of work--getting everything set up and keeping it running--but as with anything else, if you don't do the work, you won't get the results, so that's okay.

I'll try to check in again before the end of the year, or at least sometime in January, when this grand experiment will be one year old.

Anna wrote: "So I am off to thank Dale for his hard work on this thread, also Carole and Alex by 'liking' some of their work/reviews."

Thanks, Anna! I probably should do that, too, when I have a spare moment . . .

Sam (Rescue Dog Mom, Writer, Hugger) wrote: "Dale, It looks wonderful. I especially like the photo you of you and cute pup. Sorry to be late in responding. Hugs"

Thanks, Sam! The dog is Lily, our late Great Dane/Mastiff. She was a wonderful dog and lived to be 13, about the norm for that mix from what I understand.

J. wrote: Very nice site: clean, easy to navigate, verbiage is clear - impression I was left with was: professional, talented and friendly"

Thanks, J! That's good to hear, since it's exactly what I was going for.

Anna Faversham wrote: "It's a useful word, it can mean insane or eccentric. Comes from India originally and got picked up by the Army there.

Shall we be eccentric rather than insane?"

That would probably be sound. Another way to look at it, I suppose is the villain's line (can't remember his name) from the movie Speed: "No, Jack. Poor people are crazy. I'm eccentric."

Anna Faversham wrote: "Feedback - Any site that opens with a genuine free gift catches the browser's interest tenfold.

It's clean, bright and does the job well and has interesting articles too. I didn't see it before s..."

Glad to hear it. Thanks!

Anna Faversham wrote: "I expect it's quite nice to be doolally - I look forward to it but not yet!"

That's a new word for me. Thank you! I'm one of those only at certain times of the day. ;-)

Links can be tricky sometimes. Don't worry about it.

Angel wrote: "Will share on my social media."

Thank you!

I've made a change on my author website. Since I'm terrible at writing blog posts, I decided it would be better to create an intro page that didn't have stale posts on it. Instead, it invites visitors into the site and promotes my books through a few reviews I've received.

Please have a look and let me know what you think. Any and all feedback, including ideas for improvement, is appreciated

I added a new story to my own publication, Red Tales: The Sculpture.

I've also opened submissions for short fiction and articles about writing short fiction, so if any Medium writers here would like to submit, please visit my submission guidelines. Thanks!

Here's a new humor piece for you, published in The Bigger Picture: Me and My Emotional Support Rhinoceros. ;-)

Starting to get somewhere, slowly. Here's my latest from The Creative Cafe: Adoption.

This was my submission to the collection Writers in Lockdown, which I mentioned a few months back. See the notes at the end of the story for the full story behind the story. (Is that too many stories?)

I've been struggling to get some new material published on Medium. I finally succeeded with this one from Age of Awareness: Racism as Pandemic.

This is an opinion piece that I originally sent to The Startup 3 months ago (!) and which just today I took back from them (since they hadn't responded) and gave to Age of Awareness. The published it immediately. I wasn't expecting that.

I should have some more material coming soon, if things go well. Also, I'm running a writing contest through my publication Red Tales, which I sent in a newsletter today. I'm not sure if I got it set up right, but some of you should be notified that I mentioned you in the newsletter. Please let me know if you see any notifications like that. Thanks!

I finally have a new fiction piece out there: In Plain Sight. It's in my new publication, Red Tales. I'd appreciate it if you could follow the publication as well as read the story. Thanks!