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

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

The penultimate stop on my tour: Sharing Links and Wisdom, where I share what little wisdom I have on "The Mysteries of Mystery". Enjoy and, er, share!

Alex wrote: "I made about the same as you in my first month, and did better in my second. Not sure how I'll do in my third, it's hard work for me to keep coming up with articles to post that might engage people..."

I think what I'm going to do to get started is repurpose material I already have out there. My first few posts were from my Planet Baha'i blog, just copied over. I'll add my flash fiction to that, and maybe some posts from my author blog. I might tweak a few of this to make them better or unique, but it may not take too much work to keep it going for at least a couple of months.

Theodore wrote: "Most seem pretty pedestrian to me, but what do I know."

As Captain Kirk once said, "There's no accounting for taste." ;-)

Alex wrote: "What a great idea, and thanks for the memory jog, I have a flashy(y) fiction of about 500 words about the origin of the phrase 'dead man's hand' in poker that I shall put up thanks to your post."


You're quite welcome. I received my first "paycheck" from them, a bit over $5.00, which isn't too bad for one week in which I posted two articles. I think I can make it pay for the membership and then some, so I'm going to join up once I have a little spare cash. Then I can read and clap for more than three stories a month.

Angel wrote: "By the way, I replied to your message you left on my blog on wanting to do a Medium feature article-interview."

Sent you a PM, thanks!

Theodore wrote: "Seems to be, although it may be hard to tell what kind of results I actually get from it. By the by, in case you didn't a..."

I suspect they're paying more attention to the ideas than to the actual writing, which is not to say they pay zero attention to the writing, but I think the ideas have more sway.

Petra wrote: "Definitely a good idea this one. I've just joined Facebook (I know I'm about thousand years late) and feeling a bit lost and lonely on there, so if anyone could add me that'd make me smile big. I'l..."

Sent you a friend request on FB...

I'm thinking of posting some of my Indies Unlimited flash fiction stories to Medium. I don't have enough to publish an anthology of them yet, but it might be a way to engage other kinds of readers.

J. wrote: "Thanks! You are an endless source of amazing pitch improvements!"

Aw, shucks, folks. ;-) But thank you. I learned a little about editing my wife, it seems . . .

Theodore wrote: "Thanks, Dale. Hope your promo is going well.

Seems to be, although it may be hard to tell what kind of results I actually get from it. By the by, in case you didn't already see it, IU released the November/December Editor's Choice winners. We aren't on the list. Oh, well . . .

Alex wrote: "Working to a deadline would be another problem for me."

Writing a novel to a deadline would be a problem for me, too, but I didn't set up the crowdfunding until the novel was written and we had a pretty good idea of when we would have the editing and typesetting done.

I've missed a couple of weeks myself. Nice story. You definitely surprised me at the end!

Yep, I think that's fine, although a slight edit might be beneficial:

'[retracted]' is a science fiction thriller about a girl and her friends caught in a deadly conspiracy. It is the first book of the [retracted] Series.

Explanation: A science fiction thriller is a story, so you don't have to say "a story", and I feel "caught in" is stronger than "wrapped up in."

Carole wrote: "shared!"

Thank you!

Oh, I should say that I also didn't go live with these projects until I was pretty sure we would meet our deadlines. We were in editing before I started fundraising, and had a good idea when we would be ready to print books and complete the ebook files. If you do crowdfunding, you want to plan ahead so you have a good shot at having the product ready when you say you will. And if delays crop up, you need to let your backers know about it ASAP, tell them what you're doing about it, and let them know your revised schedule.

One other small thing: in the U.S. at least, money received through crowdfunding is generally considered income for tax purposes. It probably depends on exactly what you're doing with it, but when raising money for book production, I treat contributions as sales for accounting purposes.

I used Kickstarter for my first two Howard County Mysteries and was able to get them funded, but I set my goal at a bare minimum and ended up throwing in some money myself to make the goal. I garnered a few loyal readers that way, too, one of whom picked The Fibonacci Murders for a book reading project he was doing on his website. He videoed himself reading the first chapter of books he enjoyed, and Fibonacci was one of his early entries. So there can be some benefits to doing crowdfunding besides just getting the funding. GoFundMe is a bit "safer" in that you don't have to meet your goal to get the money. With Kickstarter, if you don't make the goal, you don't get anything.

Today's tour stop: the wonderfully-named It's Raining Books, where they interview me. Enjoy and please share!

It works without it. I haven't had time to tackle the longer version, but you can probably spin something out from the short version. The main thing is to keep the writing tight. You basically want to hook the reader and real them in without revealing the resolution. Keep the writing as tight as possible and look for the strongest possible verbs that work for the situation.

Becky wrote: "What a lovely idea to resurrect! I am definitely bookmarking this page. If you see me following you, don't be surprised. :)"

Following you in several places now. Thanks!

Carole wrote: "Please check and make sure you are all happy with it. It's going out tomorrow."

I have nothing on it to check, but it's a beautiful piece of work!