It never ceases to amuse me when I find a fiction site that has done everything right with one exception, it has almost no fiction. When I first started this blog I did a post, Blog Fiction That Never Had a Chance. Consider this a sequel. Here are a few more examples of people giving up before they really even started.
Neocommon Era, purported to be a news blog from the future, started last September. It got listed at both Web Fiction Guide and Muses Success. Unfortunately, it seems that censorship is live and well in the future because it only lasted 3 posts.
Wren & Marnie’s Guide to World Domination was supposed to be 2 high school friends staying in touch after going to different colleges. They put together a very beautiful word press site and went to great trouble setting up categories for each person. Unfortunately, after less than 2 months later, the 'friends' quite talking to each other. I guess it was a rough freshman year.
The El'zup Prison is a story based "on a Prison where the architect has deliberately left hints for the convicts on how to escape. He believes that the one who is worthy of completing this maze deserves to live a free life". Unfortunately, the writer must have escaped because 2 posts later we haven't had any new updates.
The World Emperor was supposed to be a blog about the secret Emperor of the world. Unfortunately, he must have been deposed because less than a month later no one has heard from him.
This is great. The Voyage of an Intergalactic Space Pirate. It sounded like a fun idea. Unfortunately, it only lasted ONE post!
Here is one that is just plain puzzling. SPACECOM. This is a website where all but one link leads to a "restricted" section. I get that a website could still be under construction, but then why are ads for it showing up on my website? For goodness sakes, get your site complete before you buy adwords.
The Writer's Stand was another great idea. It was short stories, but not a full story like flash fiction. More like an important part of a story. The author spent time in my forums as well as putting ads on his site. Unfortunately, it seems that this writer could only stand for 4 posts before sitting.
As anyone who reads this blog knows, I never mock people for trying to write... as long as they are trying, or at least committed to trying. These bloggers however, I don't think they were trying very hard. Now I get that there is an initial high when putting together your blog, and advertising it, but come on!
Authors, please, write first. If you write it, they will come. If you market it, they will come too, but they won't stay if you haven't written first.
Write first, market later
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5 comments:
Funny post! I think with blog fiction, writers are drawn to the immediacy, and they think that the blog format will help them commit to writing on a regular basis, forgetting how many non-fiction blogs are set up, only to be abandoned within mere days...
Your post also reminds me to keep that tendency in myself in check. I've turned to a site - www.pulpgen.com - for inspiration. It features a bunch of pulp stories from the 30s - 40s. A lot of these guys would write a novel-length story over the course of a single month. It's proof that it can be done!
There is a lot of allure to Blog Fiction. The idea that you can get an audience almost immediately. Keeping that tendency in check is critical for any serious blog fiction writer.
Good stuff lol
Neocommon Era is my inspiration!
When I feel it's too hard to keep my blog fiction blog going, I remember those 3 little posts.
Have you seen... http://disgruntledspaceman.wordpress.com/ ?
I kinda like it and hope it doesn't get "lost in space"!
I have seen it, Isaac. I too hope that it doesn't get "lost in space" - lol
Hopefully the author can keep it up.
I was afraid of this when I started my own fictional blog! That's why I waited until I had at least a few posts up before advertising, partly so that there was something to see when you got there, and partly because I had a clue about whether or not I could sustain it.
Always a shame when a good idea falls by the wayside.
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