One of the problems of doing Blog Fiction is that inevitably, your blog starts with zero readers. Why wouldn't after all? If you create a fresh blog, naturally there's going to be no audience yet. For most blogs to get popular they have to be around for a long time. If you are writing a Blog Fiction with a planned ending, you may very well get very few readers until shortly before it ends - and what fun is that when you only get an audience at the end? But what can you do, besides mass ad and marketing campaign when you first launch?
Well a blogger named Scott Carpenter over at Moving to Freedom came up with a brilliant solution. He took his existing non-fiction blog and has (at least temporarily) turned it into a blog fiction. That way he already has a built in readership. So how did he do it? Well, first of all, he announced a "guest" blogger would be joining soon. Then he started posting as the fictional blogger. His readers responded immediately. They even started addressing their comments to the spider. A brilliant, flawless transition.
The only problem with doing Blog Fiction this way, is that people may not realize right away that the new blogger is fictional. Scott solved that problem by making the guest blogger a murderous spider. An effective solution, but one not that's not necessarily repeatable for most writers. I'm sure though that other writers can come up with some equally creative ways.
Bravo to Scott, and I hope he has a popular Blog Fiction run.
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Labels: Blog Fiction, Itsy Bitsy Fritsy |
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13 comments:
Thanks, Dustin! For the pointer and for the kind words. I plan to keep posting fiction, although it might take me a while to start publishing the next story, since I'm learning that it works much better for me to have it essentially completed before the first post. But I have an idea for how to cover for that transition a little bit. :-)
Oh: Also note that there is a mix of real and fictional commenters. I had certain points and perspectives I wanted to see in the comments and figured more blurring of the lines would help there. So far that would be Alice F., Ordella, and Anon. And Fritzi herself, of course. :-)
Thanks again! Even though I had some existing subscribers, I'm keen on attracting more people specifically interested in fiction.
What also doesn't hurt is that Scott started twittering as the spider previous to starting the story (at least as far as I can tell). Thus, once the story started appearing, he already had my attention at least.
Hi, Jim -- I'm glad you've tuned in! I was wondering if Fritzi's twitter account has stood out at all. A lot of the web fiction people "she" follows tweet a lot and messages disappear fast.
I've been subscribed to your inmydaydreams.com feed for a while now although haven't had time yet to really get into the story. But I'm impressed by your regular output and have studied your site for ideas about how to present things.
Jim's "ImMyDayDreams" is awesome! I've linked it to my blog.
Good idea for the readers Scott. I'll check out your site.
The above is me... I always forget which account I'm signed into, lol
I have the same problem with my twitter accounts.
Thanks Scott and Leroy...
At the moment, I've got a lot of things to change about the presentation, but in my view, I've done a couple small things right.
1. Making the first page of the story a clear and obvious link on every page of the site.
2. Making the previous/next post links visible under each post.
The rest needs rethinking (and will get it in the next template change).
Scott: Incidentally, I'm sure the reason I noticed you is
a) I'm being followed by a spider.
b) You responded to one of my tweets. That makes you visible/memorable just by itself.
Oh wow, JZ. I hadn't visited inmydaydreams in a while. I didn't realize how much you changed the template!
Jim: As I've been scanning my feed reader the past few days, it occurred to me that your partial feed makes it harder for me to sample the story and get drawn in more.
I'm a big believer in full feeds. I understand people have their own reasons for wanting partial feeds and I respect that it's your call, but I wanted to mention it as feedback for you. (Or maybe I just grabbed the wrong feed?)
Jim, if you're still reading this thread, I agree with Scott. I didn't always believe in full feeds, but eventually came around to it. You can read why, here: Now Offering Full Feed
Dustin: I remember reading that. I'm not sure if I agree fully, but I've decided (based on what you and Scott have said) to take a shot at it and see what happens.
Blog fiction is cool but I believe that putting your fiction onto bigger sites e.g. ReadWave, Figment is better if you want an audience.
Why don't you try out the sites I listed above to your readers? They would help out a lot!
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