U-Verse is popular

Holy Crap. Not having internet at home sucks. You may have noted my extended absence for going on 2 weeks. Well, I was moving and waited way too long to order my new internet service. For cable, after I call to sign up it only takes about a day or two to have the technician to come up and hook me up. With AT&T U-verse it actually takes more than 2 weeks. So after moving I ended up without internet longer than expected. Combine that with all the hassle of packing and moving I either haven't had time or haven't had the ability to read and post.

Anyhoo, I am back with a warning to readers. If you're getting U-verse for your internet connection, leave a lot of time between sign up and when you cancel your old service.

How to Save Your Spot When Reading Online Fiction

I've mentioned before the problem with using bookmarks when reading blog fiction. The term "bookmark" is the terminology we use to refer to the concept of "saving" a webpage for later. I believe the Netscape coined the term for their original web browser - and it is something I may never forgive them for doing.

Even though we use the same word to describe saving our spots in books and on the internet, we use those "bookmarks" very differently. When I use a bookmark in the physical world, I am saving my place only until I get back. When I return to the book, I remove my bookmark, read and continue reading from where I was. The old "bookmarked" spot no longer exists. In cyberspace when we "bookmark" something we are usually saving it either permanently or at least "until further notice". We use our bookmark to jump back to a spot, but we do not remove the bookmark.

So why is this a problem? It's a problem because now I don't have the vocabulary to describe a "real" cyber bookmark. That is, a temporary bookmark that is erased when I open it. Well, for now I'm just going to refer to it as "temporary bookmarks". Now that my mini rant is done I come to the point of my article. I have found 2 bookmarking services that work like temporary bookmarks instead of permanent bookmarks.

The first service is a firefox add-on called "taboo". The idea behind "taboo" is that not only does it bookmark a page, but it saves any text you've entered into the page as well as how far down the screen your scrollbar is. It also takes a visual snapshot so that when you look at all of your "taboos" you see a nice preview of the page you saved. The service add 2 buttons to your browser. One is a button that will bookmark or "taboo" your spot. If you click it on a webpage that already has a saved taboo a little box pops up that allows to either change the name or description of the taboo and to move the taboo to the current spot on the webpage or you can just remove it. This makes removing a taboo very simple. Load a page, click taboo, click "remove". All of this without using any menu options.

The second button, as you may have guessed shows you all of your "taboos". If you click the button it will open up a firefox tab that shows all the thumbnails of the taboos you've saved. It lists them in the order that they were saved so you can see your latest bookmark -err... taboo- of each website you've visited if you have more than one taboo. Another quicker option is a little arrow next to the "show taboo" button will show a little popup of your latest taboos so you can quickly go back to a page you were reading.

Another bookmarking option I found was called dogear. This service is a little harder to describe. It places less emphasis on the time you saved a page than taboo does. However, the service works with all web browsers because all the information is saved on their webserver.

Here's how it works, when you want to start using it, you click a bookmark called "dogearit". What that does is create a frame at the top of your browser and the rest of the webpage in a frame below it. Then, when you want to "dog-ear" a page, you highlight the text you want to come back to and then left click it. That create's your dog ear. If you highlight other text on the page and then left-click it, it will move the dogear to that text.

To retrieve your dogears you have another bookmark. That takes you to a webpage(assuming you're logged in) that lists all of your "dog-eared" web pages. Then you can click them like any other hyperlink and you'll goto that webpage, scroll to where you left it, and the dogear frame will be at the top of the page.

So, which of these services works best? Hands down "taboo" is a lot better. I use it to read the archives of blog fiction and it works out great. The dogearit service is too slow. When the frame is on the page, it seems to almost quintuple my page load times. Unlike taboo, it is not as easy to remove a dogear you no longer want. Plus it seems I'm always getting logged out of the service so I waste time trying to log back in.

There are a couple things that dogear does better than taboo. First of all, any browser can use it. So if you use Internet Explorer, Safari, or Chrome dogear is pretty much your only option. The second thing is how the services handles saving your spot in a page. Taboo only remembers how far down the page you scrolled. That means if the page changes by adding content to the top, your scrollbar will not be in the same place. Dogear remembers by keeping track of the text you highlighted. Dogear will take you to that portion of the page regardless of where it is. So, if dogear ever solves the speed issue, it might become as good, if not better, than the taboo firefox add-on. Until the speed issue is resolved, however, I would recommend using firefox and taboo if you're looking to use temporary in-page bookmarks.

While taboo and dogearit solves a couple of the problems with reading online fiction it does not resolve them all. For instance, if you're not reading in a chronological order (which is definately a possiblity with blog or any online fiction) you can't keep track of what you have and haven't read. It does however, solve 2 big problems. It allows you to do an in-page save - this is especially helpful if you're reading multiple blog posts on a single archive page(i.e. all August posts). Also you can remove a temporary bookmark easily so you don't have 3 dozen bookmarks on the same webpage.

Please Don't Fall for This Racket

Hat tip to Eli James for finding this first.

Apparently, Writer's Digest has an annual "Self-published Competition". The first prize is pretty amazing.

ONE GRAND PRIZE WINNER will be awarded $3,000 cash and promotion in Writer's Digest and Publishers Weekly. The editors of Writer'sDigest will endorse and submit 10 copies of theGrand Prize-Winning book to major review housessuch as The New York Times and The Washington Post. In addition, Book Marketing Works, LLC will provide a one-year membership in Publishers Marketing Association, guarenteed acceptance in a special-sales catalog providing national representation through 1800 salespeople selling to non-bookstore markets, guaranteed acceptance by Atlas Books (a top distributor to wholeslaers, chains, independents and online retailers), six hours of book shepherding from Poynter Book Shepherd Ellen Reid and guaranteed review in Midwest Book Review.

Even if you don't win the grand prize, there are 10 first place prizes.

10 FIRST-PLACE WINNERS will receive $1000 cash and promotion in Writer'sDigest. In addition, Book Marketing Works, LLC will provide a guaranteed review in Midwest Book Review, a one-year membership to Book Central Station, the eBook Beyong the Bookstore, a Publishers Weekly book by Brian Jud and a copy of Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers by Shel Horowitz.

Wow! 13,000 dollars in cash prizes and the chance to get your book distributed by a real publishing company. Reader'sWriter's digest is such a supporter of struggling authors... That is, they're supportive of struggling authors who have a 100$ dollars or more to give to them.

Check, money order or credit card payment for the required judging fee of $100 for the first entry, $75 for each additional entry must accompany submissions.

Doing the math in my head, they only need 130 people to enter this competition to cover the cash prizes, and only 170(they claim $17,000 in prizes) to cover the cost of all the prizes. That is quite the business model. It makes me think that their goal isn't to make money by finding and promoting a great book, but rather to prey on desperate authors. There is another publishing business that makes money from desperate authors and not on book sales:

Vanity presses earn their money, not from sales of books to readers as other publishers do, but from sales of books to the books' authors. The author receives the shipment of his or her books and may attempt to resell them through whatever channels are available.

I really do believe that a competition like this is just a well disguised vanity publisher scheme. Please don't fall for this racket. If you truly believe that your book is good enough to win this competition -which will likely have thousands upon thousands of entrants- then your book should also believe that your book is good enough to be picked up by a real publishing house that won't charge you anything up front.

One more thing. If you think that a 100$ entrance fee is reasonable considering that they have to pay someone to read all those books. Think about this. Reader'sWriter's digest is a huge magazine publisher. What do you think are the chances that the majority of the entries will be read by a full time staff instead of an unpaid intern that decides whether or not to pass the book onto the "real" (paid) judges who will likely only read a small subset of entries?

Authors Wanted

Editor's note. This is a guest post by James C. Harwood. His projects with shared universes intrigued me and I offered my blog to help him recruit interested authors for them.

Authors Wanted. Email James C. Harwood hereafter1956@yahoo.com if interested in the following.

First, it is important to learn about and understand what shared universe concepts are. See Wiki at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_universe for "shared universe" defined and explained. A good example is Star Trek, which became a shared universe concept series when different authors wrote Star Trek stories for books, television and movies, after Gene Roddenberry created the series.

The HEREafter Project: The "HEREafter, Book One: A Mild Case of Death" science fiction novel by James C. Harwood was first published as a paperback in May 2003. Then as an ebook in May 2004. Now it is a free blog novel at the http://hereafterbookone.blogspot.com website. Please read the Book Series Introduction on the main page at the blog novel website to find out what it is about. HEREafter was created to be a shared universe concept series. James C. Harwood wrote Book One to be the example to follow. He created the http://hereafterglossarium.blogspt.com "HEREafter Glossarium" at the website as an aid to readers and future HEREafter writers. A reader can click on hyperlinked words in the text of the blog novel to then be taken to the same words in the Glossarium, to then get more information about those characters, or locations, or events, or other subjects. Writers interested in becoming HEREafter authors should read all of Book One and the contents of the Glossarium in order to become familiar with all of the material of the HEREafter universe. Further, Book One is currently being continued as "HEREafter Tractus" at http://hereaftertractus.blogspot.com in the form of a journal series, which eventually will become Book Two for the part of the series being written by James C. Harwood. New HEREafter authors will each create their own blogs for HEREafter blog fiction. James C. Harwood owns HEREafter, Copyright, All Rights, but is sharing the HEREafter material free of charge with any interested writers. Likewise, readers may freely share the material with other readers. It is acceptable for authors to place a PayPal link at their blog websites to ask for donations, and each author may keep 100% of money received from donations—no shares to James C. Harwood for blog fiction.

The Kaleidoscope Project: Visit the http://kaleidoscopehotelbarandcoffeeshop.blogspot.com/ Kaleidoscope Hotel, Bar, and Coffee Shop blog website. [For convenience you may refer to it as the K-blog.] Blogger.com allows up to 100 authors on each blog. Please read the Instructions listed on the left side of the main page. All participating Kaleidoscope Project authors will participate at that same blog website, unlike the HEREafter Project authors who will create their own separate blog websites. This is intended to be a fun shared universe concept series. Those writers who as readers are familiar with the "Callahan's" series of Spider Robinson novels will instantly understand how part of this works. The characters cross paths as patrons at "Callahan's Crosstime Saloon" where they have a drink, interact with each other, and swap stories. Likewise, the Kaleidoscope characters will cross paths at the hotel, which includes a bar and a coffee shop. The hotel is unique. Like the "arch" of the "holodeck" in Star Trek The Next Generation, any hotel exit may be given voice commands by any guest to take that guest to any physical location and any point in time where human life can exist, and be programmed to be recalled if it is a location where the hotel does not otherwise exist. An example could be a character who enters the hotel in Dallas in 2009, checks in, gets a room, and then exits the hotel to walk out into London of 1888 to have a chat with Jack the Ripper. The space and time travel aspects make it science fiction, but otherwise any genre is acceptable—adventure, comedy, drama, fantasy, horror, mystery, romance, suspense, etc. Through the common ground of the hotel, characters of different authors can crossover into each other's realms. Further, readers may become characters and participate by communicating with characters by using Comments of blog postings. There will be no PayPal donations at the K-blog, in order to keep it completely free and simple—no need to deal with the problem of distributing shares of donations to different authors. This is just for fun reading and writing.

Blog Fiction Gives Instant Literary Reaction to History

When I'm not parading around the internet as an amateur literary critic, I am parading around the internet as an amateur student of history. I love history. That shouldn't really be too much of a surprise for you. If you're a student of literature it's hard not to also be a student of history.

To truly appreciate classic novels, once must first appreciate the time period it was written and\or takes place in. After all, how can you appreciate Mark Twain's classic, The adventures of Huckleberry Finn, without understanding the history of slavery? How can one understand the underlying themes of "The Stranger" without knowing at least a little bit about existentialism and the effect WWII had on french existentialism. The same goes for other story telling mediums. How can one appreciate the conflict of "Fiddler on the Roof" without knowing about the ugly history of antisemitism throughout Europe? You have to know history to fully understand a story's underlying themes.

Here's another way literature and history combine. If you want to understand a culture at a particular point in time, one only has to look at the art that culture created in that time period. The same goes for literature. If you look at the popular literature you will also gain insight into a culture. For instance, Charles Dicken's novels give a lot of insight on England during the Industrial Revolution. Jane Austin's novel, Pride and Prejudice give us insight into England's Georgian Era.

While literature gives us insight into a culture's consciousness and thinking, it does not give instant reaction. Looking again at Pride and Prejudice is a perfect example of this. The original novel was written in 1796 in the middle of the Georgian Era. However it wasn't published until 1813 - the tale end of the Georgian Era and when the effects of the Industrial Revolution were just being felt. Therefore, despite being popular, it didn't fully reflect what England was going through in 1813. It gives no clue to people's responses to things like Napolionic Wars or the French Revolution because they hadn't happened, or were still unfolding at the time it was written.

This lag between history and literature exists still today. Unless you're an already an accomplished and famous writer(i.e. Stephen King or Tom Clancy) it can take years just to get a publisher to agree to publish your book. Even after agreeing to publish it, it will still be months to get all the editing, illustrating, and marketing in place before the book is ready to ship to book stores. Therefore, let's say a major event happens in the world such as a war, famine, or political scandal. It will be at least a year or more before any literature could possibly be published that references that event and by then, the attitudes of people toward that event may have changed.

This is where Blog Fiction comes in. If something major happens in the morning. I can have my fictional character react to it by late afternoon. It is an instant reaction that no other fiction medium can replicate. Not books, not plays, not tv shows(well... maybe South Park), and certainly not movies.

You might ask "why does it matter if the reaction is one day, one month, or even 1 year from the time of an event?" The reason it matters is that people's reactions can change over time. Here's a simple example. Let's say you're writing a novel. To help reveal something about your character you say that his hero is some political figure that is currently very well liked. Now let's say it's 6 months later and your book is going through the editing process. Suddenly that politician is embroiled in serious corruption scandal. You might make a last minute change to say that your character worships a different political figure. What is lost is the fact that, at one point, a political figure was famous and very well liked. From the point of literature that, that fact is now lost.

That doesn't happen with Blog Fiction. The time of writing and publishing tends to be so close in blog fiction that it will be too late for the author to change the name. Instead, the author would have to acknowledge that the character's hero has fallen from grace. In fact, it might dominate the story for sometime. Now, with the blog fiction, not only is the fact that a political figure was once well liked preserved, there is an instant reaction to his fall from grace. Despite being fiction, the blog fiction now becomes a source of history.

I think this idea of "instant literary reaction" fascinating. It is something that I will write more about in the near future.

January '09 New Roundup

Some Interesting News Bits happening in the Blog Fiction World. Some old, some recent, all of it was news to me in the last week. This is a little longer than usual since I've covering December as well.

Abandoned Sites:

• Diary of a Dhampyr in England hasn't had a new story post since November. Fortunately, a post last week by the author indicates that it may spring back to life.
• The Time Traveler Blog - Only 1 post since august 2008 and nothing since November. I think it's safe to declare this abandoned.
  

Site Redo
The Super Hero blogs each took a temporary hiatus. Fortunately, they used the time to migrate their separate blogger blogs into a single Wordpress blog. I love the new look. It makes reading them together a lot easier. Great job guys, the new site looks great! All the old posts have been copied to the new site.


Hiatuses
(Un)Dead Man Blogging has decided to take a hiatus. Not sure when he'll be back. "Maybe" late spring.

New Sites:
I've provided links to all the new blog fiction sites that have come by in the last couple months. You can read more about each one in the Blog Fiction Links forum.
Minimal English | Sketches of Absurdity
Asher Marr | Cyberpunk
Detling Adventures: Lake Wobegon meets X-Files
Treasured Vulva
Diary: Alone on Earth
Wren & Marnie's Guide to World Domination

New Sites, but then abadoned:

• My Super Hopeless Romance was a good find. Too bad a new post has been added since I found it in early December.
• http://fictionblogs2.blogspot.com/ used to be a site that listed blog fiction sites. It had been abandoned for years. Late last year it was redesigned and posted a couple articles. Since then it's been abandoned again. - Oh well.
  

Back from the Abyss

• The Captivity of Wrigley the Cat - This site was abandoned last summer. Good to see that it's come roaring back.
• Life in Bear Country - My word. What once was lost, now is found. After I complained about the whole thing disappearing, the author, Marsha Loftis, stopped by to let us know that, not only is she rewriting the story, but that she has also made the original available on her site. SWEET!
• Evangeline's Ride went on hiatus in early december. Then, after some brutal reviews at webfictionguide.com I was afraid that it may not come back, but, fortunately, just as promised, the story is going again and posting every friday and monday.
  

Did I miss anything? Have your own January '09 news? Let me know in the comments.

EntreCard is Awesome

EntreCard has been really great for attracting new readers. After the initial setup of the service, you only need about 20 minutes a day to attract dozens of brand new readers every day. The best part is that if you want more and have the time, you can attract even more.

So what is EntreCard and how does it work? Well, it boils down to this. You try to earn credits so you can then spend those credits by buying advertising on other sites. When you first sign up you create a logo for you site. When you purchase an advertisement with your credits, your logo will show up on that site for exactly 24 hours. So, how do you earn credits? Well there are several ways.

The easiest way is to just put the EntreCard widget on your site. When people who also have the widget see your widget they can click the "drop" button. This gives you one "credit". This is one reason why you want to have the widget at the top of your site.

Another way to earn credits is by allowing others to advertise on your blog. After logging into the entrecard website you will be taken to your "dashboard" which will have a list of sites that would like to advertise on your site. If you approve the ad, the ad will enter a waiting list until it's turn and will display that logo on your site. How much do you earn from selling advertising? Well, you will earn however much people are willing to pay to advertise on your site. Obviously, if you have a well trafficked blog, people will pay lots( sometimes over a thousand credits). If you have a small blog they may only be willing to pay 8 credits. The longer the waiting list to advertise on your blog, the more people will have to pay to advertise on your site. Note that no matter how many people are awaiting approval, your cost won't rise, only when you approve an ad will the cost to advertise on your site go up. This gives you an incentive to approve ads ASAP.

Dropping
The final way to earn credits is the most intensive, but is also the primary earning for a blog with little traffic. You can go to other sites that have EntreCard and "drop" on them. Not only will that site earn a credit, you will too. As a bonus, many sites will often do "dropbacks" meaning they will drop on your site if you drop on theirs. If you find people that do that each drop doubles in value. My suggestion for doing drops is to bookmark a few blogs everyday that have the following characteristic:
1. Have an EntreCard
2. Are of a related subject
3. Have the EntreCard widget towards the top of their site.
Then put all of those bookmarks in the same folder(I use the firefox "Delicious" add-on and give all the sites the same tag). Everyday, go to that folder and choose the "open all sites in this folder" option. Then, go to the bathroom or make breakfast. By the time they are done loading you can click-close-click-close each and every site. Once they are all loaded you should be able to do about 50 or more drops in 5 minutes. Also, monitor your "dropbacks" and see who returns your drops. Delete the sites that do not and replace them with sites that do.

Once you've earned a couple hundred credits(probably 2 to 3 days - possibly more when first starting) you're ready to do some major advertising. You can either buy lots of cheap advertising or build up your credits and only buy a few expensive ones. In my experience saving up to advertise on a well trafficked site is worth the wait.

The ads are the primary way to attract new readers. I can always see my traffic do a mini spike when I buy an ad on an expensive site (usually 256+ credits). There are residual ways to get new readers. When you buy advertising or do drops, sometimes those authors may check out your site and like what they find. Also, some sites to encourage droppers will permanently display their top droppers. That's free advertising for you!

So, to sum up my tips on getting the most from Entrecard.
1. Drop on sites with similar content
2. Advertise on sites with similar content
3. Save up and buy the more expensive ads.
4. Put your widget at top of your site to encourage droppers and advertisers.
5. Try to identify sites that do "drop backs"
6. Use bookmarks so that you can do dozens of drops in a day in only a few minutes.

Have fun and enjoy the new readers.

How to Use Hyperlinks in Blog Fiction

It seems that blog fiction writers just can't win when it comes to the editorial reviews at Web Fiction Guide. Check out these two reviews. First, this little excerpt from a Gavin Williams's review of Charlotte.

The Charlotte character mentions a website where she collects photos; a real blog would link to it and display them. Blog fiction should use the web just as well, if not better, than your average person’s real blog.

A good point that Gavin makes. Now let's take a look at an excerpt from another review. This time Morgan O'Friel's review of FlyOver City.

Another problem with this story is the liberal use of the ever-controversial hyperlinks through-out the blog. I found myself feeling as though I had to click on the hyperlinks to understand the references (or else why would the author put them in there), but once I did, I got so distracted by the other sites that it threw me right out of the story.

Well this creates quite the conundrum, doesn't it? Whether or not you use hyperlinks in your blog fiction, you lose. So what do you do? Well, I think that Blog Fiction is a little young to say that things should or should not be one way or the other. There is no "convention" to follow. I think ultimately you should do what you think is best for your particular story. Maybe someday, after a lot of experimentation, "conventions" and "best practices" will develop for Blog Fiction. That day is not today.

That being said, I'm not going to let it stop me from offering my opinion on the matter. As of right now, my opinion is closer to Gavin Williams's than to Morgan O'Freil's. I say, link away. It's one of the built-in advantages blog fiction has over dead-tree publishing. People read blogs all the time that have links in them. I think they'll figure out how to read fiction with links as well. I don't think they'll get distracted by too many of them.

I can think of 3 instances where you would want to use links in your story. They are:

1. Referring back to previous events and characters
2. Normal Blog linking and esoteric references
3. Leaving "Bread Crumbs" for your careful and savvy readers.
   

Referring back to previous events and characters
The first case where you might want to use links is when referring to a past event or character in the story. Imagine if you're reading a book and a character disappears on page 50, and then reappears page 150. By then you may have forgotten who he is. How convenient would it be to be able to go back to the first page he appears to remind yourself who that person is. The ability to refer people back becomes more important for Blog Fiction, because now imagine instead of reading something 100 pages later imagine it's 100 days later. Links solve this inherent drawbacks to serialized fiction - people forgetting what happened since the last entry. Also, it's a great way to get new readers caught up without having to reread the whole story. The User Pool uses this linking strategy a lot.

Normal Blog linking and esoteric references
Another way to use links on your blog fiction site is to use them exactly the way you would on a non-fiction blog. That is, you would link to stuff that your character might find interesting. Videos, news events, and other sites they find. Links like that could either give comic relief to your story or offer insight into what that character finds interesting . You might also use links to reference something your readers may not be familiar with. For instance, the Cranky Product Manager is all about creating software. Not everyone understands software development. So, when the writer mentions the "Agile" development method, she provided a link to a Wikipedia article about it. Those who know what it is (or don't care) can skip over it while others can click the link for more information. The story is not ruined for readers who aren't "in the know" because they can find out, and the story is not interrupted for readers who are "in the know".

Leaving "Bread Crumbs" for your careful and savvy readers.
The third way of using links is to reward careful and savvy readers by leaving "bread crumbs" (additional information in the story) on other websites. This is not something that I've seen done a lot, but if used, can be really fun for readers to find. Lord Likely is the only fictional blogger I've met that stays "in character" on other web sites.

The bread crumb idea is something I thought of while reading Fate's Acquittal. One of the entries makes reference to the website Don't Date Him Girl. The website is meant for women who get treated like crap by an ex-boyfriend. They can tell all the horrible things he did to her as a warning to other women that they shouldn't date the guy. In the story, one of the characters get listed there by another character. The blog quotes word for word what is written about the male character. I thought to myself, wouldn't it instead have been a lot more fun if the writer would've created an account under the name of the female character "writing" the bad stuff and then actually have an entry on the website that is bad mouthing the male character. Then, in the blog entry it could list the general "gist" of the post, but actually link to the full listing on the site. Wouldn't that have been a lot more fun? Careful and savvy readers would've checked the link and found the article(rewarded), while careless or hurried readers would've missed it.

Another example from fate's acquittal is the use of myspace and facebook. Sure the characters have a facebook and myspace account but they really aren't updated that often. In the story there are numerous references to myspace and facebook where the author could've created and linked to fictional characters' profiles.

Another good example that I can think of comes from the first entry of FlyOver City. In it he references (and even links!) to a yahoo page about "Taki's" restaurant. A really fun "bread crumb" could've been the fictional character leaving a review of the restaurant on the yahoo page. Again- this would've rewarded careful readers who clicked through and may have noticed it.

So there are my suggestions for when and how to use links in a blog fiction. When, if ever, I attempt to write my own blog fiction, I would use links for all 3 purposes I've laid out. However, if you're a writer and don't use all or any of my suggestions I wouldn't be upset. As long as whatever you're doing works for your story. Experiment and use what works for you.