#writers markets

[vamprisms]

hate this weird trend of shows and stuff being written with shipping and fandom in mind. um get thee hell out of that writer's room if i'm being fully honest

[heywriters]

Once again, you can be an English major. a seasoned journalist. an established author. a famed literary critic...and you will still scratch your head over the junk that makes it big. Public opinion has no worth. Just write what you want.

"But I don't want to share something that isn't perfect" why not? everyone else does.

[coffeenonsense]

I rarely post personal stuff on here but irl I'm a writer whose work covers tech and AI quite a bit and with the WGA strike ongoing, I really want to stress that the reason Hollywood execs and higher-ups think they can just replace writers with chatgpt or have someone come and edit AI generated text is because they already think writing is that easy.

these people look at their shows, movies, etc as marketable (re, profitable) content so all they are watching for is "okay this show performed badly" and "this movie performed well" and I can promise you in a boardroom the quality, the time and effort that went into the actual writing is NEVER discussed as a contributing factor when it comes to the difference between those two things.

That's also the reason tools like chatgpt seem like magic to these people, because they've devalued the act of creation and everything that goes into making something that resonates with its audience, so naturally something that can scrape the entire digital world and spit something out that falls in line with what you asked seems like a wizard's spell, because they ALREADY think of writing as an afterthought, something where they just go "I need a show that appeals to the 16-24 age range" and writers can just fill in the blanks and they won't have to PAY PEOPLE for that.

There's a vast difference between art and content, and if you want to see more of the former, you should be furious they're trying to replace writers with what is essentially a programmable template generator. Pay your writers.

[hopethisdoesntawakenanythingnme]

but how are the redditors doing having experienced their first November 5th-like week on the hellsite?

like are y'all still alive?

[the-crooked-library]

the vampire lestat dropped his single a DAY ago and his stans are already having beef with swifties… 🖐️💀 guys chill you’re both having mental breakdowns to shitty lyrics, literally nobody else gives a fuck

[thewriteblrlibrary]

A Step-by-Step Marketing Guide so we can spite traditional publishers (and make people cry).

~ This is a guide specific for fiction/writeblr. All of this is for free and there is little social media posting/ads involved (unless you want to venture into that). ~

Within the writeblr spheres, there's this underlying hope that our stories will find their audience. Perhaps we'll have a fandom full of fanart and video essays, or maybe we'll be an instant classic and sit on collectors' beloved bookshelves. Our stories could sit within the deepest corners of someone's heart and maybe they never tell a soul about what's so special to them. Maybe our stories become those 'underrated masterpieces'.

Or we just want to see people ugly cry over our writing.

Whatever your hope may be, marketing is an important path to venture on (especially because traditional publishers are rejecting diverse books in favor of ones that are already famous + the whole sub-par machine thing they seem obsessed with.)

And thus, my childhood marketing obsession will hopefully be of use to you. This is all for free (unless you want to spend money) and you don't need to figure out social media platforms (unless you want to, and this guide works if you decide to take that route too.)

Step One: Characters

Marketing spheres will define these fictious people as 'avatars' or 'the target audience'. You could also call them characters. Because that's what they are: fictional people.

For this step, you shall create characters that would love your story.

And here's some great news: You've already done this.

Perhaps you wrote your story to comfort a prior version of yourself. Perhaps each character in your story holds an aspect of your personality. Perhaps you were ridiculously self-indulgent and made the story you would've loved to read. These are all possible characters you can reuse for marketing.

Write down 2-4 quick archetypes for these characters. You'll chose an aspect of your story (characters, themes, or the younger-self that you wrote it for) and write a thumbnail sketch. (Main issue, fears, wants, personality traits if they relate to the main issue.)

I'll do it for my story (the Land of the Fallen Fairies) down below:

Anuli-like (my MC): Overthinking and aloof. Wants a happy ending but thinks their current personality/character isn't good enough for one. The present stales in comparison to the past/the childhood they lost. The 'gifted theater kids'. Kamari-like (side character): Postpones happiness in favor of creating a perfect schedule/getting accomplishments. Heavy masking. Creative but doesn't create anymore. Promises themself they'll enjoy themselves later, when they've earned it. Workaholics. My younger self: Wanting a fantasy escapism to embody the traits they wish they had in real life. Dissatisfied and worried about reality. Perfectionists. Self-indulgent: People who love plants and forests and fantasy worlds far away from reality/humanity.

Great! Now it's time to find these characters.

Step Two: Setting.

(Let's assume you're using the internet for your marketing. But a similar method works for real life too.)

Where do the characters live?

In order to figure that out, we need to discover the characters' interests, what they watch to solve their problems, and who they find #relatable.

(You can do this for each character or for all the characters at once.)

For example:

Anuli-like -

interests: Stories. Analysis videos. Fantasy escapism. Things that remind them of their childhood. (so nature, warmth, comfort, play, imagination and the times they would actually enjoy learning.)

Places to look: Nature quotes, ambience videos, children's shows and fairytales (comfort shows). Fandom culture - fanfic video essays, fan art.

Solving problems (the problem being wanting a 'happy ending' but feeling that their personality/lifestyle/characteristics aren't right for one): Mindfulness things. Self-healing. Quotes and meditations and candles galore. Slow living. Nature vlogs. Self care. All that 'live in the moment' culture.

Places to look: Slow living. Nature vlogs. The 'softer self-help' (spirituality stuff. Magic/ overnight answers). Witchcraft. 'aesthetic nature' places. Guided meditations.

#relatable: Burnt out gifted kids. People who think so much that their life passes them by. Storytellers and creative who create to make sense of the world. People who like dark, gory things in spite of who they want to be. People who don't like reality.

Places to look: Those 'learn better and remember everything' places. (The 'burnt-out gifted kid' recovery places.) Stop overthinking spots. Those quotes on Pinterest from poetic people who think too much /aff. Storyteller places. Dark academia. Classical music. One off quotes/ poetry.

Okie dokie. Once you have this, find channels, social media accounts, blogs, songs, books, etc. that fit with the categories you wrote down. (They should appeal to the characters) You can search up some of the terms you listed into searches and see who pops up. Bonus points if you find people that overlap with multiple sections.

I know I didn't include booktube or booktok in here. You can if you want too. But those can be a bit... 'consume these 500 books'. You also want to find other places where people who would like you story live, even if they don't follow booktube or booktok.

Congrats! Now you know where your characters live!

Step Three: the scary part

Take everyone you found on your search for the settings and write them down a list. Make sure you get an email/contact info. (they usually list them somewhere under 'for business inquires') Also feel free to watch their content and get to know what attributes these settings have.

And now... we talk to them. about our stories. You can do it. I believe in you.

This called 'pitching your product' in marketing spheres. But you can be informal about it.

I know it can be difficult to talk about your work, so here's a tone to have:

'I made this thing I like and I think you'll like it too'.

What you'll do is send an email (or dm) that goes like this (inspired by Creative Hive on youtube):

Hi [name],

[Genuine compliment]

[Quick sentence or two about your story. Include the themes and who it appeals to. If you have a logline/sentence summary, include that. But I find that the underlying themes and 'who's it's for' is more engaging.

For my story, I might say something like.

I've written a story you might enjoy, since you like [interest]. It's called the Land of the Fallen Fairies. It's a nature-themed commentary on the pursuit of happiness and fixing yourself to deserve that happiness, told by an overthinking, unreliable, houseplant narrator. It was supposed to comfort me when I got frustrated with myself and my happiness chasing, and I hope it can comfort others too.

(That's probably a bit long and I can trim it down a bit.)

You can phrase it like a gift if you want too.]

[Call to action.

'If you like it, I'd appreciate a mention on your [platform].

I know this part may be difficult to mention (imposter syndrome is not fun.) But I promise that if they do like it, they'll be happy to mention it.]

If they don't respond within... four-ish days? (A week at most). then you can include a follow up. For this you can include a template with info about your story. This way it's easy for them to talk about your story.

The template:

title

genre

blurb

Author

where to find the book

Bonus points if you have an additional, physical thing to send them.

Congrats! Now do this pitching process a few times until you've covered most of your bases. (Pitch to as many people as you can. It will get more comfortable as you do it. Play your favorite song and don't let yourself think too hard about it.)

----------

The benefits of this process are that you find people that are already interested in the themes and vibes of your story (in comparison to to ads, which get shoved in everyone's faces.). Someone your audience already trusts will talk about it, which means you don't need to do all this trial and error to find your audience and make content for them.

It's basically a bunch of people talking about something they like!

AND you diversify your audience across niches, but with an underlying theme/interests. Booktok/booktube must appeal to everyone, so it's a hit or miss for recommendations. (Unless there is someone that specifically does one genre/type of story.)

From here you can do fun little things to build up hype and make the book launch feel like this fun event. (I love it when that happens so here's my thoughts about trying to create an event with your story... although that may require another post entirely.)

preorder goals

charity goals

Arg's and puzzles

fund with side plushies and trinkets

Book blog tour

book boxes

as many memes as you can make

rewards (like bookmarks or posters or smth) that people can get for supporting

Talk about the process of creating your story. I know this one channel called 'Dead Sound' that creates 'making of' videos for his short films and they are some of the best videos on youtube.

Okay dear storyteller! Now go forth and share your story with the world!

Additional resources:

Creative Hive <-- a youtube channel that goes through the pitching process.

This video is also very good <-- Haven't watched the rest of the channel but I assume it's also good.

One of the best marketing channels on the internet (the videos are actually entertianing to watch.

Seth Goldin <-- I read his book and took the parts I liked and modified for storytelling marketing.

Dead Sound <-- propaganda to watch the short film series he has (he did the whole 2-d 3-d style wayyyy before spiderverse did... and he's one person making these. One person. It's amazing.

Glitch <--- If someone can figure out how The Amazing Digital Circus was marketed then I will pay you money. It seems to be a lot of memes and funny things.

[star-reyes]

Queer baiting in comics is BACK, BABY

[night-market-if]

Support Small Authors

I got hit with a pretty big E.R bill for my daughter (thanks healthcare) and my computer after only a year, is already on the fritz. All of this before the holidays and, surprise surprise, my husband is going to be laid off for a bit right after Christmas. Most of you have already bought my game and stories but reblogs would be wonderful.

Welcome to the Night Market. Book 1 in a series. The Night Market is an interactive fiction novel in which you awaken to a lantern filled world with no memory of how you got there. Desperate to get home, you must find the gate that leads back to your world, while navigating a foreign land, rife with political intrigue, arbitrary rules and secrets designed to keep you distracted. Nine barons rule the market , a place so vast that not even they can truly know its scope. But, one baron holds the key to your safe return home. Yet, no one has seen or heard from them in over a decade.

Book 1 Steam

Book 1 Itch.io

The companion piece to the Night Market with dozens of stories and works of art, all relating to book 1. Find out what each of the RO's was thinking and doing when MC was not around and dive further into the world of the Night Market itself.

Buy on itch.io

Welcome to a Night Market Kristus story. My holiday story for this year. A fully interactive story featuring MC, the RO's, and some new characters that have been introduced in the WIP of book 2. Enjoy this fun romp through a holiday horror show and have a few soft moments with your chosen romance.

Buy on itch.io

Join my Patreon. Here you will receive monthly lore posts. Short stories each month. Decision making on polls. The occasional development blog. And early access to any of the chapters that are coming out for book 2. Join a high enough tier and I will even write a short story or a lore post for you.

Join here

[dreadfuldevotee]

The thing that drives me consistently crazy is that they fucking love to put Armand/Assad in the promotionals. The loumand fight(s) are Iconic. One of the first scenes previewed for s2 is the murder mansion flirtation, even when articles wouldn't print his name- Assad's face would still be on the banner. They can send him to fucking *checks notes* Fox News 7 in Austin, Texas, But not acknowledge his work. Why do people act like we're insane for saying this is fucked up!?!??!

[dragon-flies-72]

Honestly congrats to the cc that are just promoting their stuff cause of the drama. Like genuinely best marketing stunt ever I fully support this play. Please carry on yall deserve it

[sovamurka]

let's be honest, for very ironic reasons, official writers were not really responsible for timebomb being so good, fortiche carried most of the timebomb writing

yes, even in s1 since this is really where writers (*VERY LOUD COUGH* amanda) picked up on very delicate and deliberate details that fortiche put in s1e7, details which could be potentially explored later (as a side plot, of course *sarcasm*, we don't want to overshadow other dynamics of the show, do we?)

but especially in s2 since it's basically confirmed by pascal charrue, fortiche's co-founder, that the episode fortiche studio were most emotionally and creatively involved with in matters of writing is episode 7

which is even further confirmed by linke in the artbook where he states that episode 7 is basically a literal love letter to french culture and that he hopes fortiche is really proud of it

like... wow, the "nobody loves timebomb more than french people do" joke is actually not a joke at all

[heywriters]

The Fine Line Between Fan Art, Fan Fiction, and Finding Yourself Sued

This whole article is worth a read for fan creators, especially those of you trying to make an honest buck off your work.

(excerpt below)

How Do You Avoid a Lawsuit? Due to the popularity of fan fiction and fan art, many content owners have begun proactively providing guidelines to their fanbase. Wizards of the Coast (Dungeons & Dragons),[6] CBS and Paramount Pictures (Star Trek),[7] and EPIC Games[8] have all developed policies to inform fans of what they can and cannot do legally. Additionally, usually as long as the fan content is non-commercial, it is not a problem with copyright holders. Regardless, unless the work is completely original, fans should be careful about their creations.

Additionally, try to be smarter than this guy who attempted to sue Amazon for the rights to Lord of the Rings.

[we-are-inevitable]

hey. heyyy creators. stop knee-capping yourself. if you wrote something, you wrote something! be proud of that! if you drew something, be excited about it! saying things like “oh, this isn’t very good,” or “i don’t like how this looks but here it is i guess” is only going to hurt you in the long run. be proud of your creations!! stop being your loudest critic!!

and for writers specifically, this goes double for when you post on a site like ao3. if your summary is just “idk why i wrote this/i’m bad at tagging/this is bad but i’m posting anyway” or any other variation of putting yourself down, it hurts your engagement soooo much. if you think what you wrote is bad, why would anyone else read it? you just gave them a warning to stay away from your work. be unapologetic about what you’re creating and put enthusiasm into sharing it!!

[gracebethartacc]

What if hms were a modern kids cartoon reboot that watered down all their nuance in favor of soft edges and morals of the day. What if we lived in nightmare world. Anyway I’m rod sterling—

[royalarchivist]

I say this in the kindest way possible, but I think this style of prose is more appropriate for a personal account rather than an update account. I have no idea who's being talked about half the time. 🥲

[ Tumblr meme via @mikaikaika ]

[night-market-if]

Chapter Five Public Release

Book 2, Chapter 5, is now up for the public release!!!! There were a few coding changes within this chapter so I would advise going back to the end of chapter four and replaying the choice of where you are going to send Belladonna to (Reese, Elias, or send her) before going in to play chapter five.

It also came to my attention that some of my Patreon members may have had a code break at the end of Milo/Mal's route. It should not be there anymore. You should have an end scene with them in Malcolm's apartment.

Thank you all for the support you have shown me! It has been a crazy month and is bound to be a crazy July as well. Thank you for your patience!

Read book 2 here