Web Fiction Guide Forums

Responses

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   1

   Sora (Member)

   Posted 3 years ago

   Wow... 5 months of buffers. How often do you plan to update? At any rate, I think some small advertising would be good, just to let people know when it goes live. You might want to submit the site for feedback before it goes live. That's all about I can think of.

   It's All Relative
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   Kyt Dotson (Member)

   Posted 3 years ago

   I'd say that beyond just advertising, thou might want to mention that it's going live at certain social locales (a la here) that it's coming online. Then remind people on the day.

   When I start getting ready to launch my newest, I am going to try for a little bit of a suspense building campaign.

   Try just starting with some sort of a holding page maybe with a countdown and a Feedburner link. That way the URL can be released early and interesting people can subscribe to the RSS even before it starts coming out -- and it makes the pre-advert more useful.

   It doesn't promise subscribers or anything, but it might make for an interesting opening.

   Other than that. Lots of networking. As many friends/people as possible to pick up the opening announcement to drive eyeballs and then run with it from then on.

   At least, that's how I think I'd do it if I were doing it right now.

   http://www.blackhatmagick.com
   BLACK HAT MAGICK vol 2: TANGO & CACHE - Not your ordinary detective agency
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   Alex McG (Member)

   Posted 3 years ago

   Definitely go live with the site a good little while before you start the serial. Let the word get around, allow extra time to get people bookmarking, have a venue dedicated to hyping the story--definitely hype the story on the site before it goes up.
   Another reason to publish the site before the story is that it will help your search engine ranking. New sites often take a while to work their way up the rankings since so many fold shortly after popping up.

   Build a sitemap. Submit it to google. Do some SEO work. Create profiles at places like blogcatalog.com, all that junk. (don't go overboard with the return links to networks. I made that mistake. It sucks away your page rank (the tenuous idea of 'link juice' applies here) and makes your site look bad.

   What platform are you using? Even after your site is finished, read up on what others say about design. I don't know if this is your first site or not, but either way, your site will probably change over time.

   Myth... Magic... Midterms...
   Children of the First
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   acetachyon (Member)

   Posted 3 years ago

   Yes. 5 months of buffers. That's with a 1x/week posting schedule.

   Advertising. Ah. I hadn't considered that prior to launch. I figured I'd do that after the serial actually started.

   As for the site, it's already up. I'm using Blogger but I've routed it through its own domain. And I've already posted "coming soon" notices on the actual site.

   @Alex: Blog Profiles. Gotcha. Hadn't done those yet.

   Thanks, guys. Time to go implement these suggestions.

   KAT AND MOUSE: GUNS FOR HIRE
   Cyberpunk action-adventure every Monday.
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   Sora (Member)

   Posted 3 years ago

   Well, when I think of advertising, I think of the way people advertise for shows and movies.

   "Coming this fall... two worlds will collide." Not something that bad, but you catch my drift. It's like trailers in movies and commercials for tv shows. They often advertise before actually coming out. Someone might say "Oh that looks interesting, I'll check it out when it's available." It's all about the hype. Maybe putting a few teasers would entice people to mark the story on their to read list.

   Anyway, good luck to you.

   It's All Relative
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   Pete Tzinski (Member)

   Posted 3 years ago

   FIVE MONTHS?

   *stares at his own backlog, fulla dust, and bursts into tears*

   Anyway, Sora's got a very good point: treat your advertising, as you lead up to your series launch, a bit like a TV series. Put up teaser graphics in the web space. Do you know other people with blogs that get visits? See if they'll put up "previews" (excerpts, really) and some graphics. A sort of "Coming this fall" little trailer. It's a good idea.

   And definitely have a Grand Launch. Maybe release the first two episodes at once? What can you do for a Grand Opening celebration sort of thing? Anything?

   Stuff to consider.

   You and your five month buffer. Pah. *shuffles away mumbling*