Marketing 101: Self Published Novelist Wonders: "What Kind of Controversy Best Defines Me As An Author?"

After painstakingly editing a manuscript for fourteen months, self-published Young Adult fiction writer Jackson Dundass took a moment to ponder what kind of controversy he could stir up in order to get his work noticed amidst the thousands of other titles published this year in the Young Adult category.

Dundass, who says he has worked tirelessly to create a book that depicts the pain and angst of teenage-hood against the backdrop of loneliness and isolation that he himself experienced growing up, admitted he had already submitted the novel to various web platforms when he realised he had failed the final marketing step of starting a viral controversy on Twitter.

Concerned that his work would be lost in the thousands-strong rankings of other self-published works, Dundass then sat down to decide how best to formulate his marketing plan, tossing up between garnering the rage of a small group of right-wing religious fanatics by drawing attention to his homosexual characters, alerting right-wing conservatives to the inclusion of explicit sexual content, or staging a terrorist threat against anyone who reads his book.

"I'm just not sure who should be angriest about what I've written," said Dundass in an interview on Tuesday evening, "But I want to start by offending one group before I try moving on to the next one - you know, you can blow your load too soon if you're not careful."

Dundass then put a hand to his mouth and giggled.  "Whoops.  Did I say 'blow your load'?  You should probably put that in the headline."

Angry right-wing conservatives, religious fanatics and people afraid of being blown up, were not available for comment.

NaNoWriMo from New Zealand

I was going to blog about editing, but as it turned out, I finished a novel and the story just wanted to keep going.  I guess that's how a series starts.  The date was the 1st November, which happened to coincide with NaNoWriMo.

What the heck is #NaNoWriMo?  I hear you say (Leaving you to wonder if I have exceptional hearing, or if I'm standing behind you in a mask.  Don't turn around.  Sssshhhhh).

National Novel Writing Month is an international event that draws together thousands of writers from all over the world to participate in a month-long writing frenzy.  The goal - to write 50,000 words in thirty days.

Generally, I tend to put down around 30,000-35,000 words per month, averaged over the three months it takes to put together a first draft of roughly 90,000-100,000 words.  So I figured this would be a good challenge to set myself.

So, instead of editing my (working title) novel, 'First Blood', a fun, supernatural-horror tale about a feisty twenty-something human living among werewolves and fighting vampires in the land of the long white cloud, I decided to join NaNoWriMo and scratch out at least half of a first draft in thirty days.

I have to say, if you have a competitive spirit and you love to write, NaNo is a brilliant way to keep up the momentum.  Even with a six-day break in the middle  (these things happen), I've managed to keep to the required word count because  I love statistics.  I love graphs that increase every day.  It's like an addiction.

What does this mean?  It means that in 2016, I'll be releasing two novels in this series, First Blood (if it retains that title) and Vaktare, the sequel.

And for all you aspiring authors out there who haven't yet put pen to paper... or, you know, keyboard to screen, I highly recommend NaNo - or, if you're reading this between Novembers, even just recording your stats and keeping a daily tally against percentage goals.  It's much easier to bang out a first draft if you know you need to put down 1650 words a night to reach a goal.

It leads to celebration when you run over, a reminder when you're under that you need to persevere, and I find that writing quickly fuels my creativity.  That sprint from idea to first draft is a hell of a rush.

Find out more about NaNoWriMo here:  https://nanowrimo.org

Not the best way to put keyboard to screen:

Tags:  #NaNoWriMo, #NZ, #NewZealand, #KaiaLeigh, #Novel, #Writing, #Vampires, #Werewolves, #SATCH