LISTING ONLINE

- Today on FB I had a query over listing on online fiction sites:

"have you explored more online writers' websites for potential audiences... you may have to become a junkie and get addicted to these websites ... the more your books are out there the more they will be read..."



Yes, I have. A great number of them. I have submitted to any who accept submissions, and the novels have been listed with Free online Novels, Web Ficiton Guide, Muse's Success and I am awaiting word from three other sites.

However, an earlier blog discusses the fact that even outside the print world, [where editors have the first and final say about form and content], on peer review sites like those mentioned, there is a definite swing against ROMANCE. It is the only remaining dirty word in literature. Reviewers make a point of mentioning that they will rate a book - by glancing over the first few pages - but they will not review Romance.

The pages dedicated to Romance Genre Fiction follow the standard HM&B formula, which even I admit is a proven seller, but that set formularization of the genre is the reason they are not welcome outside the hard copy world, and also the reason these little stories of mine were, in due course, originally sent back by the publisher. 

My stories don't fit the set Romance formula, and the peer reviewers like the same basic genres - although they would argue that point just as Romance lovers argue against the suggestion that every single Romance novel is the same.  So, the Avant-garde in ePublishing is, as history dictates it must be, no different from the million avant-gardes that rolled out before.  Nothing new under the sun, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Giving the stories away has meant that they were not deleted, and that was all I expected.  I have been surprised at how well they have been received in such a short time and with no great effort at marketting.  Of greater surprise to me was the notion in online authors, that you not only trial your (virtually) uneditted work out in serial on you readers on free fiction sites, but it is then acceptable to release the same book at cost through suppliers like Amazon, Sony etc.

Even the notion of 'free' has changed while I grew older and was looking the other way.  Must have been busy editting.

Anyway.

The last of the hisotricals has almost had its bogus tail end rewritten, and I will upload CALEDONIA and PETRA to their own websites as required, and leave the eFiciton world at that, I think.

Best wishes to all,
Letitia.