Every so often, I feel suddenly disheartened that my self-published novel isn’t selling. It’s my own fault. I didn’t invest any money into advertising it. And there’s a very good reason for that–I don’t have any money to spare. Raising four kids will do that to you.
But I always knew I could do more to freely promote the novel. And myself as a writer.
So I’ve slipped into the shallowest waters of the unfathomable depths known as streaming.
I have a Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/heightofamind
I also have a YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCpRderuhZrBPdx9vaMIC7Q
Twitch
I’ve been a teacher for almost 20 years, so when it came to streaming, I wanted my content to be helpful to other writers. So far, I have three types of streams:
- Short Story — I write a story on my stream from beginning to end. There’s a brainstorming session and outline, followed by the rough draft. Once that’s done, I’ll have second and third drafts, showing how I revise my own writing. In between, I often pull elements from the story for my other streams such as–
- Simile Workshop — I love similes. It’s honestly unhealthy. If I’m reading a book and come across a particularly great simile, then I have to find someone to immediately share it with. On the stream, I take weak similes (and maybe a few strong ones) and brainstorm ways to improve them, sometimes cutting them altogether.
- Lil’ Bits — Sometimes I don’t want to stare at a wall of text while sealing all the cracks. At those times, I take a single paragraph or scene and do a highly focused rewrite.
- Future Projects — Eventually I hope to add more viewer interaction. I would love to help others with their similes or lil’ bits of their own writing.
YouTube
Everything from stream becomes a YouTube video, albeit with some slight edits.
I try to add tips and humor to the videos, plus links to any of the ideas I discuss.
Most importantly, I have readings of chapters from my self-published novel: “My Costumes”
Whether you have the book or not, you can listen to me read a few chapters.
Or, you can follow along as I give a Writer’s Commentary, expanding on the text by describing some of the writing choices I made or simply giving a behind-the-scenes glimpse into my life.
Weaving Tangled Webs
I was going to call the above heading “Integration,” but that’s not very fun.
This blog will be a part of the streaming experience. Everything will be connected. I want viewers to come here and read the story from the stream. They need to have a place to catch up with the story if they stumble upon my stream when I’m halfway through writing the story.
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