Saturday, June 14, 2014

I Successfully Lose a Writing Contest

The writers' blog Indies Unlimited hosts a weekly writing contest from a prompt they provide--250 words max. I wrote about my entry into the contest on my last blog post.

I lost.

However, I'm writing today about how I feel good about the results. Yes to Success and all that.

First, I wrote a short story that is set in my Dragons of Blood and Stone universe. Every time I enter that universe, I feel good. So far so good. Also, the fact that the story might fit into my collection of short stories, Tales from the Stone Dragon Inn, is an extra plus.

Second, I feel my little experiment with social media marketing was successful. Because I was busy early this week, I didn't see the voting post at Indies Unlimited until 4:30 AM on the deadline day. By the time I posted my mini-marketing blog post, it was 5:00 AM--allowing 10 hours for marketing my entry for support.

Facebook marketing came later that morning--status updates on my personal Facebook account and on my Tom Kepler Writing page. I also sent a Facebook note to a dozen Facebook friends.

The results? Twenty percent of the votes, the winner receiving 23%, with most of the winner's votes already on tab at 4 AM that morning. Now, the 10 possible hours for voting for me were from 5 AM to 3 PM on a Thursday, my time here in Iowa. I deem my hurry-up mini-marketing adventure a success.

Thanks for all who supported me. Since the Indies Unlimited writing contests are fairly informal (the winners are published in an anthology), I didn't want to push the marketing envelope too much--just enough to see if anybody out there is paying any attention.

People did pay attention. That makes me glad. Thank you, all.

Copyright 2014 by Thomas L. Kepler, all rights reserved

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