Just over a day being posted, and Princess for Hire has more than 1500 hits and 40 comments (35 not by me!) Wow!
This is the best response any story I've ever posted has received, and I just wanted to give an enormous "Thank You" to everybody who has read and commented on the story so far. I never expected it to get this good of a response, it's actually a bit scary knowing that now I've gotta try and keep so many readers happy. Let's hope I can do it!
The next part, chapters 4-6, should come out on Wednesday. OR, I could do things a bit differently. Would you prefer me to post the story in three chapter chunks once a week, or do individual chapters every two to three days? Either way, it adds up to about the same length of time, so it doesn't really matter to me.
More at once, or more often? Your choice! I've got enough ready for the next two weeks of postings whichever one you choose!
Melanie E.
Comments
princess
how about 1 a day?
OH NOES!
I shoulda known, you'll ruin me! Le Horror! :P
But in all seriousness, I COULD do that, for about a week... then you'd have to wait at least another week before I had enough more written that I felt comfortable posting any more. I'm not what could be called the world's fastest writer, and even posting every other day or so it would eventually reach a hiccup point where I had to take a short break before I had either a backlog ready for posting or a new post at all. On the other hand, this story has a set length in my head (though it could be continued later, I probably won't go beyond what I've already 'watched' happen) so as long as I keep working on it it shouldn't be TOO much of a delay.
I swear, this isn't gonna turn into another "Echoes."
Melanie E.
Um, speaking of Echoes ...
Everybody,
lets pray for Melanie E's muse to cooperate and let Echoes be completed.
But then there are several other stories competing for time so ,,,
Thanks again for the PM. I must say that tip about the ... In Princess for Hire.
I mean, WOW! Who'd have thought the boy had it in him to ... And when he goes *postal*, Sam Peckenpah eat your heart out!
Blood, gore, mutant space aliens, nude interspecies pie fights, Captaan Kangaroo's rampaging zombie, illicit fondue parties, even -- gulp -- coed Twister!
Whoa, did I type that? Sis sure made the coffee strong.
Guess the rest of you will have to wait.
John in Wauwatosa
Weekly
While I'm tempted to be greedy and say 'all of it, now please!!' I kinda like the option of a chapter a week. It gives me something to look forward to!
And congrats on the number of hits and comments! It doesn't surprise me as you are a talented writer.
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
what I prefer
I prefer you hold off til you're done. Then post the whole whack at once.
I'm gonna wait til the last chapter anyways...
Nobody.
ps. The introduction was interesting... even good for its brevity.
That doesn't work for me
I can understand your hesitance to read something until it's finished, but unfortunately I can't wait until it's finished to start posting, otherwise it never WILL be finished.
That's one thing I actually mentioned in the note at the end of the first part, was that I've been trying to wait until I finished things before posting anything on them, and that as a result nothing gets finished because I lose inspiration for it. I get too caught up in the whole "what if people don't like it?" or "what if they can't identify with the character?" drama and stop writing on the story long before I finish it.
Melanie E.
Then how about making a
schedule, like Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday? Or Tuesday-Friday?
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Don't overdo the postings
It's very easy to be tempted to upload vast quantities of story, especially once it's done and you want to get it out of your hair.
The problem is, you'll flood the BCTS front page and it can be unfair on other authors. Two ways, both because other postings get pushed down the page faster, and because most of us only have so much time in the day to devote to reading posts anyway. (The rest of the time we spend writing. If there's any left over, then Real Life might get a look in.)
I seem to recall that Erin put in some code which means that only one entry of any story gets put on the front page at any one time, which means that you can't actually take over the front page completely. Unfortunately, this means that only one chapter will be visible. Any reader will be forced to page back and forwards to reach the point they last stopped reading. Tricky.
Much easier to just post a chapter every 2-3 days. If your story is good enough people will still read it. Don't underestimate the power of anticipation.
Penny
PS Excellent start to the story, by the way.
I'll just add to what Penny
I'll just add to what Penny said, in that I learned the hard way that posting too quickly can have unexpected drawbacks.
Not to post one of those "Me me me!" comments that get griped about now and again, but speaking from personal experience I don't have much choice in the matter ;-)
I had Becoming Robin basically finished when I started posting it. And then overwhelming reader response prompted me to start thinking about aspects that had either not occured to me, or (more often) that were explained later in the story, but because of their questions made me go back and make sure it came across as I intended.
I also completely rewrote two chapters because they took a dark turn that, as I interacted with others, found felt utterly forced and unnecessarily vicious. As an author I'm generally cruel to my characters anyway, but what I had planned crossed lines I wasn't prepared to cross for a teen fiction-centric story :-)
So, yeah, as much as I'd love to be a greedy little bee-witch, given the above personal experience I'd have to go with the less-oft posting route (which I plan do to myself next time, for what it's worth :-D) just to give yourself some breathing room in case you decide you want to change/rewrite something down the road.
~Zoe T.
Alright then!
Here's the schedule:
I'll post the next chapter to three (depending on how much I have done) each Monday for Princess For Hire, and anything else I write I'll try to schedule on Thursdays! That way I don't crowd the front page, and even my own stuff will be spaced enough not to terribly interfere with one another.
Melanie E.
EDIT: Switching it to Sundays and Wednesdays respectively, since those days I have a much less busy schedule :P