As I close in on my two goals of polishing the first 23 episodes of my upcoming serialized novel & honing the book description, it's time to turn some of my writing attention elsewhere. As I've mentioned in previous posts, once I release the first four episodes sometime in mid-October, I'll have nearly two months to bring those last 20 up to the same level.

Which gives me a chance to work toward my next goal—embracing author comments. If you're not familiar with Kindle Vella, at the end of each episode, the author can post a comment or add a poll. That potential interaction allows the author the option to ask for feedback or suggestions about character arcs, plotlines, & such.

It also provides the author a chance to pitch the next episode(s), as is the case of quite of few of the Kindle Vella authors I've read as part of my background research. (No, dear reader, I'm not plagiarizing; I'm just trying to understand the local culture, so to speak.)

Don't get me wrong, I'm comfortable enough with posting practical comments about upcoming episodes & how Kindle Vella works & whatnot.

But when it comes to self-promotion, I'm a work in progress. This last spring I spent a good deal of time making creatives & ads on BookBub & other platforms for my previous novel, Pearl Fields and the Oregon Meltdown. Although I typically enjoy the challenge of learning new things, my overall comfort level in that regard hovered near that of pulling teeth. I'm just too much the pragmatist to be in the league of independent authors who believe their new release is the next contender to join the must-read list of the year—especially without the valued assistance of a professional editor.

My novel was generally well-received by some readers & reviewers (4.07 on Goodreads at the time of this posting), but less so by others (3.7 on Amazon).

I'm comfortable with that since I realize my "unique & immersive story of survival" (Lee Hall) is not everybody's cup of tea. Now my hope is to be just as comfortable posting comments about my upcoming survival story about a teenager who crosses paths with the river merchant Pearl Fields (aka Sunny) as he tries to reunite with his family at the height of the Oregon Meltdown.

So I've decided to frame it as just another form of expression I've sorta, kinda done before . . . say dancing. If I tried dancing the tango for the first time, would I be graceful & dazzling?

Of course not. But trust me, I'd shuffle my feet & do everything in my power not to step on anybody's toes—including my own.

The same goes for shuffling my way through the Comment Tango.

Wish me luck.

Drew
Drew Faraday
Pearl Fields and the Oregon Meltdown