Writing Short Stories to Promote Your Novels

Writer's Craft #7

by Rayne Hall

A short story is the perfect tool for promoting your novel. Readers who love your story will look for more fiction by the same author.



Here are some post a story on your website as a free read or give it to another writer of the same genre to display it on their website. Publish it as a short free ebook, bolstering your list of published books. Offer it as a giveaway on blog tours. Submit it to a magazine, ezine or anthology where it will get read by lovers of your genre.



This book is structured like a workshop, based on an online class I taught. As you progress through the chapters, you’ll build your story step by step, from the spark of an idea to the polished version that will wow your readers and make them eager to buy your novel.



For powerful promotion, writing a great story is not enough. It needs to be a particular kind of story to target your audience, win fans and sell books.



To get the most from this book, you should have at least one novel to promote, whether traditionally or indie-published. You need to have mastered the basics of the fiction writer’s craft, though not necessarily of the short story form.



If you’re a fiction-writing novice or are still working on your first novel, it’s too soon to follow this programme, although you may find useful inspiration.



If you enjoy writing, and if you have a novel you want to promote, you’ve come to the right place.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction

108 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 20, 2014

About the author

Rayne Hall writes fantasy and horror fiction, some of it quirky, most of it dark. She is the author of over sixty books in different genres and under different pen names, published by twelve publishers in six countries, translated into several languages. Her short stories have been published in magazines, e-zines and anthologies.

After living in Germany, China, Mongolia and Nepal, she has settled in a small Victorian seaside town in southern England. Rayne holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Over three decades, she has worked in the publishing industry as a trainee, investigative journalist, feature writer, magazine editor, production editor, page designer, concept editor for non-fiction book series, anthology editor, editorial consultant and more. Outside publishing, she worked as a museum guide, apple
picker, tarot reader, adult education teacher, trade fair hostess, translator and belly dancer.

Currently, Rayne Hall writes fantasy and horror fiction and tries to regain the rights to her out-of-print books so she can republish them as e-books.

Her books on the writing craft (Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes, The Word-Loss Diet, Writing Dark Stories, Writing About Villains, Writing Short Stories to Promote Your Novel, Writing About Magic, Twitter for Writers) are bestsellers.


Rayne Hall is the editor of the Ten Tales anthologies:
"Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires"
"Scared: Ten Tales of Horror"
"Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts"
"Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates"
"Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft"
"Spells: Ten Tales of Magic"
"Undead: Ten Tales of Zombies"
"Seers: Ten Tales of Clairvoyance"
"Dragon: Ten Tales of Fiery Beasts"
"Cogwheels: Ten Tales of Steampunk"
with more titles coming soon.


The stories in her Six Scary Tales series and the Thirty Scary Tales collection are subtle horror: suspenseful, creepy atmospheric, unsettling. Although they contain little violence and gore, they may not be suitable for young readers. Many of these stories have been previously published in other books or magazines.

British English: All Rayne Hall's books use British words, spellings, grammar and punctuation. If you're allergic to British English, avoid them. ;-)

Mailing list:
http://eepurl.com/boqJzD

Website: http://sites.google.com/site/raynehal...

YouTube "Ten Random Facts about Rayne Hall" (2 minute video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXR4T...

Contact Rayne Hall on Twitter
@RayneHall follows back writers and readers. http://twitter.com/RayneHall

Reviews

[Anna Erishkigal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm an epic fantasy doorstopper writer, so when several different people I respect all came to me and said 'you should submit a story to this or that anthology' and I read the submission guidelines, it was like...

erm...

5,000 - 10,000 words?

[*I don't think I ever wrote anything under 250,000 words, and that was the 'book' I published in the fourth grade...*]

I found this short 'how to' book to be really helpful. It suggested ways to come up with story ideas and characters that would focus on whatever target audience you are writing for. In most instances this will be my existing awesome readers who'd enjoy little fun vignettes of some of my characters from my series. In other instances, though (like those aforementioned anthologies) it will help me target a short story to those readers they will enjoy.

So ... short book ... took a couple of hours to read. Lots of brainstorm ideas which are kind of fun.

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Rayne Hall's Writing tips books. For instance Word Loss Diet , Twitter for Writers or Writing Vivid Settings are brilliant.

does have some good, practical ideas about how to write stories tied into your novel and best ways to use them to promote your novels (whether on website, as giveaways, in e-zines or anthologies, in an exchange deal with other writers or bloggers or publishing them yourself.

I have already been doing a many of the things recommended in the book - having been writing short stories tied into my narrative world for over 18 months now - with a number published in different anthologies, a couple available on my website and in the process of working towards publishing as an e-book one 12,000 word story. I haven't had any luck with e-zines yet. And I'm considering offering one of the stories as a giveaway on my web-site. So Rayne's tips helped confirm that these are all good strategies. And I appreciated her ideas of how to think up stories of similar tone and style to one's novel/s. Some of my stories tie into secondary characters in my novel - others are set in the world but at an earlier time or in a different place. The biggest struggle I had was making sure I didn't include spoilers in the story.

I think I was hoping for more. The tips only take up 50% of the book with the other 50% being 3 short stories that tie in with her novel Storm Dancer. The stories are well-written, gripping, dark fantasy though I am rarely satisfied with Rayne’s endings which usually end badly for the point of view character – sometimes deserved, more often not.

does have something for authors who have at least one novel (published) and wish to write short stories to promote it and/or lovers of dark fantasy with a bitter twist at the end.

[Preethi Venugopala · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick and easy guide to how to write short stories to promote your novels .

[Rosie Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Writing Short Stories To Promote Your Novels is a non-fiction book from Rayne Hall’s Writer’s Craft series. This provides useful insight and exercises in forming tools which can be used in a variety of ways.


The book has three distinct parts; the first gets the writer to evaluate themselves, their current writing genres and their audience. It then moves on to suggest ways to brainstorm book titles, and how to start plotting the short story. Next Rayne makes the writer consider characters, themes, settings, dialogue, and how to keep the short story structure tight.

In part two, Rayne discusses lots of ways that a writer can then use their short story as a promotional tool, while pointing out some of the pros and cons.

The last part of the book are samples from Rayne’s own writing and cover around fifty percent of the book, however, these can also be useful tools for writers to read. I like Rayne’s easy-to-read writing style and how it is broken down quickly into useful exercises. This is another book that I shall be recommending to writers.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a succinct, eye-opening book that delivered just what the title promised. It's written as a workshop, so start reading when you have an afternoon to kill...and at the end of that time you'll probably have a short story ready to send out into the world to draw readers in to your novel.

The only negative point is that the second half of this book simply consisted of a few of the author's short stories. Since I got this book for free with Kindle Unlimited, I didn't care --- Hall had already provided all of the information I needed to get my short story going. But if I'd paid for the book, I might have been annoyed to find it ending halfway through.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent information but it annoyed me that the last 50% of the book was the author’s own short stories in support of her novel. Hypocritical of me, maybe, since for her it’s an effective strategy. But it would be like taking a two-hour art class to learn how to paint and discovering that the entire last hour was just looking at the instructor’s own paintings.

Free on Kindle Unlimited, though, so I probably shouldn’t complain.

[B.J. Hyman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had some good ideas. Glad I read it. The first short story she shared was kind of weak which made me doubt some of her advice, but her other ones were pretty good.

[Shelley Stanaway · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is informative. It tells how to write short stories based on one's current novels to use for promotion. She offers many ways to use the story for promotion to pick and choose from. From a marketing point of view, it is very sound advice. But as a bonus to explaining all this, she also gives ways to write a short story. Ms. Hall speaks of the creative half of the mind and the editor half. Something that always battles inside me. This book is a win-win in my corner.

[Roselyn Blonger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too basic, but most of the advice are already well-known and the rest is nothing interesting. On top of that, half the book is just the author trying to promote his own short stories so... there is not even much content. I am a bit disappointed.

[Holli · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a little iffy on this one. I'm not sure I would ever be able to do exactly as she says to promote a book or series I was working on with short stories set in that world. I personally am not a fan of such stories as they're more often than not too short and over with before I have a chance to connect with or care about anybody in them. I'd have trouble doing this myself without making that into a very long novella or its own novel. Or giving away things I'm not ready for in them. Still, I like what she says for actually plotting and writing a short story either way. It should prove helpful for me.

[Suzanne Rogerson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful guide to creating lead in stories

I found this guide helpful for thinking of ideas to write lead in stories to my novels. There's lots to good advice to follow and I liked how we must look at the two sides of writing - the creative brain and editor brain.
There are also chapters on what options you have to find readers once you have a story to share. However, I would have liked a section on using the stories as reader magnets for newsletter sign ups to be covered.
Well worth your time reading.

[Winter Bayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always like Hall's writing craft books.

[Fred Fanning · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book with relevant information about promoting your novel. I enjoyed the book and can use the information.