Month: June 2025

Adventures with Advertising

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

With Godfather Death and the Amazing Diagnostic Machine coming out June 30th, I’ve decided to try to get the word out. That’s harder than it sounds. My social network footprint is tiny. (You finding your way here is a blessing. Glad to have you!) My skill for talking myself up is…questionable at best. So How do I let the world know the greatest steampunk fairytale retelling ever is about to drop from yours truly? (See…that felt weird to say.)

The answer: TikTok

Allegedly.

Not just TikTok, but that has been my primary medium. I’ve poked at a YouTube short and will likely do at least one more before release date. But mostly I’ve been following the advice of Katie Wismer (a.k.a. Katesbookdate) as presented in this video. I’ll give the rundown of my interpretation, but let me start by explaining why I took Katie’s advice over others. (I’ve never spoken to Katie directly, so if she is alerted to my existence via Google Alerts or something: Hi Katie!)

Why This Advice

First off, I have scoured the internet (mostly YouTube) for advice on advertising a new book. And yes, there are a lot of voices out there, many saying similar things: establish a presence on social media, interact with the communities that overlap with potential readers, let people know you have a book coming out, and let people know a bit more about you. That’s four items that sound like A LOT of work. Where do I start? This is going to take how long? You mean I have to talk about myself?

Katie’s advice was titled “The one book marketing strategy you NEED to be doing”. Yeah, a very clickable title for me. She goes on to lay out a strategy that felt manageable. I can do that! She also wasn’t pushing a course to take or anything like that, just an advertising tool that has been successful for her. I’m not putting all my eggs into this basket, but it’s the basket I’m filling the fullest.

What am I doing?

If you didn’t watch Katie’s video already (heck, I linked it twice), I’ll give you my version of her advice. I’m sure I’ve misinterpreted parts and overlooked important nuances, but you can get the full breakdown from her.

  • Make carousels (slide shows) on TikTok. These are images with text.
    • The first slide is a hook/attention grabber
    • The last slide is a direct quote (passage) from the book
      • She seemed to suggest you hint at the excitement without giving too much away
    • Use a trending sound that fits the theme of the book/passage/hook
    • Make sure your profile page does a good job of promoting you and the book. (This is my weak spot; I’ll get to why.)
    • Oh, and make sure you use good hashtags!

This felt like a process I could handle. No fancy equipment to buy or awkward performances required, just post some images with text. So I made some.

Okay, I didn’t follow the recipe perfectly. My carousels have a one-slide hook, the next slide starts a quoited passage, the last slide has the book’s cover.

The first carousel I made had the whole passage on one slide. Depending on the size of your phone and the mightiness of your eyes, that could have been tough to absorb. My next few had the quote spread out over 2-4 slides, their text posted either over faded images or carefully curated around the images.

About half the hooks are the same or very similar with very similar images: a cloaked figure with a metal skull for a head with something along the lines of “When a man who was more metal than flesh entered her father’s shop, her life changed forever.” Others get more thematic to the excerpt/images. One scene takes place at a wedding, so the hook is “What better place for an ambush than a wedding?” You get the idea…

Music choices have been a battle between my preferences and TikTok’s preferences (mostly represented by my 18-year-old offspring). My first choice was George Michael’s “Father Figure” which has been hot on TikTok, though that song seems to accompany a fairly specific trend that has nothing to do with books. (My kid also thinks it might suggest the book is spicier than it is.) I made a couple with songs that had been used in a few thousand posts each. I made sure to swing big with a couple of the songs (uses in the millions and the tag “popular”). I have a mind to make a video or two with sounds that aren’t songs, but I haven’t made that leap yet. Are they helpful? It may still be too early to tell.

Alas, the profile page is the weakest link. Speaking of links…TikTok won’t let you have links to external sites (a.k.a. a link tree) until you have one thousand followers. So I’m only 998 followers away from that goal! Yeah, I’ve had a TikTok account, but I was only consuming until this past week. So right now, potential readers will have to find Godfather Death and the Amazing Diagnostic Machine by searching Amazon or even the whole internet for it. Suddenly, that wordy title is starting to seem like a better idea. (I also think it sounds steampunk-y.) This is why I feel like it was important to end with my cover image.

I don’t know if anyone has chased the book down yet. It doesn’t launch for another 5 days. It’s available for presale on Kindle, but that’s it. Either it’s impossible find out how many preorders there are or I don’t know how to figure it out. I guess the third option is that there have been none, but that would be knowing how many (zero is a perfectly good number, just not preferable in the wallet).

What am I definitely doing wrong?

I may be making several mistakes that I don’t realize, but there’s one I’ve definitely fumbled. Katie say to get a few “burner accounts” to post from as well as your main account. I haven’t done this, mostly because I don’t quite understand what the nature of the account should be. If the profile page is important, then what’s on the profile page of my burner? Some fictional reader that is allegedly posting fan-art for the book? Are they all supposed to be new vids or should these burner accounts be reposting the originals? I couldn’t wrap my head around that, so I haven’t made that leap. I’m 48; this is already a little overwhelming for me.

Am I reaching people?

Not as many as I’d hoped, but maybe more than I legitimately expected.

My first carousel (the one with the whole excerpt on one slide) has the most views and the most likes (261 and 7, respectively). Most of those were in the first couple hours. None of the others have topped 200 views.

The least-viewed is the wedding one, which has a female cover of “In the Air Tonight” that has been used over 100k times. I had expected the most interest in that one. My intention is to make some adjustments to that one and try posting it again (may change the song, but I like the fit). My research has suggested that there are a lot of variables at play for how many people see any given post, so reposting duds is a fair strategy.

These numbers don’t sound like a lot. They are well below the ones Katie cited in her video. I think established accounts have better reach. That’s why I’m not going to throw in the towel just yet. I’m hoping the needle will move by the end of July.

What else have I tried?

I mentioned that I dipped a toe into YouTube. What I really did was post my one outreach video as a Short.

Yes, I did make a video for TikTok that wasn’t a slideshow and wasn’t an ad for the book. This was a “What is Steampunk?” video. Please hold for my great shame: I made the video with PowerPoint.

Hey, I’m a teacher and I am very good with PowerPoint. Use what you know. I promise, my kid has thoroughly skewered me for it.

Anyway, this video analyzes steampunk as both an aesthetic and a literary genre. It’s about a minute. (I had to speed my voice up a little; noticeable but not terrible.) I do need to improve my audio recording skills; there’s a slight echo. The video ends with the book’s title and release date. There is a link to the Kindle preorder in the video description.

So was this little video popular? Not on TikTok. It’s neck-and-neck with my wedding carousel. On YouTube however? Just over 2000 views, 18 likes. (That’s almost 1% like-age…not sure if that’s good…doesn’t sound awesome.)

What’s next?

For now, I’m going to keep working the system. I’ll either pull some more passages from the book or repackage the ones I’ve used with altered hooks, songs, and/or images. Every time one gets 100 views, that’s more eyes (some new, some repeating) that see the book. The repeat views are possibly the most important since I heard somewhere recently (might have been Katie?) that it takes 8 exposures to a stimulus before someone takes action.

I’m also going to experiment with turning some of the carousels into videos (still the slides but they cycle for you). TikTok is a largely passive platform, so maybe it will hit differently. Remember the one video I did post didn’t get many views, but it also didn’t have a viral sound attached. This way I can also hit YouTube with them.

I’ll put some of this on Facebook too. I’m not an Instagrammer, so I’ll avoid that.

Is it worth it?

The labor end of things has been fairly mild (picture hunts were consuming but also fun). Honestly, I’m hoping that being in a niche subgenre like steampunk will help this book along. And If someone is looking through steampunk books and sees a cover they recognize, that could be the difference between them buying my book or someone else’s. Maybe something like this will help get enough of a bump to make a dent on the Amazon top sellers list for steampunk. Or maybe this whole exercise will just help me grow my TikTok footprint enough that the next publication’s ads (and there will be more) will have a little more reach.

Oh, don’t take my word for all this. Make sure you check out Katie Wismer’s video. And please, if anyone here has experience with this kind of advertising that could help me or others, please share it in the comments!

Godfather Death is coming in print and e-book

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

Remember the Vella experiment? The story I had serialized there is coming to Amazon at the end of June as a print book and e-book!

Godfather Death and the Amazing Diagnostic Machine is a steampunk novella think a half-length novella. Let’s unpack that sentence from the end. A novella is longer than a short story but shorter than the average novel. In this case, that’s about 50 pages; a nice, short read but long enough to get the full story in. Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction and/or fantasy developing on Civil War era technologies; you see a lot of steam engines, gears, airships, etc. GDatADM definitely gets into the steam aesthetic but doesn’t forget the punk aspects of bucking societal norms.

Let’s go ahead and address the title. Yes, it’s long. It’s a mash of the Grimm fairy tale its based on (“Godfather Death”) and the steampunky invention central to the plot (the diagnostic machine). Splicing them together gives the story a quirky, antique feel appropriate to the genre. At least that’s the intention.

So what’s it about?

Katrine lives with her eleven siblings in her father’s prosthetic limb shop. When a client arrives who is more metal than flesh, Katrine and her siblings ascribe him the moniker Death. When he offers Katrine training and opportunity as a physician, he insists she call him Godfather. However, Katrine uses these gifts — including the diagnostic machine — in ways her godfather did not intend, shifting her perception of him from benefactor to nemesis. Can Katrine and her loved ones escape Godfather Death’s intentions for them? Find out in this steampunk retelling of the Grimm fairytale “Godfather Death” and never look at blue flames the same way again.

How do I get it?

I’m so glad you asked! You can preorder it on Kindle right now! It will also be on Kindle Unlimited for you voracious readers that subscribe to that. That will be available June 30th, as will the print version. (If it’s not June 2025 when you read this, then it’s available right now!) As with my short story collection, Baker’s Dozen, I’ll keep a link to the Amazon page in the sidebar of this site. Or you could just click a link now…

Once you’ve read it, pretty please, leave a review! It’s the nicest thing you can do for me. (Second nicest is buy Baker’s Dozen as a follow-up.) Reviews increase the visibility of the book which increases my visibility as a writer. Thanks in advance!

How’s NYC Midnight going?

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

It’s mid-June and the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Contest is back on my mind. This is an update. If you want my primary report on my NYCM experience, click here.

The only new thing that’s happened with the contest since my last post was that people were invited to share their stories on the forum (password protected for feedback purposes, thus avoids classifying as “published”). I elected to do so. It seems about 10% or so of participants joined me in the experience. The suggestion is that you read some stories and comment on them, including a link back to your own story for reciprocal readings.

So I read one of the first few stories to post and offered some commentary. By then, I had comments start trickling in on my story, so I started reciprocating. And after one day of this…it stopped. No one was reading and commenting on my story anymore. I was a little shocked that it halted at day one, but not as shocked as I was by something else.

As I mentioned in my original NYCM post, I’m used to contests like this through my writing group. That group is composed exclusively of writers with a professional sale or participation in a major workshop with similar selection criteria. (This fact might be crucial in a moment.) For such writing group contests, the participants are the judges, reading, rating, and commenting on every story in the group except your own. The ultimate goal of those contests isn’t just to win the contest but to create a marketable story. Thus, most of my comments attempt to include both positive and constructive comments, to let the writer know what worked for me and what didn’t. In the NYCM forum, I did the same thing. This thing was great; you might want to think about this other thing. However, none of the comments I received included the second part. Lots of back-patting, no recommendations. So either my story was perfect (it was not) or they just didn’t offer those kinds of thoughts.

So my over-thinking brain and I have been stewing on this. Why no constructive comments? Is it because the se posted after the contest deadline so it’s considered too late to change? Or is this just not a community that offers those kinds of comments? Or was my story just too out there for suggestions? (This is possible. The story format was an AI analyzing the factuality of news stories line by line, offering its own explanations and commentary. And the news story in question was about the sun dying. So yeah, a little weird.) And the follow-up overthinking question: did these people whose stories I read want my suggestions?

I hope the participants know my comments were all made with good, helpful intentions. I wasn’t suggesting I knew more than anyone else, just sharing the thoughts I had about the story min case they could be helpful in some future rewrite. So if anyone was under the impression I’m not a guy with anxiety, you now see evidence to the contrary. I guess I’ll just wonder about this until eternity.

I hope the participants know my comments were all made with good, helpful intentions. I wasn’t suggesting I knew more than anyone else, just sharing the thoughts I had about the story min case they could be helpful in some future rewrite. So if anyone was under the impression I’m not a guy with anxiety, you now see evidence to the contrary. I guess I’ll just wonder about this until eternity.

Me and NYC Midnight

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

NYC Midnight is a series of pay-to-play writing contests. The current contest (which just started May 30th) is flash fiction, which is often a go-to for me. Contestants are grouped and each group receives a genre, location, and object for their prompt, then you get 48 hours to write and submit a story of 1000 words or fewer.

As a general rule, I don’t do fee-based submissions, be that markets or contests. However, I discussed this contest at a con with a writer I respect. She had good things to say about NYC Midnight, particularly about the feedback it provided on every story submission. Being in an incredible sale drought, I thought some feedback might be nice, as might a little validation if I can get through a round or two of the contest. So, on my birthday, I decided to get myself a gift and join the contest.

I consider the fee an investment to help me decide about the contest’s value for myself. Is it worth participating? Is it worth the fee? Is the feedback valuable and/or worth more than a writing group’s feedback? Should I recommend it to people or warn them away? I won’t know unless I participate, so I did.

As a member of Codex Writing Group (a speculative fiction writers’ group for writers with professional sales or major workshop experience), I get to take part in a flash fiction contest every January. I’m up against writers with significant writing chops and accomplishments there. I usually hold my own. I’m hoping for similar results in this contest, but I’m not holding my breath for prizes.

So how’s it going so far? It’s been interesting. I have written and submitted my first story. The submission format was a little odd, requiring a title page and synopsis instead of a more typical manuscript format. It took about 30 minutes to be sure I was doing it right. And Now I get to wait until the end of July for results and comments. I guess I should have looked at that closer, because that seems like a long wait. The Codex contest, by comparison, had a similar prompt-to-submission window and gave only to the end of the week to judge. In the early years, that could be a lot of stories to read, rate, and comment on. Now they’ve made groups (not unlike NYC Midnight’s) so it’s more manageable, but still 12-20 stories to handle. The groups for this contest are reportedly about 35 stories.

I don’t want to give away my prompt completely since I’m not sure what the privacy rules are (I looked at them but don’t recall), but I’ll tell you my genre: Political Satire. Yeah…I’m a sci-fi/fantasy guy. Their examples of political satire included 1984, Wag the Dog, and SNL political sketches, the first of which definitely gave me permission to do something science-fictiony. The location and object kind of felt like they were steering toward a specific type of story, possibly with a specific political slant. I didn’t really take the bait on that.

I found this story challenging to write, a fact not helped by being at my parents’ house to celebrate my dad’s 75th birthday while I wrote it. I had 3-4 false starts before getting an actual story written. I didn’t like it, so I wrote another full story. Of course I didn’t like that one either, so I went back to the first full. At this point I had maybe 2 hours to the deadline.

I monkeyed with the story for a half hour or so before I started to feel confident in it. Then I went and looked up the submission process and checked the FAQs. Yeah…my order could have been better.

The FAQs were the scary part. The story is required to have the prompted location as its primary setting. Okay, I had noticed that part earlier, so I had written it so that the physical setting used was indeed the one in the prompt…unless you consider an online application a setting, because that was where the story was really happening. So maybe that was a stretch. What did the FAQs say about that? That my story might be disqualified if I didn’t use the location sufficiently. Ooh boy. And what else did they say? That the object in the prompt has to be physically in the story or referred to in a story-in-a-story kind of way (like a bowl of porridge if a character recited the tale of Goldilocks). Did I do that? Well…not exactly. I took liberties with both setting and object. The object was part of the title and came up repeatedly, but was that prompt-object supposed to be physically present in the prompt-location? No. And that’s another story-might-be-disqualified offense, depending on the generosity of the reviewer.

So yeah, this might be a big fat DQ for the bargain price of $58 (I missed the early registration window). Did I get a marketable story out of it? Maybe. I definitely know of a couple markets that I could send it to, but it may or may not fit their preferences. It’s a weird little story with a very weird format, basically designed as if interacting with an A.I. In my world, stretching the limits of the prompt is a positive. We’ll see if NYC Midnight lives in that world too.

Now I wait to see how this went. Did it get disqualified? Did it pay off setting it in a future with a crisis that isn’t actually a current or even predicted crisis? Were they impressed with my creativity? With my writing at all? Check back and find out. For now, all I can tell you is that the contest format was a little different than I’d anticipated and the rules are making me a little nervous. But at least I wrote a thing. (Technically two things, though I disliked the second), and that ain’t nothing.