Writing Short Stories to Promote Your Novels by Rayne Hall
4 stars
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 from the Writer’s Craft series that I shall be recommending to writers.
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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 ideas: 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.
Rosie Amber 