As I work through my MS again (yes again) I’m wondering if I should post ‘snippets’ from it. Would you be interested? I know I enjoy reading some but often get put off by the length of them. What’s an appropriate length do you think? Hmmmm. Well maybe I’ll post one later this week and we’ll just see what your response is and go from there *grin*.
I received a parcel today! Who doesn’t love random parcels, really? It was from the lovely Sharon
Anyway back to the pressie from Sharon USA
‘Accept an opportunity that is offered to you’
Hellllloooo!?! Mr/Mrs opportunity where are you?? I’m waiting *grin* Well I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
This parcel has given me an idea of another thing to add to the 500 followers prize. So it now consists of.
1. Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents 2010
1. Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents 2010
2. A t-shirt of my own design following the theme of my blog (three designs to choose from and several colours)
3. A piece of jewelry designed by moi for the winner with their input. I can make a variety of styles not just what you saw in the picture the other week.
4. My absolute favourite lip balm/salve from Kereru. Kereru is a New Zealand
5. A note pad for scribbling thoughts, ideas, perhaps future plots?? And of course a nice pen.
So it’s looking like a pretty awesome parcel all in all! Anyone who is one of my first 500 followers is in the draw and if you add my blog button (and link it to my blog! Most important) to your blog you get an extra chance. I will also add your button to mine – make sure you let me know *grin*
Definitely put up snipets! I'm sure everybody would be intrigued and/or eager to give feedback/undying praise and adoration. 🙂
What a gift pack…By the time you're done adding to it, it'll probably be cheaper for you to buy a plane ticket to hand-deliver the parcel! (Now THAT would be cool….)
So fun to get packages in the mail! Love it :O)
How did I not have you on my blog roll already??? Hmmm…I'll have to blame it on our summer money, I mean homeowner fun…
I'm glad you got a kick out of the quirky random prizes package and that it finally made it to you.
I take it you made it through the earth quake okay…
You're giving away some very cool prizes for your celebration!
It's always fun to get (good) surprise packages in the mail. Makes us feel like kids again I guess. Do put up a snippet of your MS, looking forward to reading it.
Mason
Thoughts in Progress
Definitely put snippets up! They're lots of fun to read, and it's always nice to get different kinds of feedback!
Probably under 1000 words? More than that and a lot of people won't have the patience to read it 🙂
You know, I've debated the snippet thing too, I'm still more pro than con for it!
Alex
Breakfast Every Hour
I don't like reading long snippets because I don't really have context. Short snippets with intriguing or funny parts are fine.
CD
I hate to be boring, but there's one real problem with posting snippets, and that's the potential for future conflict concerning e-publishing rights. This is because some publishers consider posting online to be genuine publishing and some don't. If your book gets interest from a publisher but you have already aired significant chunks of it here, then they could consider the work to be already published. Just something gloomy to think about:)
One option is to keep track of your snippet posts and then delete them when you start approaching agents, editors etc.
Love getting packages like this in the mail.
Snippets? I don't know. I like to see the whole thing and have a hard time with snippets.
I love getting mail like that!! And snippets..I have wondered the same thing. How about the first page to start off with? It's actually A LOT of text for a blog. Then see how totally hooked we are : ) You can get tons of feed back on your hook, characters etc. and then each day of the week post another page until you have the first five????
I love the title of your blog! Cute! Good luck getting to 500 followers!
Yes on the snippets. I think less than 250 words doesn't give us much sense of the story, but more than 350 and you've probably lost my attention. My attention span is a lot shorter when reading blogs 😉
Now you just have to figure out what you'll want to share with us…
@ Vicki – yeah that thought has occurred to me…
@ B.E.T, Mason, Sangu, Alex, Clarissa & Jolene – I think I'll do it, I'll just have a good look over which ones are more concise…
@ Thomas – I wasn't planning on anything too huge *grin* cause the same thoughts have occurred to me before, though Diana Gabaldon does it..
@ Bossy Betty – yeah, that's one of the thoughts I had
@ Laura – thanks!
I agree, be careful how much of your story you publish on the web. After a certain percentage, it's considered published by some editors and contests. Instead, maybe consider beta readers for your stories.
Would love snippets! I tend to really like eesny, brief windows–I figure a couple paragraphs doesn't put you at much risk of plagairism, but gives us a taste of what you're working on. Plus, so intriguing!
Snippets – yay! But like you said, keep them short-ish since longer ones can be a bit daunting. In general though, I like to see snippets. I mean, we know we're fellow writers, but sometimes, I don't really know what the actual writing is like, you know? 🙂 I just tried the snippets thing out too.
Snippets would be lovely – but I share Thomas's concerns. You can delete them, but they'll still all be there somewhere, archived on the internet. But maybe brief snippets as opposed to whole chapters would work. It's tricky isn't it? These are unknown waters for all of us …
How nice! And I've often thought of posting snippets… Maybe I'll see how it works for you. 😀
When I lived in the UK, getting a parcel from the US was extremely exciting! Congrats on your win from Sharon's blog (she's a sweetheart!). and what a great contest you have going. Love love love the idea of getting something from New Zealand. it's the one place in the world I want to go to most.