How To Write On The Web

We all know the story of Stephen King living in a trailer, and how he finished the manuscript to “Carrie.” He threw it away in the trash, thinking to himself, that he knows nothing about teenage girls. He must be nuts, until his wife fished it out, read it and said “You really got something here!” So, against his own thoughts, he submitted it to publication, and it sold millions. Now, he is Stephen King, one of the great storytellers of our time. However, things are different these days. You don’t need to guess with your manuscript. Take the story of Amanda Hockings, a young woman from Minnesota. She wrote a dozen novels, only to see them get rejected from one publisher after another. Instead of simply giving up, she took them to the web, and now she is a millionaire author. She started by selling them as downloads for ninety nine cents. Now, her books are selling from a major publisher, and she is raking it in. Not bad for a self described “John Hughes mourner, Muppets fanatic.” The point I am trying to make is that if Stephen King had the internet, he might have not thrown away the manuscript to “Carrie” so fast. He would have maybe posted a sample of it online and seen if it had gotten any hits. All the readers are now online, and it’s often the internet that determines what breaks out of its digital box and right onto the page. Traditional media is still the goal. We all want to still be on TV, movie screens, syndicated to newspapers and in a book you can hold. However, that doesn’t always happen right away, so we turn to the internet to see if we can get any reception there. It’s often as a last resort, but none the less. So, here are my tips for people beginning to write online.

1.  Keep a Blog- That’s very simple. You set up a blog on Blogger or Word Press or any of the dozen free servers out there. However, there is a catch.

2. Make Your Blog Quality- No one wants to read about what you had for breakfast or how great your boyfriend or girlfriend is. People want to read about a topic: books, movies, or if you are going to write about your life, make sure it’s interesting or funny or relatable. However, your blog shouldn’t be a place you post everything that pops into your head. Start each blog post like it was an article. Write it on a word document and not automatically on a blog. This is good for two things. First of all, it’s good because it leaves a backup copy on your computer’s local server and second of all, it makes you feel like it’s an article. Don’t think of these as blog posts. Think of these as articles.

3. Stories- If you aren’t doing reviews, columns or articles, and you want to write fiction, I suggest you set up a account on a fiction website, or submit to the dozens of online fiction magazines. Fiction isn’t really in print anymore as far as magazines go, unless you are trying for the Paris Review, which only accepts the most top notch quality. There are great online fiction magazines like Word Riot or 3AM Magazine. However, Figment.com is good too. That’s a bit more for the teenagers out there writing, but I don’t see the harm in it.

4. Decide Your Name- Decide if you want to use your real name or a pen name. A lot of people use pen names on the internet. However, that doesn’t mean you post up something embarrassing online even if it is under a pen name. Remember, the internet doesn’t really go away. It just kind of sits there. Don’t say something online you wouldn’t say in real life.

5. Don't Comment On Stuff That's None of Your Business- A lot of people online comment on stuff they don't know about. If it's something that you aren't a expert on, don't comment on it. It makes you look bad, and know just because you can doesn't mean you should.

6.Keep Your Accounts Separate- Your stories of fiction, your reviews and columns and your Facebook. Don’t mesh them together. It’s easy to mix personal and professional online. Try not to.

7. And finally, Good Luck- May we all be Amanda Hockings.