Where can you share your writing?
Now you’re ready. You’ve written something. You’ve followed the steps to take before you press Publish. Your work is as ready as you can make it. You’re ready to share your work. You want to show what you’ve written to the world. In an earlier post, I explained why you should share, and why you should learn your craft in public. But where can you share it? Here are some quick ideas for where to share your work.
1.Online
On your blog. Here you can share whatever you choose. You are the publisher. It’s easy to set up a free blog at Blogger or WordPress.com.
If you want your own domain name, such as sefchurchill.com, follow these steps (and be prepared to pay a small monthly fee to a company, for them to provide the name and manage the technical side of your blog.) Important: It should cost no more than a few pounds/dollars to create an own-domain blog. You do not need a paid theme or a web developer if your main aim is blogging (and not, say, running an online store.) You just need some way to click New Post, to type and maybe add a picture, and then press Publish.
Side note: if you’re hoping to publish your writing elsewhere later – say, in a print magazine – you should note that many publishers consider work shared online to have been ‘previously published’ and may not be interested, or may not give you the same rights over the material. Be sure you don’t need to re-use this work elsewhere.
Tumblr – I use it for stories, many people use it for art.
Twitter – Jeff Noon tweets stories – haunting, beautiful, weird stories.
Archiveofourown and fanfiction.net for transformative fanworks. Fictionpress for original fiction.
A lot of people use Medium . Medium gives you the chance to post articles like blog posts, and gain followers. It has a built-in audience for its main page, and it hosts the articles for you, which is a big draw for some people. Other people like Wattpad. Wattpad is a site where you can share creative and nonfiction writing and again, build up a following. I’ve not tried it but it’s very popular.
Consider sharing your books on Smashwords. This site lets you upload your writing as a Word-format document, and then makes it available in various e-book formats, and available for people to buy. Again, I’ve not tried it, so can’t comment beyond that. And of course you can upload your writing for sale very easily (again, you just need a Word document) at Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing platform. I was stunned by how simple that was.
2.Old school
You can print off your work, bind it with staples or however you choose, and distribute it to your friends, family, school, community. You can put it through letterboxes or paste it up on noticeboards. You could paint it in vivid colour on your living room wall. You could letterpress it and have it framed.
You could even prepare it in standard manuscript format and submit it to an agent or publisher.
Sharing is good
There are so many ways to share your work with the world, and I think it’s a good thing to do. Maybe what you’ve written isn’t perfect. Maybe it’s not the best thing ever written, or even the best thing you’ll ever write in your life. But you’ve created it, you’ve made it the best you can make it right now, and if you want to share, then share.
Have fun! Link me to your shared work in the comments!
Leave a Reply - let me know what you think!