I decided to publish Sons Of Providence on Wattpad. Yeah, I know I said Royal Road is a better platform in regard to writer's tools, features, and potential, and I still believe that. At this time, I just don't think that community is for me.
I did more reading on Wattpad and Royal Road and I joined a site called FictionateMe to check them out. In all, I've browsed more than a dozen writing platforms. I joined Substack and tried that for a while. I deleted the account. I joined Medium. It's not what I thought it was but I kept the account. Substack and Medium feel like social media blog sites to me. They're like long-form Facebook.
I've looked at so many sites I'm getting them mixed up. Most were browsed, researched, and then passed on. The sites mentioned in the previous paragraph have been given significant time to impress me.
I figure throwing chapters up at Wattpad is a zero-risk investment. Here's why. Wattpad is so easy I queued up fourteen chapters in just over one hour. The writing is done. It's just creating the book, adding chapters, cut & paste, cut & paste, and schedule each chapter for publishing.
I published chapter one today. Every day at 2 AM a new chapter will drop. At that rate, I will have the first book up before the end of January. My work is done on the Providence chapters. Their release is automated now.
In my last blog, I mentioned a cool feature on Royal Road, linking music videos to each chapter. I learned you can do that on Wattpad and it's actually better. A YouTube video appears at the top of each chapter, not just a link in an author's note.
Also in that blog, I said something about my punk writing being a living and breathing tale. That thought stuck with me after I wrote it. I've been working on this story since 2013. I take breaks and write other stuff but Joe's story is my opus and I'll probably be writing punk tales until I croak. I always have new ideas for Joe and I'm constantly writing but I don't always find a place in the timeline for everything I conjure. There are so many scenes you'll never see.
I didn't email this to the punk readers because it's just the same old shit, me babbling about platforms and publishing an old story you've already read. To the right of this page are direct links.
Here's how I see it. If I publish one chapter per day I can have the first four punk books published in 100 days. That's how many chapters currently exist before the fifth book, City Of Angels (Punks), where the serious rewriting will occur.
Will I publish one per day? Probably not. Once a book begins I will drop one per day but I might take a week off between books. We'll see. Or maybe I'll publish a crime sequel between punk volumes.
Why am I doing this? Because what if I don't find the perfect platform and I waste months in the process fucking around and not moving forward? I'm not getting any younger. By publishing these rewritten and re-edited chapters I'm at least getting Joe out there. I may resume publishing chapters on Royal Road. I'm undecided. I do get significantly more views there... but there's no love.
I've done the writing. Publishing is easy. Now I must learn how to promote and get my story seen on these platforms. I have no delusions. My punk writing is not for everyone but I know some readers enjoy it. I'd like to find more of you punk readers.