Further Impressions of StoryOrigin

Having just joined StoryOrigin, I feel like the new kid in school. Everybody else knows where the lavatory is; they know which teachers to avoid making eye contact with; they obviously know who the cool kids are and who are the nerds.

Meanwhile, I'm wandering the halls, lost.

The app has a lot of things going on, many of which I have no need for, but some that are too foreign to me to even know if they'd be useful.

Naively, I started my membership with the intention of getting reviews for my novel. I suspect that simply parking a book on the site doesn't accomplish that goal. So, I went looking for group promos to join. This was not an ideal alternative, because as you know, I detest author newsletters (well, I detest my own; I can't pass judgement on anyone else's). I only found one women's fiction promo, which flabbergasted Google's AI, who told me that was a head-scratcher. "Women's fiction is one of the most popular genres on the site!" it exclaimed. Well, it isn't, idiot!" I shot back. Then we got into this whole squabble, and I didn't want to lose AI as a friend, so I let it go.

I applied to join the single women's fiction promo, but heard nothing, so I took a closer look. I was the only author who joined. I'm therefore guessing the promo is a no-go.

So, I searched some more. This time, instead of reviews, I filtered for "sales" and "Kindle Unlimited". I found one multi-genre promo labeled, "sales", so I applied. I was approved within a couple hours. Now I was roped into sending a newsletter. (More about that later.)

When you apply to join a group promo for the first time, you'll need to provide details regarding your newsletter, including number of subscribers, open rate, percentage of link clicks; all things I needed to look up. I was surprised to find that I had maybe double the number of subscribers I thought I had, but most of those were just too lazy to unsubscribe.

I plunked my numbers in and set a commitment date for sending out my next issue.

Now, I'm not crazy about "sales" promos, because my sales track record is abysmal, but I wanted to get my feet wet in the StoryOrigin ethos, and thus I needed to start somewhere. 

Today, I searched again for new opportunities, but found none, so I took a look at newsletter swaps. On the plus side, featuring someone else's book in my newsletter would at least provide me with some content. On the negative side, I'd have to send out another newsletter in a couple of weeks or a month. I've gone about 6 months without sending one, and now I'll be spamming people? 

Again, as with group promos, I managed to find one women's fiction swap opportunity. There were more that included women's fiction, but you have to really scrutinize them. For example, "Christian + Women's Fiction" wouldn't work for me, due to my novel's occasional use of profanity. Nor would "Erotic Romance + Women's Fiction" or "Vampires + Women's Fiction". I mean, come on. (I'm puzzled by why these authors, who clearly write in a different genre choose to include mine. It makes no sense.) Then there are the ones with a "clean" tag. What does that mean? My novel only has closed-door sex, but again, it has some profanity. So, I'm not taking a chance on those. It helps to take a look at the posters' books to get a better picture of whether mine would fit. Generally, it doesn't (e.g., one author who has books with "cupcakes" in the titles. Not exactly my book's vibe).

So, I might apply to one swap. 

Regarding creating my newsletter edition, I was vaguely aware that Mailerlite had changed its pricing tiers, but since I wasn't sending newsletters anymore, it didn't affect me. So, I managed to compose a newsletter that included my group promo link, then I tried scheduling it to be sent on November 1. Oops. No, can't do that. Well, I've always done it before! 

"You've got too many subscribers for that option. It's not included in the free tier." 

"Can I cull about 100 subscribers? They don't want my newsletter anyway." 

Obviously, I wasn't going to willy-nilly remove subscribers even though it was tempting, so I ended up purchasing the cheapest paid tier at $12.00/month. Because who composes a newsletter, then hits "send" immediately? I need to know if it looks right or if I'm embarrassed by something I included, so I need to send a test copy to myself to scrutinize first. But I'm not going to keep paying twelve bucks a month in order to keep doing something I hate doing, so once StoryOrigin is done, so will be my monthly Mailerlite payment.

Once again, it's costing me money to take a chance on StoryOrigin providing me with some benefit.

What I'm finding is that this app is adding stress to my life. I don't want added stress. If I pick the wrong newsletter swap, will it end up in utter embarrassment? Should I take a chance on one whose organizer might have objections to my novel's contents? (I'm thinking I should have substituted "darn" for the word I had one of my supporting characters utter a lot. Would have saved me a lot of grief. "That darn club manager! I feel like giving him a darn beating!")

Bottom line, I'm thinking this is only going to be a one-month test, unless I see some results. 🤣 And as you know, my days of throwing money at marketing are done.