New Site Stuff 2015

                That’s right, you read the title of this blog right, I am adding more stuff to this site! Sadly, this will not be in the form of new stories or content, though one feature will be dealing with content and… you know what, this will probably work a lot better if I just minimize the preamble stuff and jump right to the meat of this blog.

                I will say upfront that to a lot of you, these first two features aren’t going to matter than much. They’re geared toward fellow authors looking to meet or promote, so if you know that doesn’t apply and want to skip them, feel free. No grudges held. The third one you might want to check out though, as I think any of my readers will find it interesting.

Drew Around Town

                For those of you who noticed the addition of a new section already, kudos on the attention to detail! For those who haven’t, this first site change is in already in place, just look at the right hand section of the screen below my twitter stream. Boom! Whole new section right there, and it’s about where you can see next see me in person.

                This is, believe it or not, more than a whole paragraph pointing out a simple tracking widget I added. This is also me letting people formally know that I’m broadening my business model slightly to do signings, readings, or even public speaking situations if required. I’m been dipping my toe into these since the first school speaking, and found I really like them. Also, people seem to enjoy them as well, so I’ve decided to see where it takes me. The public events will be listed in that widget on the side of the side, plus I’m sure I’ll promote them on social media as well.

                Rates will vary based on what you’re looking for and how far the travel is, I’ll mostly just be looking to cover expenses. Contact me if you’re interested NovelistDrew@gmail.com

Rent Site Space

                Recently, I’ve decided to cut out the Project Wonderful ads from my site for various reasons. The one thing I liked about them was that they provided the opportunity to promote directly, hitting an audience you knew would mesh well with whatever you were trying to sell. So, in order to keep that aspect alive, I’ve decided to actually rent a piece of advertising space directly for those who are interested. In fact, some of you have seen (and I hope a few of you clicked on) the book cover for Book or Bart which I hosted through January. That was a beta-test to see how much value advertising here actually brought, in hopes of figuring out what a fair price to charge would be.

                For those interested, the rates are very upfront and transparent: you can see them broken down conveniently here. To keep the site from getting cluttered I only accept single image book covers and allow descriptions of up to 140 characters. Dates can be booked by, you guessed it, e-mailing me at NovelistDrew@gmail.com

Drew’s Projects

                Fun fact: I almost, and still might, called this feature “What Is He Drewing?” Anyway, this is going to be an experimental function I add to the side of the site just to see how things go, but I genuinely hope it will add a little insight to the process of being a full-time writer.

                As you all know, I love stripping back the curtain as much as possible, giving you insights into what I’m doing and working with transparency. It’s why I wrote a book in front of you all. Well, one of the most frequent questions people ask me is when something’s coming, or what I’m working on, or if certain projects exist. My new side-feature is meant to answer those questions at a glance, as well as show you the route that different projects take in the creation process.

                Drew’ Projects will show what I’m dedicating the bulk of my time to writing (Main Project), what I’m working on in smaller chunks or for fun (Side Projects), what’s been written and is getting edited into something actually readable (Editing), and what’s past that point and is getting primped and prepped to be released (Final Lap). For the projects that have previews or samples, I’ll link them in the widget, but the inverse of showing you this much behind the scenes is that you’re going to see names of things that are nowhere near ready to be shown to anyone. It will add a small amount of additional mystery, however it shoulder make for a (hopefully) fun tool to keep you all in the loop as to where the next project you might want to see is in production.