Werewolves discussion

I know this discussion board is years old but hopefully someone can answer I actually have an issue with marketing my werewolf work in progress series and I need advice about it .

I'm currently working on a werewolf fantasy scifi novel series 2nd draft in the first book and 12 werewolf shortstories connected to the series that I have planned , been working on it for over ten years, started to talk about it on social media a little bit over two years now but still cant find readers for it.
I can only find other writers but not werewolf fantasy writers at all .

I've researched what other authors do to market thier content and im trying to do the same.

Over the past year or so I been creating visual audio trailers, short films for chapter snippets and my characters. Also I have a blog where i talk about my werewolf wip and short stories chapter by chapter , and a writing advice podcast , but im not getting any real views , no feedback or suggestions and I need help with this because I've worked really hard on my story's worldbulding and characters and took means to make it original. Like my werewolves dont howl at the moon . They dont get affected by silver or what not either and its a whole other world outside our planet. I've researched and spun a whole new mythology behind werewolves . My beta readers say its a good read so far.

But how do I find actual readers that would be interested in my series? I'm not a new writer i'm just a new novelist. I'm getting discouraged and feel like im in some sort of echo chamber I just want to share my book with others but i dont know if I want to publish it if there is no readership . idk


I posted to another discussion board with the same question but I havent heard anything back yet.

your meaningful suggestions would be helpful on this matter. Thank You

I am not a published writer, but have edited speculative fiction novels professionally and have an MFA in Creative Writing. Therefore, while I can not offer much in terms of direct advice from experience, I'm not ignorant of what you're facing either.

Congratulations on having written stories and started a novel. You're a do-er, not just a talker, and that is no small feat. I can share with you what my approach would be were I as far along as you are, what I would be trying first, in the hope it might help you. Are your short stories stand-alone? Can you make them become stand alone, meaning not depend on the other stories in the series? If yes, then there are a lot of on-line e-zines, or story sites, that pay little to nothing that may have an interest in publishing your stories. Step one is to get published by someone, anyone, so that you establish your name. Then you can trade up.

Once you have published three to five stories anywhere, then you can step up to slightly more high paying, more established similar sites, maybe even sell to small market publisher anthologies being put out by tiny presses. You can include in your cover letter information about the stories you have published already. This is resume building.

From what I have seen, this is the way most authors build a writing career. I recently researched Mercedes Lackey, for example, and notice she started this way. She has enormous talent, so she moved up fast, and went to cons, and built friendships, too, so that she could submit work to author friends eventually.

That all said, you want to be sure of two things before submitting anything for publication, or even before giving a story to beta readers for their opinions, and I suggest these two things be accomplished in this order.

1) Make as sure as you can you have told the best story you know how to tell. Does the plot have a story arc (beginning, problem exposition, build-up as obstacles are presented and overcome, climax and denouement) a protagonist and antagonist, both with clearly presented motives? Does the story have a moral or theme, or, in other words, can you tell a reader why it's worth reading? Have you tied up all the important loose ends?

2) Is the grammar as clean as possible? There are all kinds of programs out there for this (Grammarly, even just what Microsoft Word builds in). I notice in your post above that you don't start every sentence with a capital letter and often have a space before your sentence's end punctuation (the comma or period). Avoid elementary mistakes like this (which most middle school children don't make) if you want your reader to have confidence in your ability to write.

The reason #2 is second is there is no point in sweating over the grammar (the fine editing) until you have a good story. It may be of benefit to your English skills in general to fine edit slop, but it won't be of any benefit to that specific story if it's flawed because you're going to have to change it and then fine edit it all over again. Don't worry about higher level or subtler grammar mistakes overly much. A good editor at the e-zine or publisher can fix these, if necessary, as long as the story is judged as being worth the effort.

The trick, I think, is to write quality stuff people want to read, get it published in however small or obscure a place you need to go down to in order to get your work published at all, at least at first, and then keep building up to bigger venues one step at a time.

Best wishes in your endeavours and please keep us posted if or when you get published. I think a number of us would be happy to read it then. Good luck!

Dan wrote: "I am not a published writer, but have edited speculative fiction novels professionally and have an MFA in Creative Writing. Therefore, while I can not offer much in terms of direct advice from expe..."
Thank you so much this is helpful

Try Radish. If you go the self publishing route offer the first book free on sites like Bookbub.