Story Sensei

I think I have figured out one of the reasons why dictation is so difficult for me. I've known a lot of writers, and some writers will just vomit onto the page. The words come out as they think them, and they don't care if the words aren’t exactly the way they want because they'll just fix it and edit it later. There is also the type of writer that sits and thinks for a long time until they get the sentence exactly how they want it, and then they type it out, and the sentence is exactly what they wanted without needing any edits. But I am not like either of those. I type something onto the screen, but I edit it. And I keep fiddling with it until the sentence is how I want it. And then I move onto the next sentence. I think that for the first two types of writers, dictation is probably easier. The first type will simply speak the first thing in their heads and the dictation will transcribe their words. For the second type, they think carefully about what sentence the...

These are my thoughts on week 3 of the Fictator-in-Training Roadmap by Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer. Actually, it’s more about the third module of the Fictation course she has, since the Roadmap is taking us through her course. In this third module, she recorded herself dictating her entire novella, from outlining to the end of the rough draft. She fast-forwards through most of it so you’re not literally watching her dictate the entire novella, but she stops sometimes to comment and give tips. I didn’t find this all that useful, except for a few videos where she’s trying different apps. She even tries dictation on her mother’s old PC computer. I did like how she compared 3 different recording/transcription apps on her phone and showed the differences in accuracy between all three, plus her pros and cons for each. As I mentioned before, she doesn’t go into services that cost a lot of money such as Dragon Anywhere, but I recently heard about an AI transcription website called turboscrib...

The second week in the Fictation online course goes into the nuts and bolts of dictating fiction. I really like this section of the course because of the exercises that Sarah Elizabeth Sawyer gives. The exercises are really quite excellent for getting you into the mindset to dictate your own fiction, as opposed to other exercises from other books I’ve read, which merely get you used to dictation in general. Her exercises ease you into the mindset of where you need to be in order to start dictating fiction, which is a completely different skill than dictating a journal or an email or any kind of nonfiction. This week in the roadmap, she also has you watch the first two videos of the next segment in her dictation online course, in which she videotapes herself dictating some fiction, although she does fast forward through most of it. But the parts that are in real time show exactly how fast or slow she’s speaking, which is really helpful to give an example of how fast you can dictate...

My journey with dictation has not been easy, but I’ve been kind of stubbornly trying to make it work, because I want to write faster, and I also want to protect my wrists, which started giving me problems many years ago when I was still offering critiques with my Story Sensei critique service. I had to stop that because my right wrist was having issues. Last year, I took a dictation boot camp by Sarah Elizabeth Sawyer, and I liked it a lot. It was mostly aimed at people who had never done dictation before, while I had been dictating for a few years, although not very successfully sometimes. I still found the boot camp helpful, and I bought her fiction dictation online class, which she calls Fictation. I went through the course and enjoyed it. She started a supplement to her dictation course called the Fictator-in-Training Roadmap, which goes through her dictation online class and then also includes some additional coaching, so I decided to buy it. At the moment, the roadmap course...

This is the eighth and last in a series of blog posts about marketing for fiction authors without using social media. Kickstarter: This is going to be weird that I put this here, but when I was looking through the worksheet “First Steps to Podcasting” in Writing Off Social—the Course Lite , a lot of the questions could apply when you’re setting up your Kickstarter. You have to craft your Kickstarter to appeal to the readers who will find your campaign, and the amount of time to set up a Kickstarter is probably on par with the amount of time to set up a podcast. The major difference is that with podcasting, you’re in it for a longer period of time, while Kickstarter is usually less than a month, although authors will often do a Kickstarter for every new book. I took Thomas Umstattd’s course, The Ultimate Crowdfunding Course for Authors and found it very helpful. I also read Russell Nohelty and Monica Leonelle’s book, Get Your Book Selling on Kickstarter . Additionally, there...

This is the seventh in a series of blog posts about marketing for fiction authors without using social media. Serial Fiction Websites I will admit upfront that I have minimal experience on Wattpad and all I’ve done on RoyalRoad is read a few chapters. However, I’ve heard of a lot of indie authors who love posting their books on these types of serial fiction websites to gain a large following. In a sense, it’s a lot like blogging your book, except on someone else’s website. You’re entering into a rich, reader-centric world and offering free content, and people who really love your work will buy your books and sign up for your newsletter. The structure of serial fiction also pretty much guarantees to hook your reader, because each chapter ends on a cliffhanger and they have to read the next chapter or die waiting for you to post it. Readers with favorite stories on RoyalRoad and Wattpad (and other such websites) can get really passionate about those books. The readers also e...

This is the sixth in a series of blog posts about marketing for fiction authors without using social media. I will also mention two other things I blog about, which fall under Behind-the-Scenes but kind of have their own categories. I’ll often write food into my books. For my contemporary novels, they’re usually family recipes. For my Regency novels, they’re recipes that I find in antique cookbooks from the era. I’ll make the dish and post the recipe on my blog along with pictures. I recently polled my newsletter and Patreon and discovered my readers really liked the recipes, which surprised me. I will usually link to the blog post recipe in my newsletter and in a Patreon post. Here’s an example of a recipe. I also like to knit, so I write knitted objects into the books (like shawls, scarves, socks, mittens). Then I knit the object and post the knitting pattern on my blog with photos. I will link to the pattern in my newsletter and my Patreon, but I will also link to the p...

This is the fifth in a series of blog posts about marketing for fiction authors without using social media. SEO for blogs: Unlike with nonfiction authors, blogging about nonfiction topics doesn’t automatically garner more sales for fiction authors. Sometimes readers will do a Google search for something they read in a novel, but from my experience and from talking with lots of other indie authors, fiction readers don’t necessarily care that much about nonfiction blog posts. So for some fiction authors, nonfiction blog posts don’t do anything to help them get more readers. However, blogging in general is a great way to post evergreen long-form content on a space you own, if you host your blog on your domain. My blog platform is Blogspot, but my blog itself is at https://blog.camytang.com . I like the fact it’s on my domain. Evergreen long-form content is posts that continue to market for you for years to come. Some fiction authors will post nonfiction topics (Sarah Sundin post...

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts about marketing for fiction authors without using social media. Patreon: I have a Patreon that I modeled after several other fiction authors, especially Lit-RPG and fantasy authors. They post the rough draft chapters on their Patreon, 1-3 chapters each week, as they write/edit them. Patrons subscribe at various tiers and get extra stuff depending on their tier. For me, I have 4 tiers: Tier 1, $5/month which gets them early access to my chapters before the book is published, along with any bonus content. Tier 2, $15/month which gets them audiobook chapters as they’re available. Tier 3, $25/month which gets them a specially-curated book box once every 4 months. Tier 4, $100/month which gets them a custom short story written for them once a year (I don’t have anyone at this tier at the moment). Tiers 3 and 4 get to read the weekly chapters first, and then permission is given to Tier 2 the week after, and finally Tier 1 after that. Thi...

This is the third in a series of blog posts about marketing for fiction authors without using social media. SEO for websites: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is all about helping people find your website or blog when they search online, like when someone Googles “Christian Regency romance” and your book pops up. By using the right keywords, writing helpful blog posts, and organizing your site well, you make it easier for search engines (like Google) to know what your site is about and show it to the right readers. It’s like leaving breadcrumbs for new fans to discover you. I will be the first person to say I am terrible at SEO, but I’ve been learning thanks to long conversations with ChatGPT and Grok. I’ve been trying to craft better blog titles and I just learned about putting meta descriptions for each blog post (When did that option appear? I hadn’t even noticed!). By using keywords, I’m hoping to get more traffic to my blog. I’ve also been listening to several free we...

This is the second in a series of blog posts about marketing for fiction authors without using social media. Collaboration: I loved this module in the Writing Off Social—the Course Lite because I fully believe this is one of the best ways for fiction authors to promote their brands and their books. For my marketing, collaboration takes several forms. 1) Group promos I use BookFunnel (other authors use StoryOrigin) to join group author promos set up by other authors. Each promo is usually a specific genre, and there are two types of promos: newsletter promos and sales promos.  All participating authors share the link to the promo’s landing page, which has every author’s book covers that readers can click on. Newsletter promos feature Funnel Books. Sales promos feature books for sale whether on Amazon, on direct websites, or other distributors. Promos usually only last a short amount of time, so I can’t give links to them. Instead, I’ll post screenshot images. H...

This is the first in a series of blog posts about marketing for fiction authors without using social media. Lead Magnets One thing I focus on is building up my email newsletter. One way I do this is through Lead Magnets. I don’t know if this is true for non-fiction writers, but I’ve heard of two different kinds of fiction lead magnets—one for a cold audience who has never heard of you (called a Funnel Book), and one for a warm audience (Reader Magnet). The Funnel Book is for things like BookFunnel group promos or newsletter swaps. BookFunnel group promos (you can also do the same on StoryOrigin ) are where you join a promo event with other authors in your genre or niche. Everyone shares the link to the promo in their newsletter. The link goes to a landing page with everyone’s book covers that readers can click on. That goes to the individual book’s landing page with a blurb and a link to either buy the book (if it’s sales promo) or to sign up for your newsletter to get th...

I have been a big fan of the podcast Writing Off Social for a while now, and I met the podcast hosts, Sandy and Mary K., at the 2025 Novel Marketing Conference. I had taken their Writing Off Social—the Course Lite , and while I was very, very good, I felt it didn’t have as many insights for fiction authors as opposed to nonfiction authors. Which makes sense since Sandy and Mary K. both write nonfiction. When I talked to them about it at the conference, I spouted off some feedback I had come up with while listening to their course, and they asked me to write it down in an email and send it to them. Well, I had time to wait at the airport and it turned into a huge long email missive with lots of information. They were very gracious and invited me to join them for an interview on their podcast, which was totally exciting! It was my first podcast interview! I was a complete dork! But we didn’t talk about everything in the email I’d written to them since we didn’t have time. I thou...

 This is actually a lesson from my Synopsis worksheet, so forgive me if you’ve taken my class and this sounds vaguely familiar. :) An agent might use a one-sentence hook when she presents your story to an editor, or you can use this hook in your proposal, and an editor might use it when she presents it to the pub board. Actually, I would strongly suggest you have a one-sentence hook in your proposal, because even if your editor doesn’t use it in pub board, you may be asked to submit a one-sentence hook later, after the book is contracted, to give to the Marketing and Sales team. This hook will also help you step back from your story and adopt a more high-level view of the manuscript. It can be hard to wrench yourself out of the nitty-gritty of the story and take this bird’s-eye view, so, well ... make an effort. Be a little impassive about your story—don’t be too tied to it. That’ll help you to step back and look at the overall picture. Here’s the actual one sentence hook I ...