What is the Rainbow Advent Calendar?
The basic idea of the calendar is to…
a) give our readers a nice thing to say thank you for their support during the year (reader service)
b) to promote our winter/festive releases (promo)
c) to engage with a wider audience by giving new readers the opportunity to try free samples of our writing (reader magnet)
and d) support the other writers in the group by helping them promote whatever they’re posting (community service)
I firmly believe that a rising tide lifts all boats and what better time to do that than over the season of giving.
It’s easy.
• You make a blog post to deliver the story to the readers in whatever way you like with whatever additional content you like and the RAC header I send you.
• Each day, from the 1st to the 24th December, I will post links to the story/stories on the masterlist on my website and then to the Facebook group (currently 1192 members).
• Stories (and the date you’re posting) should stay secret until the after they’re posted. Authors can tell people they’re participating but keep your story and your posting date secret until the reveal. It’s more fun that way : )
You can check out some of the posts from last year’s masterlist and visit the Facebook group to see how it all comes together.
What am I committing to by signing up?
• There are no minimum/maximum word count for the event.
If you only have time to write a 500 word flash fic, that’s fine. If you want to post a free novel, cool. But bear in mind that to get new readers to buy your new book, you might be better off having something that they will read that day over coffee rather than save for later. Writing a short to introduce existing characters might work for you, or even posting an appropriate scene related to your festive book could be cool. Think of it as a reader magnet.
• There are no writing restrictions other than to keep it festive.
mm, ff, mmm, shifters, bdsm, sweet, erotica, fisting, family fic…whatever you want to write is fine. But make it festive. Christmas, Hanukah, Yule, Festivus…it doesn’t matter. Give us baubles and candles and snow and over-eating…
• It must be a free read and remain free until at least the end of the month.
• You need to have a means of distributing your story.
Ideally, what you need is a blog/web page (if not your own, then find a friendly face who can let you post on theirs). You can either just post the story directly on the page for people to read there, or you can use BookFunnel/Prolific Works/Payhip/wherever as a means for people to download it for later. We have had people make their books free on Amazon in the past but we have definitely run into problems with that so be warned that’s not the recommended avenue.
• Stay in touch.
Request to join the authors admin group on Facebook as soon as you sign up, to get instructions on posting, discussions, trouble shooting, etc. I try to make things as fun and informal as possible. This is supposed to be a no-stress, easy way for us to promo over the busy holiday period
• Don’t leave me hanging.
Shit happens. Maybe you need to switch days. Maybe you need to drop out. I’m totally fine with all that but give me some notice even if it’s 24hrs. Apart from anything else, I make everyone a personalized RAC header with the date on it to put on their post so I need time to make new ones should you have to change.
• Participate in sharing the love.
We can’t all be online to share the posts everyday but if you pop online at any point, it takes two shakes of Rudolph’s tail to share, like and say, “Nice job, thanks for posting” in the comments. If you do it for other people, other people will do it for you, everyone’s a winner.
• Puns
I believe it’s my duty to make as many festive puns as possible. Not really a commitment on your part, I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be making suggestive comments about candy cane and calling you elves a lot. Jingle Jingle!
Still Interested?
Just email me – contact@alexjane.info – and I’ll link you to the sign up sheet!
