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Hi Lyne,
I'll try and answer your questions as much as I can:
1) What got you started?
I wanted a guaranteed vehicle to promote my own writing career.
Tina wanted the same thing. Ciara just wanted a foot in the
door. We met on a writer's critique group about 4 years ago, and
found that our writing styles were similar and went from there.
We didn't consider any of the 'business' options until after it
got big. (probably a mistake, in hindsight, but who was to
know?)
2) How do you cope with the time/distance thing?
I'm in Australia - Tina and Ciara are in Ohio. I'm about 13
hours ahead of their time zone. At one point we had a fourth
member, who lived in Wisconsin. All
conversations/decisions/plans etc are conducted by email.
Important emails are kept for future reference.
Any brainstorming/ideas/chat/giggle-sessions are done via ICQ -
instant messaging service - and arranged for times when we all
know we'll be online (every Saturday morning for me is Friday
evening for them etc)
3) How do you deal with banking & accounts?
I own the site. I own the Fiction Factor business name. I paid
for the hosting and the domain name in the first year.
Advertisers have paid us enough to cover all expenses since
then. Payments by advertisers are made to a joint PayPal account
we set up specifically for the use of the site. We all have
access to it, and nothing comes out of it without all of us
knowing about it and approving it.
4) How do you deal with website maintenance?
All three of us have access to the FTP program to upload new
content, maintain links/market listings, change advertising
banners etc. We all pitch in to help with this. I format the
newsletter each fortnight based on the emails the girls send me
and the new stuff they've uploaded through the week.
5)How do you divide up the payments to each other?
What payments? Seriously - Fiction Factor is purely voluntary.
Strange, huh? Payments we receive go back into the site (site
development, advertising, hosting, domain renewal etc) The three
of us are paid by selling articles to magazines and ezines, by
selling our own books and short stories. The site is where
articles go AFTER they've been sold and re-sold as reprints a
few times to other magazines first.
6)
What about the drawings illustrating you as heroines on the
site?
I fell in love with the caricatures a member of a writing group
I'm in was doing. She donated them for us. They're better than
our real selves anyway ;)
7) How do you divide up responsibilities?
We volunteered to do the bits we each liked. I created the
website. I do the advertising and promotion. I'm currently
working on redesigning the entire site. Tina does the book
reviews and market listings. Ciara does reviews and author
interviews. We all write articles. We do what we feel like,
basically. It works for us
8) Why are we stupid enough to try and maintain such a massive
site and a large newsletter for no pay?
Easy question to answer. I have not had one - NOT ONE -
manuscript, short story or article rejected by any editor or
publisher since it began. This is because I can honestly say "I
have an established audience who already follows my work. I have
a ready-made promotional vehicle prepared to promote anything of
mine that you publish. I have a popular website that gets stacks
of visitors."
Most editors drool when they read this on a cover letter. >:}
So, when you look at 'running Fiction Factor for no pay' - the
answer is - I get way more pay from my writing now than I would
have if I didn't have the site.
9) How can you build your credibility on the net?
Probably by
not
using cartoon caricatures to represent yourself ;)
Seriously - credibility can be established by writing content
for your future site that covers a topic your intended readers
will be interested in. If the content is consistent and the
quality is up there, readers will return to see what else you
have to say - and they do bring friends! Get those same articles
out into other ezines with topic-focus similar to yours, include
your full author bio plus active links, and watch the visitors
arrive from any site that has just paid you to publish your
article as an 'authority on the subject'.
10) What do you do to increase your website income?
We constantly experiment with pricing, wording, spacing,
placement, sizes, banners, colors, fonts - you name it. We've
begun to recognize a pattern with our paid advertising and we'll
replicate that and expand on it until the site is actually
turning a much bigger profit (or any profit at all would be
nice). We also maintain a few well-chosen affiliate programs and
link partners - and experiment highly with these, too.
11) Why don't you charge subscribers a fee to read your stuff,
like Writer's Weekly and Inscriptions now do?
Because we don't want to :p
Phew! Geez I ramble on. I do hope this gives you a little
insight into what we do here at Fiction Factor. I also hope we
haven't put you off the idea of getting into business on the
net. It's all been positive, educational, inspiring, fun,
interesting, tiring, frustrating, exhilarating, rewarding and
downright satisfying to know that people like you appreciate
what we do enough to take the time to write and tell us. :o)
The site has also helped to make serious writing careers for us
all and I've made two life-long friends from it. I wouldn't
change a thing (except maybe the 'no-profit' part....)
Cheers! :o)
Lee
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Fiction Factor
http://www.fictionfactor.com
The online magazine for fiction writers
Thanks for a great interview, Lee!
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