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I am one of those authors that got caught up in the excitement of NoSleep and the thrill of getting upvotes when I first started posting my stories under the name KGLewis late last year/early this year. I had several stories that did very well with many of them being narrated, but once the initial "high" of a story's success passed I was ultimately left with nothing to show for it. The upvote system is nothing but a popularity gauge that doesn't really speak to a story's quality. I've seen great stories get very little upvotes and ones with huge plot holes and atrocious grammar get thousands of upvotes. That's not a bad thing within the context of NoSleep, it just wasn't very rewarding for me. I wanted more critical reviews of my writing and I wanted to reach the traditional horror reader base to see how well my stories would be received in the traditional reader markets. That, along with the blatant copyright theft that happens so often here (and to a lesser degree the inconsistent moderation of the rules at the time) lead me to nuke my account and release all of my stories, as a collection through Amazon.

I have no regrets about doing it. I don't feel as rushed when I write new stories now. When I was posting on NoSleep it felt like you had to post frequently to stay relevant. Now I write and my leisure. A part of me does miss that popularity aspect of NoSleep, but I have found a replacement by taking part in vss365 and other writing prompts on Twitter. They are far less demanding on my creativity.

As far as my book goes, I would say it is doing as well as I expected it to. I didn't pay much for advertising and am content to let readers stumble across it. I do promote the book, I just use free platforms which don't have a high conversion rate. The reception of the first book has prompted me to write a followup collection which I am about halfway through. I am also working on a book featuring two characters (Father Cooke and Magister Alexander) from a popular series I was posting on Creepypasta.com, but that project is very slow going.

I have several friends that are writers, a few of which help critique my stories (brutally so, but that level of honesty helps me craft better stories). Most of the people who know me usually ask why I didn't start writing sooner and they aren't surprised by the strange tales I come up with. Growing up, I use to play a variety of role-playing games both as a gamemaster and a player and that is where my love for storytelling started.

Okay, I think I'm done rambling for now.

Hi! So, first off, I'm a big fan of your work. You're a fantastic author. :) I'm not a writer, so I know this post is largely irrelevant to me, but I had a couple questions I wanted to ask you, because I'm not sure I'm understanding everything fully.


• What benefit, if any, does this have for the readers?



There's a lot of avid readers, myself included, who already follow you all on social media and like your posts. I see several authors promote each other regularly as it is, which is awesome! It's a great way to be introduced to new writers. I just worry that if the cross promotion was a regular thing among the same group of people, some readers may find the duplicate posting tedious and actually unfollow authors to reduce redundancy.




• How would your publishing format differ from that of the authors who choose to self publish their work, already participate in the various anthologies regularly produced featuring Nosleep authors (The Creepypasta Collections, for example), or who publish through -30- Press, the existing publishing company run by Nosleep authors? Again, not an author, so it's definitely not my area of expertise, but I'm curious in what ways you feel the quality of the work your alliance would produce would vary from the existing publishing mediums.


Thank you in advance for any clarity you're able to shed on this for me, and best of luck with your endeavor! :)

I took a look at your previous posts, here some pointers.

First: Basics.

• Formatting - make your text readable by using paragraphs. Press Enter TWICE to make a line break on Reddit - else most people will just skip over your posts.
  
• Use proper grammar and sentences - e.g. a slash doesn't belong in your story ("restaurants/fast food places"). Use an "and" or "or" instead.
  
• Spellcheck - "resturaunts". If you want people to read your stories you have to do them the favor of proofreading your own posts. At least use Word, LibreOffice or Google Drive to write your stories, they have a spellcheck built in.
  
• Make it a story. Think of books; a book never starts with "Alright. So a little backstory" and then goes on to excuse that "The backstory is longer than the actual story, sorry." Instead start the way a tale would be told. Start with action or at least an image that the reader can see and feel.
  
• Use written language, not spoken language and style. Cut out words like "alright", "so", that are mere oral filler words and shouldn't appear in written text (unless appropriate). Words that don't add meaning should not be in your writing.
  
  Second: Writing.
  
  
• Story flow. Honestly I don't understand your last story. There are too many breaks in continuity and too many unnannounced location and character switches.
  
  > Mom walks up to me and says I looked a little disoriented, and I just say its nothing. I don't know why, but that creeped me out.
  
  What creeped you out? Your mom's asking you? Or the events before?
  
  
• It would be good if you read some more fiction and try to look out for basic writing standards. Again line break, this time for dialogue. Dialogue without line break is very hard to read.
  
  > "Hey! I thought it would be fun to go see a movie, so we are going to the 10 o'clock showing of the new star trek movie tonight. I can't wait to see you and your brother again." He said. "Wow. Okay..." I said. Not even a hello or goodbye.
  
  much easier:
  
  > "Hey! I thought it would be fun to go see a movie, so we are going to the 10 o'clock showing of the new star trek movie tonight. I can't wait to see you and your brother again." He said.
  
  > "Wow. Okay..." I said.
  
  > Not even a hello or goodbye.
  
  Lastly: Make us hear and feel things. Give us a chance to feel what you feel
  
  > When I hear tapping. And then water. Then, without warning, the toilet flushes in a bathroom that has always been manual flush. I hear walking, she shadows, the lights flicker, and I hurry up to wash my hands and get out.
  
  This should be three or four paragraphs rather than four sentences. Where does the tapping come from? How loud is it? How did you notice it first?
  
  What does "And then water" mean? You heard water flowing somewhere? You saw water on the floor, running into your stall?
  
  You hear WALKING and you tell us nothing about it? Silent? fast? did you see feet? Did it sound like bare feet or hard soles?
  
  You need to paint a picture that we can see, hear, smell and touch.
  
  That is the actually my main point: How to format your writing and spellcheck should be the minimum and are required for any story to be worth reading. Learn that, there is no way around it. Look at stories you like and see why they are good - your formatting should never be in the way of your story.
  
  But what you need to practice is to paint that picture. Try to sit down and describe one simple mundane thing. Try to describe, as in-depth as possible, what it feels like to sit on your chair. Describe the scene you see out of your window - not just "there's a house", instead make that house visible for someone thousands of miles or hours away. Try to describe what your mother's footsteps on the corridor sound like. Where are they? How does the volume change? Are they hurried or does her heel strike the floor hard? Are they louder if she carries heavy objects?
  
  When you are able to do that you can take the stories you wrote and develop them from a summary of your experience into a full-blown story. Tell the tale, and of course feel free to add some more fiction to make it creepier. Maybe you did see feet, or maybe you did hear something soft rubbing along the window or door or maybe even your stall. Don't limit yourself to "reality".
  
  tl;dr (1) Learn proper formatting - simply by reading more and by trying to figure out when and where it works and when and where it doesn't. Look at a book or story you enjoy and see how the paragraphs are layed out. Also get yourself a copy of Strunk & White. (2) Practice painting that picture (in all senses, not just visually). Then you will get places :)

I have a ko-fi account linked in my blog https://preternaturalclubgirl.blog/ but honestly best way you can support me is buy a book review it or like and comment:) I recently self published a full length book (2.99) that was a series on here.

WICKED WILLIAM

I have two user names and combined my professional name and my Reddit user name but my profile here has info etc YouTube channel etc

Thank you for your polite interest🙂.

Appreciated more than you know!!!

wow that's great! I would love to be added to the list, thanks!

link for me

/u/hughwouldnotbelieve

subreddit for the book / series. I don't have a personal sub yet, but I might make one.

/r/shadowbound

Google link for free reading of entire book (not super well edited, I'm doing all that myself)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hzIZTaJ--icKnG2JMe4SKivKRjZtV6GWHqhT3eDcoYM/edit?usp=sharing

link to amazon for current version of book (not free. ha)

http://www.amazon.com/Shadowbound-Only-Someone-Answers-Volume/dp/1481933477/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1358642091&sr=8-7&keywords=shadowbound

I probably won't need links to the alternate account AgentX29, i don't use that one much since it was an account made purely for the story itself.

facebook link. woo

https://www.facebook.com/hughwouldnot.believe

• Don't worry about plagiarism. Some people believe that there are only seven basic plots while others believe there are Thirty-Six basic plots. The point is that you wish to write, so go ahead and write what you wish. If it seems like someone else's works, you'll be bombarded with people telling you, "Hey, this story was similar to X, Y, Z story". Here's an example of what you are worried about. I've had 2 stories that people mistakenly thought were very similar to other sources. People thought my story called Aiden's Special Power was based on a video game called "Beyond Two Souls" which a character was named Aiden that vaguely had a similar power. I never played the game and yet managed to hit upon two common similarities despite the inspiration coming from a dream that I had and the fact that my girlfriend loves the name Aidan. The other story was Declassified: The Last Transmission which the first comment was saying that this was the ending to Pacific Rim, another movie I never watched, and the inspiration to write this was more Cthulu and monstrosities from other dimensions invading our world.
  
  
• This is unfortunately one of the bad parts about writing online. People like to take credit for your blood, sweat, and tears. My best suggestion is to start an independent blog or website and post your stories there too. Google does it's magic and sifts through the most direction version of what you wrote. For example, I Googled my story I Have Evidence My College Covered Up A Murder and here are the results. The Top 8 results link back to either Reddit or my own Blog page. The 9th result is from another website that posted my story (without my permission) but at least they credited me as the author. It's not going to completely stop theft but at least you'll be able to curb the results in your favor.
  
  
• There's no avoiding people attaching the Creepypasta label to your stories. That isn't a bad thing though. In fact, it might actually help. There have been a few of my stories narrated on YouTube that have reached audiences I never would have gotten. Linking back to my answer to your first question, Aiden's Special Power has 65,000 views and is considered Creepypasta. A Letter to My Future Self has 9,000 views and was read on the NoSleep Podcast. I guess what I mean to say is that you shouldn't try to push away an audience that is willing to embrace you.
  
  
• As the common advice goes, "Read alot. Write alot". I also suggest listening to the Writing Excuses Podcast which is pretty awesome. The Round Table Podcast is awesome too. Read On Writing by Stephen King. Mostly, try to read the works by the masters of horror, Clive Barker, Richard Matheson, Stephen King, Peter Straub, Edgar Allan Poe, and H.P. Lovecraft. Also read outside of the horror genre. You'll get ideas from places you never imagined if you combine horror with elements of something else you might be interested in.
  
  I hope I helped.

Without paranormal creatures? Oh, yuck! Go read, like, a harlequin romance novel.

But for cereal, check out the last few monthly contest winner pages. A lot of the winners and runners up have non-paranormal stories. It's about a 50/50 split.

Here's a little somethin' somethin' to hold you over until you find more.

Edit: A friend of mine writes romance with paranormal creatures, which is probably something that wouldn't float your boat. But, in case you freaky and you like it a lot, click this.

I'm looking forward to checking some of these out!

I have self-published one novel and have the layouts done for two followups. Publishing a novel was a big goal for me, and while I'm proud of it, I am in the process of doing a re-edit with an author friend of mine that has turned into a re-write/re-format as well (because Adobe made it really hard to convert for e-readers). I plan on re-publishing the first by the summer.

If the novel looks remotely interesting to you, and you buy it for some reason, let me know. I will be offering free e-books when I re-publish. I do think it will be worth the wait, however, and I am planning on putting the first few chapters up somewhere to give a taste.

Absolute Horror

The original goal of nosleep--and a mod can happily correct me if I'm wrong, of course--was to be like tales around the campfire, those urban legends that seemed real. The core was that the story was believable on some level.

Werewolves are certainly believable, if managed correctly; I mean, we have legends about creatures like the Jersey Devil and these books exist, which fit your question perfectly: https://www.amazon.com/Michigan-Dogman-Werewolves-U-S-Unexplained/dp/0979882265/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=G1ZFT21ENVH80KSTBSGJ

So, personally, I'd say make it feasible and have fun writing a good story :)

Nooo. :O No one's trumping everyone! Everyone is happy for everyone's successes! They're all equally awesome and valuable.

Yes, it's on Amazon! :D

What exciting times!

You should make outlandish demands in order to appease your desire to continue working with those dudes.

Like make them watch the Original Star Wars Trilogy with you. Or request that they give you a thirty foot wide pizza. The sky is the limit!

That's also really exciting that you're getting published! Congrats!

And I didn't even think to link to the book! I suck, haha.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1507203039/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1496936448&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=mrcreepypasta&dpPl=1&dpID=416vAYcM4lL&ref=plSrch

If you are asking I am giving!
Here is My first ever novel Storming Area 51 co-written with a few authors here from nosleep! It is a Horror/Sci-fi read that we had a fun time writing. Hope you enjoy!

This is Shawn Coyne's Story Grid system, which he actually uses to edit stories. I highly recommend the book, which taught me a lot about writing and editing in general (and I'm pretty well learned in this area, having a degree in screenwriting). There's also a story grid podcast that's pretty interesting.

Link to the book: https://smile.amazon.com/Story-Grid-What-Good-Editors/dp/1936891352/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536954605&sr=8-1&keywords=story+grid

So my new publishing venture is an anthology! It's my very first. It's called KNOTS is available in paperback or ebook format through Amazon and other book sellers. This is incredibly exciting for me. I put so much hard work into this collection.

All the stories in this book have been published previously online. However, they have all been updated or revised. The collections also includes amazing illustrations from Lefthanded Lenya.

If you do purchase the book, be a dear and leave a review!

Thank you so much!! I'm glad you like it! This is the link for anyone curious: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R6Y34PQ

There is a list of authors with Amazon pages on the NoSleep authors' non-nosleep pages.

If it needs to be updated, then just let /u/ALooc know.

Also, I was just looking at buying a bunch of these to support the nosleep community. I know the following authors have pages as well (links go to amazon, not their reddit profiles):
/u/bloodworthOOC
/u/1000Vultures
/u/theworldisgrim
/u/AsForClass
/u/The_Dalek_Emperor

Anybody wanna sign a copy for me? :)

Here's one.

Here's another.

Here's one of my favorites.

This one is pretty freaking sweet.

I'm pretty sure this one qualifies...

Don't read this one before bed.

Here's an interesting read.

This one is a compilation of several of the above.

As the great /u/Pippinacious said, I have Transfigurations available here, as well as stories in each of the Creepypasta Collections compiled by Mr. Creepypasta, available here and here.

I can personally recommend /u/AsForClass ' Laws of Nature

And also /u/manen_lyset 's brand spankin' new novel From the Ashes of Pompeii

On Writing is the most useful thing I ever read.

It is, actually! Thank you for letting me plug my books. Vol. 1 [Vol. 2] (http://www.amazon.com/Cold-Thin-Air-C-K-%60-Walker/dp/1517039916/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453911535&sr=1-1&keywords=cold+thin+air+volume+2)

there's lots of them! if you allow the self-promotion, i'm in daughters of darkness

I've been in a few anthology books with other NoSleep authors:
Sirens at Midnight
Daughters of Darkness
Dark Dreams
And the soon to be released Killer Collection

Here is the desktop version of your link

Here is the link

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TWJG9PK/ref=nav_timeline_asin?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

To add on to the list of above NoSleepers:

• The Laws of Nature by /u/AsForClass
  
• Tripping Over Twilight by /u/theworldisgrim
  
• The Worst Kind of Monsters by /u/Elias_Witherow