Serial Fiction

Drachen Jager · Sep 21, 2012

Has anyone tried this as a marketing tool/platform builder?

I'm four episodes in to my own weekly blog-fiction and I'd love to hear about advice or experiences from you guys. So far it's a tough slog, I've gained fewer than a hundred readers, and about a half dozen comments (which thankfully are overwhelmingly positive).

I advertise on Facebook, content-relevant forums, other blogs and serial fiction indexes, but so far all I seem to be getting is an uptick in people who visit my non-serial blog posts. Most of my hits come through Google, so I suspect all the activity on my part has merely bumped me higher on Google's algorithms. There's a big sidebar on my blog promoting the story so that visitors to other parts of the blog can find it, but it seems to have minimal impact.

I know it's early going, and I may have to wait a year to see if my experiment pays off or not. Still, I'd like to see what I can do now to help push myself into a larger audience and start building some word-of-mouth (or finger) so I don't have to worry so much about self-promotion.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, if you want to check the story out, it starts here.

bearilou · Sep 22, 2012

Interesting that I should come over here to post a link to something quite similar. It wasn't about serial fiction blogging but about interactive novel blogging. At least it's a similar concept.

Just seeing its existence has answered a few questions for me, at least. Are you posting a 'final' edited version of chapters or will this be a draft that gets cleaned up based on reader input? Have you written in advance and now publishing it to your blog in installments? What are your plans for it when done? Will you bundle and try to self-publish or bundle and offer the full as a free download or just leave it in serial form on your blog?

Sorry for the questions, I'm just curious about strategy and wish you so very much luck that this catches fire for you in whatever capacity.

Drachen Jager · Sep 22, 2012

The chapters are 'final' when they go up, but I'm open to edits. I've had two comments pointing out flaws, one said there was a double 'the' in the description on the right, and the other pointed out that I'd missed the 't' in 'knightliness'. I do edit them pretty carefully before posting.

I try to stay about six episodes ahead, just in case something comes up. That way I also have a bit of space between writing and editing. I typically edit the day before it goes live.

I don't plan anything for it when it's done, it could take two or three years to get there. I'm hoping it will generate enough interest to either give me a platform to sell my other works, or it will be popular enough that I can sell it. I'm not in to the whole self-publsihing thing. Ideally (and this is pie in the sky) it gets picked up as a TV series (ya gotta dream big right?). Second best, it gets picked up as a book series by a decent publisher, hey it worked for 50 shades right?

There are some internet-fiction-centric websites, but so far all the ones I've found are pretty crappy, they may be a stepping stone, but if you want real success they won't be a big help. In particular I'd advise against Web Fiction, they lost most of their editors because the guy running it is a bit of a tyrant, so updates are rare, and the whole site is on a decline.

GabrielNovo · Sep 22, 2012

There are two people I can think of that have had great success with serialized content which eventually turned into published books. One is Joe Peacock. His Mental Incontinence has been turned into a book (twice) and it's all available for free on his site. The other is Robert V Aldrich who has serialized his Crossworld novels and they are doing well on Amazon. Hell, we signed him to Haven Publishing based on his serialized work.

Tweaking your site for better SEO will help your rankings in Google. Building solid relationships on Twitter, Facebook, and social media in general will help bring people to your site. It's slow going and not everyone hits John Scalzi's level of reach, but a successful platform can be built.

*side note* Lateral Action is a great resource for creativity and productivity. I swear by it. Copyblogger is a fantastic resource for online content marketing. Sounds like it wouldn't apply to fiction, but it does. I learned a lot of SEO tricks and blog post formatting from them. Website in a Weekend is awesome if you're just starting out with a Wordpress blog.

I should probably start a thread about this stuff....

Drachen Jager · Sep 23, 2012

Yeah, this is the part of writing that gets under my skin. You can write an awesome story, that people love, but if nobody reads it you're stuck in a loop. So much of my time is going into self-promotion lately that it feels like I'm not getting much actual writing done.

That's the lot of the indie author I suppose.

PragmaticPimp · Sep 23, 2012

I am planning on a serialized story on my blog too. Nothing super long, only six episodes or so and all around two thousand words. Keeping it short so I can get an idea if it's going to work or not. Also plan on offering the story for download upon completion. I've got a few different stories planned. This is all for fun on my part.

Drachen Jager · Sep 23, 2012

As far as I can tell six episodes will not be enough to see whether it works. If you want to see whether it will work you need to give it six months to a year.

Many authors do offer short stories, so don't let this dissuade you, just know that you'll need more than that to gain any real kind of traction.

If it was easy, everyone would do it.

Silver-Midnight · Sep 24, 2012

GabrielNovo said:
There are two people I can think of that have had great success with serialized content which eventually turned into published books. One is Joe Peacock. His Mental Incontinence has been turned into a book (twice) and it's all available for free on his site. The other is Robert V Aldrich who has serialized his Crossworld novels and they are doing well on Amazon. Hell, we signed him to Haven Publishing based on his serialized work.

If I remember correctly, Stephen King also did a serialized novel I think.

Another author just came out with a set of novels/novellas that are a serialized novel if I remember correctly. I don't know how well it's doing though.

Drachen Jager · Sep 25, 2012

Silver-Midnight said:
If I remember correctly, Stephen King also did a serialized novel I think.

Another author just came out with a set of novels/novellas that are a serialized novel if I remember correctly. I don't know how well it's doing though.

It's easy for an established author to dabble in other formats. Stephen King could publish a book on toilet paper and he'd sell well.

I'm more interested in how I can use serialization to help me build my platform, and/or sell the serial itself.

ClaudiaC · Sep 25, 2012

Serial fiction

Hi Drachen,

I write traditional serial fiction and have been working on a story for 4 years - DenverCereal.com - which is now 6 books and will be 7 at the end of the year. I've written serials in other cities, The Queen of Cool (2011), and I serialize my Alex the Fey thrillers. I have a lot of experience with serial fiction and serialized fiction. I saw your question and wanted to respond.

First, serial fiction is a genre. It's too much work to do for someone just to "get known." Secondly, serializing a longer work is a publishing and marketing strategy. It works well but growth happens slowly.

In my experience 100 readers in such a short amount of time is really good. Don't give up! It takes a while for people to get to know you and trust your work.

You're right - Stephen King can publish on toilet paper and make money. But he also wrote nonstop for almost 15 years before anyone published his novel. He had lots and lots and lots of experience writing and editing.

It sounds to me like you're doing really well. (Dickens kept 6 chapters ahead as well.) Have you started an email list? Do you have a page on Facebook and get people to like it? These basic things help build on the platform you're already developing.

We've done everything from having private subscriptions to serials to giving everything away to publishing the books to everything in between. You have to find what you like and what works for you.

There are no set answers anymore, no road maps. There's just you and your work. You have to see what you like and what works for you.
Good luck!

Claudia Hall Christian

PragmaticPimp · Sep 25, 2012

Drachen Jager said:
As far as I can tell six episodes will not be enough to see whether it works. If you want to see whether it will work you need to give it six months to a year.

Many authors do offer short stories, so don't let this dissuade you, just know that you'll need more than that to gain any real kind of traction.

If it was easy, everyone would do it.

It has more to do with seeing if it will work for me personally as a style of writing.

GabrielNovo · Sep 26, 2012

ClaudiaC brought up a GREAT point about email lists. This will help you determine more accurately how many people are reading your fiction and will provide a communication platform for future press releases, sales announcements, etc. Online marketers always say your email list is king. I would recommend using a free service such as MailChimp. I've been using them for years on several of my websites. Lots of tutorials to help you along and VERY good statistics about your email campaigns.

Silver-Midnight · Sep 26, 2012

I've honestly been debating whether or not to do serialized fiction. I know that it is a lot of work, even before I came across this thread. However, it's still been something on my mind. I wouldn't really mind putting in the work into it or anything. It's just it's really hard for me to weigh the pros and cons of serialized fiction I guess.

For those of you that write serialized fiction, how did you come to your decision to do so?

Drachen Jager · Sep 28, 2012

I decided to write serial fiction because I was burned out on novels. Work for six months to come up with a 'final' draft, send it around to agents, work on it some more, stress over rejections, stress more over requests, get an agent, she turns out not to be worth her reputation, back to square one. Too much.

I just did it because I needed a break, I just wanted to write something fun for a change, and get some instant (well, as close as it comes for writers) gratification from reader responses.

So far it's going really well. The biggest hurdle is convincing people that my serial is not crap, because, frankly there are a lot of terrible serials out there, a lot of terrible writing in general, and convincing people to take a risk on yours, even if it's just a risk of five minutes time wasted, is not easy.

So far I've had a couple hundred people check out the first installment, and about a quarter of them go on. From there almost all of them read onwards. Of course I can't guess how many people are linking to the front page of my blog and reading there, or getting RSS feeds and such so it's probably significantly more.

The way I figure it, I need to hit about the 10k mark of regular readers. That's my objective. If I get there then I can probably leverage it into something bigger.

Silver-Midnight · Sep 28, 2012

Drachen Jager said:
I decided to write serial fiction because I was burned out on novels. Work for six months to come up with a 'final' draft, send it around to agents, work on it some more, stress over rejections, stress more over requests, get an agent, she turns out not to be worth her reputation, back to square one. Too much.

I just did it because I needed a break, I just wanted to write something fun for a change, and get some instant (well, as close as it comes for writers) gratification from reader responses.

So far it's going really well. The biggest hurdle is convincing people that my serial is not crap, because, frankly there are a lot of terrible serials out there, a lot of terrible writing in general, and convincing people to take a risk on yours, even if it's just a risk of five minutes time wasted, is not easy.

That's understandable. In a way, I honestly think now I might work something that is(or at least close to) serial/serialized fiction. I really still trying to figure out what works for me and what doesn't.

Drachen Jager · Sep 28, 2012

Yeah, you definitely have to have the right mindset to do a good job of writing serially. I think it suits my writing style, and I find it tremendously fun and entertaining to write. There's always a dozen balls in the air, but each episode requires catching four or five, and setting them aside, while adding four or five to keep the momentum going and at the same time, maintaining the ones that play out over several episodes.

While you're doing all that you need to ensure that every posted segment ends in some form of cliffhanger, the characters are interesting enough to really develop a rapport with the audience, but not over-the-top.

It's fun. It's writing without a safety net of beta-readers, editors, agents and whatnot getting in between you and your audience.

mhjess · Sep 28, 2012

Okay, stop me if this sounds completely nuts, but has anyone ever thought about doing a serial illustrated with images from the Sims? I know, it's probably completely juvenile and totally unprofessional, but I used to do a serial that I posted on The Sims' website and I had a pretty strong following. Granted, this was a few years ago, but that's definitely one resource to look at when it comes to attracting eyeballs to a serialized story.

AceTachyon · Sep 29, 2012

I started my serial more as a way to get a particular set of stories out into the world rather than as a marketing tool/platform builder.

"Season One" ran 14 episodes over 91 weekly installments. Then I put out the "Boxed Set."

"Season Two" is about currently posted and is about three-quarters of the way complete.

If you're curious, the site is here.

Drachen Jager · Sep 29, 2012

How did it work out Ace? Are you getting a lot of sales?

Tried your link, it didn't work. I'm looking to see if I can find it through your sig now.

Silver-Midnight · Sep 29, 2012

@Drachen: I'm sure you've probably already answered this but where do you post your serial fiction? Your blog? Website? A site simlar to fictionpress.com? And why did you pick what you did?

Drachen Jager · Sep 29, 2012

Look at my sig!

I chose my blog because I already had pretty good traffic there, so I figured I could re-direct some of it with a little clever use of the sidebar (thanks for reminding me by the way, I need to update the pic I have there) and a nice graphic layout and such. I may transfer it to a website at some point, but the blog works for me for now.

What is fictionpress.com? The website doesn't seem to say. It has forums, and stories to look at, but no place to submit stories, and no general information I could find.

AceTachyon · Sep 30, 2012

Drachen Jager said:
How did it work out Ace? Are you getting a lot of sales?

Tried your link, it didn't work. I'm looking to see if I can find it through your sig now.

Fixed the link. Sorry 'bout that.

As far as sales go, they were less than I'd hoped for. Of course, a lot of it had to do with the promoting I did. Which wasn't as much as I could have done.

bearilou · Sep 30, 2012

Well, DJ, you've created a monster.

I was only sort of toying with the idea, bouncing it around in my head. I wasn't sure if anything was going to come of it, to be honest, because I really didn't have an idea that lit a fire in me.

Until the other night. Just the spark of an idea ignited and now I think I'm going to give it a go. It won't be ready anywhere near ready for roll out until after the new year because I have a lot of leg work to do in the meantime but I think I'm going to try it out.

Silver-Midnight · Sep 30, 2012

Drachen Jager said:
Look at my sig!

I chose my blog because I already had pretty good traffic there, so I figured I could re-direct some of it with a little clever use of the sidebar (thanks for reminding me by the way, I need to update the pic I have there) and a nice graphic layout and such. I may transfer it to a website at some point, but the blog works for me for now.

What is fictionpress.com? The website doesn't seem to say. It has forums, and stories to look at, but no place to submit stories, and no general information I could find.

For FictionPress.com (and sites like it), you have to join it, once and you do then you are able to upload stories and etc. FictionPress.com is the original fiction version of FanFiction.Net. I really wouldn't know how the traffic plays out, but I guess if you don't have a blog(or that many followers), it might be something to look into I guess. However, I think some people still prefer their blog(s).

EDIT: The reason why I asked is because I'm trying to decide what I would use. Do you think posting on both my own blog and a site similar to FictionPress.com would be a good idea?

bearilou said:
Well, DJ, you've created a monster.

I was only sort of toying with the idea, bouncing it around in my head. I wasn't sure if anything was going to come of it, to be honest, because I really didn't have an idea that lit a fire in me.

Until the other night. Just the spark of an idea ignited and now I think I'm going to give it a go. It won't be ready anywhere near ready for roll out until after the new year because I have a lot of leg work to do in the meantime but I think I'm going to try it out.

I'm thinking the same thing, but I don't know. I'm still toying with idea.

Damian_Rucci · Oct 4, 2012

I've always wanted to do serial fiction. It seems like the perfect method of delivering stories to people via the internet. I think I'll wait a bit until I build up my audience before I started putting out episodes though.

Serial Fiction

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