Social networks + Patreon combo in order to deliver the book faster?

AnxietyLord · Oct 16, 2018

Hey, everyone. I'm a newbie writer, asking for publishing/production advice from the experienced authors.

First, some background. I come from a startup world as a programmer/entrepreneur. I have launched 2-4 startups (depending on how you count) and none of them succeeded (still good experience though). Every time the main issue was the lack of communication with future users and the looong production time.

Now I'm writing a sci-fi book as I've always wanted. At the beginning of the process ±8 months ago I thought: how can I improve the production time? How can I get responses from the audience ASAP? Writing a whole book should take very long time (I thought maybe 2 years). Is there a way I can deliver an MVP (Minimum Value Product) for the future readers so I can quickly can fix the mistakes on the go and understand the audience better?

Also, as a kid I used to enjoy video games (please bear with me here) with an interesting story, especially where your actions could affect the way the plot went forward. I strongly believe that when a player/reader is presented with a choice, they get more involved in the story and it becomes more interesting for them.

What's more, I understand that nowadays you have to use social networks in order to be heard (or use a publisher or be super lucky, I guess).

My main goal is to create one of the most interesting stories ever (sounds naive but I don't care) and to deliver it to as much people as possible.

Thus, I decided to try mixing those ideas into this strategy:

* In order to deliver the start of the story to the readers as soon as possible, I should start publishing the story in portions as soon as each is ready. Or even better, publish them on a persistent schedule: a portion of 2 pages every week.
* In order to create the presence and make a name, I should publish those pieces on a social network and extensively use hashtags. I picked Instagram, because almost everyone uses it and it has some good examples of Stories format used for presenting books (check what NY library did this year). The posts are free for everyone.
* In order to make the story interactive and thus more interesting, each post should end with a 2 options poll about what a main character should do next. Readers have 5 days to vote, then I conclude the results and prepare the next post.
* In order to get money (I'd like to eventually completely switch my job to writing), two things happen. Firstly, after the whole story is published on IG, I will pack the story with the choices the readers made as a full book and sell it (aka self-publish). Secondly, I've opened a Patreon account where my supporters can see what would have happened if the story followed the other option + get early access to new posts.

Right now I'm still writing the book (2nd draft stage right now, 286 pages) and I strongly believe that because of the decision to publish portionally I will be able to start publishing the start of the book in March 2019, while the 2nd half of the book is still in draft-ish stage. While the writing still goes, every 2 weeks I publish something related to my book on IG account to keep people hooked.

What do you think about this approach? Did anyone try this before? What sucks about it? How can I improve it? How can I reach my goals? Thank you for reading!

cornflake · Oct 16, 2018

AnxietyLord said:
Hey, everyone. I'm a newbie writer, asking for publishing/production advice from the experienced authors.

First, some background. I come from a startup world as a programmer/entrepreneur. I have launched 2-4 startups (depending on how you count) and none of them succeeded (still good experience though). Every time the main issue was the lack of communication with future users and the looong production time.

Now I'm writing a sci-fi book as I've always wanted. At the beginning of the process ±8 months ago I thought: how can I improve the production time? How can I get responses from the audience ASAP? Writing a whole book should take very long time (I thought maybe 2 years). Is there a way I can deliver an MVP (Minimum Value Product) for the future readers so I can quickly can fix the mistakes on the go and understand the audience better?

Also, as a kid I used to enjoy video games (please bear with me here) with an interesting story, especially where your actions could affect the way the plot went forward. I strongly believe that when a player/reader is presented with a choice, they get more involved in the story and it becomes more interesting for them.

What's more, I understand that nowadays you have to use social networks in order to be heard (or use a publisher or be super lucky, I guess).

My main goal is to create one of the most interesting stories ever (sounds naive but I don't care) and to deliver it to as much people as possible.

Thus, I decided to try mixing those ideas into this strategy:

* In order to deliver the start of the story to the readers as soon as possible, I should start publishing the story in portions as soon as each is ready. Or even better, publish them on a persistent schedule: a portion of 2 pages every week.

Define 'ready.'

* In order to create the presence and make a name, I should publish those pieces on a social network and extensively use hashtags. I picked Instagram, because almost everyone uses it and it has some good examples of Stories format used for presenting books (check what NY library did this year). The posts are free for everyone.

Uh, ok, who doesn't want to curl up with a good... Instagram post.

* In order to make the story interactive and thus more interesting, each post should end with a 2 options poll about what a main character should do next. Readers have 5 days to vote, then I conclude the results and prepare the next post.

Yes, so goes Netflix, as the world devolves back to choose-your-own-adventure books.

* In order to get money (I'd like to eventually completely switch my job to writing), two things happen. Firstly, after the whole story is published on IG, I will pack the story with the choices the readers made as a full book and sell it (aka self-publish). Secondly, I've opened a Patreon account where my supporters can see what would have happened if the story followed the other option + get early access to new posts.

Uh, ok, why would anyone buy the books they just read/can read free?

Right now I'm still writing the book (2nd draft stage right now, 286 pages) and I strongly believe that because of the decision to publish portionally I will be able to start publishing the start of the book in March 2019, while the 2nd half of the book is still in draft-ish stage. While the writing still goes, every 2 weeks I publish something related to my book on IG account to keep people hooked.

What do you think about this approach? Did anyone try this before? What sucks about it? How can I improve it? How can I reach my goals? Thank you for reading!

Yes, people have tried publishing serial works, and choose-your-own adventure, and etc., since forever. As to whether this works, ask yourself if this is how most works are published.

What is your goal? I'm totally unclear. Do you want to get Instagram likes? Self-pub? Trade pub? It's all over the place.

AnxietyLord · Oct 16, 2018

Thanks, @cornflake, these are good questions!

When is part of the story ready to be published? In my mind, that's when:
* It does not contradict with the way the story must continue (so that a character in chapter 1 doesn't say something which is totally false in chapter 10)
* It went through editing and some sort of closed testing/critics
* It is good quality (define good duh?!)

About IG posts I forgot to mention one thing. I strongly believe that people nowadays read less and less because of the decreased attention span. Fewer people can go through the book now, they'd rather read short stories. That's why publishing a story in small pieces on a social network people of my audience (16-40 age) mostly use nowadays sounds good to me. However, I'm a newbie and this is just my theory.

Yup, heard about Netflix doing that, sounds pretty exciting!

I thought about Patreon as a kind of a freemium model for video games, but for other art forms. The game is free, but if you want extra you should pay. Same here: story is free but if you want to see the alternative way of the plot or get some authors' comments, you should pay. Also, it works really well for web comics. People support the authors on Patreon because they like them. This doesn't mean it will help in my case though, I understand that.

Yeah that's a good note on how the most books are published. I should not have my expectations set too high if I decide to keep following my idea.

The goal is to deliver the story to as many readers as possible as fast as possible in order to quickly improve and deliver better stories. The endgoal is to keep writing and improving in it until I die. Everything else are means of delivery.

cornflake · Oct 16, 2018

Why do you want to " deliver the story to as many readers as possible as fast as possible in order to quickly improve and deliver better stories." instead of, you know, doing it right the first time?

veinglory · Oct 16, 2018

My question would be, is there going to be demand to participate in what you describe? Typically unless a writer has an existing fan base... there is no motivation to take part in these things let alone pay to take part.

Maggie Maxwell · Oct 16, 2018

Interesting idea, but I don't think Instagram is the way to go. You can certainly use it to advertise the new chapters, but consider using Wattpad or a personal blog. People are looking for things to read on Wattpad. Instagram is for visuals. I can't imagine trying to read an entire chapter of a book through Instagram posts, much less a whole book over months. You can take the choicest bits as teasers on Insta and Twitter and link to the Wattpad or blog post.

cornflake · Oct 16, 2018

Also, if people were more interested in reading short stories, wouldn't short stories be bigger sellers?

This whole plan seems based more on assumption and personal ideas than research.

LesFewer · Oct 16, 2018

I'm thinking the people who aren't reading these days are mostly male and they've mostly gone to video games. They aren't going read short stories either.

An interesting thing to look at might be the "visual novel". Most of these are Japanese and it's a mix of video game and book but there's an emphasis on story.

Introversion · Oct 16, 2018

Some authors have published SF novels in serial form. Check out Hugh Howey’s “Wool”, which if memory serves was sold on Amazon in five parts, for 99 cents each. I believe John Scalzi has dabbled in this format as well.

However, Scalzi’s a prolific, award-winning author with a large readership, and I think Howey had trade-published before “Wool” as well? So, it’s not clear J. Random New Author can draw many conclusions from these examples.

I’d echo what others are asking. Why do you think it’s a good idea to push your work out ASAP? Do you need the expected payout sooner? Or do you dream of being “disruptive” in SF publishing? Because I think readers care about good books, and not whether they’re “disruptive”. Being innovative & disruptive may excite you, but I suspect you’re trying to build a product no one wants to buy.

Enlightened · Oct 16, 2018

Keep writing and improving you named as your end goal, but are you looking to make a living from it (with as quick a turnover in revenue as possible)?

If yes, earning a living is the goal. Maybe retiring early, if enough money is earned, is the end goal.

Production of content (and offering samples as proof of concept) is one facet of the entire multi-phasic, writing process. In entrepreneurship.... You need an idea. You need some measure of demand (with maybe a mock-up). You need capital from small or large investors. What are your demographics and how do you plan on getting your product to these people? How competitive is the marketplace?

If you miss any of the aforementioned steps, and many others, that may be the reason your entrepreneurial endeavors failed. It is the same for writing.

With writing, it's not just an idea then go to market. You have to understand things like market climate (e.g. trends, what do agents look for in today's market, and so on), niche markets (e.g. writing genre and potential markets), barriers to entry (finding an agent, self-publishing, whatever), and many other aspects of the environment.

With your idea, I can see the following problems maybe happening....

1. You do not understand the demographics of Instagram users (i.e. younger, maybe out of work people who cannot afford to buy your product). Facebook may have a better demographic for you. Research it (see #2).

2. Choosing the right public platform (if you do not know what this is, Google it.... especially before approaching a literary agent, if you ever go this route) to build followers and pursuing the right people to follow you. Research the platforms. Research what other authors are doing (as per what social media venues they favor). Maybe focus on authors in your writing genre.

3. Doing anything (writing, entrepreneurial, whatever) as soon as possible is a good way to find problems.

4. Your strategy is highly idyllic. You are trying to take concept to market without knowing the marketplace, and many other considerations left out.

5. Freemium.... In the gaming world, with PC games anyway, they used to give demos with the idea that was enough of the game to sample if buying the real game was worthwhile for customers. This seems to be your stance in the writing world. Some authors use Patreon and deliver things outside of books (or additions to books, such as additional chapters, poems, book of spells for fantasy authors, whatever). Some people may expect bonus content, or different content, from the book project itself. Some may not continue with Patreon without "extras" (such as, in the gaming world, bonus levels/missions, additional weapons, cheat codes, walkthroughs, whatever).

lizmonster · Oct 16, 2018

Enlightened said:
1. You do not understand the demographics of Instagram users (i.e. younger, maybe out of work people who cannot afford to buy your product). Facebook may have a better demographic for you. Research it (see #2).

Just FYI, there is absolutely nothing about Facebook that makes it a good platform on which to sell books, especially if you're an unknown.

Enlightened · Oct 16, 2018

Thank you, lizmonster. I would not use Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and the like. He wanted to use Instagram. I mentioned Facebook if he wanted to research a better avenue, than Instagram, for a demographic that may support his Patreon endeavors.

Cheers!

P.S. I watched a live stream where a woman used Facebook to help build traffic to her website and blog. Directly, no, not useful. Indirectly, that depends how one uses Facebook.

lizmonster · Oct 16, 2018

Enlightened said:
P.S. I watched a live stream where a woman used Facebook to help build traffic to her website and blog. Directly, no, not useful. Indirectly, that depends how one uses Facebook.

I too have heard of one or two examples of people who've made it work.

For the 99%, though, it's a waste of time and money.

Enlightened · Oct 16, 2018

Diversify your portfolio of promotional tactics and tie them together, if possible. Research your options and choose what works best, for your needs. Definitely consider a personal Website and/or blog (for books). Maybe help find traffic making top 5 or 10 list infographics for Pinterest (with links to your blog or Website) as an example of a tie-in to build traffic to your Blog/Website.

Polenth · Oct 16, 2018

Your target audience is people who already read. It's not people who don't read. If it was easy to convert people to readers with short stories, it would be happening... but it doesn't. Also, most readers prefer things that are a bit longer, so short stories are rather niche. That said, you're not writing short stories, so it's not directly relevant to serials anyway.

On Patreon, I do know people who are writing serials, but they had an established fanbase. Patreon is a tool that's great for getting funding from your fans, but not so great if you're trying to find fans.

On Wattpad, there are endless people who are serialising their novels, and most of them struggle to get anyone to read their work. It'd be nice to imagine that it's because they're all terrible, but that isn't true. Most people end up posting to the void regardless of quality. This is the opposite of motivation to finish. It'll make it much harder to persuade yourself to keep working on it.

If you've already written several hundred pages, I don't see how the reader gets a choice, unless you've written it as a choose-your-own with multiple plot paths. If that's the case, you might want to consider publishing it with the choices, as there are readers looking for that sort of book. If it's not already written with choices, it's forcing a book that wasn't choose-your-own into that format, and I don't think that's going to help your reader numbers as much as you think.

The issue we all face is finding ways to make the reader care about our work. It might be faster to throw it out as you write it, but it's harder to promote that as a thing compared to a finished book.

veinglory · Oct 16, 2018

In terms of breaking stories into parts, doing that excessively put me off every reading one of my previously favorite authors. I'd rather just buy the book when it is finished rather than pay much more for it in bits or jump through hoops.

Fuchsia Groan · Oct 16, 2018

I have experimented with serializing a story anonymously on a free platform. It's actually been super-fun and I've gotten more readers than I expected (short chapters/frequent posting gives more people a chance to stumble on it). I kind of love the serial format and seeing responses to each chapter; the story was mostly already written, but the responses did sometimes affect my revisions. Not enough to make me change whole plot points, though; I can't imagine giving up that much control.

Two things: 1. I chose a platform where I have a good sense of the audience and what they read; 2. I don't plan to try to make money off this story. If I wanted to do that, I would go ahead and self-publish rather than go the Patreon route, because I don't want to be locked into a schedule (I have enough deadlines!).

If I were you, I might try Wattpad. A lot has been written about how to find readers there, though there seems to be a consensus that it's not a great place to start if you mainly want to monetize your writing. Here's a story of someone who did use Wattpad to launch a self-published novel, and the tips and tricks involved. Becoming part of a genre community there seems to be key.

J. Tanner · Oct 16, 2018

Patreon is a great platform if you already have an audience. It is not generally a great platform to build an audience.

Instagram is unlikely to be a place to find readers (unless you've already build a big enough audience there that a subset might be interested in reading.) Wattpad is a social network targeted at readers and serialized content. But it's very focused on free. Wattpad users rarely convert to paying users based on a few authors I know who tested it. Like a millions reads--Wattpad uses a weird metric, so that's not millions of readers--resulted in single digit clickthroughs that could be tracked to purchases.

Two of your items sound diametrically opposed, so it's hard to understand how you're going to resolve this. You say the book draft is complete, but you also say you want to give the serial readers the option to change the plot every few pages. What happens if they don't choose what you've written for Chapter 2 in the decision point at the end of Chapter 1? You're just going to rewrite the whole book? What if it's a worse plot choice?

Readers like novels, and they like them in series. This is where self-publishers are typically successful. Pick a popular genre. Write a series and release relatively frequently. Don't expect large numbers of readers until several books are available. Use your early books to build your list. Treat them like loss-leaders.

People have tried all sorts of things similar, if not identical, to what you're proposing and they generally have not found an audience. Serials on Amazon did have their day for a while, but that day has passed and most of the serial crowd has converted over to writing only (or quickly repackaging) their serials as novels.

If you want to experiment--go for it!--but accept you're facing very slim experimental odds. (I fall firmly in the experimental camp writing shorts, but I make lunch money and have no illusions about making more by doing what I like rather than what is proven to work.) If you want to increase your odds forego experimenting and go with what is proven time and again by successful self-publishers.

frimble3 · Oct 16, 2018

If I'm enjoying a story, I want to read more, right away. I don't want a couple of pages, then, in a few weeks, a couple of pages more.
And, although you don't specify that, this:

While the writing still goes, every 2 weeks I publish something related to my book on IG account to keep people hooked.

'something related to my book' doesn't sound encouraging. It sounds as though, rather than more story, we're getting some extraneous material. It doesn't really hook me.
If I'll only be getting a chunk of story every few weeks, I will have wandered off and forgotten all about it in a couple of chunks.

Why not use the power of the Internet to make a really big 'Choose Your Own Adventure'? A download of a novel like a game. A lot more prep work, but let people choose from a list of potential characters, choose an adventure, and make choices as to their actions? There's room for endless choices on-line, rather than the few in a print book.
I'm guessing there's a way to let you rerun the stories with different combinations.
Instead of graphics, people can adapt the visuals in their own heads.
And readers can access add-ons you provide. More people, more choices. Let people suggest/vote on what to add next.

AnxietyLord · Oct 16, 2018

Wow. I'm very grateful for your responses. They follow the gold balance of realistic critique and yet are nice. I wish I posted this earlier, haha!

I have to admit: I definitely haven't done enough research on a platform. All of this is still a theory which must be checked, that's why I decided to post here. Frankly, I have no idea if there is going to be a demand in my proposed format.

Some more info on how the idea appeared:
* I've seen on IG one guy who writes a webcomic where people get to choose what the main character should do next. You can find him here (I'm not linked to him in any way) https://www.instagram.com/florianbiege. I totally understand that a comic is more suitable for IG than a book though, as it's graphic.
* Next, I've seen NY Public Library publish Alice In The Wonderland in a format of IG stories, you can read more about it here https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/22/...-novels-instagram-stories-alice-in-wonderland. However, even if it worked for their case, it's still different from mine. They did this when they already had an audience and they published a classic book this way.

@Polenth is right. My thoughts were to convert the non-reading people to become readers. That definitely sounds naive. It's much easier to convert already reading people to reading-my-book ones.

To clarify some things:
* My desire to publish sooner doesn't have to do anything with money, as I have a daily job which is okay. I'm definitely not expecting anything financially exciting from my first works. I want to improve my writing and start having a dialog with readers sooner so that I don't "sit in the basement" for a long time while working on a first book. As you have noticed, I tend to have lots of ideas and spent time on them without properly checking them first ;] After reading your comments though I started to think: maybe I should start with short stories first instead since I can deliver them faster?

* I have several hundred pages, including different options of how the story should go, so it's a choose your own adventure book. So if I decide to publish what I currently have as a non-interactive book right now, it will be fewer pages.

Publishing teasers on IG and publishing the work itself on a more writing focused platform as @Maggie Maxwell suggested sounds good to me. I should definitely check out Wattpad. @Fuchsia Groan is that the free platform you have used? I guess I don't mind with having readers read my work for free at this starting point.

cornflake · Oct 16, 2018

Stop with the delivering them faster stuff.

You don't improve your writing while publishing stuff for other people to read.

Do you want to go to a restaurant where the chef is learning to improve his cooking while getting food out very fast and getting feedback -- instead of, you know, learning to cook before offering food to other people?

Do you want to buy clothes made from someone who is improving his sewing but wanted to get pants on the market as fast as possible?

Do you want to go to a dr. who is improving her diagnosing but wanted to treat patients as fast as possible so she set up a practice?

Old Hack · Oct 17, 2018

Lots of people have already tried this approach, or something very similar. Have you looked at how well they've done, and worked out how to improve on their performances? (Here's a clue: very few of them attracted readers in any decent number and most abandoned the project before it was finished.)

Curlz · Oct 17, 2018

I think that your detailed plan is very well constructed. You got the right approach but I found one little hole in the plan - it never mentions how you are going to attract readers to your Instagram (or other social media). For example, here I am, sitting comfortably and looking for something to read. And there you are, with your very interesting story out on Instagram. How would you make me read your story? I don't know anything about it, or where it is, or even that it exists. How are you expecting the readers to find you? Especially the ones who don't usually respond to random calls of "Please come and read my story." Does your plan include any sort of advertising campaign?

J. Tanner · Oct 20, 2018

AnxietyLord said:
After reading your comments though I started to think: maybe I should start with short stories first instead since I can deliver them faster?

I love short stories, but few readers do. It's a VERY small niche. In most genres single novel will generally get you more readers upon release than you got total from incrementally releasing 10 short stories in the same amount of time. (Erotica is an exception where short is expected. SF/F is a slight exception where you can submit to a healthy magazine market and get readers and money up front before self publishing--but this is a slooow process.)

I have several hundred pages, including different options of how the story should go, so it's a choose your own adventure book. So if I decide to publish what I currently have as a non-interactive book right now, it will be fewer pages.

This is critical info. You are deep into the process of a branching story already. (Note, the Choose Your Own Adventure publishers are known to protect that brand through legal means, so you can't use that name.) It sounds like this is where your passion is. Don't overthink that. Finish it. Doling it out piecemeal sounds sort of frustrating to me (I want to go left but everyone else wants to go right so I'm outvoted and never see my choice--frustrating #1. Waiting days for the next segment of a CYOA doesn't sound appealing to me--frustration #2) but maybe it will work as a marketing gimmick for others. No way to know but to try.

Filigree · Oct 20, 2018

I've written a few novel-length pieces and had two of them published. One thing I learned is that serialization would never work for me, unless the entire novel is finished and polished. I discover too many cool details (and even major plot twists!) while in revision.

I can see serials working well for more-skilled authors who train themselves to write to outline and never look back.

Social networks + Patreon combo in order to deliver the book faster?

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