Publishing chapters first, then publishing a book of those chapters

Are you going to look for a publisher for the book? Or would you self-publish?

If you go with a publisher, you won't have a choice about it. If you self-publish, I guess you can do whatever you like. However, consider how many people would want to read chapters one by one and then read the book. I know I wouldn't.

Novels assembled out of previously-published standalone stories/novellas, with or without new material added, are an old, old tradition in SFF publishing & elsewhere. (Sometimes called "fix-up" novels.) It's been done many times, by many authors, for many publishers. Whether it's appropriate for your specific material, I couldn't possibly say.

This question in a lot of ways depends on how you plan to publish. I never did more than dip my toe into trade publishing (ten short stories), so I'm not the best resource in that area. I have, however, heard about contracts where the publisher basically owns your characters and worlds--you can't write another related series unless they publish it. You can't even put a short story using these characters on your blog. I don't want that level of outside control, so that was one of the reasons I took a pass at trade pubbing. Someone here with more ties to the trade industry would be better qualified to comment on how common this sort of thing is.

I've been blogging and self-publishing for five years, though, so I can speak intelligently about that, although some of it may apply to trade as well.

First off, novels are by far and away the most popular format/length. Kind of a drag for me, since a novelette is what seems to flow when I'm really inspired, but that's a side issue. There are just not a lot of PAID readers for short stories anymore. And even when you blog the things for free, the response was surprising, at least to me. I got more more hits and comments on my short memoirs--the plane crash I walked away from, the sailboat race where we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, or scuba diving with a Mako shark. Or my nonfiction, which are my most popular articles, mostly technical stuff about things like using commas correctly or implementing the three-act structure.

I've written a LOT more posts that are short stories and have things like a married dragon couple trying to outsmart each other or a feral refrigerator's revenge. And those get read because I've got an audience, but your blog following isn't always people who want to read your novels. Most blog stuff that I've seen become successful--both on my blog and on the many others I've visited over the years--is nonfiction. You can publish unrelated shorts--I did that for a while--but blogs where people have pubbed entire books tend to have very few comments and likes.

Where I've found short stories to be useful is when you give them away as a free book. I've got a collection that's free, and it's got an unfinished excerpt from my email magnet--a novelette set in an alternate Alsace-Lorraine--to entice readers to join my email list. That's been reasonably effective, so it wouldn't be a bad idea if you wanted to pursue that route. But all those stories are unrelated, except that they're all fantasy.

The other place that shorter-than-novel-length tales can be effective marketing is if you write an intro novelette (7500-17,500 words) or novella (18k-45k) and give that away for free. You use that as a magnet to entice people into your series. Sort of like if The Hobbit had been a free ebook, and LOTR was paid.

There are always outliers; I guess The Martian was blogged first. But in general, this is what I see happening and working on Amazon.

As always, YMMV. : )

CathleenT said:

This question in a lot of ways depends on how you plan to publish. I never did more than dip my toe into trade publishing (ten short stories), so I'm not the best resource in that area. I have, however, heard about contracts where the publisher basically owns your characters and worlds--you can't write another related series unless they publish it. You can't even put a short story using these characters on your blog. I don't want that level of outside control, so that was one of the reasons I took a pass at trade pubbing. Someone here with more ties to the trade industry would be better qualified to comment on how common this sort of thing is.

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My publisher has right of first refusal for books in a series. (So, I have to give them a chance to buy the book first.) It's something you negotiate before you sign a contract, but I'm fine with it - they do an amazing job with covers and editing, and I want everything in a series to look connected, and to appear on their site. If they don't want one of my books, then I have the right to publish it myself, or find another home for it.