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Feb. 3rd, 2011 08:01 pmSo, one of the lessons I've learned over the past few years is that not everything works as a serial. This should be obvious. I mean, among the reasons I started doing serials is my belief that not every story's suited to be a novel. Form should follow... I don't know, not function exactly, but the form of the story should suit its needs.
And yet the bulk of my stories and attempted stories have fit into a few very narrow confines. Serials and flash fiction being the most common... extremely long, open-ended stories and extremely brief ones. I've written a few short stories. I've attempted a few novels. I'm not really sure I have it in me "to novel", though. I'd go into that more, but that's really a side point.
I've been talking a post about Gift of the Bad Guy and my plans for it. These are also, incidentally, my plans for Dustball Ramblers and possibly The 3 Seas and a very evolved version of that story I started writing one time with a bunch of my D&D characters that maybe six of you have read. And possibly the book about the woman who is a wizard, though that one I might live to novel yet.
None of these projects are going to work as the sort of open-ended serial I write. That isn't to say they could be serialized; it is to say they don't lend themselves to the Tales of MU style, which means I'm not the right person to serialize them. But there are things about the serial format that I like. I like the immediacy, the instant gratification for both author and audience. I like not having to wait to get paid, for that matter, and having my full body of work continue to generate income passively.
And I'd like to diversify my income a bit more, branch out from cup-rattling and into selling content... without putting a subscription gate on my principle work, Tales of MU, naturally. What I'm planning wouldn't have worked three or four years ago, when nobody knew who I was. I have a name to trade on now, but having other options doesn't make my original plan less sound.
So what am I talking about? A seriesof unfortunate events of very short, very cheap e-books. In a few weeks to a month, I intend to put Gift of the Bad Guy up for sale in this form. It might not be called that. I haven't worked out if that's the name of a series or of the first part or a title that will work better for something later in the series.
This will be part 1 of a series. It'll be between 25,000 and 30,000 words in its final form, most likely. Maybe between 50 and 70 pages. Smaller than a NaNoWriMo-winning novel, and that always seems to me to be a respectable size for a novella. I've been seeing the term "novelette" lately, and it might fit, though I still have some qualms about using any novel-derived label as to me a novel is a specific form.
This story will be self-contained and it won't be. I mean, you'll read it and I hope you'll be satisfied that it doesn't just stop in the middle of a scene, but it will very clearly be a part 1, and not in the sense that The Matrix would have been a part one if they'd ever gotten around to developing the rumored sequels for it that they never actually produced ever. There's no fight scene or big resolution. It'll be more like part one in the sense of being an introduction.
I'm thinking it will debut at about $1. Unless I give in and go the Retail Mind Tricks route and make it 99 cents. Future installments in the same series will be more like the $2 range, because you already know what you're getting. I want the buy-in to be cheap on the first book, you see, and I want it to be affordable to continue reading.
Print editions will happen when there are enough volumes to make an edition worth printing. If demand is high enough, I might shop around for something other than self-publishing, or at least do a pre-order dealy so I can do a volume print run to save everyone involved some money.
So, anyway, that's the deal. As I suggested above, I'm planning on reworking The 3 Seas into this format... no idea yet if any of my other gestating/failed/malingering serials will go the same route. If you've ever been a supporter/sponsor of The 3 Seas serial version, you'll be getting courtesy copies of any e-books that include material adapted from the stuff I've already published in that version. You've already paid for it. I'll be letting you know when I have more of an ETA on that. Editing is slower for me than writing, and that's basically what the 3 Seas job is going to be.
These things'll come out between 1 and 3 a month, depending on muse and ability. My intent is that after I've been doing it for a while, there will be something like a snackbar people can order from a la carte. Some of the stuff might be truly stand-alone. Some might end up being only two or three installments before being brought to a close. I'm going to be eschewing a one-size-fits-all solution here. I may or may not end up attaching share-alike type licenses to the books, since I'm obviously not going to be overly bothered about piracy of my $1 e-books.
Like everything else I do, it's an experiment. I think it could be big, but I won't have to invest too much in finding out, as I've already got most of the first offering
(And I'm going to be taking its results into account as I consider what to do with my RPG project.)
Answer To The Fully Anticipated Question:
Definitely PDF, probably also EPUB.
And yet the bulk of my stories and attempted stories have fit into a few very narrow confines. Serials and flash fiction being the most common... extremely long, open-ended stories and extremely brief ones. I've written a few short stories. I've attempted a few novels. I'm not really sure I have it in me "to novel", though. I'd go into that more, but that's really a side point.
I've been talking a post about Gift of the Bad Guy and my plans for it. These are also, incidentally, my plans for Dustball Ramblers and possibly The 3 Seas and a very evolved version of that story I started writing one time with a bunch of my D&D characters that maybe six of you have read. And possibly the book about the woman who is a wizard, though that one I might live to novel yet.
None of these projects are going to work as the sort of open-ended serial I write. That isn't to say they could be serialized; it is to say they don't lend themselves to the Tales of MU style, which means I'm not the right person to serialize them. But there are things about the serial format that I like. I like the immediacy, the instant gratification for both author and audience. I like not having to wait to get paid, for that matter, and having my full body of work continue to generate income passively.
And I'd like to diversify my income a bit more, branch out from cup-rattling and into selling content... without putting a subscription gate on my principle work, Tales of MU, naturally. What I'm planning wouldn't have worked three or four years ago, when nobody knew who I was. I have a name to trade on now, but having other options doesn't make my original plan less sound.
So what am I talking about? A series
This will be part 1 of a series. It'll be between 25,000 and 30,000 words in its final form, most likely. Maybe between 50 and 70 pages. Smaller than a NaNoWriMo-winning novel, and that always seems to me to be a respectable size for a novella. I've been seeing the term "novelette" lately, and it might fit, though I still have some qualms about using any novel-derived label as to me a novel is a specific form.
This story will be self-contained and it won't be. I mean, you'll read it and I hope you'll be satisfied that it doesn't just stop in the middle of a scene, but it will very clearly be a part 1, and not in the sense that The Matrix would have been a part one if they'd ever gotten around to developing the rumored sequels for it that they never actually produced ever. There's no fight scene or big resolution. It'll be more like part one in the sense of being an introduction.
I'm thinking it will debut at about $1. Unless I give in and go the Retail Mind Tricks route and make it 99 cents. Future installments in the same series will be more like the $2 range, because you already know what you're getting. I want the buy-in to be cheap on the first book, you see, and I want it to be affordable to continue reading.
Print editions will happen when there are enough volumes to make an edition worth printing. If demand is high enough, I might shop around for something other than self-publishing, or at least do a pre-order dealy so I can do a volume print run to save everyone involved some money.
So, anyway, that's the deal. As I suggested above, I'm planning on reworking The 3 Seas into this format... no idea yet if any of my other gestating/failed/malingering serials will go the same route. If you've ever been a supporter/sponsor of The 3 Seas serial version, you'll be getting courtesy copies of any e-books that include material adapted from the stuff I've already published in that version. You've already paid for it. I'll be letting you know when I have more of an ETA on that. Editing is slower for me than writing, and that's basically what the 3 Seas job is going to be.
These things'll come out between 1 and 3 a month, depending on muse and ability. My intent is that after I've been doing it for a while, there will be something like a snackbar people can order from a la carte. Some of the stuff might be truly stand-alone. Some might end up being only two or three installments before being brought to a close. I'm going to be eschewing a one-size-fits-all solution here. I may or may not end up attaching share-alike type licenses to the books, since I'm obviously not going to be overly bothered about piracy of my $1 e-books.
Like everything else I do, it's an experiment. I think it could be big, but I won't have to invest too much in finding out, as I've already got most of the first offering
(And I'm going to be taking its results into account as I consider what to do with my RPG project.)
Answer To The Fully Anticipated Question:
Definitely PDF, probably also EPUB.
