A New Story, and Thoughts on Serialization
In Today's Journal
* A New Short Story
* Bradbury Reminder
* Some Maybe Helpful Thoughts on Serialization
* The Numbers
A New Short Story
"One Hot Late Afternoon in a Jungle" went live yesterday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out. It's free.
If you enjoy the story, please click Like. Comments are welcome too. Both help with my Substack algorithms. Then tell Everyone else.
Bradbury Reminder
Today is Saturday. Just a reminder to get your Bradbury Challenge story info in to me before the Journal goes live on Monday.
Some Maybe Helpful Thoughts on Serialization
Most of the following is me thinking out loud. Bear with me.
I probably won't be serializing any novels for now. I've received only ten responses over three days, and a few of those were from Facebook.
Since around 200 writers subscribe to TNDJ, I was hoping for at least twice that number (effectively a 10% return on investment for the time serialization would require).
I figured TNDJ subscribers (so ostensibly they're learning from me) might jump at the chance to see one of my novels unfold a chapter or two at a time.
I would personally leap at the chance to watch one of my own fiction mentors unfold a novel in real time.
As I told one guy yesterday, I might still do it for myself anyway. If I do, I'll still announce the sign-up link here.
How You Write Matters
Serialization lends itself to me because I'm prolific, which basically means I write pretty much every day.
On the other hand, aerialization doesn't lend itself to me because of how I write.
For example, having encountered a new situation in Chapter 12, I cycle back on the fly to Chapter 3 to foreshadow that situation. And of course, in serialization, Chapter 3 would have already been published.
So the finished novel will almost always be a little different than the serialized version. The readers of the serialization would not know, but I would know. How much would that matter to me? Would I feel the serialization readers were being cheated?
Pondering Ways to Serialize Novels
One writer who responded said she was interested in reading a serialized novel from me "As long as you're sure you don't want to serialize it in ... some other place where you could pick up new readers."
Actually, although you are reading this in your email, you can read it directly on Substack on your computer, phone, etc.
If I do begin serializing my novels, I'll probably do it on Substack because
I'm used to the platform,
I retain ownership of what I post (always read the TOS or at least search them for 'copyright,' 'ownership,' etc.),
I can grow my readership, and
I can monetize it after a free period.
I looked at a few other platforms. On some of those (I'm thinking of using Laterpress.com), the reader can also opt to download an epub of each installment. That's an added benefit.
But I'm not familiar with the platform, so there would be a learning curve (back to that ROI thing), and with all the other irons I have in the fire I don't need that.
Maybe I'll put something up on Laterpress to see how it works. Maybe I'll serialize a short story collection or something.
D2D?
I've wondered too about serializing a novel through Draft2Digital. Again, just thinking out loud here.
D2D is an aggregator, meaning it publishes your book but also distributes it wide to several other venues. Those include at least a few subscription services. Hmm.
So I'm wondering whether it might be worth the time to publish (for example) "Novel Title, Chapters 1-3" one day, "Novel Title, Chapters 4-6" the next, and so on, then distributing those only to the subscription services.
It would be necessary to create a cover in advance, perhaps "Novel Title: Serialized: 1-3". Then I'd use the same cover over and over, only changing the numbers for each publication.
The serialization would have to be branded too (same look repeated) so maybe just a white (yellow, whatever) cover with the novel title and the included chapter numbers on it.
Or perhaps instead of going through D2D (but I'm familiar with them) I could upload directly to one or more of the subscription services in that way. I'll have to investigate that.
If that's possible, the immediate benefit would be a vastly larger audience than Substack alone would provide.
The only downside, always, is the time involved. Time is my most valued commodity, so I try not to spend it without considering the possible ROI.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 750
Writing of Blackwell Ops 41: León Garras
Day 1…… 1847 words. To date…… 1847
Day 2…… 3410 words. To date…… 5257
Day 3…… 3452 words. To date…… 8709
Day 4…… 2915 words. To date…… 11624
Day 5…… 2311 words. To date…… 13935
Day 6…… 1610 words. To date…… 15545
Fiction for April……………………….. 13584
Fiction for 2025………………………. 280534
Nonfiction for April………………........ 4230
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 85760
2025 consumable words…………….. 359784
Average Fiction WPD (March)……... 3396
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 7
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 11
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..... 111
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 281
Short story collections……………………. 29
Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.
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Questions are always welcome at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. But please limit yourself to the topics of writing and publishing.
So, my thoughts, comments:
I didn't sign up because I don't personally like snippets. Just a me thing.
My March was a holy terror, I got less that 500 words and that included Non-fiction! (I did do a lot of cover art, and was sick a lot, plus Puppy!!)
For the Serialization - People like to read the "raw" version, and then buy the finished version, and sometimes see the differences as little "Easter Eggs". Baen books does that as "eARC"s. So don't worry about making changes if you decide to do that.
I wouldn't suggest allowing people to download ebubs, you might start getting piracy.
D2D has just changed their Payout Fees. So read over that change in their TOS. Like they won't send a check until you accrue $100...So, check carefully before you decide.
Yeah, Time is the Creativity Killer!
You should definitely do it. I didn’t comment before because it seems such an unknown to me.
But now I know I think you should. Readers or no. publish some on Substack at least, and better, the larger scope worth it even though there are skills to learn. It’s another pie, or brand of pies. Seems to be a foresighted thing of the future.