Why don't you SERIALIZE your book?
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- čas přidán 25. 08. 2024
- Me, thinking about serializing my book while fighting my revisions.
Watch part 2 next: • Romance authors solved...
REAL TALK: Mad respect to all the web serial authors out there - you gotta be courageous and tough beyond belief to do what you do. Also "Beware Of Chicken" is a fun little story, if you're into xianxia-I enjoyed it, typos, spelling errors, pacing issues and all.
If you are interested in writing a web serial, make sure to check out this excellent guide from TheFirstDefier, author of Defiance of the Fall:
www.royalroad....
#authortube #selfpublishing #serializedfiction
// WHAT TO WATCH NEXT
If you enjoyed this video, I think you'll enjoy this next:
The 6 types of readers authors encounter → • 6 TYPES OF READERS You...
// REFERENCES
Stephen King:
Serializing "The Plant" on his website 20 years ahead of his time → electriclitera...
The Green Mile → firewireblog.c...
Margaret Atwood:
On Wattpad → www.wattpad.co...
On serialization → entertainment....
Casualfarmer:
"Beware of Chicken" on Royal Road → www.royalroad....
Patreon page → www.patreon.co...
Historical stats via Graphtreon → graphtreon.com...
// RESOURCES
A NaNoWriMo word count goal calculator:
→ bit.ly/nanowor...
A simple word count progress tracker:
→ bit.ly/2U1601w
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If you liked this little skit, check out the one I did on contacting Amazon KDP support → czcams.com/video/XnteQz7mMhI/video.html
And if you're interested in writing a web serial, make sure to check out this excellent guide from TheFirstDefier, author of Defiance of the Fall → www.royalroad.com/forums/thread/116847
As a serial author, I do agree with some of the things you mentioned about serial writing being problematic, especially in regards to tropes and cliches to appeal to the serial audience.
But there are a few criticisms I feel that kinds of unfair(?) For example, at any point in time, a serial author can announce a break or take time off. Will it result in less money? Definitely. However, that's no different than having to take two weeks off from writing which will delay a traditional or self-published book launch.
And in regards to editing, tightening pacing, etcetera, there are some serial authors like pirateaba who sometimes hire professional, established editors such as Rebecca Brewer (formerly of Ace/Roc and Penguin, editor of Guy Gavriel Kay, S. M. Sterling and many others) or Diana Gill (formerly of Tor, Ace, Harper Voyager editor of Charlaine Harris, Mark Lawrence and many others to tighten up and edit 30-40,000 words of their serial **as** they serialize.
Even the example author you gave, CasualFarmer, has hired a line editor and is making extensive edits to his story before publication, hence why it hasn't been published yet. And there are examples of others who have undergone extensive dev editing to their serial before publication, which quite significantly changes the direction the story goes in in the serial.
Then there's also the subset of serial authors aren't doing it for the money but because they prefer the medium of serializing. The Parahumans series by Wildbow has never been published and isn't monetized with advanced chapters or anything of the sort on Patreon. He simply has a patreon with 0 tiers, and any support or donation is up to the reader.
Now, I'm not advocating or saying everyone should serialize. I just think that it's as fair for an author to choose to serialize as it is for an author to choose to self-publish or to choose to traditionally-publish.
Otherwise, good video, and it definitely does a good job in pointing out some of the glaring flaws that comes with serializing.
Thanks so much for taking the time to provide your perspective! I've not read many serials start to current installment myself (just Mother of Learning, Beware of Chicken and Delve; I started Street Cultivation but haven't gotten further than the sample chapters) and the only one whose novelization I've followed closely is Domagoj Kurmaic. As I understood based on the publicly available posts, it's been a real struggle for Domagoj to edit the serial during its novelization (the author notes on RR and Patreon also suggest the same issue for Casualfarmer), because doing anything too extensive would significantly change it from what it is (the good and bad and ugly). He's also recently switched his Patreon back from a per month model to a per chapter model as he struggles with publishing his new work, which has meant a huge drop in income (one that is unclear whether the publication to Amazon has made up for). MoL Arc 1 imo was the most tightly written of all three arcs so what will be interesting is whether something like Arc 3 which has serious pacing issues gets the developmental editing it needs during the novelization.
But therein lies the whole issue with serialization for me. Line level edits (even chapter level edits) are a bit...whatever for me. If you can afford to hire a copy editor to punch up poor prose, then the business arrangement in my mind is more like co-writing, with one partner in charge of the story decisions and bearing all of the risks and rewards for the story's success and the copy editor's contributions, however vital, are on a work for hire arrangement. Under such an arrangement, the writer cranking out those first drafts is not going to have the time to focus on getting good at prose. If you're already decent at prose and you write clean first drafts, then line level stuff won't be an issue at all, other than proofing for typos.
Line and scene level stuff can only take your craft so far though. There are bigger, developmental edits at the story level (not the line or scene or chapter level) that just aren't possible to do under a serialization model the way most web serial authors approach their workflow. When you have to crank out a minimum of 3 new chapters a week and you have no backlog, you literally don't have the time in your production cycle to do substantial dev edits. Whatever broad strokes of story, character, foreshadowing, etc you set up, you're stuck with, because trying to go back and alter chapters that have already been published while trying to keep up with publishing new chapters is the fastest way to drive yourself insane.
As you point out, the only viable way to do extensive dev edits is to...write the whole thing, get dev edits, and THEN begin the serialization with post-dev edit chapters. I'm super curious as to how many of the top rated and top earning web serial authors do this (in addition to copy/line edits) versus the average web serial author who is in this to make money, and how that compares to the top earning self-pub authors versus the average self-pub author - and whether there is a difference across genres (I suspect yes).
At which point, it comes down to why someone decides to publish in the first place, and when that's known, it's a question of which business model you prefer and would be the most effective in achieving your publication goals (which is a different video altogether 😂).
EDIT: I should add that the tropes etc thing applies very much to all publication (serial, self-pub and trad pub) when you're writing to market. Unfortunately that's just the game!
@@PaperTigerProductions it's entirely possible to do dev edits with serializing. once you're done with your book, for example, you send it for developmental edits before amazon publication. i know a few authors who do this. it does result in the book going in a slightly different direction from the serialized version, but that honestly is better in my view because it incentivizes people to actually pick up the book.
personally, do i do this? no. but that's only because i write to tell the story i want to tell. i even have a rule in my comment sections for my serial fiction against commenters telling me how to write my story.
but there are serial authors who do developmental edits before publication. it just, of course, takes a while for them to publish their books because of the amount of editing that has to be done. an example of a published serial author who did significant dev edits is Puddles, who made significant changes to the first book of Randidly Ghosthound. i know this because i'm signed with the same publisher and have spoken to both the author and the editor haha
in regards to earnings, serial authors, in general, don't earn much. i think the average serial author earns $0. the average successful serial author earns $1k. then there are exceptions like Shirtaloon who is probably the most successful serial author in terms of patreon, who publishes his books and regularly breaks ABSR and audible top 5. but would i recommend serializing as a reliable way of earning income? personally, no.
however, i think it *doesn't hurt* to serialize the very first draft of your book if you want to do it, which, i think is my main point here.
*edit* also, i've read some of your other comments, and i think i might've misinterpreted the purpose of the video. i thought you were discouraging people from serializing, but now i realize you're listing the reasons why you don't serialize. which, all the power to you!
All good! And that info about earnings is so fascinating. It frustrates me no end that there's no comprehensive data on an industry level for self-pub and serialization, because it forces all of us to use an experimental approach. I'm all for experiments but I hate retreading old ground just because I don't know what other people have tried before.
That delay to "final" publication on Amazon (and other platforms) when you do significant dev edits is what makes me wonder whether the trade off is worth it. The pace of most web serials is already brutal from the start; adding on the need to work on significant structural revisions on top of that sounds...like a living nightmare. The only way to make it manageable is to scale back on the pace of the serialization which will hurt income-wise; that doesn't matter so much if you're one of the top serial authors pulling in vast amounts of money, but it might not be feasible if you're a smaller author and the $700/month on Patreon is what's helping you make rent. I also wonder about the stats for Patreon - how many people who sub then unsub are likely to resub again?
Brandon Sanderson is running something of an experiment this year-he's working on Stormlight 5 (first draft, new prose) while simultaneously revising Wax & Wayne 4/The Lost Metal (this would be the revision to incorporate alpha reader feedback and dev edits). I'm really curious as to whether it will work, because that's the kind of workflow you'd have to pull off in order to both serialize and do significant dev edits.
Sanderson is actually a super interesting case because Warbreaker was serialized on his website, for free. He's on record as saying that he'll do the same with Nightblood, the planned sequel, because serialization was part of the whole experience of writing the book for him.
Will also mention, that each time CasualFarmer published he took several months break from posting. And Amazon Kindle required removing the free chapters before publishing. So any re-reads require purchasing the books. You get them addicted, tempt people into Patreon with early chapters, and if you have a good story they don’t mind you taking breaks you need.
You guys are getting paid?
Just here for the Beware of Chicken references. All glory to Fa Ram!
Excellent video. But then, I always find your insights into our industry so spot on. Great food for thought in this one for sure, and that cliffhanger... lol, I'll definitely be watching for the next one.
I honestly feel terrible about the cliffhanger 😂 but it was very apropos so from a script writing perspective I had to put it in!
Thanks for this! You summed up all my concerns about Royal Road and confirmed that, yeah, they basically are true, lol. Considering going over but really just don't think it's my style of writing.
This was hilarious 🤣 I've had this talk before and had people tell me that most stories don't even need editing and asked me why I can't just release 10,000 words a week online.
Glad it put a smile on your face! 😊
Thank you for the very fun video! It's so accurate... and surprisingly reassuring.
I'm participating in the royalroad writathon tomorrow, and I really worry about the release schedule with webserials. It almost feels horrifying to publish first drafts, even though I think the experience might do me some good. I'm far too slanted towards cleaning up my drafts on a micro-macro level. And a voice at the back of my mind keeps saying, "this just won't do!" 😂
I honestly hope I don't end up pulling out all my hair before the 30th.
That must be terrifying! But it's always worth trying something once-even if it doesn't end up working for you, I'm sure you'll get a whole lot of valuable learning out of it. Good luck with the writeathon!
@@PaperTigerProductions thank you so much! This means a lot!
Looking forward to next week! This has been a continual discussion in our household for the past six months!
It's kind of crazy how much everyone is talking about it...but with the quantum of cash some of these authors are making, I guess it was inevitable.
@@PaperTigerProductions Yeah. Cooler heads prevail though. An informed route forward is more likely to succeed without burnout.
@@AndrewDMth I'm honestly not sure that the typical self-pub release cycle is all that sustainable either, depending on how you stack your releases. It's taken me 3 months to get to a solid draft for a 120k fantasy novel, and I'm iffy on whether I'll make a 6 month release (it just depends on what my beta readers come back with). Maybe I'll get faster over time?? 😂
@@PaperTigerProductions I agree. I’m in the proof of concept phase myself. I already had 300k word in a project that I spent a year breaking down in six 50k word self-pub installments. That’s doable because it was already edited enough to be broken down. Writing the next 300k for the following years releases in that same series? If I can do it, then I can repeat it. It’s a trial of endurance for sure….
That point about being edited enough to be broken down is so important!!! Sometimes it's really hard to see the structure until you've brain dumped all the pieces onto the page...but the thought of being locked in to that brain vomit stage is terrifying, because you know how much better it COULD have been if you had the time to publish all the pieces in the right sequence and combinations.
very cool blend of informative and satirical. What you're describing is exactly what is done, I'm sure, but it also DOES sound kind of ridiculous, yet it isn't, really; it's just the state of the industry now for many authors.
Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed the skit.
Right.
I put out 5,000 word chapters as often as possible on Amazon for .99 cents as part of an ongoing series.
I got enough material to make at least 100 issues. Then I will wrap that story up and start a new one.
Rinse repeat.
Great video! I see serialized as a way to a) introduce a topic that isn't as popular/mainstream b) pay nobody / cheapest start c) ultra fast feedback for starting writers. Then again, how do you stand out from all the other novels?
I've done a little bit of reading on Royal Road strats (and one of the authors in my writers group publishes on RR) and the amount of work you have to put in is insane. Review swaps, cross-promos/shout-outs, publishing cadence...it's a LOT. The authors who get to the top work very hard to get there, and from what I understand, it's very hard to stay at the top too.
@@PaperTigerProductions True. Also , lets say you wanted an MC who likes to eat people. Where do you even publish that? If you are a Fantasy writer you know 90% of the market is young adult with some pretty clear do/do not stuff... if you're into writing something outside of those boundaries royal road could be a way to do so (even though it would never be in the top 10 most popular there).
But beware of chicken is 🔥🔥
It absolutely is!
Well... volume 3 seems to have lost a lot of momentum. But it's insane how much he makes a month for this.
@@epbrown01It will soon take off again. But people seem to forget that it's supposed to be a chill slice of life
You tell em Big D.
Wattpad is not really serial fiction. Some books are but many books on the platform are just regular books with their chapters posted every week. Even some readers wait till the book is finished before reading it because they are used to that and it feels safer. I'm pretty sure some Vella and Radish novels are the same.
Interesting - did you know that Charles Dickens novels were all serialized? They came out weekly back in 1860.
I don't know for sure but I get the feeling a lot of the novels we hold up as great classics today might have originally been serialized. Though perhaps that's the impression I've formed due to Jo March's storyline in Louisa May Alcott's Good Wives 😂
I loved the part where she gets on the phone.
"When do I work on becoming a better writer?" "You don't! You don't need to."
The dilemma sums it all for me. But overtime as more people plunge into the gold mine and more bad series come up, it's going to get lesser visibility for all. Also Patreon support will fluctuate more violently as supporters normalize jump shipping. Definitely not a route for all.
With AI entering the picture now, I think we all might have to re-evaluate...