It’s often the case come late April/early May that we begin to realize that the year is a third of the way behind us. Sometimes we look back and think, “Wow! Where’s the time gone? I’d better get cracking to make sure I accomplish my goals for the year.” At other times, we look back and think, “Only a third of the year? I’ve come so far in four short months.” Usually, we find ourselves in between, feeling we’ve got so much left to do in the year but also proud to discover we’ve already accomplished various goals.
When January 2012 came upon us, volume one of The Scion of Abacus had been on Amazon for only five days. I had a long way to go before the end was in sight. I had a hope that this form might generate some interest, some anticipation for the conclusion of the story. Looking back now, a week after the publication of part five, I can see I’ve come a very long way. But I also feel like I’m behind on my goals for the year.
Anyhow, what I want to do here today is talk a bit about the serial novel model that I’ve used to publish The Scion of Abacus. I feel that this form has been largely responsible for my recent success as an indie author, but there have also been several questions as to my motives and some discussion about whether this is a long-term format not only for myself but also in the new world of e-publishing.
Charles Dickens may not have invented the serial novel (though some will debate that), but he certainly made the form synonymous with his own work, even though many of his books weren’t serialized. Dickens lived at a time when paper was still expensive and when many could not afford the price of a new book. But newspapers and magazines were growing in popularity with an increasingly literate general population, and so the logical step was to divide a novel into smaller chunks that could be published once a week/ month. The serial format lost popularity as the Victorian era waned, but it was not dead.
You can find serialized stories in many pulp fiction magazines right through the Twentieth Century, though they did not reach the same level of popularity that Dickens’ work did. Then, late in the 1990s, Stephen King decided to publish The Green Mile in six volumes. Oddly enough, whereas Dickens’ serials were published in varying numbers of volumes, most serials subsequent to King’s have adopted a six-part division (not all, but almost all I could find).
The advent of the internet as a viable setting for writers to attract readers prior to submitting to publishers saw an increase in writers publishing their early drafts as they wrote the story. In some cases, these webserials were published thusly because the author couldn’t find a publisher. Even very popular writers seemed drawn to this new format, for Stephen King serialized another novel on the internet (The Plant), and Brandon Sanderson released Warbreaker as he wrote it, first draft, warts and all.
We live in interesting times. The entire publishing industry is changing rapidly, and at this point nobody can really predict how the dusts will settle. The indie movement could prove a five-year flash in the pan, or it could be the face of the publishing future for years and years to come. One thing is certain, authors are using the shifting market to experiment, often with refreshingly old influences.
Such is the case with The Scion of Abacus. It is a serial novel in the Dickens sense. That is, it is not scripted like a TV show to produce tightly closed episodes that fit together to form a larger tale; it is a single novel that has been chopped up and published a little bit at a time. Some folks have (understandably) found this off-putting. Others have appreciated the move for various reasons: if you don’t like the first part of the story, you aren’t on the hook for the full price; if you have a busy schedule, squeezing in novella-sized fractions of a story is much more manageable than devoting a couple of weeks to a novel; you get a regular release from an author whose work you enjoy; or, financially, plonking down a small amount of cash per episode per month seems somehow more justifiable than laying out the full cost for a novel; among others.
I hate being misunderstood. I think we all do. The serial novel form I have used was a gamble, an experiment, and one that gave me little idea of what to expect from readers. I have made mistakes, sure, and there are things I’d do differently if I could go back, but I think we will see more and more authors trying to serialize. Whether an author makes the format his/her own remains to be seen. I’m currently torn in two minds about whether to continue with the format, mostly because I wish to avoid being misunderstood. But that comes with the writing territory. If it’s not the choice to serialize that folks question, it’ll be something else.
I realize that this has been a bit of a ramble and not filled with news so much as with reflexion and some explanation of what I’ve been doing for the past four months. I’d like your thoughts, though.
Do you see the serial novel as a viable form going forward?
Should a writer only do such a thing once, or can it become a modus operandi?
Do the pros of the form outweigh the cons?
There are other questions to be asked, of course, but as I’m reflecting on writing past and looking to writing future, I’m really in the dark about these questions, the big questions. Readers and writers out there, what say you?
Mary Rosenblum
/ April 20, 2012I’m going to weigh in here, Brondt. I’m a career writer with a history in NY publishing, who now works with indie and small press authors, taking them through publishing and promoting and I’m tracking multiple successful ways to publish a story. I tend to counsel clients on serial novel versus ‘season’ with ‘episodes’ depending on what they’re writing. What once was the never-ending fantasy series can work well as an ongoing serial novel in shorter bites, where, as you say, the reader isn’t on the hook for the entire series. This works well, by the way, when the entire series, or larger segments thereof, are available as a single package for those who like it and want more, all at once. For other writers, who tend to write in more tightly focused chapters — and that seems to often be the writer who started out in short stories — a season, comprised of those short, tightly plotted, ‘episodes’ works better. Dale Ivan Smith’s Weed series (http://www.daleivansmith.com/ ) is a good example of that, and yes, Dale comes to this as an accomplished short story author. What I am saying is that I don’t believe that one size fits all here, that it’s the story and your personal style of writing that dictates the form that will work successfully for you.
Brondt
/ April 20, 2012Thanks for the thoughts, Mary. Writing style does play a big role, of course, which is something I didn’t really address in my ramble. I’d be interested to hear whether some of those authors you’ve worked with have changed to more traditional models after writing a serial. I guess that’s really my concern here. Having had success with one serial, do I continue with an apparently good thing or try something different?
maryrosenblum
/ April 20, 2012Good question, Brondt. It’s a new form and so far, I’ve seen authors trying out the serial forms, but I can’t yet give you any sense of how successful it’ll be in the long term. I have a feeling, though, that it will totally depend on your readership. Some readers will prefer a serial form and others will not and long term success may depend on your readers’ preferences.
Brondt
/ April 20, 2012Hmmm, my thoughts exactly. This whole indie/self-pubbing movement (at least in its present form) is really new. It’ll take time for patterns to emerge and data to come in, especially as people are only now beginning to experiment with the serial format. I’ve earmarked Dale Ivan Smith’s blog to check out his serial this summer, as I’m interested to see what a more episode-structured serial would look like, and how popular that might prove.
One thing I didn’t mention in the above post, and really should have, is the necessity of regular releases. Publishing a serial at the rate of one volume every 2 – 4 months won’t work well, I think. The nature of the beast is to provide regular updates so the readers don’t forget about your story. (Thought I’d throw that tidbit in as I forgot it earlier…)
Greg Downs
/ April 20, 2012Have to say, Brondt, that I’ve been thinking about the same things lately. Perhaps it’s not so much a matter of what you think you need as it is a matter of what the story demands. I feel like serialization is best done with long standalone novels, say 150k-300k words. I actually plan on serializing any long standalones I happen to write from now on,s imply because the idea strikes me as being so cool. But a series of 70k books doesn’t seem like the best thing to serialize with.
It is totally cool what you’re doing with Scion of Abacus, by the way. I plan on reading it whenever I get a bit of free time.
Brondt
/ April 20, 2012That’s sort of the way my thoughts also, Greg. I think the longer fantasy epics kind of lend themselves to this, otherwise you start shooting yourself in the foot financially. I mean, it’s difficult to charge 2.99 for your 250k doorstop when some other author is pulling in 2.99 for a 70k light novel.
Part of my motivation for trying to serialize Scion was your own (I’m assuming that there is only one Greg Downs who has serialized a massive novel…) series and success. I’m actually reading Song of the Aura now, finally, after taking forever to get to it.
Antony Chow
/ April 20, 2012Hi Bro! Let me give my observation as a reader. A serialized format works if there is a COMMITMENT from the indie author to FINISH the series, and there is trust and belief from your readership that this WILL happen.
I cannot emphasize the importance of finishing a series. Take for example japanese manta that has been translated to english.
Brondt
/ April 20, 2012Good point. And this kind of goes for all fiction. I’m not much of a George R.R. Martin fan, but I constantly hear from those who are that they fear he’ll never finish his series. Robert Jordan, sadly, died before his was over, but he’d planned well enough that the estate could bring Brandon Sanderson in to finish the job, which has to be admired. The same goes here, for serialized fiction, and it comes down to the regular releases again. You can trust that book/series is going to be finished if there are regular releases. Otherwise, well, readers will get frustrated. I’ve not got experience with the Japanese manga, but I know that similar problems exist with Franco-Belgian comics (my favourite childhood reading) and their English translations.
Antony Chow
/ April 20, 2012Hi Bro! Let me give my observation as a reader. A serialized format works if there is a COMMITMENT from the indie author to FINISH the series, and there is trust and belief from your readership that this WILL happen.
I cannot emphasize the importance of finishing a series. Take for example japanese manga that has been translated to english. Sometimes the series get dropped for whatever reason and the consumer is stuck with an unfinished series.
You are going to finish The Scion of Abacus series and I commend you for this. If you decide to publish another serialized novel I have confidence in your commitment to finish it. But if you don’t finish Abacus, then I the consumer may decide not to buy further works by you. So in a sense, writing a serialized novel is a catch 22, especially for an indie author.
For the writer, a serialized format is an opportunity to experiment. Let’s say you catch baseball fever and decide to write a serial novel about a minor league team. You decide to write a 20 part series. The first part gets published and you get lukewarm sales. Your second part gets half in sales compared to the first. So you do the smart thing and end the series in 3 parts.
If you had written the entire series out first then you would have wasted months of writing on a boon that does not sell.
Greg Downs
/ April 20, 2012Brondt- I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, the pricing brings in a whole new aspect. I change prices constantly, experimenting.
Antony- true, true. Though I will say, perhaps the ‘series’ and the ‘serial’ would be considered different formats? kind of in the way a ‘tv show’ and a ‘tv miniseries’ are different?
Antony Chow
/ April 21, 2012Sorry for the double post. I was typing the reply on a smartphone, and accidentally hit the post comment link before I finished making the comment.
Greg, I don’t distinguish between series and serial, in the context of a publication of a novel. I guess you could say series imply a longer run than a serial.
I think the rise of the “serialized novel” is an interesting phenomenon that reflects many consumers’ (not all) diminished attention span. I would love to see an author doing very well with a serialized format, and eventually attract corporate sponsorship. Imagine [insert your big name corporation here] company pays the author a big sponsorship fee in order to have the company’s product or message placed in an upcoming “episode”, and that particular part could be released for free to encourage wide dissemination.
Brondt
/ April 22, 2012No prob, Antony.
Your thoughts on the serialized novel are interesting, and I think we might see a move in this direction in the next few years from mainline publishers. Not sure about the corporate sponsorship, though, but I do agree that there is something to the shorter modules and shorter attention spans. There’s also the busy everyday life that often makes dedicating oneself to an 800-page novel prohibitive where purchasing that same novel in smaller monthly installments becomes a more manageable read.
Patch
/ April 28, 2012I’m using my smartphone so please bear with me.
I am a reader of sci-fi, fantasy, manga, and harlequin. I’ve read anywhere from Robert Jordan, to the sword of truth, to the valdemar series, the gunslinger, Anita Blake to carpathians, and many indie books between.
That being said, I love your scion series. I was confused at first by the serial aspect of it. I bought part 1 because of the price. For hired I’d give it a shot. I was hooked into the story and when I reached the end I was frustrated because I now had to go buy another part.
I am torn between whether this is a good setup. In terms of a reader seeing if they like a book, this is great. But when you like the book and keep having to go back and buy more, I was irritated. It would be different if the book was done and I could either buy all parts at one time or the book as a whole when done.
I am a fast reader and use my smart phones kindle app. That is where the frustration was. Each day I had I go back in to buy another part. Just so you get a feel of the readers side.
As for the story, I loved it. Your combination of magic, politics, religion, and physics (science) really came together perfectly. This goes far beyond the magical ‘my will made it happen’ and helped me get captured into the story. I’m not great on review writing, but this is one of my favorites. Can’t wait for part 6. Until then, I will check out our other books since I know that so far you are able to write good stuff.
Oh. Hurry with that last part. I read fast and hate forgetting where the stories left off.
Brondt
/ April 29, 2012Thanks for your input, Patch. This is exactly the sort of thing I need. I appreciate that the nature of a serial can frustrate readers, which is part of my concern about using the format going forward, especially as readers aren’t really used to it anymore. I’ve received a few complaints about the constant need to buy more of the story, and while it’s a good complaint to have (because they are enjoying the book enough to be unable to wait), it’s something I have to take on board in considering how I publish the next story.
Thanks for the high praise also, and I hope Part 6 lives up to expectations. It should be out within 10 days (that’s my goal at least). The wait is almost over.