{"id":1039,"date":"2010-06-06T10:47:42","date_gmt":"2010-06-06T15:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/?p=1039"},"modified":"2010-06-06T13:36:11","modified_gmt":"2010-06-06T18:36:11","slug":"the-perils-of-quacking-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/06\/the-perils-of-quacking-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"The Perils of Quacking Alone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many famous\u00a0novels have\u00a0appeared in serial form but, perhaps the most famous serial wasn't a novel at all.\u00a0 In 1914 the motion picture serial, The Perils of Pauline<\/a><\/em>, was shown in\u00a0installments.\u00a0\u00a0The title character is the archetype for \"damsels in distress\" as each episode\u00a0featured her getting embroiled in various life-threatening situations - like being tied to the railroad tracks. \u00a0The heroine, of\u00a0course, was inevitably rescued or escaped\u00a0certain death - only to get herself into\u00a0trouble again next time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pauline aside, a host of\u00a0acclaimed\u00a0books have been serialized<\/a>. One of the first was One Thousand And One Nights\u00a0<\/em>which <\/em>introduced famous characters like Sinbad the Sailor and Aladdin.\u00a0 One of the most famous serial authors was Charles Dickens who published\u00a0each chapter as a serialized piece.\u00a0 That's why most of his work is so long -\u00a0more chapters equal\u00a0more money.\u00a0 Dickens' left off each piece with a cliffhanger.\u00a0 Famously, for his chase story The Old Curiosity Shop<\/em>, \u00a0American fans waiting at the docks to meet the ships bringing in the next installment shouted at the ships' crew demanding to be told whether Little Nell was dead.<\/p>\n

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created his Sherlock Holmes<\/em> \u00a0tales as serial pieces for a magazine.\u00a0 Thomas Hardy<\/a> created many pieces via serialization, including Tess Of The D'Urbervilles.\u00a0 <\/em>More recent writers have also returned to the format.\u00a0 Stephen King has dabbled in the genre.\u00a0\u00a0King began\u00a0offering \"The Plant\" in serial form on his\u00a0website, charging $1.00 for each of the 6 chapters that he'd written.\u00a0 However, in late 2000 he abruptly halted the project<\/a>, leaving readers without an ending.\u00a0 Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities<\/em> was serialized by Rolling Stone magazine,<\/a> and Douglas Clegg got a 5 figure advance for serialization of his novel, Nightmare House<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Some of the next entries to the long list of serial novels will be a couple of the new ones that I'm currently writing.\u00a0 I'm planning to serialize my new historical (tentatively titled either The Duke Regent's Dilemma<\/em>, The Duke Regent's Eden<\/em>, or Eden Without The Apple<\/em> -- Hey, it's a work in progress, people).\u00a0 I'll also be serializing my new contemporary - at the intersection of love and the law like E-mail Enticement<\/em> and Griffin's Law<\/em>.\u00a0 The\u00a0contemporary is titled The Office Ink Spells Murder<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why serialize?\u00a0 Well, it's an experiment but it seems to serve a whole bunch of useful purposes.\u00a0\u00a0First, let's recognize the elephant in the room.\u00a0 Yes, Virginia, serializing the books will add to the family coffers and that is always a good thing.\u00a0 Hey, if Dickens didn't sneeze at the money, I won't either.\u00a0 And while making money is always an important goal, it's not the only one.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Serializing the books will help in the writing\/creative\/editing process.\u00a0 Readers' comments can hurt, but they're the ultimate judges.\u00a0 Those comments are my Simon Cowell moments and, like the best of the American Idol contestants, I can use the comments to edit, revise and polish the book before\u00a0it's finished and published.\u00a0 In that way my readers can participate in the creative process and become an important part of the work.\u00a0 Heck, with the historical, I haven't settled on the\u00a0title yet and\u00a0reader feedback would help with that as well.\u00a0 I'll have to work on growing a thicker skin but readers' opinions are always to be valued - even the bad ones - because a reader took the time to review a book.\u00a0 Like\u00a0they say in Hollywood - any press beats no press.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Getting\u00a0serialized versions out there also\u00a0keeps something new being published fairly often.\u00a0 Writing a full book takes a while, so there is apt to be a long period when nothing new is added.\u00a0 I think keeping readers who like my work having something new\u00a0fairly often will keep them checking back more often.\u00a0 Someone who's read part 1 will hopefully stay on the look out for part 2 and 3 and 4....<\/p>\n

Serializing a book and getting\u00a0each piece out for 99 cents should also stir interest in the other work that's out there.\u00a0 So it will be a good marketing tool.\u00a0 Maybe those buyers will come back and invest the $2.99 (a dirt cheap price IMHO) to buy one of the other books.\u00a0 So getting my WIPs in the hands of readers\u00a0for a price beyond dirt cheap should be a good investment in the health and well-being of all my books.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I'm going to serialize them on Kindle<\/a> first.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I'm not sure about Smashwords<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0SW distributes to all the other channels - Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Sony, Apple, etc.\u00a0 And I'm not sure\u00a0whether or not the big e-tailers would be interested in a serial work.\u00a0 It might work on the SW site, and I'll probably put it up there come to think of it.\u00a0 As to putting it out for distribution, I guess I'll email SW Guru and the indie author's best friend, Mark Coker,\u00a0get his opinion and then go with that.\u00a0 Going with Coker's coaching has turned out to be a good thing all the way around.\u00a0 Coker regularly gives out pointers on his web site and I recommend the SW blog<\/a> to all indie readers and for sure to all indie authors.<\/p>\n

How often the pieces will appear may vary, along with the length.\u00a0 Dickens may have gone with one chapter at a time, but\u00a0to give the readers a good value and a decent helping of the work at a time, I'm thinking of 2-3 chapters per piece.\u00a0 I'm already upwards of Chapter 6 in each\u00a0MS, so I'm a little ahead of the game with material.\u00a0 I've had my lightbulb moment with each book, so I feel pretty certain I'll finish both of them - not finishing would be unfair to readers and poor business on my part.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first to appear will be The Duke Regent's Eden<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0How soon it'll appear depends largely on\u00a0my graphics guru, Mr. Quack.\u00a0 Hubby's \"blessed\" with projects at the moment - his father wants him to do a political piece, I want him to do a book trailer\u00a0for E-mail Enticement<\/em>, and I want him to do the cover for\u00a0the new serial historical.\u00a0\u00a0However, because serials are time sensitive and because that project will add to the family coffers for the serial and for all the books, Mr. Quack will surely give the cover priority.\u00a0 After all, his interest is as vested as mine in the coffers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr. Quack does face an interesting dilemma with the new cover, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the subject of his mid-week blog update.\u00a0 I'm asking hubby to boldly go where men prefer never to tread.\u00a0 As we speak, he's looking for good stock photo material featuring.... MAN TITTIES<\/a>.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Well, women like to look too and I'm interested in the marketing aspect of having a fine brawny speciman on the cover of the historical serial.\u00a0\u00a0The contemporary, love-and- law murder mystery won't provide such fodder for experimentation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, keep a keen eye out on Kindle and (likely) the SW site for the first installment of the new serial.\u00a0\u00a0 I'll blog more about the plot when we get closer to publication.\u00a0\u00a0It'll be interesting to see if the new serial format, AND THE MAN TITTIES, steer the good ship Quacking Alone to greener waters. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many famous\u00a0novels have\u00a0appeared in serial form but, perhaps the most famous serial wasn't a novel at all.\u00a0 In 1914 the motion picture serial, The Perils of Pauline, was shown in\u00a0installments.\u00a0\u00a0The title character is the archetype for \"damsels in distress\" as each episode\u00a0featured her getting embroiled in various life-threatening situations - like being tied to the ...continue reading \"The Perils of Quacking Alone\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1039"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1041,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039\/revisions\/1041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}