More Musings on Serialization

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In Today’s Journal

* More Musings on Serialization
* Update
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

More Musings on Serialization

This is a process post, a thinking-aloud post, that goes to marketing.

Again, thanks to those who took a moment to leave a comment or email me about my serialized novels. I still hope a few others will step up, but we’ll see.

As I mentioned yesterday re the frequency of installments, one person mentioned that maybe I shouldn’t post serial installments every day. She suggested posting an installment once a week.

Later yesterday, another writer suggested posting once a week also and said once a week is “frequent enough to keep the readers interested. Multiple postings during a week risks readers missing one or two and … dropping out.”

My experience thus far has been that nobody dropped out, although some did let me know they’d saved posts to read later.

On the other hand, a while back some other readers said the daily posts were fine and one even suggested I post more than one chapter per day. (I finally did that, making each installment about the length of a medium short story, 2000-3000 words.)

AnnNeeWay, for now, the serialization experiment will continue with Nightfall, the first novel in my action-adventure Nick Spalding series.

If I remember right, the tone is Hemingway-ish. The story is set in 1920s-’30s Europe. If you’d like to see the cover and description, click the link above. (Likewise, the links below.)

I’ll post a new installment of Nightfall once a week starting next Monday. (Gotta keep it away from the ongoing free short stories over at Stanbrough Writes. They post each Friday.)

Then I’ll watch to see how many folks open and read the installments. If the numbers jump, I’ll keep posting installments of other novels once a week. If the numbers fall away, well, we’ll see.

After the last installment of Nightfall posts, I have four other novels lined up:

Update

I’m actually writing this post yesterday (Tuesday). After I wrote the stuff above, I went to Your Morning Serial and posted 18 installments of Nightfall. As it turns out, they’ll post over 4 full months.

The first installment will go out to inboxes on Monday, September 8, and (if I leave it as-is) the last installment will drop on Monday, January 5.

That’s when it hit me: Seriously? Does ANYONE take 4 months to read a novel?

I wouldn’t want to wait a week between installments to see what happens next. Or take 4 months to read a novel so I can get to the next one and the rest of the story.

Still, I did the work, so I’ll leave it as-is for now.

If you have any thoughts (especially if you’re a subscriber to Your Morning Serial or if you have experience with posting serialized novels yourself) please feel free to leave a comment or email me pro or con re this once-a-week schedule.

If I get enough comments wanting the installments more often, I can always go back and reschedule the remaining posts.

Now, for the minor bit about marketing:

Later today I’ll publish The Nick Spalding Saga, all four books in one volume.

Then early in September after readers have had a taste of Nightfall, I’ll offer readers a chance to buy the entire saga for $9.99 from my online discount store.

That’s 50% off my usual discount price of $5 each, and it’s almost 60% off the regular Amazon et al price of $5.99.

And again, we’ll see what happens. That’s what experiments are about, right?

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers 2025 Of course I didn’t vet this. I’m certain neither Dean’s site nor TNDJ are listed.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………… 630

Writing of Blackwell Ops 47: Sam Granger | Special Duty

Day 1…… 3250 words. To date…… 3250
Day 2…… 1110 words. To date…… 4360
Day 3…… 3323 words. To date…… 7683
Day 4…… 1656 words. To date…… 9339
Day 5…… 1413 words. To date…… 10752

Fiction for September……………… XXXX
Fiction for 2025………………………. 534149
Nonfiction for September.………… 2160
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 188410
2025 consumable words…………….. 714945

2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 13
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 31
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 117
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 301
Short story collections……………………. 29