Insecure Writer's Support Group: Writing rocks, no writing blows

#IWSG Writing rocks...no, Writing blows

5/4/2022

The first Wednesday of every month is the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Posts go up the 1st Wednesday of every month. Check it out here and join if you need support with your writing. Don't forget to stop by and say hi to the co-hosts: Kim Elliott, Melissa Maygrove, Chemist Ken, Lee Lowery, and Nancy Gideon!

May 4 question - It's the best of times; it's the worst of times. What are your writer highs (the good times)? And what are your writer lows (the crappy times)?

I'm going to skip this month's question because it requires trying to remember things and I just don't feel like doing that right now. It's called being lazy. 😋

Instead, I want to share with you how my foray into serialized fiction went with my novel, Deep Curse.

I have a few paying supporters and a handful of followers more. Not much of an audience, but I had hoped maybe the free chapters would grow my supporters and followers. In the beginning, it worked. I got a new supporter and some followers. As the story progressed, the supporter/follower count did not.

Kinda-sorta a success.

While I enjoyed the process of releasing the story chapter by chapter, unsurprisingly, I didn't much care for the promotion part. I felt like I was beating a dead horse saying, "A new chapter is out. Go read the free chapters."

Another thing that makes me hesitant to continue with serial fiction is being told by others that they really don't care to read a book that way. I'd rather read as much as I want, when I want. Which, honestly, that's how I feel too. I have zero desire to read a chapter per week. Let me buy the whole thing and read it in one setting if I want. I don't think serialized fiction has quite caught on like some authors hoped.

More than likely, if I had a bigger audience, it would be worth keeping at. Since I don't have that audience, my efforts are best placed elsewhere. Would I do it again? Maybe with a short story, but for now I'm reassessing and rearranging where my energy needs to go in hopes of finding those elusive readers everyone tells me I need.

Have you tried serial fiction? Any success? What are you author highs and lows? Is saying, "I'm lazy" a good excuse for everything? 🙃

10 Comments

M.J. Fifield link

5/4/2022 09:40:27 am

I haven't had any interest in either reading or writing serialized fiction, for the reasons you listed above.

I've heard tale of some authors who are doing really well with the serialized format, so it seems like a lot of the writing and publishing world. A hit-or-miss kind of thing that's not at all frustrating to try to figure out.

And yes, "I'm lazy" is a good excuse for everything. And I'm definitely not being at all self-serving by agreeing with you. :)

Tyrean Martinson link

5/4/2022 10:26:28 am

So, I like writing it part of the time - as long as it's not the only thing I'm writing. And, for reading serialized fiction, it's much the same. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't. I'm more likely to wait until 2-3 chapters are out before I read a segment. I'm not sure why or how 2-3 chapters is more significant than one, but it is for me.

Alex J. Cavanaugh link

5/4/2022 11:37:27 am

I haven't tried it. You would think it would be like comic books. Those come out once a week or once a month and readers have to wait to continue the story, and comics are still very popular.

Helen Mathey-Horn link

5/4/2022 01:32:16 pm

I don't think I could do the serial thing either, to write or to read. On the other hand, Dickens made a living at it didn't he.

Liz A. link

5/4/2022 01:45:50 pm

I think the market has grown beyond serialized fiction, but then again, if you had the right story with the right audience, it could catch on. You wouldn't have known until you tried, so good job on taking that leap.

ChemistKen link

5/4/2022 07:55:28 pm

In this day of instant gratification and binge watching TV series, it's possible that serialized fiction just isn't going to cut it. I'd probably just wait until the whole story is done and then binge read it.

Lori link

5/4/2022 09:21:09 pm

I can see how publishing a chapter at a time would start to feel like a grind pretty quickly. It's cool that you gave it a try.

I find that "I'm being lazy today" works very well. There is no argument against it!

Olga Godim link

5/4/2022 10:21:45 pm

I haven't tried writing serialized fiction, and I don't much care reading it either. You forget what happened before, when you read a snippet once a week. Even when I post my fiction free on wattpad I only do it after the story is completed, so I can post the entire story.

Rebecca Douglass link

5/5/2022 11:21:34 am

I'm with the anti-serial crowd. I'm pretty sure it's good to publish on a little more vigorous schedule than I'm managing, but agree that chapter by chapter makes too many announcements for your followers to get excited for you, and readers may not remember they were reading it, or what they read.

Larry Kollar link

5/14/2022 08:23:31 pm

OK, I’ll preface this by saying I’m the titular head of #TuesdaySerial.

I’ve written two pretty long (90+ episodes) stories on my blog, but that was like 10 years ago. The “binging” concept for TV shows may have leaked over to serial fiction… then again, we (the TS moderators) saw the need for writers to declare a story concluded, because some people wouldn’t read a story until they knew it had an actual end. Others would read from episode to episode, commenting along the way.

It’s important for readers to leave comments on serial stories; it really does (in my experience) give authors incentive to keep it going.

#IWSG Writing rocks...no, Writing blows

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