What to make of Kindle Serials?

[jtdolphins]

If it doesn't have to be finished, then no.

I have had way to many indie comic books abruptly ended. I understand life gets in the way. It happens. With comics you can't really work much farther ahead than 4 issues due to the money needed. A serial should be done before submission.

The price seems a bit low for the authors too.

I don't see Amazon doing any vetting on these books. They still can't seem to fix the Dune ebook.

[maxiart]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

I'm not interested, because I hate serials - by the time the next installment is out, I've forgotten what happened in the first installment and may have forgotten about the book altogether.

I suppose you read your books quite fast then !

As for me, I don't really like serials, but for a different reason altogether. If a book turns out to be good, I want to be able to continue reading to my heart's desire. Not being able to do that would just be too frustrating...

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

especially if Amazon does some quality control vetting for grammar, spelling, and formatting.

Not very likely at a $1.99 price point.

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

It cold be a good way to market books that have been completed and develop a following.

The first part would need to be free to do that. You're more likely to see people use it as a testing board for things they're not sure if it's going to be worth their while writing or not. I can see a lot of them being abandoned if they don't attract enough readers.

[BeccaPrice]

Originally Posted by maxiart

I suppose you read your books quite fast then !
.

I do usually finish a book within a day or two, yes.

[Hellmark]

It could be kinda good in a way. Used to be that many authors got their starts writing short stories or serials in various magazines. Problem is, part of the lure of doing it that way is that it brought the attention of the reader to the author. On a separate serial, the author has to find some way to get people to buy their work on their own. For an unknown, that may be difficult. However, the low price, would help people not be so worried. If they take a gamble, and don't like the work, they are only out two bucks.

[fjtorres]

There are several narrative techniques and structures that lend themselves to serialization and in some of them the weekly delivery would add value. Diaries and journals--perhaps mapped to publication dates--and correspondence exchanges are a few that come to mind.
One possible draw for writers is that there never will be a lot of serials even at Amazon.
It might help in visibility terms if they can adapt to the format.
And, Dickens aside, there won't be much competition from the backlist.

[Crowl]

The only way I could see these interesting me is if you got part1 for free and then I got dragged into it, but these days a lot of amazons sales are basically doing the same thing by offering book 1 of a complete series for cheap anyway.