11-11-2021, 09:09 PM | #301 |
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@AngryD: The problem with your argument, is that there are already people doing exactly what you say will not work. There are a plenty of sites out there that are publishing stories one chapter at a time. And some of these are for very long running stories. Some are free, some charge a membership fee, and I believe some charge by the chapter in some mechanism.
The quality is there. Or at least the mix of qualities is no different than the mix of quality of more traditionally published ebooks. So dismissing them a "BLOGGERS" is a disservice. Many are well planned with the authors writing chapters well ahead of time to make ensure they have continuity in the story and help them with the frequency of publishing. Sure, some are off-the-cuff things that should never see the light of day. But, that's the same with plenty of more traditionally published books. Serial fiction has been around for a long time in different forms. This is just another version. whether if works or fails is more to do with how Amazon handles it. That includes how they charge for it, and pay the authors. And how good the stories published through it are. |
11-12-2021, 06:49 AM | #302 | |
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11-12-2021, 09:06 AM | #303 |
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I don’t think that the concept is terrible. If a favorite author was to publish on this platform I would use it. But it seems expensive to me to read unknown authors.
The rollout is going extremely slowly. It is still not available outside of the US or on the Kindle for Android app. It looks like Android support is being worked on along with the ability to purchase tokens through the Google Play store. |
11-12-2021, 10:22 AM | #304 |
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I do want to mention that I believe you may have the payment incorrect. The Vellans (as I call them) on the KDP forums seem very pleasantly shocked with their earnings based on their reads. I freely admit no first-hand familiarity, but there have been naught but happy faces in the KDP subforum about payment amounts.
Offered FWIW. Hitch |
11-12-2021, 01:25 PM | #305 | |||||
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For the record, I read about a dozen articles on this before I posted in reply. Not one "author" who was positive about it was previously published as a novelist, or even well known. One of my all time favorite shows is Red vs Blue. Even the developers of that web series, such as Bernie Burns, state outright that when they stopped trying to make one show every week and just "stay ahead of the audience" and started writing entire seasons as one larger arc, quality improved and so did sales. (My dogs are named Caboose and Doc after two characters from that show.) We already live in a world where tradpubs would rather take Stephen King's WORST book than the best fiction written by a total unknown, because King's name sells. Trying to compete at a 50 cents per CHAPTER price point from Rando Calrissian when I can get an entire complete novel from King for $4.99 on the same electronic reader is not going to be marketable in the long run. The rollout was dismal, and sales are already suffering-- and I should point out that this is the "back to school period" where people buy tons of books. EBook sales typically RISE in August through January as people (students) get back into reading and give gifts to one another for the holidays. (We had this discussion in another thread.) For this type of fiction to be seeing a sales decline at this time of year is a sign of its lack of long term profitability. Quote:
As a consumer, this means 90% of the products I buy are not going to be properly ended. This is frustrating, and it is in direct competition with every full season of "American Horror Story", the upcoming release of "HALO 6", and every other fully-completed entertainment release. Quote:
Dostoyevsky would have clawed out his own eyes. I refunded the book and removed it in less than an hour. Amazon was compliant and helpful. However, when the serial novel you've been reading that updates one chapter per month has missed six updates because the author didn't get round to completing it... will Amazon refund your money for the three chapters you already own, six months after purchase? This is called "reflected value." An ebook reader is useless without ebooks. A firearm is an unwieldy club without ammunition. The best gaming system on the market is worthless unless developers create quality games to go with it. (Looking at you, Sony PSP Vita.) I maintain-- and while I'm willing to be proven wrong, I'm not going to be, because I'm right-- that the reflected value of serial fiction isn't there, so consumers will be reluctant to spend money on it, so authors won't want to keep doing it (other than a few folks trying it for novelty or artistic reasons) and the program is going to end up being worthless. Quote:
I'd like to further point out that I am an author myself, with two published nonfiction books and six fiction novels currently in production (One is nearly complete, the sequel is outlined, and four others are outlined or in various notes.) The current standard for authoring software is Literature and Latte's Scrivener. (Incidentally, if anyone wants to plan out a novel and needs a good Scrivener template, please contact me. I have a fiction template I've designed that combines the 7-Step outlining method with the Snowflake method. I am happy to share it.) Not one author in the Scrivener forums is discussing Vella or is even interested in the delivery method. While this is, of course, an informal poll and at best anecdotal, it does provide evidence that the most common author organization tool on the web is NOT being used in significant numbers by anyone writing serialized fiction. Let me say that in a less confusing manner: Scrivener is a tool for organizing a novel. It is a such a good tool that it is the most widespread and taught tool currently used, and is as much an authoring standard as Final Draft is for screenplays-- but no one seems to be using it to write serialized fiction. I can extrapolate from there that it is unlikely that the majority of serial writers are using ANYTHING to plan out their novels, and are chapter writing. As an author myself, I need to make it clear that you can NOT write a book that way. In my current, martial arts fiction novel (which I will be making available for free to all Calibre users once it is finished), I have moved one critical scene nine times because it HAS to happen, but WHEN it happens is almost as critical. When you chapter write, you can't do that. Hell, "Lost" was more or less a failure at the end because people had stopped watching because every episode ended with either another damn mystery or another damn cliffhanger. It became obvious that the writers and editors had no idea where they wanted to go. Look at the extensive criticism of the "Star Wars" sequels for not having a coherent plan across just three installments. Now magnify that across EVERY installment of a serial novel. Quote:
Here is a quick reference of some classic serialized novels. Note that every author on this page had published at least one, and in some cases a large number, of traditional works prior to serially publishing the work listed here. Dumas, for example, had written seven books before "The Count of Monte Cristo." Verne had written twelve before "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." But those works were both published in a time when newspapers were cheap (and carried the serial stories), and books were EXPENSIVE. Few of them competed with television or radio. None of the ones on the list competed with video games and interactive fiction of that nature (Not even "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.") for sales. At the time most of those works were published, they were mostly competing with each OTHER and those lesser works we no longer remember. In today's market, not only are serial writers competing with one another, but also with every single blockbuster movie, every completed work that can be delivered to the same reading device for just slightly more (It's not even a fair fight: pay 50 cents for one chapter or 99 cents for an entire book.), every video game (Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Anniversary Edition was released yesterday. Two of my coworkers took vacation for today just for that reason.), and every Netflix show released as an ENTIRE SEASON. (Witcher Season two comes out December 17th!) I posit that ONE OR TWO already known authors will be able to make this work FOR ONE OR TWO PIECES of their writing. Stephen King has already said he hated the serial format when he released "The Green Mile", and won't likely return to the delivery method. Piers Anthony hasn't commented much on his serial releases, which is odd because he's damned mouthy, but I don't see him coming back. Let's also not forget that any author writing a SERIES, such as Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" is already writing serial fiction. The best place to start reading the Harry Dresden books is the first one (Just power through the early installment weirdness until you get to book 4.) It serves little purpose to take a SERIES of novels like the "Belgariad", by David Eddings, which was written as one book and chopped into five, and chop it further into TEN books, just to serialize it. We expect each installement in a series of novels to be 50,000 to 90,000 words. Much more than that and we wonder why it's not its own series. Much less and we feel it should be a novella and included perhaps in an anthology, such as King's "Four Seasons" that included "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" as a 38,000 word novella. So authors already writing a series of novels are unlikely to further break down their works into smaller pieces. Serial fiction works best for ONE story, such as the Flash Gordon shorts of the 1930s and 1940s. (Even those releases are called "Chapters" and are now released as one giant work. Ultimately, the odds are significantly stacked against this format both as a consistent money maker for Amazon and as a method of delivering quality stories and content. Last edited by AngryD; 11-12-2021 at 01:27 PM. |
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11-13-2021, 02:37 AM | #306 |
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@AngryD: I nearly didn't reply because, honestly, I think you made my point better than I could. Serial fiction can work, and you agree with me. I mean, you gave examples that are still with us well over one hundred years later. And you gave examples that demonstrate there is crap books/stories no matter how they are published. Plus, you even told us how these authors can be successful (planning). And while the authors you are talking to aren't interested, there will be some who are. It probably will appeal more to new authors who don't have a current outlet. And there will be a lot of crap. And unfinished stores. But, there will also be some good amongst it. And stories that some authors keeps going for years.
Personally, I won't be surprised if a serial publishing site or app takes off. I think it's more a matter of when not if. I doubt it will ever reach the levels of Netflix, but, there traditionally has been demand and someone will eventually come up with a way to meet it. Whether it is Vella, will probably be down to how Amazon handle it. |
11-13-2021, 06:48 PM | #307 | |
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Some people preferred New Coke to Classic, too. It was still a financial and marketing failure. There's always one or two weirdos out there that are the exception to the rule, but when we're talking about commercial success, depending on one out of every ten writers to successfully leap into authorhood is production suicide. We have a small subset of fiction that will be well-done, engaging a tiny subset of the Kindle owning public, which is itself a subset of the eBook reader owning population, which is a marginal part of the book reading consumer population... these are not good odds for commercial viability. Bookselling is ultimately a business. When, not if, the largest bookseller in the world can't make serialized print fiction work profitably, a few tiny websites on which 90% of the content is abandoned after a few months most likely won't be a factor. I mean, to be perfectly frank, those sites have existed for years and yet serialized print is not sweeping the world by storm. As I stated, sales are already flagging on the world's largest print retailer. Vella is on life support and it's not even a year old-- a year in which a fabricated pandemic meant Americans consumed more electronic entertainment media than in the last five years COMBINED. So... shrug. I made my points. Serialized print isn't going to completely disappear. There are going to be blogging sites as long as there are high school kids listening to "Cure" albums, Moms sharing their meatloaf recipes, and morons blaming the MMR vaccine for their son's ADD. Someone will write a serialized print story. Someone else will read it. Someone might even pay for it. But it won't be me. And I honestly don't think it's going to be the majority of the eBook-reading population. I look forward to being proven wrong, but when we look back on this in five years, Amazon still won't have a damn clue how to organize eBooks on a Kindle, and electronic print serial fiction will be mostly a memory. It'll be interesting to look back in a few years and see. |
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11-14-2021, 09:57 PM | #308 |
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@AngryD, I do enjoy a good rant sometimes and have been enjoying yours (though let's avoid the 'fabricated pandemic' talk).
Anyway, I saw this on YouTube. An author talking about his firsthand experience with Vella. He is balanced, but I don't think he's impressed with it. (Note: I am not familiar with Michael Robertson and have never read any of his work, nor am I likely to. But he does give a good perspective.) |
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