Serial fiction is a new idea to me. My first impression is that you should absolutely finish the work then make it a serial. Releasing episodes without being truly 'done' is what took the kneecaps out of the Life is Strange video games.
I mean, it worked well for stories like worm. He had over a million readers for the ending and that novel is very clearly and extremely long and bloated first draft. I think the key was writing per chapter was fine for a weekly audience, and posting so consistently meant people built the habit of tuning in every week and people around them noticed and joined in. Not that worm isn’t an obvious exception in terms of popularity, but the serialized format used to be common for novels, and lots of people love it for its chaotic “what’s going to happen next week” charm that things like old manga and anime had. It’s not meant to be read all at once so the overall editing isn’t as important.
I'm currently writing a serial on Kindle Vella and personally think it's a great way for writers to create their lanes and own it! Especially newbie authors. Writers need to come to the platform hungry and willing to put the work in. As far as the marketing goes (which has been many of the complaints about Kindle Vella these days) authors can't expect Amazon to go out and bring them readers. Each author has an obligation to find their readership and get them hooked enough to return each week (or day). If authors aren't willing to do that AND be consistent, then any serialized platform will not be a fit. Overall, KV is an excellent starting point into the publishing world and awesome for building a catalog!
For those of us who constantly debate whether traditional publishing vs self publishing is the way to go, it is my opinion that serial fiction just might be the middle way between those two aforementioned and more commonly used routes to get your stories out there. To think of it another way, as Jason mentions in his presentation, most of the top selling classic novels ever written were originally written as serial fiction. Today most traditional publishers don’t publish works for up and coming authors in excess of 350-400 pages long, and the truth is neither did literary magazines, or local newspapers either. It was only after the overwhelming success of works like Les Miserables, War and Peace, and the Count of Monte Cristo written in serial form and later compiled into novel form made into the mainstream that serialized fiction writing became a hit and made sense for the writer to get into.
Ive never heard of kindle vellum. I started writing serial fiction and putting them on my site. I’m also going to be getting Scrivener. I have to keep watching your tutorials to learn how to use it. Thank you for the information!
Thank you for the video. I have always been a fan of serial fiction. When I choose to produce one it will be on my personal website or another site like Radish. I don't think I would do Kindle Vella, I don't think Amazon is giving it the promotion push it should have.
Serialized fiction is a billion dollar business. Dreame and Good Novel, the two biggest in the market, make 2 to 3 million each a month. They don't really pay their writers that well, and they can have contracts that try to take your complete author future away, literally requiring you to only write for them and they own your pen name. But that's a rant for another time. The important thing is they exist, the market is huge, and hopefully Vella will free us from the insanity of the contracts.
RUclips super hates me, it keeps deleting so I'll try to separate this. The top 25 genres in Kindle Vella right now are Romance, Paranormal Romance, and Fantasy. YA and Sci Fi each have one spot, Erotica actually is beating them by having 2 spots up there.
The idea 'spot' for an episode is about 1k words. It's not too expensive a reader won't keep paying, and it's enough for you as the writer to paint out a scene in the book, and every scene should have something happening that works towards the big picture anyway. The biggest difference between serialized writing and novels is you want them to keep reading, so you leave something at the end to make them do so. A cliff hanger, something unexpected said, a mic drop moment etc.
I tried doing that for a Couple of Websites the First Just Refuses to Upload it on to their Website No Matter how much 'Fixes' and 'Alterations' that I try to make to that story they still Refused to Upload it. And it even contacted them to ask them what 'Policy' that I have Violated, and let's just say they where Less then Helpful. And Not only that but also along the way I was Being Carful by keeping their Policies in mind. Then Eventually got to the Point where I just simply Gave up. Then for the Second Website I was Successfully able to Upload the Same Story and not only that I got a Few Positive Feed Backs on only that story but other stories as well from others online. But Sadly they Took their Story Section Out of their Website for what ever the Reason Since.
I have over 140 solid ideas, over 120 of them are Trilogy possibilities. What are your thoughts on serializing 5-10 of these ideas at a time, and publishing to KVella daily or every other day? Your thoughts?
I'm dabbling in Serial Fiction and have run into an odd question that I can't seem to find an answer for. Do you know if there is ISBN's or something similar for serialized fiction, before it is published as a full novel later? I worry that publishing this way can lead to issues if anyone decided they wanted to steal your work, I don't see a lot about keeping your IP protected. for instance if someone copies your work, buys and ISBN and tries to publish it as a novel while you're still in the Vella stage, what can be done about it. I'm still very much planning on publishing a serial, just want to know more.
You can only buy an isbn when you’re ready to publish. I doubt that anyone who steals your work would put an isbn on it. Way too expensive. You can register your copyright with the US government for the work collectively. That would be a better option.
@@AuthorLevelUp ok. That makes sense. But before the work is fully finished being released/written in the case of something serialized is there any way you know of to get that extra level of protection? Not that I actually think anyone would want to steal my work, but it is something that could be important to others. Sorry, these are kind of rambling thoughts while I'm doing research. I know just having dated copies of any work is already a good step towards protecting IPs.
@@wylanvallotton4462Maybe it’s best to write the entire story upfront, copyright it and then just release episodes serially. That way if anyone stole any one or multiple episodes, you’ve already covered it under the copyright of the completed version of your story? Then I guess you could put the copyright verbiage on each episode you publish to further discourage that foolishness. It’s a shame to have to guard against that…but I get your concern.
I’ve written a novel of historical fiction set in the Civil War era. It’s about a woman who lived in DC who became a sculptor in her teens, so it has the YA appeal for that. I’ve been pondering using this platform, though I suspect fantasy and romance are the most successful so far. I opened one author’s first free chapter and was appalled at paragraphs that had not had the slightest hand of proofreading. That doesn’t help the platform at all. I’m still not sure that it’s right for me, but I’m doing one final edit with the copy 39 characters wide to emulate reading on a phone.
Hey Carolyn, I am currently writing on the Vella platform. You don't need to format the width, the software will automatically do that for you. Don't indent, but do double space between paragraphs. It's very easy to load and there is a preview function.
There are authors all over the world. Good authors. Exciting stories. But Amazon has limited the Vella to only those writers living in the US. With 7 billion people in the world, you would think they would want to extend the feature to all countries. Extremely egocentric and limiting to artists.
Serial fiction is a new idea to me.
My first impression is that you should absolutely finish the work then make it a serial. Releasing episodes without being truly 'done' is what took the kneecaps out of the Life is Strange video games.
I mean, it worked well for stories like worm. He had over a million readers for the ending and that novel is very clearly and extremely long and bloated first draft. I think the key was writing per chapter was fine for a weekly audience, and posting so consistently meant people built the habit of tuning in every week and people around them noticed and joined in. Not that worm isn’t an obvious exception in terms of popularity, but the serialized format used to be common for novels, and lots of people love it for its chaotic “what’s going to happen next week” charm that things like old manga and anime had. It’s not meant to be read all at once so the overall editing isn’t as important.
I'm currently writing a serial on Kindle Vella and personally think it's a great way for writers to create their lanes and own it! Especially newbie authors. Writers need to come to the platform hungry and willing to put the work in. As far as the marketing goes (which has been many of the complaints about Kindle Vella these days) authors can't expect Amazon to go out and bring them readers. Each author has an obligation to find their readership and get them hooked enough to return each week (or day). If authors aren't willing to do that AND be consistent, then any serialized platform will not be a fit. Overall, KV is an excellent starting point into the publishing world and awesome for building a catalog!
What's your series called/about? I just started reading on Vella and would love to give your series a shot. :)
You make a lot of sense! I was getting ideas during Jason's talk. I like it.
For those of us who constantly debate whether traditional publishing vs self publishing is the way to go, it is my opinion that serial fiction just might be the middle way between those two aforementioned and more commonly used routes to get your stories out there.
To think of it another way, as Jason mentions in his presentation, most of the top selling classic novels ever written were originally written as serial fiction. Today most traditional publishers don’t publish works for up and coming authors in excess of 350-400 pages long, and the truth is neither did literary magazines, or local newspapers either. It was only after the overwhelming success of works like Les Miserables, War and Peace, and the Count of Monte Cristo written in serial form and later compiled into novel form made into the mainstream that serialized fiction writing became a hit and made sense for the writer to get into.
Ive never heard of kindle vellum. I started writing serial fiction and putting them on my site. I’m also going to be getting Scrivener. I have to keep watching your tutorials to learn how to use it. Thank you for the information!
I've been very curious about Vella so thank you for clarifying.
Excellent video. A friend of mine always talks about why he prefers to read serialized fiction. I'm going to give it a go. Thanks!
Thank you for the video. I have always been a fan of serial fiction. When I choose to produce one it will be on my personal website or another site like Radish. I don't think I would do Kindle Vella, I don't think Amazon is giving it the promotion push it should have.
Thank you for covering this topic. Much food for thought here.
Thank you, Michael!
very informative video on Serial Fiction, and I'm very interested in Amazon Vella thank you !
I love this. Its so exciting and such an interesting topic. Saving this. the dedication though omg.
I'm thinking of making my space opera/superhero series into a serial like the old bronze age comics I like to read.
Serialized fiction is a billion dollar business. Dreame and Good Novel, the two biggest in the market, make 2 to 3 million each a month. They don't really pay their writers that well, and they can have contracts that try to take your complete author future away, literally requiring you to only write for them and they own your pen name. But that's a rant for another time. The important thing is they exist, the market is huge, and hopefully Vella will free us from the insanity of the contracts.
RUclips super hates me, it keeps deleting so I'll try to separate this.
The top 25 genres in Kindle Vella right now are Romance, Paranormal Romance, and Fantasy. YA and Sci Fi each have one spot, Erotica actually is beating them by having 2 spots up there.
The idea 'spot' for an episode is about 1k words. It's not too expensive a reader won't keep paying, and it's enough for you as the writer to paint out a scene in the book, and every scene should have something happening that works towards the big picture anyway. The biggest difference between serialized writing and novels is you want them to keep reading, so you leave something at the end to make them do so. A cliff hanger, something unexpected said, a mic drop moment etc.
I tried doing that for a Couple of Websites the First Just Refuses to Upload it on to their Website No Matter how much 'Fixes' and 'Alterations' that I try to make to that story they still Refused to Upload it. And it even contacted them to ask them what 'Policy' that I have Violated, and let's just say they where Less then Helpful. And Not only that but also along the way I was Being Carful by keeping their Policies in mind. Then Eventually got to the Point where I just simply Gave up. Then for the Second Website I was Successfully able to Upload the Same Story and not only that I got a Few Positive Feed Backs on only that story but other stories as well from others online. But Sadly they Took their Story Section Out of their Website for what ever the Reason Since.
I have over 140 solid ideas, over 120
of them are Trilogy possibilities. What are your thoughts on serializing 5-10 of these ideas at a time, and publishing to KVella daily or every other day? Your thoughts?
Kindle Vella has one major downside: US only
I'm dabbling in Serial Fiction and have run into an odd question that I can't seem to find an answer for. Do you know if there is ISBN's or something similar for serialized fiction, before it is published as a full novel later? I worry that publishing this way can lead to issues if anyone decided they wanted to steal your work, I don't see a lot about keeping your IP protected. for instance if someone copies your work, buys and ISBN and tries to publish it as a novel while you're still in the Vella stage, what can be done about it. I'm still very much planning on publishing a serial, just want to know more.
You can only buy an isbn when you’re ready to publish. I doubt that anyone who steals your work would put an isbn on it. Way too expensive.
You can register your copyright with the US government for the work collectively. That would be a better option.
@@AuthorLevelUp ok. That makes sense. But before the work is fully finished being released/written in the case of something serialized is there any way you know of to get that extra level of protection? Not that I actually think anyone would want to steal my work, but it is something that could be important to others. Sorry, these are kind of rambling thoughts while I'm doing research. I know just having dated copies of any work is already a good step towards protecting IPs.
Not really. Remember that your work is protected the moment you write it. Watch my series on copyright if you haven’t seen it already.
@@AuthorLevelUp I have seen it, but I'm definitely going to rewatch it today. Thank you again for all your help and teachings.
@@wylanvallotton4462Maybe it’s best to write the entire story upfront, copyright it and then just release episodes serially. That way if anyone stole any one or multiple episodes, you’ve already covered it under the copyright of the completed version of your story?
Then I guess you could put the copyright verbiage on each episode you publish to further discourage that foolishness. It’s a shame to have to guard against that…but I get your concern.
I’ve written a novel of historical fiction set in the Civil War era. It’s about a woman who lived in DC who became a sculptor in her teens, so it has the YA appeal for that. I’ve been pondering using this platform, though I suspect fantasy and romance are the most successful so far. I opened one author’s first free chapter and was appalled at paragraphs that had not had the slightest hand of proofreading. That doesn’t help the platform at all. I’m still not sure that it’s right for me, but I’m doing one final edit with the copy 39 characters wide to emulate reading on a phone.
Hey Carolyn, I am currently writing on the Vella platform. You don't need to format the width, the software will automatically do that for you. Don't indent, but do double space between paragraphs. It's very easy to load and there is a preview function.
I just wish Vella were available to Canadian authors...
Aren't these just Apple/Mac?
i enjoyed my kindle before i got robbed last week...
There are authors all over the world. Good authors. Exciting stories. But Amazon has limited the Vella to only those writers living in the US. With 7 billion people in the world, you would think they would want to extend the feature to all countries. Extremely egocentric and limiting to artists.
I believe this is a temporary situation while they roll out the new feature or service.
If a place like Radish doesn’t want an author to publish elsewhere, PAY UP.
In cold blood is about my moms childhood friendsfamily getting murdered