I serialized my gothic novel via Substack in honor of those historic greats! The project gained 5,000 newsletter subscribers and $16,000 in revenue. (Not quite Alexandre Dumas’ 10,000 subscribers and $64,000 per chapter that he received serializing The Count of Monte Cristo, but much better than plopping it on Amazon!!
I think the serial novel is the past and the future of the novel. And subscriptions are a much better way to monetize fiction than unit sales. Especially if the reading size is small! (Dumas wouldn’t have made nearly as much selling 10,000 copies!)
I think Wattpad is evidence that trend will continue. Even Amazon started a serial fiction branch with Amazon Kindle Vella to compete. But yes, that means authors will have to get over the dream that they can write and let someone else market. We have to be entrepreneurial with our craft just as Dickens was!
Text based adventure games with greater depth are going to become possible very soon, it’s just about who is going to see the potential for how to market and publish one to a mainstream audience.
“Choose your own adventure” narratives are coming back to the mainstream in general (see Netflix’s “Bandersnatch” for an example), but even in that presumably big budget production, some of the choices felt superficial and surface level.
Video games of other kinds often have branching and complex choice based narratives. The Star Wars KOTOR games were a great example. But creating a video game is expensive and resource intensive in other areas besides the writing process, drawing emphasis away from that side of things.
But the tools to create such narratives are evolving. Twine is great, for one. I’ve long thought that if sizeable resources were put into the story element of a text-based game (like a large, well paid writer’s room), that sort of medium could evolve from a sort of curiosity as it exists now to a more respected and widespread art form, similar to how video games have evolved over the last couple decades.
First we need the appropriate consumption/publishing medium for this kind of production. I’m not sure how or what that will be, but I don’t think Kindle is quite it.
I serialized my gothic novel via Substack in honor of those historic greats! The project gained 5,000 newsletter subscribers and $16,000 in revenue. (Not quite Alexandre Dumas’ 10,000 subscribers and $64,000 per chapter that he received serializing The Count of Monte Cristo, but much better than plopping it on Amazon!!
https://ellegriffin.substack.com/s/obscurity
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I think the serial novel is the past and the future of the novel. And subscriptions are a much better way to monetize fiction than unit sales. Especially if the reading size is small! (Dumas wouldn’t have made nearly as much selling 10,000 copies!)
I think Wattpad is evidence that trend will continue. Even Amazon started a serial fiction branch with Amazon Kindle Vella to compete. But yes, that means authors will have to get over the dream that they can write and let someone else market. We have to be entrepreneurial with our craft just as Dickens was!
I think many books could be converted into the 'adventure game' format, and would appeal to a new generation of reader :)
Check out Choice of Games… putting out some amazing stuff
Text based adventure games with greater depth are going to become possible very soon, it’s just about who is going to see the potential for how to market and publish one to a mainstream audience.
“Choose your own adventure” narratives are coming back to the mainstream in general (see Netflix’s “Bandersnatch” for an example), but even in that presumably big budget production, some of the choices felt superficial and surface level.
Video games of other kinds often have branching and complex choice based narratives. The Star Wars KOTOR games were a great example. But creating a video game is expensive and resource intensive in other areas besides the writing process, drawing emphasis away from that side of things.
But the tools to create such narratives are evolving. Twine is great, for one. I’ve long thought that if sizeable resources were put into the story element of a text-based game (like a large, well paid writer’s room), that sort of medium could evolve from a sort of curiosity as it exists now to a more respected and widespread art form, similar to how video games have evolved over the last couple decades.
First we need the appropriate consumption/publishing medium for this kind of production. I’m not sure how or what that will be, but I don’t think Kindle is quite it.
Great article!