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!
And I think we're going to see more and more of this, because it's all about discoverability, and how readers find your work.
Amazon used to be an innovative, emerging tech back in 2012 when self-publishing was still considered philistine. That's old news now. Maybe Substack will be the future of reading novels. It certainly worked for you!
I agree! Amazon may be old news, but I think we’re just waiting to see who can surpass them. But with innovations in how people are reading, it will happen!
It seems intriguing doesn't it? Science Fiction and Fantasy for an older crowd makes most sense, since kids don't have as much internet or mobile device access.
Ah, I just looked them up and found them. I have played it! It was really fun and well done. What do you think makes it work so well? The writing, the choices, or something else?
All the stories are written by different authors, so the quality varies greatly from story to story(as with traditional books). However, the one commonality between all the stories is the freedom of choice. The ability to 1. Create different outcomes within the same story and 2. Actually choose what the main character does is very unique. (Also this is JP 🤘)
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.
Clancy, great insights! I agree 100% that it won't happen on Kindle. I think it could happen on browsers or on a mobile app.
I'm going to go look up Star Wars KOTOR now. I think you're right too about needing to invest good writing. I know that Episode and Choices mobile apps are killing it as far as number of users, but that's more targeted to the teen girl romance audience. It's not my kind of content, but doing something in the fantasy or SF genre would be really interesting.
Do you think it needs visuals? Or can people get lost in the green-text-on-black-screen?
Check out Twine, if you aren’t familiar with it. And some Twine-based “games” of interactive fiction. It allows you to create choice-based story adventures/games and exports the finished product as HTML pages. In that format you can pretty much make it what you want - pictures, no pictures, green/black/blue text, possibilities are endless (although it does take some web dev know-how).
The problem is deliverability.
As you said, there are some “dating game” apps out there that are sort of similar, but the web pages that Twine creates are at the moment exactly that - webpages. They can be exported to be traditional desktop “games”, but not easily exported to an app.
I think for an adventure like the example you provided, green-on-black text is part of the charm and “retro” sort of adventure feel of it and is just fine :)
Great insight! Okay, I'll check out Twine. That almost sounds exactly like what I wanted to create. So this is worth looking into. Maybe it's the solution I'm looking for!
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 like to see those numbers! Very fascinating. I'm glad to hear that your gothic novel was a success.
And I think we're going to see more and more of this, because it's all about discoverability, and how readers find your work.
Amazon used to be an innovative, emerging tech back in 2012 when self-publishing was still considered philistine. That's old news now. Maybe Substack will be the future of reading novels. It certainly worked for you!
I agree! Amazon may be old news, but I think we’re just waiting to see who can surpass them. But with innovations in how people are reading, it will happen!
I think many books could be converted into the 'adventure game' format, and would appeal to a new generation of reader :)
It seems intriguing doesn't it? Science Fiction and Fantasy for an older crowd makes most sense, since kids don't have as much internet or mobile device access.
Check out Choice of Games… putting out some amazing stuff
Ah, I just looked them up and found them. I have played it! It was really fun and well done. What do you think makes it work so well? The writing, the choices, or something else?
All the stories are written by different authors, so the quality varies greatly from story to story(as with traditional books). However, the one commonality between all the stories is the freedom of choice. The ability to 1. Create different outcomes within the same story and 2. Actually choose what the main character does is very unique. (Also this is JP 🤘)
Cool! I will. Is that a mobile app? It's not Choices, right? Something different?
It does have a mobile app, yes. And it is not choices. I recommend swamp castle, it’s free and gives a basic overview of what those stories look like
I played one of the fantasy ones sometime back. I'll look at Swamp Castle! Thanks for the recommendation. This is exactly why I love substack!
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!
Clancy, great insights! I agree 100% that it won't happen on Kindle. I think it could happen on browsers or on a mobile app.
I'm going to go look up Star Wars KOTOR now. I think you're right too about needing to invest good writing. I know that Episode and Choices mobile apps are killing it as far as number of users, but that's more targeted to the teen girl romance audience. It's not my kind of content, but doing something in the fantasy or SF genre would be really interesting.
Do you think it needs visuals? Or can people get lost in the green-text-on-black-screen?
Check out Twine, if you aren’t familiar with it. And some Twine-based “games” of interactive fiction. It allows you to create choice-based story adventures/games and exports the finished product as HTML pages. In that format you can pretty much make it what you want - pictures, no pictures, green/black/blue text, possibilities are endless (although it does take some web dev know-how).
The problem is deliverability.
As you said, there are some “dating game” apps out there that are sort of similar, but the web pages that Twine creates are at the moment exactly that - webpages. They can be exported to be traditional desktop “games”, but not easily exported to an app.
I think for an adventure like the example you provided, green-on-black text is part of the charm and “retro” sort of adventure feel of it and is just fine :)
I found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twine_(software)
Great insight! Okay, I'll check out Twine. That almost sounds exactly like what I wanted to create. So this is worth looking into. Maybe it's the solution I'm looking for!