Paid Subscriptions
This coming July will be my anniversary here on Substack. In anticipation, I plan to activate Paid Subscriptions at the start of July. Substack lets me set those at whatever dollar value I want as long as it’s at least $5/month, and as I currently read a whole lot more writing on someone else’s Patreon for their lesser limit of $3/month (but with their worse format), I plan to set it as low as I can. As for what is offered: this is mostly just a way to make it easier if you want to support me. Substack offers the ability to paywall individual chats, so I’ll make at least one for this, but I don’t know about any particular topic that would be desirable. Let me know what you want to use it for! (Possible idea: Q&A with my characters?)
Why paid subscriptions? Because I feel like my writing is at least sort of worth it, and this gives a way for people to tell me whether that’s actually the case a little more directly than Substack’s “Pledge” system.
Serialization
I’ve always liked reading serialized fiction. Most of that comes in the form of webcomics, but in addition to the Patreon mentioned above, I’ve been reading a massive fanfiction that works the same way (but is free). And on top of that, this isn’t even the first time I’ve done serialization! The first was much more heavily influenced by the fiction I was reading at the time and was, of course, a fanfiction itself. I didn’t finish because I’d never really wanted to write fanfiction anyway, and as soon as I came up with a “real story,” in my opinion, I started that one. That story became my first complete book, a topic I’ve spoken about a few times.
As for publishing, well…
As I’ve come to expect as typical from reading quite a few things online, my experience with getting a publisher has been far less than successful. The feedback is all along the lines of “I like it but it’s not right for me at this time,” too, which isn’t very helpful if I want to improve. Granted, it’s my first book and I’m not exactly a popular guy.
I’ve thought a lot about self-publishing as well. However, I haven’t exactly enjoyed success at gathering attention even with other people’s help, so I’m expecting two-digit sales if I self-publish immediately, which is not a good return on putting in the effort to get a professional edit and cover done, even with print-on-demand services. What I did not expect when I started sending query letters, however, is that it’s actually possible to first publish a work online and then get some professional publishing done. I knew about Kickstarters for polished self-publishing. I even have a comic from one of those. But apparently even the non-self-publishing houses will re-publish something that’s been online. I’m not saying I expect that much success in my endeavor, but I also will get much better feedback on whether someone actually wants to read what I write, and whether they want it in a hardcopy format.
And so, in July, I will also start up a serialization version of that finished book.
What I expect
I’m telling you up-front that this is a finished book. It’s done. There will be no risk of me retconning stuff or wanting to go back and edit something critical. I will be retyping it just to do one last edit check before it goes live, but I’ve had one person read the whole thing for edits already so it shouldn’t be terrible. The book is already in chapters that are probably appropriately sized to just post here one at a time. Some edits I can anticipate: a) proofreading that I somehow missed even after four passes, b) this is middle grade and if I’m confusing adults on here then maybe I need to explain better.
As an added bonus, I’ll be doing a voiceover of the whole book. It’s just me reading it like any of the other posts I’ve done that for, so please don’t expect me to actually match the narrator’s pitch. She’s a little girl and I sing bass. If/when I publish a full audiobook, I’ll get a woman to read it, but me reading it is free.
What I expect from readers is that I will actually have some at some point in posting the serial. My beta readers were family and coworkers, which isn’t exactly a good measure on how much random people that I don’t know will actually enjoy my writing. I hope I’ll get some comments beyond “First!” Maybe, just maybe, someone will like my writing enough to support me financially. Getting comments would be pretty great already, though.
Something that I’ve spoken about on this blog as well, however, is that I am working on a sequel. I’ve also mentioned it’s been extremely slow-going. Part of that is a very low motivation level. I do want to finish eventually, but with nobody reading the first part… I haven’t gotten the motivation to bother writing the second part. I think it’s great in my plan in my head, but then it comes to putting words on the page and, well, the book just sits in my bag, the majority of the pages remaining blank. I think that actually having not-family/friends people read the first one will help immensely. After all, I’ve been posting to this newsletter weekly for almost a year, and I even came up with a second setting to use while I thought that I couldn’t re-publish for some reason. (And I’ve been pretty consistent with streaming on Twitch for a longer period.)
In summary, I expect that I’ll be able to:
Find people who actually want to read my long-form fiction
Interact with some of those people
Actually finish the full story
One last thing…
The story that I wrote is not split for word count, but for theming and plot reasons. The first part is middle-grade fantasy and very short for any fantasy that’s not middle grade. The second part will probably be longer, and it’s also aimed at a more mature audience, partially because the narrator herself is older. But this post is about the first book.
So, as a teaser for what’s coming, here’s a title and a blurb (I tried to prep a cover, but the artist fell through. I’ll have one before launch!):
What’s a Dragon?
In a world of misunderstanding, knowing is the worst. Emilie Gaschler is a normal girl in a world of magic: one with magic-powered technology and regular attacks from wild monsters. She’s just a normal schoolgirl attending an average middle school, with little about her to stand out in any way. That is, until she learns how things really are. Along with the knowledge of what she is, Emilie is given the option of the easy road to throw away her upbringing and join those who came before—but the road she takes is much more difficult, and much more deadly.