I agree its a good idea to promote the first chapter. Have you tried making a photo-gallery, one image per chapter? It will have an Instagram like feel to it, you can take relevant pictures from free sites like unsplash, pixpay, freepik, pexels, shotstash
I wrestled with the same question you did while writing my debrief post. It seems like the Royal Road-type reader who will binge a ton of chapters (or who come back and read a new chapter daily) is not yet on Substack.
I thought about offering portions of my book as an ebook to help people catch up (longer than the 7-chapter excerpt I use on BookFunnel) but the entire ebook is a benefit for paid subscribers only. I think I will take an idea from Mark and publish one of my short stories over several weeks as a break in between book 1 and book 2 and see if people react more to that.
Good stuff to think about. I have some thoughts on the marketing side... not sure if my ideas will be worth while but I have a plan for the next 4-6 months. I'm launching right now so we'll see. I'm still approaching this as a serious... hobby? Let's call it a side gig. This story has been something I needed to get out. And I don't really do hobbies. So, I'm hoping to make at least a few bucks a month. (Is a few hundred a stupid initial goal?) I've been reading up on platforms like Royal Road and some of these other approaches, like you just mentioned BookFunnel. How about the wacky NFT stuff and partnerships that Elle Griffin is talking about? Now that sounds like a lot of work and thought space to use up. But that's just me. I'm an amateur. A hobbyist. ;-)
Anyway, if anyone wants to chat about 'marketing' ideas I'm game.
Your writing tips always give me hope! I dream of someday ditching mailchimp altogether and migrating my longer blog to substack either as RSS feed from my website or a separate substack. Currently on substack I write a weekly 100-word micro blog/newsletter/essay, and I’m focusing on that for a while. Eventual plans may include <gasp> a serialized micro novel ‘stack. I have learned to a from you! Thank you so much.
I agree, serial fiction is a hard sell, slow growth pursuit. My short fiction is far more popular. Although I just published a three-part fiction story that was among my most popular newsletters. But I don’t do much non-fiction, so it is hard to compare them.
Dispatches from the serial frontier
I agree its a good idea to promote the first chapter. Have you tried making a photo-gallery, one image per chapter? It will have an Instagram like feel to it, you can take relevant pictures from free sites like unsplash, pixpay, freepik, pexels, shotstash
I wrestled with the same question you did while writing my debrief post. It seems like the Royal Road-type reader who will binge a ton of chapters (or who come back and read a new chapter daily) is not yet on Substack.
I thought about offering portions of my book as an ebook to help people catch up (longer than the 7-chapter excerpt I use on BookFunnel) but the entire ebook is a benefit for paid subscribers only. I think I will take an idea from Mark and publish one of my short stories over several weeks as a break in between book 1 and book 2 and see if people react more to that.
Good stuff to think about. I have some thoughts on the marketing side... not sure if my ideas will be worth while but I have a plan for the next 4-6 months. I'm launching right now so we'll see. I'm still approaching this as a serious... hobby? Let's call it a side gig. This story has been something I needed to get out. And I don't really do hobbies. So, I'm hoping to make at least a few bucks a month. (Is a few hundred a stupid initial goal?) I've been reading up on platforms like Royal Road and some of these other approaches, like you just mentioned BookFunnel. How about the wacky NFT stuff and partnerships that Elle Griffin is talking about? Now that sounds like a lot of work and thought space to use up. But that's just me. I'm an amateur. A hobbyist. ;-)
Anyway, if anyone wants to chat about 'marketing' ideas I'm game.
BookFunnel. Who knew?
Your writing tips always give me hope! I dream of someday ditching mailchimp altogether and migrating my longer blog to substack either as RSS feed from my website or a separate substack. Currently on substack I write a weekly 100-word micro blog/newsletter/essay, and I’m focusing on that for a while. Eventual plans may include <gasp> a serialized micro novel ‘stack. I have learned to a from you! Thank you so much.
I agree, serial fiction is a hard sell, slow growth pursuit. My short fiction is far more popular. Although I just published a three-part fiction story that was among my most popular newsletters. But I don’t do much non-fiction, so it is hard to compare them.