I like to read on my own timeline, not according to someone else's release dates. I even wait to start watching streaming TV shows until they drop all their episodes rather than watch each week if they choose to release them that way.
Good luck with your experiment, though! I knew exactly what your wind chimes were representing. I hope others enjoy A Footnote to Plato as much as I did (or more).
I hear you. That was part of what I was considering in bunching together several chapters (and my chapters are somewhat on the long side, at least relative to chapter lengths these days). I wouldn't expect people to follow a story for a super long period of time, although I guess some readers will get into that sort of thing.
I'm SO GLAD you got the wind chimes! Whoo hoo! I was beginning to think it was totally asinine for me to even imagine anyone would get the point of that. And thanks for reading my book and for your fantastic review. I really liked your description of it as mashup of Philip Roth, Jonathan Franzen, and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein—well triangulated, my friend. You managed to nail down plot, style, and theme like it was nothing, easy breezy. Seriously, I might have to consult with you next time I'm facing that horrible job of coming up with comps, if there is a next time, because I totally suck at it.
Ha ha, no problem. I can lend my philosopher's talent of bringing essences together. ; ) Actually, that ability has probably been most honed by going to dog parks for 11 years now and trying to guess where all the cross-breeds come from.
I also tried to replicate the best review I ever received. The Midwest Book Review said my first novel "belongs to a muckraker tradition as exemplified by such American authors as Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" (the meatpacking industry) or Sinclair Lewis' "Elmer Gantry" (organized religion)." Those were highly influential books for me and I was so tickled the reviewer plucked those out of the ether. I still smile about it! And I think readers feel more comfortable with their choices when they see these things too. But who really knows.
I answered no. To be clear, I'm not opposed to reading fiction serialized on a stack, but the authors I've seen try it so far have paywalled it (typically after a few free installments). I have too many paid subscriptions already that I don't get my money's worth, so getting me to add a new one is a very tough sell.
Another obstacle, even if it's free, is the lack of a bookmarking capability, which makes it harder to find time to read something online since I have to finish it or lose my place. (Which makes relatively brief installments easier to deal with.)
I think using it as a previewing mechanism to get your name out there is the right approach. If I enjoy someone's online fiction, it increases the chance I'll pick up their books, which as a discrete transaction, I'm more comfortable paying for.
All that said, there's a good chance I'm not typical.
I hear you on the subscription thing. I tend to think people pay for subscriptions not because they want the product so much as they just want to support the author, but I could be wrong. I do think it would be nice to have the option for a one-off payment, and not just a tip jar sort of thing. I'm trying to make it clear that if you do a one-year paid subscription (which is roughly the price of a couple of books and includes full audiobook downloads) I won't be mad if you cancel after that, but it's hard to get that message across. It would be easier to sell, maybe?, to make it a one-off payment that guarantees you the books, just like a transaction on Amazon.
It's all too complicated for me!
Bookmarks. Yes, that's a good idea. I know when I go to the "inbox" section on Substack I can see which posts I've already read, but that's not exactly an efficient way to bookmark where you are in a longer series.
You've reminded me that I should make it clear you can get the book in other formats. I did that for Truth and Generosity, but I was so busy putting together all the table of contents links and buttons (it gets super tedious!) that I forgot all about that. Thanks!
I'd love to be able to support every author I know who needs it. Unfortunately my pockets aren't that deep. And the issue with canceling is remembering to do it, something I'm pretty terrible at, particularly if canceling is the least bit inconvenient.
I've often wished there was a way to bookmark a specific spot on a web page. For long web articles, like the Aeon ones, it would make things much easier. On know it's stupid, but I read a lot less of their stuff just because I don't want to start unless I know I have time to finish.
Yeah, I get it. (Especially with Geordie's vet bills this year. Oy, through the roof!) Don't you hate it when they make it hard to figure out how to cancel? That drives me nuts.
You know, when I come across a really long paper, especially if it's technical or something I think I'll have to mull over, I tend to just print it out. These are usually academic papers that come as PDFs, which are probably much tidier than web pages, but that's one idea. Or copy and paste into a word processor. But of course, that's extra work, and who needs that!
Hope Geordie's doing okay. The most expensive year I had with my Jordi was when she needed chemotherapy. At work, they're now offering pet insurance (MetLife). No idea if it's worth it.
I have pasted articles into a Word or Google doc before, both to mark my place, and to highlight portions of the text I might discuss in a blog post. But as you note, it's extra work. I did it in my early blogging years, but it's been a while.
Oh, I bet that was expensive. Geordie is okay, nothing dire as of yet. He's been having this weird skin issue where he's losing fur and his skin is turning black, and there were some infections too. I took him to the vet and they ran tests, some very expensive, but came up with nothing. Finally I took him to a doggie dermatologist who seemed to think it was his thyroid. That was what his vet thought, but the tests came up negative. The dermatologist thought the tests might be wrong, so she had his vet fax over the results and sure enough, borderline. We put him on medication which made him sort of hyper and intensely hungry all the time. We were about to go outside for treat time, but there was an enormous spider on the door and while I'm freaking out about that, Geordie is in the background pacing around. Somehow he tore his ACL (CCL in dogs) during this scramble to deal with the spider. He didn't cry out or anything, but he was limping. I mean...one thing after another.
Anyway, it turns out he does have a thyroid problem, but the medication was a bit too high of a dose. We've lowered the dose and he seems better on that, but with the torn ACL it's been a challenge to give him the medicated bath I'm supposed to do once every two weeks (before it was 2x/week!) I actually crocheted a special doggie harness so I can hang him on a grooming arm (the groomers won't take him with his injury) because I couldn't find one online that would work.
Okay, I'll stop being boring now. I imagine the cost of all this is nothing compared to Jordi's chemo, though, both financial and emotional.
Wow, that sounds like an ordeal. Geordie's lucky to have a loving mother.
Yeah, in Jordi's case, I had noticed a lump on her side when bathing her. Turned out to be a tumor, so surgery to have it removed, then chemo. I don't recall the full cost, except that it was several thousand (this was ~20 years ago). Biggest struggle afterward was medication I had to sneak into her food for a while. She became very good at eating around the pill, so I had to get increasingly creative. All in all, probably less emotionally taxing than yours, because my period of uncertainty was much briefer.
They have a lot of the good old public domain classics available- Dickens, Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, Wodehouse and the Oz books are the ones I follow most often.
Well I guess you have found out by now, but Dante, Melville, Thackeray and many classical philosophers and playwrights, too. It’s a great use of small slices of time.
I've been meaning to re-read your novel for a while, now, and this will be a good excuse.
I clicked "No" to your poll. I think the main reason boils down to time. I have *lots* of books in my TO-READ queues (yes, I have more than one), and quite a few shows I'm trying to watch, plus all my own projects on top of that. I just don't have *time* to explore new folks on the scene. Wish I did.
I know what you mean about having a long queue (or queues, in your case). Although, sadly, shows are difficult to come by for us since we are very consistent in our several-hours-long TV watching every evening and we burn through series pretty quickly. Occasionally we toy with the idea of reading during that time instead, but that idea never really takes off. Anyway, that's together time, and we talk about shows afterwards. That's hard to do with books unless we happened to be interested in reading the same book, which is rare. (Neal doesn't read philosophy anymore, and very little fiction. He tends to gravitate towards history and political books, but usually doesn't like the writing or organization and abandons them early on. That said, he's reading Obama's memoir at the moment, and he's given it the highest praise I've heard from him in a long time: "Obama can write!")
BTW, I'm digging the Calculating God book. Can't believe I'm reading an alien book, but it has a gentle humor which I like. I just hope it doesn't get too geeky. And I hope the breaking-up-the-syllables thing that the alien sometimes does when he talks get explained. It's intriguing in its weirdness.
I can see why you watch TV together. Makes perfect sense. I'm glad you like Calculating God. As I was reading it, I wondered if some of the info dump might bore you. It's hard SF, so the ideas are as important as the story. Yes, the reason Hollus speaks through both mouths like that is explained later. Hard SF, so *of course* it is. 😁
I am probably in the minority in that I actually prefer DFW’s nonfiction to fiction—even though some aspects of it are dated, his essay collections, such as A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again are some of my favourite pieces of nonfiction I’ve ever read and a masterclass in how to write about ordinary things with great creativity as an outsider, if you want to say.
Well, as a musician-writer, I have some thoughts about sounds and music that can be used in tandem or in place of literature, especially as a composer, if you’re ever interested in trying to work together in some way..and yes I know for 99.99% of such things it’s all stock sounds, but it’s a fun idea.
You have a very good pleasant, neutral-middle America newscaster type voice.
No, the truth is, I like to rip books up. It's just fun. There's a great feeling of strength, makes me feel like those people who smash bricks in karate. Hiya!
Haven't read any of DFW's nonfiction. I wasn't a huge fan of the novel mainly because it just doesn't end...which is exactly what I knew would happen, but still...SATISFY ME! haha. Of course, his writing is brilliant, otherwise I wouldn't have made it through.
Oh man, I wish I had thought to ask you about music! I could have used original music for the podcast! But definitely, let's talk.
"You have a very good pleasant, neutral-middle America newscaster type voice." Thanks! That's exactly what I was going for.
I've never read a serialized novel of any kind on any platform, but now I'm excited to start yours. I hadn't even known there were substack leaderboards! What is this place?
But apparently 'fiction' is niche enough not to have a truly separate leaderboard, believe it or not, as it gets lumped in with 'fiction writing': https://substack.com/leaderboard/fiction/paid
So it's no wonder you haven't seen any serialized fiction on Substack! Unless someone's earning $$$, it seems you're not likely to hear about them unless you're rubbing elbows with the same people they're rubbing elbows with.
Nice hearing from you, and I hope you enjoy my book. :)
Hi Tina. I ticked Yes to the survey because I'm thinking of serialising on Substack a novella I'm currently working on. I've no idea if there's any point in doing so, though at least it's a stopgap between lost-on-a-dongle and lost-on-Amazon. I'm not going to charge anything for it because I'm only expecting three readers a year and it's not worth bothering with. In my more ridiculous moments I think there may be a one-in-a-billion chance that some small publisher or agent may notice it. But it soon fades as I realise that, even if that were to occur, they'd only be asking me to do all the marketing and other donkeywork. It would be nice if amateur writers could somehow turn the tables on all that, just posting teasers on blogs, Substacks, wherever; then when an agent or publisher bites: 'Here it is, an excerpt of a size that makes sense to *me*, formatted *my* way, take it or leave it, and if you take, I want 20% of the cover price.' *turns and flounces off with his nose in the air*
P.S. Wind chimes? I bought your paperback — can't recall, were there wind chimes featured in there? (It's been many months since I read it.) Otherwise: wind chimes?
It would be nice if we could turn the tables. Let me know if you come up with ideas on that. And congratulations on your decision! When you think about it, back in the day people didn't have the option to self-publish unless they put up a considerable investment to do a print run, and then they had piles of books stacked up in their offices collecting dust. At least nowadays it's possible to get your work out there without taking a financial risk. So there's the silver lining. I think it's smart that you're doing it on Substack, by the way. Because you're right, if it's only available on Amazon, then you have to drive people there. Not fun.
On the other hand, you could publish on Substack and still make it available on Amazon for those who prefer paperbacks or ebooks. That wouldn't require any investment other than time (unless, of course, you want a professionally-designed cover, etc.) And here's one of the best things about self-publishing—you control the price!
By the way, I'm eternally grateful to you for buying my book at that absurd price the publisher set (and won't drop! Grrrr!). Thank you. And thank you for reviewing it.
I've never thought about coming up with ideas (for amateur writers), although your comment made me think about writers in Hollywood having been successful in their union-backed action of a year or two ago. I *suppose* it's vaguely feasible that someone with the time and energy could begin a union for unpublished writers; and given that there are so many of us now, globally, it's *possible* that a pretty substantial membership would soon acrue if the dues were kept low (say, 20 dollars, pounds, euros, a year). Would commercial publishers ignore members' output entirely? Perhaps. But if there could be some equitable way that the members themselves could filter the obvious dross from the decent-to-excellent stuff (not hard to do in theory), then that might encourage publishers and agents to take a look. I don't know enough about blockchains to say whether they could be utilised to record writers' work for the purposes of collecting a small royalty on future sales, which in turn could be used to help bolster the union's resources. If it *were* plausible, then publishers could be invited to buy 'streams' — a system used in the global mining industry wherein a streaming company pays an up-front lump sum to a mining company (in order that the miner can in turn afford to extract the resource) and in return gets an annual allocation of either the miner's commodity (say, physical silver, copper, oil) or gets a cash fee dependant on the revenue collections of the miner. It's a phenomenally successful model within the mining industry, and works well for both parties. Anyway, I really abhor the fact that as things stand it's a case of writers having to grovel and fawn and genuflect to even get a publisher's door ajar.
Well that is a creative solution. Get to work, Hariod! ;)
"But if there could be some equitable way that the members themselves could filter the obvious dross from the decent-to-excellent stuff (not hard to do in theory), then that might encourage publishers and agents to take a look."
I agree there needs to be some sort of quality control for self-published authors, otherwise the public perception of self-publishing will remain low. But if that problem could be solved, what would we need publishers and agents for? Well, marketing. That's the greatest value of publishers in my view, yet they seem to be pushing that on authors more and more, which is a damned shame. Of course marketing/publicity could (and to some degree has) become a separate industry or one that gets attached to whatever the new gatekeeper (or quality control) is.
Maybe the real problem is that there are just too damned many writers and not enough readers. Supply and demand.
I'm far too old to be attemtping something like that, Tina; although I don't see why it couldn't be taken on with at least *some* degree of success as an outcome. As you say in your closing comment, there are an awful lot of amateur writers, including perhaps a great many like ourselves who are capable of writing novel/la-length ficiton to reasonable creative and technical standards. How many? Tens of thousands, globally? Maybe even a quarter of a million if lots of (possibly dull) personal and historical accounts are included? I don't think there would be all the DIY self-publishing websites that there are (on top of Amazon's huge division) if those sorts of numbers weren't there. What may be missing is a global, non-profit, quality-monitored, writers' cooperative of the kind I'm imagining — as against everything currently being siloed in for-profit print-on-demand shops who all want huge slices of the cover price for what is largely automated work with a sprinkling of ineffectual marketing puff thrown in.
Ah, then the problem would be a matter of finding the labor. Writers tend to be a self-interested bunch, and I say that as one of them. Very much interested in benefiting from such a collective, but not willing to devote their own time to such an endeavor, I'm afraid, at least not for long. And/or it may be that getting such a project up and running would require someone who already has achieved a level of fame and fortune and who at the same time is willing to donate their fame and time to such a cause.
The nearest I've got to reading episodes is through inter-changing chapters in a creative way, leading to the completion of a short story. By committing to writing alternate chapters it does set-up unexpected connections and a way of improving the writer's mind/perspective. Best not done too often!
So do you mean you take a novel and break it up by chapter into stand alone short stories? That seems like a good idea. I’m not sure it would work for mine, but short stories would be better since they don’t require the commitment of longer works.
Missed out an essential - I alternate chapters with a writing friend. Therefore, we have a short story composed by 2 writers. The difficulty will come with the editing process - who will do the final process - the finished story!!
Anything S.E. Reid writes is worth the time. Her serial novels about a mysterious island in the Pacific Northwest are crazy good.
Thanks for the tip! I'll check out S.E. Reid.
I like to read on my own timeline, not according to someone else's release dates. I even wait to start watching streaming TV shows until they drop all their episodes rather than watch each week if they choose to release them that way.
Good luck with your experiment, though! I knew exactly what your wind chimes were representing. I hope others enjoy A Footnote to Plato as much as I did (or more).
I hear you. That was part of what I was considering in bunching together several chapters (and my chapters are somewhat on the long side, at least relative to chapter lengths these days). I wouldn't expect people to follow a story for a super long period of time, although I guess some readers will get into that sort of thing.
I'm SO GLAD you got the wind chimes! Whoo hoo! I was beginning to think it was totally asinine for me to even imagine anyone would get the point of that. And thanks for reading my book and for your fantastic review. I really liked your description of it as mashup of Philip Roth, Jonathan Franzen, and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein—well triangulated, my friend. You managed to nail down plot, style, and theme like it was nothing, easy breezy. Seriously, I might have to consult with you next time I'm facing that horrible job of coming up with comps, if there is a next time, because I totally suck at it.
Ha ha, no problem. I can lend my philosopher's talent of bringing essences together. ; ) Actually, that ability has probably been most honed by going to dog parks for 11 years now and trying to guess where all the cross-breeds come from.
I also tried to replicate the best review I ever received. The Midwest Book Review said my first novel "belongs to a muckraker tradition as exemplified by such American authors as Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" (the meatpacking industry) or Sinclair Lewis' "Elmer Gantry" (organized religion)." Those were highly influential books for me and I was so tickled the reviewer plucked those out of the ether. I still smile about it! And I think readers feel more comfortable with their choices when they see these things too. But who really knows.
I answered no. To be clear, I'm not opposed to reading fiction serialized on a stack, but the authors I've seen try it so far have paywalled it (typically after a few free installments). I have too many paid subscriptions already that I don't get my money's worth, so getting me to add a new one is a very tough sell.
Another obstacle, even if it's free, is the lack of a bookmarking capability, which makes it harder to find time to read something online since I have to finish it or lose my place. (Which makes relatively brief installments easier to deal with.)
I think using it as a previewing mechanism to get your name out there is the right approach. If I enjoy someone's online fiction, it increases the chance I'll pick up their books, which as a discrete transaction, I'm more comfortable paying for.
All that said, there's a good chance I'm not typical.
I hear you on the subscription thing. I tend to think people pay for subscriptions not because they want the product so much as they just want to support the author, but I could be wrong. I do think it would be nice to have the option for a one-off payment, and not just a tip jar sort of thing. I'm trying to make it clear that if you do a one-year paid subscription (which is roughly the price of a couple of books and includes full audiobook downloads) I won't be mad if you cancel after that, but it's hard to get that message across. It would be easier to sell, maybe?, to make it a one-off payment that guarantees you the books, just like a transaction on Amazon.
It's all too complicated for me!
Bookmarks. Yes, that's a good idea. I know when I go to the "inbox" section on Substack I can see which posts I've already read, but that's not exactly an efficient way to bookmark where you are in a longer series.
You've reminded me that I should make it clear you can get the book in other formats. I did that for Truth and Generosity, but I was so busy putting together all the table of contents links and buttons (it gets super tedious!) that I forgot all about that. Thanks!
I'd love to be able to support every author I know who needs it. Unfortunately my pockets aren't that deep. And the issue with canceling is remembering to do it, something I'm pretty terrible at, particularly if canceling is the least bit inconvenient.
I've often wished there was a way to bookmark a specific spot on a web page. For long web articles, like the Aeon ones, it would make things much easier. On know it's stupid, but I read a lot less of their stuff just because I don't want to start unless I know I have time to finish.
Yeah, I get it. (Especially with Geordie's vet bills this year. Oy, through the roof!) Don't you hate it when they make it hard to figure out how to cancel? That drives me nuts.
You know, when I come across a really long paper, especially if it's technical or something I think I'll have to mull over, I tend to just print it out. These are usually academic papers that come as PDFs, which are probably much tidier than web pages, but that's one idea. Or copy and paste into a word processor. But of course, that's extra work, and who needs that!
Hope Geordie's doing okay. The most expensive year I had with my Jordi was when she needed chemotherapy. At work, they're now offering pet insurance (MetLife). No idea if it's worth it.
I have pasted articles into a Word or Google doc before, both to mark my place, and to highlight portions of the text I might discuss in a blog post. But as you note, it's extra work. I did it in my early blogging years, but it's been a while.
Oh, I bet that was expensive. Geordie is okay, nothing dire as of yet. He's been having this weird skin issue where he's losing fur and his skin is turning black, and there were some infections too. I took him to the vet and they ran tests, some very expensive, but came up with nothing. Finally I took him to a doggie dermatologist who seemed to think it was his thyroid. That was what his vet thought, but the tests came up negative. The dermatologist thought the tests might be wrong, so she had his vet fax over the results and sure enough, borderline. We put him on medication which made him sort of hyper and intensely hungry all the time. We were about to go outside for treat time, but there was an enormous spider on the door and while I'm freaking out about that, Geordie is in the background pacing around. Somehow he tore his ACL (CCL in dogs) during this scramble to deal with the spider. He didn't cry out or anything, but he was limping. I mean...one thing after another.
Anyway, it turns out he does have a thyroid problem, but the medication was a bit too high of a dose. We've lowered the dose and he seems better on that, but with the torn ACL it's been a challenge to give him the medicated bath I'm supposed to do once every two weeks (before it was 2x/week!) I actually crocheted a special doggie harness so I can hang him on a grooming arm (the groomers won't take him with his injury) because I couldn't find one online that would work.
Okay, I'll stop being boring now. I imagine the cost of all this is nothing compared to Jordi's chemo, though, both financial and emotional.
Wow, that sounds like an ordeal. Geordie's lucky to have a loving mother.
Yeah, in Jordi's case, I had noticed a lump on her side when bathing her. Turned out to be a tumor, so surgery to have it removed, then chemo. I don't recall the full cost, except that it was several thousand (this was ~20 years ago). Biggest struggle afterward was medication I had to sneak into her food for a while. She became very good at eating around the pill, so I had to get increasingly creative. All in all, probably less emotionally taxing than yours, because my period of uncertainty was much briefer.
They have a lot of the good old public domain classics available- Dickens, Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, Wodehouse and the Oz books are the ones I follow most often.
Where do you read these? I see they have Sherlock Holmes for free if you're an Amazon Prime member: https://a.co/d/398HBoR
A lot of classics are free as ebooks. That could have saved me a lot of money back in college!
I get e-mail subscriptions to them. Put the names in to the general index and they should come up. Then click the subscriber button.
Interesting! I had no idea these 'read-alongs' were going on. Thanks!
Well I guess you have found out by now, but Dante, Melville, Thackeray and many classical philosophers and playwrights, too. It’s a great use of small slices of time.
It really is. And it never would have occurred to me!
I've been meaning to re-read your novel for a while, now, and this will be a good excuse.
I clicked "No" to your poll. I think the main reason boils down to time. I have *lots* of books in my TO-READ queues (yes, I have more than one), and quite a few shows I'm trying to watch, plus all my own projects on top of that. I just don't have *time* to explore new folks on the scene. Wish I did.
I know what you mean about having a long queue (or queues, in your case). Although, sadly, shows are difficult to come by for us since we are very consistent in our several-hours-long TV watching every evening and we burn through series pretty quickly. Occasionally we toy with the idea of reading during that time instead, but that idea never really takes off. Anyway, that's together time, and we talk about shows afterwards. That's hard to do with books unless we happened to be interested in reading the same book, which is rare. (Neal doesn't read philosophy anymore, and very little fiction. He tends to gravitate towards history and political books, but usually doesn't like the writing or organization and abandons them early on. That said, he's reading Obama's memoir at the moment, and he's given it the highest praise I've heard from him in a long time: "Obama can write!")
BTW, I'm digging the Calculating God book. Can't believe I'm reading an alien book, but it has a gentle humor which I like. I just hope it doesn't get too geeky. And I hope the breaking-up-the-syllables thing that the alien sometimes does when he talks get explained. It's intriguing in its weirdness.
I can see why you watch TV together. Makes perfect sense. I'm glad you like Calculating God. As I was reading it, I wondered if some of the info dump might bore you. It's hard SF, so the ideas are as important as the story. Yes, the reason Hollus speaks through both mouths like that is explained later. Hard SF, so *of course* it is. 😁
You tore it up?! What a way to start the day 😀
Ever hear of a backpack?
I am probably in the minority in that I actually prefer DFW’s nonfiction to fiction—even though some aspects of it are dated, his essay collections, such as A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again are some of my favourite pieces of nonfiction I’ve ever read and a masterclass in how to write about ordinary things with great creativity as an outsider, if you want to say.
Well, as a musician-writer, I have some thoughts about sounds and music that can be used in tandem or in place of literature, especially as a composer, if you’re ever interested in trying to work together in some way..and yes I know for 99.99% of such things it’s all stock sounds, but it’s a fun idea.
You have a very good pleasant, neutral-middle America newscaster type voice.
Backpack? What's that?
No, the truth is, I like to rip books up. It's just fun. There's a great feeling of strength, makes me feel like those people who smash bricks in karate. Hiya!
Haven't read any of DFW's nonfiction. I wasn't a huge fan of the novel mainly because it just doesn't end...which is exactly what I knew would happen, but still...SATISFY ME! haha. Of course, his writing is brilliant, otherwise I wouldn't have made it through.
Oh man, I wish I had thought to ask you about music! I could have used original music for the podcast! But definitely, let's talk.
"You have a very good pleasant, neutral-middle America newscaster type voice." Thanks! That's exactly what I was going for.
Yeah, that's why I prefer his nonfiction, exactly the opposite of his fiction, mostly. I definitely recommend that collection, here's one of my favorite: https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-1991-12-0000710.pdf
and here's one I just found from another one that's great:
https://genius.com/David-foster-wallace-big-red-son-annotated
Sure well, just throwing it out there..maybe I should incorporate book smashing and tearing into my martial routines :P
I've never read a serialized novel of any kind on any platform, but now I'm excited to start yours. I hadn't even known there were substack leaderboards! What is this place?
Fantastic! I'm excited that you're excited.
Substack leaderboards are just lists of the top 100 or so Substacks in certain categories: https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/5999320475412-What-are-Substack-leaderboards
But apparently 'fiction' is niche enough not to have a truly separate leaderboard, believe it or not, as it gets lumped in with 'fiction writing': https://substack.com/leaderboard/fiction/paid
So it's no wonder you haven't seen any serialized fiction on Substack! Unless someone's earning $$$, it seems you're not likely to hear about them unless you're rubbing elbows with the same people they're rubbing elbows with.
Nice hearing from you, and I hope you enjoy my book. :)
Hi Tina. I ticked Yes to the survey because I'm thinking of serialising on Substack a novella I'm currently working on. I've no idea if there's any point in doing so, though at least it's a stopgap between lost-on-a-dongle and lost-on-Amazon. I'm not going to charge anything for it because I'm only expecting three readers a year and it's not worth bothering with. In my more ridiculous moments I think there may be a one-in-a-billion chance that some small publisher or agent may notice it. But it soon fades as I realise that, even if that were to occur, they'd only be asking me to do all the marketing and other donkeywork. It would be nice if amateur writers could somehow turn the tables on all that, just posting teasers on blogs, Substacks, wherever; then when an agent or publisher bites: 'Here it is, an excerpt of a size that makes sense to *me*, formatted *my* way, take it or leave it, and if you take, I want 20% of the cover price.' *turns and flounces off with his nose in the air*
P.S. Wind chimes? I bought your paperback — can't recall, were there wind chimes featured in there? (It's been many months since I read it.) Otherwise: wind chimes?
Haha...that's in the audiobook. The wind chimes were meant to be the audio version of a paragraph break.
It would be nice if we could turn the tables. Let me know if you come up with ideas on that. And congratulations on your decision! When you think about it, back in the day people didn't have the option to self-publish unless they put up a considerable investment to do a print run, and then they had piles of books stacked up in their offices collecting dust. At least nowadays it's possible to get your work out there without taking a financial risk. So there's the silver lining. I think it's smart that you're doing it on Substack, by the way. Because you're right, if it's only available on Amazon, then you have to drive people there. Not fun.
On the other hand, you could publish on Substack and still make it available on Amazon for those who prefer paperbacks or ebooks. That wouldn't require any investment other than time (unless, of course, you want a professionally-designed cover, etc.) And here's one of the best things about self-publishing—you control the price!
By the way, I'm eternally grateful to you for buying my book at that absurd price the publisher set (and won't drop! Grrrr!). Thank you. And thank you for reviewing it.
I've never thought about coming up with ideas (for amateur writers), although your comment made me think about writers in Hollywood having been successful in their union-backed action of a year or two ago. I *suppose* it's vaguely feasible that someone with the time and energy could begin a union for unpublished writers; and given that there are so many of us now, globally, it's *possible* that a pretty substantial membership would soon acrue if the dues were kept low (say, 20 dollars, pounds, euros, a year). Would commercial publishers ignore members' output entirely? Perhaps. But if there could be some equitable way that the members themselves could filter the obvious dross from the decent-to-excellent stuff (not hard to do in theory), then that might encourage publishers and agents to take a look. I don't know enough about blockchains to say whether they could be utilised to record writers' work for the purposes of collecting a small royalty on future sales, which in turn could be used to help bolster the union's resources. If it *were* plausible, then publishers could be invited to buy 'streams' — a system used in the global mining industry wherein a streaming company pays an up-front lump sum to a mining company (in order that the miner can in turn afford to extract the resource) and in return gets an annual allocation of either the miner's commodity (say, physical silver, copper, oil) or gets a cash fee dependant on the revenue collections of the miner. It's a phenomenally successful model within the mining industry, and works well for both parties. Anyway, I really abhor the fact that as things stand it's a case of writers having to grovel and fawn and genuflect to even get a publisher's door ajar.
Well that is a creative solution. Get to work, Hariod! ;)
"But if there could be some equitable way that the members themselves could filter the obvious dross from the decent-to-excellent stuff (not hard to do in theory), then that might encourage publishers and agents to take a look."
I agree there needs to be some sort of quality control for self-published authors, otherwise the public perception of self-publishing will remain low. But if that problem could be solved, what would we need publishers and agents for? Well, marketing. That's the greatest value of publishers in my view, yet they seem to be pushing that on authors more and more, which is a damned shame. Of course marketing/publicity could (and to some degree has) become a separate industry or one that gets attached to whatever the new gatekeeper (or quality control) is.
Maybe the real problem is that there are just too damned many writers and not enough readers. Supply and demand.
I'm far too old to be attemtping something like that, Tina; although I don't see why it couldn't be taken on with at least *some* degree of success as an outcome. As you say in your closing comment, there are an awful lot of amateur writers, including perhaps a great many like ourselves who are capable of writing novel/la-length ficiton to reasonable creative and technical standards. How many? Tens of thousands, globally? Maybe even a quarter of a million if lots of (possibly dull) personal and historical accounts are included? I don't think there would be all the DIY self-publishing websites that there are (on top of Amazon's huge division) if those sorts of numbers weren't there. What may be missing is a global, non-profit, quality-monitored, writers' cooperative of the kind I'm imagining — as against everything currently being siloed in for-profit print-on-demand shops who all want huge slices of the cover price for what is largely automated work with a sprinkling of ineffectual marketing puff thrown in.
Ah, then the problem would be a matter of finding the labor. Writers tend to be a self-interested bunch, and I say that as one of them. Very much interested in benefiting from such a collective, but not willing to devote their own time to such an endeavor, I'm afraid, at least not for long. And/or it may be that getting such a project up and running would require someone who already has achieved a level of fame and fortune and who at the same time is willing to donate their fame and time to such a cause.
The nearest I've got to reading episodes is through inter-changing chapters in a creative way, leading to the completion of a short story. By committing to writing alternate chapters it does set-up unexpected connections and a way of improving the writer's mind/perspective. Best not done too often!
So do you mean you take a novel and break it up by chapter into stand alone short stories? That seems like a good idea. I’m not sure it would work for mine, but short stories would be better since they don’t require the commitment of longer works.
Tina,
Missed out an essential - I alternate chapters with a writing friend. Therefore, we have a short story composed by 2 writers. The difficulty will come with the editing process - who will do the final process - the finished story!!
Ah I see what you mean now. I imagine you’d have to be prudent in picking your writing partner, but cool idea!
I haven’t yet. But hope to. I am still figuring out how Substack works. 😂
Good luck to you!