I’ve been doing a simple sword and sorcery story that’s kind of sprawling beyond its original intent. Which I don’t have time to finish soon-ish.
I am thinking about selling it in pieces—installments, before it’s finished. That way…once it is finished, it goes up as a New Book. But until then, I might sell it sort of 10,000 words at a go. With a special area on my blog where people can speculate about where it’s going, what they want to see happen—I thought it might be fun. Nothing too heavy, not great literature, but a bit of collective fun. Whatcha think?
Go for it! These experiments are always great fun to follow.
Love it! Count me in! 😆
Sure, this has worked well for other authors.
What do other authors do re pricing?
I think you would be advised to require some form of release so that if someone guesses correctly which direction the story is going in, you don’t wind up being accused of stealing (and profiting from) their idea.
Elaine
That can be done. In the nutty legalities dept, accusations of ‘you stole my idea’ are a dime a dozen in this biz—I had some crazy guy in Hawaii accuse me of having stolen his idea by telepathy. And said ‘idea’ always turns out to be a general description that could fit a hundred other books. But yep, there’ll be a: “This is CJ’s sandbox” clause in the purchase of downloads.
http://maxbarry.com/machineman/faq.html
Above is an example that Max Barry is doing. He let you Register to get a page a day of his online serial. Now that it is done he is putting it all together in Novel form and fleshing it out. I have no dea how many people registered, but its an idea of how to go about it.
I would love for you to do this, and Jane too!
He’s charging 7.00 for about 200 pages at 300 words a page, which comes out to 60000 words. That’s the ‘old style’ paperback. Most of mine tend to be 120,000 words…for 10.00. Hmm. So he’s writing 2 books at 7.00 each, or 14.00 for….
(goes off figuring…)
I dunno. Not that I sell stuff by the pound, anyway. 😉
http://www.korval.com/
http://www.korval.com/saltation/
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller started what they called the storyteller’s bowl with their novel Fledgling. I believe the concept was to keep writing the story a chapter at a time provided sufficient funds had been donated for the story to continue. In the end the story extended into two novels (Fledgling and Saltation) both being published by Baen. Those who donated $25 or more to the project received a signed copy of the published novel.
sounds like a good plan, like an old serial. I’d prefer to pay an up-front price, and then get all the installments as you find time to do them
The only downside is guilt. If I weren’t as fast as I think I ought to be, I’d feel as if I was cheating people. If on the other hand, the car needs new tires, I’d be very inspired to write on it. 😉 I’m really counting on guilt.
@ Aja Jin……I think you *do* need an up front price……release could be implicit in signing up….perhaps an ‘agree’ button to make it official?
I’d make the per installment price some fraction of the finished price, except maybe that I’d have to tack on .50 cents or so to cover the Paypal fees, which kind of tend to eat you alive on small purchases…if you charge a dollar, they get .40 cents of it: 10% plus a 30 cent processing fee. If you charge 10,000 dollars, they get 1000 of it, and 30 cents for processing. 😉 Crazy, yes? Like foxes.
My ‘new’ books are about 10.00. So we’d be looking at maybe 5-10 installments. Plus the fun of being in on the argument, discussion, and silliness. I don’t know if it’ll get finished: I never know and always somehow do. I don’t know if people will want to read it. But it sounds like an excuse for group fun. Just thinking out loud.
Nah, just have us pay the full price and get each piece as they are written. So, if I buy at the first I get it all in pieces. But, if I buy it later I get all that’s written as a lump and then the rest as it’s written.
Let the computer keep track of it for you.
But guilt! I need guilt! Remember this is a spare-time project and those get no attention from me except by guilt! 😆
Now, CJ, don’t you think the thought of all of us having paid you already for your work but not having it in our hands wouldn’t be a source of guilt?
Yep, and it would drive you to write it all and even to write several sword and sorcery novels all in one loose series.
We can always get out the pitchforks and torches to get you to write the rest if you want!
Boy I sure can see this happening! A series, not pitchforks. Although maybe you want pitchforks. It feels like another Merovingen Nights is looming — I loved the Angel books!
And we’re such an eclectic bunch, you might be verring off into interesting tangets before you know it.
I’m all for paying up front like most are suggesting — maybe have a unique link that you get mailed to you once you hit that agree button. And if anyone guess right, a dedication? I’ve always sighed over a possible dedication.
Bear in mind that the dedication ‘page’ might end up like the one for the paperback of Angel With a Sword, which ran to several pages with two columns of names.
Lawrence Watt-Evans did The Spriggan Mirror for $100 in donations/chapter and The Vondish Ambassador and Realms of Light for $250/chapter. Steve Miller and Sharon Lee did both Fledgling and Saltation at $300/chapter, and had a quite active discussion site going as the novels were written. Both Miller&Lee and LWE offered a bonus of signed paper copies of the final book to people who donated over a certain sum ($25, from memory) – I know M&L took a chunk of their advance from Baen on Fledgling and Saltation in books.
You mean 1.00 per reader per chapter, or when he had 100.00 in donations?
When [X] dollars in donations come in, the next chapter gets written, or at least put online. Usually there’s a tracker indicating how much of the book is funded – “Chapter 8 is currently $78.25 away.” – and a “Warning: there’s no guarantee this book will ever get finished if people don’t put money in the bowl.” notice.
It’s an interesting dynamic – freeloading is discouraged because of the knowledge that if people don’t donate, the next chapter ain’t coming. Close to 1200 people donated at least $25 toward Saltation according to this page, which shows that of the 1,200 copies set aside for people who donated at least $25, 1,097 were spoken for.
Well, with both Fledgling and Saltation, Miller and Lee posted about once a week except for birthdays and other days off for cons and such. They had originally set a certain amount to be donated, total, per chapter, figuring they’d get ahead and just post when the total got up there. Didn’t work that way. Something like ten chapters, if I remember correctly, were covered before they even started. Even if you didn’t donate you could read and even save and discuss.
Then Baen bought both books. The rough draft, including authorial comments, stayed up until the eARC was available.
Haven’t bought paper copies yet, but I have rough, eARC, and regular webscription versions.
Sigh, I do wish they could have left the first chapter of Saltation up in rough draft form. I used it as an example of what a first chapter should do in discussions with several aspiring writers.
I feel I must point out that both LWE and M&L emphasized that what they were posting on-line was a rough draft, with no clean up or editing done. Which actually made it very interesting, especially in the M&L one. Since Lee and Miller both write the books, there were notes like “how many people did we start with on this trip?” and “we now digress from our story to give background”, etc. It gave a bit of insight into what is actually involved in writing a story, and that they don’t spring from the author’s mind as polished perfection.
Sounds like great fun, actually. I’d be there! 🙂 On a different subject, if you need any sort of free passes for the San Diego Zoo, or advice to local restaurants(my knowledge base is mostly Japanese and curry) etc., let me know.
Looking forward to it! You ARE to introduce yourself!
I’m up; I know you won’t gouge me.
That is, short of a very large lump of c-charged rock hitting earth, in which case my last thoughts will be that if they had only listened to you we would have some Hellburners, not to mention some well disposed Knnn, t’ca and chi to eliminate the threat…
This is a great idea. I would be happy to pay for it in any manner you decide is best. Pay as you go is appealing, except for the pay pal cost issue. whatever works for you!
I’d be willing to pay half now (i.e. $5) and half on completion. But maybe that’s too much like me–simple! 😀 Personally I would consider it to be a pretty darn safe bet. And CJ could ‘fess up with a tote board of how many people had kicked in (or, to be serious as briefly as possible, maybe that reveals too much about cashflow? I dunno). Plenty of guilt for all concerned if she fell behind, regardless! 😛 And CJ gets new tires, thereby improving our chances that she finishes!
Hm. There is always this option: People pay a subscription fee for a period of time (say, $X for 2 months or 6 months or whatever) and during that time are emailed download links as often as you get to them with maybe a promised minimum of installment with the possibility of extra ones should the muse take you during that period. After those months are up you can post what ever is completed together online here for anyone to download as Part I of something, and then start up a new subscription period people can buy into Part II and repeat until the story is done and you could add the parts together to your store as a finished book.
If you did it this way you might be able to avoid the small paypal charges because people are paying one lager fee for a period of time (with the promised minimum of installments) instead of per page or per chapter or per word count. This should be a fun experience, not bean counting after all. If someone wants to buy in during the middle of a subscription period you could just catch them up with emailing them the backlist of download links to get them caught up with everyone else. If people show up after Part I or Part II ect are finished they could just buy them on the site and then subscribe to Part III and be on board with the rest of us.
Sounds like a hoot! I’d love it if you did something like this. Participating in the anticipation forums sound like good fun too!
Dave Freer just recently finished posting Save the Dragons with a model similar to Lee & Miller’s — each chapter went up after receipt of $400, or after a week, I think, if the money was in sooner. Anybody could read, like the whole crowd can listen to the storyteller, as long as enough people keep tossing coins in the bowl. That simplifies the mechanism.
http://savethedragons.nu/ is still taking donations – the extremely worthy cause is to pay part of the seven-month(!) quarantine fees for Dave’s fur-people to follow him from South Africa to his new home on an island off Tasmania. The blog of the Freer’s experiences is great. Flinders Family Freer on Blogger.