Lately I’ve been getting more and more into the idea of serials, and perhaps even seriously podcasting audiobook/audiodrama versions of serial fiction. I’m actually contemplating finding other writers and voice-over people and actually getting into serious online publishing. The internet seems like a fertile place for serial fiction, especially following the model of a lot of the old pulp style productions. After all, there’s almost no cost at all to just hosting a website and posting podcasts, then publishing the final audiobooks and ebooks online.
Most recently I’ve been spending a lot of time editing and doing some rewriting for my NaNoWriMo novel, and I’m tweaking the structure of it to fit better with audiobook or serial publishing. At first it had the kind of fractal structure where the basic rise and fall of the action was mirrored all the way down from having four major plot points or scenes in a chapter, four chapters per act, four acts per book, and all the way up to having four books in this series eventually. Of course, since I wasn’t intending to serialize it at first, each chapter segment was a somewhat arbitrary and random length, ranging from 800 to nearly 2000 words. The longest chapter was about 6k words, the shortest about 4k. I’ve recut some scenes, rewritten some others, and eventually gotten a much steadier pace. 1200-1800 words per section. Judging from my experience with doing the Saving Christmas audiobook, these will make for a good 6-10 minutes of audio each.
I honestly don’t know if this will end up being an improvement or detriment to the story. It definitely changes the flow to a much steadier pace. And it’s forced me to flesh out some sections that were a bit more skeletal than they should have been, while trimming back or moving some other scenes that made another section too full. But I’m happy with what I’ve done so far, so hopefully that counts for something.
Unfortunately, if I only do a weekly post/podcast with the chapters in quarters, that means it will take 64 weeks to get the entire thing out. That’s more than a year of podcasting, just for one novel. Doing two or three chapters a week would leave each week with hanging chapter bits, unresolved plots, and generally wouldn’t fit the shape of the story well. So if I am going to podcast it, the only real option would be to do an entire chapter a week.
I’ve been tooling around with the idea of actually doing up to seven daily podcasts, one for each day of the week focusing on a different genre of pulp-style storytelling. However, since I go to school full time and work part time, I simply wouldn’t have the time to do them all myself. Which means that I would definitely want to find other writers and voice-over people to work with. Writers who enjoy working within the structure of serial fiction, making self-enclosed bits short enough to fit well into a short audiobook/audiodrama snippet, but make up a part of a larger whole. Voice-over people who enjoy either doing storytelling style narration or doing character voices for audiodrama.
At the moment, all I’d really have to do to get started is to find a few people to work with who share an interest in these things. People who don’t mind taking a risk on doing some work that may or may not actually earn any money. Pick a few possible days/genres to start. And go with it.
And there’s the rub right there. I’d love to actually get into a solid, serious bit of publishing online. Something that will connect readers/listeners with writers, and let them share what they make and enjoy. Serial fiction is growing on the internet. But so far, few people have been able to actually make any money with it. I want to help writers get paid. I think trying an approach like this, podcasting, then selling the final books/seasons/whatever you want to call them to the people who enjoyed them as they were broadcast. Not too dissimilar to how TV stations make extra money by selling season boxed sets of DVDs after the season finishes.
I know I’m going to get into publishing in some way, shape, or form eventually. Since I also do role playing game design, I will have to find some way to get my role playing sourcebooks published. So I am going to have some kind of publishing company, even if it’s just a company name with only me behind it, to publish. Why not get a jump on things by starting now with the fiction that I have ready to go, instead of waiting until I have finished and fully tested role playing games?
I don’t have particularly good spam filters for my site at the moment, so I haven’t been allowing any comments. So if you are a writer interested in bringing back a modern version of pulp serial fiction and/or voice over artist interested in narrating, acting, or hosting a show and you are interested, find me on twitter or facebook.
I haven’t gone into great detail about some of the ideas I have for my podcast and publishing here, just a general overview. I don’t want to put my entire business idea out there for someone better equipped than I to steal and beat me to the punch. But I have started putting out some feelers to other writers to see if people are interested, so I figured it would be best to at least lay a few cards on the table here on my personal website.