{"id":8830,"date":"2013-09-02T00:24:25","date_gmt":"2013-09-02T06:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=8830"},"modified":"2013-09-02T00:24:25","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T06:24:25","slug":"things-ive-learned-from-star-wanderers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/things-ive-learned-from-star-wanderers\/","title":{"rendered":"Things I’ve learned from STAR WANDERERS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Star\"Star\"Star\"Star\"SW-V\"SW-VI\"SW-VII<\/p>\n

When I published the first couple installments of\u00a0Star Wanderers,<\/strong> it represented both an experiment with a new publishing format and a departure from the more long-form styles that I was used to.\u00a0 Now, a little over a year later, I can say it’s been a success.\u00a0 The series isn’t finished, and I’m still learning as I go, but here are some of the big lessons that I’ve picked up:<\/p>\n

Novellas are surprisingly well-suited to series.<\/strong><\/span> They read fairly quickly, contain enough focus to sustain an episode of a larger story, and yet at the same time contain enough space to develop a wider arc.\u00a0 Plus, they are a lot quicker to write than novels and generally don’t require as much editing, since it’s easier to get the story right on the first pass.\u00a0 This means that you can put out novellas faster and more regularly than long-form novels, maintaining good momentum for the series as a whole.<\/p>\n

It’s hard to write anything shorter than a novella without leaving readers unsatisfied.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 By far the biggest criticism I’ve received for Outworlder<\/strong> (which is really more of a novelette than a novella) is that the story feels too short. \u00a0If the novella (17,500 to 40,000 words, or 80 to 150 pages) has all the benefits of the novel and the short story, then it seems that the novelette (7,500 to 17,500 words, or 30 to 80 pages) has all of the drawbacks.\u00a0 Then again, it could just be that I have yet to master the form.<\/p>\n

The satisfying element in a series is at least as important as the returnable element.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 Every successful episodic story has some sort of returnable element<\/a>–something about the story that makes the audience ravenous for more.\u00a0 Often, this takes the form of a cliffhanger, leaving something unresolved.\u00a0 However, it’s not enough just to string readers along, holding back whatever your story has promised them.\u00a0 In every installment, you have to deliver.<\/p>\n

It’s a delicate balance, to be sure, but the advantage of erring on the side of satisfaction is that the satisfaction can actually become a major hook in itself.\u00a0 If readers know that they’re going to be satisfied whenever they pick up one of your books, you don’t have to ratchet up the tension to eleven in order to keep them coming back.\u00a0 Several Star Wanderers<\/strong> reviews mention that it’s more relaxing and not as fast paced as other space opera, but sales of parts III through VI are almost 1:1.<\/p>\n

Readers love to revisit a good story from another character’s point of view.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 Some of the most glowing reviews I’ve received for this series are for Dreamweaver,<\/strong> which is basically a parallel novella to Outworlder<\/strong> but from Noemi’s point of view.\u00a0 In Outworlder’s<\/strong> Amazon also-boughts, it sometimes even appears ahead of Homeworld,<\/strong> which actually comes before it in the series order.\u00a0 This tells me that readers love to revisit a story, or to hear the same story again but from a different point of view.\u00a0 Head-hopping from episode to episode can be a great way to add variety and depth.<\/p>\n

Plenty of readers are willing to pay $2.99 per book for a series they enjoy.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 When I published the omnibus for Star Wanderers I-IV,<\/strong> I wondered if sales of the individual novellas would taper off since I priced the omnibus much lower than their sum.\u00a0 To my surprise, sales for both the omnibus and the individual installments have actually remained about even.\u00a0 Since the omnibus clearly shows up on Amazon’s recommendations, this tells me that $2.99 is not too high of a price, even for a novella.<\/p>\n

Perma-free works; however, free and $.99 attract some bad apples.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 Do not underestimate the power of free, especially perma-free for the first book in a series.\u00a0 I credit that strategy for at least 90% of the\u00a0Star Wanderers<\/strong> sales, since the series itself has boosted my total sales numbers by more than an order of magnitude.\u00a0 However, there are people out there who never fail to find something to complain about.\u00a0 These are usually the same people who don’t like to pay for anything, and when they realize that the rest of my series is not free, they tend to leave unhelpful and\/or incomprehensible reviews.<\/p>\n

I priced Fidelity<\/strong> at $.99 to try to give readers more of a hook from part I to part II, but the sales ratio between part II\u00a0(Fidelity)<\/strong> and part III is about 2.5:1–in other words, pretty bad.\u00a0 Judging from some of the reviews, it seems that a fair number of the people who are dropping out are the bad apples.\u00a0 I haven’t decided whether to raise the price, but if things keep going the way they have been, I probably will.<\/p>\n

Series don’t usually take off until the third or fourth installment.<\/span> \u00a0<\/strong>Do you know how many sales Outworlder<\/strong> had in the month when I first published it?\u00a0 About 10–and that was actually a surprise.\u00a0 When I published Fidelity,<\/strong> I had even fewer, and Sacrifice<\/strong> hardly sold anything until Outworlder<\/strong> went perma-free.\u00a0 When it did, sales of the other two novellas picked up, but it wasn’t until after I’d published Dreamweaver<\/strong> that the sales of Fidelity<\/strong> started hitting triple digits.\u00a0 The lesson to me is clear: it takes time for a series to pick up steam, so don’t be like Fox.\u00a0 Give it a chance to grow.<\/p>\n

Nothing sells a book like writing and publishing more books.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 This is probably the main driving factor behind the last point.\u00a0 I’ve done almost no promotion for Star Wanderers,<\/strong> other than putting out new books on a fairly consistent basis.\u00a0 Amazon’s algorithms have probably done their part (sales on other outlets haven’t been growing nearly as much), but at the end of the day, there is no substitute to writing more and better books.\u00a0 Any sort of promotional or marketing activity that takes away from my writing time is just not worth it–not when I’ve got stories to tell.<\/p>\n

Right now, I’m getting ready to start a new spin-off series, which hopefully will be even more successful.\u00a0 I’ll to try out a few new things (mostly along the lines of better covers and meatier novellas), but mostly, I’m going to try to replicate the success I’ve achieved with Star Wanderers<\/strong> by keeping these lessons in mind.\u00a0 I have no idea how this new series is going to go, but I figure I know enough about the publishing side now that I can focus my attention on writing an awesome story, which is the most important thing after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I published the first couple installments of\u00a0Star Wanderers, it represented both an experiment with a new publishing format and a departure from the more long-form styles that I was used to.\u00a0 Now, a little over a year later, I can say it’s been a success.\u00a0 The series isn’t finished, and I’m still learning as… Continue reading Things I’ve learned from STAR WANDERERS<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Things I've learned from writing a novella series: http:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-2iq #ampublishing","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[855,857],"tags":[560,529,527,861,542,860,453,554,588,757,599],"class_list":["post-8830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ssf","category-sw","tag-ebook-pricing","tag-indie-publishing","tag-novellas","tag-perma-free","tag-pricing","tag-publishing-advice","tag-publishing-trends","tag-reviews","tag-sales","tag-series","tag-thoughts-reflections","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-2iq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8830"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8841,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8830\/revisions\/8841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}