How to write an online serial

 

I don’t claim to be an authority on this topic, given that A Day of Faces was and is my first attempt at such a thing. What follows is a collection of tips based on my own experience.

 

Why online?

Self-publishing in any form used to be considered a joke; something only failed writers did to create their own vanity projects. Back in the 90s, before the internet properly took hold of the mainstream, perhaps this had an occasional element of truth. Arranging a print run for your own book and pushing it into bookstores when agents and publishers had rejected your work took a certain amount of ego. That’s why it’s been called the vanity press.

Fast forward to now and the landscape is entirely different. Self-publishing isn’t the same thing as it was back then - pre-internet, self-publishing was a way to bypass or combat the traditional publishing industry. These days, it’s simply another part of the broader creator movement. Self-publishing for a writer is no different to a filmmaker putting their work on YouTube or Vimeo, or an artist showing their work on DeviantArt, or a photographer exploring Instagram, 500px and Flickr.

That comparison goes both ways. YouTube is full of absolutely terrible videos. It’s also home to incredible short films and creative teams like Corridor Digital, who release hugely innovative videos almost every week. Amateur filmmakers have forged professional careers based on their YouTube channels.

Online self-publishing is the same. There’s an almost infinite amount of crap, sure, but you’ll also find a range of incredible work available for free. The next generation of professional writers are emerging from this scene.

It’s a mistake to think of online self-publishing as competition for traditional publishing (on shelves or digital). Just as YouTube doesn’t stop people from going to the cinema or watching television, self-publishing online has turned into something different (although it should be noted that young viewers are increasingly choosing YouTube as their primary platform, above scheduled TV - in sharp contrast to previous generations).

Basically, don’t be embarrassed at the thought of publishing online. It doesn’t mean you failed to get published traditionally - it just means you’re going a different route. And hey - there are more and more stories of self-publishing also leading to traditional publishing success, so one doesn’t negate the other.

The most important thing is that you’ll be getting your work in front of readers. Prior to online self-publishing, if you didn’t get a traditional book deal it basically meant that you work would never reach beyond friends and family, save for occasional genre magazines. You either had to be a full-on professional novelist, or you were nothing. These days, you can choose your own level of involvement. If you have an urge to write but no particular desire to make a living from your work, you still have the potential to reach hundreds or thousands of readers.

 

Why serialised?

In this context, I’m defining serialisation as being a regular stream of content, spreading a story out over a long period rather than releasing it as a single entity. Although you’re reading the ebook collection of Arc 1 of A Day of Faces, the story started life as a weekly serial published online.

Serialising avoids the curse of endless editing. Many unpublished writers, myself included, have used the excuse of “I’m working on a novel” for far too long. The manuscript has sat around on a hard drive for years, making only minor progress. You tell yourself that it still needs editing, that it’s not ready, and a decade later it’s still not been seen by eyes other than yours. Perhaps it’s a fear of releasing it into the wild, or you simply don’t ever find the time to dedicate amongst the other important things in your life - job, family, pub.

When you switch to serialising your work, all those excuses evaporate. You don’t need to have a 100% finished work before you start publishing it. Write a chapter, then publish it. Or if that’s a bit too intimidating, write five chapters then start publishing, so that you have a buffer. The point, though, is that you’re freed from the tyranny of endless editing.

A Day of Faces has a weekly publishing schedule. Every Monday I put a new chapter up, no matter what. That keeps me honest and it keeps me creative. It gives a point to the writing.

The online world is one of bite-sized chunks. People browse the internet and there’s always something else to discover. Serialising keeps your story small and manageable, with people able to consume as much or as little as they want, without demanding too much of their time. 1000 to 3000 words per week seems to be a good target, being enough to have some substance but short enough to be read on the train or bus to work, during the lunch hour or in the evening without occupying too much Netflix time.

You’ll start to develop a cumulative audience. If you release a novel in a singular form, you have once chance to make that launch count. If you turn it into a weekly serial, you have a new promotional opportunity every seven days. Each chapter will bring in some new people, and you’ll gradually gather your readers. They’ll start to get excited about the arrival of a new chapter. Over time, that momentum gives you power.

Another benefit is that you start to receive feedback on your story before it’s even completed. As long as you don’t let this freak you out - it’s still up to you how much you pay attention to criticism - it can lead to a responsive and exciting way to write. Assuming your work is good, it also acts as the perfect motivational tool - when a new chapter receives a bunch of positive comments, it really helps you get on with the next chapter. It’s an encouraging feedback loop, which simply doesn’t exist if you’re writing a novel in isolation.

Serialising A Day of Faces has helped me becomes more productive in 2015 than the previous few years combined. And not just with ADoF - I’ve also written two screenplays, have been blogging on a more-or-less weekly basis and have started creating content for my YouTube channel again. I doubt any of that would have happened if I hadn’t embraced serialisation.

 

Writing tools

I don’t want to tell you what to use to write, but I will tell you what I use. If you prefer a quill and paper, that’s totally fine. My particular preference is Scrivener, however.

Scrivener is a word processor of uncommon sophistication and practicality. Word processors - Word, Google Docs - are primarily designed for very short form work: letters, small reports, essays, very short stories. For that kind of thing, they’re great.

As soon as you move into anything of a larger or more complex form, you need to switch tool. And for prose fiction (and a bunch of other things) that’s where Scrivener comes in.

Scrivener is a super flexible framework for developing your manuscript, which can then be compiled into all sorts of formats, including PDF, ebook and, yes, Word. Being able to export to multiple formats, perfectly formatted from a single manuscript is an enormous time saver.

It also provides an interface that perfectly suits the structure of a larger writing project. You can split your story into multiple parts and chapters. There are dedicated areas for storing research, character and location notes, front matter and anything else you might want. You can customise the whole thing to suit your own workflow and the project’s requirements.

Rather than having an ever-expanding single Word document of scrolly doom, instead Scrivener organises your work in a way that can be seen at a glance. This becomes invaluable when you get to the editing stage, especially if you’re working on something novel-sized. Rather than an impenetrable wall-o-text, you can easily see the flow and structure of your work. You can drill down as precisely as you want.

On top of that, you need a decent backup and cloud storage system. The former is essential for any kind of work, the latter is useful for writing on the move. If you project is in the cloud, you can grab it from any computer and carry on working. I use Google Drive, but Dropbox is also excellent. These services automatically provide a backup of your work, so even if you forget to manually bury the physical backup in the garden, you’ll still have that online copy.

The only drawback with Scrivener is that it doesn’t have iOS/Android/Chromebook versions, so editing on mobile devices is a non-trivial exercise. So if you write primarily on your tablet, you might need to investigate workarounds or alternatives.

Note-keeping is also a writer’s best friend. Again, you can keep notes however you prefer, but just make sure that you do. I use a combination of a physical notebook and Google Keep. If I think of a cool idea, I will write it down. I have my tablet by my bed at night just in case something pops into my head as I’m drifting off - because I will have forgotten it by the morning. Why a tablet? Because I can use it in the dark without waking up my wife - a traditional notebook wouldn’t work.

 

Planning

This is both a very personal preference and something which is likely to change from project to project. Some writers prefer to be free from all prescriptive plotting, finding their course as they go, while others will spend just as much time detailing their fictional universe and intricate plots as actually writing the prose. Either way is completely fine.

One caution, though: serialising generally means publishing before the entire story is finished. This puts you in quite a different situation to a normal project, where writing without a plan is completely fine because you’ve always got editing, right? When you’re publishing on a regular basis, you don’t have that luxury. As such, it’s very easy to write yourself into a corner and have no easy way out. Equally, it’s easy to fall down a plot hole and only realise once your readers point it out.

In terms of planning and plotting, I tend to fall somewhere in the middle. I work at multiple scales. The top level stuff is mostly thematic, with a couple of very broad story points. This gives me a very basic direction for the story - it’s no more detailed than the blurb on the back of a book.

For A Day of Faces I have split the story up by ‘arcs’. This ebook collects Arc 1. Think of them a bit like seasons of a TV show. Each arc has about 12 episodes. When I started writing the story, I had each chapter of Arc 1 planned out, but Arc 2 and onwards were only vague notions. This meant I was secure on a chapter basis, and always knew roughly what was coming up each week in terms of writing challenge.

So the description for Arc 1 ended up being this:

 

Follow Kay as she gets mixed up with the Anomaly: a guy called Cal who doesn't fit any known pattern, and in fact can switch between any other pattern, and is being hunted by the authorities (who want his power). Break into Aviary, encounter dimension messaging machine. Cal gets dimension hop power. Holt attacks. Ends with Cal changing and jumping away with Kay and Marv.

SEEDS: Cal suspecting reality isn’t right. Professor thinking the world is odd. Kay and Cal catching glimpses of the human (human tries to intervene at the end in order to kill Cal).

 

And that was about it. Arc 2 was even looser, and actually ended up changing entirely during the writing of Arc 1.

In terms of chapter breakdowns, here’s the first couple of breakdowns I had for Arc 1:

 

1 Generation: Kay at high school, gentle but fun intro.

 

2 Survival of the fittest: Kay goes to a club. More insight into the world. Ends with cops busting in.

 

Very, very brief. I knew the general thrust of the chapter, but the specifics of what happened I let emerge during the actual writing. For contrast, here are the descriptions for the final two episodes of Arc 1:

 

12 Lineage: Cal and Kay get into the parliament building, high above the city, in an attempt to get to the records held there and find out what’s going on. They find the records about how Cal’s generation was wiped out. The wings want to maintain status quo, and genetic purity. They’re also receiving instructions from a ‘Higher Being’ - some kind of organic creature (actually a dimensional jumping device). Cal inherits the dimension hop ability and starts genoshifting uncontrollably. The wings break into the room just as Cal genoshifts and dimension jumps uncontrollably.

 

13 Apex Predator: Cal and Kay are discovered and there’s a big fight. All looks lost when Holt appears, takes out the wings and barges in, looking for Cal. At the last minute Cal reappears (holding a plant/rabbit/something, as a test), grabs Kay and Marv, and jumps out again.

 

There’s more detail in there, because I knew the specific events of those chapters were much more important. What happened in them would dictate Arc 2, and I didn’t want to get myself into any tricky spots. You’ll note that even with these more descriptive outlines, the final chapters were still quite different, in terms of pacing and plot beats.

That flexibility is essential, I think. You need to give your writing room to breathe, and if you control yourself too much through your own plotting and preparation you can deny yourself access to innovative ideas and creative sparks as they happen.

It’s a balance, for sure. Do whatever makes you comfortable as a writer, but don’t feel like you need to know everything about your story before you start crafting words.

 

Buffer or no buffer?

I’ve already touched upon this a little, which is the question of whether to build up a buffer of completed instalments before you start publishing your serial. This was my original plan with A Day of Faces, and I wrote about three chapters before I started publishing.

This revealed numerous things about my habits as a writer.

First up, I had incredibly itchy feet while writing those chapters. Because I knew the plan was to serialise and publish online for free, I hated holding material back. I just wanted to get it out there and start trying to find readers. Having completed chapters sitting on my hard drive felt like a betrayal of the core concept, and more like non-serialised writing. It seemed like I was missing the point.

Secondly, after I wrote those three chapters, I then didn’t write another one until I’d published those three. This no doubt says a lot about my personality and creative drive. Because I knew I had three chapters in the bank, I relaxed and didn’t keep up regular writing. There was no impetus to keep pushing forward, because I had this comfortable buffer. Of course, that buffer soon evaporated and I found myself rushing to get chapters written in time.

This initially worried me but I’ve since come to love it. Every Monday evening I sit down and hammer out the next chapter. I proof it, then upload it to Wattpad and hit the ‘publish’ button. It’s immediate, invigorating and hugely rewarding. By the time I wake up the next morning I’ve usually received a comment, vote or at least some views. It keeps me focused, and energised. I’ve not experienced any writer’s block during A Day of Faces, and I think that’s in large part due to the just-in-time way I’m writing it.

That’s not necessarily the right way to go about it, though. It doesn’t leave much room for being ill, or family/work commitments getting in the way. But, really, 1000-3000 words a week should be entirely doable. If you don’t think you can manage that, then chances are you’re not cut out to be a writer.

Whether you want a buffer or not will also depend on your writing style, and the nature of your first drafts. I tend to edit as I write, continually tweaking what I’ve just written. My day job is as a copywriter, so I’m experienced at proofing my own work (famous last words…). That means that my first drafts are not bad. Further editing would always help, but my first drafts still tend to be publishable to some degree.

If your first drafts aren’t really publishable, you should know that that is completely fine. In that case, build in a week’s buffer, so that you’re always a week ahead of schedule, giving you a few days to proof, edit and tweak.

Don’t forget, also, that the nature of online publishing means you can go back and edit even a published work at any time. While arranging this ebook collection I’ve spotted a few typos and errors here and there - even one minor but gaping plot error - which I’ve corrected not only in this edition but also in the online version on Wattpad. Nothing is set in stone.

 

The platform

There’s a bunch of different online publishing platforms. Some of them you can charge for your work. The platform I’ve been using is called Wattpad, and is described as social network for writers and readers. For writers, it provides an easy and free way to publish and reach an audience. For readers, it delivers a huge amount of content in a format that is every bit as convenient as reading on a Kindle.

Wattpad is huge. Don’t underestimate its pull or influence. Do a quick Google and you’ll find out lots of interesting stats about its reach. It’s home to a mixture of talents, from amateurs and beginners to professional authors like Margaret Atwood. Some writers have graduated from Wattpad to traditional publishing, using it as a portfolio and proof of concept. If you approach an agent with evidence that people already love your work, it gives you a decent bargaining position.

What you can’t do on Wattpad is directly monetise your work. If you’re not looking to make money from your writing, that’s fine. If you want to go career to some degree, then it’s best to think of Wattpad as the long game. It’s how you build an audience, make contacts and hone your craft. It’ll position you far better for publishing a paid-for book, or seeking traditional publication. After all, this ebook you’re reading wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t started serialising the story on Wattpad.

None of the decent platforms require exclusivity, so by all means try out a whole bunch.

 

The cover

You’re a writer, not an artist or a designer. Unless you’re a polymath, in which case we’re all very jealous. You still need a good cover for your book, though, even if you’re going all-digital. Whether you’re serialising on Wattpad or publishing on Amazon, the book cover is still a crucial aspect of attracting readers.

There’s a bunch of great tools for creating covers, some free and some not. Whether you use a completely bespoke service (search for ‘book cover maker’ on Google and you’ll find a vast number of free cover creators) or design it yourself using software tools (free like GIMP or paid like Photoshop), make sure you give it some thought.

Who is your book aimed at? If you’ve written the kind of book you’d like to read, then what kind of book covers normally grab your attention?

If you really don’t think you can design your own cover, have a think about any artist or designer friends you might know, or reach out into online art communities.

 

Launching

This is something I’m still figuring out. I suspect it becomes easier the more you write - a second book will already have a partially built-in audience from your first. Serialisation poses its own challenges here, because at launch you’ll only have a tiny snippet of what the story will become. At this stage, there’s no proof of your ability, or that your story will be worth a reader’s time.

Prior to serialising A Day of Faces I published a handful of short stories on Wattpad. None of them gained any particular traction, but it meant that when people found A Day of Faces they’d at least see that I had a body of work, and they could check that out if they wanted. It suggested I was taking the writing seriously.

The main thing with your first project is to get all the details right. Make sure you have a decent blurb. Get a decent cover. Check for typos, because that will immediately turn away readers.

A lot of indie authors recommend hiring a professional editor when it comes to self-publishing a book, especially one you’re going to be charging for. This is good advice, but doesn’t really work for serialising on a platform like Wattpad, for the obvious scheduling reasons. Don’t worry about it, though - readers searching for creative, unusual, interesting stories there understand the space and how writers use it. Much like YouTube viewers don’t expect blockbuster production values on every video, Wattpad readers will forgive rare typos - as long as the core story and writing style are good.

 

Promoting

The moment you hit ‘publish’ on your first chapter, you need to be ready to go. If you have a network of writers or readers, you need to contact them. If you’re part of forums or Facebook groups, post there. Get on Twitter. You need a social media presence of some sort, because serialisation encourages engagement. Your readers want to engage with you, not just your work. If you’re invisible or impossible to find, that’s going to limit your overall exposure.

If you’ve written a genre piece, contact websites that cover that kind of material. Same goes for blogs, other writers in similar areas, etc.

At the same time, respect the cultures and rules of each of these venues. Don’t go barrelling in and annoy everybody, or come across as a spammer. Be authentic and honest.

Talking of blogs, if you don’t already have one now is the time to think about it. Again, it’s about having a presence and being a visible entity. You’re not going to be appearing in literary magazines of newspaper interviews any time soon, so you need to let people find you in other ways.

Another tool worth looking at, depending on your networks, is Buffer. This is a free web service that identifies the best times of day for you to post on social media, makes it easy to schedule them up and also cross-posts to save you time.

Now that I’m over halfway through Arc 2 of A Day of Faces I’m finding some of this easier, simply because there’s an evident story to discover. When I link people to the series, there’s substance there. I suspect when I move on to my next story it’ll be an even more natural thing. The first book will always be the hardest.

 

Community

Wattpad isn’t just a publishing platform; it’s also a social network connecting writers and readers. Back in the summer of 2015 I ended up in contact with a writer known as Rebecca Sky, who has quite a following. She was in the process of setting up an event for writers to be held in a virtual group space on Facebook. I had no idea what to expect but jumped on board, figuring it couldn’t hurt.

The Story Fair took place in September over a 24 hour period with over 100 writers being featured. A Day of Faces was among them and I received lovely feedback on the concept, the cover and the themes of the book. My view count jumped forwards in the space of those 24 hours and has continued building steadily ever since. Networking events like those are essential, and are something I’ll be digging into more in the coming months.

There’s also the obvious things: if somebody leaves a comment, thank them. Reply with something that furthers the discussion. The more comments your stories have, the more they will look interesting to readers scouring the digital bookshelves. If somebody votes or comments or follows you, check out their profile to see if they’ve done anything interesting. Unless there’s a good reason not to, it’s probably worth following them back. That way you can expand your network and you’ll start to see what else they’re interested in, and discover new work and other authors you can network with.

As with any social network, you get as much out of it as you put in.

 

Monetising

Unlike YouTube, which I’ve compared to a number of times here, there is no direct monetisation on Wattpad. Work you put up is freely available.

That doesn’t make it a dead end, though.

Aside from the essential enjoyment of writing and building an audience, by serialising content and publishing regularly what you’re actually doing is building up a very compelling portfolio, both of your skills as a writer and as a promoter of your own work. Those are things that agents are looking for, and if you’re an author who would like to go the traditional route at some point it’ll give you a stronger bargaining position - one of experience.

This ebook is another example of the available routes. Although I’ve published A Day of Faces for free on Wattpad, that doesn’t preclude publishing it elsewhere in other forms. Most of these places don’t demand any kind of exclusivity.

Even though ADoF is available for free already, that doesn’t negate the possibility of interest in a paid-for version such as this ebook. Different people like to acquire and consume stories in different ways. Not everybody wants to read a chapter a week. Buying an ebook collection is more convenient. Not everybody wants to fiddle around with the Wattpad app, and would prefer to just use their Kindle or equivalent.

And, of course, I’ve packed in as much ‘bonus’ material as I could find into the ebook. As a film enthusiast I’ve always loved feature-packed DVDs and blu-rays, and I wanted this book to be the prose equivalent. There’s some lore stuff for people who simply loved the story. There’s behind-the-scenes notes and this how-to for other aspiring authors. All of this gives it additional value, I hope.

Once Arc 2 is complete, it will also be collected into an ebook. At some point, probably towards the end of 2016, I may even collect the entire completed A Day of Faces story as a more traditional novel.

Self-publishing, and especially serialisation, is all about giving you options, and control over your own work. I really recommend checking out The Creative Penn and downloading Joanna’s free Author 2.0 PDF. It’s a great introduction to being an indie author which covers a lot of the points here in more detail, and she’s a real champion of writers taking charge of their own work and skills.

 

The next story

It’s probably a good idea to only have one serial on the go at once, especially when you first start out. A Day of Faces leaves me enough time to blog and do other things, and I’m not quite ready to expand to another active project at this stage.

That said, I’m always planning and scribbling down concepts. I have a couple of ideas for the next project. I also have a couple of unedited novels floating around on the computer which I might resurrect and serialise, in order to give myself sufficient incentive to complete them and get them out in the world.

Whatever I do next, it’ll be building on everything I’ve learned with A Day of Faces - both in terms of my writing skills and my ability to market and promote the work. I’ll have built a readerbase of some sort, which I can carry over as a springboard for the next project.

I feel that I’m still barely scratching the surface of serialisation and self-publishing in general. I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed reading A Day of Faces and perhaps you’ve even been inspired to try your hand at something similar. I highly recommend it - these last six months-or-so, since I properly embraced Wattpad and online serialisation as a concept, has been my most productive period for years. Every time I sit down at the keyboard, it feels like the writing has a purpose.

If you do write something, give me a shout. I’d love to read it.