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Serialized fiction is a story told in parts and unveiled in installments over a period of time. Think of a television show where a new episode is released each week, just instead with a story and a new chapter published each week.  This concept has been around for nearly two centuries.  Charles Dickens kicked off this idea of a serialized novel with 19 installments of the Pickwick Papers in 1835, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beacher Stowe published in 40 installments in a newspaper in 1851. Newspapers and consumer magazines like Harpers and The Atlantic Monthly were popular avenues for this type of fiction. Not so much anymore, but some literary magazines like Narrative, still accept serialized novels. You can serialize a story on your blog or in your newsletter, but technology has brought new options. Platforms like Radish, Wattpad and the new Kindle Vella provide opportunities for writers to publish a completed novel in serialized form. Readers read the episodes on their computer or through an app. Some are free and with others, there is a fee. Why serialize? Serialized fiction provides a different avenue for you to publish your novel. You can build your audience, reach new audiences, revive your backlist, pre-release upcoming books, or test More

I can’t teach you a surefire way to earn money as a writer, but I can offer you hope, assuming you’re willing to work hard and put yourself out there. This is my story. The income that accompanies my journey starts at zero, goes up to $150,000 at its peak, and then back to zero when I retired. During the past year I made $180. My retirement is secure. I wrote as a hobby for years, collecting a stack of published pieces that ranged from editorials to poetry. But my bachelor’s degree was in Medical Technology and my first two jobs were as a lab technician, a career I grew to dislike. So with a meager portfolio in hand I arranged an informational interview with the manager of a newly formed writing company. That’s where serendipity helped me along. Her career path was similar to mine. We connected on a personal level despite my lack of “fit.” At length she told me, “Here’s what I want you to do. Go out in the lobby and write me a story.” She handed me a legal pad and a pen. “About what?” I asked. She shrugged and looked up at a poster More

Some of us are more logical in our writing, the thrill of publishing sitting on our shoulder like the devil, pushing us to make the words earn their keep. Others of us are more spiritual, the joy of creating our only drive, with publishing not a worry. The grand majority of us fall on the spectrum. Some would like to make money but love the creativity, that lack of material need directing us toward writing as a hobby. Others spend an hour or two a day writing solely for certain markets, payment defining the value of the work. I am a big fan of The Marginalian, previously Brain Pickings, and it often serves as my Sunday paper, taking in good writing about the philosophies of life. Maria Popova often talks of writers, and why they write. Recently she wrote so succinctly, that her concepts stole my breath away. “In the end, the measure of our strength is in how we face the fact that we. . . mortal, vulnerable creatures of uncommon creativity and courage, body-minds born to die and to make meaning of our fragile existence not by clinging to the self but by practicing our various arts of unselfing: More

How many times have you visited a website only to discover it had not been updated in six months or even a year? How is a reader supposed to know you’re still writing if you don’t refresh your pages now and again? The mere existence of a website doesn’t cut the mustard with an eager or inquisitive reader. Any reader who visits your website wants recent information. They also want to return a week later and see more news has been added. Why? Because you wouldn’t go to a grocery store week after week if you thought for one instant their stock had not been upgraded or they ran the same sales week in and week out. It’s all about creativity. Constantly changing your content will bring visitors back to your site. The article, 10 Website Essentials to Increase Your Sales, which you can read here, provides a list of excellent pointers, one of which is providing your visitors with fresh content on a continual basis. Here are some other helpful ideas to keep your website fresh: Add polls.  Ask your readers what they think about something that’s important to you, or just ask them to vote for their favorite cover More

The number of classes, appearances, books, and podcasts for writers boggles the mind. It almost feels like teaching writers makes more money than actually doing it. Out of curiosity, I briefly study most of those opportunities that come across my desktop, and, believe me, I’m on a lot of mailing lists. If they appear interesting, the first thing I do is look up the presenter. You would be amazed at how many teachers haven’t done much more than teach writing. A lot of them wrote one book, maybe two, and then deemed themselves experts. Some published six articles then considered themselves established. But it’s because so many writers, especially fresh writers, are so eager to find success that they gorge on how-to, seeking the magic carpet that will get them there. Most do not have the hundreds or thousands of dollars it takes for the higher level professional services, so they opt for the less expensive. Recently someone asked me how to land a grant. Their goal was to publish their book they’d been working on for years, then teach writing. They defined their years of working on a project, even though it hadn’t proven successful yet, as the experience More

We all know the benefits to donating our time and money: warm fuzzies, tax write-offs,  the gratifying sense of purpose and general knowledge that we’re helping others and making the world a better place. But in donating, when do we as writers sell ourselves short and where do we draw the line? When is charity a detriment to our endeavors as self-employed artisans? Stop to consider what your time is worth when offering or accepting an opportunity to “promote” yourself. I recently received an email (again) asking me to present a talk regarding a book about cold cases, my current work-in-progress. This presentation is through a local college branch of a nationwide organization that offers non-credit courses for adults over 50. When they first approached me a couple years ago, I felt honored (tip #1—tell your ego to sit down and be quiet) and accepted this offer. The presentation could be 60 to 90 minutes long, my preference. I offered to “teach” the 90-minute course, and in reply, received an application. Wait, what? I have to apply to do a presentation I was asked to do? Oh, well. Fine. I slogged through the lengthy paperwork only to discover at the More

(Read Parts 1 and 2 of this three-part series online.) 3: Production and publication With the book hitting its crowdfunding target, it was time to look at production and publication. We had a fantastic copyeditor, Hayley, who carried out what Unbound called a developmental edit. She spotted lots of errors, some quite structural, and did a superb job. We had a new editor, and Unbound decided to change the title. They felt Kitten on a Fatberg would be hard to market, and so it became Work in Progress. This was a bit of a wrench, as we were so used to the title (named after one of the character’s eccentric poems). Many supporters were fond of it too. But Unbound was confident in its decision, and we embraced it. With COVID, the publication date was pushed back several months, which worried us as it meant our supporters would have had to wait almost two years for their copies. (They stayed loyal and patient, but apparently people do sometimes ask for their money back.) When the books arrived at last, I received a couple of hundred copies which we had pre-ordered with our article payments. This turned out to be a More

You may not realize it, but I wrote the chapter “How Much Should I Charge?” in the 2022 Writer’s Market this year. It was a humongous assignment, and until I did the research, I didn’t realize how much had changed in the last five years as well as mid- and post-COVID. Freelancers are very much alive and well. Employers have learned to embrace freelancers with a passion. Freelancers tackled social media as marketing tools and learned new methods of landing clients, establishing a brand, and networking. But how much you should charge depends on so many factions: 1) your experience 2) your niche (and sub-niche) 3) your diversity in skills (i.e., more than writing an article) You can get down into the reeds and try to break it down into small sub-factions, but these three major ones pretty much steer your ship and dictate your income. A beginner is usually anyone with 0-3 years of experience, however, you will find the exceptions who leaped in and made six figures within two years. Many others will brag about how much they made in spurts, like four months, but the proof of success manifests itself in how well you can perform over an entire More

(Read Parts 1 , 2 , and 3 of this 3-Part piece at FundsforWriters.com.) 2: Getting the orders in! After getting the book deal signed with Unbound, we now had to raise a five-figure sum in pre-orders to get our manuscript turned into a real book. One of the fun things Unbound does is teach you to offer different levels of pre-orders (pledges). These go all the way from basic ebook and paperback versions up to pricier bespoke levels. We offered book critiques, and various fun items “created” by some of the book’s dotty characters. Some actor friends recorded an audio version of the first few chapters, which we offered exclusively as another pledge. See a list of all our pledges here. The first few weeks of crowdfunding proved easy. Friends and family chipped in generously, and the target ticked over nicely. (Unbound provides dashboards you can obsessively consult.) But then the pace starts to slow, and you start to reach out to former colleagues, school friends, neighbors, ex-neighbours, friends of friends… anyone you think might pre-order a book and not be offended by you asking. This is the hardest part, and, honestly, I’m not sure we performed as well as More

1: Getting started In this series of three articles, I’m going to look at how I crowdfunded my novel, Work in Progress, through Unbound’s unique crowdfunding model. I wrote my book with two pals, Martin and Alex. It was originally called Kitten on a Fatberg, and it tells the story of a group of eccentrics, aspiring writers who form a critique group to offer feedback on each other’s work. We wrote the story in a spontaneous, open-ended way, and somehow it turned into something quite farcical. All the characters are larger than life in a comic sort of way, and there are lots of feuds, misunderstandings, romances, and petty rivalries. We hoped it might be as much fun to read as it was to write. Unbound is an international publisher based in the UK with a different model. It accepts authors from the UK, US and around the world. It’s been covered quite widely in the media in the UK, and I’ve always liked the sound of it. Soon I was on the Unbound site, and looking at how to submit our manuscript. Unbound bills itself as “publishing for the 21st century.” As far as I know, it’s the world’s only book More