Back on April 27th I started posting one chapter a day from my 2003 novel RIVERWATCH. I thought it might be a nice way to give back to some of my fans while at the same time introducing others to my fiction in a way that doesn’t require them to lay out any cash or even much effort. Subscribe to the feed and voila – every day a new chapter in a book that was nominated for both the International Horror Guild Award and the Bram Stoker Award. How much easier can it get than that?
So here we are at day 17 and I’m starting to wonder if I should bother continuing. There hasn’t been a single comment or tweet on any of the entries, so I don’t know if people are enjoying the posts, bored with the story, or just completely indifferent to the entire concept. Traffic to the site has jumped a little, but not by much, so it doesn’t seem to be attracting new readers, although this could be simply be because I haven’t had time to get out there and promote it all that much.
With all that said, I’ve decided to leave it in your hands. If you want to see the daily posts continue, leave a comment below. If I don’t receive any feedback one way or another over the next couple of days, I’ll probably stop the daily posts and simply put up a single link to download the ebook as a whole. That way people still get to read the book (and finish the story they’ve started) if they want to. Who knows – maybe more of you will like that approach anyway?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Here’s my two cents, Joe, for what it’s worth. As much as I personally like the serial novel concept, I’d probably say just put up the ebook (or maybe release it on Kindle). I know Mike Stackpole tried a similar experiment and seems to have abandoned it. I don’t know if that was because it didn’t work or if he just got busy with other things. Anyway, again just my two cents.
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the note and your thoughts on the topic. I think I’ve come to the same conclusion you have. I’ll be revamping the side bar on the front page and putting up links to an ebook version (in various formats) for those who are interesting in finishing the story.
All the best,
Joe
I saw you mention it over on Genreality a while back and meant to come read, but life has been crazy busy lately and I just haven’t made it that far. Haven’t been reading hardly anything at all lately – had a local fight to attempt to save our library going, and the district creation ballot just failed this last week. That’s been pretty much my main concern for quite a while now. Too stressed to read is pretty darn stressed in my case.
LOL… that’s why i’m here now. Things have sorta settled down, I have a quiet evening, and thought, oh, yeah! There was that book the guy on genreality posted that I meant to go read… and here I am.
I have loved it so far, keep it going (how many more chapters are there?), sorry I haven’t commented, meant to……I really like your style, will look for your other books locally, good luck with it all.
Hi Joe,
Just discoverd your site.
Why not put the entire book online on Smashwords.com? You will get more exposure.
I just found this offer and I am awfully sorry I didn’t find it earlier. I’m going to try to find a way to subscribe, and I surely appreciate your effort,