Tuesday Serial recently partnered with Claudia Hall Christian to host the Serial Fiction Round Table: The Publishers. Further information about the round table, the participants and a video recording of the session can be found here. We encountered some technical difficulties with the audio quality during the session and so we have put together a full transcript for your reference. The transcript stays as close to an exact transcription of the spoken audio as possible, with some corrections made to aid in clarity. We will be publishing the transcript in five installments over the course of this week. The links below will be active as each portion of the transcript is published. Thanks for your patience as we work out the kinks on our first-ever video round table. In spite of the technical difficulties, the conversation was informative and lively and we look forward to hosting future events.

Transcript Part 1 – Introductions & The market for serial fiction

Transcript Part 2 – Publishing approaches for serials 

Transcript Part 3 – Reader feedback 

Transcript Part 4 – Pricing models

Transcript Part 5 – Market for CYOA serials (You are here)

Transcript Part 5 – Market for CYOA serials:

Tony: We’re coming to the close of our hour but I do want to take a question that was submitted to us. We had a number of questions that were submitted. This one comes via Twitter and it’s from Dwain Smith. And his question is “Is there a place in the market for choose-your-own-adventure style serials?” And Angie, let me go to you first. And we all know that choose-your-own-adventure … these are “high noon in deadwood city” or “{unintelligible}” or whatever those CYOA stories were. Where you go in and say, “Do you go into the kitchen or go into the living room? If you go to the kitchen, go to page 5 or if you go into the living go to page 12.” Obviously, if you’re in html or in an e-reader that’s much easier to do. Angie, what do you think – is there a market for CYOA stories in the serial fiction market?

Angie: I’m not sure that they’re quite the same thing. I think that there’s always a market for CYOA. I used to love reading those things; I had a whole pile of them. And the fact that they’re moving them on to the web is great. It’s a perfect medium because it’s easy to branch and go from space to space. But I guess I’m not sure it’s exactly the same thing and I’m not sure how you’d price it since right now with amazon they’re doing it so that as you pay for it and you get the next few bits. But in this the complexities for them to try and serve up which bit next based on input, it almost needs to be a dedicated website than something … I’m not sure how you’d technically put it together for an e-reader. If somebody else can answer that …

Tony: Well, I was one of the editors for a CYOA writing endeavor – you can’t quite call it a book because that’s not quite the structure that it is – and that’s what we ended up doing. There was an entire website devoted to this. And the model that we were going to be using was an initial subscription. For a certain amount of dollars you could go in there and you start at one and you follow it through all the permutations of the story. So, that’s the pricing model that we used for that. Jerry, are any of your writers doing anything along the lines of a CYOA?

Jerry: Aside from Rachel’s story entitled “To Embrace the Sun” where she gives the readers options, we haven’t seen anything close. But I will say that while I was researching this industry I did come across a couple of sites – now, I don’t know if that’s what you were working on prior – where it asks not only the readers to decide but also writers are welcome to advance the story in another direction – another writer. I don’t know how big the market is, there’s certainly a market because I’ve seen the services offered; I don’t know how popular they are. But because we all grew up reading CYOA stories means that that concept is attractive. But if I had to venture a guess, it might not be for an older, little bit more sophisticated a reader. These are more for kids who must know if you make all different kids of decisions.

Tony: So, one of the things about a CYOA is that it requires a much more interactive role for a reader. You have to be engaged in choosing the adventure, so it’s a very different thing as opposed to you’re sitting back and letting the story unfold. So, Yael, I’ll kick it over to you. Now, for the CYOA we heard a couple of different perspectives on this. What are your thoughts? Is CYOA a model that can find a place in the whole panoply of serial fiction?

Yael: You know, I agree with Angie that it’s not clear to me that it’s exactly the same thing as serial fiction. It’s similar – I can understand why it comes up in a conversation about serial fiction. A lot of what appeals about serial fiction is that reader/writer interaction and of course that’s bumped up a notch with a CYOA. Like any child who liked to read, I of course loved CYOA and I think that would be a very cool element – I wouldn’t say to add to serial fiction because I do think like Angie said it’s something slightly different – but it’s definitely something that, as a writer I would love to have that experience of writing a CYOA and having the reader decide what kind of experience they want. I completely agree with what you’re saying about the fact that reading is usually more of this passive thing and yet, it’s also not, right? I mean, reading is so much less passive than, say, watching TV or watching a movie because we get to picture how do we want people to look, how we exactly want that maze to look or this or that. It belongs to us a little more because so much of it happens in our imagination. And I really like the idea of bringing that up to the next level with a CYOA. It might be that it would have to happen a little differently than our childhood CYOA’s; that it wouldn’t be exactly the same choice points. But especially with the technology that we have now like with making an app where you could do this … I could see that being something very exciting and I would be very keen to explore that.

Tony: Plus, one of the things that we could do is, say, turn to page 5 or turn to page 7 and then we won’t give you the next episode until tomorrow. And that would feed into your anticipation. So you get 20 days worth of adventure so you only get to make one choice each time. So it’s only fed to you a little bit at a time. We are getting to the bottom of the hour so Claudia, I will turn this over to you, you get the last word on CYOA as a model or as one thing that comes into it. This is the last question so what do you think?

Claudia: I think that stories come from the ether. And if somebody has the capacity, and the inspiration and the desire to make it happen then I say, “go for it.” To me, I feel like with the stories that I have been honored with shepherding into the world that it’s just that: it’s an honor. We could talk about mystical stuff or God stuff, but however you think about it, to me, it’s not something that I create. So if somebody says to me and says I’ve got this great idea for a CYOA, I’m not going to say “no.” I’m going to just say “Go for it,” “Try it,” “See what it is!” And certainly that’s the way – you can see from this chat – that I do everything. It’s always ready, fire, aim. And I think that we’re getting to a point that it’s really about the aiming in serial fiction and that’s fun.  But if you have a desire to do it – I mean you guys are talking about it – it sounds really fun. It would not be my strength but Dwayne has an amazing capacity – I’ll bet he could do it. With a little support and somebody to help him figure out the technology, I’ll bet he could get it done. And there are anybody listening: if you have an idea and you want to do a serial, I say, “Try it.” Don’t stop. And whatever anybody says, don’t listen to us. Go and do it. You have been gifted with this by Grace. Grace has given you this story. And it is your job to bring it to the world. And so, how you do it, who cares?

Tony: that’s a great note to end on. Well, we are right now at 2:30. That is our hour. So, I am going to bring this to a close.

Claudia: That was so fun, yay!

Tony: I’d like to thank Angie Capozello, Claudia Hall Christian, Jerry Fan and Yael Goldstein Love for all of their thoughts and all of their insights. We covered a lot of ground on this. There is still a lot more ground to cover. A lot of discussion. Other topics that we could have addressed but which we did not is to talk about rights. What kind of rights are surrendered? What kind of domestic rights? Movie rights, eventually, for if a serial does really well. These are certainly topics that we’ll be discussing in the future. I also want to thank my colleagues PJ Kaiser and Larry Kollar for the Tuesday serial website. I’d like to extend a special appreciation to Claudia for all the hard work she did in putting this together. I’d like to make a quick apology to Kate Sullivan, founder of Candlemark and Gleam. I have been watching anxiously the chat bar on the side as the technical issues we were trying to resolve to have her join this chat. Unfortunately, Kate Sullivan of Candlemark and Gleam and Jason Allen Ashlock from Movable Type Management were scheduled to be with us but due to technical issues were not able to join us. We’ll put you on the list for next time.  I am Tony Noland, I’m representing Tuesday Serial as part of this. We’ll see you next time as we continue the discussion on serial fiction.

Find out more about our round table participants:

Claudia Hall Christian - Alex the Fey thrillers, Denver Cereal, romantic serial fiction set in Denver, Colorado, the Queen of Cool, suspense, mystery, and romance unfolding in Fort Worth, Texas, On a limb with Claudia - weblog, CookStreetPublishing.com – publishing company.

Yael Goldstein Love – Plympton – Serialized Fiction for Digital Readers - publishing company.

Angie Capozello – Techtigger’s Soapbox, The Penny Dreadful - serial fiction site.

Jerry Fan – Jukepop Serials, Inc. - publishing company.

Tony Noland – Landless - weblog.

Please share in the comments any follow-up questions or comments you may have – join the discussion!

Tuesday Serial recently partnered with Claudia Hall Christian to host the Serial Fiction Round Table: The Publishers. Further information about the round table, the participants and a video recording of the session can be found here. We encountered some technical difficulties with the audio quality during the session and so we have put together a full transcript for your reference. The transcript stays as close to an exact transcription of the spoken audio as possible, with some corrections made to aid in clarity. We will be publishing the transcript in five installments over the course of this week. The links below will be active as each portion of the transcript is published. Thanks for your patience as we work out the kinks on our first-ever video round table. In spite of the technical difficulties, the conversation was informative and lively and we look forward to hosting future events.

Transcript Part 1 – Introductions & The market for serial fiction

Transcript Part 2 – Publishing approaches for serials 

Transcript Part 3 – Reader feedback 

Transcript Part 4 – Pricing models (You are here)

Transcript Part 5 – Market for CYOA serials (Friday)

Transcript Part 4 – Pricing models:

Tony: Yes, certainly everything is still evolving. No question about it. Yael, I’ll kick it over to you now for your thought on that but also now is your chance to talk a little about niche marketing. Where you may have, not just based on genre but also maybe based on market segmentation for different environments. You could have things based on gender, based on ethnicity, or based on whatever. Maybe if you care to comment on that from a pricing standpoint of the different models would one work well for one market segment versus another?

Yael: I don’t know. We are very much in that exploratory phase. So, we are part of that launch of the amazon serial program. Out of their eight titles, three of them are actually our titles. So we are very much just watching to see what happens as they explore the market in this way. It’s not how we were originally going to do it. We were going to do a more pay as you go model where you pay for each episode you want. And I think there’s a lot to be said for the subscription model. I’m curious to see how that works. But we are very much in this exploratory phase. In terms of different markets responding differently to different ones of these models I’m sure that’s true but without any empirical evidence – and I don’t have any – I couldn’t really speak to that.

Tony: Okay, so as the market is evolving and as you’re doing this, look in your crystal ball. How long is it going to be until some pricing models get stabilized? A year? Two years? Things move fast, but what do you think?

Yael: I think about a year. There are a lot of people moving into this field right now. St. Martins is getting into it with Movable Type. Byliner is getting into it. And so I think as people get used to this model more – obviously you’ve been doing this for awhile and your audience is used to it – but I think as people who haven’t been used to it get used to it more, we’re going to start to see what works for the sort of less gung-ho audience – the people who didn’t find it early on. And, I don’t have a very good crystal ball because my technology generally isn’t very good, but I would say probably about a year or something like that.

Tony: Okay. So, Jerry, we’ll come over to you. So, looking at these different models coming out, obviously these things are still very much in flux. What do you think? Looking ahead, a year, two years, what do you think the best pricing model will be for your audience?

Jerry: So, let me take an international – a global approach actually. So, the pricing approach that is popular in Asia and Russia is actually not subscription – it’s actually pay-as-you go. So, that may or may not make sense for the U.S. market because obviously there are cultural differences and it depends on whether there are comparable models out there. If I had to guess why Amazon went with the subscription model aside from what Angie talked about – finding the right pricing points and keeping everybody happy – I would say because the U.S. market is probably more used to the subscription model. So that’s probably one of the main reasons. They probably don’t want to introduce a new model where people aren’t used to it. So that’s one main reason. If you look at subscription based services that are popular these days, you’re talking about Netflix, various video-sharing services and even Amazon’s own amazon prime where they offer movies and it’s essentially a subscription service because you pay for one year. That’s one factor. And the other factor is that subscription services are a more predictable revenue stream. What that means is that the minute somebody buys it, they can’t leave. Legally they can leave but there are more barriers to leaving after they’ve already bought. So from a revenue model perspective and business-wise it’s just more predictable. So if they’re going to be conservative they would pick that model. The third reason has to do with the transaction cost of pay-as-you-go. So, I’m sure Yael, when you guys looked at pay-as-you-go model if you start talking about anything less than a dollar then the transaction cost makes this model unprofitable. It’s just too significant a chunk. There are other means of pay-as-you-go that could work. But just for example with Paypal, if you do anything less than a dollar, they actually charge something close to 25 to 35 cents per transaction on the seller. All of a sudden 30-40% of your profit margin is wiped away. And you have to share a significant chunk of the revenue with the authors. So there are technical challenges, more related to embedded network costs by the payment processors that you can’t get away from. And on the other side, it’s what the U.S. culture is used to. So, my main thing is that I think both models will exist and I think there’s a place for that. For the subscription model, you really need a good amount of content. There’s a reason why amazon went with a subscription on one novel instead of paying $50 and you can read all of the titles in Kindle Serials. Because they just don’t have enough titles to make them feel that paying $50 – or whatever the price point is – is worth it. So they went with per serial and then – there’s actually not even a guarantee – we think there are four or five installments coming. So, for a subscription model to make sense you need to have a lot of content and a lot of predictable content. For pay-as-you-go, those two criteria are sort of not there. They’re not as important. But what you do need for pay-as-you-go is for the content to be cheaper. You need the content to be exciting. With serialization it’s obviously ideal for because at the end of the chapter everybody knows there should be a hook of some kind to get the reader to want to read the next chapter. So pay-as-you-go makes sense for some content and subscription makes sense for another. I think we’ll see both. I don’t think either one will go away.

Tony: You know, as you were describing this, I couldn’t help but be reminded how there are different kinds of amusement parks. And some of them you buy tickets for each ride – you buy a ticket for this ride and you buy a ticket for that ride – some rides are one ticket, some rides are three tickets. Other amusement parks, you buy the wristband and you’re in for the day – you can do whatever you want for the day. Different pricing models and some of them do both. So, I think that’s a good perspective of having them both tied together. Claudia, we’re going to finish up with you on the discussion of the pricing point models. You have some experience with this with the serials that you’ve published. What models have you been using and where do you see things are going to be going for pricing models?

Claudia: We’ve done everything. We’ve done pay-as-you-go via Amazon where we’ve put up chapters. We did this specifically for the Queen of Cool. I think this is some of the luxury that we’ve had with the Queen of Cool we were able to test everything. We had a subscription model where people paid up front. What they got was they got the serial chapters before they were released into the wild – i.e., onto the Internet. And they also got the book before everybody else. We did pay as you go through Amazon where people paid $.99 and were able to get chapters. What we found was that the $.99 via Amazon fed into the subscription model because people would get caught up and they would want the chapters that much faster. Then the chapters fed into the desire to have the book that much faster. We’re re-serializing the book this year and it seems to be going at a much more stated pace. I think because the book is done. What we have heard from our readers is that while I think about what is the most profitable and what makes the most sense and, honestly, for us, what is not a pain in the rear! I mean, honestly, some of this stuff is like “aaargh!” So I appreciate Jerry’s experience or thoughts because it’s really helpful. What I’m trying to say is that’s our perspective. When we talk to readers, readers see this stuff as books. So, I’ve had many people say, “You know, I looked at the Amazon serials. Four of them have “death” or “killer” in the title. That’s not something I’m really interested in, and they cost about as much as a book. So why would I get it?” So, that’s always going to be a portion of the audience that wants to read the whole book at the same time. And so I think that we’ll just have to see where people are and what they want to do. I believe, and certainly I feel like I’ve seen, that people are interested in serial fiction. And they are interested in getting it. We publish every day, six days a week at Denver Cereal, about 500-600 words a day. And people read it with their morning coffee. They get on and they read it and they go on about their day. Or they read it after they get off work. I have seen a market for that and I think the market will grow and will continue to grow, just as Jerry said. And I think that’s what happens in Asia and that wouldn’t surprise me. That’s certainly a modern updated version of what’s happened. So, we’ve tried everything. And for us it comes down to what’s the least painful. I think the least painful is what we’re doing right now. I want to start another serial in Boston next year that’s called “Suffer a Witch” and we’ll probably try it all again and see how it works. I have this chance to try this stuff out. Until we start adding other authors, our hope was to gain all of this information and all of this research. One of our board members is a statistician and so it gives him a chance to play with all of the numbers and do all of that stuff so that when we open the co-op to authors and to editors that they’ll know what we found. And certainly I’m happy to share that too.

Find out more about our round table participants:

Claudia Hall Christian - Alex the Fey thrillers, Denver Cereal, romantic serial fiction set in Denver, Colorado, the Queen of Cool, suspense, mystery, and romance unfolding in Fort Worth, Texas, On a limb with Claudia - weblog, CookStreetPublishing.com – publishing company.

Yael Goldstein Love – Plympton – Serialized Fiction for Digital Readers - publishing company.

Angie Capozello – Techtigger’s Soapbox, The Penny Dreadful - serial fiction site.

Jerry Fan – Jukepop Serials, Inc. - publishing company.

Tony Noland – Landless - weblog.

Please share in the comments any follow-up questions or comments you may have – join the discussion!

Tuesday Serial recently partnered with Claudia Hall Christian to host the Serial Fiction Round Table: The Publishers. Further information about the round table, the participants and a video recording of the session can be found here. We encountered some technical difficulties with the audio quality during the session and so we have put together a full transcript for your reference. The transcript stays as close to an exact transcription of the spoken audio as possible, with some corrections made to aid in clarity. We will be publishing the transcript in five installments over the course of this week. The links below will be active as each portion of the transcript is published. Thanks for your patience as we work out the kinks on our first-ever video round table. In spite of the technical difficulties, the conversation was informative and lively and we look forward to hosting future events.

Transcript Part 1 – Introductions & The market for serial fiction

Transcript Part 2 – Publishing approaches for serials 

Transcript Part 3 – Reader feedback (You are here)

Transcript Part 4 – Pricing models (Thursday)

Transcript Part 5 – Market for CYOA serials (Friday)

Transcript Part 3 – Reader feedback

Tony: Okay, so, great. So let me move on to a different question. We’re coming to the top of the hour. You talked about having reader feedback and understanding what people are reacting to and how they’re reacting to it. If the story isn’t written yet and the readers are saying that they want to see the stories go in a certain direction. Or, you want to see a character do something or you want to see the story arc bend in a certain way. What’s the extent to which you allow the readers expectations or reader desires to shape what the writer is going to do? If the writer already has an idea in mind for where the story is going to go, there’s a certain amount of flexibility. But you don’t want to suborn the writer’s vision for this. How much should feedback from the readers be taken into account on an episode by episode basis as you’re going forward? Jerry, you’re on the screen right now, do you want to talk about this a little bit?

Jerry: Yep. So, again, because we are a platform and we have so many authors who chose to join the venture with us, that we let them do whatever they want. It’s really about them cultivating a relationship with their readers. One of our authors, Rachel Cruz, whose husband Joey Cruz – they’re both simultaneously released on our site – Rachel has taken an interesting approach to her piece which is that at the end of every chapter she take a poll of the readers. She’ll say I have four choices for you guys. I will develop and write the next chapter per your choices. But the majority of the option wins. That’s proven to be very interesting and effective for her. She’s getting very good participation on the comments section, she’s getting a lot of votes. But there are writers who don’t do that. Our top most-voted writer right now, he does not do that and he’s doing just fine. So, it’s really about the personality of the writer and the personality of the story. The story can pivot however the writer wants and the reader may or may not enjoy it. It’s all up to the writers to decide.

Tony: Claudia, you want to comment on that? Same issue about the feedback and where the story arc may be going based on reader interaction.

Claudia: You know, I love reader reaction. I love poll daddy – we’ve put up polls. I haven’t done one in awhile, I probably should. But people contact me on facebook and they say this or that.  Probably the biggest interaction I had was when we were chasing a serial killer and I wanted to have the killer to experience justice and I wanted the serial killer to experience justice so that the families should have some completion. But what happened was the readers really wanted something bloody, nasty, horrible happen to him. So, that’s what we did. We created some horrible thing.

{Angie joins the hangout}

Angie: Hi, I made it!

Tony: We’re talking about how much interaction between writer and reader and how much reader feedback should be taken into account as the writer discusses the arc and writes the next phase. But before we let you address the question, let me introduce Angie.

{See Angie’s introduction}

Tony: So, Angie, since you just joined us, I’ll throw you into the pit here. As stories go along you get feedback from your readers, they say well, we want the story to move in a certain direction, we want a certain thing to happen, we want these two characters to fall in love, you should kill that guy off.  How much do you take that into account as you’re carrying the writing forward?

{problems with muted mikes}

Angie: I managed to unmute myself here. What I was saying was that I have a long-running story arc. I kind of know where these characters are going, but based on reactions to an earlier episode or something a bit of feedback I get, I might adjust it a bit depending on what the audience is reacting to. What they are excited about. So, I don’t change the overall story, but I might steer it a little bit more in one direction or another depending on the feedback I get.

Tony: So, let me kick it back over to Yael. How much do you incorporate reader feedback when you are writing the stories?

Yael: Well, first of all, I don’t write the stories. I run Plympton. But, we haven’t had this question come up yet in practice because we just launched a month ago. Less than a month ago at this point.  And we’re getting some reader feedback but the three stories that we launched with are almost completely done as they are being released so there’s not that much room for writer response to reader feedback. But this is something that my writers have been very concerned about and we have spoken about. How much should they into account and in a sense it could become sort of a nightmare workshop situation where you’re getting feedback from so many people and you have no idea who to listen to. So, the thing that I always say is reader feedback is the same as any feedback no matter who it’s from. You have to sort of feel to what extend does it feel right to you. Any reader could have great insight and great advice as to where your story should be going – things you never saw – and if that’s happening then you should certainly be responsive to that. But if 90% of people are saying they hate this one character or if they want this one character to do something that you think is wrong, then I would encourage my writers to go with their gut on that and not with the mob.

Tony: Right. And I could also see a circumstance – you know, I’ve written serials in the past – where you might be setting up a character for something really awful later on.  You know, you’re setting up a villain and you’re planning on giving them the justice they deserve down in episode 19. If in episode 5 the mob is calling for their head, you don’t want to respond to that too quickly. Building up the dramatic tension whether you’re going for love or revenge is one of the things that drives a good serial. And, quite frankly, getting people to come back and read those other episodes. You want to delay that gratification to give people a reason to come back.

Angie: I feel that if they hate my villains and they want them dead then I haven’t done my job unless they hate them. If they’re calling for their head then I’m writing correctly. So, I’ll appreciate that I’m doing the right thing with my villain but I’ll have a plan for it.  I’m not going to compromise the story for a knee-jerk reaction. I’ll take that into account and if they’re not hating my villain then maybe I need to work more for them to ask to have them killed.

Tony: Or, if they’re calling for the villain’s head then that may be a reason to take that feedback into account and have them win the lottery and get the promotion that your hero was supposed to get just as a way to really fan those flames. Cause we’re all about bringing people to come back to buy the next episode. Which is a segue into the next question that I’d like to throw out to all of you and that is about payment, pricing and all of those pricing structures that we’re going to do. I don’t have a clear understanding myself about how Amazon is going to be pricing their systems and serials going forward and I’ll ask people who do to chime in on that. But there are a couple of different pricing structures we could see for serials. One is the pay-as-you-go model where you pay a certain amount for each episode as it comes out and if you like it you buy the next one. That’s one model. There’s an up-front subscription model where you pay a certain amount up front and that gives you access to the entire serial as it comes out. There’s also another model which is a bit like buying a magazine subscription which gives you access to a stable of writers with a variety of serials coming out. They’re going to be overlapping with some starting and stopping at the same time. But that allows you access to a variety of writers for the same fee. It’s almost like buying a package of channels from your cable company. Angie, you’re on the screen now. Do you want to share your thoughts of what kind of a pricing structure would work best for the publishers, would work best for the writers and would be amenable to the readers?

Angie: Actually, I can talk a little about what Amazon is doing because I work in marketing in my day job and I’ve seen companies take the same approach they’re taking with their kindle serials. It’s called an exploratory market. And the simple fact of the matter is they don’t know what people are willing to pay. So they’re just going to keep doing their test runs. They’ve got their pilot group now. These are friendly people they know will give them good publicity. That $1.99 – that crazy number – is the balancing point between what they think people are willing to pay and how they can still make a little money for their friendlies and keep them friendly. Keep these evangelists on their side. The next step, again, they’re not going to publish their prices because this is their test market. These people they’re asking to sign on. Each group is probably going to get a different deal till they figure out what works. The answer is Amazon doesn’t know what’s going to work because it’s too new. There are no benchmarks. This is how you test a market to figure it out. So when they eventually, finally publish something that has all of that information – what they’re going to pay, what percentages – that’s when you know they have finally figured it out and have a product. But until then, they’re shooting in the dark. So it’s going to be hard to figure out – we aren’t going to be able to piggyback on them yet or see what they’re doing yet. And a lot of people who sign up for it are probably going to get a nondisclosure agreement so they can’t share either.

Find out more about our round table participants:

Claudia Hall Christian - Alex the Fey thrillers, Denver Cereal, romantic serial fiction set in Denver, Colorado, the Queen of Cool, suspense, mystery, and romance unfolding in Fort Worth, Texas, On a limb with Claudia - weblog, CookStreetPublishing.com – publishing company.

Yael Goldstein Love – Plympton – Serialized Fiction for Digital Readers - publishing company.

Angie Capozello – Techtigger’s Soapbox, The Penny Dreadful - serial fiction site.

Jerry Fan – Jukepop Serials, Inc. - publishing company.

Tony Noland – Landless - weblog.

Please share in the comments any follow-up questions or comments you may have – join the discussion!

Tuesday Serial recently partnered with Claudia Hall Christian to host the Serial Fiction Round Table: The Publishers. Further information about the round table, the participants and a video recording of the session can be found here. We encountered some technical difficulties with the audio quality during the session and so we have put together a full transcript for your reference. The transcript stays as close to an exact transcription of the spoken audio as possible, with some corrections made to aid in clarity. We will be publishing the transcript in five installments over the course of this week. The links below will be active as each portion of the transcript is published. Thanks for your patience as we work out the kinks on our first-ever video round table. In spite of the technical difficulties, the conversation was informative and lively and we look forward to hosting future events.

Transcript Part 1 – Introductions & The market for serial fiction

Transcript Part 2 – Publishing approaches for serials (You are here)

Transcript Part 3 – Reader feedback (Wednesday)

Transcript Part 4 – Pricing models (Thursday)

Transcript Part 5 – Market for CYOA serials (Friday)

Transcript Part 2 – Publishing approaches for serials:

Tony: You know, it’s interesting what you say about the anticipating of the waiting for the next serial episode to come. Claudia and I were talking about this the other day. You get all the people who don’t want to wait too. As each episode comes out down there at the bottom it says, “You know, if you want, you can buy the whole thing.” With a one-click purchase you can get all the remaining episodes and have it come out. Now, how do you feel about that? I’ll toss that out to everybody, but, Yael, I’ll talk to you about it first. If somebody comes to you and says, “I love the first three episodes and I want to buy the next seventeen. I want to buy the whole thing right now. I don’t want to wait.” Would you give it to them?

Yael: Hmmm, that’s a really good question. I don’t know, I hadn’t really thought about that. I hate to be paternalistic and tell them how they’re supposed to read their book. At the same time, it’s strange. If some people have it all at once you take away the participatory/social aspect of this. When everybody is reading the same portions at the same time and anticipating and speculating together. To me that’s a very important part of the serial experience. So, I would be inclined to not give it to them although that goes against many of my own principals so I would need to think about that some.

Tony: Okay. Well, I’m going to shift over to Claudia because I know what you would say on this. If somebody wants to buy the rest of the story, I think you’re perfectly content to say “you bet.” Just click on over … am I right?

Claudia: Well, for the books – for the Alex the Fey thriller series – we serialize it at alexthefey.com and people can buy the book when they get excited about it. For the actual serial fiction which is Denver Cereal and last year the Queen of Cool, the story wasn’t done. The chapters were published as they were written so there would be no way to buy the whole story. For example, the queen of cool we wrapped up the writing three weeks before we ended the serial. The goal was to have the book ready when the last chapter was published. And everybody – all the editors, everybody – was in line with that and so everybody was working. So, there wasn’t a Denver Cereal book. We collect the chapters after they’re’ published on the site and make the book. It’s a traditional serial fiction.

Tony: Okay Jerry. So, we have one perspective for the serials to say, “it interferes with the experience of the book. I intended it to follow a certain emotional arc and buying it kind of scuppers that.” On the other hand, we’ve got to say, “Well, if the book is already written then we’ll sell it. But if the serial isn’t written yet then obviously I can’t. What are your thoughts on that? If somebody came to you and said, “This is great, I don’t want to wait for the rest of it, give it to me all at once, how would you respond to that?”

{discussion about muting microphones}

Jerry: So, I think from my perspective, anything to make the authors happy. I think that’s kind of our motto here. So, if the book has already been completed, and he/she is releasing it chapter by chapter on our site and on our apps eventually…and if they decide that they’re getting enough recognition that they’re going to put the book up on Amazon and sell it, then we are totally okay with that. Our platform is to help authors to discover their audience and to perfect their craft. So, from those two perspectives we are very, very open to working with authors in whichever style they choose. In fact, our policy is that we are okay with you stopping the serial if you feel like you’re not getting the adequate feedback from the readers – that perhaps you’re not getting enough love from the audience and we think that it’s fair. It’s our job at jukepop serials to make sure that your work is highlighted well enough. It’s discoverable. We need to be fair on both fronts. We need to do our job and we’ll make sure the writers do theirs. So, I guess the short answer is “Yes. If they want to sell the book, absolutely.”

Find out more about our round table participants:

Claudia Hall Christian - Alex the Fey thrillers, Denver Cereal, romantic serial fiction set in Denver, Colorado, the Queen of Cool, suspense, mystery, and romance unfolding in Fort Worth, Texas, On a limb with Claudia - weblog, CookStreetPublishing.com – publishing company.

Yael Goldstein Love – Plympton – Serialized Fiction for Digital Readers - publishing company.

Angie Capozello – Techtigger’s Soapbox, The Penny Dreadful - serial fiction site.

Jerry Fan – Jukepop Serials, Inc. - publishing company.

Tony Noland – Landless - weblog.

Please share in the comments any follow-up questions or comments you may have – join the discussion!

Tuesday Serial recently partnered with Claudia Hall Christian to host the Serial Fiction Round Table: The Publishers. Further information about the round table, the participants and a video recording of the session can be found here. We encountered some technical difficulties with the audio quality during the session and so we have put together a full transcript for your reference. The transcript stays as close to an exact transcription of the spoken audio as possible, with some corrections made to aid in clarity. We will be publishing the transcript in five installments over the course of this week. The links below will be active as each portion of the transcript is published. Thanks for your patience as we work out the kinks on our first-ever video round table. In spite of the technical difficulties, the conversation was informative and lively and we look forward to hosting future events.

Transcript Part 1 – Introductions & The market for serial fiction (You are here)

Transcript Part 2 – Publishing approaches for serials (Tuesday)

Transcript Part 3 – Reader feedback (Wednesday)

Transcript Part 4 – Pricing models (Thursday)

Transcript Part 5 – Market for CYOA serials (Friday)

Transcript Part 1 – Introductions & The market for serial fiction