Serializing a novel using Patreon, Substack, Wattpad, and Kindle Vella

​After I finished writing my strange little gothic novel, I spent an inordinate amount of time researching the best way to publish it. What I found is that the current model—publishing through a Big Four publishing house—is not the best option.

Publishing houses are looking for one thing: books that are going to sell more than 100,000 copies and generate them a profit as a result, but only 0.01 percent of books do that each year. By far the more likely thing is to sell less than 10,000 copies, and 96 percent of books do that every year.

But somewhere in the middle lies a sweet spot: books that sell between 1,000 and 100,000 copies—that are loved by a small but devoted few. That might not sell enough to make it in the big world of publishing contracts and screenplay options, but could sell enough to be profitable—if only creator economy technologies are used. After all, it only takes 1,000 fans spending $8/month to earn a living of $100,000/year.

In this session, I'm going to talk about platforms that could disrupt the publishing industry—like Substack, Patreon, Wattpad, and Kindle Vella—where writers can build a following for their work and then monetize it by allowing readers to subscribe to their book as they are writing it. After all, some of my favorite novels were written as serials—including my beloved The Count of Monte Cristo—and they were wildly successful.

Let's bring serial novels back, and earn a better living while we're at it.