THE Group for Authors! discussion

I absolutely agree. We read often for contests, and even with series books, they MUST have closure to the main arc of the story, or I mark them down. Excerpts should be identified as such. And Part 1 or a three-part story without closure should clearly indicate this.

Danae wrote: "I am a newbie writer with only one short story out, but I consider myself a seasoned reader with over 2,000 books under my belt.

I thought I would bring this topic to the masses and get others opi..."

Danae, I must agree with you regarding your purchase of a book not finished with only two or three chapters in it. Not right. I think there is something wrong with this act of making money.
pattimari@hotmail.com

Yep - this kind of thing really annoys me as a reader. Before buying a book, I will go through the reviews first to make sure it isn't a serial disguised as a book. If it is, I won't buy. I've no problem with a book clearly stating it is a serial though and appreciate that from the author.

I think it depends on how it's presented and the price. I originally published my first novel as four parts. The reason I did was because my friends and family wanted to read it and my second editor was a little slow. I emphasized in the blurb that it was part of one novel and prior to the first chapter, I clearly stated it was chapters X-Y of one novel with no clear ending. Then, I charged 1/4 of what I planned to charge for the whole novel. I also offered all four parts for free shortly after release...primarily for family and friends, though others downloaded, as well.

I was able to publish the full novel shortly after the 4th part. However, it caused me difficulties because it is Book One in a series. There is a primary story in Book One that did conclude (several readers thanked me for that -- probably had similar experiences to yours), though there is a storyline that stretches across the series. The problem was that the Part One and Book One caused confusion. So I didn't have Book One clearly marked and I felt terrible when some readers downloaded it not realizing it was part of a series.

As a result of that, I unpublished the parts and more clearly marked the novel. I've even altered the blurb to make it clear.

I guess my point is that there's something of a mix. There are indeed people trying to scam readers. But, there are also people who aren't trying to mislead people, but might perhaps do so unintentionally. In the end, like you, I think readers will (or have already) caught on to the scammers and will steer clear of parts or even series. The down side being that it potentially hurts authors not trying to scam, but that problem isn't limited to publishing.

There's a place for serials in the marketplace, but it is something that I think writers need to be very careful with, and be honest about.

If it's a serial, it needs to be labeled clearly as one. The price of the whole thing should be commensurate with a whole book of a similar length. Each installment should be released in a timely fashion. And lastly, each installment should feel relatively complete. Honestly, I think it's a model that works better for something like a series of interconnected short stories than a novel.

I've read books - I can think of two right now - that just stopped mid-adventure. Right as the action was heating up the book finished with a note from the author to purchase the next book in the series. In other words he's selling one book for the price of three.

Part of one of my reviews;

"I was really enjoying the book when it suddenly came to a grinding halt without even bothering to work its way down through the gears. No doubt ***** expects the reader to immediately download volume 2, but not me. I’ve got 100 books on my Kindle waiting to be read, and I won’t read another ***** book out of principal because I think this finished with a cheap shot."

Dictionary.com describes a trilogy as “a series or group of three plays, novels, operas, etc., that, although INDIVIDUALLY COMPLETE, are closely related in theme, sequence, or the like.” In ancient Greece a trilogy was “a series of three COMPLETE and usually related tragedies.” And there’s the rub, for when you pick up a book you expect it to be complete of itself.

The marvellous Genghis Khan series by Tim Ellis can be read as individual COMPLETE books, as can the fantastic ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy by Philip Pullman.

Karl wrote: "I've read books - I can think of two right now - that just stopped mid-adventure. Right as the action was heating up the book finished with a note from the author to purchase the next book in the s..."

I would agree to that. I think each story should be complete and stand on its own. If there is a trilogy, then each story is a complete story in its own.

There is a modern fashion that says that books in a series must read like episodes in a TV show. According to this fashion, we must contrive to give closure at the end of each book, as if a good story is made by having characters constantly be in peril and then out of peril at regular intervals over and over again.

I'm sorry but I can't stand series that do what you are asking. I don't want closure at the end of a book. I would be bored and stop reading the series. I like a series that ends each book with some suspense. And that has been the way writers have written in the fantasy genre for generations. Tolkien's books don't end with closure until the end of the series. LORT is not a big book broken up into three parts. It is three books with separate themes and plot arcs. They are also part of the larger story and there is little closure between the parts. David Eddings did the same thing. Robert Jordan too.

Just because The Hunger Games and Harry Potter started a modern fashion dictating that characters must undergo TV episodes in their stories does not mean that somehow makes the only good fiction. Feel free to enjoy what you like but don't try to make it out to be some sort of writing sin for authors to write real series rather than "episodic" series. You will notice, if you look, that episodic series are hard to make very serious or realistic. Terry Pratchett's books may be well written but the episodic style lends itself more to humor and intentionally unrealistic worlds, more than to gritty, realistic fantasy.

If a writer markets 30,000 words as "a book" in a series and cuts the story off at a random point, instead of at a true transition point, then I would agree that that is a contrived attempt to squeeze more money out of readers but I doubt the strategy will ever pay off. That sort of packaging strategy would simply be foolish. However, please do make it clear in your descriptions if you are writing an episodic series, because I usually don't like them and I would be likely to give you less than stellar reviews. I have issues with even The Hunger Games over the contrived endings, despite other excellent qualities of the series.

I will gladly let you know that my trilogy does not give closure until the last book. The books are regular book length 80,000 to 90,000 words. The first two end at logical transition points where there is a lot of suspense. Each book focuses on a different phase of the story. I love the writings of more serious fantasy authors and I write what I love, rather than what is in fashion at the moment.

So, if you require episodic closure at the end of each book, feel free to pass on mine. I can recommend Morgan Daimler's books. She does an excellent job of creating closure at the end of each of her books without it feeling like a TV show or feeling like contrived episodes. I usually don't like episodic series but I like hers. Good luck.

Pattimari wrote: "Danae wrote: "I am a newbie writer with only one short story out, but I consider myself a seasoned reader with over 2,000 books under my belt.

I thought I would bring this topic to the masses and ..."

I agree as well, Danae. It just sounds like someone strictly out for the money.

What happened to our imaginations? Why can't we do on and come up with what we believe happened? My book was over 300 pages and it was time to end it, I did. Most love and wonder what? at the ending, and then there are those who complain, ended to soon, ended without everything answered, ended abruptly. I'll take all of that as wow! this must have been really good to get both happy, satisfied, wanting more and those who are upset, disgruntled the story ended.

Two or three chapters? And you're paying for it? Nah, you shouldn't have to use your imagination to figure out what happened. The author needs to be clear on what they're selling, whether it's an excerpt, a novella, etc.

If it's really two or three chapters, that is is ridiculous.

But the OP goes on to hint that ANY book of any length that doesn't end with contrived closure in order to restart in the next book of the series is somehow a writing sin. Look at the classic series in the fantasy genre. This desire for episodic series is a fad, not a dictate of good writing. Some episodic series are very humorous. A very very few are good and serious at the same time. Many are very annoying. It is a matter of taste.

Danae wrote: "I am a newbie writer with only one short story out, but I consider myself a seasoned reader with over 2,000 books under my belt.

I thought I would bring this topic to the masses and get others opi..."

I released two permanently free, clearly marked excerpts from my memoir as a means of building interest in the book. I "sold" a ton of them - and then got 1-star reviews from people who either said things like "I look forward to the full book" or "It ended abruptly - where's the rest of the story?" Sometimes I don't think people really look at what they're downloading.

In my experience, most authors writing series are honest and mark up as appropriate (I am one of them). I get a lot of comments in both directions from readers; some love the breakpoints and thrive on the anticipation; others hate series and complain (so I wonder why they buy them in the first place). Marketing has been an influence; pricing is a nightmare.

That said, if someone has basically cut up a story into parts and is selling them as a series to make money then rate and review accordingly and strike them off of your to read list.

But please don't tar all series writers with the same brush; some of us try to do a good job ...

Lori wrote: "Danae wrote: "I am a newbie writer with only one short story out, but I consider myself a seasoned reader with over 2,000 books under my belt.

I thought I would bring this topic to the masses and ..."

Lori, I have serious concerns about free giveaways, but that's for another debate. However, they do tend to attract poor reviews because they're downloaded by people who wouldn't normally read that genre. It sits on their kindle fo a few months and by the time they get around to reading they've forgotte it was free.

What is a "book" is a valid question. I've seen fantasy authors write an epic fantasy that was inside one cover and devided into "books" and "chapters." But the "books" were not separate books but just "parts" within one cover. I've also seen this done with separate ccovers.

Obviously, there are children's "books" that are short. They don't always have much resolution. The Little House on the Prairie...

I would love it if adults could agree that adult "books" in fiction are at least 50,000 words and have a plot within one cover. :) Good luck enforcing that though.

I think selling an installment of a few chapters without identifying it as such is wrong. If the installment is more than $0.99, I think it's wrong. If there are four installments costing $0.99 each, then that's about right for a whole book. If a reader wants to continue paying $0.99 for multiple installments indefinitely, then it must be a good story. However, it should be identified as an incomplete series regardless of what it costs or even if it is free.

I also think a series of full length books should be identified as a series, whether it is a trilogy or longer. I don't think a book in a series should have to be totally self contained. I think each book should come to some sort of climax, but should also leave the reader wanting more.

Arie wrote: " Tolkien's books don't end with closure until the end of the series. LORT is not a big book broken up into three parts"

Actually, LOTR was written as a single book, and Tolkien's publisher required that it be broken apart into three books for publication. I don't know of anyone who would just read one of the three and feel that they had read a complete story.

My thoughts on the whole matter... honestly advertise what you are doing. If you are releasing a work that is not resolved in the first book, something along the lines of "Bob's struggle continues in... and concludes in..." If it is a serialized/episodal work, I've seen authors issue it as "season 1, episodes 1-10". I don't like to pick up a book and then find out it is only a sample, and I have turned down books that clearly state "this is only the first 4 chapters" or "this story continues in..." But I am very appreciative of the authors who indicate it in the first place, and let me make that choice. If I read the first book in a series and it is not a complete story arc, I get pretty perturbed. And I never buy the next.

The books in series that I have released so far as all stand alone stories. You can read any one of them without having to read the previous or subsequent book. I tend to take a minor character from book 1 and tell their story in book 2, and so on, but that's just me and that's just what I've done to date. I do expect to release some in the future that are the same MC in subsequent, chronological books.

Tell your readers. Then let them decide.

The conventions of genre are pretty clear. Fantasy series have been continuations of a greater story for a long time. There are a few episodic exceptions but mostly that is what a "series" means in fantasy. Look at David Eddings for classic examples. No one would ever read one of Eddings' books alone without the others and yet they all have a plot in and of themselves. There is always some theme or particular issue that is developed within each one. That is a classic fantasy series. And writers don't need to include spoilers (such as which character survives at the end of the book) in order to please a new fad.

If you want to write episodic series that depart from the conventions, go ahead. Terry Pratchett does it and doesn't warn the reader. but if you read one of his books it is pretty obvious and if you're like me and don't like episodic stuff, you probably stop reading even though the writing is good and momentarily entertaining.

Beyond whether or not a series ends with "closure" or with "tension" is the question of whether or not you can start anywhere in the series and still understand what is going on. Some readers really prefer to be able to jump into a series, like many people do with TV shows, and then go back and read the beginning another time. I don't. I can't stand that sort of reading and I don't watch serialized TV. There is just so much you sacrifice in terms of good story craft to contrive those episodic, flat plot lines. So, I much prefer series that don't have much closure at the end of each book and where you can't jump in anywhere. I love Eddings, Gabaldon, Jordan and the like precisely because there is a strong overall story to the series. There is no sense that the story has been tweaked in order to accommodate book endings.

Lori wrote: "I released two permanently free, clearly marked excerpts from my memoir as a means of building interest in the book. I "sold" a ton of them - and then got 1-star reviews from people who either said things like "I look forward to the full book" or "It ended abruptly - where's the rest of the story?" Sometimes I don't think people really look at what they're downloading. "

If you released this on a retailer on which uploading of excerpts is against the TOS then readers have every reason to complain.

I just read an excerpt that was supposed to be a book. I didn't buy it but I did take the time to read it for review thinking it was a book. So, the complaint is real after all. People are seriously uploading just a few chapters and calling it a book. This was 4 chapters. It was sort of contained but didn't have enough development to be called a book. I don't think it should be illegal but I do think that truth-in-advertising requires that that sort of thing should be clearly marked for the reader, whether an ARC reviewer or any other kind of reader.

I will generally not buy a Kindle book that is fewer than 200 pages. That helps to avoid picking up these "excerpts". You might still run into an epic that is split across several 200-page books, but that is far more rare.

Yes, because it is always good to make sure that authors of epics don't get paid more than $$2.99. They don't deserve a cent more than novela writers, after all.

Sorry... you lost me.

I don't have a problem with paying more than $2.99 for an epic and didn't intend to imply that I did. Several of mine are over $2.99.

And I don't have a problem with an epic that comes in several books, as long as each one is a full story arc or clearly says that it is only part of a larger work.

Minimum 200 pages is just a rule of thumb for me that helps avoid getting a leaflet, excerpt, teaser, short story, novella, or unfinished work. I like a work I can get my teeth into and be satisfied with when I am done.

That would make me a bit miffed. I have quite a short book up there, but I call it a novelette to make it clear that the book is short. It is, however, an entire story. I wouldn't dream of cutting books up like that. However, if the author has made them permanently free, then I can't complain. I can only complain if I bought something which wasn't made clear. But I do always check the page count before I buy as I once bought an ebook with 12 pages!!!! And the price didn't reflect that. My own fault. I should have checked the page count.

I have nothing against people who write novelettes/novellas, I just prefer longer works. I keep hearing "short is the new long" and "short sells better", but this reader really likes long. I will occasionally break my rule and buy something shorter, like my current read, because the description is just so compelling.

And I have one story that I'll be putting up sometime next year that is much shorter than my usual work. But it doesn't want to be any longer. I will be sure to indicate in the description that it is a novella, so that no one has to wonder if it is just an excerpt or teaser...

Here's a great example, this author is currently advertising his latest "book" in a couple of GR threads.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QJNJ8D2
It's 22 pages - which I would call a short story. Looking at his author pages this is his longest "book". Why can't authors call them what they are, short stories?

Yeah, I think I looked at one of them earlier this week, and immediately discounted it due to the length. Call it a chapter. Call it a story. Call it an episode. Call it a short. But don't call it a book!

I know a number of romance authors are now doing serials, but they are clearly marked part 1, part 2 etc and they are still a decent novella length (100+ pages). I don't have a problem with that as they are clear in the description and you know what you are paying for.

I don't understand this trend of writing 10-20 pages and then labeling it a "book" and in some instances charging $2.99! No wonder readers are getting grumpy with some indie authors.

a novelette is 40,000 words, a novel is 50,000 up words. Ebooks are creating a difference in what people can expect from fictional books. How to books I've seen as little as 12,000 words. A short isn't that in the screenplay industry? Re to P.D. above. I'm with W.A., be clear with words - are ebooks do give a page count, sometimes a word count.

Virginia wrote: "I put a clearly marked excerpt on Algonquin's Table and someone complained they didn't know the characters well enough. Can't please 'em all."

That's incredible. At a round table meeting, I think it would be an unreasonable expectation in thinking of becoming intimately acquainted with each of the characters when only given an excerpt; or maybe they didn't read the material before the excerpts were tabled for discussion - I cannot understand how you be criticised for that...
I also think that selling a part story on the pretence that its a complete story is wrong. :)

Mercia wrote: "Lori wrote: "I released two permanently free, clearly marked excerpts from my memoir as a means of building interest in the book. I "sold" a ton of them - and then got 1-star reviews from people wh..."

I don't think I did - although I guess I'm not certain about every distribution channel - but I definitely see your point. It is about reader expectations, after all - and a reader's time is worth something even if the book is free. That was the conclusion I came to, anyway, and the main reason why I finally requested retirement of my free eBooks. I do get to get stuck with having them on my Goodreads profile forever, though, as they won't remove a book even if I'm the one who added it. My punishment for trying to get creative :(

Karl wrote: "Lori wrote: "Danae wrote: "I am a newbie writer with only one short story out, but I consider myself a seasoned reader with over 2,000 books under my belt.

I thought I would bring this topic to th..."

Well, I think that's the kicker here, Karl - people forgot that it was free. My thought was, heck, this is my first published book, what harm can it do to release a free sample and give people the flavor of my writing before they commit to buying it? Besides which, my memoir is structured in self-contained segments, so it wasn't quite like publishing a chapter or two from a novel - or at least, it made sense to me. Clearly I was wrong.

I was, however, stunned that numerous people were evidently unable to figure out that a "book" with a listed length of 20 pages, a description stating that it was an excerpt, a title page stating that it was an excerpt, and a blurb immediately following the excerpt stating that it was an excerpt - without even a page break - was an excerpt. I literally got people saying things like "It ended really abruptly - I didn't understand it." I guess I thought that with so many short stories being published in eBook form nowadays that readers would be a bit more savvy in looking at what they were getting, but I guess they're not.

The backlash is unfortunate, really, because from what I can tell, that free excerpt did actually sell quite a few copies of my actual book. It's not a strategy I want to attempt again, however. Way too much pain and frustration.

A.W. wrote: "Here's a great example, this author is currently advertising his latest "book" in a couple of GR threads.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QJNJ8D2
It's 22 pages - which I would call a short story. Looki..."

Based on the ranking, he's selling copies, too. He's already up to 5 books, which is $4.95 and that's probably around 120 pages? I think I'm undercharging at $3.99 for my 344 page (confirmed via print book) book. (This is where I roll my eyes.)

Lori wrote: "Karl wrote: "Lori wrote: "Danae wrote: "I am a newbie writer with only one short story out, but I consider myself a seasoned reader with over 2,000 books under my belt.

I thought I would bring thi..."

It's incredible. It's either they jump into the story without reading the intent and notes etcetera, or they don't understand the intent of what an excerpt is for, or sometimes some people just cannot be either pleased or placated. : )