In my last post, I left off with “I decided to build it” but that is, unsurprisingly, not what happened. Not even a little bit.
What happened was that I tried everything else. I eventually wrote a whole book out of those explorations, because I was led down paths of serialization I had not thought of before.
In fact, I don’t think most of us have.
Online serialization, unlike the venerable trade of book publishing, has not been around long comparatively. Sure, serialization is one of the oldest distribution models in existence, but online? Definitely a brand new world.
And it’s a world people had been trying to make work for a while. From early blogs to Livejournal to WordPress to Patreon, authors have been trying to force platforms to work the way we need them to.
Some defaulted to building their own websites, as Andy Weir famously did for his serialization of The Martian back in 2010.
It’s shocking that things have not improved for authors trying to serialize in all the years since.
Okay, yes, some improvements, such as more platforms with more features, e.g. Substack, WorldAnvil, Campfire, and Ream.
One thing to clarify here is that I am not specifically talking about “writing software.” There is a metric ton of those, including my beloved Scrivener: Novelcrafter, Ulysses, Novlr, Ellipses, Bibisco, and of course good ol’ Google Docs. There are dozens out there, so try ‘em out!
No, I am talking about apps built for serialization, and quite frankly, the only one I think genuinely fits that description is not Substack or Patreon, but Ream. But even then, it’s missing major metadata and reader features, IMHO. Still, it allows for monetizing serialized fiction for authors and was built for just that purpose, not as a newsletter/website hosting platform (Substack) or a general artist micropayment site (Patreon).
And yes, I could (and have!) posted original fiction on AO3, but it’s not what the site is supposed to be used for, and you can’t monetize it.
Doing that made me realize quickly exactly what I wanted: a cross between Substack and AO3 with a wiki thrown in for funsies.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, existed. It’s one reason I’m still on Substack.
I did actually try to set up that something like that on WordPress, but between the bazillion plugins I’d need and all the customization I’d have to do for every single site/story, I finally gave up. And yes, I could have hard-coded a custom website to do what I wanted to do. That, however, is not easily replicated.
Frustrated, I decided to sit down and create the specs doc for my Dream Platform for Authors.
Which turned out to be not the end of the story, but the beginning…
