Hi everyone, special thanks to my guest bloggers who are helping me frame up some great posts this week. The first guest blogger I’d like to introduce is Ryan A. Span, who got his start posting an online serial novel. Ryan is blogging today about his experiences posting a well-read online novel which led to print publication through a small press publisher. Ryan’s writing style is kind of interesting, because he shoots straight from the hip and doesn’t look back. I hope you enjoy this post as much as I enjoy exchanging emails and interacting with him; Ryan’s a really nice guy and very passionate about what we all love to do–write.

About Ryan A. Span

Ryan A. Span is 24, lives in Britain with his girlfriend, and writes books because he doesn’t know how to do anything else. Ryan is the author of Street: Empathy, his cyberpunk debut published by Gryphonwood Press, part of the free-to-read online serial Street.

What it’s Like Being an Online Novelist

One fateful evening in December 2006, I was sitting in front of my latest novel-to-be and decided that this was the one. I’d toyed before with the idea of making regular online releases of my work but had never been quite convinced I had it in me. This time, though, I knew I was holding a story with the potential to go all the way.

That same night I shelled out for my own hosting and domain name and then blagged a friend into creating a website for me. A month of non-stop work later I had Street online and ready to go public. It was just three chapters on the most basic iteration of the website, but I was excited beyond words. This could be my ticket. I’d been writing for years and never created anything this good, so it would capture the hearts of all who read it and be hailed as the next Neuromancer or Snow Crash or, hell, I’d even take the next Otherland.

I released Street with all the public fanfare I could muster, to deafening quiet and traffic figures as flat as a heart attack.

That was the real moment of truth in Street‘s life and the life of most online novels. Nobody cared. Only a handful of people even knew it existed, there was no advertising to draw people in, no guarantee of quality such as the backing of an editor and a big publisher, no way to know that it would even run for longer than a few weeks. Add to that the not-undeserved reputation of online publishing as a hive of scum and villainy and I had a recipe for A-grade failure on my hands. Any attempt at getting the word out was ignored or shouted down as spam. I might never
live it down.

Street could’ve died there and then if I weren’t the stubborn, bloody-minded bastard I am and if it weren’t for the rock-like faith of a few good friends. I was just going to have to take it on the chin, swallow my pride and plug away at it for as long as necessary before somebody took notice.

It finally happened to me after a year of working and watching the traffic figures rise with painful slowness, when a small up-and-coming publisher contacted me about putting the first part of my story out in print. Street: Empathy came out a few months later and suddenly all the toil and heartbreak was worth it.

As an online author, the internet is your audience, and the internet is a very cynical place. It takes a lot of hard work before you can hope to crack that shell and get through to the juicy readers inside. Unless you’re big press, the deck is stacked against you by the very nature of the business.

The hurdles are set like a game of “Mouse Trap” where the winning square is a publishing deal, and they hit you in the following order:

1. You need readers to gain more readers. Without readers you’re just somebody typing away in the night, and while that might sound pretty cool now it’s never gonna make a good line on your headstone.

2. In order for people to become readers, they have to know about you, which they don’t. In today’s market of shiny objects and bright colours you have to make equally shiny objects and equally bright colours, distributed just as widely, in order to get noticed.

3. If by some dark alignment of the stars you manage to attract some people, you’re asking them to either read your work on a screen or pay for your work in print. So you’re either straining their eyes or straining their wallets.

4. Let’s say a few of the examples from 3 stick around to read your work online, or even brave the rapids of internet book ordering. In order for your newly-minted readers to create more readers they still need to talk about your work to other people. This is particularly difficult for a small fanbase because nobody else is going to bring your work up or talk to them about it. They might never get a chance to mention it where it counts.

So if you’re a writer, should you publish your own work online? After all, the success stories in this business are few and far-between and most took years to become what they are now.

Well, since you’re asking me, I’ll give you my opinion. It’s a good way of going about it only if you’re prepared take a very long-term view of your career. If you’ve got the talent to make a good story, the skill and determination to publish it on a regular schedule, and the guts to stick it out to the end, something good might just come out of it.

Just remind your readers that it’d be a shame to miss out on all the cool points for liking you before you were popular!

To Order Ryan’s Book

You can buy Street: Empathy through Amazon or your favourite online shop, all you need to do is pick the shop you want from the Ordering page and pay them some money.