Thursday, July 28, 2011

Follow-upper


It's cliche' to start a post by talking about how there hasn't been one in a while, yet one we've all been guilty of. Here's mine.

My excuse is at least is one I can be proud of, and that's that I've been off doing what I do. After Amazon suddenly made "The Mountain and The City" free on Kindle, I had even more reason to push forward on the project I had started, which was to turn that story into a serialized novel. A serial is something I've always wanted to write, having always been interested in stories like that of Great Expectations and the way people were so impatient for the next installment they literally lined up on the docks to wait for the shipment to come off the boat. Serials seemed to die down over the past number of years, but now with the internet and the development of ebooks and email, Twitter, Facebook and all the other methods of communication, as well as condensed time and attention, I feel times have strangely come back around to making sense for the serial.

It seemed to me that this story made perfect material for a serial, and having sudden exposure on Kindle (3,000 downloads so far, still mind-blowing) even furthered that, so I hunkered down and completed Part II, which I'm proud to say is out now on Kindle and Smashwords. Already I've been involved in some interesting conversations about the idea of the serial ebook on Twitter and Goodreads, most especially the always active "Apocalypse Whenever" group, where I'm getting some good feedback.

It's an interesting experiment regardless of what else, and I'm curious to see how it plays out. I'll share anything I learn and I invite everyone to leave suggestions/thoughts/doubts/opinions in the comments. I'm, as always, open to hearing what people think about what I put out there and how I go about it.

3 comments:

Dissect the Spine said...

Hey! I read A Chemical Fire and loved it. I got swallowed up in it and was really impressed. Wanted more, and ordered another one of your books from amazon but was wondering if those that are only available via kindle etc would be released in a physical copy anytime soon? I'd be stoked to get my paws on em. Thanks so much for doin what you do.

-Kailyn

Brian Martinez said...

Thanks Kailyn, that's awesome. At the moment I'm working on the serial novel I talked about in this post, which for now is ebook only but I definitely intend to collect it all in a physical book once the thing is complete. After that I'll probably be putting out a short story collection, physical and ebook, which will collect new stuff, old stuff, etc.

Happy to hear you liked the book.

Anonymous said...

I couldn't contain myself, and even though I'm currently on an ebook diet (only free ones if I read them immediately -- my tbr shelf on my nook is groaning with all kinds of free and cheap ebooks), I went ahead and ordered A Chemical Fire (on the to be bought as soon as list) and the second installment of A Mountain and A City.

BTW, you are not the only one using the serialized novel formula. Have you heard of Randolph Lalonde? He writes a science fiction serial and is about to publish the seventh installment. I love it and am waiting for the seventh installment with baited breath :D.

Can't wait to see more from you as well.