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Is Amazon Changing the Novel?
In the new literary landscape, readers are customers, writers are service providers, and books are expected to offer instant gratification.
“The rise of Amazon is the most significant novelty in recent literary history, representing an attempt to reforge contemporary literary life as an adjunct to online retail,” he argues.
McGurl’s real interest is in charting how Amazon’s tentacles have inched their way into the relationship between reader and writer. This is clearest in the case of K.D.P. The platform pays the author by the number of pages read, which creates a strong incentive for cliffhangers early on, and for generating as many pages as possible as quickly as possible. The writer is exhorted to produce not just one book or a series but something closer to a feed—what McGurl calls a “series of series.” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...thing-and-less
Actually, this publishing model suits me just fine. I am writing a book serial with at least 16 books planned. I have finished the first one and the second one is about 80% done. They all end or will end with an interesting cliff hanger.
KDP offers free publishing and you don't have to wait to be picked up by a traditional publisher. So I can publish my books whenever I want, bypassing the traditional gatekeepers.
I am currently waiting on some traditional publishers to get back to me about my manuscript, but if I fail to interest them I can use KDP. So for me, this is a good deal.
The 'hook' is always an element of fiction. Agents and publishers have long looked for something in the query sample - say, 10 pages - that is an attention-grabber. An album will get more attention from labels if there's a discernable single therein. Movies are written and filmed with a splashy introductory scene. The same goes for TV series, as well as seasons. And need I mention cliffhangers? Or sequels? (there isn't one Jack Reacher novel after another because the author has an endless supply of sublime prose about that one man)
The $ (or £, or ¥, or whatever) has always influenced fiction. At the same time, there have always been artists creating content without pandering to the latest commercial angle.
Actually, this publishing model suits me just fine. I am writing a book serial with at least 16 books planned. I have finished the first one and the second one is about 80% done. They all end or will end with an interesting cliff hanger.
KDP offers free publishing and you don't have to wait to be picked up by a traditional publisher. So I can publish my books whenever I want, bypassing the traditional gatekeepers.
I am currently waiting on some traditional publishers to get back to me about my manuscript, but if I fail to interest them I can use KDP. So for me, this is a good deal.
I strongly, STRONGLY recommend you do not "end with an interesting cliff hanger."
Why? Read the reviews of cliffhanger series. More people hate cliffhangers than like them. They feel it's a way for the author to get them to buy more books, not because the stories are so good, but just because the author wants more money. Accurate or not, it results in one and two star book reviews. Very often, the reviewers rightly point out that a series would have made a good two or three books with some editing, leaving out all the minutia that padded out the series.
When I edit our local writers, I make sure they have a book with a definite ending, even in a series, so the readers never feel they are bound to purchase more books to finish a story. Some readers want to dip their toes into a particular storyline, but for whatever reason don't want to have to read every book in the series before any of the storyline finishes.
Some writers add just enough background in each book that a reader can enjoy a book without having to have read all previous ones first. It may be a little annoying to those who do read the entire series, but reviewers who jumped into the series middle and was able to follow along left favorable reviews.
It's not hard to put together an ending that finishes a given book, but is just intriguing enough to convince the reader to continue the series.
I strongly, STRONGLY recommend you do not "end with an interesting cliff hanger."
Why? Read the reviews of cliffhanger series. More people hate cliffhangers than like them. They feel it's a way for the author to get them to buy more books, not because the stories are so good, but just because the author wants more money. Accurate or not, it results in one and two star book reviews. Very often, the reviewers rightly point out that a series would have made a good two or three books with some editing, leaving out all the minutia that padded out the series.
When I edit our local writers, I make sure they have a book with a definite ending, even in a series, so the readers never feel they are bound to purchase more books to finish a story. Some readers want to dip their toes into a particular storyline, but for whatever reason don't want to have to read every book in the series before any of the storyline finishes.
Some writers add just enough background in each book that a reader can enjoy a book without having to have read all previous ones first. It may be a little annoying to those who do read the entire series, but reviewers who jumped into the series middle and was able to follow along left favorable reviews.
It's not hard to put together an ending that finishes a given book, but is just intriguing enough to convince the reader to continue the series.
Good luck with your series.
Thanks. While I think that my cliffhangers are exciting, they are still rather soft such as starting a Mars mission with a compromised crew where subterfuge and sabotage is expected, and in the next one a violent reentry to Earth has to be done "the old fashioned way" when the two advanced drive systems are compromised. So it builds expectation for the reader to continue. Also, summaries of what has happened so far will be included so that the reader could read the books out of sequence. Thus, the ending of each book merely sets things up for the next one. I don't think that the readers would be offended. Anyway, a book series is still designed to make money whether each book ends quietly or not.
True on the purpose of a series, but leaving the reader up in the air tends to go over like a lead balloon these days.
When it comes to series with non-cliffhanger endings, I'd say W.E.B. Griffin, Diana Gabaldon, and Christopher Nuttell are excellent examples. A particular book ends with most of its plotlines resolved, but it's plain the overall story does not.
That's similar to how 19th century European literature was distributed to readers. Some of those novels first appeared as serials. They were published in (ornate) book form only later.
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