Support for Indie Authors discussion

Let's say you go to a brand new restaurant and you order a lasagna. The cook, on his first day of the job, is so proud of his food that he can't wait to get it to you. So, he boils up the noodles and sends them out one at a time. Then he sends you some sauce. Then some cheese. Also, he sends out raw meat with the promise he'll cook it eventually. That is what you're doing with your book. Finish your product before putting it out there. I write a lot of short stories and those are sometimes hard to give away for free. I can't imagine anyone being all that interested in reading a chapter of a book that isn't done yet, even for free, especially if you're putting them out there unedited.

Another thing to consider is, if anyone has taken the first chapter or two, they better be top notch writing and better be intriguing or you're not likely going to see anyone come back for the second.

One more thing. When people take free stories, they're a whole lot less likely to even read it than they are if they pay for it.

I tend to let my short stories go for free from time to time. With novels, I reduce the price now and then and push it fairly heavily on one social media or another for about a month. Whenever I do things like this, I'll see sales on other stories as well.

I don't have a first-hand experience with this so I can only offer my opinion. I've heard that Patreon does not work well for writers. It works better for paintings, music, and educational videos where a steady pace of content is easier to achieve than in the case of writing - and each 'product' can work as a standalone. Plus, writing is a long-term process which might make it harder to find chapter-by-chapter readers, especially if editing each chapter separately will only make the process longer (compared to typical drafting). Thus, the audience for such 'episodic' reading might be way too small - even before you start taking the genre into equation.

I'm not trying to say the way you've chosen is bad but that swimming against the stream is harder than downstream, so to say.

I hope someone here has some direct experience and will be able to help. Good luck.

I've been on Wattpad for a little over a year. I began my YA dystopia story, posting new chapters weekly. THAT'S the key. Regular updates. I have 11.9k reads. So long as you update regularly, the readers will come. Good luck!

The GR SciFi and Fantasy Club has an author section. You can post a chapter or section there and ask for feedback. You can also post a link.

L.D. wrote: "I've been on Wattpad for a little over a year. I began my YA dystopia story, posting new chapters weekly. THAT'S the key. Regular updates. I have 11.9k reads. So long as you update regularly, the r..."

Does this mean that you don't get paid for what 12,000 people are reading?

Also when you have allowed that many people to read it, will you then post it on Amazon or something similar?

Forgive me, please, if these sound like silly questions, I genuinely can't understand why an author would post to so many people for no financial reward whatsoever. This is despite my feeling that I don't write for money. However, I do like to cover my expenses.

I've seen books on Amazon after they have done well on Wattpad. What's the difference between a freebie on Wattpad and one on Amazon? WP is social media and can build a following. Also, there's a ton of stuff there. (It does seem a bit saturated.) It's not for me (!) but it does sound like fun.