New here (novelist) and have lotsa questions

[CommandanteLemming]

Hey everyone,
I literally just signed up a few minutes ago, but I've been doing research all day on finding a community home for my serial novel and Tapas looks like a really great and supportive community. That said, I did have questions before I jumped in with both feet, so I figured I should just ask current creators and readers.

1) Most of my serial is already available on my personal website and "Season One" will be complete in a few weeks - how do people here feel about serializing something that's available in full elsewhere? Should I dump it all at once for binging or is it better to still schedule them to come out bit by bit?

2) How do people feel about episode/chapter length? Most of my current chapters are near or just over Tapas' 15,000 character limit, so some of them would get sliced in half anyway and likely posted in two parts with a "to be continued."

Sorry if the questions are beyond basic, but I'm the guy with no history in web-fiction who realized that his novel was plotted as a serial and needed to become what it always wanted to be.

(I think I'd be classified as SciFi/Slice of Life/Drama - I have a TV newsroom drama set in the year 2038. Think Grey's Anatomy meets The Newsroom meets Back to the Future Part II.)

Thanks and keep up the good work!!

-Lemming

[HGohwell]

1) Most of my serial is already available on my personal website and "Season One" will be complete in a few weeks - how do people here feel about serializing something that's available in full elsewhere? Should I dump it all at once for binging or is it better to still schedule them to come out bit by bit?

Never dump if you care about finding traction here. Early on, basically the only ways to get seen are promoting yourself and networking, and the Fresh section, unless you're lucky enough to get someone high up's attention. You can only appear in the Fresh section once a day. If you dump, you condemn yourself to only one appearance and then praying people search your tags and find you that way.

I would say put a link in the author comment at the bottom telling people where to find the full season if you really want to, but honestly, I doubt all that many people will care to search and see if it's all somewhere else, as long as you're not monetizing early access or something.

2) How do people feel about episode/chapter length? Most of my current chapters are near or just over Tapas' 15,000 character limit, so some of them would get sliced in half anyway and likely posted in two parts with a "to be continued."

I think slicing them is the best way to do it, as long as you can find the right moment to do it. Some minor editing to make the flow better might be required. If you really don't want to have the flow interrupted, posting the two parts of the one chapter at once might be a compromise, but I'd still recommend a little editing to keep the flow. After all, a sudden stop or awkward start can be pretty jarring and put readers off.

[CommandanteLemming]

Thanks. That's all really good info. I can drip it out and see how it goes. And yeah I can link to the full season if anyone really wants it - I'll probably also put out a full-season bind-up on Amazon for super-cheap, which doesn't sound like a faux pas if I'm reading right. But obviously the first thing is to connect with other people in the serial community before flying off on my delusions of grandeur

[CommandanteLemming]

Update:
Well, here goes nothing!

Basic Cable | Tapas

Feedback welcome

[system]

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