The Great Experiment

No, not the one Queen Charlotte was involved in

Photo by John Fornander on Unsplash - obligatory six-pack as payment for reading this post, no need to thank me

We’re a few weeks into our journey here, and I wanted to spend some space talking about the point of all this. What I’m doing here, and why, and what the results (I hope) will be.

This Substack of mine is what I’ve been thinking of as The Great Experiment. It’s a chance to see if there’s a new way of doing things. I’ve been inspired a lot by other creators (like

Elle Griffin

, for example, whose explorations of how to disseminate fiction in the modern world had me hooked all last year; or Wildbow, who I’m thrilled to learn is still killing it on Patreon after a quick Google just now), and I wanted to take the plunge and try something new.

I’ve tried serialised fiction - multiple times, on multiple platforms. Medium, Tapas, Patreon, even a tiny little site I started out on for fiction writers that ended up folding eventually - I’ve started the same serialised novel about five times now, and I’m sick of it.

Maybe the problem is the novel itself, but I doubt it. I think the real difficulty lies in getting people to read your work when they don’t know you yet or anything about you. I can’t seem to attract readers to a serialised work or many subscribers to a newsletter. I have a handful, but a handful isn’t enough to make it work.

But book readers? Those, I’ve got.

Alright, not many - I’m no LJ Ross here! But I do know a lot more about how to market and sell a book than I do a newsletter or a subscription site.

Thus comes the experiment: if I release a series of novels and an accompanying Substack for extra content, borrowing on a successful model I’ve seen graphic novel artists use and adding my own spin, will the two feed the other?

Will the Substack drive book sales? Will the book sales drive subscriptions on Substack? Will they, as I do fervently hope, each feed the other in a cycle of growth that will help me see far more success than the book series would achieve alone? And if that happens, can it become even more cyclical, with the number of subscribers gifting me the chance to write more books next year, which will attract more subscribers, and engender more books?

That’s the nature of the experiment. As with anything, I know I need to commit time to this, to give it a chance. During that time, I need to post consistently so my subscribers trust in my content. I need to innovate and think of new ways to provide content - and listen, and hear what my readers want. I need to interact with people outside of this room in which I sit and write, which has never felt as natural for me as I think it does for others, but is necessary if I want to spread the word.

‘If I build it, they will come’ is really only half of the equation. Someone also needs to tell them where to come, or they won’t know they’re supposed to at all.

So, here I am. I’m committing to weekly posts for at least the period of one year. I’m also committing to releasing five books in the series, one a month, from August to December (Don’t Move Out, Don’t Go Outside, Don’t Fly Home, Don’t Leave Town, Don’t Check Out).

What does success look like for this experiment? It would be enough paid subscribers to justify me continuing to produce the content, or at least enough free subscribers that I can see a real impact on increased book sales. It would be enough book sales to justify me taking the time next year to write another series of five books set in this same universe, in Crowhill Cove, with a new linking theme.

(How many sales exactly is that? I don’t know. More sales than I get with my existing series Serial Investigations, which is just not selling enough for me to keep going except as a hobby at this point; that’s why I decided to start something new with this Great Experiment, because something has to change. I’d like to set a starting goal of a hundred Crowhill Cove book sales before the end of 2023. Truthfully, though, that won’t really be enough. It will be a start. To truly make this work, it needs to be thousands every month, and getting there will require grueling marketing alongside this experiment).

I’d like to be quite transparent during this process, so I’ll bring you updates on my progress with the writing at the end of each newsletter as well as updates on sales, when I have them. I hope it won’t be low. As I’m writing this in early July to get a headstart on my content, I’m talking to two free subscribers. If that’s changed, you’ll see it below.

My aim with this transparency is to demonstrate whether or not this is, indeed, a viable way for writers to publish in the future: a dual approach between more traditionally-available books and extra content (and maybe exclusive books and stories that you can’t find anywhere else) for the most dedicated fans.

It’s also to let you know where we are in the journey - so you understand how much of a difference it can make when I ask you to share this with your friends:

Or to upgrade yourself to a paid subscription, or just subscribe for free if that’s all you can do for now, because even just having more people listening when I shout into the ether than a new book is out would be cool:

I hope you find it inspiring, challenging, or at least interesting to see those stats every week. Now, if you haven’t yet clicked at least one of those two buttons above - would you do me a favour and click, before you scroll down any further?

Progress Report

Here we go, then. Progress report for this week:

• Book 1: available to buy!

• Book 2: up for preorder now

• Book 3: penultimate draft done and up for preorder now

• Book 4: full plot done, writing started, up for preorder now

• Book 5: loose plot only, up for preorder now

• (Books 6+): Collecting stock photos for my covers and looking into some plot ideas/thinking of characters, also experimenting with potential titles

• Subscribers: free - 14, paid - 0

• Book sales total: ebook - 37, paperback - 1, KU pages read - 43,832 (DMO book length = 238 pages, so the equivalent of 184 full-book reads)

That’s all from me this week. I feel drained, but the enthusiasm will come back to me when I get back to the work - which, as I always have, I love.

XO Rhiannon