Collections vs Installments

Writing exists in segments. Most writing is small in nature, and so it is naturally segmented. Blog posts, essays, poems, comic strips, and short stories are all so small that you can generally take them all in at one sitting. For larger works like novels, the segmentation is the chapters.

For a writer, the question of distribution revolves around these segments. How do I give my writing to my audience? In the past, and traditionally still, you take a bunch of your segments, throw them together, and get a publisher to sell it as a book. It's still viable, but extremely difficult to get into. More and more, writers are publishing their own work, one installment at a time. In the world of comics, this is old news. Strips have always been distributed one at a time first, with collections coming out long after the originals have been printed. However, the larger implications are largely ignored.

How does a person read a collection? There are a few possible ways. They might sit down and read it front to back. They might take it with them and read bits and pieces during their free moments. They might leave it in the bathroom and read a bit with ever sit. More importantly, when the book is finished, they have nothing else to read. They have to go out and buy a new collection and repeat the process.

If your work gets published in a collection, it might succeed or it might fall flat. If people like your work, you might be asked to make another collection. During that time, you have to think of ideas, flesh them out, create some writing, and repeat the process until you fill up another book, then get it sent to the publisher, printed, and distributed. With all of that time passing, the people who read your work and liked it, who clamored for another installment, have moved on to several other collections and may have even forgotten about you. It's dangerous.

When you post your work in regular installments, you avoid that problem. Webcomics are most famous for doing this, but anybody with a regular blog does the same thing. Essayists like Paul Graham regularly have a new piece every month. Even David Wong's novel John Dies at the End began as a regular installment online. All of these writers have a fan base that continually grows. People who like the writing enough to visit the site more than once generally don't stop returning. They have no reason to stop.

If you produce writing at regular intervals, you should never run out of material. If you never run out of material, then the audience will never move on or forget you. They may read other people's writing since your installments only have so much content, but that is no problem. Just because they are reading other people doesn't mean they stop reading you.

So what are the implications of people reading your work every day (or whatever your update schedule is)? It means that you have people coming to your website every day you update. It means that people are constantly looking at the ads you host (which means more money) and it means that they are constantly reminded that you have merchandice for sale. They become loyal. You have become a part of their lives, as regular and inseparable as putting clothes on and drinking a cup of coffee every morning. Even when you aren't laugh-out-loud funny, they still like seeing your characters and what they are up to.

Having regular installments is beneficial as both a businessman and as an artist. The money that can be generated from constant viewing of ever-increasing viewership is quite pleasant. Having the constant and immediate feedback from your fans (and detractors) will create a deep bond, closer than any other artist has with their audience.