: Re: Self-Publishing Chapters Is selling individual chapters a valid marketing scheme? Is there anything against it or examples where it worked to sell a whole novel?

@Connie138

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In the comics world, this is normal.

Each issue (the standard is 22 pages, not including the cover and publisher additions) comes out separately, either as an e-comic or on paper, or both. After at least 4 issues, but generally a year's worth, which can be 4-12 issues, the comic is collected into a book. Usually these are volumes of a larger work, but it can also be a standalone book.

Outside of the comics world, this used to be done for novels as well, but just isn't anymore. At least not often.

Chapters in novels would be serialized in magazines. There just aren't a lot of magazines that publish short fiction anymore. Sure, there are some, but they mostly want shorter pieces.

If you are self-publishing, then ask about your audience. If you're hosting your own platform, like a blog, then you can dole out your story however you wish. But you tagged this question amazon which implies you mean to sell your book there.

Marketing a teaser chapter, or a free one, could work well for you. But serializing a novel on Amazon? Unless there is a market for that I'm not aware of, it doesn't seem to make sense.

Think also of the timing. Either you would be delaying the release of your novel for many months in order to play up marketing, or you would be releasing chapters as you write them. Neither is a good idea.

You don't generally get more than one chance to sell a book online. Someone is browsing, they find it and decide to buy it. But wait, it's only one chapter and only 4 chapters are available now. They're likely to walk away.

If you release chapters as you write them, you give up the ability to edit them. Sometimes you don't know you need to make edits until you've written new chapters and need to go back and make things consistent, or add some foreshadowing, or even introduce a new character. You may change the order of scenes or make other large changes. Then, when the entire book is done, you're probably going to do some restructuring.

Another consideration is money. If your chapters come out in a monthly magazine, that's one thing. But on Amazon, are readers really going to pay a dollar per chapter? That's the minimum list price per item (99 cents US, or the equivalent in other currency), unless it's free.

You're much better off with a teaser chapter published on your blog and/or in a magazine or anthology if you can, along with a free chapter in your Amazon listing. But publishing the full (and fully edited) novel as a whole.

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