Latest Crowdfunded Novel Project is Complete!

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Today I closed the "book" on A Rosary of Stones and Thorns, my latest crowdfunded project. In this experiment, I dusted off a trunked novel and started posting it, guaranteeing one post a week and offering two more when tips hit a specific cap. Based on my initial calculations, a non-accelerated version of this serial would be online in its entirety within ten months.

It took four. I think we missed... two weeks? Without enough donations to get the extra posts? Something like that.

This was a great book to experiment with; it was crazy-hard to market (a Christian mythology fantasy adventure book?) and I never had any success describing it in a way that it could find an audience. Even now, after I've finished posting it, the most common comment I receive is, "I didn't think I'd like this from the description, but I really enjoyed it!"

So, that turned out well.

The only thing that didn't work was offering e-book versions before the serial was complete; I noticed a marked drop-off in both comments and donations once that happened, though people were willing to pay a premium price in order to read the end early. I've since dropped the e-book versions down to my normal novel price.

If you'd like to have a look, you can read for free online, or find links to the e-book versions here. I concluded the project with an afterword that includes a soundtrack, themed incense recipes by ysabetwordsmith, talk about the sequel and a tiny spoiler.

And now, I rest. Which is to say, I continue posting my existing serial, but with quite a bit more leisure! Next year I am thinking of trying another post-a-trunked-novel experiment, but that can wait.