Timing of Serials

I would like to ask a question about serials. If a writer has a yet unpublished work, how would you prefer to see it presented. One part every couple of days, a part each week, all at once, or some other option?

That's real good question. First, let's define a term or two. A serial has a continuous plot line. This is to be contrasted with a series which has recurring characters but each episode is really a different story, like a weekly TV show. Also I wouldn't call a three part story a serial (although it is classified as such here). A long story broken into a few chapters for convenience is just that---a long story. If it is a true serial, and by that I mean a continuous plot line, perhaps with unanswered questions at the end of each chapter, i.e., cliffhangers, I'd try for a chapter every couple of days. I'm assuming here that this is a fairly long work, like a novella maybe with more than say, three parts. The release of chapters has to be frequent enough that readers do not forget or lose interest, but not piled one on top of the other so as to be overwhelming. So an example of a true serial would be my "LaForge" trilogy, "Atonement" or flopsy/DJB's "Prophecy". A series would be like Seegee's "Spank Shop".
So with a long story I'd say release all at once, with a true serial release parts every couple of days if possible, with a series, it doesn't matter.

Thank you, Rollin. Excellent guidance, as usual. I learned by reading it.

Hi Spankzz

Not quite sure whether your question was intended for the library admins to answer, or whether you were looking for a general discussion re peoples preferences.

We tend to go with the wishes of the author when loading serials, but there are some exceptions. For example, if someone has written four parts of a serial and none of them contain any spanking, we wouldn't load those four parts until we received subsequent parts, so we can make sure the content is relevant and falls within the scope of the library.

Or maybe someone sends in a lengthy part 1 (say 6,000 words) of a new serial, again with not even a hint of or a build up to a spanking – in that case we would tend to wait until the next spanking-related part arrives and load both parts together.

I agree with Rollin in that it can be offputting to be swamped with multiple parts loaded simultaneously, BUT, it is far easier and less time consuming for us to load multi parts than it is for us to load individual chapters piecemeal.

From a personal perspective, if I'm enjoying a serial, I'd want to find updates regularly, but not excessively spaced too far apart, or I'd doubtless loose momentum.

Just a quick couple of notes purely from a technical/administrative perspective.

We use the term 'serial' within the library software simply to refer to anything that has 3 or more parts.

If someone is submitting a serial part by part it saves us time if we know from the outset that it's intended to be a serial otherwise we load the initial part(s) as a story and then have to reclassify the previously loaded part(s) as a serial and amend the title to include the part number. Similarly, it saves us time if the author can tell us in advance (if known) whether there will be 10 or more parts as then we load parts 1 to 9 as "Part 01", "Part 02" etc so that they will later sort correctly when part 10 is added.

Serial parts are grouped together when displayed on the author's page and when being read in the story viewer the reader is presented with buttons to navigate to the next or previous parts.

We also have a classification called 'collaborative serial' in which the parts may be written by a number of different authors. On the author page only those parts written by the relevant author are initially displayed but all the parts can be shown by clicking the SHOW button.

Series as opposed to serials (as defined by Rollin) can be handled in a variety of ways.

One way is to load them in the same manner as a serial, and that's what has been done with Seegee's 'Spank Shop' since the various stories were all initially named as Part 01, Part 02 etc.

Another way, if it's important that the parts be viewed in a particular order yet the series hasn't been loaded as a serial, is for us to include an "ordered series" tag. An example here would be shanr's 'A Quick Trip To The Mall', this story has an icon displayed at the start of the story text which when hovered over displays all the titles in the series and indicates the order in which they are intended to be read.

Finally, there is always the option to add an "author's note" at the start of stories merely to indicate that it relates to a particular series or character or set of characters, e.g. 'A Janet and John story'.