One at a Time

  I've been wondering. In this e-book age, why are we still writing novels the same way?

  We could publish one chapter at a time if we wanted to, and price each at ten pence. Or ten thousand words at a time, and twenty pence. When the story adds up to 80,000 words we could package it all together, stick a cover on and call it volume one, and publish it as a print copy.

  I got to thinking about this with a future book of mine, The Blessed Land, which is about 190,000 words long. I rewrote it into two volumes, but I thought; why not three? Or four, and give the first one away free as an e-book, to draw readers in? Why not do that as my standard approach, with Blessed Land and everything else too?

  People may already have done this, for all I know. But if so I haven't heard of it, and I'm not honestly sure if it would work anyway. Maybe oui, maybe non. It's just that we ought at least to be experimenting, trying new things, now publishing is so different to how it's ever been before. Though having said that, what I'm suggesting isn't so different from 19th century publishing, when Dickens and Collins et al published their novels as serials in newspapers. There really isn't much that's new under the sun, eh?

  Anyhow, that's what I'm pondering at the moment. Blessed Land would fit a four-part series well, with the first free, and in future I might write with that in mind. Divide the novel differently. Or perhaps there are other, better ideas, things I haven't thought of. If any occur be sure to let me know, won't you?

The Plunge

  Well, today's big news is that I finally decided to establish a website. I've been dithering over it, mostly because social media work for the books now seems to take up as much time as writing does, which seems a bit counter-productive really. But one thing and another have added up and so I took the plunge, using a company called Wix - silly name, but a pretty good system. I set it up in less than 2 hours, which means it must be so easy that a one-eyed budgie could manage it.

  The website's at http://benblak5.wix.com/benblakeauthor by the way. I'm sure I've made mistakes, so if you spot any please use the Contact page to get in touch and point them out. And let me know what you think generally, I have no idea how these things are supposed to look.

  Anyway, I'm also preparing to publish The Gate of Angels, volume two of Songs of Sorrow. It won't be until July, but I want to get ahead of the curve this time, and put out one or two previews and tasters before then. Very likely I'll try to set up some author events too, at the local library or maybe a bookstore, just to let people know about me. I expect the turnout will be tiny, but that's OK, it's not like I'm in the Rolling Stones or anything.

  Meanwhile I'm writing Starfire. I'm about 60,000 words in at the moment, so well into volume one. It's a much more mainstream Fantasy than my other work, with magic (or starfire) front and centre of the story, so it presents different challenges and will probably feel very different to the reader. That's OK too, because I don't want to write the same story over and over, as some authors do. Besides, it's fun to write, and that's what it's all about, isn't it?