I’m not going to go so far as to post an entire novel online as a serial, but I have been considering including two or three chapters of my WIP as part of a chapbook that’s mostly made up of short stories that have appeared in online publications It’d be available via print on demand (POD) and perhaps as eBook/.PDF/etc. as well, I haven’t decided yet.

The idea is to give folks a nicely-produced physical edition of some of my work that’s currently only available in pixels, plus some new material that isn’t available anywhere yet.

Do you think that including a sample of a longer work would actually affect the eventual publishability of that work? It seems to me that hooking an existing audience (for example, people who follow my blog or read my work online, Facebook fans, etc.) with a taste of the novel would be a positive rather than a negative in terms of its eventual sale.

Taking it a bit further, I think there’s an increasing convergence between Kevin Kelly’s “1,000 True Fans” idea and the author-driven marketing and publicity efforts described by Jeff VanderMeer in “Booklife.” Publishing houses, strapped for cash and hurting like every other company, aren’t giving most authors nearly as much as the once did in terms of publicity and marketing support, so authors are having to handle an increasing proportion of that work.

With the rise of print on demand services, it’s increasingly easy for writers to sell their work directly to their readers. Pay 30 bucks to Bowkers and you can get 10 ISBN numbers, which means you can use a company like Lulu to publish, and then distribute through Amazon or a non-profit like Small Press Distribution. Warehousing and distribution companies like Ingram, which once had near-monopolies on book distribution because they controlled what got shipped to chain bookstores and independents alike, are no longer essential.

So: add all of this together, and the idea of genuine one man (or woman) publishing houses doesn’t seem entirely absurd, particularly if you throw freelance editors into the mix.

Instead of just writing “Carrie” in his cramped trailer, the next Stephen King might very well write, publish, distribute, and market it from his laptop.

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*I’m thinking about Spencer Dew as the sort of exception you’re talking about. Many (if not most) of the stories in his 2008 collection from Vagabond Press first appeared online and are still available on websites.

Publishers and authors could benefit by tapping into these communities as they represent a core fan base that’s invested in seeing the stories not only survive but thrive. I would definitely purchase books directly from authors who are active participants in such a community. This will especially benefit niche genres like…science fiction romance (what, me biased?!)

I am comfortable with the three epubs I’m with, am beginning to get sales and website hits, haven’t had a rejection on a submission in a year(yeah, I know THAT won’t last!).

I’m thankful for any sales at all at this point, looking at the economy and at the sheer number of epublishers and romance authors I’m competing with for contracts and sales.

Hopefully I am building a career, starting at the bottom. That is my intent, anyway. I don’t know where it will go. I know that eventually I will need to look at print publishers–but maybe not, because who knows where all this change is taking us? I just try to make the best decisions for what I am facing in the Now.

There will be failures but humans are wonderful beings. We take these failures, learn from them, profit from them. Every success if built on the foundation of failures.

That’s why I never really understood why people fear failure. (shrugs)