I have a lamb I wish to sacrifice to the web. This lamb, heretofore dubbed "Shorty T" because it is a short story and it involves time travel-GET OUT! I know, right?-will be given away for free. Shorty T has been previously published. Some of you may be well acquainted with Shorty T, and for that may I be the first to offer you this Etsy item of win as a token of my undying gratitude:
Does the very nature of the story lend itself better to some forms of web publishing over others? Would it be better to lay a short story out in its entirety than to serialize? Does the ease of smartphones make listening to a podcast more appealing? Would anyone really want to listen to my voice?
Recently, I talked about my serialized fiction attempt-how it became so enormously successful it took on a life of its own. Some of you may even remember my attempt on Blogger early on to serialize a romance novel with co-writers from my critique group. Good luck reading it. No really. Blogger is set up to follow a calendar dynamic, not a serialized fiction dynamic. First installment is here if you're masochistic. Why do I keep making the roundabout back to this idea? I can't deny the serialized nature of delivering stories in the nineteenth and early twentieth century has infinite appeal to me, especially when married to the time travel angle.
I'm realistic about Shorty T. He has a crooked nose and, sure, he has his stinky moments, but I still love him and I think others might, too. Because of his very cross-genre nature I cannot narrow his appeal to one publication, one print stream of revenue in a dying short story print market. My goal is that his freedom will bring others. Give it away and an audience will grow.
So my question to you, faithful Vortexers, is in what form do you like your free reads? Podcast? Serialized Podcast? An interactive experience this story would lend itself to and, perhaps, develop beyond? A self-published read on Kindle or Nook? Serialized and delivered via RSS? You Tube? Twitter? I'm in the early stages of conceptualizing Shorty T's exit, so any and all suggestions are welcome.
Anything would be cool as long as you promise me I WON'T win the light switch. 🙂
@Charles...geez, Charles...you can't win *everything* at the Vortex. You do realize you have issued me a challenge to come up with a scenario in which one Vortexer *will* will the Fabio lightswitch, don't you 😉
Yikes, Lala, I wish I knew. I am so behind the times. Only snippet I can share is that I've had a few shorts pubbed online, so they are, in effect, free and electronic.
Personally, I don't like to hunt for things. I don't want to go to Amazon for this and somewhere else for that. Maybe I've misunderstood your post, but I'd say, slap Shorty T on your website and Twitter incessantly about his presence. Never underestimate the power of a retweet.