I've been doing some research on blovels, and I was very interested in starting one myself. Then I came upon another forum discussing the topic, and I could find a single person saying a good thing about them. I know that publishing one online would take away first publishing rights for the novel itself. But are there any other serious negatives to writing one? What would your suggestions be?
It's supposed to be a cross between a blog and a novel. Basically it works just like a blog, but you post chapters to a story at each interval instead of a regular entry. Sort of a serial novel actually. Hope this helps!
Ah, okay. What an incredibly stupid name for it (in my opinion). As an idea, I see nothing overtly wrong with it. You already know about first publishing rights, so I won't tell you about those. The other issues that might be a problem are the traffic your blog receives (how many people will actually be reading it), and the fact that it's on a screen (if you're posting large amounts at any one time, there are issues, as it's actually quite difficult to read a lot of text on a computer screen). But my main issue is with precisely how dumb "blovel" sounds
Likewise for me with the name. But I suppose Nolog, or Nlog, or Nog are just as stupid. That's a very good point about the length. I wasn't going to make my entries more than 1,000 words myself. Maybe somewhere between there and 500 actually.
On my blog, I try to keep my posts around 500-600 words in length, because that's about what a person can comfortably read. The problem with a novel, is that that is a particularly small chunk of story.
That's what I do. My longest entry thus far is a bit over 1100 words - actually I posted it on my blog here earlier today. I really like it. You get to know your readers and you become friends with them and it sort of builds a little community around your work. I cried on Halloween when one of my readers said that at her daughter's Halloween party she gathered all her friends around the computer and they read what I had up to then. As for views - at the moment my stats page shows total views of 142,784. That's not unique visitors, but hmm - I have 60 posts at the moment, some of which are just informational updates that probably most people don't read, so...huh. Works out to maybe a little over 2000 readers? You don't get paid. But it's the most amazing meaningful fun thing I've ever experienced, and I don't write for money. I write for pulsing pounding pure love. And I've found that by giving that love out to the world through my writing, I receive it back tenfold from my readers. As for suggestions - umm, be okay with not getting paid, organize your blog so it's easy to read and for new readers to find the beginning of the story, and advertise - but advertise sincerely. People can tell when you're just commenting on their stuff so they'll come look at yours.
both names sound incredibly stupid to me... serialized novels have been around for many hundreds of years, starting with sheherazade's saving-her-life series of tales and running up through dickens' magazine series, to today's never-ending soaps... so there's nothing new about doing the same thing in blogs... but they'd better come up with a less idiotic name for it!
Thanks everybody for your postive input, I think I will go for it! But while we're at it, can anyone think of a better name for 'blovel'?
I did one for a while, but soon discovered that getting an audience is impossible. I believe they call it blog fiction.
I have never heard of a "blovel" and I am very intrigued! Please let me know where your blog is because I will definitely be a follower!! =] Has anyone else done one or is doing one?
All you simply have to do is post your novel, section by section, onto any old blog. It's not a big deal. Lots of people do it. There's a website where Architecture (a WF member, though he doesn't post here any more) used to post his stories. I can't remember the site, but it's a pretty big one where people post poetry, short stories, novels, whatever, and they can post it in bits just as you're planning to do. No need to give it a name since it wouldn't make sense to anyone...just call it a serialized novel like thirdwind suggested, if you have to name it anything. And good luck on it.
Thanks again everyone. Maia, I like your idea for the name. Blogbook sounds much better than 'blovel'. Stephie, I'll pm you with the link if you like. And I'll add it to my signature.
Heard of 'Blook'.........(books based on blogs) apparantly they even give an award called "Blooker". I have a fairly popular blog (about 1000 visitors per day). I asked my readers if they will be interested in a serialized story.... they were very enthusiastic about it. Unfortunately, that project never took off because of my time constrains. So, I think there's nothing wrong in doing that if you are not looking for any financial reward. As for readership, I think there are sites which compile such online authors.... either you can post your serialize story directly in their website or they will provide a link to your site/blog. Google it!
My issue with those sort of sites, is how much traffic do you personally actually get on it? I'm currently updating my blog regularly (*cough*shamelessplug*cough*), and although the traffic I'm getting there isn't massive, it's fairly regular. I'm thinking of posting more flash fiction on it, to build up exposure of my writing, but I'm not sure I'd like the idea of investing the effort of a novel, when only a handful of people are likely to read it, and it's not terribly likely that anyone would read the whole thing.
'blook' sounds like the sound one makes when barfing... so i'd still go with 'blogbook' for aesthetic value alone... especially since the word 'blog' comes from 'log' [a ship's sailing record] and 'logbook' is what ships' logs were recorded in, so the logical extension of that for a blog would be blogbook...
I don't see the need for a one- or two-syllable name for it. What the hell is wrong with calling it a serialized novel? Don't we have enough stupid coined terms?
