I'm currently working on a three-part short story series. It's basically a short story on the longer end that I'm publishing in three parts. What is your opinion on this format?
Sort of like the old serial novels but in a shorter form? Depending on where your planning on publishing it it could work. I know Analog Magazine used to do some "to be continued" stories back in the 80s-90s (they may still do, don't have a subscription anymore). But if it's just going up on a blog, unless you've got a really regular audience I don't know how much point there will be, it'd just be basically divided into chapters.
The basic definition of a short story , is a story that can be read in a single sitting . Magazine did publish stories over several weeks , in order to bring back readers . Most of the stories would be novellas if published complet . I have read novels made up of linking short stories . But I actuly don't see the point of a standalone three part short story .
At that point it is a novella with chapters/acts. Why are you splitting it up into three parts versus just having it as one story? Are you hoping to have the first part free to hook people into buying parts 2 and 3? Personally, I would be pretty annoyed if someone split up a story that is under 40K words into three parts and sold each separately. It's one thing to have a collection of short stories all based in the same universe, but breaking up a already short story into multiple parts just seems odd.
I recently saw a made-for-tv movie called "Serialized" with Vanessa Ray. *NO SPOILERS* Vanessa Ray played a character by the name of Hannah Ryan that had a few novels published, hit a wall of writer's block, and pivoted to releasing chapters of a new story online via subscription. I imagine there could be a market for established writers to reach their fans immediately in this manner....like you write the chapter today, edit tmw, and release on your blog or online store and all your subscribers get an e-mail or tweet notification that chapter 3, 4, etc is available for download at a price of $5.99 right away or $3.99 next week, or $1.99 after a month. It could be good when you're not sure where the entire book is going and you need money to come in as you go along. With a traditional publisher, you *might* get an advance (how much...?) but this advance is taken off from your eventual sales and plus the book probably won't be published for 1 year, 18 months. Is this the system you're using for this story? Release part one, whet people's appetites for more and build up hype for the next chapter and so on?
