Saturday, July 29, 2017

Spinward Fringe Continues on Patreon!

Work on Spinward Fringe Broadcast 11: Revenge continues. I admit to taking a much needed break, and hope that everyone's patience continues to hold even though it's been much less than a year since the release of Broadcast 10: Freeground. Preview chapters and the book itself is coming. I like what I have so far.

In the meantime, there's a lot to see on the Patreon page. For Spinward Fringe fans, a new serial has launched called Spinward Fringe Continues. So far there is a short, three part story called Haven Shore Immigration, and four parts of Carnie's Tale to read. Here's a link to the index.

It's my hope that these stories, most of which would never have been published or told, will entertain you between book releases. I enjoy telling these stories and expanding the universe in less predictable ways that may not fit in a book, so I look forward to every release day on Patreon.

There's other stuff on Patreon too, most of which is free, like concept drawings, podcasts (more of those coming in the next couple weeks), and a fantasy novel called Highshield, which is in its final chapters for now (over 30 chapters so far!)


RL

4 comments:

Rick Hermelin said...

So far I am enjoying all the content on Patreon.

John said...

Have you considered collecting these Spinward Fringe short stories that you're serializing on Patreon for an anthology in ebook format on Amazon, Smashwords, etc.? Or just putting them up as ebook short stories in the usual stores and formats when or after the last serialization segment is made available on Patreon?

There are likely some people who want to read the story all at once on their ereaders, and putting that together after each serial, or even after each group of serials, would likely allow them to reach more people without cannibalizing your Patreon support base. Patreon would still get them first- as a time windowed exclusive. Those readers who don't want to Patreon for whatever reason or who do do Patreon but would like an ebook copy to keep later, would provide an additional source of compensation for you as an artist by buying the short stories or anthologies, make the readers who want to consume them that way happy, and also ensure that they get exposure where the general public buys their ebooks in general and possibly Spinwars Fringe in particular, so new readers or readers who don't follow blogs can find them.

Another plus is that these would help fill any unexpected gaps or delays in your publishing calendar with work you've already done!

I would imagine an anthology of the size of a normal Spinward Fringe novel could be sold at the same price as one, or individual short stories could be 99s cents, and no one would bat an eye at that.

Also, I think somehow even officially published ebooks seem less ephemeral than syndicated blog serials. It'd be a way of sort of keeping them "in print" longer. You could even throw in that 3 page short you probably think of from time to time as bonus material at the end of a short story or in an anthology.

What do you think? Possible?

Randolph Lalonde said...

That's already the plan. Everything that is in Patreon right now will eventually be published in EBook format. The problem is, I don't know how long it will be before those short stories and serials amount to something that is large enough for publication, so there's no time table at the moment. It could be months, or even a couple years before an anthology is put together, so making promises right now may do more harm than good.

These stories will also fit into another, larger project that I can't talk about in detail yet, but I think Spinward Fringe readers will enjoy it. All in all, Patreon is a platform where a lot of work gets seen early, gets tested, and the best of it will end up somewhere else eventually. It's one of the reasons why I started the Patreon page, so these little projects could live somewhere instead of getting put on a shelf for months or years while I wait for that pile to get big enough for an anthology or another novel project.

The secondary projects (shorts, serials, etc...) are also not really the focus of what I'm doing right now, so they're coming slowly. I'm really focusing on finishing Broadcasts 11 and 12, since that's what everyone wants to see the most at the moment. Those books are the only things I can really promise right now, so everything else will live on Patreon for the time being.

Thank you for commenting, and for your question!

John said...

Sounds good! Thanks.

I'm just glad to know that the plan is to make the content available as or in e-books somewhere down the line. I'm not too worried about the timetable.

I agree with the decision to focus on Broadcasts 11 and 12. Obviously, I can't speak for everyone, the Chaos Core books have been nice, too, and I'm sure there a plenty of good stories like that to be told in the large Spinward Fringe universe; but for me the actual Spinward Fringe books are the heart of it. SF is what I really look forward to first and foremost.