Happy Monday, WG2E-Land!
I’m over the moon and down on the farm thrilled to announce that Book One in my brand new series, with my brand new co-author, is here…
For Stuck with a Stiff – Think Castle and Beckett gone-country meet Betty Boop and My Cousin Vinny.
As many of you know, David and I launched this series in Serial Format back in March. Now, we’ve completed Book One, and it’s available on all Ereading Platforms for just 99 Cents.
In the meantime, all of our “Serial Novel Fans” can continue their Stuck with a Series journey in our Subscription-Style Service Yahoo Group where we’ll treat them in early September to the first few chapters in our next book in this series – STUCK WITH A SPELL.
Stuck with a Spell will then release on all Ereading Platforms around Halloween, followed by Stuck with Sleigh Bells for the holiday season.
So, for just $2.99 per yearly subscription, our Serial Novel fans get each new chapter as it’s written. (We email them each Sunday with the new chapter(s) as well as include superfab fun peeks into the making of the book.) And readers who’d rather wait for the complete novel can treat themselves that way too for 99 Cents per book.
That’s the basic scoop on how our Serial Novel Subscription Service works. But along with that fantastic fun experiment from a pricing and product line approach, I’ve also learned some valuable lessons when it comes to Indie Epublishing Collaboration.
For example:
1. Each author may write at a different pace. So, you’ve got to come up with a system that works for both of you.
In our case, David seems to work better if I begin a scene, and he takes it from there, then I go back in and flesh it out.
2. Google Docs is the best way I’ve found to truly collaborate. You can work together in real time or each on your own and always have the most current version of the doc at your fingertips. That said, you may want to also keep your own Word Doc files so in case your co-author changes something, you’ve still got your version saved too.
3. Evaluate each of your strengths and weaknesses as writers then use ‘em to your advantage.
For our series, David is the farm King, and I’m the quirky crazy scenes, dialogue and visceral Queen. So we each do our thing. He figures out how farm stuff like Bad Ass Bovines and fence post drivers can fit in with my crazy scenes, characters and smart ass sass.
4. Leave notes for each other in the Google Doc with questions, plot point issues, ideas, etc. then get out of the way and let the other author work their magic.
5. Trust in your own abilities and ideas.
It’s not about getting approval from your co-author for every scene or idea. Just go for it. Let your muses tell the story your way then have fun blending your styles and strengths and covering for each other’s weaknesses.
6. Understand and be flexible enough to deal with the fact that shit and/or life happens.
In other words, be prepared to pick up the slack when “stuff” gets in the way of progress – i.e. when your co-author drowns his computer with a glass of water. 
:-)
Okay…there you have it…a few of the things I’ve learned while working on my first collaboration.
And wait till you see who I’m collaborating with for a waaay fun Christmas Book…that announcement will be coming soon!!!
It’s Your Turn, WG2E-Land: Are you Collaborating with a fellow author in Indie Epublishing? Tell us about your project(s) and how you’re making the process work…
The Best in Collaboration Wishes — D. D. Scott
Great advice! It’s really interesting to see how other authors collaborate on a project like this.
I’m learning a bunch during the collaboration process, Sibel, and I’ll tell ya, it’s superfab fun to open the Google Doc and realize “by magic” several new pages have appeared. LOL!
Huge congratulations to both of you! Your book is on my to be read list- and I am moving it to the top- it sound wonderful!! Congratulations to you and Matthew:)
Thanks so much, Lois! It really is a terrific way to add a fresh new twist to your own voice and style. Happy Ereading!!!
Thanks, Lois!!
Right back atcha!
Great post…..great book!
Thanks bunches, Jeanne!
You’ve been a part of our Serial Novel Subscription Service from Day One, and I’m sooo tickled you’re enjoying our series!!! It’s really fun to get your comments after every few chapters we write.
That’s another really terrific thing about Serial Novels, Y’All…what a hoot to get your readers’ reactions while you’re still writing a book! It really gets your muses going in high gear!
Thanks, Jeanne!!
You rock too. Happy reading!
Sheer Genious! Forward thinking, dudes – hats off!
In today’s Publishing World, Nancy, it’s all about “forward thinking” and finding new ways to connect with readers and more often!
I’m tickled you enjoyed hearing about our new approach!
Thanks, Nancy!!
I agree that it’s a great idea, but I can’t take the credit. D.D.’s the one that came up with the idea for the collaboration, so it’s all hats of to her!
Wishing you all the best!
glad you posted the lessons learned so far, look fwd to hearing more about all that too, thanks d.d.
U betchya, Adan!
Collaboration is just a wonderful way to stretch your writer muscles!
Cheers, my friend!
Congrats, D.D. and David on going ‘public’ with the totally LOL Stuck With serials! I confess, like some of the readers, I sometimes try to figure out who wrote what. Gotta say, Stuck With is seamless! And that’s one of my favorite responses to the collaborative series Roy and I write together.
As to our work process, ours is similar to yours, except we don’t need Google docs since we live together. One problem we do have to watch out for is the “Replace” factor when sharing work form one computer to another. With one click I have wiped out new material Roy had spent a whole day on. That’s as horrible as partners who spill water on keyboards.
(With Roy it was milk.)
Awe shucks, Alicia! Thanks sooo very much!
Perhaps what helps us to make it a seamless transition for our readers is that we each write all the characters. So, in other words, we’re going for the sound of a character more than the sound of each of our own writer voices. Does that make sense?
And yes, I highly recommend that you save your own work in a Word Doc, and not just rely on everything being in Google Docs. That way, if you decide you actually like a section better the way the other author wrote it to begin with, you’ve got that version.
Thanks, Alicia!!
True that. I suppose actually living with your collaborator would be better than Google docs, but what are you gonna do?
Wishing you many more years of happy collaboration and success!
This whole idea is awesome, D.D. Thanks for sharing what you’ve learned about the collaboration process. I’m going to go check out the book. Congrats on the release!
Collaboration is a wonderful way to add to your cyber shelf, Rhonda!
And here’s the thing, you can pay it forward to a debut author by immediately treating them to your audience of readers, or you can “partner up” with an author who has the same level of readers as you do or even more of a readership, or you can blend genres with an author who writes in a different genre than you do for brand new audiences too!
Welcome to our Stuck with a Series World! Happy Ereading!!!
I have yet to read the serial, which is still in my ‘downloads’ folder on my pc. Will get round to it soon, as have lots to read on my Kindle. I hope to be collobarating with the street team for the new anthologies next year.
Yayyy, Julie! Welcome to our Stuck with a Series World!
Be watching for a fabulous WG2E Anthology 2013 Announcement later this week!!!
Wow, DD!
It’s so exciting to be collaborating with you on this project! And sooo much fun!
You rock!!
Right backatchya, Partner!!!
Hi D.D.,
Great post, as usual! I’m currently working on a serial with my writing partner. Question: what happens if one of you gets writer’s block? Do you let the other one take the ball and run with it for a while, then come back to it? I’d love to know how you work out kinks like that.
Great question, Riley!
In our case, I grab the ball and run like a crazy chick with it! Honestly, I don’t get writer’s block, and I think the reason why is that I write every single day. That said, I also bounce back and forth between two to three manuscripts at once. So, if I’m not feelin’ it for one, I’ll work on another one for a bit and vice versa.
I write a lot faster than David does too, which means that I lay down the basics, let him write some from that, and then go back and work with what he’s got. So, by the time I get back to our projects, I’m ready to roll through it with gusto.