Deborah Cooke: Author

Here we are back at Wild West Thursday again. I think I told you that I was taking an online course called The Future of Storytelling. It was interesting in many ways, and in combination with my ruminations on the changing face of digital publishing, I’ve been thinking about the new shape of fiction.

If you think about it, many of us have been approaching the medium of digital books with a lot of old assumptions. Part of this has been because many authors (like me) have had a lot of backlist book rights in our pockets, and have entered the digital book market by making those books available in new editions. Some of us have also been completing series that are partially done – like Abyss in my Prometheus Project, my new True Love Brides Series which picks up from the Jewels of Kinfairlie Series, and my completing Dragonfire. These new books follow the format of the older titles.

The vast majority of my backlist titles are romance novels of 100,000 words in length. Some of them are in linked series, but they all stand alone. Some of them have author’s notes. I’ve added new reader letters to most of them. they have back cover copy and tag lines on the covers, as well as review quotes on the covers. In short, they resemble their print predecessors in many ways. They differ from their print predecessors in having hotlinks in the end matter, in having two excerpts at the end instead of just one, and in providing links to my social media. They also have a linked table of contents in the digital edition. In essence, though, they are updated versions of the original mass market editions.

Why are mass market novels 100,000 words in length? Is that a natural length for stories? I don’t think so. I’m not convinced that stories have a natural length, or certainly not that all stories should be of one particular length. A 100,000 word book manuscript prints up in mass market format to about 350 pages. It makes a nice size and heft. It’s economically feasible to produce a book of this size and length and price it at $7 or $8. Series romances are often shorter because the production cost of the individual book needs to be lower, in order to make a lower price point work better. Series books are often sold by subscription. Subscription copies are mailed to the consumer, which makes weight of an individual book (or of a group of them) a consideration. The production realities of the format have shaped our expectation of the shape of fiction.

But what are the production realities of digital books? Length isn’t a concern. In terms of pure text, a 200,000 word novel isn’t significantly more unwieldy than a 100,000 word book (especially if it has a table of contents). In fact, even shorter lengths can be as satisfactory to the reader. What length will digital books be, if and when we stop emulating the mass market format?

Serialized stories have been published for a long time. In the 19th century it was common for fiction to be publishing in weekly magazines. For space constraints, a story would be published in these weeklies one chapter at a time. Many 19th century novelists – like Dickens, Dumas, Balzac, etc. – originally published their books as serializations. Serials were also popular in other formats: in the early days of movies, the next installment of one or more ongoing serials was played before the feature film. This was a marketing trick to ensure that people came every week to the movies. Similarly, serials were used by radio networks, to keep people tuning in on a regular basis. Television series veered away from serials – opting instead for installments in long running shows that could be watched out of order – until recently. Many long running shows now feature an incremental story (like the solving of a crime) on each show, but the development of the continuing characters’ stories arcs over the series (or season) and needs to be watched in order.

Serials are a format that works well for some authors of digital books, and works better than it does in print. Installments can be shorter. They can be priced more aggressively. Having multiple releases can create more promotional opportunities for the author. When the story is complete, the chapters or installments can be gathered into an omnibus edition. A serial can ensure that the reader comes back – to the portal, to the author homepage, to the author blog, to wherever the story originates – on a regular basis. These stories aren’t constricted by length as they might be in print format: the entire story can be very long, which isn’t an issue in digital.

Additional content is also a viable option for inclusion in digital books. I love maps. I draw maps for the locations of most of my books. But convincing an editor to include a map in the print edition of a romance is just about as easy as convincing him or her to give up both kidneys. There is a perception that romances don’t need additional materials, so the addition of that single page will be fought on every front. (I’m hoping that romantic suspense is different.) In digital books, though, the addition of content isn’t a concern. The incremental change in the file size just doesn’t matter. Even better, not all additional content is image-based, which tends to take more space. I’ve added casts of characters to my indie-published books, and a glossary of terms to the newest Dragonfire title. Neither of these additions would have been made in mass market additions, because of the additional pages required. I’ve also included two excerpts in the back of my digital books, one from the obvious choice (the linked book) which would have been included by a traditional publisher, and one from another title in my list (which wouldn’t have made the cut.) I also can include longer excerpts, because space is not a concern. This is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of additional content. I foresee authors adding a great deal more to their books.

Increased navigability is another possibility for digital books. Currently, digital books tend to follow the formatting of print books. If there’s a glossary of terms, for example, it will appear at the end or the beginning of the digital book. The one big change is a linked table of contents in the digital book. But what if the words in the glossary were hotlinked in the text of the book – at least in their first usage – and the hotlink took you to the definition in the glossary? Maybe the definition would appear in a pop up window. Last summer at RWA National, the guy from Apple talked about using this kind of technique on buy links – using the right command and the iTunes buy link would bring up the iTunes product page in a pop-up window, allowing the customer to buy the book without losing his or her place in the current book. This is kind of like footnotes in print, but a lot slicker. Similarly, a map or a genealogical chart could be tied to the book’s content so the first time a location or a character is mentioned, the reader could quickly determine where or who that was. Another example: in Guardian, there is an APB put out on Delilah. It appears in the text as a digital message. In the original version of the book, it said <image> at the top, as a placeholder for a picture of Delilah that would have appeared in the APB. There was no way to put a picture in the text. In this new edition, the formatter tucked a black and white jpeg of Delilah into that place, an image created from the cover. This enriches the experience of the book and the immersion into its world, for just 20K (or less) addition to the overall file size.

These are just a few thoughts that come to my mind when I think about the future shape of fiction. How do expect fiction to change in the future – or do you?