So how do you like it? How to write and publish a serial.

So how do you like it?

Do you like to work slowly, dipping in and then pulling back; taking breaks and then picking up where you left off until you hit the big climax?

Or is it more a case of wham bam, thank you ma’am?

I’m talking about writing serial fiction, of course, and recently I’ve reached the conclusion that there’s room for both approaches.

In the past, I’ve published as I’ve gone along. With The Object of His Desire, for example, the first installment was available before I’d even written the first sentence of part two. I tried to keep to a monthly schedule, but even then I was getting reviews and other feedback from readers impatient to keep reading.

This can be a huge incentive to keep going, but it does pile the pressure on, particularly if you start to slip behind schedule. And if there isn’t that kind of reaction? Even more pressure!

My Working Girl series was a real slow burner, with very few sales at first. If I’d been publishing as I wrote, that quiet reception would have been very discouraging, and it would have appeared quite sensible to cut my losses and abandon the series unfinished. Luckily, though, I’d written drafts of three of the four parts before the first one appeared, and when you’re that close to the end you just have to finish, don’t you? Sales for Working Girl built slowly, and I’m really glad I stuck with it. Not only is there the satisfaction of having had the opportunity to tell the complete story, now it’s become a steady seller. I hate to think that it could so easily have been abandoned unfinished if I’d been working in a different way.

To any onlookers I’ve been a bit quiet recently on the publishing front, and this is because I’ve moved away from the write-and-publish-immediately strategy for serials. While that approach works for a lot of people, it’s too high-risk a strategy for me: I want to be able to just tell the story, without anything else intruding. Right now, I’m working on two serials, and for both I’ve chosen to wait until they’re complete before publishing.

So this week Trading Down, part one of the three-part bad boy erom thriller Winner Takes All, came out. Part two, Bad Company, will be out next week, and All or Nothing will conclude the series a few days after that. All three parts are written and waiting to go, which is a good feeling for me – and, I hope, for my readers!

Since completing that series, I’ve moved on to Back Stage Pass, a three-part rock star romance. So far I’ve written the first draft of the opening part, Let’s Make This Thing Happen, and lots of notes for the rest of the series, and I’m loving it.

I like working like this: it lets me get my head down and just keep on going until I reach the end. I think that energy comes through in the storytelling, and readers benefit by not having to wait too long for each part.

Is it a wham bam, thank you ma’am approach? Well maybe, but sometimes you just have to go hard and fast until you reach the end, don’t you think?

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Trading Down (Winner Takes All 1) by PJ Adams

When a guy in a tux walks into a bar in the middle of nowhere, dripping wet from the storm, and pulls out a sodden roll of hundred dollar bills, you just know he’s going to be trouble.

Denny McGowan has lost his girl, his best friend and millions of dollars. All he has are the clothes on his back, the money in his pocket and an easy, wise-cracking charm that could melt the hardest of hearts. And two gangsters on his tail and out for revenge.

Cassandra Dane is a waitress in an out-of-town bar. Down on her luck, and on the run from a father fresh out of jail, she’s probably the last girl you’d expect to hook up with someone as hot and exciting as Denny – and she knows it. But things are not always what they seem and sometimes you’re just on the tail-end of a string of bad luck and worse decisions.

Trading Down: a night of intense seduction and passion on the dangerous journey from riches to rags and maybe back again – the steamy new bad boy romance from the author of bestselling romantic thriller The Object of His Desire.

Available from:

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The post So how do you like it? How to write and publish a serial. appeared first on PJ Adams / Polly J Adams: erotic romance and erotica.