Sequelitis

[DavidDvorkin]

In 1988, a science fiction novel of mine, Central Heat, was published by Berkley/Ace. They asked for a proposal for a sequel, so I wrote an outline and sample chapters under the title Still Waters, which they turned down because sales of Central Heat were ... considerably less than bestseller numbers.

Central Heat was reissued this year by Wildside Press, and I got an e-mail from someone who loved the book when it first came out and wanted to know if there'd ever be a sequel. I told him that wasn't going to happen, but maybe I'd dig up the old files and put them on my Web site. Which I've finally done, here. Rereading the sample chapters, I remembered again how much I liked the story and how much fun I thought it would be to write it. Sigh.

I'm just rambling, I guess. I would like to ask, though, what other people here think about putting such stuff up on one's Web site. As I said, not many people bought the original novel. If lots had, Ace would have wanted the sequel! But there were some, and there were people who liked it, and maybe they'd find the proposal for a sequel interesting. Or am I kidding myself? It's been -- gasp! -- almost twenty years since the novel was published.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. There are good reasons to do this and good reasons not to

the good reasons is that it allows people to get to know you better, and perhaps for you to be able to sell something else.

You may also want to consider self publishing, through Lulu, and selling it that way. Or as an E-BOOK... which may have a better luck.

You may also want to put it out just to get a readying base, or... go through this and make the sequelae short stories and put them out through regular markets.

The reality is, there are no easy answers

If you put it on your site, it is published, but at times it helps to build a career.

[DavidDvorkin]

2. There's no need to worry about being on the site=being published

The sequel has no future in the standard publishing world, anyway. The original publisher didn't want the sequel, so no other publisher would be interested in it. Publishers don't do sequels to books published by other companies, unless there's some extraordinary circumstance -- e.g., the original book did extremely well, but the original publisher went out of business.

So there's no practical reason for it to go beyond the few chapters I wrote years ago and now have on my site. I'm spending my writing time on new projects.

Now, if I were to get a million e-mails from people promising to buy a self-published sequel as soon as it's available, I'd reconsider. After I managed to plow through a million e-mails, that is. :)

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Then post it, just to build readership

or consider the short story route

And yes, I am familiar with the publishing world

:-)

Micropublishers are us....

[DavidDvorkin]

4. It's already posted

The link is in the original post.