"I thought I'd 'made it'... whatever that means."
Going from Substack serial to published with author Vicky Randle
What was the biggest question I got when sharing that I was doing a series on serialising?
How can we use Substack to get a book deal?
Well, I’m delighted to introduce
, who will be sharing her experience serialising ‘Cold Secrets’ on Substack, which she later published off-platform. With three books under her belt, Vicky also writes MYRIATID (the publication under which her serial fiction is released), which talks about books, culture and the arts. Over to Vicky!
Hello! Let’s get the introductions out of the way…
I’m Vicky and I write under V. J. Randle. I have two mystery thrillers published with Bloodhound Books (The Athenian Murders and The Saturn House Killings) and I recently self-published my third book (via serialising it on Substack and then KDP): a Scottish murder mystery called Cold Secrets.
Today, I’m talking about the ins and out of my publishing journey – the failures, the successes, the “meh” moments and all. This will be useful to anyone who is thinking about writing or publishing a book and wondering how to go about it.
As the authors among you will already know, publishing is a fickle and unpredictable game. Signing a publishing contract is very rarely the lightning-bolt moment you might imagine it to be (or, at least, I imagined it to be).
When I signed my first books to a publisher, I was over the moon! I thought I’d “made it”...whatever that means.
To be fair, it was an overall positive experience. It’s always fun having a marketing team behind you, being sent samples of actors’ voices for audiobooks, having the cover design land in your inbox etc. Sales weren’t terrible, but they were modest. I’m certainly not a Big Deal yet.
The process of having a publisher did teach me what it takes to bring a book to market. It actually demystified a few things, which were to come in very useful. For example, I learnt the staggering importance of garnering as many reviews as possible (no mean feat). Also, although I’d always known a book’s cover was important, it was only when I saw mine listed amidst the reams of other books on various websites that I realised just how important.
When I signed my first books to a publisher, I was over the moon! I thought I’d “made it”...whatever that means.
So, when my publisher passed on Cold Secrets early last summer, it occurred to me – fleetingly – to self-publish it.
However, between writing my next book and marketing my published ones, I didn’t find the time to truly commit. Then, in August, following a devastating death in my family, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands and unable to write. Somewhere within these long and meandering days, I popped the first two chapters of Cold Secrets onto Substack.
I’m a big believer in the best plans happening by accident, and this is certainly the case here! Within a few days, I had over 200 subscribers reading my chapters. I stuck to a schedule, releasing a chapter (or two) every Saturday morning. My readership grew to over 650 subscribers.
Honestly, it was thrilling! The notion of my little murder mystery landing on the screens of strangers around the world every week still makes me smile. The feedback was also better than any reviews I’d had before – it was more personal because it felt like I was a part of a community with my readers.
As the weeks passed and readership continued to grow and, crucially, read, I decided to revisit the self-publishing idea.
I was very lucky that the publisher of my last two novels offered to help with the cover and that I had a direct line to my excellent editor and type-setter there. However, these things can easily be done autonomously (there are loads of resources like Reedsy that connect self-publishing authors with publishing professionals).
Going live with the book was certainly more stressful than it was when I had a publisher behind me. Everything fell upon my shoulders! I just had to take deep breaths with the little trip-ups that happened along the way. Who knew Amazon KDP could take more than 72 hours to review your book for publication, eh? The mental spiralling was very real (of course, I imagined I’d done something horribly wrong with the file upload and that I would be banned for life…obviously, everything was fine).
What surprised me was the enormous sense of pride I felt with this book. I feel more motivated to market it and talk about it, because it’s 100% mine. Serialising it gave me a real boost in confidence. I already knew people were enjoying it, so that anxiety about whether the story was good enough was pretty much removed.
To have a good sized newsletter list of invested readers is obviously a wonderful position in which to be. I will continue to release the chapters for free each week, but if anyone wants to find out the end of the mystery more quickly, they can buy the book by clicking the link at the top of the email.
It’s also worth saying that serialising your fiction is a good marketing tool for when you reach out to book influencers. Two big bookstagrammers used the chapters published on Substack to determine whether they wanted to receive a PR book box with a free copy (they did!), and a big murder mystery booktok account did the same. She even commented that she thought serialising the chapters was “a great marketing tool”.
What surprised me was the enormous sense of pride I felt with this book … Serialising it gave me a real boost in confidence. I already knew people were enjoying it, so that anxiety about whether the story was good enough was pretty much removed.
If you’re wondering whether you should serialise your book with the view to potentially self-publishing, then I’ve got some practical tips here:
Don’t release too much too soon! I got into the habit of doing two chapters a week, however, I am now scaling back to one chapter. I perhaps should have done this from the start.
Think carefully about pre-order periods. The general consensus in the book world seems to be that they are absolutely mandatory to boost sales. I’m not so sure. It’s certainly true for a big author who is getting thousands of pre-orders, however, for a little author like me, I struggle to see the benefit. For Cold Secrets I didn’t do a pre-order period, but have still listed the ebook on Netgalley (a website which provides a platform for ARC reviews to receive your book in exchange for a review). It’s been live for a week and I have sold 213 copies, which I’m pleased with!
Forge meaningful community. For example, I used some lovely comments I got from my Substack readers in the next email instalment to let them know how completely grateful I was for their words.
This is so boring but a good hack: when you eventually do go live on Amazon, use a universal link in your socials. Otherwise people will be sent to the country’s page you’re in, which will cause problems. I use Booklinker, which is free.
Have fun! I hope one day to make a full-time living from writing books. For now, I am just so elated that anyone wants to read my stories. Treat the process as a passion project and you won’t be disappointed.
Do you have experience using serialisation to publish your own book?
What were the pros? What were the cons? Or maybe you haven’t yet but you’re intrigued by the process… Let’s continue the conversation!
Know someone who would find value from this article?
Make sure to share it using the button below - bonus points for adding a little Note to say what you loved so much!
Want to read more about serialising?
These are links to other posts in this series.
 | A guest post by
|
This newsletter is a great discovery and I see some great posts in the archives to catch up on now.
I've been enjoying Cold Secrets and it's so nice to hear more about your inside story Vicky, especially as I consider whether to serialise my own story.
I went about my first book all the wrong way but I guess it's been a learning experience.