Split a novel into three?

[Bill Vaz]

I've seen some indie authors splitting their novels into three works, naming them "Title - Part I", "Title - Part II" and "Title - Part III".

It seemed like it's a good idea since you're giving more material to your readers much more frequently, which doesn't allow them to forget your name. But I've no idea if those shorter works sell well. As long as it didn't sell less than 3 times than the entire novel at once format, it would be a good idea.

Wether I choose to split it into parts or put the entire novel at once, I intend to charge only $0.99 for each work.

Shortly put, I was wondering if this a good idea to put into practice, in terms of royalities gained.

[KBoards.com]

[KinkyWriter]

I'm interested in hearing what others have to say too.

[ShayneRutherford]

Serials are not the same as splitting a novel into three pieces. Generally, the former are accepted by the fans, while the latter tends to tick a lot of people off and earn lots of 1-stars.

[Keith Soares]

I don't know what your genre is and how tolerant your readers might be, or if you have an existing audience.

My genre is sci fi and I have a small but willing audience... and my idea to release my second novel in five parts was a giant failure. I had all five parts done and I released them with two weeks between each, and still there was confusion and sales were very low. I also had at least one reviewer blast me because he felt I was stringing along the reader, trying to get them to buy more books. I had written the five parts to each have their own smaller story arc, but that wasn't good enough. I will never release a book that way again.

I have subsequently pulled the five parts and only sell the full novel, but still places like Goodreads list everything.

My advice is that unless you're certain about it, don't do it (any maybe don't do it even if you are certain -- I thought I was, and I was wrong).

K.

[Bill Vaz]

My genre is fantasy, which I suspect I would have the same result you had in sci-fi, Keith Soares?

I'd not just randomly split it; I'd split after each big plot twist (at around 25%, 50% and 75% of the novel), but aparently it's not a good idea.

Thanks.

[KelliWolfe]

I could sort of understand doing this if you released the individual pieces as you wrote them and then bundled and unpublished the individual pieces when it was complete, but I can't come up with a single good argument to do this with a completed novel. To the readers it's just going to look like you're trying to gouge them for more $$$ or something.

You also need to look at this from a royalty POV.

Four parts at 99 cents each gives you $1.40 in royalties IF someone buys all four parts. You'll be lucky to get a 20% sell through from part I to part II based on discussions on that here.

Selling the whole thing at $2.99 gives you $2.09 in royalties, so I don't see how it makes any financial sense at all to do this.

[Bill Vaz]

You're right. I definetely wasn't thinking straight. Thanks.

[GeoffW]

In my case, I have no other option than to split it into 3 books (yeah, the exact Part 1, etc. thing : )  My book (saga?) ended up being approximately 2200 pages.  Which is about 3 times the maximum number of pages allowed by CreateSpace (and I do want to print the books).

So, yeah, I'm doing the split thing.  I need to set up the title (and probably different covers) so that it is not too confusing for customers.

And then be a little cautious in keeping an eye on the length of my books from now on : )  I don't think that will be an issue as the first book (now 3 parts) contains a lot of world and character development which will not be duplicated (much) in the future books.

Otherwise, the advice above about not splitting up a book makes good sense.

Geoff

[Nope]

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[unkownwriter]

I think a lot of writers were doing that to take advantage of borrows in KU, when you got roughly $1.35 once the 10% point was reached. Now, under the page read system, that's probably not going to work. It takes a lot of pages to make half a penny add up.

Traditionally, novels sell better than shorter works. They can also do much better in KU, if you get good read-through.

[KelliWolfe]

Or sell each part for $2.99.  99 cents is over rated, we don't have to give away everything we do.   

Or 99 cents for Part I and then $2.99 for II and III.

And sell through is pretty much dependent on how well you target your audience, not on how good the book is.

There's a lot of ways of going about this, plus one needs to consider promotional opportunities and the only thing below 99 cents is free, which is fine, but it's nice to have options.

$2.99 for a short is a hard sell outside of erotica, and you are never going to approach anything like 100% sell-through between books 1 and 2. In the last thread we had talking about that here I think the consensus was that 50% was *very* good for a series where book 1 was not free and 20% was almost unheard of for series that started with a permafree. Of course everyone is different, but unless you're an extremely good writer with an existing fan base that will read practically anything you put out, I don't think it's reasonable to expect sell-through numbers that are that high.

[telracs]

You wrote a novel.  Sell me that novel, I will read that novel and possibly buy your next one.  Sell me 1/3 of that novel and I will probably not buy anything else you ever write. 

[Jim Johnson]

I wouldn't split up a novel for the sake of splitting it up to get more product out there. Just write the novel and release it as a novel.

However, series can be popular, so maybe your novel has series potential and you could write several installments rather than one novel and release the installments on a regular basis.

[Nick Marsden]

Splitting a novel is a bad idea...

UNLESS:

Each part of the novel has a contained plot or complete arc. (Meaning each part has a beginning, middle, and end)
Each part ends on a satisfying note and merely teases the next book: no cliffhanger.

This is the difference between an episodic serial and a split novel. Normally, people who split novels just do it at the end of chapter without regard for where the plot is. If you stop a book in the middle and tell the reader they have to buy another book to get more, that will  p*ss  them off.

But if you give a reader an exciting and complete episode, even if it's just part of an overall plot, they will beg to buy the next one.

[meh]

TOS.

[MrWayneMrBruceWayne'sClone]

Like the others implied, without a complete arc in every part, and you just split them for just the sake of splitting them, this would more or less tick the readers off big time.
The two criteria you have in splitting them are: If it's too long that each part is under the novel word count (like 40k to 70k), and if the book is originally made in parts.

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