Posted on August 10, 2023
KimBoo York is a sci-fi and fantasy romance author who has found her calling in writing serial stories for subscriptions. Today, she shares with us what she has learned and how we can use the power of serials to supercharge our subscription.
Read Become An Unstoppable Storyteller Book: https://houseofyorkshop.myshopify.com/products/become-an-unstoppable-storyteller
Free Serial Fiction Beat Outline Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E6I6Z4TwKgVtUTaid28J2ng_tSxU0HjauV9OievkcTE/edit?usp=sharing
Fireside Chat with KimBoo York: https://youtu.be/utLupUf4ftA
KimBoo York’s Keynote at SFA Summit: https://youtu.be/qkwALb04XiI
KimBoo York’s Links:
KimBoo’s website: https://houseofyork.info/
KimBoo’s subscription: https://reamstories.com/houseofyork and https://houseofyork.substack.com/
OTHER NOTES:
Join Ream and publish your serials for free today: https://reamstories.com/
Join the waitlist for the Six-Figure Subscription Author Accelerator: https://learn.subscriptionsforauthors.com/subscriptions-for-authors-accelerator
#44 Episode Outline
0:00:00 Introduction to KimBoo York
0:04:38 From Plotting to Creation: KimBu’s Journey and Insights
0:11:36 Novel Writing vs. Serial Writing Landscape
0:19:26 Unpacking Packaging and Exploring Structural Mastery for Serial Writing
0:23:09 Crafting Unstoppable Serials
0:27:01 Extracting Insights from Television: Translating Serial Storytelling Techniques
0:29:04 Balancing Fan Input and Serial Release Strategy
0:31:35 Strategizing Packaging for Serials: Tailoring Structure to Optimize Impact
0:35:54 Expanding Possibilities: Crafting Experiences and Monetizing Serials
0:38:25 Navigating Pen Names
0:40:05 Advice for Guiding Established Audiences through Format Changes
0:46:13 Conclusion
#44 Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Michael Evans: So today we’re going to be chatting with KimBoo York all about how to structure your serials, to be able to have a successful subscription, and an amazing story that’s going to keep readers hooked and you being able to continue writing consistently and keeping it fun long into the future. It’s a very special episode and Why this is actually very meaningful to me is because we as a community helped create this.
Yes, you listening. Kim Boo has been a part of our community for a while now. I think she found us in January is when she joined the Facebook group in Subscriptions for Authors. And she’s been such an insightful and positive member of the community and she even spoke at the Subscriptions for Authors Summit.
You can find all those videos totally for free on YouTube. I’ll link it down in the description and she also… Did an amazing event all about her serial fiction beat sheet, which I’m also going to [00:01:00] link down the description You’ll see us refer to this both throughout this podcast episode But the really cool thing is that she actually wrote a book all about this It’s called become an unstoppable storyteller and it’s really all about how you can structure your serial fiction How you can plot it and how you can craft a compelling serial So I’m very excited to chat with Kimu all about this So many of us write and release in serial form.
Some of us just release in serial form and some of us write in serial form, but actually don’t even release in serial form. We release in a book format. We’re gonna talk all about packaging, release format and structure and why they’re different and how they play together. We’re gonna talk about what KimBoo’s learned starting her subscription and building her community.
We’re gonna learn All about the structure and the arcs that you can have to write a successful serial. I know so many of you listening are serial authors, so this is going to be an amazing episode for you. And even if you wouldn’t call yourself a serial writer, even if you think you’re more of a novel writer, short story, a poet, I love you.
I’m a novelist myself. I would consider myself at least more of a novelist, but I’m starting to fall in love with serials. I think after this conversation with Kim Boo, not only did I learn a bit about my own self as a novelist, I think I’m learning and [00:02:00] starting to get onto the serial train myself as a writer.
So, I’m curious by the end if you’ll feel this way. Of course, just a caveat that subscriptions can be a great business model for all kinds of writers. You don’t need to be a serial fiction author or to release serially to have a successful subscription, but there’s tons of serial fiction authors and authors who release serially who do have successful subscriptions, which is exactly why we have Kim Boo.
Here with us to talk all about how to create an amazing one. And the podcast, I just want to mention one last thing, which is that if you, to, release a serial to yourself, out into the world, a great platform to do that on is Ream. It’s a subscription platform. That’s how you can monetize your serials through subscriptions, readers paying for early access and other benefits.
But we also have a following tier now. And the following basically allows a reader to follow you for free and get updates on chapters that you release to them. And you get their email address. as the author. So it’s direct following and you also can post community updates in a social media feed. It really combines following of a mailing list, following a social media platform, and following on a serial fiction platform all into one very, very powerful button that gives you direct control as an author.
So I want to share that with you. You can publish completely for free on Ream. Check the link down in the description. We’re going to get into this conversation with Kimu. I’m [00:03:00] so excited for this one.
Michael Evans: KimBoo, I am very excited to chat with you today because this is a conversation that’s been both a long time and a short time coming. I’m going to give some backstory for everyone listening.
So Kimbu has been an amazing member of the Scriptwriters for Authors community for It feels like forever, but it hasn’t been forever because it’s only been around for like a year or so. At least since the beginning of this year, meaning 2023, I’ve come to know you and really admired your mindset, everything you’re doing.
And I remember you made a post in the Facebook group around middle of May, I want to say, that was basically sharing this Google sheet that you made to be able to plot the beats for your serials. And people loved it. People were like, Oh my God, this is awesome. But people were also like, I have questions and you, you were like, I haven’t really looked at this or did much with it in a little while.
So you’re just sharing it. But then given the interest, you’re like, I’m going to spend time and dive into it deeper. You updated it and we did a fireside chat that went super, super well, which is a shout out to people who are listening. Like you should go check out. That fireside chat linked in the comments [00:04:00] because it’s a live conversation with KimBoo about a lot of things to be talking about today, but then that fireside chat inspired you to create something, which I want you to talk about that creation and talk about what you’ve learned while doing it.
I’m very excited. This is, this is very cool.
KimBoo York: You’re always so excited, Michael. It’s so energizing to talk with you because you just have such a passion for the topic. So I’m thrilled to be here.
Michael Evans: I’m very excited to be here and let us know about what your background is in serial fiction.
What got you interested in even creating that beat sheet to begin with? Because I know that beat sheet and what you went from there going to fireside chat and now the book that you’ve written and that is released, we’re going to get there. That is a whole beautiful, just. string of events. But what started this?
What started your passion as your official?
KimBoo York: So I do talk about this in the book. So if you read the book, you’re gonna hear a little bit of this story anyway. But I’ve always loved Endless stories. Ongoing stories. In fact, one of my first loves as a child was the Black Stallion series, which I think ended up being like 40 books.
It was written in the 40s. And I grew up in the 70s, so that was you know, the first big thing I latched on to. But it led to other passions. [00:05:00] Star Wars, Star Trek even the Indiana Jones series, and then of course moving into the 90s, and you’ve got television shows like Buffy, and just these things that were going on and on.
The X Files, did it ever end? Like, I don’t know. The truth is out there. But I loved these stories that just kept the ball rolling because I was so invested in these characters and I was so engaged with the world building that I just… The love of serials was kind of baked in, I think, from the very beginning.
And I got it from my family. My father was a big reader. He loved westerns. I think he read all the Zane Grey novels and Louis L’Amour. And, you know, those are not quite serials, but they’re short. A lot of repeated plots. He just loved that. So, it was there. It was deep inside of me to want those. Type of stories to grasp on to and in fact my very first fan.
This is okay time for public Shaming, but my very first fan fiction. I wrote when I was 10 years old a Star Wars fan fiction and this was before the Empire [00:06:00] Strikes Back and in it I made Leah, Luke’s sister, so that I could be the lump, my Mary Sue character could be the love interest for Luke.
So I actually beat George Lucas to the punch on that one. And although nobody will ever know, cause it’s long gone, but I loved being involved in the story is what I’m saying is I loved engaging with the story and keep. Telling the characters, talking about the characters, telling their story. So many years later, I become a professional author.
I did get my launch back into writing, which I’d kind of given up on in the 90s. I know you’ve heard this story from other authors in my age group, Michael, where a lot of us who wanted to be writers in the 90s, 80s and the 90s, in the early 2000s, it was such heavy gatekeeping. And sometimes our interests were so niche.
That we knew would be a lightning strike for us to ever get an agent or get a kind of publishing deal back then. So a lot of us gave up and that was me. I got back into writing through fan fiction and I loved writing, again, the long stories. Now, my stories weren’t actually very long in fan fiction. I did 30, 000 words, 50, 000 words, but I loved [00:07:00] reading the long stories.
And one of the things I really loved about that was that they were often updated in installments, which You know subscription authors now, we’re very familiar with that. We’re like, yeah, there’s Wattpad and there’s Patreon and there’s Ream now. But, you know, back in the old days, as they say, when we were doing fan fiction on LiveJournal, there were, there were people who were like, well, where’s the next chapter?
And we’re like, it’s coming next week. And that was a new thing. And, but I loved it. I loved the anticipation. I loved waiting. I loved the imagination, like what’s going to happen next? And then the story would come and maybe. What I wanted to happen happened. Maybe it didn’t, but it was so awesome. I loved it.
And when I went into the professional field, at that point, a lot of indie publishers were getting in the fray because self publishing came on the scene between 2008, 2010. And so it was self publishing. It was small indie publishers. It was just the wild west, but it was all focused on novels. novellas and novels.
You know, if we wrote erotica, you’re writing erotic novellas. If you wrote [00:08:00] romance, if you wrote genre, if you’re horror, you were writing novels. And I did write novels. I do have novels to my name. And It pretty much was some of the hardest work I’ve ever done because it was fighting my instinct to try to make the story conform to the structure of what a novel is.
And when I talk about it, I really stress that as a writer, I grew up in a writing household. I’ve been with writers all the time, spent most of my life around writers, authors, you know, there are Skills that you have to have to write in certain formats, right? You know, nobody’s just going to sit down and write an epic poem.
That’s like, no, right? Yeah, no, you’ve got to have the skill set for it. And the same is true for novellas. Same is especially true for short stories, which I will be the first person to admit I am terrible at short stories because I sit down, I’m like, I’m going to write a 5, 000 word short story. And then you’re 40, 000 words later.
Michael Evans: Yeah.
KimBoo York: So I just admit it. I don’t have the skills for short stories. I really admire short story writers. The same is true with novels. I was not good with the skill set for writing novels. I managed [00:09:00] to do it by hook and by crook. And I’m a discovery writer. I’m an intuitive writer. So there was a lot of pain along the way.
And then, slowly, in my consciousness, I don’t want to drag the story out too long, but slowly in my consciousness, I started seeing serialization. I started, Wattpad appeared on the horizon authors I knew started serializing their work on Patreon. I didn’t really see it as a way to do my stories, because I was still stuck in the idea of a novel.
And when I wrote my big book, Wolves of Harmony Heights, in 2016, it was so niche. And it was so long and I realized in retrospect, I was really trying to write it as a serial. And I think at that point, I was kind of like, well, I just can’t write a novel. This is just not going to work. And it wasn’t until I came into the Subscriptions for Authors Facebook and found out about Ream and really just, that was in January.
I was not familiar with you guys during all your beta of last year, but in January I found out about it. And I’m like. Everything just clicked, and I realized this is how I can tell my stories, which are serials. They’re not [00:10:00] novels, they’re serials. And I can do this ongoing, and it’s gonna be fun. And so that’s what really jazzed me up about the whole thing.
Michael Evans: what a story. I love it. and, just so grateful that we could have you part of the Scripture Thrivers community, because KimBoo won’t say this, but she’s been one of the most… Passionate and most really giving members of the community. I mean, you spoke at the summit and you talked all about productivity and workflow management through subscriptions, which that was incredible.
We could, we could have easily multiple hours chatting with you, but I want to ask you about something that I just kept thinking about as you were talking, which is, okay, you’re right. You’re saying, your strength as a writer for serials over novels.
But, one of the things is, because of the industry and where it’s been at, serials haven’t felt like an option, oftentimes for a lot of writers who do want to monetize their work, right? Subscriptions are one of those newer options that is becoming more popular for authors to have their own subscriptions for their own serials.
Otherwise, you know, it was a little bit challenging. Wattpad was a free platform. All these other platforms. Then we’ve seen the rise of, you know, Radish in the romance category. Vella now broadly at least having, [00:11:00] you know, paid serials. But they’re all relatively new, especially Vella is a very new platform and then of course the author subscription or inscription to yourself.
That’s just now picking up. So with all of this, I’m guessing, just guessing, that there’s a few folks listening. And I’m going to include myself in this because this is My Story as a Writer. I went to the bookstore, you don’t see serial fiction bookstore, you see books, you see novels in the bookstore, and of course you aspire to be named X author on the cover.
So I never thought of myself as serial writing even being an option. So for someone like me who might be listening to this and be like, what is she talking about when she says what is the difference? What is the difference between a novel and writing a novel? in writing a serial. What are some of the core differences there?
KimBoo York: That was one of the things I really had to dig down into after the fireside chat, and I admit some of the questions I got asked there stumped me a little bit off the fly because it was just like, Oh, what am I really trying to say here? And I had to dig into that question. I really had to look out.
Okay, so how am I differentiating these? And when I sat down to look at it, and I’m just going to say that serial fiction, serial storytelling is amazing. Ancient. It was probably one of [00:12:00] the original forms of storytelling that we’ve had. One of my hats that I wear, as you know, Michael, is I’m a text technology historian.
I’m a librarian. That’s my, that’s what my degree is in, but my concentration was on the history of the book. What is the history of text and text technology? And one of the things we have to acknowledge when we look at these things is that by the time the written word came down the pike, it was late stage in the game of storytelling.
And a lot of the early Fictional mythology stories that were told were actually the writing down of stories that had been existing for years in serialized format. It’s pretty much agreed by most scholars that stories like Odyssey and the Iliad, the Epic of Gilgamesh, these were all serialized stories, which is one reason why you have different versions of them in different places, because people would tell the story and, you know, game of telephone, ancient game of telephone, things would switch as they go down.
So it really, I had to look at that and say, how do we identify that then? Even though it’s been around for so long, we haven’t really defined it. I think a lot of people are [00:13:00] already familiar with serials, but we don’t call them that because, and this is where the history of text technology comes in, the technology that we had available was you could print a book, you could print a magazine or flyleaf type of thing.
So. The restrictions were, if it was going to be something that was ongoing, it had to be in a magazine. If it was going to be a big story, it needed to be in a book. And The oral storytelling tradition of I’m going to tell a chapter every day or I’m going to tell a chapter every week just disappeared because it wasn’t oral anymore.
It was all being the printing press, right? Which is a great invention. No argument there, but it did affect these forms of storytelling. I would define a serial story as one that has a major long arc, but then has smaller story arcs within it. And the reason I think that. I will say that people already know what serials are.
They just don’t know their serials is because, and I’m just going to use a really famous example of a story that everybody thinks of as books, but is really, in my opinion, a serial, and that is the [00:14:00] Lord of the Rings and it’s a trilogy. Right, because the technology demanded that it be a trilogy. But when you read the story, there are separate sections to it.
And there’s, you know, everybody jokes about Tom Bombadil, but as important character as he was in the, in the written version, it’s kind of a side quest, really, and so you have these things going on in the story that all feed into the longer story, which is, of course, Frodo taking the ring to Mordor to destroy it, but there are so many other characters, and there are so many things going on, and importantly, Frodo himself goes through multiple character arc sequences himself.
It’s not just one cute, you know, cute hobbit, you know, becomes world weary traveler, it’s cute hobbit becomes world weary traveler, becomes prisoner, becomes jaded, cynical, becomes, you know, just there’s a whole cyclic tale behind his personal journey. So when you have something that. big, you have to break it down into pieces.
And Tolkien, of course, did it very well. They managed to break it into three novels, [00:15:00] as the technology was convenient to do at the time. But that, to me, is the essence of a serial. So if you start looking around, you’re going to start seeing serials in a lot of places. I use the example of the Chronicles of Narnia.
That’s a serial. Yeah, because two of those books are actually flashbacks, they don’t even fit in the real actual run of what the story is to me. That’s a real sign of a serial because a serial is going to jump back and forth. It’s going to tell side stories. It’s going to talk about this thing over here, but it’s all within the long arc of the story and the goal of what the long arc is.
So you’ll hear me talk about the long arc a lot. You hear me talk about seasons, which I call the you know, the shorter, full arcs, encapsulated arcs, multiple seasons making up a long arc. But that’s what makes a serial, as opposed to a novel, which a novel will have a set. There may be multiple character arcs within it, but usually for different characters.
Like there’s just a simple, it’s a three act story structure. It’s the save the cat story structure. It’s the hero’s journey and that’s the arc. And then it closes the end. That’s a [00:16:00] novel. So that’s a real quick overview of what I consider to be the difference between a novel and a serial.
Michael Evans: You know, I can, first of all, Being at that Fireside Chat and then listening to you now Really cool to see the clarity of thought and that’s cool Because now I’m having a deeper understanding with you and I want to ask well first of all I actually want to mention something to folks who are listening if you’re really into literary technology and like what’s possible There’s this professor.
He’s a professor actually of Social media at Duke. Fascinating guy, his name is Aaron Dinaman and his dissertation, he was a computer scientist, a software engineer who, I think it was Williams College. I may have gotten the college wrong. I’m sorry. But it was, it was a college. It was a college, that’s super specific.
But if you look up Aaron Dinaman’s dissertation if you go to his website, he has it on there. His whole dissertation is like 200 pages long. It’s about how, basically, storytelling and the text. It’s a technology very similar and almost identical to how software works and also examines how these converging technologies are shaping.
So anyways, if you want to nerd out, that’s one thing to go to as a
KimBoo York: Look, [00:17:00] man, you want to, you want to nerd out. I graduated from college in 1992 and one of my friends, in fact, I was just talking to earlier today, did his undergraduate dissertation is undergraduate degree because we went to new college.
It was really weird. But, on it was a personal memoir, but he did it in hypertext, which nobody knew what it was. And we were all exploring what hyper what is this? You could click on a word and it links somewhere. What does that even mean? And so, you know, he was he was trying to convince us that this was the future of storytelling.
And we all thought he was mad. And he was right. And we were wrong.
Michael Evans: Wow. That is very cool. Yeah. There’s side quests, even in, in our podcast, which is how, you know, we’re trying to produce a serial as well, but I want to ask now, so you were talking about all the different arcs and as you’re describing it in the seasons, you know, you brought up a lot of actually really good examples that we might consider books and I’m automatically now thinking that really, Hey.
Packaging and structure are two different things.
KimBoo York: Very different things. Absolutely. That is the important thing that I really [00:18:00] want people to understand is that a book is a product, is a thing, whether it’s digital audio or, you know, Hardback printed thing. Whereas the content, the form is what is going into that.
And it can take many different shapes. So those are two, that is a critical delineation to make. And I really want people to walk away with that because here’s the reason why, because people like, well, if you do stories, how can you print them as novels? And I’m like, you’re not going to print them as novels.
You’re going to print them as books. You’re going to print different arc seasons as individual books, but they’re Or volumes, you could use that word if you want. I know in manga, that’s what they call them, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, but it is very important to separate those two things from each other when you’re thinking about what form you want your story to take.
Michael Evans: Oh, that is, I’m going to underline it again. Packaging and structure are two different things. Two different things. Two different things. That I think is going to. Open up a lot of people’s minds. I know it’s, it’s opening up mine and now I’m automatically thinking, let’s dive into the structure aspect of this.
You were mentioning [00:19:00] all these different types of arcs that we can have now. I’m visualizing your spreadsheet, which is maybe a call to action that you had this awesome free spreadsheet. That’s also linked in your, your book. That’ll be in the description, but. What would be the. overarching, things and structure of a serial.
Some takeaways, let’s say three tips that you’d want authors to know when they’re sitting down to plot or if they’re pantsers, just thinking about the overall structure of their serial.
KimBoo York: Ooh, Michael, you really put me on the hot spot there. I think So I am a pantser. I am a discovery writer. I think, for instance, the spreadsheet that he’s talking about is free.
Make your own copy of it. Use it how you want. It’s very good for people who are outliners, because you can just plug and play. For people who are a little bit discovery, who depend on it. a little bit on the discovery side, or for pantsers like me, it might be a little bit more difficult. But either way, what I highly suggest people grab onto first, like the first thing I would suggest is understand what your long arc is and which beats Work best for your long [00:20:00] arc, because whether you’re my theory is that pancers and discovery writers right towards beats, whereas plotters and outliners right down from their outlines and their beats.
But either way. You’re going to have to know what that is in order to create the large superstructure, we might say. Right? So let’s say you have a story about a vampire hunter crossing a wilderness wasteland chasing a vampire. Now that would be a very good novel. Might even be a really good short story, depending on if you’re just doing a scene from it.
But if you want it to be a serial, you’re going to have to think about the very long arc of, you know, how far is he going, what exactly is he searching for, and what is he going to end up finding at the end of that search or along the search. But importantly, you’ve got to decide which forms you’re going to use.
And one of the things that I like giving people is freedom to choose. So you don’t have to use the hero’s journey for the long arc. You could use a three act story structure for the long arc. You can use the heroine’s journey. I mean, you know, [00:21:00] Michael, there are so many different versions of beads, but you have to use one that’s substantial enough that will carry you a long way across.
the character, or the group, or the ensemble’s journey for that. So I would have an idea of where you’re going, even if you don’t know what the end is going to be, or if you’re very sure about what the end is going to be, and what beat structure fits the long art first, because then you can start plugging in all the small things after that.
The second thing I would have, I would suggest that people decide is get really clear on if you’re writing what I call a heroic serial. Which is based on a single protagonist going all the way through. You could argue that the Lord of the Rings is a heroic serial because it follows Frodo. Even though it has other characters and important things that happen to other characters, it’s still Frodo’s journey with the ring.
Or you could make the ring the protagonist. I’m not really sure about that one. But that’s a thought I had never thought about that before. Is the ring the protagonist? I’m sure somebody’s thought of Thrones,
Right? , is there a single protagonist? Not [00:22:00] really. It’s the ensemble story. It’s the bigger story of the cultures that are involved in this traumatic time. Winter is coming. There’s the Game of Thrones going on. There’s, you know, lives are in the balance. And so you’ve got to decide exactly what the focus is, kind of serial that you’re going through.
Because again, Even if you decide on the long arc and the beats, if it’s a heroic serial versus what I call an ensemble serial, which is more of a group structure, then that’s going to decide your shorter seasons, your shorter story arcs that go into building up the larger components. It’s gonna make a lot of decisions for you.
Michael Evans: Wow. That was really good. That was really good. I remember when I was actually reading your book, learning about the heroic, the episodic serials, I’m like, Oh. Oh, that’s good. That’s good. And there was another thing, so. The actual title of the book, I don’t think I’ve actually said it yet, is basically becoming an unstoppable storyteller, which is awesome, which in the title, there’s this sort of promise imbued that in being unstoppable, the actual story is unstoppable to read and what makes a serial [00:23:00] unputdownable, unstoppable, how can we make a serial that is basically, you gotta go from each chapter or episode, however you package it.
But you can’t stop going from B to B.
KimBoo York: A lot of the advice for people writing serials or serializing stories previously has been always end on a cliffhanger. And that’s not bad advice. Like, if you want to end every single installment, which is what I call the part of the story that you’re uploading for readers, whether it’s on Ream as a chapter, or you’re sending it out in a newsletter.
you can’t argue with that. That’s great advice. Like, sure. End every chapter, every installment on a cliffhanger, and then you’ll be Dan Brown. Life will be great. You’ll be raking in all the money. But it’s very hard to do that. And I think it’s not necessary either. So one of the things that I suggest the long arc will keep people invested in the characters and in the progress of the story, is Frodo ever going to make it to the freaking mountain to dump the ring?
Is that going to happen or not? That will keep people invested. But in the more immediate sense, Since you’re going to have what I [00:24:00] call short arcs, or I call them sharks in the book as a joke, but short arcs and there was so much confusion about it. And I did not clear it up well in the original fireside chat, but a short arc is really just a subplot.
That’s all it is people. It’s just a subplot. But it’s a specific subplot that you can use to drag readers from one section of the story to another without necessarily using a cliffhanger tied to the beats of the season, or even the beats of the long arc. Like, if you can do that, Great. But if you’re at a point in the story where, you know, they’ve just crossed a big ocean, they’ve shipwrecked somewhere, everybody’s exhausted, and they’re lying asleep on the beach, what are you going to do to drag readers into the next chapter, aside from they’re wondering what’s going to happen next on the beach?
Well, you could have a subplot of a group of them had managed to get off the ship and are out there on a the beach. Lifeboat and so the last scene is them on the lifeboat looking for other survivors. So you can have things like that that are built into the story that kind of crosses the line [00:25:00] over the internal structure of the seasons beats or the long arc beats and helps readers carry through.
Lulls in the story or breaks in the story, or especially when a season ends, which is if you’ve read the book, you know, that’s a big point where you might lose readers because all the emotional promises of the season have been fulfilled, hopefully, if you’ve done your job and so. You don’t just want to leave them only hanging on what the long arc might come next.
You want to give them something else to hang on to, to drag them into the next season. I mean, if we think about it, this is one reason why a lot of television shows, when they did seasons, which were actual seasons ended the season on a cliffhanger, because they wanted people to come back four months later to watch the show again.
And if you didn’t have something like that, then you couldn’t do it. A way to Avoid having to leave people force yourself into having to write dramatic cliffhangers all the time, which I will tell you from experience is hard and exhausting, is to have these I don’t want to say low hanging fruit, but low er hanging fruit of things that [00:26:00] people can get invested in, whether it’s a side quest.
Side characters a subplot that has something to do with the long arc, like you cut away to a villain, cut scene of a villain doing something villainous, and then the readers would be like, well, why did they suddenly cut away to that scene at the end of this arc? I thought everybody was happy and go lucky, but now we’re talking about the villain and his volcano hideout, what’s going on there?
So there are ways to do that. Cliffhangers work. Sub arcs are what I call short arcs are also a way to do it.
Michael Evans: That is that is fascinating. And I’m thinking now because you bring up television and I’ve been thinking about television back in this entire time What about television, because I could ask you the question of like, what can we learn from television? But maybe there’s a flip side of that question, which is really what should we pay attention to in serial television and their storytelling, which is different format, different packaging than what a lot of writers are writing.
But at the same time, there’s a lot of shared structure. What oftentimes happens in television that we maybe should be aware of as, as authors, maybe for [00:27:00] better, or maybe for worse,
KimBoo York: You know, I, I touched on this a little bit in the, in the book and I call it the series void where things just become so repetitive that people can’t be invested in it anymore. And I think in television shows, a lot of times, at least the ones that tend to fall apart. They invest too much in the appeal of a character instead of the character’s journey.
And I’ve seen that in, novel series as well as television series, but I think Certainly television series can fall prey to that because they’ll get a star in the show and then suddenly everything will run around the star and then they’ll be, you know, focusing everything on that character and it just becomes redundant.
And I think with authors, we can become enamored with our own characters as well. We can really become very enamored with the idea of. Well, everybody loves this character, and I love this character, so we’ll just keep cycling everything around this one theme with this one character. And, you know, repetition will only serve you so far, is one of the [00:28:00] lessons, I think.
We’re all familiar with the phrase, jump the shark. A lot of people don’t know, I actually did see that episode of Happy Days when it aired, where Fonzie wrote a motorcycle over a shark which was jumping the shark. That’s where the phrase came from because it was so ludicrous and absurd. Like you knew the series was done.
They become so hitched on Fonzie and so obsessed with trying to make him special and super unique and you’re just done. It wasn’t the, it wasn’t the story. Everybody originally started watching this series for so I think that’s a definite lesson we can all learn from television is watch out for jumping that shark.
Michael Evans: Oh, that’s, that is really good. And what I’m thinking about with television and with just serials in general, this, the packaging of a serialized release is because As you know, when you’re releasing something every week, every month, whatever the cadence is, you start to have a conversation that can develop around your books, feedback, or around your stories, ultimately, though, and I’m curious, because I’ve heard from a few authors, when you’re writing a serial, and your fans are giving you feedback, how do you take that into account?
[00:29:00] When not only you’re writing a serial, but serializing it in terms of the release strategy.
KimBoo York: You know, I hate to be a cop out on that question, but I think a lot depends on the writer and what they’re trying to accomplish with the story. I think there are some genres that kind of lend themselves very well to fan feedback.
I’m particularly thinking of like, Dark Romance, where, you know, you kind of know what the setup is going to be, you know what the characters are like, and you’re going to want the characters to go through certain things, good or bad, and so you might be getting readers who are giving you feedback, saying, I can’t wait till he gets his ass kicked, or something like that and so you’re like, oh, well, I guess I better kick his ass at some point in the next few chapters I kind of walk the middle line, I’m like, listen to what the, you know, What the audience is saying.
so here’s the thing. I, I tend to write all Quran, and that means I write, I don’t finish a product before I start posting it. I’m currently working on a story. And as I write it, I do have a lag, but I post as I write. And I know some writers simply can’t do that. So if you can’t do that, then you don’t really have to worry too much.
You [00:30:00] do have to look at, see if. Expectations are being built for something that’s not going to happen if you’ve already written it. If you haven’t written it, start considering about what you and kind of rolling back around. Are your readers, I think this is the real answer to your question, are your readers invested in the long arc?
Because if your readers are invested in the long arc, then their comments and their feedback is going to keep feeding back into that. If they’ve lost sight of the long arc, then they’re just going to want the bad guy to get it beaten, or they’re going to want the romance to happen, or they’re going to want the dragons to come in and save the day.
And you’ll be like, yeah, but Frodo is… still in the spider den. And I, what would have you forgotten about that? And they’re like, no, we want the Rohan to come in and have a war. So look and see what kind of feedback you’re getting and whether the carrot, the readers are invested in the long arc, or have they lost sight of it?
Because that may indicate that you’ve lost sight of
Michael Evans: That is really good. I think that’s a very good way to filter feedback because you don’t ever want to have. Your specific voices that might be speaking loudly skew you on areas of the [00:31:00] story that isn’t the core, core of it. But yeah, if you’re having people who seem to not be resonating with their understanding or invest in it, the long arc that would be a good proxy.
That’d be good proxy. I have one last question before we switch to talk a little bit more about descriptions, which is a question I honestly, I’ve been thinking about the whole time we’ve been talking and I’ve been like, man, I don’t know, with this new insight around the structure that we can have our serial, and then with this understanding that structure and package are different, and I think we all are aware of different packaging that we can have for our stories, how do we figure out the best packaging to approach for our story?
And in this case, if we’re writing serials, For our serials.
KimBoo York: well, actually, that’s an easy answer because it’s already been done. I think if you really look at the manga, the history of manga, you’ll see exactly how that’s done. For instance, the manga Berserker, which I do mention in the book, has been ongoing since like 87?
Like, since before I went to college, which you know that was a long time ago. And what they do is they publish in volumes ongoing and collectively, and then they can do [00:32:00] collections of volumes as omnibus editions. And if you’re using, if you’re aware of the structure, if you’re aware that you’ve got a long arc, but you’ve got the, the series, this, what I call the seasons, right?
the enclosed or the, you know, the, what I so lost for words, the, the Part of it that has its own set of beats opening to close, which is the season, which lives within the long arc. You can use those seasons to publish volumes or discrete books or audio books, or, you know, there’s just a lot of different ways to do that, depending on how you want to, chop it up. One of the things that I think is really beautiful about series is that you do have all of these options. You can do really short volumes that are, you know, just a season. You can do omnibus additions. There is a tradition where, you know, three trilogies, like, so it’s nine books total, right?
So that’s something that the publishing books world has done. You can look at something like that and modifying it depending on how your story is flowing. And it’s just, that’s why I call it [00:33:00] unstoppable because there’s just no way to put a restriction on it. Like you can just keep going however many different directions you want to go.
I do think That it pays to pay attention to things that you may not have anticipated from the beginning. For instance, you might end up doing a collection of books that are not in sequence. And the reason I would say that is because you’re doing a lot of world building. Here we go back and people are like, well, that makes no sense.
And I would be like, Chronicles of Narnia, people just look at your history and look at how other people have done it. You can absolutely start jumping around and doing themed collections around certain characters. If it’s an ensemble or a certain region you know, like one piece, the manga where they’re traveling through all different places.
do a themed collection of all the tropical places that they went to. And that’s an omnibus right there of different arcs. So there’s a lot of different ways to do it. I just, I don’t know, man, the answer is whatever you want, but it does behoove you to think about all the different ways you can do it.
It can be overwhelming to think about that, but it is actually [00:34:00] kind of awesome because. Not only are you serializing it, you can do actual books, you can do novellas of different sections. You can do anthologies of short stories based around the serial that are side quests that maybe were side arcs or short arcs that don’t really fit or.
You know, built off of something like that. So you can do a lot. You can do a lot.
Michael Evans: It, it’s very exciting, especially because not only do you have all of those existing opportunities to be able to package your stories and the things, but you also can think about the secondary opportunities of, Oh, well, this is this season of.
you know, the serial, I’m going to have also a collection of merchandise tied to that season, and then each season there’s going to be a different collection that’s, slightly altered, slightly different designs that can get people to keep coming back to something like that. You can do the same thing.
With your marketing. If you think about different events, you can run around in your community. Maybe it’s asking anything sessions. Maybe it’s a fan holidays that you start to promote. You can do that based around the season. You can do that based [00:35:00] around, you know, multiple seasons every three. I mean, it’s your world.
You get to pick what you want to do. But I think it’s exciting to think about that. You have this almost this very natural like DNA
of the story. Yeah. And that around that you’re able to craft the story in according to its ARPs and then be able to figure out what are the best ways to build, you know, experiences around that, whether it’s serial releases, whether it’s the books that make sense to readers. And with this, as we know, a very common way that a lot of authors begin monetizing serials is through subscriptions.
Subscriptions are one of the ways that it’s easier to get started, the easiest way to get started because you can just offer early access, but it can also grow with you. So, it’s also a sort of world that’s overwhelming, but in a fun way because you can package all these different things up into the magical thing called your tiers.
Which, I know you have a number of tiers, and I know that you’ve had a subscription. Which, how has that gone for you, and what have you learned in the process of creating it?
KimBoo York: Well, I think what I’ve learned has actually been a very internal lesson and that is I am a serial author, right?
[00:36:00] And so, as I look at my older work, which were mostly romance novels struck very close to the romance genre structure and all of that is I’ve realized as I set up my subscriptions, it’s been admittedly been a challenge for me, Michael, because I know I’m changing my audience. But being aware of that has allowed me to focus much more clearly on what I want this subscription experience to be for my readers, because.
I do come from the fandom world, and I know what it’s like to be a rabid fan of something, and want to know all about it, and to study the wiki that the fans have put together, and to love the fan art that all the fans are doing, and to buy the keychains, and to buy the enamel pins, and, you know, Squeal loudly when you hear the soundtrack come on to the show.
And so that is the kind of experience I want to build for my readers, as opposed to the previous experience where I was just like, here’s my product, would you buy it? You’ve bought my product before this one’s going to be the same. You’ll enjoy it. That didn’t work for me. It works for some and some people have made a lot [00:37:00] of money and a lot of success and a lot of self fulfillment out of that.
Not me. That was not me. I am now in the process of trying to build those kind of stories out from what I have been working on previously and so it’s, it’s been a challenge for me. I’m still in the nascent stages of Putting all of this together. I may end up changing my tiers, to be honest with you, because I used to have pin names for those genres.
And honestly, I’m thinking of doing away with the pin name thing. Like I’m just like, it might be time to just make it all KimBoo and go from there because KimBoo is a serial writer. And if that’s what you want, then that’s what you’re going to get. So, it’s been an interesting adventure, but that’s the kind of thing I want to build for my, my readers is.
That passion love.
Michael Evans: Yeah. No, that super fast. A lot of fascinating takeaways there. I mean, first of all, just on this real passion of building the community of your readers and being able to build a more immersive experience for them is I think really, really special. It’s not a lot of years want, and especially is suited for subscription where they can get ongoing [00:38:00] access to the different experiences you’re developing inside of a subscription.
They can comment in the stories. Comment on the post and be able to build a relationship with one another where they can start to develop the fan art and fan experiences. So I think that’s, that’s really great, but I’m curious on the branding. So you had walk me through. So you’re writing novels under which pen name you’re writing cereals under another pen name and what, and now you’re thinking about merging them.
Why, why different pen names for novels versus cereals? Was it different genres or just because the different form?
KimBoo York: No, the pen names became from different genres back when I was writing novels, right? And so my serial fiction my writing now, is not under a pen name, it’s under my name.
And one of the reasons I’m thinking about just not necessarily deleting the pen names but kind of you know mothballing them a little bit is because I don’t want readers who know those pen names and are familiar with that work to think that’s what they’re going to be getting from me in the future.
It’s very important for me not to mislead them with that idea. So even though I’m going to be in the same genres, and I’m going to be writing similar types of characters, and it’s going to have my [00:39:00] same voice, because it’s me on all of those it’s going to be such a different experience for readers, that I want them to know that this isn’t going to be the romance novel experience that you had in 2012 with this particular release.
So that’s kind of where I’m going with the rebranding.
Michael Evans: makes total sense. Hmm. that expectation is I think something too that I’m, I’m curious for. What would be your advice to an author who maybe has a more established audience, which could be 10 readers, it can be thousands readers, but who’s used to reading their stories that are packaged, I’m not gonna say written, but packaged in a book format.
could be written in a novel, or it could be written as a serial, but now they’re thinking of not presumably writing a serial, but also packaging it, you know, not only as a serial, but also serializing that release, you know, so not a, not a just, but an, an, and thing. So that might be the thing that they’re doing.
How do you brace your readers for that expectation? If you’re kind of making a change, even if you’re like changing. You know, pen names that might be good for future readers, but if you’re also still trying to pull from your existing audience, how do you [00:40:00] set them up for the change of? Well, this packaging is different than that other packaging.
The experience might be as well.
KimBoo York: I think it’s important to lean in on what. You know that your readers loved about your, your novel, your book formats. For instance, world building is something I was really well known for, like in all of my pen names. I build deep world building. Sometimes to my detriment.
You love world building too, so I know you’re just as bad. But so for me, it’s leaning into that. Do you want more? of this kind of world building? Do you want to go deeper into the history of the Guardsmen, one of my universes, the history of the Guardsmen and, you know, where they come from and, and what is this big, you know, again, I was writing serials before I really knew it.
I had this villain that’s across three books and, and, It’s gonna be a serial now, but I can lean into the idea of you love these characters. You love this world building now I’m gonna give you so much more of it. It’s gonna be amazing Hmm Know that
Michael Evans: I love that because the biggest thing is as [00:41:00] authors.
We’re always focused on the difference What’s different about it and we almost want to? Justify and apologize the difference like, you know, this might be better for me creatively better for me in this time of life But I’m nervous about this difference I’m like this is everything that’s different about it and the readers might come away from that being like Oh, okay.
KimBoo York: Yeah. I don’t want to something different, but no lean into what’s, what, what they love lean into what you know, you offer that’s unique, no matter the format, no matter this, the packaging or the structure.
Michael Evans: I’m with you. It is fantastic advice. And after listening to. What was a wide ranging conversation?
I’m sure people are going to be like, wow, I learned a lot about serials and I want to learn more. So where can we find you Kimbo? And where can we also find? Your recent book all about this?
KimBoo York: Well a good place to find me just is my link page, which is House of York Info House of York, one word dot I nfo.
It has links to my ream site, which is where my fiction lives. I’ve got a new, exciting story with that one which is gonna be a serial I’ve already started. Posting bits and drabbles on that [00:42:00] as I write it out. So that’s going to be so much fun. I’m really excited about it. I’m also on substack where I write to other authors.
That’s less for fiction readers. That’s more for other authors And of course my web my house of york shop link is there and that’s where you’ll be able to find the book. Right now it is only available on my direct sales shop. I will be putting it, just so people concerned, I will be putting it on the major distributors in the middle of August.
So by the 15th it will be available on Amazon and Kobo and Barnes and Noble and all the others. But for this first part of the launch it’s only available on my shop. So houseofyork. info. Go there and you can find it all.
Michael Evans: Very, very exciting. Well, Kimbo, this was an amazing conversation.
KimBoo York: Did we leave any stones unturned?
I’m not, I don’t know. I think, I do want to say really quickly before you wrap up, is that one of the things that kind of led me down this path and bringing on this is one thing that you’ve stressed over and over again, which is building trust with your readers. That hit so hard for me because I [00:43:00] think in the old format of, you know, rapid release, turn, churn, churn, churn, there was just the idea of just trying to get as much product out there as possible.
It wasn’t fun for me. It wasn’t even interesting for me. What I want to do is to build that audience. And I think the best way to do that is through building trust, which you were always saying, and I think for me, a great way of doing that’s going to be serial. So thanks for kind of pounding that home, that message home whenever you’re talking about it, because it’s the trust that builds the community.
Michael Evans: Without a doubt. And what’s important about that as well is being yourself, being you and, and writing what is passionate for you. And, and we talk about things like. Right to market in all these other things. And in reality, the core of your story, the core of your characters is something that has to be.
Something you’re just as obsessed with as you hope your readers will be and that they will be and Yes, we can talk about packaging a totally different conversation, but connected and how yeah maybe you do want to package things in a way in which readers with the specific target demographic have an understanding of what that is so they can [00:44:00] have an easy entry point into it, right?
Because packaging is trust to a certain extent, meaning, you know, Oh, this is similar to this. This has a similar description. This has similar graphics to the cover. Okay. But at the same time, readers are going to stick around for you. That’s what keeps them. So don’t, so don’t ever try and, become your packaging or become something that you’re not in pursuit of.
finding readers in any context, and I think that serials are something that keeps you honest because if you’re having not only writing serials, but serial release strategy, you know, and coming consistently with something at whatever the cadence is once a month, once a week, you’re going to find very quickly that that’s not working out for you because that story is not going to be a never ending story with seasons and seasons, you’re going to get to the end of season one and be like, Yeah.
I’m not feeling that pull towards that long arc.
KimBoo York: Right. You got to know that. Got to figure that out. Got to be honest.
Michael Evans: It’s one of the hardest parts about this, this whole industry, honestly, it’s, it’s tough. Cause it’s tough, but it’s something that I know you all are doing great with and what a great reminder on trust.
That’s I think it’s a key thing.
Well, this was truly amazing, KimBoo. Thank you so much for your time.
KimBoo York: It was [00:45:00] wonderful to talk with you as always, Michael, and thank you for your support for the book and serials all the way. So, I appreciate it.
Michael Evans: You’re the first author to author an official book, I would say, That has been inspired by the works of everyone in this community.
So we should all give ourselves a pat on the back for you know, being able to contribute to this.
KimBoo York: Everybody who showed up to that fireside chat, asked me questions that I couldn’t answer. You were important to this journey.
Michael Evans: I thought you answered them pretty well. You get the link in the description. I thought your answers were great, but I will say my question coming into this was what did she learn in her super big, deep dive into serials?
I’m like, Oh, I, you learned a lot, which is awesome. So yeah. And I mean, this, if I, we have a lot of people on the podcast, but KimBoo you’re amazing and I really do support you. So if you all are listening, like, I don’t just like pub other people’s stuff and say, go buy this and go buy that. It’s not my personality.
I really believe in what KimBoo has done. I really believe. In her work and her book, and it’s at a very, you know, [00:46:00] accessible price for folks as well in the sense. So it’s not something I’m very kind of recommending is thing. I hope you all support because thank you so much. You know, you’ve given a lot to this community.
So that is a genuine call to action for folks to go check it out. Thank you so much.
That’s it for this podcast. I’m gonna wrap it up quickly because I know this was a ton of information. So, I just hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed it. We have a lot of great episodes coming up. Like, a lot a lot. And honestly, like, I just can’t wait to share it with you. We have some conversations with authors like David Vergoots.
We have conversations with authors like Only James, and can’t wait to share them with you all shortly. So stay tuned for that, and also stay tuned for a very, very big release that we have coming up, okay? it’s a big one. It’s gonna be… in November, when it goes live, and I’ll give you the opportunity to be able to join the six figure subscription author accelerator.
It’ll only be open for a limited time, so if you want to join that, just let you know. Months, you got months until then, but we’re really excited for it, and we think me and Emilia, who are leading it, it’ll be the best subscription educational and community experience you can ever have as an author. So, hope to, hope to see you there.
Waitlist is down in the description. We’ll see y’all [00:47:00] next time. In the meantime, don’t forget storytellers rule the world.