From the technical end, I suspect the only sane way to do this -- and in retrospect, I'm extremely sorry I wasn't clearer about it when we initially discussed RSS feeds -- is to set it up as a blog. WordPress in particular will handle for you the RSS feeds, crossposting an excerpt to LJ (with a plugin), and scheduling posts in advance. With another plugin, you can have Feedburner (http://feedburner.com) track the feed's subscribers and provide an email option for those who don't want (or understand how to use) RSS. And, of course, comments can be turned off so that discussion takes place on LJ, tucked safely out of sight. (Other blog software can do all that too, but WordPress is the one I work with.)
That said, the only nitpick I had throughout the project -- and this really was minor -- was in the matter of linking. I wanted the teasers to be posted at the time the chapter became available, with a link, so that I could go straight to the story. Later, I stumbled over the fact that chapters not yet posted were nevertheless linked in the chapter list. Several times when I'd fallen behind, I'd go down the TOC to catch up, and having those extraneous links served to make it harder to find my place ("I don't remember what the last chapter number was that I read, but I'm three weeks behind, so I should start three links up from the bottom, right...? No.") and led to a couple of disappointing moments when I'd finish the last posted chapter and click through, anticipating another, only to land abruptly on a 404 error. Having the unpublished chapter headings in plain text, rather than dead links, would have indicated that they were forthcoming without disorienting me.
You were smart to put the PayPal button and the publication schedule at the bottom of each chapter. The two questions that pop into a reader's head, upon reaching the end, are (ideally) "How can I fund more of this?" and "When will there be more?" You provided answers exactly when and where they were needed. I've suggested to the Shadow Unit folks that they ought to do the same; over there, when you finish an episode, you aren't led to donate or discuss in the forum, either of which would be a logical next step.
I'm very glad these projects worked out financially. It's been great fun following Theo. Thank you for letting us come along! I'm eagerly awaiting the printed copies -- I'm vastly curious as to what changes your revisions have wrought.
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mmmag
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Date: 2009-01-18 07:17 pm (UTC)That said, the only nitpick I had throughout the project -- and this really was minor -- was in the matter of linking. I wanted the teasers to be posted at the time the chapter became available, with a link, so that I could go straight to the story. Later, I stumbled over the fact that chapters not yet posted were nevertheless linked in the chapter list. Several times when I'd fallen behind, I'd go down the TOC to catch up, and having those extraneous links served to make it harder to find my place ("I don't remember what the last chapter number was that I read, but I'm three weeks behind, so I should start three links up from the bottom, right...? No.") and led to a couple of disappointing moments when I'd finish the last posted chapter and click through, anticipating another, only to land abruptly on a 404 error. Having the unpublished chapter headings in plain text, rather than dead links, would have indicated that they were forthcoming without disorienting me.
You were smart to put the PayPal button and the publication schedule at the bottom of each chapter. The two questions that pop into a reader's head, upon reaching the end, are (ideally) "How can I fund more of this?" and "When will there be more?" You provided answers exactly when and where they were needed. I've suggested to the Shadow Unit folks that they ought to do the same; over there, when you finish an episode, you aren't led to donate or discuss in the forum, either of which would be a logical next step.
I'm very glad these projects worked out financially. It's been great fun following Theo. Thank you for letting us come along! I'm eagerly awaiting the printed copies -- I'm vastly curious as to what changes your revisions have wrought.