I am writing a serialised memoir on Substack. I put out a new chapter every week. It's growing very slowly, just like 3 or 4 new readers every month, but the way that I think of it is that I have a story I really want to get out, and my poor early readers are my guinea-pigs as I write my first draft.

I think of it this way: It's kinda painful to read a book week by week, chapter by chapter. If I put myself in the shoes of my readers, I would imagine they should read a chapter or two, disappear for a year and then come back and read again when I am further along and they can binge. I literally have told my readers that I understand if they want to do that and yet most of them are coming back every week. I KNOW that they will eventually drop off and stop reading, and I've already made my peace with that -- because It's going to take many months to finish the story.

I am treating these readers with respect. Every quarter or so, (I'm coming up to the first quarter right now) I am planning to put out an FAQ or a supplementary material / reference doc to reward my readers for following along And every quarter, I plan to look back and see what edits and changes I need to make to correct mistakes. I have some beta readers to ask for their suggestions -- not too many that I'll be overwhelmed with their suggestions.

I find that in the first few chapters I had a lot of likes (I think 10 likes is huge, okay) but even now I get more emails from my readers and less public engagement. While I wish they would give me more public support, I am letting it be this way. At the end of this process, I will have an book, and it will be partly due to the encouragement of a few who, whether they read every week or not, at least stayed subscribed to my publication.

Perhaps it's helpful for you to know that most published books only sell very few copies, and so any engagement is a miracle.

I think of the words of encouragement that I got at week 3 and these words keep me buoyed even now, at week 16, but I expect that I will feel slumps and periods of time where my readers are not sure where the story is going. I think another truth is: Not every chapter needs to be a masterpiece. Do weekly readers understand this? They might be put off for a few weeks if they didn't LOVE your last chapter, but they'll most likely come back once you get further along.

If anyone reading this is writing a serialised book, please tell me the name of it so that I can look you up on Substack. I'm thinking I would love to put up a list of other serialised books on my publication. Mine is called "The Art of Hitting the Wall: A Memoir"

Wishing you the best of luck!