The Upcoming Beauty Serial

In late 2011, I put out a sexy story, Beauty Touched the Beast. It was short, around 6K words, but it was also free, intended as an introduction to my writing.

Reader response to Beauty was amazing. People really connected to Erin and Blake, but they wanted more of that story, not just my other books. I got the most amount of fanmail for that small story as for any of my other, longer works. Even now it keeps coming, which is so humbling for me.

Despite the requests, I wasn’t ready to write the sequel. It would have felt forced and that would’ve been a disservice to the characters… and to my readers. But it was always there, in the back of mind, formulating.

As I considered it, I realized the story (or stories) I had in mind didn’t fit into a regular book structure but were more episodic. And then the serial format came along and I thought hmm, yes. This could work.

So I began to write…

On May 20th, the second installment of the Beauty series, Beneath the Beauty, will be released. The last two will come out in mid-June and early July.

  

The first installment, the one that’s already out, Beauty Touched the Beast, will remain the same as it’s always been–6K words, and as long as Amazon price matches, it’ll be free. The upcoming three installments will be much longer, more like a short novella.

As for the rest, I researched serials coming out both traditionally and self pubbed and found that this length most often sells at $1.99 or $2.99. I found one at $3.99 per installment. I don’t think $1.99 is a bad price, because then the total is still under six bucks. Plus, a reader can choose to abandon ship at any point, meaning I’m assuming more of the risk (which is why serials tend to be priced higher).

At least over the summer, I’ve decided to price each installments at 99 cents. I reserve the right to raise them after that, but if you follow along as they are released, you’ll get the 99 cent price. In terms of length, the sum of the four parts is regular novel length. You’d be getting the whole thing for $2.98 which is actually cheaper than my standard pricing. For example, Wanderlust is a full length novel and it’s $3.99.

I feel good about this because I’m trying something new and I want my readers to be able to try it with me without breaking the bank. I’m actually writing the last installment now but so far they’ve been super sexy and emotional, so I hope you guys love them as much as I do!

Oh, and if you haven’t read the story that started it all yet, read Beauty Touched the Beast for free now!