Hello, I’m Elle Griffin
That picture is the day I got to hold a first-edition copy of A Christmas Carol, one of my favorite books. I was nearly in tears.
I should introduce myself. My name is Elle Griffin and I am the editor-in-chief at Utah Business, and a freelance journalist covering business, startups, and the creator economy with bylines at Forbes, Every, The Muse, and the like. But this whole newsletter began because I have a thing for classic literature.
A few years ago I fell madly in love with French literature: Les Miserables, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Phantom of the Opera. And then the associated gothics: Dracula, A Christmas Carol, A Picture of Dorian Gray, Frankenstein. Then I ran out. Apparently, there are only so many gothic novels one can find in 18th- and 19th-century writings—and I even read several of the more obscure ones.
But I wasn’t done with the genre yet—I wanted to stay in that dark, beautiful world. I wanted one more gothic novel, written in the French style, with all the mystery of Edmond Dantès and with all the philosophical complexity of Jean-Valjean—but with a strong female protagonist and a lush Americana setting.
I’m about to make serial novels a thing (again)
After I finished writing my gothic novel, I spent an inordinate amount of time researching this article and this article on the best way to publish it. What I found is that the current model—publishing through a Big Five publishing house—is not the best way to attract readers and earn a living. In fact, very few authors make that work—only 268 books sold more than 100,000 copies in 2020 and 96 percent of books sold less than 1,000 copies.
If most books sell 1,000 copies, then we aren’t using the right model to monetize those 1,000 fans. I did the math: If I sell 1,000 copies of my book I will only earn $2,250 if published traditionally or $4,200 if self-published—that’s not a lot for three years of work. A better model would be to figure out how to get those 1,000 fans to subscribe to an author monthly, rather than to get them to pay $9.99 every three years when a book comes out.
Following the wisdom of the creator economy: it only takes 1,000 true fans spending $100/year for a creator to earn a salary of $100,000/year. Theoretically then, an author could release a new chapter every week, charge subscribers $8 or $9 a month, and earn $100,000 a year—from only 1,000 readers. This idea deeply appeals to me because some of my favorite novels were written as serials—including my beloved The Count of Monte Cristo—and they were wildly successful.
When Alexandre Dumas debuted The Count of Monte Cristo it was published as a feuilleton—a portion of the weekly newspaper devoted to fiction. From August 1844 to January 1846 his chapters were published in 18 installments for The Journal des Débats, a newspaper that went out to 9,000 to 10,000 paying subscribers in France—and readers were rapt by it.
It was basically “Game of Thrones.” Readers could not wait to get their hands on the next chapter and that bode very well for the writer who was not only paid by the newspaper in real-time for his work (by the word), but also grew the popularity of his work over the entirety of the time it was being published. As a result, Alexandre Dumas earned about 10,000 francs ($65,743 today) per installment.
There are starting to be platforms that make that possible—like Substack—where writers can build a following for their work and then monetize it. That’s why I decided to run an experiment. In September of 2021, I debuted my gothic novel as a serial, releasing one chapter per week exclusively for paying newsletter subscribers until it’s done in June of 2022. So far I have 42 subscribers and have earned $3,500. The first four chapters are free. Start with the prologue to sink into Obscurity.
Then in December of 2021, I debuted another experiment: this time to write the fictional biography of the angel investor Scott Paul and crowdfund it using cryptocurrency. I published the Prologue to The Totally True Story of Scott Paul using the platform Mirror, and instantly raised 0.25 ETH (about $1,000) to write the first chapter. For every additional 0.25 ETH I raise, I will write the next chapter.
As a result of all this experimentation, my newsletter has been featured by Business Insider, Publisher’s Weekly, Means of Creation, and Morning Brew. In the end, I think the question I’m trying to answer is: is there a future world in which literary writers can earn a living from their craft?
I hope to find out.
What to expect from my newsletter
My newsletter is an experiment—like performance art or street theater, but with fiction writing. I’m writing novels and publishing new chapters right here for my paid newsletter subscribers weekly, but I’m also figuring out how to do this successfully (in real-time) and sharing that with my free newsletter subscribers monthly.
Paid subscribers also get access to all of the research I conduct along the way—like interviews with artists who manage to make a living doing it, and resources that have helped me along my journey. Those at the Novelle Collector tier also receive the hardback, collectors copy of the (very) first edition of my novels as they come out. Subscribe here:
Get in touch
Subscribe to this newsletter to follow my writing. You can also email me at novelleist@gmail.com. For more information about me and my work, you can check out my professional portfolio here.
Thanks for reading!