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Eesh. But yes, I can definitely see that.
I think the idea of RR or Vella is reasonable, that is how many books were published for a couple hundred years. Obviously there were higher end authors that did full novels in say the 1700's but it was a rarified and expensive field, aimed at more wealth individuals
Mass market novelization was generally serialized in magazines, for example most of Mark Twain's work, Jules Verne and a good number of authors in Europe and the US did this.
For SF, this was very common in the 20th Century, think of all the great SF magazines, and while a lot of that was short stories, there were also serialized novels or novellas.
The big advantage with those was, the only way to talk back was either in your own social circles/book clubs/fan clubs or by writing to the author via the publisher.
Today, like everything on the internet it's a free for all of opinion and counter opinion.
For RR and Vella, I also think about all the various fan and literature sites, particularly the slash fiction etc etc. Everyone on those sites is used to serialized stories, some of them ridiculously long, even by my standards, but all free, or maybe some donations here and there.
You start charging money for things people are used to getting for free, and people get mad. Somewhat understandably, although maybe not logically, since the person writing the stuff has to eat and stay alive somehow long enough to eventually finish . Now, I do actually know authors that post the first few chapters on free story sites, and clearly mark them as 'advertisements/trailers' for e-books on Amazon, and that may work/seems to work.
By telling people upfront it's a 'trailer/advertisement' is probably less likely to generate ill will then many other ways to do it.
But I am not that sure and I'd sort of like to avoid such rancor/anger/misunderstanding.
Thus I think one is better off just staying away from free to begin with, UNLESS it's a free one off (not serialized). I am personally open, and often think of doing free short stories, unrelated to the main plotline. And assuming they don't end up being so long as to justify the minimum 0.99 price on Amazon, I'd be more than happy to release them as free books/shorts on Amazon Kindle, basically as advertising.
I don't do this solely in the interest of trying to keep my focus on the main book(s) and not getting distracted, if I am going to take time to write, I am going to write the stuff people are more than patiently waiting for.
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