Has anybody actually tried to serialize a novel in a blog? Has anybody done so successfully. Turning a humour or rant blog into a humour or rant book can (and has) worked. I've yet to see it done for any other kind of writing.
People do it in all genres except fiction. There are tons of non-fiction blogs that get published by just printing out the words and putting them on the shelf. I've ordered books from bloggers expecting to get new content (lol, pg comes to mind with Hackers & Painters - but I'm actually referring to other writers who don't explicitly tell you.) and I'm kind of disappointed when it's just a printout of their most famous blog posts.
There are lots of examples, if you look around - but I'm not sure how many of them were successful, as I haven't looked for data on that.
John Dies at the End was originally published in a serial form online, though it has since been taken offline. It's been published, and is going into its ... second printing, I think, soon. From what I've heard, the fanbase is quite devoted (at one point, copies were sold for >$100 because of how hard it was to get them - the first printing was fairly small).
Ichor Falls, a blog collecting short stories about the titular town, and the weird stuff going on around it, has a book - though that's recent enough that I don't know if it's successful.
I also recall a zombie novel, which was published in serial form online before being published in physical form. Quite good, as I remember. Might have been called Empire - the plot synopsis fits what I remember, but the online serial version doesn't seem to be available any more. Once again, I don't know if it's what you would call successful.
... actually, what's the definition of successful? I would say that it's simply being published, after already been released online for free and building up a fanbase; however, I expect that most others would tie it to sales, or the amount of money the author gets from it.
"I also recall a zombie novel, which was published in serial form online before being published in physical form. Quite good, as I remember. Might have been called Empire - the plot synopsis fits what I remember, but the online serial version doesn't seem to be available any more."
David Wellington (http://www.davidwellington.net/) has written a number of zombie novels that were first published in serialized form online and subsequently in print.
Serializing a good novel would be difficult for anyone who hasn't plotted the whole thing in advance, isn't incredibly lucky, or doesn't approach writing the same way as Tom Robbins.
My first drafts are decent, but the first stage of editing is vital to add coherence and fix plot holes. (Imagine if the season 3.5 of BSG had some sort of planning; it would have been much, much better.)
