Publication Formats
Over the past few years, the primary medium for publishing webserials has been the blog. Some webserials have supplementary blogs for updates, news, or fictional blogs for the characters themselves.
LiveJournal is also a popular platform for web serials due to its large userbase and integrated communities. Some webserials are published on Livejournal directly, whereas some have LiveJournal communities for reader discussion and feedback.
Some webserials are produced on content management systems such as Drupal, WordPress, or Joomla, which may integrate blogs directly into the site and also have many custom add-ons (such as for integrating social networking services such as Twitter or Facebook).
A distribution tool integrated into almost all media is the RSS feed, so that subscribers can get updates on the latest chapters or episodes via an RSS reader or other media.
Another format in use is the internet forum. A free forum service such as ProBoards, Ezboard, or Invisionfree may be used to create a board for a webserial, or the webserial may be a feature of a larger board in order to benefit from its traffic. Forums can also be integrated into a webserial's main site to increase community interaction.
Some webserials have been told entirely on Twitter or have used it as a way of adding depth to the universe. Character Twitter accounts are a very popular example of this. Twitter is also a useful tool for author-fan interaction and update announcements. There are a variety of Twitter hashtags now in use for the webserial community. Facebook integration is also popular, with Facebook fanpages for webserials or webserial authors as well as character accounts.
Those who move away from true blogs often choose to keep a similar format to the blog when they establish their own website. A few, however, make use of the webcomic layout, citing its familiarity. The Comicpress plugin for WordPress makes this a very simple task. Shorter stories are often typical of those who use a webcomic layout, though this is not universally true.
Read more about this topic: Web Fiction
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“Of all human events, perhaps, the publication of a first volume of verses is the most insignificant; but though a matter of no moment to the world, it is still of some concern to the author.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)