The world is changing
A new paradigm has emerged.
Defying the commodified and over-crowded landscapes of Amazon.
Fiction as a Service (FaaS) prioritizes personal connections and immersive experiences over traditional mass-market strategies.
FaaS pivots from the overwhelming and hyper-competitive world of selling on Amazon. A launch-centric and pay-to-win platform that stuffs every individual author into an all you can eat buffet. Creating a FaaS offers a more tailored and reader-first approach.
Being subscription based, it encourages authors to build long-term relationships with their audience.
Offering consistent content, but also a more personal connection with their readers.
Enhancing Storytelling through Rich Media
However, it's not just about changing the delivery method; it's about transforming the essence of storytelling itself.
Enter ROME.
A rich online media experience that takes FaaS to a whole new level.
ROME isn't just about providing content; it's about creating worlds. It's about turning your stories into interactive experiences that engage readers on a deeper, more emotional level. To make them feel part of your story world.
Generative AI might threaten our words, but it also allows us to breath life in our worlds.
From visualising your landscapes and characters to creating soundscapes or audiobooks. To give motion to still images or democratising creation so that it’s fun again. So that the only limit is your imagination.
We have more power than ever.
Fablehaven: A Case Study in Immersive Storytelling
Take, for example, Fablehaven.
Here, the narrative isn't just a backdrop.
It's an integral part of the experience.
As a writer embarks on their quest for personal and professional growth, every piece of advice, every strategy for improvement, is woven into an interactive story.
You are the Bard, travelling, learning and seeking to care for those they love.
Wanting to share your stories with the world.
This isn't just another article with five writing tips.
It's a hero's journey, a quest from Brom to conquer the blank page and unlock your creativity and other hidden rewards.
Marketing Ideas: Pixelised Brilliance
Here
’s unique personality shines through.Using an 8-bit pixel art style adds a layer of fun and playfulness to his excellent marketing content, in stark contrast to many far dryer examples.
He also includes a game-like approach offering you two paths in the open-world game of marketing.
Take a look and see which one you choose.
Lore with a Twist: Ada’s Data Dump of Stolen Files
Within my serial fiction world of Escape, near the end of Book 1, Ada a rogue AGI steals sensitive records from The Company during a raid.
I wrote this into the book, so that I could then share the lore of my story world as in world artefacts. The above is a patron-only benefit, but as you can see from the quote below it was very well received.
We gotta get some Aerial footage of The Stacks from a Drone or something - that latest Data Dump from Ada was awesome and I can just see this thing getting so so big….
The benefit of building like this, in public, and with your fans is that your world compounds. Over time, as you add and refine it grows richer and richer.
The Uncommodifiable Personal Experience
In this immersive model, writing transcends the ordinary.
It becomes a unique and uncommodifiable experience, deeply connected to its narrative world and you. It's a journey, a quest, a part of something larger than just words on a page. Something to connect with and belong to.
And how you choose to extend your words, reflects who you are, distinguishing your writing even more.
It sidesteps the problem of being seen as a copy of a copy of copy. Yet another [insert sub-category trope] filled book on Amazon’s digital shelves.
It’s your world. You can build it.
Invitation to Explore and Engage
So, I invite you to explore Fablehaven and see if its story captivates you.
Share your thoughts, ask questions about FaaS, and learn how you can build your own unique narrative experience.
In a world where writing often feels like a commodity, let's rediscover the magic of storytelling together.
Let’s see what’s really possible.