Apparently, e-books are now going to experiment with this type of storytelling structure. In fact, the idea was conceived and brought to the forefront almost simultaneously by two different entities thousands of miles apart!
I think serialization of e-books is a great (actually inevitable) idea ... What do you think?
This from booktrade.info
How To Come Second In A Publishing Race ... And Still Win
It's good news all round that an independent publisher can gallop hard and fast, lose by a nose to an author: and still make friends and influence people.
It happened to BeWrite Books when renowned best-seller Roz Morris – a world-class thoroughbred – pipped them at the post on the same new idea both, unknowingly and thousands of miles apart, had been working on simultaneously for months. And it was smiles, good humor and fun all round when BeWrite Books sent an email of congratulations to Roz on her win. But the story got better ... and it's about how to win even when you lose.
Although they'd never met before, BB chief editor Neil Marr and Roz made a virtual, long-distance handshake to team up, there and then, to share and broadcast the new system they had developed independently. They co-wrote a special article telling all here at: http://www.bewritebooks.blogspot.com/.
It's all about a new approach to ebook novel structuring that allows a fully prepared novel to be built, satisfyingly to the reader, in four regularly and shortly-paced episodes of equal length, craftily making use of the old and well loved newspaper and magazine system that pre-dates even Dickens and Doyle to build a complete book in bite-sized chunks that all but died out in the latter half of the last centuries as newspapers and magazines cut back on serialized fiction or folded.
But the new scheme is subtly differences to the old grand masters in its fresh approach to serialization and marketing works.
BeWrite Books was busily preparing the first six titles from its existing catalog for simultaneous release in the new form in late September, when Roz, took them by surprise and released her own new book, My Memories of a Future LIFE, last week.
Read and learn more
Writers Welcome Blog available on Kindle :)
4 comments:
Hello John - thanks for the mention. It's proving a very interesting experiment from my point of view as the author. There's a buzz developing from the readers and I'm getting great feedback. Kindle can now connect with Twitter, so who knows what forms of interactive and community storytelling might develop in the next few years?
Don't mention it, Roz 'dirtywhitecandy' Morris. :)
BTW, I am intrigued by your pseudonym. I love it! What's the backstory?
Dirtywhitecandy I discovered last week, John, is Roz's blog name. She just dropped me a line about your own blog.
Her thanks to you are now seconded by BeWrite Books.
The idea's not exactly like the old newspaper and magazine serialization.
Doyle and Dickens, for instance, were early players and they tended to write two or three episodes ahead. They were as surprised by what came next as were their editors and readers.
Largely, this tradition held until the demise of newspaper serialization and the death of so many serial magazines in the last century.
Roz and we -- independently, as we said and you noted -- will avoid any risk of reader disappointment by working only with completed manuscripts.
Roz's first experiment was a novel specially structured to the four-episode structure. We'll be encouraging our authors to try the same approach occasionally.
But because the idea occurred to us only a few months ago, most novels in our present catalog don't yet lend themselves perfectly to the form and we'll be kicking off with several novella and short story collections included in four self-contained episodes by the same author.
It was fun to, virtually, get together with Roz when her novel took a bow last week and we and our novel writers have learned a lot from her generous sharing of how she meticulously constructed her book.
Very best wishes. Neil Marr. Ed. BB
By the way you can read about what Roz and we did in a co-written article at our own blog; www.bewritebooks.blogspot.com.
The website is www.bewrite.net.
Neil,
Thanks so much for your knowledgeable serial history input and links to your BeWrite Books website and blog!
Post a Comment