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A New, App-Based Format For Novels (theguardian.com)
HughPickens.com writes:
The Guardian reports that Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey, plans to release his new novel, a historical drama set in London during the 1840s, in installments via an app. It's a tradition that dates back to Charles Dickens, but utilizes modern technology. Each of Belgravia's 11 chapters will be delivered on a weekly basis, and will come with multimedia extras including music, character portraits, family trees and an audio book version. "To marry the traditions of the Victorian novel to modern technology, allowing the reader, or listener, an involvement with the characters and the background of the story and the world in which it takes place, that would not have been possible until now, and yet to preserve within that the strongest traditions of storytelling, seems to me a marvelous goal and a real adventure," says Fellowes.
Publisher Jamie Raab says the format appealed to her precisely because of Fellowes's television background and his ability to keep audiences engaged in a story over months and even years. "I've always been intrigued by the idea of publishing a novel in short episodic bites. He gets how to keep the story paced so that you're caught up in the current episode, then you're left with a cliffhanger."
Publisher Jamie Raab says the format appealed to her precisely because of Fellowes's television background and his ability to keep audiences engaged in a story over months and even years. "I've always been intrigued by the idea of publishing a novel in short episodic bites. He gets how to keep the story paced so that you're caught up in the current episode, then you're left with a cliffhanger."
"A New, App-Based Format For Novels "
We call it a normal money making scheme app with in-app purchases to lure the morons to spend their hard earned cash.
Modern app appers know that only apps can app apps! It's about time an apper starts apping apps so only other app appers can app the apps, and filthy LUDDITES won't be able to use them!
Apps!
What do you want to bet this is going to be $4-$5 per installment.......and is there a sunset date. Also.....I'm sure there are provisions that prevent you from sharing out to others of course......
Releasing novels via apps is very traditional, dates back to Charles Dickens time. Charles only supported Windows Mobile and Blackberry's. This new app will be more modern. Really exciting stuff!
He gets how to keep the story paced so that you're caught up in the current episode, then you're left with a cliffhanger.
Julian Fellows has successfully re-invented the "chapter."
Let's just make books incompatible with future hardware so people have to buy them again and again... and again!
New app kindle?
[nt]
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Forgetting the stupid costs and such, the idea of waiting to read the next part of a book is incredibly bad.
I typically read a book in a few days; then I read another. I don't interleave books, so I'd be dependent on the 13 week release schedule to complete this book to get another one to read.
Multimedia doesn't excite me at all, either. That's not why I read books.
From pot boiler historical soap operas.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
http://publishingperspectives.com/2010/11/neal-stephensons-mongoliad-revolutionizing-storytelling/#.Vow06PHer0k
Stephen King's The Green Mile was originally published in six installments you could buy in grocery stores.
n/t
A penny per word.
in 1992.
So this is a blog, but with payments. We are back in the nineties.
It is a decent idea, but the OP makes it seem like a new idea. As a boy most of my SciFi reading was done in installments. What did I care? I didn't pay for the subscription. Astounding Magazine published Asimov's Foundation in monthly installments. It was old marketing then, I'm sure. Applying the technological App to the name doesn't change what it is. You're subscribing to a book series. Wait'll it's done and you can buy the book with decent edits.
At first I thought that perhaps the publisher thinks they'll beat the pirates by locking it into an app. That will survive at least a day of pirate efforts. Every installment will be available in torrent the day after release. So no, that's not it. They're doing it for novelty. No pun intended but I'll take it.
Though there's that, too.
But if the publishers (and established authors) can convince their market that this is the New Bestest Thing Evar, then all novels have to be published this way or they're too "crude and amateurish." And that means that the self-publishing authors, who have zero barrier to entry in to the market, can no longer afford to self publish, because who can afford all the multi-media crap that adds nothing to the value of the novel?
This isn't a new idea. Publishers have been desperately trying to find a way to keep people from eliminating the middle man since Kindle made it big. Multi-media crap is the most obvious way, since it's too much work for one person to do alone, and too expensive for the self publisher to buy done. Unfortunately, for publishers, it adss nothing to the novel reader, and this scheme/scam will fail just like the multi-media schemes/scams before it.
People who want multi-media will buy DVDs of movies, not web pages that pretend to be novels.
It's a pity that publishers aren't willing to try the one value added service that will actually appeal to readers: actual, you know, editing and shit, like they used to do, so that their product doesn't suck donkey balls.
The app, if you haven't seen it, is an interactive "book" that covers the basics of the video system for the Atari 2600. It uses a mix of prose and a basic simulator to introduce and demonstrate different techniques:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/ap...
Sure, programming the 2600 is a world removed from Victorian England, but interactive content done right can be very engaging, as David's app demonstrates.
I'm sure there are countless other examples of interactive content people have developed for mobile devices, and those might be the reason we don't see more of them...
-Chris
If the series was a long set of books similar to an average TV shows style of story-telling, scaled up to a books scale, I'd maybe go for it.
But if it is just some sort of average story split up in to micro-chunks because "people are impatient with low attention spans these days", nope.
I'm just the former, not the latter.
Better yet if you go full social-inspired story-telling and have an official forum for conversation on it, and maybe alter the story based on discussion in the forum.
It has been done before, in game and even with a TV show, and it can be pretty good if done right. It is far harder to do with a TV show, especially if you pre-record every possible iteration and just air what popular votes want. (like one show did, forgot the name though)
But with story-telling, it is considerably easier to change the story at a whim, especially if you have a nice framework in place to guide you along the way.
There are many ways to go about making it easy on the mind, popular one being a simple tree-style layout of events with a basic story flow, key points, then you fill in the details as you progress.
There could be something like this already, but I'm not sure. It'd be like adventure books of old, but behind the scenes and majority vote rather than dice roll.
I see they haven't been to Baen's Bar or Library site - the snippets posted 2-3 times a week for upcoming books (which basically ends up being the first third of the book) and the Free Library (consolidates the snippets to an easier to read format - look - there's a "buy here" button). If they shoot for a patent, there's plenty of prior art.
and will come with multimedia extras including music, character portraits, family trees and an audio book version
Can't you just make a fucking book? I want this extra shit like I want shards of glass hammered in to the head of my dick.
It is a series of novels published in German (the first 100 or so were translated to english) that has been in weekly publication since, if I recall correctly, the '60's. Too lazy to spend the few minutes looking it up, sorry. Full novel, every week, with story arcs up to a year long. Very popular, with more of them were available in English. Thinking of learning German just so I can read the whole series...!
selling books is not news
selling apps is not news
selling novels by chapter is not news (so says the OP)
so. no news. WTF
these days every moron gets his 15 minutes of faim by simply *claiming* to be news. speaks a lot to the stupidity of either editors, the audience, or both.
what a sad world.
I work for the biggest fiction publisher in the world and your comment amuses me. Do you know who keeps trying to add multimedia to novels? It's not publishers or authors, it's certainly not readers. It's app developers trying to 'reinvent' the novel. Occasionally a publisher will give it a go, usually at the developers cost, realise no-one is interested and go back to their business of discovering, editing and selling books. Despite kindle et al, 90% of publishers profits still come from dead trees and the market is actually growing, turns out readers like to read actual books, just like they have for the last several centuries. Who knew?
This project will see moderate success because of Fellowes/Downton Abbey. Otherwise doomed.
All his kind care about is making money. Simply making money and letting the planet go to hell in a handcart. Sacrificing the future of humanity on the altar of profit.
stop trying to turn safe, inert data into unsafe executable code.
it's bad enough that large portions of the web have transformed into executable spyware and crapware with excessive use of mandatory but unneccesary javascript (js for what should be A HREF links FFS!) - ebooks don't need to go the same route.
there's no need for anti-features like this...it serves only the company pushing it, and actively harms the customer.