Serialising your writing

I heard a story on Radio Four a couple of weeks ago, in which they talked about sporting personality autobiographies. What stood out was a comment by one of the speakers, who was from a publishing company. He said way these autobiographies are sold by serialising them in a newspaper. I think he may have even said "the ONLY way they sell any quantity is by serialising them". They are abridged, to suit the paper they appear in, of course. But evidently no-one cares.

This made me reflect on the appeal which weblogs have. Readers are foremost drawn to the quality of the content (whether it is a photo/illustration blog, or a text blog). But significant appeal is their regular updating i.e. readers get a regular-something-new. We like a little bit of excitement. A little bit of change. A little bit of news. A little bit of new information. And we will return to the weblog to get these somethings-new.

It's amusing, and completely to be expected, that people are using weblogs as a platform from which to serialise their books. Pete Townsend being an example. Bloggers bypass the publishing companies and newspapers - and publish/serialise their books directly into the blogosphere. And what a perfect fit it is - after all weblogs are personal publishing. If the reader likes the content they will invest in the weblog, returning to read successive instalments.

But unlike newspapers... there is no financial investment. And, I guess, the hope is if they like the book they may purchase a copy. [Which, incidentally, is one of the arguments the GooglePrint advocates make... if you read snippets and like them... you'll buy the book... or visit the Library.]

[Footnote: doh! Blogger.com has covered Blogging Your Novel extensively here and here. I think I knew that, but just had to get there via my own route.]

[tag: writing]