WSJ: The Return of The Serial Novel

WSJ: The Return of The Serial Novel 

By ALEXANDRA ALTER

Serialized fiction, an all-but-lost art form that was practiced by such literary giants as Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy and Joseph Conrad, is rebounding in the digital era. The growing use of tablets, smartphones and e-ink devices has created a vibrant new market for short fiction as readers flock to stories they can digest in one sitting.

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Hoping to make novels as habit-forming as appointment television, a handful of publishers and several new digital-publishing upstarts are experimenting with the same type of short, episodic fiction that weekly or monthly periodicals published in the 19th century.

St. Martin's Press has published five serial novels in the past year, ranging from historical fiction to erotic romance, and has three more in the works. Penguin's digital romance imprint, InterMix, is testing serialized romance and erotica, and has released three titles so far, with several others on the way. 

The science-fiction and fantasy publisher Tor recently published a science-fiction epic by John Scalzi in 13 weekly episodes.

Amazon, which is leading the way with the format, has released 30 serialized novels through its new Kindle Serials program and is adding a new series every week. Readers pay $1.99 for an entire series, and new installments update automatically. Like a TV show, the episodes are designed to be devoured in a single sitting and end with a cliffhanger.

"The Charles Dickens model actually fits better now than ever because people want bite-sized content," says writer Sean Platt, who has co-authored six digital serial novels.

The serial model could be a boon for publishers and booksellers. Breaking up a longer work enables them to charge readers slightly more for it. Authors and publishers can also use a gradual digital release to test new series and characters in a relatively low-risk way, and build buzz for upcoming print titles. But digital serials could also be bad for business if they eat away at future print profits—still the biggest revenue source for most publishers.

Publishers and writers are now wrestling with the format, trying to figure out the best price, length, and intervals between installments.

Jeff Belle, vice president of Amazon Publishing, AMZN +0.35% says the company is still trying to "fine-tune" its serial-publishing program based on reader responses. Amazon launched its serials last fall with 10 novels. The company has since added 20 more series, which range from romance to crime to supernatural thrillers. The best-selling title so far, Andrew Peterson's thriller "Option to Kill," has sold some 80,000 copies.

"Early data indicate that shorter is probably better, and a one-week cadence works best," Mr. Belle said.

Others worry that if readers are forced to wait, they might not return. In an era when people binge on streaming TV shows and can instantly download all 20 books in their favorite crime series, the weekly-appointment model might not hold up, says Dan Weiss, publisher at large at St. Martin's, who has overseen the development of several serials.

"We originally thought it would be fun to publish brief books with cliffhangers, and publish them like a TV show on a weekly schedule," Mr. Weiss said. "But since then, with 'House of Cards,' binge viewing has come into vogue," referring to the original TV series that Netflix released all at once. St. Martin's may try publishing several episodes at once, he said, because their brevity makes them "easily digestible and phone-friendly."

Romance novelist Beth Kery wasn't prepared for the vicious backlash to her novel, "Because You Are Mine," which InterMix published last summer in eight weekly installments. The book was a hit, selling more than 500,000 copies. But some of Ms. Kery's longtime fans detested the format. Some readers were outraged over the $1.99 price tag for each installment, which added up to $16, far more than many e-books cost. Others resented being teased with cliffhangers.

"I am really sick of sitting down to read this book and just when you are enjoying it, it ends," one Amazon reviewer seethed. "Release the whole book, I would enjoy it more," another wrote.

This month, Ms. Kery's publisher finally released the complete story as a $16 paperback. It's also available now as a single digital volume, for $9.99. Ms. Kery is currently releasing another eight-part serial romance, "When I'm With You."

Publishing a novel in increments poses additional challenges for writers, who have to worry about readers dropping off mid-series, as well as new readers coming to the novel in the middle or toward the end.

Mr. Scalzi, a best-selling science-fiction novelist who released his new book serially with the imprint Tor, says he struggled at first with the unfamiliar format. 

He wanted to make sure the 13 individual episodes could stand alone but also added up to a single, seamless story for readers who chose to wait and consume it in a single serving. (Tor will release a print edition of "The Human Division" next month.)

The novel has been landing on Amazon's science-fiction best-seller list every week, and sales have grown with each episode. When the final episode came out this week, Mr. Scalzi announced that the saga would continue, telling fans on his website that the serial "has been renewed for a second season."

A version of this article appeared April 12, 2013, on page D2 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Return of The Serial Novel.

Keeping the 'Noraholics' Happy [Nora Roberts/ J D Robb]

Keeping the 'Noraholics' Happy [Nora Roberts / J D Robb]

By ALEXANDRA ALTER

Next Tuesday, the prolific romance novelist Nora Roberts will release her 200th novel--a landmark she celebrated by immediately starting the 201st, which is already finished. Eben Shapiro has details on Lunch Break. Photo: Getty Images

Romance writer Nora Roberts didn't bother to celebrate when she finished her 200th book, "The Witness."

"I don't really count," says Ms. Roberts, a 61-year-old grandmother with red hair and a gravelly smoker's voice.

She took a couple of days off to catch up on chores and gardening. Then she launched into her 201st, "Celebrity in Death," the next installment of a futuristic romantic suspense series that she writes under the pen name J.D. Robb. She's since finished her 202nd, a romance novel set near her home in Maryland, and her 203rd, "Delusion in Death," another J.D. Robb book. She's now writing her 204th, "Whiskey Beach," a romantic suspense novel set in coastal Massachusetts.

Bruce Wilder

'If I wasn't talking to you, I would be working,' Ms. Roberts says.

Ms. Roberts's legendary output has helped her become one of America's biggest commercial authors, with close to 450 million copies of her books in print. In 2011 alone, she sold nearly 20 million copies.

"If I wasn't talking to you, I would be working," she says. "What else would I do? Putter and do laundry? That's a scary thought."

Ms. Roberts typically publishes five new books a year—a romance trilogy, two J.D. Robb mysteries and what her publisher calls "the Big Nora," a hardcover stand-alone romance. "The Witness," which comes out next week, is this year's Big Nora. It centers on Elizabeth Fitch, a beautiful young computer genius who goes into hiding in a small town after witnessing a murder, and falls for the local police chief.

Ms. Roberts writes for six to eight hours every day, fueled by Diet Pepsi and Winston Filter 100s cigarettes. She doesn't use ghost writers, co-writers or a research assistant. "Then I'd have to talk to somebody, and I'd rather not," she says.

Leslie Gelbman, Ms. Robert's editor and publisher at Berkley Books, keeps a color-coded spreadsheet of Ms. Robert's releases tacked to her wall. Her 2012 publishing schedule lists 23 releases—a mix of hardcovers, mass-market paperbacks and trade paperbacks.

Ms. Roberts was raised in an Irish Catholic family in Maryland. She began writing one day in 1979 during a blizzard, when she was stuck home with her two young sons. Silhouette, a romance imprint, published her debut novel, "Irish Thoroughbred," in 1981. Over the next three years, she published more than 20 novels. 

Her books broke traditional romance conventions: They featured non-virginal, flawed heroines, ensemble casts and snappy dialogue tinged with sarcasm, and were occasionally written from the hero's point of view. Her unconventional stories helped transform the genre, which has exploded into a $1.4 billion industry.

She created her alter-ego, J.D. Robb, in 1995, so she could publish more books. At the time, Ms. Roberts's publisher, Putnam, worried she would cannibalize her sales by releasing so many books a year. Her agent, Amy Berkower, persuaded Putnam to release a new trilogy under a pseudonym. 

Many of her fans, it seems, have no problem keeping up. "People will still say, 'Can't she write faster?' " says Nina Friedman, a "Noraholic" who moderates discussions on Ms. Roberts's fan website. Ms. Friedman, 62, a retired travel agent and bookstore manager who lives in San Diego, has read all 199 of Ms. Roberts's books, some of them 10 times. She has copies of every one. "Even the elusive "Promise Me Tomorrow, " she says, referring to a 1984 romance that Ms. Roberts keeps out of print because she doesn't like it.

Ms. Friedman says she's drawn to the books for their memorable characters, humor, and invariably happy endings. She says she's never found the plots to be repetitive.

"I have never picked up a book and thought, 'Oh, I've read that before," she says. "Never."

Write to Alexandra Alter at alexandra.alter@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared April 13, 2012, on page D6 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Keeping the 'Noraholics' Happy.