Serials

In my favorite episode of the now defunct, deeply pleasurable, and totally bisexual television series Dickinson, it's Christmas and Louisa May Alcott comes to dinner. Played by Zosia Mamet, Alcott has just made $35 from her first book, and she will not stop talking about money.  Read more

The subscription newsletter platform Substack announced on Wednesday it had signed an exclusive deal with Salman Rushdie - but he is just the latest in a growing number of authors making the leap to write serialised fiction delivered straight to the inboxes of subscribers who pay a monthly fee.

It's often lamented that the art of deferred gratification has vanished from our instantly downloadable culture, but the increasing popularity of serialised novels suggests this may not be the whole story.  Read more

The big new trend in digital publishing in 2016 is serialized novels that are delivered to you via an app or directly to the email inbox. Large publishers and a number of startups believe that most people do not read complete novels on their phone, but do have time to read a chapter a day.

What do Hard Times, Middlemarch, Crime and Punishment, War and Peace, and many more of the greatest novels ever published have in common?

When they were first published, they were not published as books. They were published serially.