ADINA WEST'S forthcoming novel is a blend of new age and epic fantasy, about a girl born half vampire, half human who is on the run from vampiric full-bloods. Bloodsucking ethnic cleansing might seem a world away from Charles Dickens's Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist but, in fact, West and Dickens share a common publishing heritage.
Dark Child is to be released as a serialised e-book, a format that sees readers rationed the twists and turns of a highly addictive story plot and which Penguin's digital publisher, Carol George, regards as "one of the hottest trends" in publishing.
More than a century and a half after Oliver Twist appeared in the literary magazine Bentley's Miscellany as a serial in monthly instalments, Amazon has launched serialised e-book stories using the Kindle. Momentum, the digital imprint of Pan Macmillan, is launching Dark Child, its first serial e-book, in February. Penguin Australia is planning to publish a romance in e-serial early next year. And Destiny Romance, it's digital romance arm, is keen to publish serial romance "when the right story comes along", says George.
For the first eight Kindle serials, Amazon is asking the reader to pay up front for a whole book that will then be released serially. Momentum is going with a slightly different model. Dark Child was originally written as a single novel but the episodic structure lent itself to being serialised. Readers will pay for each instalment they download.
While e-book technology makes serialisation easier to do relative to print, it also gives readers and writers opportunities to experiment with promotion and pricing, says Momentum's publisher, Joel Naoum.
"Serialised books allow multiple opportunities to hook in an audience as well as the opportunity to give readers a very reasonably priced entry point to the book," he says.
The Dark Child project is distinct from Momentum's partnership with John Birmingham. Birmingham is putting together new threads and points of view in sequels to his two series – the Axis of Time trilogy and the Disappearance trilogy – one e-book at a time.
"From the moment we announced Momentum, I had my eye on traditional novels that were submitted to us to see if they provided natural stopping points and would work if they were split up," says Naoum. "The main reason we wanted to try it was essentially to see what would happen – an experiment."
Thrillers make for ideal serials and Dickens was the master of the dramatic cliffhanger.
To make stories work episodically, they must have distinct parts, Naoum says. Each part must provide a reason for the the reader to keep coming back for more.
"Dark Child was the first book I wanted to publish that I thought would also work as a serial," he says. "It's got an episodic structure – distinct parts of the book that take place in different settings. To make it work, however, I knew we were going to have to work with the author to develop the structure to make sure each part provided a hook into the next part, or a compelling cliffhanger."
George, Penguin's editor of digital products, says serial writing suits the romance genre.
"Very few romances are straightforward, most have high and low points, twists and turns and, almost always, there's an obstacle or a series of misunderstandings that keeps the protagonists apart until the very end," she says.
But the recent resurgence seems to be particularly due to erotic romance, and fans of this genre seem to really like reading it on a weekly basis, almost as if they enjoy being rationed.
"I imagine Dickens would have been thrilled to know that the episodic, addictive style of storytelling for which he was so famous has made a comeback," George says. "I think he would have applauded anything that gets people back into reading. He might have even liked tweets – the wittier ones, at least."
Dark Child author Adina West believes the film-like quality of the book, a compelling protagonist named Kat, her suspenseful struggle to stay alive and a narrative interspersed with paranormal elements will be enough to have her readers begging for more.
"There's the opportunity for a wonderful immediacy and direct engagement with a community of readers when a writer is presenting something in instalments," says West, who sees the e-book serial as a new way of online delivery and a derivative of fan fiction.
"We've certainly seen this in action with stories which started as instalments of fan fiction, like 50 Shades [of Grey] or those which were written and published in instalments for an online community, as with Abigail Gibbs and others.
"It's really no different from the way many of us enjoy a favourite television show in weekly episodes. And, as with TV shows, yes, in serials the cliffhanger is crucial."
