A question for the allknowing hordes of LJ

[triskellian]

Can anyone remember the name of (or point me at a website about) Stephen King's experiment in writing chapters on a submission basis? I've been trying to find it, but have yet to come up with the search terms that will provide me with this information. LJ in "bettter than Google" shock, I hope.

(If anyone knows of similar tech-enabling-publishing type experiments, I'd be glad to hear of those, too, although that probably counts as getting you guys to do my homework for me ;-)

Edit: Aha! It's called The Plant. Thanks, undyingking!

Comments

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

This article may be relevant:
"But today, on your Web site, I read about your latest brilliant idea: not just selling books digitally, but selling them chapter by chapter. You wrote that you've had this book, "The Plant," languishing for almost 20 years, and you now think that to revive it you should invite readers to pay $1 to download each "episode" of the story from your Web site, at roughly 5,000 words a pop."

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the other paradigmatic example I guess is Geoff Ryman's 253 which existed as a website "novel" for some time before being eventually published in book form?

[triskellian]

Yes, should have said, that was on my list already. Thanks for the Salon link, though - at least it proves I didn't imagine it! Even Wikipedia doesn't say anything about it in their article on him.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

It's a conspiracy of silence I tell you! Next, your journal will be deleted...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

* looks around nervously *

[onyxblue1.livejournal.com]

So you're not talking about The Green Mile, that he published serially in paperback form?

And, yes, I shelled out the dough for it. I am a chump.

[triskellian]

Probably not. I'm pretty sure this experiment failed (which is probably why I can't find anything about it!)

[onyxblue1.livejournal.com]

Yeah, The Green Mile didn't fail, that's for certain. At least I know I'm not the only schmuck out there who paid an insane amount of money for each of the little serials, since it did well enough that they combined them into a single volume, and made a movie out of it. Blah. (But it was a good movie, and I did enjoy reading the books, too.)

[several-bees.livejournal.com]

If anyone knows of similar tech-enabling-publishing type experiments, I'd be glad to hear of those, too, although that probably counts as getting you guys to do my homework for me

Well, I could send you an early draft of my thesis on online fiction - the current draft is too much of a mess - but it's 25,000 words so that might be more than you need.

[triskellian]

Ooh, ooh, your crossword stories! Do you mind if I write about them?

I'd love to read your thesis, thanks :-) triskellian@livejournal.com will reach me.

[several-bees.livejournal.com]

No, I certainly don't mind if you write about them, though they're still not *quite* finished - and I'll send the thesis draft when I've dug it out this evening (I need to find it anyway to get stuck into the revisions). I hardly remember what's in it, except "fewer jokes than before my supervisors made me take some out", but it does cover quite a lot of 253/The Plant-type writing.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

BTW if you want an insight into my |337 searching strategies, the Salon article is on the first page of Google results for stephen king subscription novel...