THE CAREER NOVELIST
authors feel as awful as the idea that someone else is making easy
money while they are just sitting around.
Before you rush to call your agent, though, take a moment to
learn exactly what you are trying to sell and how much money can
be expected for it. Let us start by looking at the devices ("plat-
forms") in which your novels might be used electronically.
PCs. Personal computers have been sitting on desktops for years.
Writers use them to create novels, so why can't readers use them to
read those same novels? Well, they can. Plenty of companies pub-
lish novels on disk. Their products are available.
Novels are even available on-line. A new program on the
World Wide Web called Dial-a-Book allows you to browse
through the table of contents and first chapter of a book for free
in its Chapter One service. If you like what you see you can
access the Download Bookstore and capture the entire book
including the cover art and internal graphics. (Or, if you like to
read your books the old-fashioned way, you can have a printed
copy sent to you.)
Dial-a-Book is a serious service offering titles from, among oth-
ers, Addison-Wesley, Houghton Mifflin, Little, Brown, Morrow,
Thomas Nelson, Pantheon, Putnam, Random House, a host of uni-
versity presses, as well as the Newbery Award winners from the past
two decades. (Go to http://dab.psi.net/Dial-A-Book/))
But a question: do you currently read any novels on disk?
(Besides your own, I mean?) I thought not. Neither do I. Come to
think of it, few of my clients have ever sent me their novels on disk,
which is perfectly okay with me. I prefer print.
Some cutting-edge theorists contend that a strong market for PC-
viewed novels has not arisen because few novels fully utilize the
PC's capabilities. Of course, interactive print novels offer various
paths through the story, even multiple endings. But that is not what
these theorists mean. They are talking about nonlinear novels,
hypertexts, to use the preferred term.
In hypertexts the whole idea of beginning and ending is thrown
out. Users become fully interactive with the text, creating their own
stories and experiences. And who knows? Someday a hypertext
best-seller may appear and spawn a whole new business.