Huffington Post Serializes Fiction

In a major mix of old and new media, The Huffington Post is serializing a page-turning new thriller to entertain readers, stimulate book sales, and explore a new strategy for encouraging readers in novels through online exposure.

Serializing fiction in newspapers goes all the way back to the monumental works of Charles Dickens and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ever-popular detective, Sherlock Holmes. Eager readers of novelist Arthur Rosenfeld’s Quiet Teacher (YMAA June) will be able to track the adventures of celebrated neurosurgeon and secret vigilante Dr. Xeon Pearl.  Installments will appear in The Huffington Post‘s LIVING section for a number of weeks beginning just before the book is available in stores and continuing long enough to make sure everyone is hooked.

“It’s something new for the wildly popular on-line newspaper, which does not yet have a vertical devoted to books,” said Rosenfeld. “The hope is that the model will drive interest in the book as well as bring even more eyes to The Huffington Post and have them stay for a read.”

Serial success:
Stephen King wrote The Green Mile as a serial. A number of writers successfully tried electronic-only books during the early part of the decade, and the UK’s Telegraph Media Group recently signed bestselling author, Alexander McCall Smith, (The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency) to serialize his new novel Corduroy Mansions on the Web.  The hope is that the model will drive interest in the book, bring even more eyes to the Huffington Post, and bring serialization back to newspapers both online and in print.

The Huffington Post/Rosenfeld venture is unique in that it is planned as only a partial serialization and special because Quiet Teacher, an action-and-romance story of a vigilante neurosurgeon who believes in reincarnation and follows the counsel of his deceased martial arts teacher-is hardly a typical literary thriller.

Rosenfeld has written ten previous books. His non-fiction The Truth about Chronic Pain was a finalist for the “Books for a Better Life Award” and his previous novels have garnered praise from such diverse quarters as bestselling author Barbara Taylor Bradford, playwright Neil Simon, and Parade magazine publisher Walter Anderson. In a starred review for Diamond Eye, Publisher’s Weekly said the book contained “themes hauntingly reminiscent of (Dashiell) Hammett”, while The New York Daily News said of his A Cure For Gravity “….has its mystical moments…a love story, of course, and a sweet, telling one at that.”

Submitted on behalf of the The Huffington Post
For more information, visit http://www.huffingtonpost.com.

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