I remember reading that 19th Century authors, like Charles Dickens, published some of their most famous novels serially in newspapers and magazines. Dickens is rather famous for it, but I’ll bet many people don’t know how common this was, and also what great works of literature were published this way.
It turns out an astonishing number of literary giants published some of their best known works in monthly or weekly installments. It’s incredible to realize that Tolstoy rolled out War and Peace this way. Dostoevsky published Crime and Punishment chapter by chapter. Even Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories were published this way. Alexandre Dumas serialized The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.
Wilkie Collins, Thomas Hardy, Victor Hugo, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Henry James were doing the same. Imagine reading War and Peace one chapter at a time for months and months (and months.)
If it was good enough for them, well…
So here’s my experiment. If I follow in the modern footsteps of Hugh Howey, will people read my work? I hope so.
The first two episodes of The Hazard Trade are now live on Amazon’s Kindle store. Every month or so you’ll be able to read the next installment. You can read Kindle books on literally almost every device – including a web browser. So don’t fret if you don’t have a Kindle Reader Device. I read all my books on my phone (with the font size UP and the background Black with White Text) using the Kindle Reader app.
Since these are such small time investments, each chapter is aiming between 7,000 and 10,000 words (to make the investment worthwhile) at $0.99 a pop – I hope you’ll give it a whirl.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G3XYC8JK
I’m aiming to publish these monthly, and since I’m writing as we go, you have a great opportunity to give me feedback as we move forward. And as always – the best gift you can give to an author is a positive review on Amazon and Goodreads. I hope you’ll enjoy.
Please join my newsletter to get automatically informed each time a new episode is published: https://newsletter.ericpicard.com
Eric
Eric Picard 