Friday, November 21, 2008

Texting Your Novel

Okay, my phone is so old, even AT&T doesn’t carry a battery for it anymore. No camera, no music, no Internet connection, no fancy ring tones. But I know most people have newer phones and Iphones and Blackberries. So all of you tech savvy people with new-fangled phones, here’s a site for you.

TextNovel

You can upload or download cellphone novels, episode-by-episode or chapter-by-chapter. You can choose from twenty-one genres. The site has G, PG, PG-13 and R rated stories. Some are completed, some are being posted and are “in progress.”

If you don’t write novels, but want to participate -- you can upload poetry or a journal. You can add chapters via your phone or your computer. There are even step-by-step instructions on how to create an account and upload your story, how to invite friends to subscribe, how to review a story, how to create a profile and more. You can even insert images into your story.

This craze seems to have started in Japan -- I blogged about it back in January of this year, in a post called Cell Phone Novels. Now it’s come to the U.S. If you want in on it, check out TextNovel.

Suspense author Cheryl Kaye Tardif, who first alerted me to this, said the founder was already interviewed by The New Yorker, so it’s getting publicity. She also said it doesn’t cost anything to sign up.

Let me know if you give it a try. Which causes me to ask -- would you ever write a novel or story via your cell phone? Would you read a story or novel on your cell phone? And why or why not?

5 comments:

  1. Helen, I have a hard enough time figuring out how to make calls with my cell phone, let alone read a book. I guess I am a dinosaur. LOL

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  3. You and me both Maryann. Plus, I'd need a magnifier to read the words on my little phone screen.

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  4. What's the average length of a text message? 20 words? At that rate, a 76,000 word novel would require 3800 separate texts. And that's assuming you only text the final draft. At ten cents a message, your novel has cost $380 just to get it published on a phone. Aren't most self-pub outfits cheaper? What if you text all the drafts? Ten drafts isn't out of line for a first novelist. The numbers get out of sight pretty quickly.

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  5. A practicalist and a mathematician. Are there phone plans that include unlimited texting? I wouldn't know since I could count on one hand the number of text messages I've sent. It takes me so long to tap out one message, I can't imagine doing it 3800 times.

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