The New York Times has announced plans to serialize The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald this summer, along with others. It's being sponsored by commercial interest and they think the venture will end up being profitable, which is rather interesting to me in this day of declining audiences for books. (Well, percentage-wise, there is something like 10% fewer people purchasing books now than they did ten years ago... though don't hold me to that, I can't find the site which had had that listed recently.) As the article points out, a lot of famous writers got their start via serialization, and many of those books went on to become classics, so it's going to be interesting to see if there is an audience for a book already so widely available (like Gatsby). I wonder if the whole project wouldn't be more successful if they serialized something more contemporary or (or should that be "and") with mass appeal.
Posted by toni at July 12, 2004 02:52 PM