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TWEETING THE WHOLE STORY
How fiction writers are using Twitter to publish a new generation of books
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Most of us are loathe to admit our fascination with reading the personal blogs of strangers - there's something about following an unfamiliar person's life that seems akin to watching a fourth generation reality show spin-off - but digital voyeurism can be as compelling as the latest bestseller. Although most bloggers tend to use the medium more as a diary than as a creative writing exercise, microbloggers are starting to use Twitter as a forum for fiction, even writing complete novels doled out 140 characters at a time. In addition to the Twit Lit projects written about below, Lit Drift has a
comprehensive guide
to Twitter fiction ventures should you want more substance in your feeds. Hey, if a blog consisting solely of photos of
"edible heart attacks"
can get a
book deal
, why shouldn't a Twitter feed?
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"Some Contemporary Characters": Rick Moody hasn't published a book since last year's novella collection Right Livelihood, but fans of The Ice Storm author got a literary treat last week when he distributed his latest short story "Some Contemporary Characters" online, over the course of 153 tweets. It was written for
Electric Literature
, a quarterly anthology of contemporary short fiction that's distributed via new media formats like iPhone, Kindle, and audiobook, as well as traditional print. The story, about the relationship between a man and a woman who meet through an online dating site, was disseminated by Electric Literature's
Twitter feed
, as well as by several partners such as
Vroman's Bookstore
. Perhaps Ang Lee will turn it into a series of webisodes?
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The French Revolution
: While Parisians were dodging the annual cavalcade of sidewalk firecrackers this past Bastille Day, writer Matt Stewart published his first novel on Twitter. Dispensed at a rate of one tweet every 15 minutes, The French Revolution tells a classic modern fiction tale: that of the dysfunctional family. But before you write it off as a 2.0 era knockoff of The Corrections, take note that publishers swooped in, with the book ultimately being sold to
Soft Skull Press
. Scheduled for publication next July, we're looking forward to hitting the beach with a hard copy next summer. After all, there are some times when we prefer to leave the digital devices at home.
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Tweet Bookz
: Twitter wordsmiths too impatient to wait for literary agents to send them representation pitches via DMs can now easily self-publish their own feeds. Simply log in to your Twitter account from the Tweet Bookz homepage to order a bound copy, soft or hard, of your last 200 tweets. Even if you're not the next Hemingway, this could be a pretty cool way to document your next vacation. Who has time to keep a handwritten travel journal these days anyway?
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* trendcentral articles are designed to be trend reports, not endorsements * The Intelligence Group is a trend-forecasting and marketing Consultancy focused on Gen X, Gen Y and Tweens. For more information on our services, or to subscribe to our syndicated studies, The Cassandra Report, Tween Intelligence, Latino Intelligence, and Mom Intelligence, contact Alina Goncalves at 212-277-5299 or via email at agoncalves@intelg.com.
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