Reading the Text Novella

Posted on August 22, 2006

The Wall Street Journal reports on a new way to read books: 160 words at a time.

In the past week, about 10,000 people have read the first line of a new novella called "Ghost Town," about a homeless teenager: "'U always come out of nowhere,' Brad the quarterback laughed." So begins a story that's being dubbed a "text novella." Wireless company Virgin Mobile is beaming it to the cellphones of users who sign up, sending the story in 160-character installments through two text messages a day for five weeks. Mobile companies have been racing to capitalize on the entertainment capabilities of new cellphone models in recent months, offering mini-TV shows, video streams of live concerts and even short films for cellphones. Text-message fiction is a new twist on this genre.
This story isn't written by a published author, however; it was penned by a copywriter working for Virgin and staffers from YouthNoise, a nonprofit San Francisco-based Web site for socially conscious teens. Aimed at raising awareness of teenage homelessness, the novella is a project of Re*Generation, a nonprofit group operated by Virgin that works to help homeless teenagers. If the novella succeeds, Virgin says, it may commission more text stories.
Virgin says the initiative is a way to help charity while reaching the coveted teen demographic. "It's exactly our target market," says Ariel Rosen, Virgin's director of pro-social initiatives. Linda Barrabee, a wireless analyst with Boston's Yankee Group, says 61% of 13- to 17-year-olds send messages at least once a month, compared with 27% of people over 18.
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Marco Johnson, a 17-year-old from Bryans Road, Md., who signed up for the novella, says he finds the story "sort of depressing," but likes receiving the narrative through text messages. "I know some people will say it's a waste of texts," Mr. Johnson says. "But they're on the five-cent plan and I'm on the text bucket -- 200 messages for $4.99."

You can find out more at http://www.youthnoise.com/novella/. We're all for getting people to read more, but this isn't working for us. We read so much around there that the idea of waiting to see how the story turns out -- 160 words at a time, over five weeks -- is just not something we'd ever do. Do you have any idea how many novels our reviewers and editors read over a five week period? Well actually, we don't either. But, judging from the box loads of books that go in and out of here on a monthly basis, it's a lot.