I have been contacted recently by several people who are aware of the cellphone novel sites in Japan and have been looking for something similar in the U.S. Two different individuals have told me that they have either tried Twitter.com or heard of someone else trying that site to create a novel by cellphone. One of them told me he found it too frustrating since the 140 character limitation per "episode" or chapter on Twitter was too limiting (this same person put that comment on one of my other posts).
I thought we would have launched by now but we are fixing a few final glitches and I have asked the programmer's to change the voting system so it is simpler and more intuitive. I think we are now within a week or two of the beta launch. I am hopeful that the early users will give me and the developers feedback so we can fix any issues or problems and make enhancements that will improve the site substantially.
The other day I met with the founders of an Internet incubator and they were excited by the www.textnovel.com concept. They thought it was a great idea and seemed like an obvious concept that someone should pursue. They also offered to introduce me to some major publishers in order to begin laying the groundwork to hopefully publish the winning novel(s) as well as increase the dollar amount of the prize offerings. But I am going to wait until a couple of months after beta launch to approach the publishers, because I'd like to meet them with some experience and knowledge from early user testing.
People who love to read novels can now avail of their favorite novels through their cellphones. It's such a remarkable concept. Everything seems to be simpler and easier these days. =)
Posted by: Cora Bullock | October 25, 2011 at 06:34 AM