Author Article: Nic Tatano

Today I am thrilled to welcome Harper Impulse author Nic Tatano to my blog! His new book It Girl is going to be published as a serialized novel throughout the month of June, and you can also get the entire novel at the end too if you prefer reading that way! I think it sounds like a great idea, and I'm so excited to read it! Nic was kind enough to write me an article about just this topic, and how exactly it would work, so please enjoy!

You can pre-order It Girl as an eBook now.

A SERIALIZED NOVEL… WITH A TEASE

By Nic Tatano

In television news, the tease is king.

You see them all the time and probably don't even notice them. Teases are those little attention grabbers designed to keep you watching. Newscasts use them all the time. "Congressman caught with transvestite hooker! After the game!" Even if said game is a blowout, that tease will ensure you'll stick around to see which member of the House of Representatives got a Crying Game surprise.

That's a passage from "It Girl" which is my new serialized romantic comedy in which our heroine, Veronica Summer, is describing how the tease process works in television news.

Little did I know that something my fictional character talked about would end up being implemented into my actual book.

Awhile back the brain trust at HarperImpulse asked me if I wanted to be part of an experiment in which my novel would be released in three formats: paperback, ebook, and serialized chapters. This sounded like a great idea so I set about dividing the novel into six parts. While doing this it hit me that the concept used by serialized television shows might take this up a notch if applied to a novel. And when a book blogger mentioned it would be nice if books had recaps along the way, I came up with a formula.

"It Girl" would be divided into six "episodes" and each would have a recap of the previous episode and a "tease" about what was coming up in the next one. For the teases I picked quotes and short passages that (hopefully) will entice the reader to keep turning the pages. And I tried to end each episode with a mini-cliffhanger, same as television shows. So, just like a TV show, you'll get a "previously on It Girl" before the episode and a "next on It Girl" after the episode.

The first episode is free ("free" being the ultimate tease!), and will be released on June 6th, so you can pre-order it and it will magically appear on your device on that date. Each new episode will be released a few days later, about three or four days apart. On June 26th, the full version of the novel will be out in ebook and paperback form. (Now referred to as the "Netflix binge reading option.)

Will serialization work? Will readers enjoy being teased after each episode? And will recaps prove useful for those who read a little at a time? For those and other answers, tune in on June sixth.

Thanks so much, Nic!