Webserial
Encyclopedia
Web fiction is written work of literature available primarily or solely on the Internet
. A common type of web fiction is the webserial. The term comes from old serial
stories that were once published regularly in newspapers and magazines. They are also sometimes referred to as 'webcomics without pictures', although many do use images as illustrations to supplement the text.
Unlike an ebook, a web fiction is often not compiled and published as a whole. Instead, it is released on the Internet
in installments or chapters as they are finished, although published compilations and anthologies are not unknown. The webserial form dominates in the category of fan fiction
, as writing a serial takes less specialized software and often less time than an ebook.
Web-based fiction dates to the earliest days of the World Wide Web
, including the extremely popular The Spot
(1995 - 1997), a tale told through characters' journal entries and interactivity with its audience. The Spot spawned many similar sites, including Ferndale and East Village, though these were not as successful and did not last long. Most of these early ventures are no longer in existence; three of the few popular sites of this era still available are Autumn Lake,http://www.autumn-lake.com/ Footprints,http://www.footprintsmedia.com and About Schuyler Falls.http://www.skyfalls.com New additions to the medium in recent years have included Guasti Cose, Wonderland, Book Backwards, Independence Day, The Peacock King, The Blackthornes, The Tales of MU, and Addergoole.
Since 2008, web fiction has proliferated in popularity. Possibly as a result of this, more fans of webserials have decided to create their own, propagating the form further, leading to the number of serious, original works growing quickly. Some serials utilize the formats of the media to include things not possible in ordinary books, such as clickable maps,http://www.loveandwartx.com/ pop-up character bios, sorting posts by tag, illustrations,http://www.lordlikely.com/ and video. Supplementary information is often available on the serial's website, sometimes in the form of wikis that fans of the work help maintain.http://wiki.meilinmiranda.com/index.php/Main_Page
. Some webserials have supplementary blogs for updates, news,http://peacock-king.infernalshenanigans.com/nodequeue/3 or fictional blogs for the characters themselves.http://www.fluffy-seme.net/blogs/posts/Cici
LiveJournal
is also a popular platform for web serials due to its large userbase and integrated communities. Some webserials are published on Livejournal directly,http://expert-urges.livejournal.com/ whereas some have LiveJournal communities for reader discussion and feedback.http://community.livejournal.com/strangelilband/
Some webserials are produced on content management systems such as Drupal
,http://gabrielgadfly.com/ WordPress
,http://fiction.courage-my-friend.org/winter-rain/ or Joomla, which may integrate blogs directly into the site and also have many custom add-ons (such as for integrating social networking services such as Twitter
or Facebook
).
A distribution tool integrated into almost all media is the RSS
feed, so that subscribers can get updates on the latest chapters or episodes via an RSS reader or other media.
Another format in use is the internet forum
. A free forum service such as ProBoards
, Ezboard
, or Invisionfree may be used to create a board for a webserial, or the webserial may be a feature of a larger board in order to benefit from its traffic. Forums can also be integrated into a webserial's main site to increase community interaction.
Some webserials have been told entirely on Twitter or have used it as a way of adding depth to the universe. Character twitter accounts are a very popular example of this.http://twitter.com/#list/tenaciousN/characters Twitter is also a useful tool for author-fan interaction and update announcements. There are a variety of twitter hashtags now in use for the webserial community.http://weblit.us/twitterchats Facebook integration is also popular, with Facebook fanpages for webserials or webserial authors as well as character accounts.
Those who move away from true blogs often choose to keep a similar format to the blog when they establish their own website. A few, however, make use of the webcomic
layout, citing its familiarity. The Comicspresshttp://comicpress.org/ plugin for WordPress makes this a very simple task. Shorter stories are often typical of those who use a webcomic layout, though this is not universally true.
strain of text instead of pictures may help lower the expenses. Hosting and advertisement costs are still just as much a concern for webserial authors as webcomic artists.
The advent of free blogging platforms such as the WordPress
free host and Blogger
have freed some serial writers from financial concerns, as well as any requirement for technical knowledge. However, these free hosts provide less flexibility and also may not be as scalable as a pay host.
Donations and 'tip jars' are a common way of getting money for webserials, often using services such as PayPal
, but one of the main means of monetizing WebLit serials is the advertising service Project Wonderful
, a "new paradigm" agency which allows the writers to both host banners and purchase them on other sites and blogs at auction pricing.
These are sometimes sufficient to cover the basic costs for hosting, and some of the more popular webserials can succeed with their entire budget made from donations or revenue of this type.
Another financing method is what WebLit author MCM
refers to as "Serial+": readers are shown a schedule for how long it would take them to read the whole story at the rate of posting new installments, and offered the option of buying the entire story on the spot.
A few webserial authors have taken to collecting their work and releasing in a book format for easy consumption offline. Self-publishing is key in this field, and services such as CafePress and Lulu.com
are often used for distribution and sales of these anthologies.
The advent and acceptance of the ebook has freed writers to become quite prolific with "bound collections" offered as downloads in formats such as pdf, Smashwords, and Mobipocket
.
On-demand merchandising sites like CafePress and Zazzle
are also sources of income from sales of T-shirts, mugs, calendars, mousepads and other fan items.
There was a trend that had commercial publishers email webserials to subscribers. One of the first sites to do this was Keep It Coming (KIC), which operated from October 2003 through November 2005. The success of this venture has led to the creation of other portals such as Readers Retreat and Virtual Tales. This is no longer much of a factor in the overall picture of webserials, largely due to RSS feed subscriptions becoming ubiquitous. However, some webserials provide an email subscription service separate from RSS in the form of a newsletter or through services such as Google Groups
.
Some publishers have started using serials on their sites as "eye bait" and proving grounds for novels, for example Cyberwizard Productions and Tor Books
. Similarly, writers with established series have been able to continue writing those series after being dropped by conventional publishers, as Lawrence Watt-Evans
has done with his Ethshar
novels.
, although some authors do use this format simply to gain the ability to switch characters on a regular basis.
The next is loose continuity. Loose continuity stories share the same universe or world by default, and tie into a grander story. However, while the plot arcs are designed to be read to their maximum benefit by those who are most familiar with the world, it is not so self-referential that it becomes impossible to follow for a new reader without aid. Loose continuity stories can simply be individual units, or can take a mini-series feel. They may run in tightly cohesive, short arcs that must be read from the beginning, but only a basic familiarization with the premise may be necessary to enjoy each specific story arc.
The last style is tightly cohesive. As the name implies, webserials of this type very closely intertwine episodes or chapters with each other, and depend on the reader being familiar with as much of the story beforehand as possible. They are often meant to be read as one would read a book, though obviously accounting for better and more frequent natural breaks in the plot than a book would usually require.
Many fan fiction archives (such as the popular Fanfiction.net
archive) are set up to accommodate and encourage the publication of serial works. Fanfiction.net has a sister site (Fiction Presshttp://www.fictionpress.com/) for original work with the same organizational structure.
s have sometimes tried to give readers the random directionality offered by true hypertext
ing, this approach was not completely feasible until the development of HTML
. Paper novels (indeed, some digital novels) are linear, that is, read from page to page in a straight line. Interactive novels, however, offer readers a unique way to read fiction by choosing a page, a character, or a direction. By following hyperlinked phrases within the novel, readers can find new ways to understand characters. There is no wrong way to read a hypertext interactive novel. Links embedded within the pages are meant to be taken at a reader's discretion – to allow the reader a choice in the novel's world.
published on a website
. While most are published exclusively on the web, some are also published in magazine
s, newspaper
s, or often self-published
books.
Webcomics can be compared to self-published print comics in that almost anyone can create their own webcomic and publish it. As of January 2007, the four largest webcomic hosting services
hosted over 18,000 webcomics, ranging from traditional comic strip
s to graphic novel
s and covering many genre
s and subjects. Very few are financially successful.
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
. A common type of web fiction is the webserial. The term comes from old serial
Serial (literature)
In literature, a serial is a publishing format by which a single large work, most often a work of narrative fiction, is presented in contiguous installments—also known as numbers, parts, or fascicles—either issued as separate publications or appearing in sequential issues of a single periodical...
stories that were once published regularly in newspapers and magazines. They are also sometimes referred to as 'webcomics without pictures', although many do use images as illustrations to supplement the text.
Unlike an ebook, a web fiction is often not compiled and published as a whole. Instead, it is released on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
in installments or chapters as they are finished, although published compilations and anthologies are not unknown. The webserial form dominates in the category of fan fiction
Fan fiction
Fan fiction is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator...
, as writing a serial takes less specialized software and often less time than an ebook.
Web-based fiction dates to the earliest days of the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
, including the extremely popular The Spot
The Spot
The Spot, or thespot.com, was the second episodic online story , after an earlier experiment by AOL's QuantumLink Serial, and pioneered the underwriting of bandwidth and production costs by offering paid advertising banners on the web pages and product placement within the journal entries...
(1995 - 1997), a tale told through characters' journal entries and interactivity with its audience. The Spot spawned many similar sites, including Ferndale and East Village, though these were not as successful and did not last long. Most of these early ventures are no longer in existence; three of the few popular sites of this era still available are Autumn Lake,http://www.autumn-lake.com/ Footprints,http://www.footprintsmedia.com and About Schuyler Falls.http://www.skyfalls.com New additions to the medium in recent years have included Guasti Cose, Wonderland, Book Backwards, Independence Day, The Peacock King, The Blackthornes, The Tales of MU, and Addergoole.
Since 2008, web fiction has proliferated in popularity. Possibly as a result of this, more fans of webserials have decided to create their own, propagating the form further, leading to the number of serious, original works growing quickly. Some serials utilize the formats of the media to include things not possible in ordinary books, such as clickable maps,http://www.loveandwartx.com/ pop-up character bios, sorting posts by tag, illustrations,http://www.lordlikely.com/ and video. Supplementary information is often available on the serial's website, sometimes in the form of wikis that fans of the work help maintain.http://wiki.meilinmiranda.com/index.php/Main_Page
Publication formats
Over the past few years, the primary medium for publishing webserials has been the blogBlog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
. Some webserials have supplementary blogs for updates, news,http://peacock-king.infernalshenanigans.com/nodequeue/3 or fictional blogs for the characters themselves.http://www.fluffy-seme.net/blogs/posts/Cici
LiveJournal
LiveJournal
LiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....
is also a popular platform for web serials due to its large userbase and integrated communities. Some webserials are published on Livejournal directly,http://expert-urges.livejournal.com/ whereas some have LiveJournal communities for reader discussion and feedback.http://community.livejournal.com/strangelilband/
Some webserials are produced on content management systems such as Drupal
Drupal
Drupal is a free and open-source content management system and content management framework written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. It is used as a back-end system for at least 1.5% of all websites worldwide ranging from personal blogs to corporate, political, and...
,http://gabrielgadfly.com/ WordPress
WordPress
WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and publishing platform powered by PHP and MySQL. It is often customized into a content management system . It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by over 14.7% of Alexa Internet's "top 1...
,http://fiction.courage-my-friend.org/winter-rain/ or Joomla, which may integrate blogs directly into the site and also have many custom add-ons (such as for integrating social networking services such as Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
or Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
).
A distribution tool integrated into almost all media is the RSS
RSS (file format)
RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format...
feed, so that subscribers can get updates on the latest chapters or episodes via an RSS reader or other media.
Another format in use is the internet forum
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
. A free forum service such as ProBoards
ProBoards
ProBoards is a free, remotely hosted message board service that facilitates online discussions by allowing people to create their own online communities.-Ownership and Service Statistics:...
, Ezboard
Ezboard
ezboard, Inc., based in San Francisco, California, United States, is a provider of free and paid hosted Internet forums.-Description: was a provider of a free hosted message board for use by webmasters and message board administrators who have little to no experience running a web site...
, or Invisionfree may be used to create a board for a webserial, or the webserial may be a feature of a larger board in order to benefit from its traffic. Forums can also be integrated into a webserial's main site to increase community interaction.
Some webserials have been told entirely on Twitter or have used it as a way of adding depth to the universe. Character twitter accounts are a very popular example of this.http://twitter.com/#list/tenaciousN/characters Twitter is also a useful tool for author-fan interaction and update announcements. There are a variety of twitter hashtags now in use for the webserial community.http://weblit.us/twitterchats Facebook integration is also popular, with Facebook fanpages for webserials or webserial authors as well as character accounts.
Those who move away from true blogs often choose to keep a similar format to the blog when they establish their own website. A few, however, make use of the webcomic
Webcomic
Webcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comics published on a website. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers or often in self-published books....
layout, citing its familiarity. The Comicspresshttp://comicpress.org/ plugin for WordPress makes this a very simple task. Shorter stories are often typical of those who use a webcomic layout, though this is not universally true.
Blog fiction
Blog fiction is a form of fiction writing that uses blogs to reach its readership. It is a small-scale fringe activity in the world of blogging, and although it has generated some literary critical interest, it remains isolated. It is presented in many forms, from a pretend diary or posted novel to a serialblog.Business
Webserials are cheaper to run than webcomics for the most part, although the returns are not much better, if at all. Most authors must pay for the costs out of their own pockets, though the significantly lower bandwidthBandwidth (computing)
In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...
strain of text instead of pictures may help lower the expenses. Hosting and advertisement costs are still just as much a concern for webserial authors as webcomic artists.
The advent of free blogging platforms such as the WordPress
WordPress
WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and publishing platform powered by PHP and MySQL. It is often customized into a content management system . It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by over 14.7% of Alexa Internet's "top 1...
free host and Blogger
Blogger (service)
Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com. Up until May 1, 2010 Blogger allowed users to publish...
have freed some serial writers from financial concerns, as well as any requirement for technical knowledge. However, these free hosts provide less flexibility and also may not be as scalable as a pay host.
Donations and 'tip jars' are a common way of getting money for webserials, often using services such as PayPal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
, but one of the main means of monetizing WebLit serials is the advertising service Project Wonderful
Project Wonderful
Project Wonderful is an advertising service created by programmer and webcomic author Ryan North headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Though it is not specifically designed for webcomics, they do make up the majority of its users.-Concept:...
, a "new paradigm" agency which allows the writers to both host banners and purchase them on other sites and blogs at auction pricing.
These are sometimes sufficient to cover the basic costs for hosting, and some of the more popular webserials can succeed with their entire budget made from donations or revenue of this type.
Another financing method is what WebLit author MCM
MCM
-Science and technology:* Thousand circular mils or kcmil, the wire gauge is equivalent cross sectional area * Million cubic metre, the unit of volume...
refers to as "Serial+": readers are shown a schedule for how long it would take them to read the whole story at the rate of posting new installments, and offered the option of buying the entire story on the spot.
A few webserial authors have taken to collecting their work and releasing in a book format for easy consumption offline. Self-publishing is key in this field, and services such as CafePress and Lulu.com
Lulu.com
Lulu is a company offering publishing, printing, and distribution services with headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina. Since their founding in 2002, Lulu has published over 1.1 million titles by creators in over 200 countries and territories and adds 20,000 new titles to their catalogue a month...
are often used for distribution and sales of these anthologies.
The advent and acceptance of the ebook has freed writers to become quite prolific with "bound collections" offered as downloads in formats such as pdf, Smashwords, and Mobipocket
Mobipocket
Mobipocket SA is a French company incorporated in March 2000 which produces Mobipocket Reader software, an E-Book reader for some PDAs, phones and desktop operating systems....
.
On-demand merchandising sites like CafePress and Zazzle
Zazzle
Zazzle is an online retailer that allows users to upload images and create their own merchandise , or buy merchandise created by other users, as well as use images from participating companies...
are also sources of income from sales of T-shirts, mugs, calendars, mousepads and other fan items.
There was a trend that had commercial publishers email webserials to subscribers. One of the first sites to do this was Keep It Coming (KIC), which operated from October 2003 through November 2005. The success of this venture has led to the creation of other portals such as Readers Retreat and Virtual Tales. This is no longer much of a factor in the overall picture of webserials, largely due to RSS feed subscriptions becoming ubiquitous. However, some webserials provide an email subscription service separate from RSS in the form of a newsletter or through services such as Google Groups
Google Groups
Google Groups is a service from Google Inc. that supports discussion groups, including many Usenet newsgroups, based on common interests. The service was started in 1995 as Deja News, and was transitioned to Google Groups after a February 2001 buyout....
.
Some publishers have started using serials on their sites as "eye bait" and proving grounds for novels, for example Cyberwizard Productions and Tor Books
Tor Books
Tor Books is one of two imprints of Tom Doherty Associates LLC, based in New York City. It is noted for its science fiction and fantasy titles. Tom Doherty Associates also publishes mainstream fiction, mystery, and occasional military history titles under its Forge imprint. The company was founded...
. Similarly, writers with established series have been able to continue writing those series after being dropped by conventional publishers, as Lawrence Watt-Evans
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Lawrence Watt-Evans is one of the pseudonyms of American science fiction and fantasy author Lawrence Watt Evans...
has done with his Ethshar
Ethshar
Ethshar is a constructed world first developed by American fantasy author Lawrence Watt-Evans for use in role-playing games, in which he later set a number of novels and short stories...
novels.
Web serial
Webserials typically come in three main styles of plot cohesiveness. One is self-contained, a storytelling style which has no or little plot connections between installments. Stories are tied together by their universe, subject matter, atmosphere, or plot structure. Stories such as these are very often surrealist or vignettesVignette (literature)
In theatrical script writing, sketch stories, and poetry, a vignette is a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, or a setting and sometimes an object...
, although some authors do use this format simply to gain the ability to switch characters on a regular basis.
The next is loose continuity. Loose continuity stories share the same universe or world by default, and tie into a grander story. However, while the plot arcs are designed to be read to their maximum benefit by those who are most familiar with the world, it is not so self-referential that it becomes impossible to follow for a new reader without aid. Loose continuity stories can simply be individual units, or can take a mini-series feel. They may run in tightly cohesive, short arcs that must be read from the beginning, but only a basic familiarization with the premise may be necessary to enjoy each specific story arc.
The last style is tightly cohesive. As the name implies, webserials of this type very closely intertwine episodes or chapters with each other, and depend on the reader being familiar with as much of the story beforehand as possible. They are often meant to be read as one would read a book, though obviously accounting for better and more frequent natural breaks in the plot than a book would usually require.
Fan fiction
Fan fiction popularized the publishing of writing on the internet and set the standards for much of the community interaction surrounding webserials. Many fanfiction works have been published in multi-part works of epic length which prepared internet-based reading audiences for the easy digestion of serialized original works. Also, some webserial authors (and many authors in general) made their start in fanfiction before setting out for original work. Therefore, the readerships for fanfiction and webserials intersect quite a bit, and some fandom language and memes are shared by the webserial community. Most webserials tend towards regular publication schedules, however, whereas the bulk of fanfiction is published at the author's convenience. In fanfiction there is less obligation to finish or continue stories.Many fan fiction archives (such as the popular Fanfiction.net
FanFiction.Net
FanFiction.Net is an automated fan fiction archive site. It was founded in late 1998 by Los Angeles computer programmer Xing Li, who also runs the site. The first fics to be posted were a few stories about Buffy the Vampire Slayer...
archive) are set up to accommodate and encourage the publication of serial works. Fanfiction.net has a sister site (Fiction Presshttp://www.fictionpress.com/) for original work with the same organizational structure.
Interactive novel
The interactive novel is a form of digital fiction. While authors of traditional paper-and-ink novelNovel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s have sometimes tried to give readers the random directionality offered by true hypertext
Hypertext
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...
ing, this approach was not completely feasible until the development of HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
. Paper novels (indeed, some digital novels) are linear, that is, read from page to page in a straight line. Interactive novels, however, offer readers a unique way to read fiction by choosing a page, a character, or a direction. By following hyperlinked phrases within the novel, readers can find new ways to understand characters. There is no wrong way to read a hypertext interactive novel. Links embedded within the pages are meant to be taken at a reader's discretion – to allow the reader a choice in the novel's world.
Webcomic
Webcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comicsComics
Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...
published on a website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
. While most are published exclusively on the web, some are also published in magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
s, newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s, or often self-published
Self-publishing
Self-publishing is the publication of any book or other media by the author of the work, without the involvement of an established third-party publisher. The author is responsible and in control of entire process including design , formats, price, distribution, marketing & PR...
books.
Webcomics can be compared to self-published print comics in that almost anyone can create their own webcomic and publish it. As of January 2007, the four largest webcomic hosting services
Web hosting service
A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their own website accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own or lease for use by their clients as well as providing Internet...
hosted over 18,000 webcomics, ranging from traditional comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
s to graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
s and covering many genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
s and subjects. Very few are financially successful.
See also
- BlookBlookA blook is printed book that contains or is based on content from a blog.The first printed blook was User Interface Design for Programmers, by Joel Spolsky, published by Apress on June 26, 2001, based on his blog Joel on Software...
- Blog fictionBlog fictionBlog fiction is a form of fiction writing that uses blogs to reach its readership. It is a small-scale fringe activity in the world of blogging, and although it has generated some literary critical interest, it remains isolated...
- ebook
- Interactive fictionInteractive fictionInteractive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...
- Online book
- SerialsSerial (literature)In literature, a serial is a publishing format by which a single large work, most often a work of narrative fiction, is presented in contiguous installments—also known as numbers, parts, or fascicles—either issued as separate publications or appearing in sequential issues of a single periodical...
- Webcomics
External links
- EpiGuide - Online directory, magazine and community for webserials.
- Web Fiction Guide - Online directory and review site for webserials.
- Muse's Success - Online directory and review site for webserials.
- ErgoFiction - A magazine for readers and fans of webserials.
- Protagonize - A collaborative writing community which allows authors to publish works in serial format.