(This is a story I wrote for the Globe that ran in the Review section of Tuesday's newspaper. I'm posting it here for anyone who might be interested but doesn't read the newspaper).
Necessity is the mother of invention, the old saying goes. But boredom and the desire to experiment are powerful forces too, says Canadian author Michael Winter. That's how he came up with the idea to "serialize" his latest novel on Facebook, the hot social-networking site.
"I look at the whole book-publishing and promotion-of-books process as pretty boring," the British-born author says with a laugh from his home in Newfoundland. "And I'm always game to do anything different to promote the book."
Over drinks one night, Winter and Penguin Canada publicist Stephen Myers came up with the idea of using Facebook to create an online community around Winter's new novel, The Architects Are Here. For the past several weeks, the author has been posting a short synopsis of each chapter every few days on his Facebook page and will continue doing so until the book is officially published later this week.
In addition to the synopsis, Winter has also been posting his thoughts and commentary about how the chapter developed, including debates he had with himself over how to handle a particular situation, or the local landmarks and people that became part of the novel.
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