Netflix infamously changed the way we consume TV shows. They know that people love to binge a good show. As you all know, Netflix intentionally gave its users the entire season of new TV shows. On top of it, they added this 5 second counter that automatically triggers the next episode if you don’t do anything. I can’t tell you how many times I found myself couch-locked four shows in than I initially planned.

It was such a great idea that the entire industry caught on. Few shows premiere with one episode or pilot.

Essentially, Netflix provides its users with content the way that books have sold to people for centuries. Whenever you go to Barnes and Noble (I mean on Amazon) and purchase a book, you buy the entire thing. However, what if this changed?

What if authors launched their books like how TV shows traditionally launched on TV in the past? Instead of sharing the full text, you release a chapter every week. Imagine J.K. Rowling didn’t publish massive Harry Potter books, and instead, she released an episode every week on Wednesdays.

I have a confession to make; I’ve never read any of the Harry Potter books. Those books were always so long for my younger self.

Books can sometimes be intimidating and can be a bit demotivating. I tried reading the Power Broker by Robert Caro, which is a massive 1000-page book about the rise of Robert Moses (the man who built most of modern NY city), and it was challenging to turn the page that I eventually stopped.

I don’t believe this model would work for non-fiction reference or technical books. This model would likely be for fiction, documentary series, and biography that have a compelling plot.

On the other hand, I devour articles like it’s nobody business. I love browsing my favorite sources to read like Pro Publica or Medium for original content. These days websites also give a quick estimate of how long it would take to read specific articles. For some reason, it doesn’t bother me to read a 15-minute article, but hard to find the energy to go through a massive book a step at a time.

I find myself binging shows that take hours of my time, but unable to go through a book the same way.  

What would it look like if the authors released a chapter once a week?

The revenue model would be different. As a user, you would pay as you go or subscribe, so you pay for the entire book. The author can charge a flat $0.99 per chapter or a flat $15 to get the whole book. An author may not make as much money because maybe a lot of their users don’t like their writing and stop at the third chapter. However, once the text is fully released, you can sell the book the same traditional way by providing the entire thing.

Today, an author makes their money once they sell the book, whether you read the entire text or not.

Authors can even make this an optional feature. The user can either buy the full book or choose to subscribe to it and receive a chapter every week. This feature will help the reader consume the book in digestible pieces vs. the entire thing at once. Readers can add the text as a part of their routine and not feel like they are always behind on the book or haven’t had a chance to finish it.

However, it would also force authors to write their books differently, knowing that their users are only buying a chapter at a time. The end of every chapter would leave the audience wanting more. Authors will start writing their books, just like how screenwriters create TV shows that appear every week.

Every great book or series has a crazy fan following, and this is another way that authors can build a big community of readers and spark discussion, not only interpreting what happens in the book but also series of analyses on what’s going to happen next.

An author would not have to rely on a traditional publisher, but instead, draw people to their website or e-book. Each new chapter can be sent directly to their audiences’ email as a newsletter. Authors can leverage newsletter services like Substack or Mailchimp and deliver new chapters via email.

Today author’s website is quite dull and more of a personal landing page to their body of work. Ultimately, their books will lead to an Amazon link to buy their books. An author can add a forum along with the book to be the official page for readers to assemble. I bet that user engagement on the new alternative webpage will be much higher.

Here’s what J.K. Rowling’s website looks like today. I had no idea that J.K. Rowling had way more books than just Harry Potter.

If authors don’t want to go through the hassle of creating their website, they can work with content marketplaces like Amazon to display this for them and so they ultimately go directly to where the users are instead of marketing to their website.

This new model could even allow the unique delivery of the actual chapter. The author would be able to add unique animations, background sounds, and even video to the overall reading experience.

For example, let’s say there was a scene where the character receives a video from another character or is face-timing with another character, the author can create a video that shows the facetime with a few actors. Or add gloomy music if the main character is going down a dungeon to face the villain of the story.

Books can now be multidimensional. As an author, you can embed videos, audio, and text to enhance the reading experience. The author would have a lot more tools at their disposal to narrate the story in a certain way to affect all the senses of a reader.

You can argue that this will ruin the magic of writing. Gifted artists have a fantastic way of stimulating your imagination and experiencing what is happening in a book. I’m not saying that the author has to change the way they are writing or now lose the meaning of the writing in replace of video. What I am saying is that the author can intentionally find other mediums to enhance the reading experience for a user.

Books delivered this way will effectively blurry the lines between TV shows and movies. Authors will create new compelling experiences to share their writing and stories to audiences in ways that we haven’t seen before because of the internet.

I don’t know what this in-between medium will be, but this is a thought experiment on books evolving as there are more channels and ways to deliver experiences to the reader. I don’t know if this will take off, but certainly can be experimented to see if it genuinely increases sales and drives user engagement. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a few authors that dive into this method. There’s no downside as they can still sell their books on Amazon after all is said and done.

This preference for an author ultimately depends on their goal. Do they want to sell as many books as possible or improve readership of their publications and build a community around it?

I could be completely wrong, but it will be interesting to see how books and readership evolve in the future.