![]() The physical book has, somewhat improbably, maintained its supremacy in the digital age. And here I am having another go, I guess, at killing it.” “But the actual, old fashioned thing, the hardcopy book, is incredibly, mutinously alive. ![]() “People have been talking about the death of the novel, almost since the birth of the novel,” he continued. In The New Republic, the always smart Alex Shepard wrote about the move and noted that Rushdie correctly says the printed book isn’t going anywhere: Rushdie himself.Īlthough I can’t say I’ve read a Rushdie book in a while, as an author on Substack who thinks a lot about how to possibly make writing a career that earns a livable wage, I’m at least hypothetically interested in the idea of serializing fiction on Substack. He will eventually charge ($5 or $6 a month) to unlock, say, later chapters of a continuing work of fiction, or the ability to interact with Mr. Rushdie plans to start with some serialized fiction and possibly a few essays, all of which will be free at first. This week Salman Rushdie announced he’s moving to Substack not-like most novelists, including myself-to just publish essays and musings but to serialize his fiction : I already have a bazillion articles and a billion ideas in the pipeline.“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… to find out more subscribe to my Substack!” “A lot of people get to crash and burn,” warns Palahniuk. Though not a substitute for traditional publishing, Palahniuk describes it as a “frontier town.” Palahniuk sees Substack as an evolution of mass-market magazines of the past, such as Scribner’s or Colliers, and offers an exciting way to reach his audience. “So I wasn't just selling the same thing twice.” However, “I would only do that if I added a significant amount to the book,” he added. Hachette has already expressed interest in publishing Greener Pastures in “book form” after Palahniuk completes the serialization, Palahniuk said. They get an incredible amount of work done and they’ll work until you throw them out. “But people just come, they don't pay anything. “Writing is lonely work,” Palahniuk said. It’s awesome.”īy using the funds from his Substack, Palahniuk hopes to expand Study Hall into its own location, ideally with a sustainable financial model so that the program could be replicated in other cities. I also sponsored a night there where writers could just come in and write in a communal space for four or five hours in silence. “I got together with Chelsea Cain, who's another Portland writer, to teach in an abandoned movie theater. “ I've been teaching,” Palahniuk said, explaining how Study Hall was conceived. “They offered me an advance that was comparable to what I was getting from Hachette for the book.” Palahniuk opted for the advance that money, he said, will go toward funding his new Portland-based community project, Study Hall. “There are two ways of payment: One was to take a really hefty percentage of the revenue from the subscriptions, and the other was to take it in advance,” Palahniuk explained. One reason for that is the pay structure. Palahniuk joins a steadily-increasing number of authors, including Salman Rushdie, who have made the decision to work with Substack to publish their own work. ![]() “There's no glossies like Playboy that would buy a really edgy upsetting story anymore.” “There's almost no market for it anymore,” Palahniuk said of his brand of short fiction. In addition to the novel, Palahniuk wants to use the platform to publish short stories he has been unable to place in traditional venues. And these kids conceivably could sell themselves for a couple billion dollars, but that would basically decide their destiny.” “It’s an auction platform where kids can auction themselves to the richest, most powerful people in the world,” Palahniuk explained. Those selected by the service are asked to leave their entire lives and families behind, never to let anyone know of their destination. It turns out, however, that the students were all contacted by a mysterious online service called “Greener Pastures,” which had been keeping a tab on the kids all their lives, monitoring their test scores and the like. The novel centers around a series of suicides at a high school, where the smartest kids in the school seemingly die by suicide. But it got really super dark, and it got really super profane.” “People were telling me you could not be too dark for YA, and that YA was the new place for the darkest fiction. Greener Pastures was initially intended to be a YA novel, Palahniuk said.
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