A year ago the first community-sourced thriller using work from 17 different authors was published from book collaboration site WEbook. Now a new book from Random House and Borders Australia will be published using the writing of 29 authors in the world’s first “chain novel”.
Best-selling author James Patterson will pen the first and last chapters of “AirBorne”, a 30-chapter thriller. The other 28 chapters will each be written by a different author.
To find the authors, Borders and Random House held a contest to see which authors could write the most fast-paced and thrilling chapters in less than 750 words. The judges are now in the process of selecting authors.
Once finished, the final product will be released one chapter at a time starting 20 March. Readers can download each chapter over the internet, and the final book will be printed at the conclusion of the project.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
