In a simple Twitter post last night, Vroman’s Books ended their role in a recent literary Twitter experiment–learning a lesson about 21st Century distribution in the process.
Earlier this week, the literary journal Electric Literature launched a “microserialization” experiment by publishing a new story by Rick Moody (pictured) on Twitter–co-publishing the story on other Twitter feeds, including the Vroman’s Books feed. Jacket Copy summarized the frustration that some Twitter users felt with the simultaneous delivery: “In the past, having bookstores, bloggers and other magazines simultaneously pass out a short story would widen the circulation. Today, many of those people are in overlapping social networking circles, and the result is repetition rather than reach.”
When asked about the Twitter project, Moody told the WSJ: “I am pleased with the instantaneity of the responses, but like many responses that come to pass in the digital world, they seem to have the not-fully-cooked quality that you get with immediacy.”
Editor’s note: The founders of Electric Literature are speaking at mediabistro.com’s eBook Summit.