We wanted to share with you an interesting project that Select Editions reader favorite Jeffery Deaver is up to these days. It's a "serial thriller" called The Chopin Manuscript available only as downloadable audio from Audible.com.
Listen to this fun scenario: Deaver agreed to write an opening chapter establishing the characters and the premise of the story. He then passed it along to a "Murderers' Row" of 15 colleagues, including Lee Child (author of Bad Luck and Trouble featured in July 2007's SE), and Lisa Scottoline (author of Daddy's Girl in the upcoming November SE). Each wrote a successive chapter before sending it back to Deaver, who tied things up in the last two chapters. The fast-paced story moves between Poland, Rome, Washington and Baltimore with a plot that Deaver describes as "The Day of the Jackal meets The Da Vinci Code."
Narrated by actor Alfred Molina, The Chopin Manuscript's first three chapters will be available on Audible.com starting today. Audible will then add two downloadable chapters a week over the subsequent seven weeks. The entire price is $19.95. Click here to find out how easy it is to get started, to view exclusive interviews with the authors and to hear a free sample of Alfred Molina's compelling narration of the story.
Obviously, Audible.com is doing this to attract new customers to its site. It's also a great way to introduce people to the fun experience of enjoying a book via your ears rather than eyes. Nearly everyone on the Select Editions staff listens to audiobooks in their cars these days, with editor Tom Clemmons scoring bonus points because he uses his commuting time to listen to classics (many, many hours) which pays off for title selection for The World's Best Reading series.
It'll be many months before Deaver's serial story is published in hard copy (if ever), so we urge you to take the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone and get the latest entertainment from your favorite authors while trying out downloadable books.
We'll report back on how Audible's experiment worked out sometime after the final chapter is posted. And if you end up listening to The Chopin Manuscript yourself, let us know what you thought of it.
1 comment:
This serial thriller idea, with different authors writing different chapters, is really intriguing. I wonder, has this been done before?
I'd love to read something like that, partly to be able to compare the styles and approaches of the different authors.
Post a Comment