Hacker News Reader

it probably works better at the granularity of "chapter" instead of "novel".

I disagree. I don't even want to start the thing if I don't know that there is an ending. If I buy a couple of chapters and then it peters out, I'm cheated out of my ending.

Also, I'd want the writer to produce a complete book. I imagine that sometimes developments in later chapters will force some revision to the earlier ones, as plot lines are fleshed out. Releasing a chapter at a time won't allow that.

Many of Charles Dickens' works were written in this way. They were published in periodicals and magazines, and he would normally be writing them as they were being published, rather than writing the whole book first.

Where the first chapter is free, so you can decide if you want to pay to get sucked further in.

Serialized works used to be one of the ways periodicals attracted readers (and advertisers).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com