founder of Waterstones to launch Spotify for books
literature correspondent,London(weastar times/telegraph):::
Tim Waterstone is to launch a new digital books business which aims to become the literary version of Spotify, charging readers a flat rate to access as much reading matter as they like online.
The project, Read Petite, will specialise in short stories and serialisations, following in the tradition of 19th Century novelists like Dickens, creator of Oliver Twist, and Vanity Fair author Anthony Trollope, who used to publish their novels chapter by chapter in newspapers and magazines.
Short stories have traditionally been very difficult to sell in paper form, but Mr Waterstone said they would be suited to commuters and other time-pressed bibliophiles.
“It worked for Dickens and it worked for us. If you are going to read on a laptop, or a smartphone or a tablet, [a short story] is about as much as you want,” Mr Waterstone told our correspondent. “This is not slush pile publishing. There is an absolutely staggering treasure trove [of material] available.”
Read Petite will only publish works by authors who have already been picked up by traditional publishing house, although the material itself might be unpublished. Mr Waterstone said it has already unearthed little-known works by Brighton Rock author Graham Greene and Aldous Huxley, best known for his portrayal of a dystopian future in Brave New World.
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