This trend doesn’t surprise me at all. Think about how much of popular culture — especially when mediated through technology — is based on serialization. TV always has been, but there are many movies seem to be serialized more than ever (look at all the superhero sequels). Then there are all the various Web- and Phone- based serializations, such as Quarterlife, that have appeared in the past year or so.

Heck, even blogs are essentially serializations.

Combine that with the ever-shrinking attention spans of today’s readers, and what you get is a culture that responds to many linear things, taken in small chunks. Thus, the return of serialization of novels should come as no surprise.

Dang, I wish I could edit that comment. (I meant to say “movies seem to be serialized more than ever”)

Elmore Leonard also had a serialized story in the New York Times, “Comfort to the Enemy,” but he hasn’t spun it out into a novel.

They do mostly seem to be crime writers, though. Hmmmmm.

I’m an online novelist. Because I come from a younger generation, writing serial novels online makes sense to me. Competing in the print world is masochistic. I’d rather make serials based on the real-life adventures of my alter-ego, releasing them one week at a time. A lot more exciting for me and my readers.

This is old news in Asia, where serialized novels have become extremely popular on cellphones in China and Japan. Five of the ten top-selling print novels in Japan last year started out as cellphone serials.

Japan’s best-selling print novel last year was Mika’s “Love Sky” which was read by an estimated 20 million people on cellphones and computers before it was published as a book (and it is now a movie, too).

Cellphone serial novels have been around since about 2001 in Asia. Commuters love them and print publishers have a near-perfect predictor of sales before they go to press.