Chris Katsaropoulos started writing his novel, Fragile, four years ago – long before Twitter took over the social-media landscape. But he felt the ‘broken’ format of the story, which delivers the thoughts of three characters in fragmented bits, lent itself well to the new medium.
Two weeks before the book’s launch last month, Katsaropoulos, aka @fragileck, began tweeting his novel. He believes the style of the novel is a neat parallel with status updates. ‘You get these little fragments, sometimes out of context, but they have meaning,’ Katsaropoulos, who has a background in publishing and editing, told MiC.
To date he’s gathered more than 750 followers, with the book and twitter page promoted through PR initiatives, Twitter viral methods and the publisher’s website. With the recent launches of e-books and mobile readers like Kindle and Sony Reader, he says ‘I think it’s just a taste of what’s to come.’
Katsaropoulos has tweeted about two-thirds of the book already, and will start from the beginning when he’s finished, he said. ‘I’ve always been excited about new ways to get a book out to an audience and I think this is just another way to do that.’
