Tag Archives: Linda Wright

Serials in the 21st Century

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Keep Your Eye on AmandaThe first serial I wrote was Keep Your Eye on Amanda. Chapter 1 appeared in the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph on October 3, 1996. Readers loved it. Authors found new readers. (I recall riding a NY subway, watching an old man read a chapter of The Secret School in the NY Post.) Other newspapers joined in. Readers clamored for it. Teachers used it in classes, grandparents shared it with distant grandchildren. 

Though I remained the nominal head of the company, Linda Wright took it over, transforming it into a unique publishing venture. The name Breakfast Serials was introduced. Other authors joined in. Katherine Paterson. Linda Sue Park. Joseph Bruchac, among others. Illustrators Brian Floca, Emily Arnold McCully, Timothy Bush. 

Under Ms. Wright, the growth of Breakfast Serials was extraordinary, eventually reaching a circulation figure of thirty-three million! It probably became—in terms of readers—the biggest publisher in the world. All, as it were, beneath the radar. But just as Breakfast Serials expanded around the world, the US press—under the internet onslaught—virtually tanked. What to do?

Instant Serials

Ms. Wright regrouped and has now invented a way to make serialization available online, as Instant Serials. Here, terrific stories and great art are available in serialized form, along with a means of chatting (online, with no smack talk) about the stories. The reader (parent, grandparent, and teacher) sets the release dates of successive chapters. Which means readers will still have to laugh, cry, and wait … a little. Quite amazing.

My First Reader

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Who is the first reader of my books? My wife, Linda. (I read somewhere that Madeleine L’Engle had her husband read her books to her. Now that took courage!) Sometimes Linda is willing to let me read the book to her. Patient soul. Or she reads the book on her own, and I wait nervously. She is a very tough, but good critic. Once, famously (in this house anyway), she said, “Avi, this is unreadable.” She can be generous in her praise, and over the years has had far more positive (and useful) things to say than negative (including suggestions as to how to make that unreadable book become published successfully). It does not hurt that she is a publisher and good reader in her own right. My own rule about early readers (I have a couple of friends with whom I sometimes share early drafts) is never to argue or debate. Just listen. Nine times out of ten, early readers articulate something of which I am vaguely aware, but have not pinned down. More to the point, an outside perspective is crucial to the process. Enter the editor—of which more later.