The current
list of titles didn't have anything that particularly interesting, so I just went with
Oliver Twist, which I've never read.
Some observations:
- it can be a little non-obvious when a new installment is downloaded, depending on you organize the Home screen. I have mine in Recent sort, when a new installment shows up it will float to the top and clear the 'progress' marks (this is on KT or KPW).
- after a week or two, it can be a little difficult to pick up the story thread and remember what was going on.
- conversely, frustrating to wait for the next installment if you want to know what happens next.
- seems like the format limits the type of writing that can successfully sustain interest
- if you don't get in at the start of the serial, you have to read a whole bunch to get 'current'.
- once the serial is complete, there's no 'reset' button. Nobody gets to experience it as a serial any more.
- the discussion threads are quite dead, at least for Oliver Twist. I checked a few for the other titles, and they're pretty much the same.
I may have to purchase a 'real' serial just to get a better sense of things, but as a first impression, I don't see this generating a lot of excitement in its current form (beyond the initial announcement and pickup in blogs, etc.).
I would at a minimum set things up so that at the end of each installment, there's a link to the discussion for that installment. That would mean designing a web interface that functioned on Kindle devices, which I doubt Amazon is interested in doing right now.