Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
For the most part, novels appeared first in magazines from the 50's through the 70's, thus shorter books were preferred. That's how most authors got paid back then. The actual book sales were fairly small for anyone other than a major author.
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Interestingly, though, magazine or "serial" publication was also the norm for 19th century novels, and this was precisely the reason that many of them were so long: keeping them going was a money-spinner for both the author and the publisher. Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope and Thomas Hardy all published their novels first in magazines, while on the other side of the Atlantic, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry James did the same. One of the most extreme examples is "The Count of Monte Cristo", which Alexandre Dumas stretched out to 139 episodes!
One of the advantages of serial publication was that an author could change the direction the story was taking in response to public reaction as the serial was being published. Dickens did this a lot.