Novel version 1.0
Retired CEO Tom Evslin says Self Publish or Perish
Almost as soon as I retired as CEO of ITXC a year ago this summer, I began work on My Novel. It’s an historic murder mystery set in the first Internet bubble and rubble. I had a ringside seat in 1998-2003. It’s fun to tell the story. It’s more fun for me to do it in fiction than any other way. And the first draft of the book is done.
My Novel is going to appear first on the web. I’ve been in software so long that I’m gonna start with a beta release version 0.91 published on a blog engine. It’ll be free; you can subscribe to it; you can visit it online; you can file bug reports and feature requests; you can roast it in comments; and there’ll be other ways to interact online as well. The fictional company in the book will have a real website. That SHOULD all start in a month or two (hey, this IS like software).
I’ve got a silicon valley sci-fi novel in my desk drawer. This sounds like a good idea.
Of course there are always the mavericks who are ahead of the crowd.
[link thanks to Jeff Jarvis]