You won’t find the latest Michael Crichton, Dan Brown, J.K. Rowling, or John Grisham book on these websites, but you might find the next blockbuster novel author.
As the internet becomes increasingly commercialized, something for nothing becomes increasingly rare. You can, however, find really interesting new stories and even whole novels to read online. Personally, I never posted my forthcoming novel, RABID (available from your local bookseller in two weeks!) on one of these sites, but there are fascinating reads out there that may be the next blockbuster, or they may be too over-the-edge to ever be published by the gun-shy publishing industry.
The Next Big Writer is a professional site dedicated to a dynamic writing community. The fee to participate as a writer is $39.95 per year, but reading and critiquing are free. You can read entire novels, short stories, or poems. They have dynamic rankings that display the most-read and highest-ranked writers and pieces on the site, so you know what might be interesting to read. This place has some interesting writers on it, and quite a few of them are winning publishing contracts. Reading here is like watching the preview cut of a movie as a test audience.
One of the most bizarre websites on the net is Fanfiction.net. These short stories to novel-length works are all sequels, prequels, and add-ons to works created by other authors. If you like particular characters, you can revisit them in other fans’ imaginations. In addition to almost 290,000 works inspired by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Saga, there are 10 works connected to Flatland, 7691 related to Phantom of the Opera, 202 conspiracies like The Da Vinci Code, 59 F. Scott Fitzgerald imposters, 247 V.C. Andrews fans who are playing in her attic, 27 Miles Vorkosigan adventures, 33 fiery Crucible stories, 212 Sisterhoods of the Traveling Pants, and 586 Janites who have whipped up their best sensible and prideful stories in the Jane Austen persuasion. In addition to books, this website has stories connected to games, cartoons, movies, anime, and TV shows (2601 for Grey’s Anatomy, 376 about the further adventures of Will and Grace, 140 about 21 Jump Street, 496 Heroes, 678 Queer As Folk, 5309 The O.C., 79 Ally McBeal, 2007 Battlestar Galactica stories, 29 I Love Lucy, and 3090 Friends.) It’s interesting.
If you want to try on a book for size before you buy it, some publishers like Kunati allow you to download and read the first chapter or so of their books for free. It’s like test driving a novel. Read the first chapters of eight great books here.
TK Kenyon, Author of RABID: A Novel, Coming in April, 2007
