Before this week I’d never really heard much about DailyLit, a site that Emails you books in short, easily-consumable chunks. But after a few days of receiving The Count of Monte Cristo in my Email inbox every morning, I think I may be hooked – these serialized novels couldn’t be more perfect for a 10 minute coffee break or waiting at the bus stop.
To use the site, you choose a novel from DailyLit’s catalog of over 1300 novels, many of which are free. Each book is broken up into dozens (or hundreds, depending on the length) of installments, each of which is supposed to take around 5 minutes to read. You can tell the site exactly what time you’d like to receive each update, which can be sent either via Email or in an RSS feed, and how many chunks you’d like to receive at a time. And if you just can’t wait to see what happens next, you can also immediately download the next section of a book using a link at the bottom of every Email.
DailyLit has also recently launched public reading groups, which broadcast links to the current segment over Twitter. Because the books are being sent over Email, they can be read from nearly any mobile device with a dataplan. My only gripe with the service is that there seem to be few current bestsellers, which means you’ll need to look elsewhere for more recent novels.
Of course, with the growing popularity of Ebook readers like the Kindle and books on the iPhone App Store, DailyLit may seem pointless – why chop a book up when you can download the entire thing at once? But there’s something about receiving stories in these bite sized chunks that make them much more appealing – reading a 400 page novel on my iPhone’s 3.5 inch screen has always seemed like a daunting (and painful) endeavor, but when it’s only for a few minutes at a time, it couldn’t be any more convenient.
Thanks to Christian Bogeberg for the tip.
Great idea. Just signed up.
Here comes http://www.twitlit.com … Arrington, start writing that article now!
You should really look at the ads network solutions is putting on your parked page:
“Find the Twits in the yellow pages”
I’m not kidding
We like!
One of those sites you see and think “Wish I’d thought of that.”
This is simply brilliant. In the Age of Anxiety, where no one can focus on any one thing for very long, I think we may need this kind of outside helper for our reading lives.
A good program!
NS
http://scienced....wordpress.com/
the concept would also work great with iphone app or other platform
I love and hate the idea.
It seems having the full text available gives you the freedom to read as much as you want at any given time, but being constantly reminded and having a set time everyday would make is more likely to actually finish the book.
More spam?
I guess they are going to share only the sample of the new release books and generate revenue from the publishers.
I would just read physical books.
Thanks for the shout out Jason.
I found this site on a Peek “Performance” Blog while exploring ways to make the simple email machine achieve its potential.
Currently reading Walden Pond.
dude, THANK YOU – you just **made my day** – i had not heard of this site before, not sure how i missed it, but it is awesome, they have some amazing books on there and hte model is brilliant – i love to have a couple of books going at once, and this will let me add in re-reads of classics like sherlock holmes…sweet…
This is the kind of site find that can change your life.
Curtis
http://shipitontheside.com – build profitable software as a side job.
This is a great idea. I read about this site and the founders in Costco sales magazine (I read anything
. This is definitely a simple and brilliant idea and site.
As the earlier commenter said, “why did I not think of this?”
Neat idea
Jason
This is a quite a useful service but been around for a while now. A early review[1] of mine covers it.
In my long use I find that one quickly tires of the list of books provided by them. What would be cool is if we could upload our docs and have it split and sent out in byte sized chunks. Of course this should ensure the content is not shared with anybody else due to privacy concerns.
forgot the link…
http://maheshcr...orms-wet-dream/
Very nice idea! This really get me (i.e. non-hardcore book reader) to read few books
I think its really good for those who absolutely hate reading, like myself. If its in bite size, its something I should be able to digest.
Good idea. Where’s the business?
Ads? Subscriptions?
Haven’t you been to the site? There are already books you have to pay for.
looks like a handful service.. i ll give it a try.. thanks for the review..
This reminds me of newspapers in Japan publishing serialized versions of novels. The Nikkei — basically the Wall Street Journal of Japan — is a business and economics newspaper, but is famous for always having a popular novelist first produce their serialized installments in the Culture section and then pulling them together later in book form. This fall it was Kenzo Kitakata, a big name in Japanese fiction, just as one example.
This isn’t a new promotion technique. Dickens, of course, in the 1800s, and many other English and American novelists were published this way.
My one question: If the pervading online ethos is “free,” can teaser snippets attract people to buy? I’m likely to try out DailyLit, but I’m not sure if I’m willing to pay. What is DailyLit doing to address this?
Good question. We offer many of our books entirely for free so folks have a chance to try out the service before they buy a book.
We’ve also recently launched a sponsorship program that allows us to make books that would normally be paid available for free. For instance, right now, thanks to the sponsorship of H.Stern, the book “This Moment on Earth: Today’s New Environmentalists and Their Vision for The Future” is available entirely for free (normally it costs $9.95).
Happy reading!
Maggie Hilliard
DailyLit
I’ve used DailyLit for a couple of years. Using the service I’ve read books that I never would have picked up otherwise, such as The Art of War. You’re right, broken into short segments, the books make a great break in the day. For me there’s the added bonus of avoiding my country’s censors.
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Keep up the great work – excitement renewed.
http://yiyd.com
If you want to try out some open education courses via a daily feed, check out http://learningfeed.org – it is starting to publish courses from the Open University OpenLearn project via daily feeds – so you can study a course a small piece at a time, each piece arriving according to a daily schedule through your RSS feed.
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