Networking: Picking the next Dickens

CHICAGO, May 15 (UPI) -- Charles Dickens serialized his novels -- "Oliver Twist, David Copperfield," amongst others -- in weekly newspapers and monthly magazines before they were published as books. Today, would-be novelists are publishing their fictional creations online on literary blogs dubbed "blooks" by the publishing industry, experts tell UPI's Networking. A new Dickens has yet to emerge, but, like so many things on the Internet these days, there is already an award for the best blooks, the so-called Blooker Prize, a pun on the name of the Booker Prize, the award for outstanding literary contributions in the United Kingdom, somewhat akin to the U.S. Pulitzer Prize.

One book, which began as a blogging item last September and is now emerging as a full-fledged book from DotHill press, is called "Hackoff.com: an Historic Murder Mystery Set in the Internet Bubble and Rubble." The blook is by Tom Evslin, a former AT&T executive and founder of the Internet telephony firm, ITXC Corp. By Gene Koprowski