It's a blog It's a novel It's both

The other day I was leafing through my novel, as I do weekly, to prove to myself the book exists. Not for the first time did I note the layout. It’s an attempt to look bloglike. Each postings begins with a Thinks Out Loud banner and a headline in bold, an entry number, and the posting’s date. Then comes the content followed by the bloglike View Comments section.

See the blog. Since I know the book’s contents forwards and backwards (forwords and backwords?), I take the design for granted, now. However, if I were a browser in a bookstore and came across the book with its mysterious cover art—a tropical leafy creature’s head/mask with a robed body—and I opened to a random page, I would not see a traditional layout of most novels—lots of words, lots of paragraphs, maybe a chapter title. Instead, would I experience some level of confusion, especially if I were unaware of the blog nature of the novel? Would I have the patience to try and read the opening pages?

Because I am one with the book, I experience a version of the curse of knowledge. It’s a tendency to assume that others have the perspective to understand what I now take for granted. They wouldn’t.

Even if that bookstore browser reads the back cover copy, and even though the blogging concept is explicitly stated, there is no indication that between the covers lies a book with a unique design that attempts to recreate the blog experience in blog form.

Some readers have said it doesn’t take long to get into the blog rhythm of the book—10 to 15 pages. But what if a reader is impatient and exits the book after trying to work through only one or two postings? I guess that’s the chance I’m taking.

Here's how a typical posting looks:

Posting section that includes the posting’s heading, title, and the content

SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT THE BOOK AND AMAZON: If you order Thinks Out Loud from Amazon Prime, you will be receiving an older version that is out of date and whose printing is lighter than the current edition. If on Amazon, order from the Thinks Out Loud seller option which will be the newer better print version. You can also order the newer version directly from the publisher via this website, thinksoutloud.com, or from your local bookstore, which will either have the book in stock or available via a quick special order from Ingram, the wholesaler.

To Read or Not To Read, Part 2, or How to Read

Oh, another idea. Different subject. . .As I was thinking about my friend’s non-read, I came up with an idea, a way of reading Thinks Out Loud that might just make it easier to keep going. Here it is: Read only the blog postings for each day per day. That is, if there are one or two postings on October 27 (Lunch at the Lagoon and Trying to Focus), just read those two that day.

While the entire read would take many times longer than ‘normal,’ the rhythm would duplicate what it would be like to be reading a blog whose postings are one or two at a time.

Note: In the nineteenth century, novelists like Dickens would publish their works by chapters in magazines, so that readers would have to wait for the next installment. (Dickens was also writing madly to meet deadlines.) The delay helped to build suspense and wonder about what’s would be coming next. Any takers? If anyone does decide to read TOL in this manner, I’d love to hear what the experience is like.

SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT THE BOOK AND AMAZON: If you order Thinks Out Loud from Amazon Prime, you will be receiving an older version that is out of date and whose printing is lighter than the current edition. If on Amazon, order from the Thinks Out Loud seller option which will be the newer better print version. You can also order the newer version directly from the publisher via this website, thinksoutloud.com, or from your local bookstore, which will either have the book in stock or available via a quick special order from Ingram, the wholesaler.