Sometimes the biggest advances come from a change in strategy.

Consuming life, one chunk at a time.

Our life is fragmented. Our attention span is short.

Our phones have become permanently attached, which means we are always accessible to the world, with tech (Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and email) just a tap away.

Life keeps us moving, pulling us this direction one minute, another direction the next, only leaving time to consume small, byte-size chunks of content.

That is the impetus for Crave, an app that chunks out books in 1000 word chapters/installments to better fit today’s short-attention-span life.

The idea is to make the story feel like is in unfolding in real time, and the words are sometimes interspersed with images, videos, and even text messages from the book’s hero or author.

Of course, right now Crave is solely focused on readers of the romance genre, but Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes has announced he will be starting a weekly serial novel, and graphic novelists have been publishing their installments for years.

There may be those that miss turning pages and bemoan the decline of long-form writing, but books aren’t going away anytime soon.

Meanwhile, by evolving to match the behavior of a greater audience, opening up the novel to people that might not otherwise take the time, authors and publishers may also breathe some life back into the genre.

So, the next time you are tempted to throw all the information you can at your members, think about how you can break it up into small, bite-sized pieces.

Sometimes the biggest advances come from a change in strategy.

Kent Dicken
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