Authors and publishing houses have struggled for decades to find audiences for short stories - so much so that many now avoid the literary form altogether. The industry's unease with short fiction was made evident in 2008, when Atlantic Books attempted to market the Man Booker Prize winner Aravind Adiga's Between the Assassination, the follow-up to White Tiger, not as a collection of stories, but as a novel.
This could all be about to change, however. Two new publishing companies have come up with very different ways of attempting to lure literature fans back to short fiction. Ether Books, which launched at the London Book Fair in April, now allows readers to purchase more than 200 works to read on the go through its iPhone App (an iPad App is coming soon). The publisher is able to offer short fiction from the likes of Hilary Mantel, Alexander McCall Smith and Lionel Shriver for as little as 50p (Dh3) by bypassing publishers and talking directly to authors.
Meanwhile, in an act of bold defiance against digital media, another new UK publisher Underwood, has begun releasing short stories on vinyl records. The company has just completed its first print of 33rpm "literary journals" - each side features a writer reading their own 20-minute story aloud. Underwood plans to issue two new albums each year - the first features specially written works by Clare Wigfall and Toby Litt and a record sleeve designed by the American comic-book illustrator Jordan Crane.
Ether Books' free to download App will come with six classic stories, now in the public domain, from the likes of Bram Stoker, Thomas Hardy and Arthur Conan Doyle, with new works by well-known authors added every month. The company hopes the appication will be popular with commuters and other time-poor literature lovers. While Ether hopes technology will bring about a renaissance in short fiction for the masses, Underwood's founder Nathan Dunne believes that laptops, electronic reading devices and smart phones are not the answer.
"The MP3 has an alien digital gloss. It's streamlined, corporate, like a mainline train station. Listening to a short story on vinyl is the purest antidote to that. It's more immersive. It heightens engagement," he told the Daily Telegraph. "When I was growing up there were labels that brought out records of writers speaking. When James Joyce was reading aloud from Finnegans Wake it was like reggae to me; I didn't understand half of what he was saying, but it had a lyrical and a melodic quality that absolutely made sense."
Dunne claims to have been reminded of what's been lost in the digital age while stranded in a Bangkok airport and seeing a fellow traveller carrying a portable gramophone and a bag full of old records. Although it's difficult to fault his intentions, Underwood's experiment is unlikely to have a large effect on the literary world. As well as the fact that few homes now have record players, the publisher plans to limit the twice-yearly releases to just 1,000 copies each. Ether's short story App is far more likely to influence the way people read, simply because there are no limits on the number of people who can download each story.
What's more, Ether is not the only company that is convinced there is a market for short fiction. The US publisher Orbit Books also plans to release digital editions of its short stories later this year. Each will be sold for $1.99 (Dh7) and made available on a wide range of electronic reading devices. While it's too early to tell whether either of these ideas will breathe new life into short fiction - or whether they will be successful at all - existing fans of the literary form will have cause to celebrate.
For more about Ether and Underwood, see www.etherbooks.co.uk and www.underwoodstories.com
