Using Facebook To Reach Readers

Necessity is the mother of invention, the old saying goes. But boredom and the desire to experiment are powerful forces too, says Canadian author Michael Winter. That’s how he came up with the idea to “serialize” his latest novel on Facebook, the hot social-networking site.

“I look at the whole book-publishing and promotion-of-books process as pretty boring,” the British-born author says with a laugh from his home in Newfoundland. “And I’m always game to do anything different to promote the book.”

Over drinks one night, Winter and Penguin Canada publicist Stephen Myers came up with the idea of using Facebook to create an online community around Winter’s new novel, The Architects Are Here. For the past several weeks, the author has been posting a short synopsis of each chapter every few days on