If you’ve ever thought about writing a book, this is a great idea for writer’s block. In an unprecedented literary experiment, New York Times Best Selling author, Neil Gaiman, completely changed the way we tell stories by partnering with BBC Audiobooks America to co-author a book with…the Twitterverse. That’s right. Gaiman wrote the first line of the book that read:
“Sam was brushing her hair when the girl in the mirror put down the hairbrush, smiled, and said, "We don’t love you anymore."
After that, the story was fair game. Anybody and everybody who wanted to contribute by tweeting the subsequent lines could, and hundreds did. The story evolved from that one line into an elaborate fairytale about a young girl filled with magic, villains, you name it.
More than a hundred “twits” from at least six different countries made the cut as “authors” with Neil Gaiman tying everything together, and the story was finished in less than 10 days. The next step? The title. For that they turned to the Twitterverse again and decided on Hearts, Keys, and Puppetry.
The audiobook was officially released in December with and after much success, BBC Audiobooks America decided to try it again, this time with another New York Times bestselling author, Meg Cabot. The response this time was even more overwhelming. The final story was finished in late February, and as of today is still in the editing process. In the coming weeks, BBC Audiobooks America will turn to the Twitterverse again for a title and some artwork. After that, it will be available for download on iTunes for free.
In the meantime, you can follow BBC Audiobooks America on Twitter here and read their blog to see how the story evolved amidst all the tweets. Truly fascinating.