How Alexander McCall Smith made an old fashioned literary format an award-winning formula.

‘Bags of warmth and wisdom and easy, accomplished writing that begs for a comfy chair and a supersize cocoa.’ – The Times

In 2009, following the success of his first serial novel in The Scotsman newspaper, 44 Scotland Street, Alexander McCall Smith embarked on a project to write a novel online and over a period of five months wrote daily ‘chunks’ of a new novel set in London for the website of the Daily Telegraph.

Writing online gave readers around the world immediate access to the new work of one of their favourite authors. Through the website, Twitter and Facebook, Alexander also engaged directly with his readers, inviting them to comment and offer suggestions for the development of the characters as the novel progressed. Readers could read the episodes online or download to their iPhones or iPads. They could also download audio chapters, recorded in the wonderful voice of Andrew Sachs. And twenty weeks after the online daily episodes started to appear, readers also had the opportunity to buy the book in traditional hardback and audiobook forms. Now that book is available as a paperback, and e-book.

This innovative new style of writing and publishing – supported by the Daily Telegraph, by publishers Polygon and Little, Brown and by retailers including Waterstone’s, Blackwell and Amazon – captured the imagination of readers across the globe and soon it was attracting the attention of the world’s media too, winning two prestigious awards – Media category at the New Media Age (NMA) Effectiveness Awards 2009 and Association of Online Publishers award for a cross-media project. The NMA judges noted, “It was a UK first in online book writing, and was very well executed and innovative in terms of consumer engagement.”

And yet, for all the new media and hi-tech methods employed in publishing and promoting this novel, in the words of Florence Waters from the Telegraph “the creative personality behind them, and the community which has sustained them, has led us towards a revival of the serial novel in its oldest and most British sense”.

A further two volumes in this new Corduroy Mansions series have now appeared online and are now available in book form, The Dog Who Came in From the Cold and A Conspiracy of Friends.