Launch of first cellphone serial novel: "The Adventures of Thomas Drimm" by Didier van Cauwelaert

Throughout the Book Festival, people living in and around Nice will be able to read—or listen to—a serial novel on their cellphone while traveling in transit systems, sitting at a sidewalk café or standing in line at their favorite fast-food outlet.

Ten episodes, five days a week and a competition to identify the editor(s) who wrote the first astounding episode of Season 2 of "The Adventures of Thomas Drimm," all right there on their cellphone!

Only authors can tell. In fact, that's one of the interesting points about this innovation: the size of the screen, the periodicity of episodes and the very object toward which everything converges will all no doubt have an effect on the writer. On the other hand, it would appear to be impossible to transfer just any "hard copy novel" onto a cellphone, even if divided into chapters. But, in the words of Didier van Cauwelaert, the first author published by SmartNovel: "My job as a storyteller is, first and foremost, to take readers down unexpected paths."

Veolia Transport is developing innovative services on cellphones to make journeys easier. To that end, Veolia is a partner in Nice's "contactless cellphone" or Near Field Communication (NFC) program promoted by the Nice municipality and Nice Côte d'Azur local authority. In the spring of 2010, the Ligne d'Azur transit system operated by ST2N Veolia Transport will provide a range of services—such as passenger information, and ticket purchase and validation—to owners of NFC cellphones distributed by France's three operators, Bouygues Telecom, Orange and SFR. Veolia Transport is seizing the opportunity offered by the Nice Book Festival to provide passengers on Nice Côte d'Azur transit systems and people living in the Alpes Maritimes area, irrespective of their cellphone operator, a few moments of culture and relaxation to make their light rail, bus, coach or Pignes train journey more pleasant.

Through this project, SFR is upholding its promise to democratize mobile Internet usage by offering its customers the first cellphone serial novel. Thanks to the Java application developed by SFR, the novel will be available to as many people as possible, no matter what generation phone they use to read it.

SmartNovel, a recently created digital publishing company, is launching a collection of serial novels to be read on cellphones: completely new works written specifically for the medium by contemporary authors. It is thus using new technologies to serve a literary tradition. Never before has a serial novel been made available to readers on their cellphone. The cellphone serial novel is the modern version of a tradition that started in nineteenth century France when the serial novels of Alexandre Dumas and Eugène Sue boosted circulation of daily newspapers of that period.