The first Blackwater book? Is it sold out. I won't get any more until next week,” laments a Paseo de Gràcia bookseller to a buyer who is already on her third establishment that gives her a negative response. “I can reserve the next deliveries for you,” she offers in return. “What if I don't like the story? Well, okay, sign me up,” she accepts, resigned, for fear that the same thing will happen to her again in two weeks, when a new book is scheduled to come out. The saga of Michael McDowell (1950-1999), which was a publishing phenomenon in the eighties in the United States and which now, more than four decades later, is repeating its success in Spain with the help of the independent Barcelona-based Blackie Books, poses a possible future editorial still up in the air: are serial novels or serials coming back into fashion?
It is not strange to suggest this hypothetical scenario in view of the stellar figures achieved with this matriarchal saga with overtones of horror set in Alabama in the first half of the century, since more than 50,000 copies have been sold in six weeks and they have been sneaking into the the first positions in the ranking of best-selling books in Catalonia, published by the Gremi d'Editors. “The novelty of the serial release, in the manner of serials from the 19th century, seems to be anticipating the success of today's series,” reflects Jan Martí, editor and co-founder of Blackie: “As soon as we read the saga, we were amazed. and we were lucky to be able to contract their rights right away.”
Darío Madrona, screenwriter of successful series such as Élite or Los proteges, also sees common points between both formats, since “now there are many miniseries that are like novels. They have several chapters, but you can watch them all at once on the same day, like a book, and they tell a closed story.” What is essential for both to work? “A story and characters that engage and that you want to know more about, in addition to each chapter ending on a high note with a cliffhanger, a suspenseful ending.” If all of this is true, and if serialized literature really ends up occupying a place in bookstores again in the coming years, Madrona is convinced that these would make the work of scriptwriters who try to adapt them to audiovisuals easier "because they have a similar architecture." ”.
Beyond this serial dynamic shared with the small screen, the success of this type of newsstand literature – which is now found in bookstores – is due to the adjusted price, which in the case of Blackwater does not reach ten euros; by word of mouth; and in-person and virtual reading clubs. For the latter, the Telegram messaging platform has become popular, where you can find different groups that invite you to comment on novels, rescue classics or download specific chapters of readings. Also, of course, to comment on Blackwater in a group that far exceeds 200 users and in which interaction skyrockets when a new installment comes out.
The striking covers, the work of Madrid illustrator Pedro Oyarbide, who was already in charge of the French edition, are one of the first things to analyze. Editors signed him after learning about his international poker decks, and since he immersed himself in this project, his popularity has tripled. “The covers are an eye-catcher on any news table. That was one of the objectives. But, beyond aesthetics, they are full of details that readers will be able to identify and that I was able to include because I was allowed to read the books before illustrating them. It is not something common,” he confesses to La Vanguardia by phone.
“This edition catches the eye and, indeed, the first thing I noticed, and surely other content creators, were the covers, which make the product something striking,” says Roy, who in his Tiktok @gato_de_biblioteca talks about McDowell in a video that has more than 75,600 views, in which he admits to having been “confused” because, until he bought them, “he didn't know what they were about. I spent fifteen days looking at these books and no one could give a synopsis. Because they are so beautiful, the publisher sends them to many influencers, but since they don't read them, they don't know how to say what they are about,” he laments.
The aesthetics, “but above all the size and price,” is something that Heme Brazo, editor of Proyecto Estefanía, also takes into account, an independent label whose motto is to offer the reader “high newsstand literature.” To do this, he has created his own collections of noir, science fiction, and westerns. Without counting The Green Mile, Stephen King's novel published in six volumes in the 1990s – and inspired by McDowell, of whom he declared himself a great admirer – right now his collection of Western novels is one of the few literature options for deliveries that is on the market, although he is sure that “sooner rather than later, this will change throughout this year and in the coming years. "I can't predict the future, but everything points to it."
The furor unleashed since Blackie Books put this proposal on the table has made more curious people interested in Brazo's novels, each written by different authors. “It all started as a joke between friends and now we have dozens of books published. The next one will leave now for Sant Jordi. The first ones were written by a friend, my ex-partner and I. And, as we gained notoriety and people got to know us, we invited different writers to continue, respecting the same characters. It is the same story written in different hands, each one in a different volume. “Each new author has to pick up where the previous one left off.”
Brazo has a romantic vision of serial literature that he defends tooth and nail and that, he assures, is “a declaration of principles. We are not going to sell our books on the web because the beauty of all this imagery is that people interact with the bookseller or newsstand, as was done at the time when Marcial Lafuente Estefanía's books were distributed." Precisely, it is this author who names the project as a tribute. “He was one of the greatest exponents of the popular Spanish novel with his Western comics and his pocket books –about 2,600–, published by the Bruguera publishing house.”
He was not the only writer who brought literature to the common people and who helped shape reading habits in Spain and part of Latin America, since Francisco González Ledesma also contributed under the pseudonym Silver Kane, who published a western novel for a time. almost weekly; or Corín Tellado, who in 1962 UNESCO declared her the most read Spanish writer after Miguel de Cervantes and who in 1994 appeared in the Guinness Book of Records for having sold more than 400,000,000 copies of her novels. Figures surpassed a long time ago since many of his works continued to be republished in digital format.
The Internet is where the concept of serialized stories has proliferated the most in recent years, with Wattpad being the platform par excellence for online serialized literature, since the writer publishes his novels in parts and does not usually continue them if he does not have interaction. The portal is one of the sources of the best-sellers of current youth literature, since authors such as Ariana Godoy, Álex Mírez, Joana Marcús or Eva Muñoz have come from there, although it is true that, when their books have become physical, for As a general rule, they have done it in a single volume.
The professor and writer Rosa Amor del Olmo, an expert on Benito Pérez Galdós, another of the writers who cultivated the serial novel, is also a participant in online literature. “I publish novels in parts in the digital newspaper El Obrero. I've been there for about five and I'm about to start another one soon,” she tells this newspaper.
Far from what many may think, the stories published on the Internet, despite its immensity, do not tend to be forgotten if there is good promotion since, "it is easy for them to reach more people," Amor recalls, which reveals that several of its plots have already made the leap to the screen. “I started with one called La Causa and a movie is going to be made soon. And now we are in negotiations with some producers in Euskadi so that Samir, another of my online serial books, which has already been printed in Spanish, French and, shortly, in Arabic, becomes a series.”
Amor also believes in the synergy between audiovisual and literature and does not rule out that the massive emergence of series in recent times, and the increasingly growing consumption of these, especially after the pandemic, may have influenced the return of this dynamic by installments. , which was never considered completely gone, but rather "transformed" after the appearance, first of the radio, with the famous radio soap operas, "which you also had to wait for the following day or week to find out the continuation"; comics and fanzines; and, years later, the internet.
Are serials coming back in printed format now? “This will be decided by the authors and the publishing sector itself. What I can say is that, with Blackwater, every Wednesday that the book comes out we have 15 or 20 people who come to buy their copy, so I wouldn't find it so strange if new proposals emerged," concludes Antonio Torrubia from the Gigamesh bookstore. .
