Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell is the latest to announce she is teaming with Email Shows to deliver original stories to subscribers via their electronic mail.
Author of both the original New York Observer column and book Sex and the City – spun off into the popular HBO TV series of the same name – Bushnell's Email Shows project is tentatively titled "The Morning After."
Deborah Davis, vice president of production at Email Shows, said Bushnell's notoriously dishy writing style was considered a perfect match for the medium of email literature because it provides a voyeuristic reading experience.
"In fact, when we were founding the company, we would tell people that our ideal shows would have the confessional, saucy, and snappy feel of Sex and the City – and this was before we had ever met Candace," said Davis. "Her book was so confessional, and made people want to read and read."
The Bushnell email project is in its embryonic stages, but don't expect to be reading about the sexcapades of Carrie, Samantha, Mr. Big, or any other characters from Sex and the City.
The Bushnell "show" will consist of emails written by Bushnell and her manager, Clifford Streit, who will write about their lives.
Streit was involved in Email Shows' most visible production to date, "American Psycho 2000," which was commissioned by Lions Gate Films.
It was intended as a promotional vehicle for the film American Psycho, based on the infamous Bret Easton Ellis 1980s-period novel about a serial-killing yuppie who engages in carnage while wearing expensive designer duds.
The Email Shows "e-quel," the term the company uses to describe its productions that complement a film, consists of notes by American Psycho's protagonist, Patrick Bateman, who is alive and well in the year 2000 with a new career as a dot com mogul.
Streit, who served as a producer on the film, penned the emails that were delivered into subscribers' inboxes. Ellis played an advisory role. Over 45,000 subscribers signed up to receive "American Psycho 2000" emails. Some even wrote back.
"The fictional Patrick Bateman received marriage proposals and was asked for advice on what to wear on casual Fridays," said Davis.
Although the Email Shows website is bare bones – consisting of text and still images, corporate information, and directions for subscribing, the company has still been able to entice famous writers to participate.
"The medium of email is all about writing stories in an old-fashioned way. The first novel ever published, Pamela, by Samuel Richardson, consisted of correspondence between characters," said Davis, a former story analyst for Miramax, Disney, Universal, and Warner Brothers.
"I think writers like Bushnell want to get involved not because it's a chance to join the Internet parade, but because writing these email stories are a challenging form," Davis said.
Some critics agree that delivering fiction via email is an intriguing idea. "Since email and listserves are the only successful push media so far, www.emailshows.com may be able to tap into the pleasure of anticipation. When stories evolve on a set schedule, it can be more exciting than having them arrive in one big lump," Peter Lunenfeld, author of Snap to Grid: A User's Guide to Digital Arts, Media, and Cultures said.
"In the late 19th century, there were frenzies at the docks of New York every time the latest installments of Dickens novels were scheduled to be unloaded from English ships," Lunenfeld said.
So far, most of Email Shows' projects seem to be connected to public relations. Besides the "American Psycho 2000" e-quel, Email Shows was commissioned to produce a similar promotional project to accompany the film Beyond the Mat, a wrestling documentary.
"Email Shows seems to have pretty limited literary ambitions. Both 'Am.Psycho.2000' and Candace Bushnell's 'The Morning After' are ancillary marketing devices, and the rest of the line-up doesn't seem much more inspired," said Lunenfeld. "No matter how it's delivered technologically, that's not literature, just the mediated narcissism of celebutantes. My in-box is full enough already."
Over the next six months, the company plans to add 18 programs for its subscribers. The subject matter will range from cooking to travel.
For example, on July 1, "Wish You Were Here" is expected to launch. It consists of correspondence between travel writers with tips on hotspots. And on July 15, "Word of Mouth" debuts, which Davis describes as "Friends with food." The emails will feature attachments with recipes to download.
And the Email Shows concept isn't the first time a story has evolved over emails sent to the curious.
Calvin Klein launched an advertising campaign in 1998 featuring email addresses of fictional characters played by models in its print and television ads for the designer's CK line.
Anyone sending emails to the characters receive responses penned by an advertising executive which, collectively, formed a narrative. And two British Web designers launched an email murder mystery in 1999, entitled "Two Minutes."
Email Shows is attempting to set itself apart from other email-based stories by hooking up with authors and, often, creating new stories based on older source material.
"There will be definite spin-offs," said Davis. "Streit is already pitching 'American Psycho 2000' as a potential TV show. Some of these projects can turn into books, too."
