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ENTREPRENEUR'S NOVEL IDEA: SELL WORDS FOR $US1 EACH ON INTERNET
(New Zealand Press Association Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Wellington, July 6 NZPA - A student-turned-entrepreneur in New Zealand is selling words over the Internet -- and says it is such a novel concept he is charging $US1 each for them
Aditya Kesarcodi-Watson, 29, has launched a website, www.anovelmillion.com, and is encouraging people to choose words they want to see displayed on the website.
Once $US1 ($NZ1.67) has been paid for a word , it is incorporated in the novel.
``In this way, a constantly-evolving story is created by a multitude of people,'' he said in a statement.
``Anybody is capable of buying words for the website, and they will be credited as an author.''
There were ``a few small rules'' as to what could be written and these were positioned to ensure a readable story was created.
``People choose their words and email them to me, and I upload them to my website,'' he said.
Mr Kesarcodi-Watson, who is Australian-born, said he got the idea from Englishman Alex Tew, whose site, TheMillionDollarHomepage.com, sold a million pixels from his website for $US1 each.
``I realized for the first time that the Internet is a huge financial machine.
``Every day there are massive amounts of money up for grabs on the Internet for advertisers, companies and consumers alike.''
In addition to a million-word novel, the New Zealand website also lists a million-character story, which also requires cash contributions, but will be shorter.
Mr Kesarcodi-Watson, who gained a science degree in aquaculture in 1998, said he spent the next four years avoiding anything to do with science and instead travelled widely.
After time as a bartender in Europe and working on skifields in New Zealand and France, he spotted an advertisement for his current research project -- use of beneficial bacteria as an alternative to antibiotics in mussel farming -- while at the Remarkables ski field.
He is now mid-way through a PhD, which he said involved a lot of bacterial work, sleep deprivation, and intermittent periods of heavy brain usage.
When he first thought of the million-word novel in January, he worked on it for a week but had to stop to write a literature review and carry out experiments for his PhD.
In only its first week on the Internet, the site had received 9000 ``hits'' from Sweden, Israel, Greece, Turkey, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Denmark, and the USA.
He said ``authors'' would get a share in any future book royalties.
NZPA WGT kca cm
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