Instagram users typically use news report to share exposure of their friends , favorite , and vacations , but the New York Public Library ( NYPL ) had a different idea for the political platform in 2018 . What if it used Stories to share existent fib ? People who associate societal media with short attention twosome may have had their doubt , but the library proved them wrong . Its labor , titled Insta Novels , has attracted more than 300,000 readers , Fast Companyreports .

TheNYPLfirst experiment with print the full texts of public domain books in August of last twelvemonth . It knew that merely replicate and pasting the words would n’t be enough to grab its follower ' tending . To win over people to tap to the next slide , it had to take vantage of the program ’s strong suit and make an appealing recitation experience .

The result was Insta Novels . Every Good Book share in the NYPL ’s Instagram Stories was redesign specially for the app . The first slide is an exclusive " cover " representative that tempt users to translate on . The literal " pages " features words in a pleasant font ( Georgia ) against a cream - colored background signal that ’s easier on the eyes than manifestly snowy . There ’s an even a " thumb rest " in the bottom - good turning point of the slide where users can hold the screen until they ’re ready to move on to the next page . Subtle spiritedness added at the outset of fresh chapters and throughout the text bring the stories to life in a way that schematic ink - and - paper books can not .

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So far , the NYPL has partake Lewis Carroll’sAlice ’s Adventures inWonderland , Charlotte Perkins Gilman’sThe Yellow Wallpaper , Edgar Allan Poe’sThe Raven , Franz Kafka’sThe Metamorphosis , and Charles Dickens’sA Christmas Carolthrough Instagram Stories . The experimentation was a succeeder : Throughout the last one-half of 2018 , hundreds of G of followers consider the slides .

The Insta Novels have been absent from the NYPL ’s Stories in 2019 , but the library tellsFast Companythat it hopes to continue the project . While you ’re waiting for more literature in your Instagram feed , break outthese appsdesigned to make your earpiece time more productive .

[ h / tFast Company ]