Alderman is Atwood’s “protégé” through watchmaker Rolex’s mentor program. The women wrote alternating chapters of the zombie serial via email. While the entire serial is already written, Wattpad says Atwood and Alderman may change it based on online requests and reader feedback. (Similarly, Amazon is eliciting reader feedback on its Kindle Serials.)

The main difference between Wattpad’s serial and Kindle Serials is the price: Wattpad’s is free, Kindle Serials are $1.99 (for now; the price is supposed to rise). The Kindle Serials program, while new, is also more fully fledged and Amazon is conceiving of it as some kind of money maker, while Wattpad’s approach seems purely experimental and designed to drive user engagement. Clarification: Wattpad asked me to note that many of the works on its platform are published a chapter at a time, so all those could technically be considered serials (though many serial fiction authors argue that it’s the form’s editorial characteristics, not just publishing in chunks, that defines the genre).

“This format offers a cool insight into the writing process and touch points for readers to participate directly with writers,” said Wattpad CEO Allen Lau. “The wall between readers and writers is falling.”