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World's First True HTML Novels
History's First True E-Novel. As John Argo, I published the world's first true e-book in 1996 (see *Neon Blue*, next para), which I prefer to call an HTML novel to avoid confusion and other issues. Briefly, here are the criteria for this claim. (1) proprietary (owned by me) not public domain material as published for example by Project Gutenberg; (2) published entirely online, not on portable media like disks, floppies, tape, or the like, as was done by the few other early authors in the field; (3) published entirely in HTML, to be read only online; (4) published *entirely* online not partial or teaser.
Remember, this is before e-commerce, so as indicated by surveys of that day (e.g., TBD), we were doing this promotionally and recreationally as innovators and creative artists. We were true pioneers, and I immediately developed a world-wide following of avid readers; I still have many of the passionate emails they sent me from places like Johannesburg, South Africa; Taiwan; Berlin, Germany; many places across the USA and Canada; and a few from Mexico, Brazil, Eastern Europe, and more. My second HTML novel, launched in July 1996 on *The Haunted Village SFFH* (our SFFH website) was originally titled *Heartbreaker* and in 1998 changed to a permanent title, *This Shoal of Space.* These are just a few quick highlights of a very busy and exciting time.
That first novel was my suspense thriller Neon Blue, or: Girl, Unlocked by John Argo, written starting 1987 and rewritten numerous times before C&C Publishers went live with it on our first website which was titled Neon Blue Fiction. The first iteration was as a folder on a hosting site in San Diego, Electriciti dot com, which no longer exists as such. Brian Callahan registered our umbrella domain Clocktower Fiction in December 1996, which we then implemented in 1997 to cover both *Neon Blue Fiction* (suspense/mystery) and *The Haunted Village* (SFFH). C&C Publishers became Clocktower Fiction in 1997 as we geared up to start publishing the work of other authors online.
I am at heart a science fiction author, although I have ventured into other areas of speculative fiction (fantasy, horror). For example, my rare horror novel (an homage to Jack Finney's classic 1955 novel *Body Snatchers* (made into a series of archetypal, famous movies). My novel's title is *Doom Spore San Diego* available online through Amazon at this time. Lots more info on the way.
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