Mr. Patterson said the books would be aimed at readers who might not want to invest their time in a 300- or 400-page novel. And he hopes they might even appeal to people who do not normally read at all. If it works, it could open up a big new market: According to a Pew Research Center survey released last fall, 27 percent of American adults said they had not read a book in the past year.

“You can race through these — they’re like reading movies,” he said during a recent interview in New York. “It gives people some alternative ways to read.”

It could also open up new avenues for selling books, something that publishers have struggled with as big bookstore chains have closed down stores. At first, BookShots will appear in the usual venues for commercial fiction — Barnes & Noble, Amazon, big-box stores and independent bookstores — and will be available in digital and audio versions.

But eventually, Mr. Patterson and his publisher want to colonize retail chains that don’t normally sell books, like drugstores, grocery stores and other outlets. They envision having BookShots next to magazines in grocery store checkout lanes, or dangling from clip strips like a bag of gummy bears.