An Oxford author has appealed to Facebook users to help him with his latest novel.

Oxford University administrator Dan Holloway, 37, said he believed he is the first person to write a fully ‘interactive’ book on the social networking website.

Members of the popular online community will not only read The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes for free, but will also be able to see every revision Mr Holloway makes to the text – and suggest where the story should go next.

Mr Holloway, from Chipping Norton, said: “I was looking for ways to raise awareness of the previous novel I wrote and build a fan base.  “A lot of music bands are giving their music away free online and I thought I could do that with my book.”  The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes is a contemporary take on celebrity and the Internet.

Mr Holloway started by issuing a cast of characters with short biographies and asking people to say which they’d like to see most of.

So far 116 Facebook members — from as far away as Hong Kong, Australia and Finland — have signed up to take part.

Mr Holloway said he hoped to have 1,000 on board by the end of the summer.

He said: “I don’t know of anyone else who is writing a book interactively like this and I’m really excited about how it is going.

“There’s an energy to the process that you wouldn’t get any other way. It is like the old days of storytelling where you’d sit round the campfire and vary the details every night according to your audience.

“Word is spreading as news of the project appears on people’s blogs. I want to involve readers in the whole experience of writing, and give them everything that comes off my keyboard — and a thumping good read, of course!”