  Some scientists write literary fiction books in their spare time. If these
books contain scientific knowledge, literary fiction becomes a mechanism of
knowledge transfer. In this case, we could conceptualize literary fiction as
non-formal knowledge transfer. We model knowledge transfer via literary fiction
as a function of the type of scientist (academic or non-academic) and his/her
scientific field. Academic scientists are those employed in academia and public
research organizations whereas non-academic scientists are those with a
scientific background employed in other sectors. We also distinguish between
direct knowledge transfer (the book includes the scientist's research topics),
indirect knowledge transfer (scientific authors talk about their research with
cultural agents) and reverse knowledge transfer (cultural agents give
scientists ideas for future research). Through mixed-methods research and a
sample from Spain, we find that scientific authorship accounts for a
considerable percentage of all literary fiction authorship. Academic scientists
do not transfer knowledge directly so often as non-academic scientists, but the
former engage into indirect and reverse transfer knowledge more often than the
latter. Scientists from History stand out in direct knowledge transfer. We draw
propositions about the role of the academic logic and scientific field on
knowledge transfer via literary fiction. We advance some tentative conclusions
regarding the consideration of scientific authorship of literary fiction as a
valuable knowledge transfer mechanism.
