Hi all,
For my journal entry/blog post this week I decided to give a little more background to the "behind the scenes" and/or "background information" topic that I brought up in our discussion on Tuesday.
I felt that I didn't quite get to explain fully what I was talking about and I didn't have immediate examples, which of course, help understanding. When I brought this up, I was thinking that the "behind the scenes" information are two fold in purpose 1) this type of information helps bridge the novel, e-book, enhanced e-book divide and 2) these outside sources of information give us a glimpse to what an enhanced mass market novel/e-book would look like.
For example, the link below takes you to a website promoting musician Neil Dover, who wrote two albums in support of and based off of his then wife's bestselling series of novels (her name is Karen Marie Moning). http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=8140149
Dover wrote these songs based off of songs that appear in Moning's novels, and beyond that, he had access to information about characters outside of their storyline's within the novels, so buying and listening to the albums does enhance and enrich the reading experience and gives readers access to information that they otherwise wouldn't have. Just as an author releasing their "writing playlist" might give a reader new insights into characters or scenes in the novels.
Moning's website furthers this experience with games and galleries, allowing the reader to fight the same villains and to even put images to characters. http://www.sidhe-seersinc.com/
Another example of this type of background information can be found on author Sherilyn Kenyon's website and phone apps: http://www.sherrilynkenyon.com/gallery/photos/. The galleries and up to date information on the production of the movie and television series versions of the novels and e-books are all "behind the scenes" and I believe that they represent this move toward enhanced e-books.
While die hard fans are combining this information or enhancement on their own, it is a very minor step to take, I think, before we have an enhanced e-book that will allow you to listen to the song the character is listening to, or give you the option to display an image of a character that is being introduced to the narrative. With a fan base that is used to researching information out, an enhanced e-book that eliminates the need to do that research would, in my opinion, be very marketable, especially with the ability to "update" an enhanced e-book or application.
-Yvonne Clark
No comments:
Post a Comment