Books and Video sitting in a Tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
For all of you A.D.D. readers out there that hate looking at pages of black ink without pictures, thank the iPad for bringing pictures back to print.
Yes, we have no attention spans. Yes, we can’t form thoughts longer than a tweet. Yes, we treat Wikipedia like an Encyclopedia. But on the up side, we have learned how to multi-task. We can be on TweetDeck, YouTube and Facebook, while also typing a document all at the same time. That’s equivalent to juggling, right?
Unfortunately, it also means if anyone expects one task to keep you interested enough to stick around to the end, they best “eye candy” it out a bit. Hence, books getting a make-over.
The web experience is about having options, choice, and opinion. You choose how you want to experience something. On YouTube, for instance, not only can you review, vote on and say anything you want about a video, you can also watch it how you want it– on your computer, on your tv, in several different sizes and formats — not to mention, at any time of day you want. Your viewing experience is your choice. But when you read a book, the writer has made all the choices for you. That’s so 2006.
Earlier this month, publishing company Random House entered into a partnership with transmedia company Blacklight Transmedia in order to co-develop cross-platform projects. (Incidentally Blacklight has a first-look deal with Imagine Entertainment. Ah, the circle of life.) RH book properties will now seamlessly become video games, TV shows, comics, movies and web series, and vice versa. (Random House also acquired digital marketing media agency Smashing Ideas in May. They’re on it.)
This is becoming a common trend in publishing, as video is being incorporated in many reading experiences, since reading is often now an electronic experience. Alloy Entertainment, whose properties include Gossip Girl, has been creating web original components for their existing YA books for some time and recently released Wendy, a web original video series that for the first time did NOT originate as a book (at least not an Alloy one. It is a retelling of Peter Pan from a contemporary Wendy’s perspective.)
Wattpad, a Toronto-based e-book platform, recently partnered with European production company beActive Media for its first transmedia YA novel, Aisling’s Diary. Originally conceived as a TV series about an Irish teen, the e-book now runs weekly with both a video episode and a written episode simultaneously on your reader.
Add Scholastic to the list. The company recently partnered with interactive production company Ruckus Media Group to complement their publishing efforts.
The important thing to note is most of the above publishing firms (with the exception of Alloy) reached out to experts in online/cross-platform video instead of attempting to produce the cross-platform component in-house, an interesting trend in connecting all of the ways we tell stories.
Oh, internet, you’re such a little matchmaker.
DARYN
