Archive for the ‘Multimedia eBooks’ Category
Booktrack releases Salman Rushdie story, new Bookshelf app no comments
Booktrack, the company that adds synchronized sound effects and ambient sound and music to ebooks, today launched a Booktrack version of In the South by Salman Rushdie. The company has also launched Booktrack Bookshelf, an iOS app through which users can browse Booktrack’s catalogue of titles, sample free previews, manage their Booktrack library and purchase new titles.
I tried out one of the Booktrack productions several months ago and I thought it was promising. To me this seems the most practical approach to adding multimedia to adult fictional books that I’ve tried. The new Salman Rushdie story is priced at $0.99 this month, after which it will be $1.99. There are also several classical works that have received the Booktrack treatment and are available for free. The Booktrack Bookshelf app itself is free at iTunes.
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The Power of Six Booktrack edition Review no comments
It is interesting, in our increasingly multimedia filled world — with 3D televisions at home and whatnot — to see how publishers are groping to bring the written word up to date and make books more palatable to readers raised on a constant diet of multimedia.
About a month ago Booktrack, a new imprint of HarperCollins, announced a new approach to enhancing ebooks — adding soundtracks to them with relevant sound effects and background music that fits the mood of the story. I was intrigued by the idea and downloaded The Power of Six by Pittacus Lore to check out the new format. I’ve finally had a chance to finish the book and can share my thoughts on it.
Update: Booktrack is actually not an imprint of HarperCollins, but an independent startup that has partnered with the publisher. Thanks @Booktrk!
First, as to the I Am Number Four series itself. This is a science fiction series aimed at younger readers. Some such works — the Harry Potter books and The Hunger Games come quickly to mind — can make for a fun read for older readers as well. Sadly, I Am Number Four is not one of these, at least for me. This is unfortunate as I think the premise of the story has potential and could have transcended its target audience if better executed.
I read the first book in the series, I Am Number Four, some time ago to see what it was about. I had then, until the Booktrack edition came along, dropped the series from my reading list. Once I had embarked on the reading of The Power of Six though, I thought I better catch up and first read I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: Six’s Legacy. This is a short work that seems only to be available as an ebook and is available at the Kindle Store, B&N, Koboand elsewhere.
Six’s Legacy briefly sketches the story of Six’s life up to the events related in the latter part of the first book. While hardcore fans of the series will probably want to read Six’s Legacy, it is very short and, I think, overpriced at $3.99. In any case Six recounts the highlights of her adventures during the course of The Power of Six, so you won’t be missing much if you skip Six’s Legacy.
Other than the lack of an annotating capability, Booktrack’s app is quite full-featured. There are three different font styles to choose from and eight font sizes, the largest of which has capitals about three sixteenths of an inch tall, which is probably not large enough to accommodate those with vision problems. Three background colors are also available — white, sepia and black.
The app includes three sliders to independently adjust ambient sound, sound effects and background music volume. The app is supposed to automatically adjust to your reading speed and time the sounds to the events in the story based on that, but there is a manual adjustment as well. You can pause the soundtrack at any time by tapping the center of the screen. If you get distracted and the soundtrack becomes unsynced, you can double tap your last read word to re-sync it.
When I first started reading the Booktrack app I found the soundtrack very distracting. This was partly because of the novelty of it and partly because it took the app a while to adjust to my reading speed so that the sound events were timed properly. There is also a visual reading speed indicator (you can choose from four different types here as well) that I found really annoying until I realized that I could just turn it off.
After reading for a while and the novelty wore off, and as the soundtrack was timing perfectly with events in the story (I had to manually tweak the speed to get it there), I was able to forget about the sounds and just get immersed in the story. When this happened the Booktrack enhancement worked quite well for me and the sounds became part of the story.
The most obvious complaint about enhancing a book like this is that it takes the place of the reader imagining the scene in their mind as the story unfolds. Well, this might be true to a certain extent, but when I was able to get used to the soundtrack and loose myself in the story the sound effects faded into my mental picture and I think did enhance it. The fact that most of the sound effects are rather subtly done helps with this.
The background music fits the mood of the scenes you are reading and also worked well for me. At times I was reminded of the soundtrack of an RPG game. The music is mostly rather generic and this makes it less distracting and easier to become lost in the book. Many of us listen to music while we read and as Paul Cameron, CEO of Booktrack says, the music we are listening to is often disconnected to the story we are reading.
I’ve written before that I think one of the biggest problems facing fictional ebooks enhanced with video is the cost of making those videos in such a way that they actually enhance a work of fiction rather than distracting from it. Professional actors, appropriate sets and costumes are all required and do not come cheap. This leads developers to take shortcuts — like using abridgements (which I detest), for example — in order to deliver a product that is priced to sell. This is not an issue with Booktrack’s approach. The Booktrack edition of The Power of Six is only two or three dollars more than the unenhanced ebook.
Once I got used to it, Booktrack’s enhancement worked for me and I will probably try another one if there is a Booktrack edition of a book I want to read. I’m sure this is not going to work for everyone, but you should give it a try and see what you think. If you can get to the point where you can forget that the soundtrack is there while you are reading you might be pleasantly surprised.
If you aren’t interested in The Power of Six, Booktrack does have several editions of public domain titles that are available for free at iTunes. There are plans to release soundtracked editions of other contemporary authors and Android versions are said to be in the works as well.
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Booktrack – a different type of enhanced ebook no comments
Booktrack is another enhanced ebook publisher, but one with a bit of a twist. Rather than inserting video and other multimedia into an ebook, Booktrack adds soundtracks to them.
Synchronized music, sound effects and ambient sounds matched to your reading speed by the company’s proprietary technology — you get the idea. The first title to be released is The Power of Six by Pittacus Lore, which is the follow-up for I Am Number Four. This first title will contain more than 70 originally scored compositions. The Power of Six is available now at iTunes for $12.99.
"It’s difficult to imagine a movie with no soundtrack; yet, until today, the technology did not exist to synchronize music and sound within an ebook," said Paul Cameron, Booktrack’s co-founder and CEO. "Consider the reality of tens of millions of commuters around the world listening to a playlist that’s disconnected from what they’re reading —perhaps a sad song with an upbeat story. Instead, they can now instantly replicate a movie-like sound experience with Booktrack that fundamentally transforms their reading experience."
Over the next year Booktrack will be publishing a new short story each month. September’s offering will be In the South by Salman Rushdie, followed in October by Solace by Jay McInerney. Booktrack will also be releasing soundtracked versions of some of the classics — Sherlock Holmes is already available and is free. An Android version of BookTrack is in the works.
Booktrack has some high-profile backers, including Peter Thiel, one of the founders of PayPal; the New Zealand Ministry of Science and Innovation and the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, which is the NZ government’s national economic development agency. Sony/ATV music and Park Road Post Production (owned by Peter Jackson’s production company; mixed the sound for LOTR The Return of the King, King Kong and District 9) do the sound production. Seems to be a strong NZ connection, though the company is headquartered in NYC.
I’ve downloaded The Power of Six on my iPad — I’ll let you know what I think when I get a chance to read it.
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Penguin releases enhanced version of Kerouac’s On The Road no comments
Penguin has released Jack Kerouac’s iconic On The Road in an enhanced version for the iPad.
Pulsating with the rhythms of jazz, frenetic sex, illicit drugs, and the mystery and promise of the open road, On the Road defined what it meant to be "beat" and captured the impulses of a liberated underground America. Based on Jack Kerouac’s adventures with Neal Cassady, On the Road tells the story of two friends crossing the country in search of a new kind of experience and authenticity that they could not find in mainstream culture. It has become a landmark in the history of American culture, inspiring everyone from John Updike and Joyce Carol Oates to Bob Dylan and David Bowie. Expressing a quintessential American vision of freedom and longing, On the Road is a timeless tale that resonates with each new generation.
Besides the complete text of the book, this Penguin Amplified version also includes:
- Interactive map of the trips made by the characters in the book, replete with historical photos.
- Family photos from the Kerouac estate.
- Audio clips of Kerouac reading from an early draft of On the Road.
- Reproductions of the first draft of the book on the famous 120-foot scroll.
- Side-by-side comparisons of the original scroll draft and the published text, highlighting the parts edited out on the recommendation of the publisher’s lawyers.
- Slideshow of the cover art from the international editions of On the Road.
On the Road will be priced at $16.99, but through July 5, 2011 it is being offered for the introductory price of $12.99. Available at the App Store.
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A few new children’s reading apps no comments
Children’s reading apps are one of the biggest categories at the Apple App Store and there are indeed a ton of them. These are just a few recent titles that look interesting.
Journey Into the Deep
Based on the award-winning book by Rebecca L. Johnson, this enhanced ebook from Lerner Publishing is not just for children. The app explores the ocean from the shallows to the deepest abysses and introduces readers to some of the newly discovered sea creatures found there.
Journey Into the Deep is based on scientific expeditions involved in the Census of Marine Life, which was conducted by more than two thousand researchers from 82 countries over ten years. The app takes readers to research sites around the globe. In addition to video and photographs, Journey Into the Deep includes links to websites containing further information and a discussion guide.
Journey Into the Deep is $2.99 at iTunes.
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is an animated children’s short film and interactive book. The app contains several interactive mini games that help to advance the story. Available for $4.99 at the App Store.
Kung Fu Panda 2
The Kung Fu Panda 2 interactive storybook follows the plot and contains
imagery and music from the film of the same name. The story follows Po (Jack Black) as he lives his dream protecting the Valley of Peace as the Dragon Warrior alongside his friends and fellow Kung Fu masters, the Furious Five — Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey.
Designed for children aged two and up, Kung Fu Panda 2 features a narration option and the pages can be turned manually or will turn by themselves with the Auto Play mode. The app also includes “Create-A-Scene” which is a digital sticker book featuring the main characters from Kung Fu Panda 2.
$2.99 at iTunes.
Once Upon a Potty
Oceanhouse Media has released Once Upon a Potty: Girl and Once Upon a Potty: Boy. These books are the first results from a licensing partnership between Oceanhouse Media and bestselling children’s author and illustrator Alona Frankel.
Frankel’s Once Upon a Potty picture books, audio editions and videos have sold more than five million copies in the US alone and have been translated into many languages.
The new enhanced versions include the ability for young readers to read by themselves or have the story narrated to them. An Auto Play mode is also available to play the story like a movie. Other features include a Sing-Along, picture/word association, lyric and text highlighting as well as an original musical score to accompany the original artwork.
Available at iTunes for an introductory price of $2.99.
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Bertelsmann acquires Smashing Ideas for Random House no comments
Bertelsmann has acquired digital media agency 
Smashing Ideas for its Random House division for an undisclosed sum. Smashing Ideas specializes in making interactive enhanced books for mobile devices.
From the press release:
The fifteen-year-old Seattle-based Smashing Ideas is renowned for offering strategic marketing solutions and creating immersive, interactive content experiences, from games to branded sites to story-based applications, across multiple digital distribution channels, including online, smartphones, tablet devices, and iTV. They serve a roster of prominent clients such as Mattel, Nickelodeon, PBS, Cartoon Network, and Disney. Last year alone, Smashing Ideas generated 500 million game plays and half a billion page views for its clients. Smashing Ideas added an ePublishing unit last year, coinciding with the arrival of tablet devices in the marketplace.
Smashing Ideas will continue to operate independently out of their Seattle headquarters, as well as their U.K. office, primarily focusing on its current and future client businesses.
Last September, Random House, Inc. established a partnership with Smashing Ideas to develop first-rate mobile applications for selected titles. The first two apps, developed with the Random House Children’s Books division, Wild About Books and Pat the Bunny, both climbed to #1 in the books category in the Apple App store.
Smashing Ideas will become an even stronger partner for Random House’s digital content initiatives, concentrating on the company’s development of fun and meaningful digital product and branding solutions. Within Random House, Smashing Ideas will be focused particularly in the children’s, educational, lifestyle, and reference areas, as well as on working with Random House publishers to develop new content solutions for the mobile and online marketplaces.
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My adventures with enhanced ebooks 1 comment
Last year enhanced books were the hot topic in the media and at book fairs as publishers churned out press releases touting their new multimedia book initiatives. This year it almost seems as if enhanced ebooks have been swept under the rug and forgotten.
To be sure, there are still multimedia ebooks being released, many in the form of individual book apps by smaller publishers specializing in the form. Vook is still alive and seems to be well, and Amazon has built up a large section of Kindle books with Audio/Visual
While it is obvious how multimedia can work well when used to enhance genres such as nonfiction and children’s ebooks, I’ve always found the idea that multimedia enhanced novels were going to take off and become the next big thing was rather dubious for a couple of reasons.
First of all, as a fan of immersive reading, it was hard for me to see how multimedia could enhance fiction rather than detracting from the reading experience. Secondly, I just couldn’t imagine the market for multimedia books becoming big enough to be financially viable for publishers. To me the market for enhanced ebooks felt like an artificial market publishers were trying to create when the demand was not there. True, in the future the demand could materialize to sustain a multimedia book industry, as more and more consumers have tablets (the best devices for reading this type of ebook on), but I suspect that in the foreseeable future there will not be enough of a market to sustain more than a few smaller specialized developers.
I guess the good news is that, after sampling a few multimedia enhanced ebooks over the past six to eight months (several of which I will mention here), I have come to the conclusion that, believe it or not, multimedia can be used effectively in fiction.
Many of the first multimedia books simply scattered segments of video interviews with the author throughout the book. Thankfully, we seem to have moved beyond that form of primitive “enhancement.” Grabbing the reader by the ear and dragging her on a backstage tour in the middle of her reading does not for an immersive read make. Interviews and biographical materials are valuable resources for many readers; but they need to be placed in their own section of the book and listed in the table of contents so they can be accessed as desired.
For me, multimedia integrated into the telling of a fictional story works best when it serves as an illustration of the action, similar to the way in which a still photo or drawing can serve to illustrate places, characters and things in a traditional book. To do this effectively and without becoming a distraction to the reader requires a delicate touch. It also requires professional direction and production, as well as professional actors in appropriate costume performing on sometimes elaborate sets.
All of this is expensive. There are ways to keep costs down, but from what I’ve seen so far I think these shortcuts tend to result in products with either limited appeal or quality problems.
One obvious way to cut the costs of production when developing an enhanced ebook is to use a title from the public domain. There are quite a few of these available on the iPad, and some have been quite popular — Alice for the iPad by Atomic Antelope for example — but this is probably a limited market when compared to more contemporary fiction.
War of the Worlds ($3.99 at iTunes) is one of the enhanced titles I’ve recently read. 
Developer Smashing Ideas has taken the text from the H.G. Wells classic and added sound effects and a number of illustrations, most of them with some form of interactive animation. I found the enhancements to be entertaining and fun without detracting from my reading. This type of enhanced ebook might help to make the classics more palatable to young readers.
A good example of the type of interactive illustrations in this production of WOTW is when the hero is in his dark upstairs study. He wants to look outside to see what is happening, but it is raining and the window is covered in condensation. But you can help by using your finger to wipe off the condensation and reveal what is waiting outside. This animation is relatively subtle and helps to draw the reader into the story.
Vook is probably the most prolific publisher of multimedia books. I’ve had mixed results with their titles in the past. One Vook that I did really like was Reckless Road: Guns N’ Roses. I’ve recently read another Vook title, From Cape Town with Love. This Vook illustrates another way in which multimedia books can be made and sold less expensively, but it is not a way that works for me.
From Cape Town with Love ($6.99 at iTunes; $5.59 Kindle A/V) is based on the Tennyson Hardwick novel by Blair Underwood, Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes. Blair Underwood stars in the video segments and directs the production.
The video portions of Cape Town generally worked for me. They are brief and serve to illustrate the action quite well. This tale is mostly set in Los Angeles, and the video mostly seems to be shot in locations around the Hollywood Hills. This was probably not that expensive to do because elaborate sets and props, etc. are not called for. Underwood is good in the role of Tennyson Hardwick, but some of the other actors were less satisfying.
As I say, the multimedia used in Cape Town works, but what doesn’t work for me is the fact that this is an abridgement. The paper book this is based on has over 300 pages and it is pretty obvious that a lot of them have been hacked out for this Vook. Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve never been able to comprehend why a successful author would allow their work to be abridged or why any reader would want to read a butchered version of a book.
If From Cape Town with Love were unabridged I would have enjoyed it much more, but it probably would have then cost more. As it is, this Vook left me unsatisfied and not feeling like I want to rush out and buy the other books in the series. This was not the fault of the multimedia, but rather of the abridgement.
Penguin dipped its toes in the enhanced ebook waters with its release of The Pillars of the Earth iPad app ($12.99 at iTunes). 
This production includes the unabridged text of Ken Follett’s classic historical fiction about the building of a cathedral in medieval times. I originally read this book a number of years ago, but wanted to see what Penguin had done with it.
Besides video scattered throughout the ebook, Pillars offers a number of other features. There is an interactive character tree and a number of behind-the-scenes type videos that are accessible through the table of contents. There are also a few architectural drawings that will be welcome to non-architecturally inclined readers such as myself.
This production of Pillars of the Earth is a tie-in with the Starz miniseries, from which the video clips are taken. This means the video features professional actors wearing period costumes and performing on elaborate sets. Overall this is a nice production and if you are thinking of reading the book I have no reservations about recommending the multimedia version.
I do have a couple of quibbles about the multimedia sections though. For one thing, every video clip has a blurb at the end for the DVDs from Sony Pictures. This gets obnoxious after awhile — I guess it would have been too much to ask for Sony to just put the ads on a few of the longer videos.
Then there is the divergence between what Follett writes in the book and how it is portrayed in the miniseries. As you know, when a book is translated to film, dialogue and other things are changed to fit the director’s vision. It is rather jarring when the scene portrayed in one of the video clips conveys the same scene you have just read with different dialogue, props and settings. This probably could have been avoided by the more careful choosing of segments of video that more faithfully matched Follett’s original work. On the whole the video works well in Pillars to illustrate the story — but with a little more care it could have been that much more seamless.
Being a fan of immersive reading, I began reading these and other enhanced ebooks skeptical that I would be much impressed. In fact, after reading a few titles, I can see that it is possible to insert multimedia into a novel and have it work. But is it practical?
To turn a book that is not in the public domain into a successful multimedia production must be quite expensive. There is no way Pillars of the Earth could have been done with video made expressly for the enhanced book. Using methods like abridging the text to keep the costs down don’t work because they result in an inferior product. Using interactive animation as in War of the Worlds works for some types of subject matter, but will not be appropriate for all books.
I really just don’t see there being enough readers who would be willing to pay enough to make it financially viable for publishers to produce the sort of multimedia that will in fact “enhance” ebooks rather than detract from them, at least when it comes to unabridged contemporary fiction from authors that are still alive.
I don’t expect multimedia books to just die, but I suspect that most enhanced fictional ebooks (other than public domain titles) will fall into one of two categories in the future:
- eBooks enhanced with audio visual biographical content and interviews with the author and other behind-the-scenes content.
- Experimental work and productions where the author feels the need to use multimedia in addition to the printed word to accomplish his/her vision.
I will probably continue to sample the occasional enhanced ebook, if I come across something I really like I’ll write about it. Probably next on my list is Dark Prophecy by Anthony E. Zuiker — creator and executive producer of the CSI series. This is an interactive iPad thriller (available at iTunes) that has been out a couple of months and has mostly good reviews.
While writing this, it occurs to me that the enhanced ebook boom had something in common with the interactive movie fad that hit the computer gaming industry in the mid 90’s. FMV-based games (Full Motion Video) did not work out too well either — although for partially different reasons. Remember Phantasmagoria? Well, it’s probably just as well if you don’t.
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Oceanhouse Media releases first in series of Smithsonian multimedia books for young readers no comments
Oceanhouse media has launched It’s Tyrannosaurus Rex! 
This is the first in a series of multimedia books licensed from Soundprints, publisher of Smithsonian Institution titles and other books for children. Oceanhouse plans to release a number of titles this year from Soundprints’ Prehistoric Pals, Oceanic and Backyard collections.
It’s Tyrannosaurus Rex! has been approved by paleontologists at the Smithsonian and takes preschool through grade 2 readers on a journey through the Cretaceous period with T. Rex. Features include original artwork, professional audio narration and custom audio. Besides reading the book for themselves, young readers can choose to have the story narrated to them or use the Auto Play feature, which plays the story like a movie.
It’s Tyrannosaurus Rex! is available for iOS for $2.99 at the App Store and for Android at the Amazon Appstore for Android and the Android Market. Oceanhouse Media has about 20 other children’s reading apps (Dr. Seuss and Berenstain Bears) available for Android.
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New Britannica children’s app no comments
Rainforests is a new interactive multimedia iPad and iPhone app announced today by Britannica Kids.
Designed for ages 8-14, Rainforests lets kids explore tropical ecosystems with articles on indigenous fauna illustrated with video, photographs and maps. Interactive games, virtual jigsaw puzzles and photo quizzes help to keep the learning interesting.
“Rainforests are vital to the survival of life on Earth, and it’s important for the leaders of tomorrow to understand them and their current plight,” said Dale Hoiberg, editor-in-chief at Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. “This app gives parents and teachers a great way to teach those lessons. It’s rich in both educational content and fun features that make it good for home, classrooms, even family trips.”
Rainforests is the latest in a series of edutainment apps from Britannica Kids that includes titles such as Dinosaurs, Solar System, Ancient Egypt and Volcanoes. More titles and Android versions will be joining the series in coming months.
Rainforests is now available at the Apple App Store for $4.99.
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Vook receives additional financing no comments
Vook has announced that it closed $5.24 million in Series A financing from various investors including VantagePoint Venture Partners and Floodgate. Vook says that the new monies will be used to “build on its momentum, accelerate sales and invest in technology to support its growth plans.”
Vook was one of the first companies to specialize in publishing ebooks enhanced with multimedia.
"We are excited to bring new and existing investors into this round," said Brad Inman, Vook CEO. "They recognize that Vook is leading the way with a new vision for book publishing, creating value for authors, filmmakers and book publishers."
The company has formed strategic relationships with many of the leading book publishers and literary agents, and published Vooks with bestselling authors, including Deepak Chopra, Seth Godin, Tom Peters, Stephen Covey and Anne Rice. Recently, the company released JFK: 50 Days, a bestselling Vook for the iPad that features content created in partnership with Perseus Books and NBC Universal.
Vook has also launched its own digital e-book imprint, which will deliver as many as 500 ‘how to’ and educational titles to the market in 2011. Vook was recently profiled in The New York Times Magazine, which described the company’s products as "fantastic."
