Web & Tech

Every week editors, writers, readers, and publishers engage in sprawling literary discussions on Twitter. All the microbloggers in the audience should join their local Twitter chat.

Highspot created a handy-dandy list of some popular literary Twitter chats to help you find a chat. The list included the following hashtags, follow the links to read posts:#editorchat, #followreader, #kidlitchat, #litchat, #platformchat, and #writechat.

We're sure GalleyCat readers can remind us of more, add your favorites in the comments. In the meantime, here's some good advice about following literary chats, from the article: "Use the Twitter search page and enter the chat’s hashtag. This will pull up all the tweets for that chat. Set up a new column in TweetDeck using the chat’s hashtag as a search term. Again, this will pull up all the tweets for that chat. Use an app such as TweetChat."

(Fourth Story Media CEO Lisa Holton looks on as creative development and marketing manager Ariel Aberg-Riger browses the Amanda Project website.)

"I was thinking more and more about how we publish books and how we reach our audiences," Lisa Holton told us as we sat at the work table Fourth Story Media shares with Cookstr in their South Street offices, "and about how young people incorporate technology into their lives. How do we develop traditional book publishing but marry it to various online and digital media in a way that makes sense to readers?" Last summer, after leaving her position as Scholastic's president of trade publishing, Holton launched Fourth Story as an incubator for the multi-platform stories she had in mind for young readers.

The first venture—The Amanda Project—is now in play, as HarperTeen has published the first in a projected eight-volume series. The initial story was developed by Melissa Kantor, whom Holton had first published back at Hyperion, with individual volumes assigned to different authors. At a website (developed in collaboration with Happy Cog Studios), readers who've gotten sucked into the story of three high school classmates, who weren't friends to start with, banding together to figure out what happened to the one girl they had in common, can create online personae for themselves and add new perspectives to the weekly mini-puzzles supplementing the narrative in the print volumes. ("They've immersed themselves way more deeply than we thought they would," Aberg-Riger confessed; at one point, putting the clues in one puzzle together, the teen players began to organize a trip to Paris—sending the Fourth Story office into a frenzy before they realized the girls were just plotting out their characters' travel plans.) The first four books will tell one story arc which, combined with the revelations gradually unfolding online, will set up a second story arc for the back half.

The effect, we commented to Holton, was like a participatory soap opera, or a massive Dungeons & Dragons campaign with one dungeonmaster and hundreds of players; she brought up the classic text-based puzzle games Infocom created for home computer owners in the 1980s, which set us both on a nostalgia kick for their adaptation of The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, one of the truly great interactive fictions. (Interestingly, that was the second time this month we'd found ourselves in that conversation!)

"A lot of adults had a really hard time grasping this," Holton says of the way the books and the website link together into one overarching immersive narrative, "but I would explain it to a 13-year-old girl and " (she snaps! her fingers) "she'd get it in 30 seconds. In fact, beta users used to tell us it took them a long time to figure the website out, and it would turn out 'a long time' was five minutes." Inspired by the initial success of The Amanda Project, Fourth Story is already preparing another series, a science-fiction-themed narrative aimed at young male readers. "In some ways, this is radically different than what I'd been doing for the last 20 years," Holton reflects, "but the basics are still the same... What's the story? And how do you think readers will be interested by it?"

As literary journals and writers migrate online, it becomes more difficult to create a sense of community between readers in the vastness of cyberspace.

Today's guest on the Morning Media Menu was Jürgen Fauth, co-founder of a social networking site for writers called Fictionaut. Fauth discussed how his site has opened up a new community space for literary magazines, building a socially-networked model for 21st Century writers. He also explained how up-and-coming writers can become part of the site's growing community.

Here's an excerpt from the interview: "What happened is a lot of editors at literary magazines--especially the more web savvy people who saw the potential of [Fictionaut]--jumped on and established groups for their magazines. Electric Literature, Keyhole, Word Riot, Juked, and Pank are all on there. It's turning Fictionaut into a bit of a hub where you can go and read some stories and you see what groups it came from--it leads you off into to discovering those magazines."

It's not enough for authors or publishers to build a website—once the site's online, it needs regular attention from readers if it's going to thrive. And we're not just talking pageviews. Jennifer Pullinger has five tips for those of you looking to transform your audience into a community, from putting your personality out in front to encouraging readers to get more directly involved in the conversation.

This article is one of several mediabistro.com features exclusively available to AvantGuild subscribers. If you're not a member yet, you can register for $55 a year, and start reading those articles, receive discounts on mediabistro.com seminars and workshops, and get all sorts of other swell bonuses.

Since 1995, writers have created computer-based interactive fiction stories for an annual competition--space operas, medieval quests, and countless other adventures that allow the reader to guide the plot.

Here's a short introduction to the genre: "In interactive fiction you play the main character. You type commands which determine the actions of the character and the flow of the story. Each piece of interactive fiction presents locations, items, characters and events. You move about, exploring and learning. As you do so, you will encounter puzzles which impede your progress. Part of the fun of interactive fiction is solving these puzzles."

Check out this GalleyCat editor's favorite pieces from last year's contest: "Everybody Dies" by Jim Munroe and "Violet" by Jeremy Freese. If the digital book-friendly medium makes you excited, you can help judge the 2009 competition. Download this year's interactive games on this page. After you've played five or more games, follow this link to vote for your favorites. Votes are due by November 15th, 2009. (Via Post Position)

Our friends at PRNewser passed along some recent statistics from eMarketer.com that underscore the significance of the new Federal Trade Commission guidelines controlling how blogs must handle "endorsements" of consumer goods: This year alone, the FTC's determination that newspapers and magazines do journalism but blogs do product endorsement will affect, in the abstract, 27,900,000 people, or 14 percent of the U.S. Internet's "population." (In practical terms, the number affected is significantly less, because many bloggers don't even review consumer goods, let alone receive them for the purposes of review.)

Let's imagine for a moment that the FTC created a set of guidelines that would bracket out 14 percent of American print media and hold it to a different standard than other publications, or bracket out 14 percent of America's radio and television stations and hold them to a different standard than other broadcasters. How long do you think it would take for some serious protests, including but not limited to calls for congressional intervention, to begin?

When you look at the other chart eMarketer.com sent us, though, it's easy to understand why the FTC thinks it needs to do something (even if you happen to believe it's doing the wrong thing).

By the end of next year, more than 100,000,000 Americans will be reading at least one blog at least once a month—that will be more than half of the U.S. Internet "population," and (according to Census Bureau projections) 33.8 percent of the entire U.S. population. We get that the FTC wants to protect that substantial demographic from consumer fraud, and it's perfectly reasonable to insist content funded by commercial interests for the express purpose of promoting those specific commercial interests be identified as such, the same for blogs as it is infomercials and "special inserts." The problem lies in the FTC's determination that a not-insignificant class of bloggers has been, is, and will be engaged in commercial speech when just about nobody else involved in the actual "transactions" involved believed that to be the case, nor do they believe it now just because the FTC says so, nor will they believe it once they are compelled by federal regulation to behave as if they do.

As newspapers close foreign bureaus and glossy magazines flounder, it sometimes seems like books are the last remaining place for writers interested in international reporting.

Today's guest on the Morning Media Menu was Daljit Dhaliwal--anchor of WNET's international reporting show, Worldfocus. On the one-year anniversary of Worldfocus, this veteran international reporter gave advice for aspiring international journalists about this difficult and rewarding field--useful advice for aspiring writers as well.

Here's an excerpt: "I think hands-on experience is really important, and an interest about the rest of the world--whether you do that through your own travel or international news organizations. I think all these experiences are worth weaving into your mosaic. [You need] as many experiences as you can get, along with a curiosity about the world. It makes a big difference."

Simon & Schuster reiterated its "firm commitment to battling piracy" in a statement released this morning, perhaps in response to the news that bootleg editions of The Lost Symbol started popping up online less than a day after the book's release, despite Doubleday's best efforts to control the flow. "Since we began publishing ebooks more than 10 years ago," the announcement says, "the security of our authors’ copyrights has been a primary concern in every digital partnership or project we have undertaken. Unquestionably, however, as the digital world has expanded and ebooks become more popular, the rise of peer-to-peer file sharing and sites that feature user-posted content has led to a higher level of unauthorized posting and sharing of our copyrighted content. Responding to these evolving threats requires vigilance and innovation."

So what does S&S do? About what you'd expect: The company's legal department works to get unauthorized electronic editions of its books taken down as quickly as possible; it's cut a deal to sell authorized ebooks at Scribd.com now that they're sure it's a reliable site; it's talking to other companies (though an "Online Piracy Working Group" at the Association of American Publishers) about the best solutions that could be implemented throughout the industry. "As long as there have been publishers, there have been scofflaws who see fit to deprive authors of their livelihood," the statement winds down. "But as the potential for this kind of behavior is amplified in the digital world, keeping our content secure, enforcing our copyrights, and creating a robust marketplace for easily accessible, reasonably priced content will be the pillars upon which we build our future as a digital publisher."

Oh, and if you see something, say something: "Readers, authors, booksellers and concerned citizens" are invited to report any pirated editions of Simon & Schuster books they see floating around the Internet.

CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker recently launched an interactive "digi novel" entitled Level 26--a print thriller packed with multimedia stories that bridge the action. Intrigued by this new medium, GalleyCat caught up with Zuiker's co-writer, author and blogger Duane Swierczynski.

The writer had plenty of thoughts and food metaphors for fledgling multimedia authors and publishers: "Modern readers already expect an experience beyond the book. No, they don't expect a full-fledged movie, but they (usually) look forward to the eventual movie adaptation... and raise hell when it's delayed, or when the 'wrong' director is attached to the project."

He continued: "So what Zuiker has done here is give readers this experience...all at once. No need to wait for a LEVEL 26 adaptation; he's given you a glimpse of the movie right here, at the same time you read the book...I don't think the thriller of the future will need to replicate what Zuiker's done -- frankly, I don't see how they *could*, considering how much blood, sweat and dough he's put into this project. (That's right: LEVEL 26 is one big gooey horror-thriller pizza.)"

continued...

Today the bi-monthly literary journal Electric Literature released that bloody "Single Sentence Animation" video, as animator Jonathan Ashley interpreted a short short story from novelist Michael Cunningham.

This is the second single sentence animation posted on the journal's brand-new YouTube page. Previously, animator Luca Dipierro interpreted Lydia Millet's "Sir Henry" in a brief video. Earlier this year, the journal made publishing headlines for its unusual distribution model and pledge to pay $1,000 per story.

Check it out: "This is the Electric Literature YouTube channel. Here you will find all kinds of cross-over projects. Whether we are matching contemporary writers with illustrators, fine artists, live-action filmmakers, or musicians, this is the place to see the results. These days, we're on an animation kick. Enjoy."