Last year, when I was uploading A GONZO NOIR to the web, I was very tempted to make it a more radical experience of reading than you get from a conventional novel, utilising pics where appropriate, YouTube videos, author comments and marginalia, and including web-links to topics mentioned, etc. Time being a commodity as precious as oxygen these days, I decided against it, but David Meerman Scott over at Web Ink Now has some interesting thoughts along the same lines, to wit: “So what if a book read more like a website? What if it looked more like those Choose Your Own Adventure books, with links to other chapters, pages, and even other resources in the marginalia? What if there were paid advertising on the page, but not traditional ads but rather something more akin to Google AdWords, where the placement is determined online in a bidding process coupled with consumer-driven inputs? What if on the printed page, instead of single photos or illustrations with captions, books adapted the concept of the embedded YouTube video, and used a storyboard format--i.e., a comics format--to depict a scene, when sequential visuals are required?”Sounds ludicrous? Not really, when you’ve got downloadable books to hand-held devices, and wi-fi growing in availability by the day. Any thoughts?
