Peter Miller from the LA Times’ “Jacket Copy” has a great write-up of our SXSW Interactive “New Publishing & Web Content” panel:

“…It was nice, then, to end the day with a panel of publishing experts who were neither reactionaries nor doom-sayers. The centerpiece of the New Publishing and Web Content panel was the Amanda Project from Fourth Story Media. An experiment in bridging the best aspects of Web and print, the site invites young women to contribute to an ongoing book series about a character named Amanda.

The project doesn’t spell out the end of traditional book publishing as much as demonstrate another avenue. Lisa Holton, whose tenure in publishing often crossed over into new media, suggested that we should all take a step back from bashing publishers simply because they can’t turn on a dime. Holton and her co-panelists (including Web design guru Jeffrey Zeldman) pointed out that the publishing process may seem unwieldy and redundant from the sidelines, but it holds tremendous intrinsic value beyond nostalgia. The world hasn’t necessarily passed publishing by, it just has created multiple new intersecting markets. What’s wrong with that?

In nearly any discussion of books these days, the argument usually devolves into either/or. Either the publishers get with the program or else. That “or else” can be a monotonous drum beat at SXSWi that drowns out genuine dialog. But for a moment, it felt in the convention center as if the attendees forgot what the program was or how it might be implemented. It felt like, briefly, all was forgiven.”

Read the full piece here.

Starting this Friday, March 12th at 10 AM central time, we’ll be hosting an interactive storytelling exquisite corpse-esque competition over at The Future of the Story. How it works:

Fantastic (if we do say so ourselves) panelists include:

• Lisa Holton – CEO + Founder, FSM
• Erin Kissane – Web Project + Community Manager, FSM / Blogger, Incisive.nu
• Mandy Brown – Creative Director, Etsy
• Paul Ford – Novelist / Blogger, FTrain.com / Editor, Harper’s

Hope to see you there!

Publishers Weekly asked a number of children’s publishers, scouts, and editors (including FSM’s Lisa Holton) what they’re expecting at this year’s Bologna Children’s Book Fair (March 23-26). Some soundbytes:

Natasha Ferrant, Literary Scout: “There’s a real buzz about YA literature, which is tremendously exciting. I’m hoping to see less of the paranormal stuff and more good, original writing. Much as I love them—I do, I do—I don’t want to read any more vampire books, probably EVER AGAIN. What I really want to find is simple and oh so elusive: a strong middle-grade series with great writing and an even better story.”

Rob McMenemy, Senior VP Egmont English Language & Central Europe: “The digital agenda will loom even larger this year, taking more airtime and even more space, but we are fast approaching the point where it won’t be a separate agenda at all nor just an interesting sideshow, but rather an integral part of the business of publishing and rights.”

Lisa Holton, CEO Fourth Story: “I am going mainly to hear what my international colleagues are thinking about their business—how they publish, who they are publishing, and how they think the landscape—digital and print—is changing.”

Klaus Humann, Publisher Carlsen Verlag, Germany: “Our job as publishers had always been and will always be to take risks, invest into new authors, encourage them to write their first books and get them published. We are not paid to follow trends. We are paid to create them.”

Read the full piece in PW.

The Amanda Project

We’ll continue adding links to the hints here as they roll in….Good luck Sherlocks!

UPDATE: Here’s Clue #2, Clue #3, and Clue #4 – Remember you need them all to solve Friday’s big puzzle!

(More about the contest via @JSYK)

Daily Grommet gives a great endorsement

Remember how nutty everyone got over the Da Vinci Code? Staring at The Last Supper, looking for clues… well, Invisible I, the first novel in a new series called The Amanda Project, is a little bit like that, but its target audience is teen girls. It is a story of a mysterious “new girl” at Endeavor High who touches the lives of the main characters, and just as quickly disappears, leaving everyone — including the reader — compelled to figure it all out. Even more importantly, it’s a totally interactive experience. Beyond reading the book, your teen can use a cell phone camera to crack a code in the book, visit the website, and contribute her own stories and ideas to the online community.

Author Melissa Kantor creates a vivid and authentic reality, with text messages and passed notes baked right into the story, as well as moments of gritty realism (an alcoholic parent) all tastefully and carefully handled.

The next book in the series, Signal from Afar, is due out in June, which makes it a great time to join in the fun.

Read the full post here!

Some highlights:

• The twitterverse especially loved Lisa’s mention of The Amanda Project’s recent collaboration with Modcloth.
• ForeWord highlighted The Amanda Project as an “innovative application of reader engagement in authoring,” alongside other projects like the ever-popular book social networking site GoodReads, and HarperCollins’ new site for aspiring writers Inkpop.
• And (our favorite) Chapman/Chapman said in his DBW summary: “Fourth Story Media are doing very, very cool shit with transmedia storytelling.”

“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?”

Read the full piece now!

Common Sense Media

The writing and the book design are both beautiful. Main characters are smart, resilient, and optimistic — Kantor’s dialogue is spot on, and the characters will resonate with readers. Callie’s life is a roller coaster, and yet her new-found friendships empower her. Amanda’s disappearance seems to lead to more secrets and more revelations at the same time, and Callie finds the strength, and the support, to make some big changes in her life. Courage leads to confrontations that help many people; but Amanda is still missing.

This is a cliffhanger that will have readers anxiously awaiting the next book, and the Web site may inspire them creatively.

Check out the full review, and learn more about Common Sense Media!

“First and foremost, the book is a great read and a fun handsell…It’s a perfect choice for Teen Book Clubs, Mother/Daughter Book Clubs, or for avid readers who love to write as well,” said Holton. “And if you look in the back of the book, you’ll find the work of Lisa Strumm — a 17-year-old girl whose writing on the website was chosen for the first book.” (For her piece, Strumm, who lives in Plano, Texas, received an honorarium of a $100 gift certificate to her local indie bookstore, Legacy Books.)

To booksellers, Holton said, “Encourage your customers to write on the site, and perhaps they will be chosen for book two!”

Read the full piece here!