Fourth Story Media

YPulse Managing Editor Meredith Sires virtually sat down with a bunch of us at Fourth Story – Lisa Holton, JillEllyn Riley, Ariel Aberg-Riger, and Melissa Kantor (author of Invisible I) – to discuss The Amanda Project.

YP: Melissa, what was it like shaping a story that would be left open to interpretation by the readers? Do you have any favorite mystery stories or other sources that served as inspiration?

TAP: I was a HUGE Nancy Drew fan as a kid, then moved on to other great mysteries (Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) and more popular/contemporary writers (Mary Higgins Clark). TV has definitely played a role in inspiring me (Veronica Mars, anyone?). In terms of the reader/writer relationship that The Amanda Project has created, I find the whole reader-input idea really exciting; as a writer, I normally have to wait to hear what my readers think until after the fact, when the book’s published, and I’ve moved on to another set of characters. So to have the opportunity to be in a dialogue (of sorts) with people who are excited about the characters I’m spending so much time with is a real thrill. I love that the identity a reader invented is included in “Invisible I.” What a cool moment for her AND for me! (MK)

Read the whole interview here, and be sure to leave a comment about your favorite mystery over at YPulse for a chance to win a free copy of Invisible I!

The Austin Children’s Book Examiner has an amazing review of The Amanda Project and Invisible I, calling it “the most innovative interactive fiction project from a major publisher yet:”

The first book in this series, Invisible I, is fantastic and gets you engrossed in the mystery right from the start.  The website is well designed and packed with fun and engaging features.  With eight books planned, one can only assume that more will be added to the site as well (such a dynamic website couldn’t stay the same for that long).  There is so much potential in this project and the idea that readers get to actually help create the mystery as it is written is really innovative and exciting.  It’s a perfect interactive project for a teen audience!  The ability to actually be a part of the story is fantastic and if HarperCollins starts to incorporate more multi-media content to the website as well it would be a sure winner.  There’s so much fun content both in the engaging book and the interactive website that The Amanda Project is really something to check out and keep an eye on as it continues to unfold!

Read the entire article here!

Invisible I, the first book in The Amanda Project series is now in stores! Written by Melissa Kantor (under the series pen name Stella Lennon), Invisible I tells Amanda’s story from Callie’s point of view.

Callie Leary has exactly one thing, and one thing only, in common with Nia Rivera and Hal Bennett: They were each chosen by Amanda to be her guide. When Amanda arrived at Endeavor High, she told Callie she moves around a lot and always picks one person to help her navigate the choppy waters of a new school. Why did Amanda lie?

Following a course that they suspect Amanda deliberately plotted, Callie, Nia, and Hal piece together some cryptic clues. But they find more questions than answers and quickly realize that before they can figure out what happened to Amanda—the girl who changed their lives—they’ll need to solve the most important mystery of all: Who is Amanda Valentino?

Browse inside, and read the first 8 chapters here!

Calling Invisible I a “carefully crafted whodunit…which will compel readers to pick up the subsequent books,” Publishers Weekly gives the first book in The Amanda Project series a starred review:

invisible i Stella Lennon. HarperTeen, $16.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-174212-5

There are far too many scintillating, hand-clenching facets to this carefully crafted whodunit to count. Doors are purposefully left open and clues expertly planted (in the book’s text, artwork—even the endpapers—and on a dedicated Web site readers can explore), all of which will compel readers to pick up the subsequent books in the interactive Amanda Project series. (The books, all appearing under the name Stella Lennon, will be written by various authors, with Melissa Kantor [Girlfriend Material] kicking things off.) In the opener, three unlikely allies—narrator Callie, a member of the exclusive “I-Girls” clique; Nia, the “biggest freak in the ninth grade”–cum–hidden beauty; and Hal, an “uber-cool” artist—are brought together as they attempt to find 15-year-old Amanda, who has disappeared. The story unfolds at just the right pace to build curiosity, but not overwhelm with unanswered questions (Why did Amanda tell Callie, Nia and Hal three separate stories about her past? What’s up with the animal totems she gives them?). If there’s too much high school social politics at points, the catty backstabbing is unlikely to distract most readers from the mind-bending mystery shrouding Amanda’s whereabouts. Ages 12–up. (Sept.)

(via Publishers Weekly)

Publisher’s Weekly has a long article about everything from e-books to iPhone’s Stanza app to The Amanda Project in this week’s issue:

“We should worry less about the delivery system and more about inculcating sustained reading in kids,” says Michele Rubin, an agent at Writers House. “Books are something they should see as enjoyable.” No one is arguing. In fact, one scenario that publishers are exploring to raise the fun quotient is mixed media à la Scholastic’s The 39 Clues (the series combines traditional books with online gaming and card collecting).

Patrick Carman’s newly released ghost mystery, Skeleton Creek (Scholastic, Feb.), offers a book and dedicated Web site with videos, while The Amanda Project by Stella Lennon (HarperCollins, Sept. 2009) is even more ambitious. This mystery series, aimed at girls ages 12–14, brings together traditional print with Web games, social networking, blogs, music and merchandise.

Read the whole article here.

Penguin UK is sponsoring Bookcamp, a user-generated conference centering around the future of books and “book-like technology” that will examine the role of books as delivery mechanisms for stories, information, and entertainment.

Our plan is for this to be a day of talking and doing – examining the role of the book as an object and as a delivery mechanism for content. We’re inviting authors, typographers, cover designers, printers, technologists, retailers, literary agents, publishers and geeks to come along and consider if and how technology can transform and perhaps improve on The Book. Will print on demand mean the end of the bookshop? Will ebook technology allow everyone to be their own publisher? Will printed books go the way of vinyl and become collectors objects? Are games the new novels? And does format matter or, to paraphrase Berry Gordy, is it what in the groove that counts?

Participants and guests will choose the agenda for the day, breaking into groups to discuss and create. Jeremy Ettinghausen, Director of Digital at Penguin & a listed participant, was behind last year’s We Tell Stories – a storytelling experiment that sought to create stories designed specifically for the internet.

From Jeremy’s post on the Penguin blog today:

It’s quite hard to know what to expect from Bookcamp which is now only a few days away… we’re hoping to see lots of things people have made or hear them discuss what they might like to make in the future. I’m looking forward to following discussions about how we get children hooked on reading, hearing about authors’ fear of the internet and learning why everything on the internet is the opposite of how it is in print! And I’m excited to meet some new people who share an interest in and passion for books and stories and, yes, technology.

(via PSFK)

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article for Publishing Trends about my obsessive love for Google in general, and my somewhat tempered love for my new T-Mobile/Android phone.

For now, one of my favorite party trick apps is the barcode scanner. Hold the phone over a barcode and in a few seconds you get a picture of the product, user reviews, best online prices with links to buy, and local stores with directions on how to get there. It works less well with random items (it told me my US Weekly was a pair of Ralph Lauren boxer shorts, and that my Aquafina was Fuse water), but with books it’s a thing of beauty. Which made me wonder why Google didn’t bother optimizing Google Books for Android…

Teleread responded that it’s “time for Google to be thinking about a reflowable format like ePub,” and that FBReader is already gearing up for the GPhone.

Now Google’s Booksearch blog is noting that Barcode Scanner (one of the three main scanner apps – I downloaded ShopSavvy) allows you to instantly search the contents of books through Google Book Search as soon as you scan it.

For students, this could be an easy way to locate that critical passage that the professor was talking about in lecture. Or if you’re browsing through the shelves of a bookstore, you could use this application to easily determine whether a book contains the information you’re looking for.

So far I’ve mainly been using ShopSavvy to save my bookstore browsings to a wishlist (rather than writing the titles up the inside of my arm), but I’m interested to try this. However, with it I fear that my last real world search capabilities will finally die out.  Oh well.

Jason Santa Maria showed me this awesome new iphone application.

From MacWorld: When you first launch Classics, the interface looks like a bookcase with the book covers facing you. You can double-tap on a book to begin reading it or tap and drag to rearrange the books.

Classics features animated page turns and sound effects, so you get the feeling of actually reading a book. Swiping your finger to left advances the page and going right turns the page back. The interface also includes a home button and a button to list the chapters of book.

If you are reading a book and exit the application, a visual bookmark is placed on the page where you exited, making it easy to pick up where you left off.

Just take a book off the shelf and settle down for a nice quiet read…