We’re big fans of SXSW Interactive here at Fourth Story Media, and this year we thought that in addition to attending the festivities, and sitting on a panel, we’d try out a little storytelling experiment…
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:
Follow us on Twitter to receive the kickoff sentence for each story (contributed by some of your favorite web storytellers)
Every round, the winning sentence becomes part of the story and it’s time to write the next!
Once each story closes, we’ll be adding it to our story archive where it will be given a title and illustrated by Figure-1. AND (just to make things super extra saucy fun) we’ll be choosing one contributor from each story at random to win a choice of radtastic books (either Miranda July’s Learning to Love You More, or Jeffrey Zeldman’s A Book Apart), AND the original, signed illustration that accompanied their story!
Anyone and everyone is invited to play. We’ll be starting things off easy with two stories on Friday (new lines added approximately every 30 minutes, second story up around 4 PM), and we’ll ramp up from there depending on how feverishly you type. If you’re at SXSW, be sure to look for our buttons inside of your Big Bags, and watch for FSM’s Lisa Holton and Erin Kissane handing out our limited edition totes (both pictured here). Whoohoo!
Are you heading to the always invigorating SXSW Interactive this year? Are you obsessed with the future of publishing? Storytelling? Print media? Digital media? Writing? Reading? Words? Awesomeness? Be sure to check out New Publishing & Web Content on Saturday March 13th @ 5PM CT in Ballroom A. Hosted by Happy Cog’s Jeffrey Zeldman, the panel will “explore the creative, strategic, and marketing challenges of traditional and new (internet hybrid) book publishing and online magazine publishing, and how these fields intersect with content strategy and client services.”
Fantastic (if we do say so ourselves) panelists include:
Lisa Holton – CEO + Founder, FSM
Erin Kissane – Web Project + Community Manager, FSM / Blogger, Incisive.nu
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.”
Shelli (@srjohannes) from Market My Words has a two-part interview (part one, part two) with FSM’s Creative Development & Marketing Director Ariel Aberg-Riger about marketing The Amanda Project. It’s quite long (but chock full)! A small taste:
What are the top 3 reasons The Amanda Project interactive model works for readers?
Most importantly, it’s an amazing, well-written story. We have fantastic, bestselling YA authors like Melissa Kantor and Laurie Stolarz working collaboratively to create a rich narrative core and to build Amanda’s world. It’s only with such a strong base that we are able to extend the story and invite our readers in to collaborate and interact as well. If they weren’t hooked in the first place, they wouldn’t care!
It’s a structured creative environment. We find that although the sky really is the limit in terms of what you can invent and who you can be on The Amanda Project, our readers and writers create most readily when we actually impose certain constraints. For example, every Friday we publish a new story on the site, and each week’s story ends with a call to action that asks a very specific question (e.g. Have you ever lied to make people like you? Is this Amanda’s purple ink?) which we find both lowers the barrier to entry for participation (aka the blank page effect), as well as creates a much more cohesive direction for the continuation of the story.
It’s universal. The Amanda Project deals with issues all teen girls (and anyone, really) can relate to – identity, friendship, difficult decisions, loyalties, secrets, the drama of high school life – so it’s easy to lose yourself in the character you create, and really immerse yourself in Amanda’s world.
“We’ve been waiting for an opportunity to use all these visual tools at our disposal to tell these stories in a way that is efficient, that is multi-dimensional. But, we also think it’s an opportunity to reset the economics for the first time. People may value this experience so much that they pay for it.”
We recommend watching the whole thing (it’s not that long, and there is some sweet music), but at least check out the:
Dual access navigation (sidescroll from page to page, downscroll to dig deeper into a story) – 1:50
The Amanda Project is teaming up with AOL’s teen blog JSYK and HarperTeen to host a week-long clue hunt! Every day this week JSYK is posting a hint to a daily clue. Want to test your clue hunting prowess? Here’s the link to Clue #1! Readers are playing for both the chance to win prizes of a material variety (signed copies of Invisible I, a pink iPod Nano) as well as narrative goodies (the chance to finally discover how main character Hal Bennett got to Crab Apple Hill that fateful night!)
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!
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.
Digital Book World: Books Plus in the 21st Century
Lisa Holton discussed Fourth Story Media’s current thinking, and recent developments in The Amanda Project at Digital Book World January 26th on the panel “Synergizing the Book and Web: Books Plus in the 21st Century.” The panel – moderated by Market Partners International’s Lorraine Shanley, with Will Schwalbe (our office mate and CEO of Cookstr), and Hillel Cooperman (founder of Jackson Fish Market) among others – covered everything from the challenges of being a start-up to exploring new digital business models.
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.”
We’re big fans of SXSW Interactive here at Fourth Story Media, and this year we thought that in addition to attending the festivities, and sitting on a panel, we’d try out a little storytelling experiment…
Are you heading to the always invigorating 
Jamie over on illustration blog 
Shelli (@srjohannes) from 
The Amanda Project
Daily Grommet gives a great endorsement
Lisa Holton discussed Fourth Story Media’s current thinking, and recent developments in