Fourth Story Media

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s adorable Decade in Preview: The Youthful Vision interviews “experts” (kids mostly under 13) on how the world will be different in 2020. Although no one makes predictions about books, robots, female presidents, and lasers look like they’re going to play a central role in our lives.

Some highlights:

• I think in 10 years there will be a device that makes monkeys talk to you in English. It will be the next big hit in the U.S. (Lexi, 8 )
• Robots will take over the world.  They will have lasers. (Jorah, 12)
• I think in 2020 there’s going to be a woman president, TVs will have touch screens, and I think I’ll be a famous/rich artist. (Robyn, 11)
• There may not be any blue sky. (Annie, 7)
• By 2020 I think there will be screens on every desk in school, and trains that run under water (not in tunnels). (Blaise, 12)

Read the full piece here.

(via Buzzfeed)

Last week, MediaBistro’s Ron Hogan stopped by our offices to chat with us about The Amanda Project and what we’re up to at Fourth Story Media in general. We had a great time – jumping into a discussion about immersive fiction – soap operas, ARGs and role-playing games, books – the works! From his post:

“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!

Every day brings a new story—about ebooks, enhanced digital content, new reading devices. But what will the technological advances of today mean for the way we read tomorrow? How and what will we read in the future?

On Wednesday, November 11, 6 – 8pm, come hear the Founder and CEO of Fourth Story Media Lisa Holton speak at Reading in a Digital Age – a panel discussion about the future of newspapers, magazines, and books – moderated by Bill Goldstein, former founding editor of the books site of nytimes.com and book critic for NBC’s “Weekend Today in New York.”

Also on the panel:

• Adam Moss, editor of New York Magazine
• Ben Vershbow, New York Public Library (and previously a fellow at Institute for the Future of the Book)
• Ann Kirschner, University Dean and author

For more info, view the full invite. We hope to see you there!

Today’s NYT mentions The Amanda Project in its front page article “Curling Up with Hybrid Books, Videos Included:”

The children’s division of HarperCollins recently released the first in a young-adult mystery series called “The Amanda Project,” and has invited readers to discuss clues and characters on a Web site. As the series continues, some of the reader comments may be incorporated into minor characters or subplots.

Susan Katz, publisher of HarperCollins Children’s Books, predicted that “there is going to be a popular kind of literature where the author is seen as the leader of a large group and will pick and choose from these suggestions” by readers.

Read the full article here.

UPDATE: Book Case (a blog by the editors of BookPage) has a great post about The Amanda Project including a summary of Invisible I, the TAP video, and commentary on the NYT piece. Check it out!

Common Sense Media, the well-respected, non-partisan, not-for-profit organization that provides media reviews for families and educators recently reviewed Invisible I and The Amanda Project and gave it 4 stars! Calling it a “compelling, quirky onion of a mystery” the review goes on to say:

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!

Bookselling This Week talked to FSM CEO Lisa Holton about the launch of the first book in The Amanda Project- Invisible I.

“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!

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)